Aaron Elkins - Skeleton dance

"You don't need French. It's in English."

"English? How come?"

The Institut de Prehistoire, he explained, was funded jointly by the Universite du Perigord and the Chicago-based Horizon Foundation, and was by charter composed of both French and American scholars. Bilingual fluency was required for appointment, and papers and symposia might be in either language. This particular one was to be videotaped for use in American universities and would therefore be conducted in English.

"That's great," she said. "I'll plan on going, then."

"Good, but I have to tell you, if it's more goosebumps you're after, forget it. It's likely to be pretty dry stuff."

"That's okay," she said, standing on tiptoe to nuzzle at his earlobe as he turned the key to their room. "I have other sources for goosebumps."

Inasmuch as the session wasn't scheduled until 2 p.m., however, they decided to take the morning off and relax. In the afternoon, while Julie attended the symposium, Gideon would finish up with the bones.

So for a few hours they acted like tourists. They had a leisurely breakfast in their room in the ivy-covered Hotel Cro-Magnon, which was every bit as rustic and pretty an inn as Gideon had remembered. Afterward, they strolled along the street, chatting about nothing in particular and looking in shop windows, but mostly simply passing the time together, peacefully, pleasantly, without event or object. A sort of jet-lag-decompression time.

They were heading into a cafe for a coffee stop when Gideon spotted a familiar figure coming diagonally across the street toward them, somewhat in the manner of a soft-bodied sea creature undulating over the ocean floor.

"Here comes Jacques Beaupierre," Gideon said.

Julie stared. " That's the director of the Perigord Institute of Prehistory? The old gentleman who just walked right in front of that truck?"

It was true, and it was typical. The plump, balding Beaupierre had just ambled directly across the path of a flatbed truck loaded with baskets of walnuts, which had been forced to pull up to a sudden stop. One of the baskets had tipped over, spilling nuts onto the truck's bed and into the road, and the driver was leaning out of the window vigorously making his objections known. Beaupierre, equally oblivious to truck, driver, and nuts, was placidly continuing his crossing, an amiably dreamy look in his blue, bespectacled eyes. He was, if the movements of his lips were any indication, deep in consultation with himself. Gideon guessed that if he were to be suddenly stopped and asked where he was, or where he was going, it would take a while for him to come up with the answers.

"Well, it's true, he's not the most focused guy in the world," Gideon said, "but"-searching for something good to say-"but he does know his Middle Paleolithic stone-tool technology."

"Oh, well, then."

Archaeology had been Beaupierre's whole life, Gideon knew. He had been born and raised in Les Eyzies, the son and grandson of local amateur antiquarians, and he had been immersed in local prehistory since the age of nine. At the same time, he was a man whose native keenness of mind had never been his forte, and it was common knowledge, or at least common belief, that his ascendance to the directorship after Carpenter's humiliating resignation had been based more on seniority than merit; the seventy-four-year-old Beaupierre had been with the institute since the day of its inception almost forty years before. He had already been passed over three times, most recently when he'd competed for it against Carpenter himself, and to the general surprise of the archaeological establishment, Carpenter, the new kid on the block, had been appointed. But with the all-too-colorful Ely Carpenter soon gone in a cloud of scandal, it was felt that the prudent, industrious Beaupierre's day had come. Besides, there wasn't much risk in it; by that time the directorship had become little more than an honorary post with a few routine administrative duties.

" Bonjour, Jacques," Gideon called, when the unseeing Beaupierre, lost in thought, or at any rate lost in something, came abreast of them.

Beaupierre stopped. "Eh? Mm?" He peered blinking at Gideon through his glasses-rectangular-lensed and framed in thick black plastic, a style last in vogue in the 1950's-and broke into a sweet smile. "Ah, it's Gideon, isn't it? You've arrived! Is it Tuesday then, or am I…"

"We got here yesterday," Gideon said, shaking Beaupierre's offered hand. "This is my wife, Julie."

"How delightful! Enchante, madame. Gideon, these interviews of yours-when would you wish to begin them?"

"As soon as I can. I have this case I'm working on with the police, but I can fit them in whenever it's convenient for you and your people."

Beaupierre put his finger to his rounded chin. "I wonder, could you join us later this morning at our staff meeting? You could make your arrangements with them individually."

"Well…"

"Go ahead," Julie said. "I'll be fine, there's plenty to do. Besides, I've already gotten more quality time out of you than I was expecting for the whole trip."

"Excellent, most kind, madame," said Beaupierre. "Our meeting is at eleven, Gideon. Perhaps you could describe your purposes in coming in a little more detail. I've told them, of course, but it would be an opportunity for you to orient all of them yourself at a single sitting, and, mm… well."

"Sure, I'd like to."

"In the afternoon, however, we are taken up. There is a symposium at two." He turned to Julie. "Madame, if you have some interest in the Middle Paleolithic era, perhaps you would care to honor us by attending? It will be in English, you know."

"Yes, thank you, I'm planning to be there."

Beaupierre seemed genuinely delighted. "I look forward to seeing you and to introducing you to our fellows. And you, Gideon-we'll see you at eleven? You remember where we meet?"

"Is it still that cafe just down from the institute, on the square-"

"The Cafe du Centre, yes, that's the place. But only until next week," he added, beaming joyfully at them, "when we finally move into our new quarters, our wonderful new quarters, with our own full-size conference room at last, and a reception area, and the most modern storage facilities, and… and so forth. The dedication ceremony will be Monday morning. Will you still be here then? Can you come?"

"If we're here, we'll certainly come," Gideon said.

"We'd love to," Julie said.

"You have no idea how long it's been in coming, or what a difference it will make. Oh, the difficulties… ah, well, mm…" He bobbed to them individually and shook hands with Gideon. "Good day to you both. A great pleasure, madame."

"Actually, he seemed pretty focused to me," Julie said as the director continued on his way. "Once he got started."

"He did, didn't he? Maybe I've been giving him a bum rap. He's sharper than I remembered."

"Oh, Gideon!" Beaupierre had gone about ten paces and turned. "Which way was I going when we met?"

"Uh… the same way you are now."

"Ah, good," said Beaupierre, patting his belly. "Then I've had my breakfast."

When he stopped off at the Hotel Cro-Magnon before going to the staff meeting, Gideon was told by the clerk at the desk that an Inspector Joly from Perigueux had telephoned, asking him to call.

"Lucien, what's up?"

"Ah, Gideon, a little news. I've been speaking with the prefect in Les Eyzies about a fellow named Jean Bousquet, who disappeared from the village three years ago-"

"Wait a minute, I thought you told me there weren't any unclosed cases."

"This is a little different. Bousquet was never reported to the police as missing, he was reported as a thief."

By his landlady, Madame Renouard, according to whom Bousquet had fled after removing from a secret drawer in her cupboard 60 francs in cash, an antique lapel watch valued at 180 francs, and a treasured cameo brooch; one of a pair that had belonged to her grandmother. He had also left with his rent four weeks in arrears, a matter of some 600 francs. The municipal police, under Prefect Marielle, had mounted an unsuccessful search for him, concluding after a week that he had permanently left the area, and there the matter had lain. A few months later there was a brief flurry of speculation that he might have returned; Madame Renouard, discovering that her grandmother's other cameo brooch was missing, was convinced that the rapacious Bousquet must have slunk back to complete the heist. But there was no other evidence to support this, and it had come to nothing. Bousquet, having disappeared once, was not seen again.