Murder in the Queen's Armes (15 page)

The skull fragment was in the precise middle of the rectangle. The rounded eminence of the right parietal, Gideon could see, would indeed have projected a fraction of an inch above the surface of the ground, but no one—except perhaps a particularly alert anthropologist—would have taken it for anything but a rock. It had been dug—dissected out, really—with the scrupulous care typical of Nate Marcus, so that it lay partially embedded in a two-inch-high shelf of earth, like the museum exhibit it had once been.

It was Pummy, all right.

Gideon couldn’t think of any way to say it other than to say it. "Nate, that’s the Poundbury calvarium… the skull fragment missing from the Dorchester Museum."

Nate’s expression went from self-satisfied to blank to furious in two seconds. The flesh around his lips grayed and seemed to sink into his face. Gideon observed this transparently genuine reaction of astonishment and indignation with relief. Nate was as honestly surprised as everyone else.

"Bullshit!" he shouted, as soon as he could speak. "You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!" He turned on Gideon, his fists clenched at his side, his body tightened as if he was going to spring at him. Gideon, used to Nate’s irritating habit of automatically hitting out when challenged, didn’t take offense.

"It’s Poundbury, without a doubt—" Gideon began.

"Bullshit, bullshit—"

Abe reached over and patted Nate on the shoulder. "Now, Nathan," he said mildly.

Robyn’s voice cut icily through. "Professor Marcus, will you kindly keep your observations, cogent as they are, to yourself for just a few moments? Oliver, are you quite positive?"

"Completely."

Nevertheless, Gideon stepped into the trench and knelt to look more closely at the fragment. He blew away a thin layer of chalky dust. "You can see that it’s been placed here recently," he said. "Look at the color: that same amber tone all over. If a part of it had actually been sticking out, exposed to the elements, it would have been darker than the rest, wouldn’t it? More weathered, too."

"You’re nuts," Nate said. "What are you talking about? I don’t believe this."

Abe shushed him gently, his hand on his arm, and Nate subsided with a strained laugh.

Carefully, with his forefinger, Gideon brushed at the earth around the bone. "And it wouldn’t have mineralized to this brownish color in such a chalky, white soil. Besides that, if it had really been here for over three thousand years, the soil would fit around it like a plaster mold, which it obviously doesn’t." He brought his face even closer to it. "And look, the earth’s compacted here—and here—from digging a hole and then forcing the bone into it. And I think…yes, I can see where the identification number’s been scraped away and the bone’s been stained to make it look—"

"That," said Robyn, "is ample, and quite instructive. Obviously, Professor Marcus was so intent on proving his fantastic theory that he disregarded the signs that point so unequivocally to this object’s being a fraud."

Arbuckle, who had been blinking and frowning behind the thick, none-too-clean lenses of his glasses, appeared to suddenly understand. "Unless," he murmured in a shocked whisper to Nate, "you buried it there in the first place." He took a backward step away from Nate, as if afraid of catching something.

"Buried it?" Nate repeated blankly. "Why would… You mean
planted
it? Me? You’re out of your mind!"

Arbuckle held up both hands. "All right, Nate," he said quickly, "I didn’t mean to accuse you." He lowered his chin and went doggedly on. "But
somebody
must have, er, planted it."

Nate stared hard at the shrinking Arbuckle, then at Gideon, and spoke through compressed lips. "Okay. All right. I blew it. You’re right, I should have seen the signs. Somebody must have buried…No," he said slowly, "that’s impossible. What would be the point? How could they know anyone would find it? I could have missed it easy…It could have lain there a hundred years. It wasn’t even near the trenches…"

"First things first," Robyn interjected. "We’re here today to look into whether Professor Marcus has been conducting his research in a sufficiently professional manner." In an undertone he added, "As for myself, frankly, I consider that this latest …happening…makes the question moot."

Nate’s dark face turned a mottled red, but before he could respond, Abe stepped in, with a quick glance toward the enthralled students. "And I think," he said mildly, but in a tone that encouraged no argument, "this discussion should be continued in private, with only the parties concerned." He grasped Nate’s arm and steered him in the direction of the shed. Nate went unresistingly, and Arbuckle and Robyn, after an exchange of grim looks, moved to follow, as did Frawley.

"Gideon," Abe called over his shoulder, "maybe you’ll finish up with the skull so we can send it back to where it belongs?"

An embarrassed silence descended as soon as the others left, until Gideon spoke.

"I’ll need some tools."

"I’ll get them," Sandra said hastily. "We keep a toolbox at the excavation." She trotted elegantly off.

"I can get a packing crate," Leon offered.

"I’ll go with you," Barry jumped in. All of them were eager to get away from the scene of disaster, and no wonder.

When Sandra returned, Gideon, also wishing himself elsewhere, took an angled dental pick, a toothbrush, and a small paintbrush, and quickly worked loose the dirt around the bone. By the time the crate arrived, he was done. He lifted the calvarium with both hands, settled it among the Styrofoam peanuts, and closed the lid.

"Will you see that this goes to Dr. Arbuckle?"

"You bet, Gideon," Leon said.

There was another awkward silence until Barry literally shook himself into speech. "Mr. Robyn gave me his keys for you to use to get out of the gate," he said, producing a leather key case. "He said you could leave them with the guy at the Queen’s Armes."

Gideon’s mood was gloomier than ever as he crested the hill and started down. At the fence he found a slender young man in a fawn-colored suit delicately rattling the lock.

"I’ve been calling out for half an hour," he said when Gideon got within speaking distance. "I was beginning to fear I’d have to scale the thing." He smiled genteely, the English sort of smile that raises the inside corners of the eyebrows and wrinkles the forehead charmingly. "It would have been hard on the suit."

"It would also have been trespassing," Gideon said, not disposed to banter.

Unabashed, the young man announced, "Curtis Honett. I’m with the
West Dorset Times.
"

The
West Dorset Times.
The newspaper that seemed to

know so much. "Sorry to disappoint you," Gideon said, slipping out and relocking the gate behind him, "but I think Professor Marcus will be canceling his press conference."

"What press conference?" Honett moved closer. "I understand that the bone missing from the Dorchester Museum turned up here today. Is that true?"

Gideon barely managed to hide his astonishment. "Where did you hear that?"

The reporter drew his motile, auburn eyebrows together. "It isn’t true? Mr. Chantry was certain—"

"Mr. Chantry?"

"My boss, the editor. He’s been working personally on the Stonebarrow story."

"And just where does Mr. Chantry get his information?"

"You wouldn’t want me to divulge our sources, would you?" He grinned brightly. "So it
is
true then?"

"Sorry," Gideon said, "I’m afraid ‘no comment’ is the most you’re going to get from me." He turned to head down the path. "And don’t quote me on that." Then, relenting slightly, he added. "You’ll want to talk to Dr. Arbuckle of Horizon or Mr. Robyn of the WAS on this. But I think they’re going to be tied up for a while."

"THE
West Dorset Times,"
said a cultivated voice, "at your service."

"Good morning. May I speak with Mr. Chantry, please?"

"One moment. What name shall I say?"

"Gideon Oliver."

In a few seconds another voice came on, whispery and apologetic. No, Mr. Ralph Chantry was not in his office at the moment. No, no one else was familiar with the Stonebarrow matter. No, no one was sure just when he would return, but tomorrow was likely. Could Mr. Oliver try again tomorrow? Gideon replaced the receiver and leaned back in the leather armchair, staring out unseeingly at the ragged fog that obscured the hillside he’d come down half an hour before.

He wondered moodily about the inquiry still going on in the bleak little shed on the fell. Whatever the explanation for the amazing "happening," as Robyn had called it, Nate’s career was finished. Even Abe’s ability to smooth rough waters was unlikely to do much good, given the cold look in Robyn’s eye and the equally dark, if less penetrating, one in Arbuckle’s. Whether or not Nate had planted the skull himself—and Gideon couldn’t believe that he had—was immaterial. Nate was in charge of the dig and had to bear responsibility for everything that occurred on it. And, of course, he had personally done all the work on the calvarium himself, and had been braying about it in his usual obnoxious manner for weeks. There was no way he could ever possibly live it down.

"Gideon," Julie said, "I think it’s time for you to forget about Stonebarrow Fell. How about a hike in the country? I’ve got a booklet that shows some local walks."

"Looks like rain."

"So we’ll take our ponchos. You know, you can still hike along some of those old right-of-way footpaths that have been there for centuries."

"It’s been a wet winter; they’ll be awfully muddy."

She laughed and plopped herself into his lap. Her arms went about his neck. "My, you’re feeling adventurous, aren’t you?"

He smiled and clasped his hands around her waist. "I guess I’m a little mopey. I don’t like thinking about what’s going to happen to Nate, even if he brought it on himself. And the murder…"

"You need a hike," she said firmly, "and you are going to get one."

He had continued to stare out the window, but now he

put his hands on her shoulders, set her straighter on his knees, and looked at her face. She was smiling down at him, her black, luminous eyes so lit with love that his breath caught unexpectedly in his chest. How had he ever done without her? If she were to leave, the hole in his life would be so vast….

"Yes, ma’am," he said. "Where will we hike to?"

" ‘Wootton Fitzpaine, a tiny village a few miles from Charmouth,’ " she said, reading from a booklet, " ‘and one of the vicinity’s most popular rural walks.’ "

"And why Wootton Fitzpaine in particular?"

"Because," she said, "it has such a nice name."

He rose from the chair, lifting her in his arms as he did so, pleased with the solid weight of her. "I can’t imagine a better reason."

THE walk to Wootton Fitzpaine began, according to
Scenic Dorset Walks,
only a block from The Queen’s Armes, at the opening to a rough and muddy track—two wheel ruts, actually—laughably signposted
Barr’s Lane.
The track ran for about an eighth of a mile, forming a narrow alley bounded on either side by crude, head-high stone walls of some antiquity. At the end of this lane a stile led into open meadows, but just before this stile the wall on the left side gave way to a sturdy, seven-foot-high chain-link fence that enclosed an extensive dog run at the back of a neat, thatch-roofed house.

As they were about to push through the stile to get into the countryside, they were astounded by a roar so loud that Gideon at first thought it must be a caged and furious lion inside the house. Momentarily petrified, they stood with their hands frozen on the stile.

When he saw it, Gideon thought at first it
was
a lion—a long-legged nightmare lion—but it wasn’t. It was a dog.

Huge, malevolent, and bellowing—"barking" wasn’t the word for it—it came tearing around the side of the house, racing toward them with death in its red eyes.

Instinctively, Gideon stepped in front of Julie as the thing bounded wildly against the fence. The animal, which must have known from experience that it couldn’t get at them, gave it its best nonetheless. Raging and slavering, it leaped again and again at the shuddering fence, its forelegs as high as Gideon’s head, its thick chest on a level with his own.

"Is that a
dog?
" Julie asked in a small voice, peeking around his shoulder, and making a move to get out from behind him. He could see fingers of color returning to her cheeks and had no doubt that his own face was also on the pale side.

"I don’t know what else. The Hound of the Baskervilles, maybe."

From the house behind the dog came a petulant call. "For heaven’s sake, Bowser, be quiet!"

Gideon and Julie looked at each other.
Bowser?

A stocky man in late middle age, with a military bearing, a gray, bristling military mustache, and a sandy toupee, came grumbling from the back door.

"Be quiet, I said!" The dog, with bad grace, reluctantly stopped trying to devour them and instead satisfied itself with ferocious glaring and panting.

The man approached the animal and grasped it firmly by its wide collar. Its head, Gideon noted, was not far below the man’s shoulders, its neck almost as thick as his waist.

"Hullo," the man said, smiling crisply. "I’m Colonel Conley. I hope the Beast didn’t frighten you."

"Frighten us?" Gideon said. "Not at all. He was just being friendly."

The colonel laughed. "Hardly. He’d as soon eat you as look at you. Americans, are you? Out on a walk to Wootton Fitzpaine?"

"Yes," Julie said. "That’s quite an animal. What in the world is he?"

"Crossbreed," Colonel Conley said. "I went into dog breeding after the war, you see, and Bowser is my prize. Proper name, Pyecombe Sable of Hempstead. Half mastiff, half staghound, with perhaps a little werewolf thrown in. Magnificent creature, don’t you think? Ran in the Count de Vergie’s pack, you know?" Gideon and Julie looked mutely at him. "At Château Touffon? Near Vienne? You really haven’t heard of it? Famous for its stag hunts, and the count’s pack is disputably the best in the world. Unfortunately, Bowser tends toward over enthusiasm, and he tore the throat out of a horse." He dug his knuckles fondly into the root of a huge, tawny ear. "And," he whispered respectfully, "came as near as dammit to doing in a man. I’m afraid he has a bit of a mean streak in him."