Aaron Elkins - Murder In The Queen's armes

"And now he wants to be an archaeologist?"

"Don’t ask me, man. You know what he does back home? He rides with one of these so-called outlaw gangs-all middle-aged nerds, like him. You should see his chopper-it’s about twenty feet long; you practically have to lay on your back to ride it."

"Is he making it at Gelden?"

"Well, he’s not really that dumb," Nate allowed grudgingly. "He can read and write, more or less, and he’s loaded; his old man’s Alexander Toilet Tissue-not that the old guy isn’t always yelling about cutting him off. Anyway, that’s enough to get into Gelden-in fact, never mind the read-and-write bit. I voted against admitting the guy in the first place, but I got overruled. But this time I’m kicking his ass out of the department. The dean can stick him in classical lit if he want to. Look, why are we talking about him? What’s the big deal?"

"Well, he just seemed so anxious to talk to me."

"I’m telling you the guy likes to put people on. He really made an idiot out of Jack Frawley once; he even tried to do it to me. Forget him, will you? Hey, you’re gonna be there Thursday, aren’t you? Ten o’clock?"

"That’s why I’m here. Nate, are you still feeling good about this? Are you sure you don’t want me to have a private look before the board meets? I could come up tomorrow."

"You kidding, you want to ruin the suspense? No, you be there at ten, and bring your calipers and stuff. I’m gonna make you famous."

Gideon hung up, not as relieved as he might have been. For one thing, his concern over Nate’s coming disaster had been freshened, even though the man was so damn confident. Could there have been a Mycenaean migration? Could Nate refute the accumulated wisdom of the specialists? Gideon shook his head, wishing he knew more about Bronze Age anthropology. All he’d be able to do Thursday would be a conventional skeletal examination and analysis; someone else would have to do the interpretation. Deep down, he wasn’t sorry. He didn’t want to be the one to tell Nate he’d made a fool of himself.

Something else was bothering him. Despite everything Nate had said, Gideon still had an unsettling sense of foreboding about the fate of Randy Alexander. And it wasn’t simply the unkept appointment; it was the very atmosphere of Stonebarrow Fell-an unhealthy stew of tension, dislike, pretense…

He stood up and stretched. He was getting a little paranoid himself. Time to get his mind on other things and go on down to say hello to the archaeologists in the lounge; did he really know an Arkle, Barkle, or Carbuncle?

When he pushed open the Dutch door of the Tudor room, it was the slender, well-dressed man who rose, smiling.

"Unless I’m very much mistaken," he said in an urbane, slightly nasal drawl, "here is the eminent Professor Oliver now." That would be the sexy Englishman. He even talked like Sherlock Holmes.

The figure in the other chair turned and rose as well. "Hello, Gideon," he said, his voice gloppy with the postnasal drip that had plagued him ever since Gideon had known him. "How are you?"

"Hi, Paul. It’s good to see you."

This was not strictly true. It wasn’t that he disliked Paul Arbuckle. In fact, he rather liked him in short doses. He’d never heard Paul say a malicious or envious word about a colleague-no common virtue in academe-and he sometimes revealed an exacting intelligence. But there was a dull, dogged, enervating persistence about him. Paul was the kind of researcher who would not let go of an idea until he had smothered it to death, but he seemed to Gideon always to have hold of the wrong idea, always to be drudging away at some arcane, dry-as-dust minutiae, while all the provocative, exciting patterns eluded him.

Although he was an archaeologist, he was, like Gideon, an earnest student of Pleistocene man (indeed, if he had other interests, he’d yet to mention them), but the two had never gotten to know one another very well. At anthropological gatherings they usually managed a scholarly, reasonably agreeable conversation of twenty or thirty minutes, which sufficed until the next year’s meeting. But when two Americans meet socially on foreign soil, a different level of cordiality is called for, and Gideon’s heart sank at the prospect of the serious, plodding Arbuckle horning in on his Dorset evenings with Julie. Having a sexy, interesting Englishman around didn’t seem so hot either.

Nevertheless, Gideon smiled and offered his hand. "What brings you to Charmouth?"

"Business, naturally," said Paul (naturally), and frowned behind round, rimless spectacles. As many people do, he looked like what he was, with his thick glasses, his rumpled clothes, and his innocuous, vaguely porcine face (Porky-the-pig-like, really). "I don’t know whether you heard, but I’m not at Michigan anymore. I’ve been director of field archaeology for the Horizon Foundation since July. I’ve been running a terrific dig in France, but I’ve had to put it aside and come here on…business."

He indicated the other man. "And this is Frederick Robyn, secretary of the Wessex Antiquarian Society."

When they had all sat down facing the fire, the Englishman said, "I wonder if you know why we are both in Charmouth."

"I suppose you’re here to conduct the Stonebarrow Fell inquiry Thursday."

Arbuckle looked extremely surprised, Robyn mildly so. It was Robyn who spoke, raising a cool eyebrow. "And how do you happen to know that?"

"There was an article about it in the Times. "

Robyn’s suavity faltered. "The Times! Good Lord!"

Gideon laughed in spite of himself. "The West Dorset Times, Mr. Robyn, not the London Times. "

"Still, it’s unfortunate that the press should have it at all. Publicity can do no one any good." He shook his handsome head. "I suppose it was Marcus himself who told them. The man is unable to restrain himself." He looked at Gideon and smiled. "But of course it’s precisely that which has necessitated this entire unhappy process."

At that point Andy Hinshore scurried in with a sherry for Robyn and a lager for Arbuckle. "Oh, hello Dr. Oliver," he said. "Sorry, I didn’t know you were here. Can I get you something?"

"A Scotch and soda would be nice, thanks."

As he left, Arbuckle said to Gideon, "This article on Stonebarrow Fell… what was the gist of it?"

Gideon had barely begun when Hinshore returned with his drink on a tray. "Perhaps you’d move that thing, sir? I wouldn’t want to knock it off the table, God forbid."

Gideon looked down at the ammonite he’d absentmindedly placed on the table near his chair, and put it in his pocket. "It’s just a fossil from the beach, Andy."

Hinshore shook his compact head vigorously. "Oh, no, I know the way you scientists are with your fossils. Indeed I do. Last month I almost put a mug of beer down on one of Professor Arbuckle’s, and I thought he was going to skin me alive." Chuckling, he put the glass in front of Gideon.

Paul Arbuckle was at times the most literal-minded of men. "Oh," he said, with a wondering, mildly aggrieved air, "I don’t think I was going to skin you alive."

"Well," Hinshore said affably, "you could have fooled me."

"You were here last month, Paul?" Gideon asked. "Has this thing with Nate been going on as long as that?"

"Oh, it had nothing to do with the inquiry; just a routine field audit. I visit all our sites quarterly."

"I hadn’t realized you’d been here before, either," Robyn said with interest. "How did things look to you then?"

"Everything was fine. Marcus hadn’t made any of his strange statements yet-or only a few-and the dig itself was absolutely ship-shape. You know what a fine technician he is."

"More’s the pity," Robyn said absently, his eyes on the fire blazing in a metal box in the grand but inefficient Tudor fireplace of vaulted stone. Gideon stole a look at his watch. Not that he was worried, but where the hell was Julie anyway?