Aaron Elkins: Murder In The Queen's armes

Call it the way you see it."

"Nate, I’m on my honeymoon."

"Okay, let me put it this way." He looked soberly at Gideon. "I know you think I’m kidding myself, and maybe I am. But I’m not crazy, you know. And what if I’m right? What if the most important Bronze Age find of the century, maybe of any century, is about to pop? I’m asking you to be the first physical anthropologist to look at it. You’d be right there at the grand opening; you’d be the one to do the initial analysis…"

Gideon sighed, then laughed. What anthropologist could say no to that? Besides, it might give him a final chance to help Nate, to keep him from doing anything more foolish than he’d already done. "Well," he said, "when you put it that way…"

Nate laughed and reached forward to shake hands. As he did so, a cool draft from behind Gideon rustled the papers on the table.

"Oh, sorry. I didn’t know you were in conference."

Nate looked up over Gideon’s shoulder. "No problem, Randy, come on in. Gid, this is Randy Alexander, number-one contender for the world’s perennial-student title."

Laughing offhandedly, a big, coarsely good-looking man carrying a paper sack came in. He was about thirty-five, only a few years younger than Nate and Gideon, with longish, curling brown hair, a casual, loose-jointed gait, and an air about him of indolent, somewhat studied dissipation.

"Hiya, Prof. I think I heard of you."

It was certainly his day for public acclaim, Gideon thought, but even this dubious tribute, the second in an hour, was quickly retracted.

"Or," Randy said, "maybe I just heard Dr. Marcus talk about you being an old friend."

"My oldest," Nate said. "Gideon and I were chugalugging watered-down beer in the UW Rathaus fifteen years ago."

"No kidding." Randy went to a metal cabinet near the coffee paraphernalia and, whistling softly, began taking things from the sack and putting them on shelves.

"Did you get everything?" Frawley asked him.

"Yup. Coffee, notepads, mallet, chisels, string, the whole schmear."

"Well," Gideon said, rising. "I guess I’ll walk on down now."

Randy turned with surprising speed. "I’ll let you through the gate."

"Hey, Gid…?" Nate said.

Gideon waited.

"I’m glad to hear you got married again." He smiled- the old smile Gideon remembered, shy and quick, and unexpectedly elfin in that intense, lean face. "You’re the kind of guy who needs to be married, you know that? Congratulations and best of luck. What’s her name?"

"Thanks very much, Nate. Her name is Julie." Gideon was moved; a glimmer of the old Nate had peeked through. "Nate, are you sure you wouldn’t like me to take a sort of confidential look-"

"No way, pal. Trust me. See you on the twenty-ninth."

Outside, the thick fog had moved in. The ocean, the coastline and the surrounding hills were all invisible, and on the fell everything was indistinct and gloomy.

Randy conversed with mumbling indifference as they walked past the other three students, in the pit, but as soon as he and Gideon were shielded by a small, grassy rise he stopped. "Could I talk to you, Dr. Oliver?"

"Sure."

"It’s about this Mycenaean thing. Look, if I tell you something pretty wild, will you promise to keep my name out of it?"

"No, I won’t, Randy. If you want to tell me something, go ahead. But no strings."

Randy’s sleepy eyelids lifted. It wasn’t the answer he’d expected. "It’s really serious. I mean, I think you should know."

"I think you’re talking to the wrong man. You probably know a lot more about the Bronze Age than I do."

"But this whole Mycenaean thing, it’s all screwed up-"

"Randy, have you talked to Nate? His bark’s a lot worse-"

Randy laughed. "Oh, sure, talk to Marcus about it. You don’t know how funny that is."

"Frawley, then?"

He shook his head impatiently. "He wouldn’t do anything about it. It’s crazy… Dr. Oliver, I know you can do something about it before anyone gets into real trouble… I don’t know, I just feel like I can trust you, you know?"

Gideon felt the same sort of ambivalence he’d had in the flower-child days when someone you’d never seen before would walk up to you with a smile, thrust a daisy into your hand, and energetically tell you to have a good day. Was Randy being as honest as he was trying to appear, or was this a put-on for his own amusement? Still, the gray eyes, on a level with Gideon’s own, were imploring, waiting for a signal to continue. It seemed to Gideon he had been dancing and sidestepping all morning to stay out of the morass of Stonebarrow Fell, but now, reluctantly, he nodded.

"Okay, but no strings. If I can keep your name out of it, I will, but I can’t promise."

"Uh-uh," Randy said, "no deal. If-" He stopped abruptly, his eyes focused beyond Gideon.

"Private discussion?" Nate asked dryly. He had just come over the rise.

"Nope," said Randy with smooth nonchalance, "just talking shop."

"Well, I was looking for you. When you’re finished, come on over to the dig. Now that everyone’s here, I want to go over our problems with level three. I think we need to talk about pseudostratigraphic indicators."

"Will do, chief; my favorite subject."

He was uncommunicative while he walked with Gideon down to the gate, and when they got there, he glanced behind them. There was Nate at the top of the crest, looking after them, almost hidden in the mist.

Randy unlocked the gate. "Okay, you win," he said hurriedly. "Can I talk to you later? Where are you staying?"

Gideon let out a long breath. He’d thought he’d managed to wriggle his way off the hookwith honor reasonably intact. "The Queen’s Armes, but we’re taking off tomorrow."

"How about tonight? Five o’clock?"

"Okay," Gideon said resignedly, "I’ll be there."

At 5:45 p.m. Gideon snapped shut the Ngaio Marsh novel he’d borrowed from the hotel library and tossed it irritably onto the low table.

"Let’s go get some dinner."

Julie looked up from her own book. "I thought you said he really seemed to have something on his mind."

"He did, but he was pretty coy about it. I think he just changed his mind."

"What do you suppose it was about?"

"I don’t know, but to tell you the truth, I’m just as glad not to hear it. There are some very funny dynamics going on up there."

"Maybe something held him up at the dig. Why not give him a few more minutes?"

"It’s been dark for over an hour. They shut down long ago. Besides, I thought you wanted me to stay out of academic squabbles."

"I do, but you made it sound important. Do you know where he’s staying?"

"No, and anyway, why the hell should I go chasing after him? He’s the one who wants to talk to me, isn’t he?"

Julie got up and came over to him. She leaned over the back of the big leather armchair and kissed his cheek. "Poor baby. He gets grumpy when he’s hungry, doesn’t he?"

Laughing, he stood up and hugged her. "I do, don’t I? Come on, let’s go get some honest English roast beef and ale. If something’s held him up, he can call and leave a message.

"Oh, by the way," he said, as they shrugged into their coats, "speaking of academic squabbles that I’m so skillful at staying out of, there’s this inquiry on November twenty-ninth…"

They arrived back in Charmouth on November 27, after a full morning’s drive over country roads. Gideon, cramped after all that time in the car, went for a long walk on the beach while Julie, hungry for some modern American fiction, left in search of a bookstore.

It was a good, muscle-loosening walk, made even more enjoyable when he found a small, perfectly coiled fossil ammonite among the pebbles. The wind began to sharpen after an hour, however, and the afternoon was fading rapidly to a dirty, sleet-spattered gray, so that by the time he got back to the Queen’s Armes he was cold through and glad to close the wooden door of the old inn behind him. He was happy, too, to see the ruddy flicker on the wall of the long entryway opposite the Tudor Room. That meant that a fire had been laid in the snug, ancient chamber that served as a resident’s lounge.