Aaron Elkins - Old Bones

"Well, as long as you keep an open mind." John’s twinkly child’s laugh burbled out and Gideon laughed too.

They had been walking around the pond behind the manoir for almost an hour, along the gravel path cut into the terraced bank. The early March twilight had come while Gideon had filled John in on the day’s events, and above them, on a knoll, the great stone building loomed, silhouetted against what was left of the light, its complex, steeply pitched roof angles and tall stone chimneys as featureless, black, and sharp as paper cutouts. In the rear courtyard, a few stunted, gnarled oak trees, still bare, were outlined against the empty, rose-gray sky.

In all, Gideon mused, downright sinister-looking; a fine setting for skeletons in the cellar and murders in the drawing room. Or the salon, as they called it.

"Let’s go around one more time," John said. "I’ve got some ideas about Fougeray’s murder." They went a few steps in silence while he arranged his thoughts. "From what you said, Joly’s got more motives than he knows what to do with."

"Right. Everything from Alain’s death almost fifty years ago right up through some muddy insinuations Claude tossed around when they read the will. Plus the fact that he antagonized everybody in the place from the first day he got here. Joly hardly knows where to start."

"Well, I think maybe I do. The first thing he needs to do is find out when the murder was planned. If the killer didn’t set it up until this week, then it might be on account of something new. But if it got planned before this family council ever started, then obviously Claude got killed on account of something that happened before."

"I suppose Joly’d agree with you, but how is he supposed to figure out when it was planned?"

"By finding out when the cyanide got bought."

"And how-"

"How is he supposed to find that out? By using those little gray cells these French detectives are supposed to have so many of."

"Belgian, not French. Poirot was Belgian."

"Big deal; same thing. Look: If the murder was planned ahead of time, then the killer could have gotten hold of the cyanide ahead of time. But if it got planned since this family meeting started, then he had to get it in the last few days, right?"

"I suppose so," Gideon said, his interest deepening. When John started sounding like a cop he was generally on to something.

"What do you mean, you suppose? People don’t go around with a vial of cyanide on them in case they just happen to run into somebody they’d like to bump off. They get it for a reason. So all Joly has to do is find out if this particular cyanide got bought before this week or not. If it got bought before, then the murder was planned before; it has to be one of the old motives, not a new one, and nothing Claude did or said after he got here had anything to do with it."

"Of course," Gideon said after a moment. "You’re right."

"Sure I’m right. What are you sounding so amazed about?"

"I’m not amazed. I’m just wondering how Joly would go about figuring out when the cyanide got bought."

"For starters he could check with the pharmacies and chemical supply outfits in the area to see if any’s been bought in the last week."

"Would a chemical supply place keep a list of the people who buy cyanide?"

"In France, who knows? Back home, it’s different from state to state. In a lot of places the buyer has to sign a‘poison book.’ But even if they don’t do that here, how much of a job could it be to check it out? You’re only talking about a radius of maybe fifty miles with no big cities in it, and how many people buy cyanide?"

"I don’t know. What’s it used for aside from murder?"

"Poisoning rats and moles; that kind of thing-but not much anymore, at least in the States. Also, I think they use it in metallurgy; you know, silver plating. I don’t know for what else. Not much."

Gideon nodded. "Why fifty miles? Why not a hundred, or five hundred?"

"Just a rough figure. I’m guessing whoever did it wouldn’t want to disappear from sight for too long while he bought the stuff, just in case it made him look suspicious later on, and fifty miles is about as far as you could drive and still get back inside of two or three hours."

"Yeah, I guess…" Gideon stopped John with a hand on his forearm. "John, nobody drove anywhere. There wasn’t a car available. Guillaume’s was the only one here, and it’s still at Mont St. Michel."

"Is that right?" John’s face was masked by the dusk now, but Gideon heard the quickening in his voice. "That makes it a whole lot easier. You’d just have to check in these little towns right around here."

"No, someone might have gotten a taxi to Dinan and bought it there or even taken a train from there to somewhere else."

"Sure, but how many taxis could there be around here, and how many passengers could they get? This is the boonies, Doc. It’d be a snap to check out. Hey, you think Joly’s thought about all this?"

"Probably," Gideon said as they began walking toward the manoir again. "He seems pretty sharp to me."

"Yeah, but you never know. It’s funny how little things can get by you. You think I ought to mention it to him?"

"Sure," Gideon said. "He really likes it when you tell him how to do his job."

Joly had been faintly irritated to begin with, having been interrupted while interviewing Sophie Butts in the study, and he listened to John with his head bent sharply down, his back poker-straight, impatiently jiggling his toe. But in the end he was appreciative.

"Thank you," he said politely. "Of course I’ve already begun canvassing local suppliers of cyanide, but I must admit that I hadn’t thought of all this."

"You would have," John said magnanimously. "You’ve just been up to your ears."

"Very true. Oh, and you’ll both be interested to know that Claude’s death by cyanide poisoning has been confirmed. Potassium cyanide, in solution in the wine. The level in his blood was nearly five percent; it’s a wonder he lived as long as he did." He bowed lightly in Gideon’s direction. "It might well have gone undetected, Dr. Oliver- er, Gideon. Cyanide poisoning is easy to miss unless one is looking for it. It’s a good choice for murder, as a matter of fact."

"Well, thanks, uh, Lucien; there was that bitter-almond smell. Pretty hard to miss."

When Joly had gone back into the study, John turned slowly to Gideon. "‘Lucien’?" he said wonderingly. " ‘Gideon’? What’s going on?"

"You just have to know how to handle him, John."

"Maybe," he said, nodding. "But you know, I think the guy’s finally starting to appreciate us."

On their way out they found Ray moping aimlessly around the courtyard, kicking at pebbles. It seemed as good a time as any to bring up something that Gideon had been wanting to ask him.

"Ray," he said without preface, "what was Guillaume doing out in Mont St. Michel Bay when he died?"

"Guillaume?" Ray’s sandy eyebrows rose. "Looking for shells. I thought you knew."

"I heard, but how do you know that’s what he was doing?"

"He told us-the night before, at dinner. He said we’d have our meeting the next day, but it’d have to wait until the afternoon. It was going to be the first good day for collecting since October, and he was going to be out in the bay all morning. Why do you ask?"

"Look," Gideon said, "does it make sense to you that he’d let the tide catch him by surprise? Would a guy as clear-headed and systematic as that go out there without checking a tide table?"

Ray frowned. "I suppose it is a little surprising, but- well, you know, everybody says he’s been getting absentminded; he’s almost eighty. I mean he was."

"Did he seem to be getting absentminded to you?"