Aaron Elkins - Murder In The Queen's armes

Gideon had arrived at Stonebarrow Fell at 8:30 a.m., expecting to be the first one there, but Barry, Leon, and Sandra were already at the trench, working under Frawley’s direction, and observed by a yawning police constable. Abe had been in the shed, poring over the expedition records spread on the table in front of him. The heater had thoroughly warmed the building, indicating he’d been there for some time, and the coffeepot was already halfway down.

Gideon poured himself a cup. "What’s funny?"

"There’s no milk for the coffee," Abe said, still looking at the card, "only powdered stuff. Tomorrow I’ll bring some real milk, from cows. Partially hydrogenated coconut oil who needs?"

"I’ll bring it," Gideon said. "What’s funny?" he asked again.

Abe handed him the card. "Have a look at this."

It was a "find card," a device that is commonly used on archaeological digs. Its purpose is to make an immediate, on-the-spot record of every object discovered the moment it was found. The dirt smudges on this one suggested that it had been used as intended.

The card was made up as a printed form with blank spaces for written entries. Gideon scanned it quickly. Site: CHA 2-2; Date: 11-1; Loc: Q1-5; Depth: 21" (12 " had been written in before it, but had been crossed out); Descr: Human femur, left, partial. Proximal 100 mm.

There was illegible information scribbled after Matrix, Orientation, and Remarks; and finally, at the bottom, after Recorded by, Leon Hillyer’s name had been scrawled.

It was strange, Gideon thought, that he hadn’t heard anyone mention the earlier finding of a human bone. The femur, of course, was the thigh bone, and the "Proximal 100 mm." would consist of not the shaft itself but of the ball that inserts into the hip socket, along with an inch or two of femoral "neck"-the small, diagonal column of bone that joins the all to the shaft.

When he looked up, Abe said, "So? What do you see?"

Gideon shrugged. "Well, I hadn’t known they’d found any human remains-that is, before Pummy came up- and yet this was discovered a month ago. Aside from that, I don’t see anything strange."

"Okay, now look at this." He slid an open bound notebook across the table. "This is the field catalog. Look at November first."

Gideon looked and blinked with surprise. "There’s only one entry: ‘Number one-forty-nine: Four faience beads.’ There’s no bone listed."

"That’s right, and that’s what’s funny. Nathan is a little fartootst, but he knows how to run a dig, and when a dig is run right, every night you take the find cards and you enter the information in the permanent field catalog. You don’t miss a night. Otherwise, numbers get mixed up, things get lost… You know this; what am I telling you?"

"You’re right," Gideon said. "It was probably Frawley’s job to maintain the catalog."

"It was definitely Frawley’s job." Abe took back the notebook and placed his thin hands on it, one on top of the others. "I looked through the whole thing, and nowhere is a mention of a human bone; not a peep." He closed the book and finished his coffee with a gulp. "So the big question is: Why not? Why didn’t Frawley write it down in the permanent catalog? And where is this mysterious human femur, left, partial? It’s not in with the other finds."

Gideon looked at the card he still held in his hand. "Isn’t it possible that when Frawley had a look at it he concluded that it wasn’t really a bone? That Leon had misidentified it? It happens all the time. That’s one reason a worker doesn’t enter it directly into the catalog himself, isn’t it?"

Abe looked at him quizzically. "It happens all the time that you find four faience beads and you think they’re a leg bone?"

Gideon laughed. "Maybe you’re onto something, Abe- although I’m not sure what. I don’t see how this can have anything to do with the Poundbury skull-"

"Poundbury? Of course not. This was a month ago. Besides, this one is a femur. Pummy is… what was it?"

"Left parieto-occipital; hard to confuse the two, even for an archaeologist. It’ll be interesting to hear what Jack Frawley has to say."

"That I’m very interested in myself." He put the card into a file box and closed it. "Well, Inspector Bagshawe will be here in a few minutes, so why don’t we go outside and get to work?"

"Bagshawe’s coming here?"

"He was here yesterday, too, interviewing everyone, picking up tools, looking under potsherds. It makes everybody nervous, but I guess it’s got to be done."

"Good, there’s something I wanted to mention to him."

" Good morning, gentleman!" Detective Inspector Bagshawe’s booming, peaceful voice reverberated in the shed. He closed the door behind him, hung his vast checked overcoat on a peg, and ambulated majestically to the table, where he sank confidently down onto a metal folding chair that looked alarmingly flimsy for the job. "I shouldn’t be very long today, and I’ll try my best not to get in the way of your scientific pursuits."

"It’s no trouble, Inspector," Abe said. "I’m just going. Make yourself at home. Have some coffee. Gideon, when you’re finished talking, you’ll come join us at the dig?"

When Abe had left, Bagshawe looked at Gideon across the table with placid expectation, his big, curving cherry-wood pipe between his teeth, and his huge hands clasped loosely on the table.

"Well, I don’t think I really have anything important," Gideon said, suddenly diffident, "but I wanted to mention that the day Randy was killed there may have been some outsiders at Stonebarrow Fell after all. It’s just possible that Frederick Robyn or Paul Arbuckle might have been here. They had their own keys, and Barry wouldn’t be likely to consider them ‘visitors.’ Anyway, if it’s okay with you, I thought I could discreetly check around-"

Bagshawe grinned. "In this case, lad, the CID, ever alert, are far ahead of you. Dr. Arbuckle was here before, all right, on an audit, but that was weeks ago, when Mr. Alexander was demonstrably alive and well. As for the afternoon of November thirteen, when he presumably ceased being either, Dr. Arbuckle was provably in Dijon, and Mr. Robyn in London. Of course, either of them might have nipped away for a few hours and slipped into Stonebarrow Fell-seen by no one-but in all honesty I don’t think so. And as for your prowling about, why, if I were you I wouldn’t do anything about it. Why not leave that sort of thing to us?"

A fragment of remembered conversation leaped into Gideon’s mind. His eyes widened. "What did you say?"

"I said, ‘Why not leave that sort of thing to us?’ And what’s wrong with that?"

"No, the sentence before that."

Bagshawe took the pipe out of his mouth and looked oddly at Gideon. "The sentence before that? I said I wouldn’t do anything about it if I were you. Merely a turn of phrase, Professor, nothing more."

"Inspector, when Randy tried to tell me whatever it was, and I suggested he tell Frawley instead, he said, quote: ‘He wouldn’t do anything about it.’ "

Bagshawe stuck the pipe back between his teeth. "He wouldn’t do anything about it," he repeated, frowning, and sat a moment longer. "So?"

"What would that mean to you?"

"That even if he told Frawley, Frawley wouldn’t do anything about it, that’s what it would mean." The inspector’s patience was wearing a little thin.

"Sure, that’s what I thought at the time. But let’s say Randy already had told Frawley-before he ever talked to me-and Frawley just refused to do anything about it. What would Randy have said to me in that case?"

"He would have said…why, he might have said the very same thing: ‘He wouldn’t do anything about it.’ " He lowered his chin to his chest and looked at Gideon with dawning appreciation. "Professor Frawley just might know what the young man was trying to tell you, mightn’t he? Well, now, that’s worth exploring. Do you know, I’ve already asked him-as I’ve asked everyone-if he had any idea what it might be."