Aaron Elkins - Gideon Oliver 03 - Murder In The Queen's Armes

by Murder In The Queen's Armes

  "You’re right," Gideon said. "It was probably Frawley’s job to maintain the catalog."

  "It was definitely Frawley’s job." Abe took back the

  notebook and placed his thin hands on it, one on top of the others. "I looked through the whole thing, and nowhere is a mention of a human bone; not a peep." He closed the book and finished his coffee with a gulp. "So the big question is: Why not? Why didn’t Frawley write it down in the permanent catalog? And where is this mysterious human femur, left, partial? It’s not in with the other finds."

  Gideon looked at the card he still held in his hand. "Isn’t it possible that when Frawley had a look at it he concluded that it wasn’t really a bone? That Leon had misidentified it? It happens all the time. That’s one reason a worker doesn’t enter it directly into the catalog himself, isn’t it?"

  Abe looked at him quizzically. "It happens all the time that you find four faience beads and you think they’re a leg bone?"

  Gideon laughed. "Maybe you’re onto something, Abe— although I’m not sure what. I don’t see how this can have anything to do with the Poundbury skull—"

  "Poundbury? Of course not. This was a month ago. Besides, this one is a femur. Pummy is… what was it?"

  "Left parieto-occipital; hard to confuse the two, even for an archaeologist. It’ll be interesting to hear what Jack Frawley has to say."

  "That I’m very interested in myself." He put the card into a file box and closed it. "Well, Inspector Bagshawe will be here in a few minutes, so why don’t we go outside and get to work?"

  "Bagshawe’s coming here?"

  "He was here yesterday, too, interviewing everyone, picking up tools, looking under potsherds. It makes everybody nervous, but I guess it’s got to be done."

  "Good, there’s something I wanted to mention to him."

  "Good morning, gentleman!" Detective Inspector Bagshawe’s booming, peaceful voice reverberated in the shed. He closed the door behind him, hung his vast checked overcoat on a peg, and ambulated majestically to the table, where he sank confidently down onto a metal folding chair that looked alarmingly flimsy for the job. "I shouldn’t be very long today, and I’ll try my best not to get in the way of your scientific pursuits."

  "It’s no trouble, Inspector," Abe said. "I’m just going. Make yourself at home. Have some coffee. Gideon, when you’re finished talking, you’ll come join us at the dig?"

  When Abe had left, Bagshawe looked at Gideon across the table with placid expectation, his big, curving cherry-wood pipe between his teeth, and his huge hands clasped loosely on the table.

  "Well, I don’t think I really have anything important," Gideon said, suddenly diffident, "but I wanted to mention that the day Randy was killed there may have been some outsiders at Stonebarrow Fell after all. It’s just possible that Frederick Robyn or Paul Arbuckle might have been here. They had their own keys, and Barry wouldn’t be likely to consider them ‘visitors.’ Anyway, if it’s okay with you, I thought I could discreetly check around—"

  Bagshawe grinned. "In this case, lad, the CID, ever alert, are far ahead of you. Dr. Arbuckle was here before, all right, on an audit, but that was weeks ago, when Mr. Alexander was demonstrably alive and well. As for the afternoon of November thirteen, when he presumably ceased being either, Dr. Arbuckle was provably in Dijon, and Mr. Robyn in London. Of course, either of them might have nipped away for a few hours and slipped into Stonebarrow Fell—seen by no one—but in all honesty I don’t think so. And as for your prowling about, why, if I were you I wouldn’t do anything about it. Why not leave that sort of thing to us?"

  A fragment of remembered conversation leaped into Gideon’s mind. His eyes widened. "What did you say?"

  "I said, ‘Why not leave that sort of thing to us?’ And what’s wrong with that?"

  "No, the sentence before that."

  Bagshawe took the pipe out of his mouth and looked oddly at Gideon. "The sentence before that? I said I wouldn’t do anything about it if I were you. Merely a turn of phrase, Professor, nothing more."

  "Inspector, when Randy tried to tell me whatever it was, and I suggested he tell Frawley instead, he said, quote: ‘He wouldn’t do anything about it.’ "

  Bagshawe stuck the pipe back between his teeth. "He wouldn’t do anything about it," he repeated, frowning, and sat a moment longer. "So?"

  "What would that mean to you?"

  "That even if he told Frawley, Frawley wouldn’t do anything about it, that’s what it would mean." The inspector’s patience was wearing a little thin.

  "Sure, that’s what I thought at the time. But let’s say Randy already had told Frawley—before he ever talked to me—and Frawley just refused to do anything about it. What would Randy have said to me in that case?"

  "He would have said…why, he might have said the very same thing: ‘He wouldn’t do anything about it.’ " He lowered his chin to his chest and looked at Gideon with dawning appreciation. "Professor Frawley just might know what the young man was trying to tell you, mightn’t he? Well, now, that’s worth exploring. Do you know, I’ve already asked him—as I’ve asked everyone—if he had any idea what it might be."

  "And he said he didn’t?"

  "As did they all. But with Professor Frawley—ah, I had my suspicions. There was a sort of hitch, a holding back, a sidling away of the eyes, if you know what I mean."

  Gideon nodded. He knew very well.

  "Well then," Bagshawe said, "let’s try again. Why don’t we just go and chat Mr. Frawley up right now?"

  "We?"

  Bagshawe looked squarely at Gideon, not unkindly. "Professor, since it’s all too apparent that you’re going to be sniffing and poking about up here in any event, why, I’d be a great deal more comfortable having you doing it where I can see you. I’ve got enough trouble here already, and it wouldn’t do to have Gideon Oliver done in under my very nose while pursuing inquiries of his own." He huffed on the bowl of his pipe and rubbed it on his sleeve. "Think of the paperwork."

  FIFTEEN

  THEY found Jack Frawley at the dig, completing some cross-sectional diagrams of the pits on a sheet of quadrille paper attached to a clipboard. He was wearing a shapeless, colorless canvas fisherman’s hat, a decrepit old windbreaker, worn cotton jeans, and old tennis shoes. His stubby, metal-stemmed pipe, unlit, was clenched in his teeth, the bowl upside down. He was, Gideon thought, working at looking like an archaeologist. What he looked like was Monsieur Hulot.

  When Bagshawe had said, "We would like a word with you, Professor Frawley," his face had paled, and pale it remained. Bagshawe had led them—not by accident, Gideon was sure—to a flat, rocky area near the cliff edge: just about the spot from which Randy must have plummeted into the rock-encircled lagoon. Far below, the tide was in. It boomed and gurgled hollowly, as it must have done that day.

  "Now, Professor," Bagshawe began without preface, "when I asked you yesterday if you had any idea of what

  Mr. Alexander had wanted to tell Professor Oliver, you said you did not."

  Frawley nodded. "I, uh, I believe I did say something to the effect that I couldn’t think of anything right offhand."

  From the twitchy wobble of Frawley’s eyes, Gideon knew instantly that he was lying. And he sure was that Bagshawe knew it, and that Frawley knew they knew.

  Bagshawe fixed Frawley with a steely eye. "I won’t quibble about that. I shall simply ask you whether you have, on further reflection, remembered something."

  "Well, you know, actually, I might have had a word or two with Randy that morning, now that I think about it," Frawley said, and accompanied it with a weak laugh. "But it was just one of those little technical things that crop up; nothing important."

  Bagshawe shifted easily into a more soothing manner. "Now, Professor," he said slowly, "if there’s anything you’re reluctant to say, I can assure you that Professor Oliver and I—"

  "It’s only that it’s nothing relevant to Randy’s …to the case you’re working on."

  "One neve
r knows," Bagshawe said reassuringly. "Often, it’s the little things that provide the critical clues."

  "Well…" Frawley’s soft, doggy eyes fixed on the inspector in melancholy appeal. "I’m just afraid you’ll get the wrong idea…about a certain party…."

  "Well, now, Professor, why don’t you just trust me to be the judge of that?" The big teeth showed in a peaceable, bovine smile.

  Gideon admired the inspector’s patience. For himself, he was ready to kick the oleaginously reluctant Frawley in the shins if this went on much longer. "For Christ’s sake, Jack," he said.

  Frawley started. "Okay. All right." But still he couldn’t get himself going. He put his unlit pipe in his mouth and frowned in thought, going puh, puh, puh softly around the pipe stem with moist lips. Bagshawe smiled encouragingly at him. Gideon looked impatiently out to sea.

  "I think you can already guess what he told me," Frawley said, his eyes on his shoes. "He told me that the skull Nate was so excited about was a fake; somehow he’d found out that Nate himself had stolen it from Dorchester and secretly buried it here. He wanted me to stop Nate before he actually dug it out and announced it."

  "And why," Bagshawe asked, all policeman again, "didn’t you tell us this before?"

  Frawley pursed his lips and made the pecking, chinthursting motion that some men make when their collars are too tight, although his own sat loosely on his neck. "In all frankness, I was afraid that you’d jump to the conclusion that Nate had killed Randy to protect himself. And I didn’t want that to happen."

  Gideon cut in. "If you knew Nate had planted the skull, why didn’t you stop him before he dug it up with all that fanfare?"

  The question seemed to catch Frawley by surprise. "Why? Why didn’t I stop him? Well… speaking candidly…it wasn’t my place….I’m only…and how could I be sure Randy was telling the truth? Maybe he was lying."

  "Wouldn’t that be all the more reason to go to Nate, or just to check it out yourself?"

  "And why, Professor," asked Bagshawe, "did you not go to the authorities?"

  "Authorities?" Frawley’s eyes were beginning to take on a hunted look.

  "The Horizon Foundation, the Wessex Antiquarian Society… the police?"

  "Well, gosh, I hope you fellows don’t think I’m some sort of criminal." He managed a gummy little giggle. "I was just trying to do my job. There are times," he said sanctimoniously, "when fidelity outweighs adherence to scientific research. Nate is my…my superior, and I believe I owe him my support and my loyalty."

  And may no one ever be that loyal to me, Gideon thought, or that supportive.

  "No, Professor," Bagshawe tolled, "I don’t think that’s the way it was."

  "I beg your pardon?" Frawley said.

  "Shall I tell you how I think it was?"

  Frawley looked mutely at him and licked his lips. His cheeks glistened unhealthily.

  "I think," the inspector said at his slowest, "that when you heard that Professor Marcus planned a hoax, you were only too delighted with the news, and the last thing you wanted to do was to stop him. You wanted him to bring off this dirty great fraud of his."

  Frawley made incredulous noises.

  "If you had stopped him in time," Bagshawe continued, "it would have been no more than an embarrassment, with no one the wiser, except for you, him, and the young man. All in the family, you might say. But …if he was allowed to bring it off—and was then exposed—ah, then there would be hell to pay. His career would be finished. As indeed it is—as indeed you wanted."

  "Wanted? That’s ridiculous! Why would I want such a thing?"

  "Jealousy. Envy."

  "Me jealous of Nate?" From somewhere he summoned a sort of soggy dignity. "I don’t think I should have to stand for this."

  "Jack," Gideon said, "are you the one who gave Ralph Chantry his information?"

  "What?" Frawley stared at him with convincing blankness. "Who?"

  Barely pausing for this uninformative exchange, Bagshawe continued in his inexorable way. "I’ve looked into things, Professor Frawley, and I know that Professor Marcus was made head of a department of which you are the senior and eldest member. I know that he, a much younger man, was made a full professor while you remained an associate. I know that you advised in faculty council against his hiring."

  Shielding his eyes against the sun, Frawley looked up at the massive policeman. "What has that got to do with anything? Just who do you think you are?"

  Bagshawe went on remorselessly. "Now then, I ask myself: Might there not be another reason why you haven’t told us this before? And why, when you finally did tell us, you so carefully implied that Professor Marcus might be not only a hoaxer but a murderer as well?"

  "I don’t know what you’re talking about," Frawley practically squeaked. "Why don’t you say what you mean?"

  "I’m talking about the fact," Bagshawe intoned, "that by so very indirectly accusing Professor Marcus you were hoping that we would overlook your own motive for killing Mr. Alexander." His voice was like the doomful knell of justice. In it Gideon could hear the clank of chains, the bleak, muffled kerchunk of iron dungeon doors slammed home.

  Frawley heard them, too. This time he did squeak. "Me? Why would I want to kill Randy?"

  "Will you deny that Mr. Alexander, who liked his little joke, played one on you? Did he not once convince a group of equally playful Indians in Missouri to tell you that they were soon to hold a once-every-hundred-years secret dance during which they would dig up a sacred vulture egg that had been buried at the last ceremony? And to solemnly inform you that you were the only anthropologist they trusted enough to be present?"

  "Christ," Gideon said. "And you bought it, Jack?"

  Frawley made a motion with his head that was part denial, part assent, part frustration.

  "He not only bought it," Bagshawe said, "he presented a paper on it to the Eastern Missouri Anthropological Society and was thereby made—so my informants advise me— an object of some ridicule."

  Gideon felt a wave of compassion for the visibly sagging Frawley. That kind of joke was every anthropologist’s nightmare, and if Randy was in the habit of playing merry little pranks like that, it was a wonder he’d lived as long as he had.

  "All right, Inspector, you’re right," Frawley said, seeming to drag the words out of himself. "I was jealous of Nate. I’ve behaved like a fool—but I didn’t kill Randy! As God is my witness, I never thought in my wildest dreams that Nate… that anybody…would murder Randy." As if he didn’t already look sufficiently abject, Frawley had taken off his hat and was crushing it in both hands. "I’ll try to make amends. Please believe me when I say you’ll have my complete cooperation in any way you want."

  Bagshawe sucked his teeth and studied him. "I think it goes without saying, Professor Frawley, that I’d take a very dim view of it if you attempted to leave the vicinity of Charmouth without my permission."

  "Yes, of course, Inspector. I wouldn’t think of it. I want to do everything I can to help solve this terrible tragedy."

  Gideon felt like going away and washing his hands somewhere, but he asked another question. "Jack, before you go—we’ve found a discrepancy in the excavation records from November one. There’s a find card on a partial human femur, but it was never entered in the field catalog."

  Frawley looked uncomprehendingly at him. "What?"

  "You make the entries in the field catalog, don’t you?"

  "Yes, every night; sometimes the next morning. A femur, did you say? That’s impossible. We’ve never found a human bone—not until Poundbury Man. We thought we had some ribs, but you straightened us out on that."

  "You’re positive?"

  "Of course I’m positive. I’d know about it if we had, wouldn’t I? No, we never found one. Ask anybody."

  Gideon remembered the scrawled signature in the lower right-hand corner of the card: Leon Hillyer. He would indeed ask somebody.

  GIDEON and Bagshawe remained near the edge of the cliff, looking out
toward the water. The sea was a flat, summery blue, and a white, picture-book passenger liner steamed eastward from Plymouth, riding the horizon toward France.

  Bagshawe took out his pipe and lit it with a wooden match, using his wide body to block the breeze. Then he sat down on a chair-high boulder, first arranging the skirts of his coat like the tails of a cutaway.

  "Nasty piece of goods, our man Frawley," he said cheerfully. "Do you think he told us the truth about what Alexander said to him?"

  "I don’t know," Gideon said, "but I don’t see Jack Frawley as a font of veracity."

  Unexpectedly, Bagshawe guffawed. "No, you’re right there. Still, if it’s true, it provides us, doesn’t it, with a plausible motive for your friend Professor Marcus—who, by the way, continues to proclaim himself innocent of both murder and fraud."

  "I take it Nate’s still your prime suspect?"

  "Prime suspect? Oh no, I wouldn’t say that. There’s Professor Frawley, isn’t there, and then the others as well. Five in all, and all prime."

  "Five? You mean all the people on the dig?"

  "Just so, Professor. A single day’s work—interviews with the lot, and a few calls across the Pond—and we’ve turned up, I’m sorry to say, credible motives for every man-jack of them, and Miss Mazur, too. And none of them took much digging. Young Barry Fusco, for instance, owed Randy some three thousand dollars, which he was having a hard time repaying. Randy, so it’s said, had been making nasty noises at Barry, threatening to go to the lad’s father when they go back home."

  "His father? Why would he go to his father?"

  "Well, you see, Barry borrowed it in the first place to keep his father from finding out he’d wrecked a new car that had been a present. Apparently, the father’s a stern old gent of whom Barry lives in considerable awe."