Aaron Elkins - Murder In The Queen's armes

"And he said he didn’t?"

"As did they all. But with Professor Frawley-ah, I had my suspicions. There was a sort of hitch, a holding back, a sidling away of the eyes, if you know what I mean."

Gideon nodded. He knew very well.

"Well then," Bagshawe said, "let’s try again. Why don’t we just go and chat Mr. Frawley up right now?"

"We?"

Bagshawe looked squarely at Gideon, not unkindly. "Professor, since it’s all too apparent that you’re going to be sniffing and poking about up here in any event, why, I’d be a great deal more comfortable having you doing it where I can see you. I’ve got enough trouble here already, and it wouldn’t do to have Gideon Oliver done in under my very nose while pursuing inquiries of his own." He huffed on the bowl of his pipe and rubbed it on his sleeve. "Think of the paperwork."

They found Jack Frawley at the dig, completing some cross-sectional diagrams of the pits on a sheet of quadrille paper attached to a clipboard. He was wearing a shapeless, colorless canvas fisherman’s hat, a decrepit old windbreaker, worn cotton jeans, and old tennis shoes. His stubby, metal-stemmed pipe, unlit, was clenched in his teeth, the bowl upside down. He was, Gideon thought, working at looking like an archaeologist. What he looked like was Monsieur Hulot.

When Bagshawe had said, "We would like a word with you, Professor Frawley," his face had paled, and pale it remained. Bagshawe had led them-not by accident, Gideon was sure-to a flat, rocky area near the cliff edge: just about the spot from which Randy must have plummeted into the rock-encircled lagoon. Far below, the tide was in. It boomed and gurgled hollowly, as it must have done that day.

"Now, Professor," Bagshawe began without preface, "when I asked you yesterday if you had any idea of what

Mr. Alexander had wanted to tell Professor Oliver, you said you did not."

Frawley nodded. "I, uh, I believe I did say something to the effect that I couldn’t think of anything right offhand."

From the twitchy wobble of Frawley’s eyes, Gideon knew instantly that he was lying. And he sure was that Bagshawe knew it, and that Frawley knew they knew.

Bagshawe fixed Frawley with a steely eye. "I won’t quibble about that. I shall simply ask you whether you have, on further reflection, remembered something."

"Well, you know, actually, I might have had a word or two with Randy that morning, now that I think about it," Frawley said, and accompanied it with a weak laugh. "But it was just one of those little technical things that crop up; nothing important."

Bagshawe shifted easily into a more soothing manner. "Now, Professor," he said slowly, "if there’s anything you’re reluctant to say, I can assure you that Professor Oliver and I-"

"It’s only that it’s nothing relevant to Randy’s…to the case you’re working on."

"One never knows," Bagshawe said reassuringly. "Often, it’s the little things that provide the critical clues."

"Well…" Frawley’s soft, doggy eyes fixed on the inspector in melancholy appeal. "I’m just afraid you’ll get the wrong idea…about a certain party…"

"Well, now, Professor, why don’t you just trust me to be the judge of that?" The big teeth showed in a peaceable, bovine smile.

Gideon admired the inspector’s patience. For himself, he was ready to kick the oleaginously reluctant Frawley in the shins if this went on much longer. "For Christ’s sake, Jack," he said.

Frawley started. "Okay. All right." But still he couldn’t get himself going. He put his unlit pipe in his mouth and frowned in thought, going puh, puh, puh softly around the pipe stem with moist lips. Bagshawe smiled encouragingly at him. Gideon looked impatiently out to sea.

"I think you can already guess what he told me," Frawley said, his eyes on his shoes. "He told me that the skull Nate was so excited about was a fake; somehow he’d found out that Nate himself had stolen it from Dorchester and secretly buried it here. He wanted me to stop Nate before he actually dug it out and announced it."

"And why," Bagshawe asked, all policeman again, "didn’t you tell us this before?"

Frawley pursed his lips and made the pecking, chinthursting motion that some men make when their collars are too tight, although his own sat loosely on his neck. "In all frankness, I was afraid that you’d jump to the conclusion that Nate had killed Randy to protect himself. And I didn’t want that to happen."

Gideon cut in. "If you knew Nate had planted the skull, why didn’t you stop him before he dug it up with all that fanfare?"

The question seemed to catch Frawley by surprise. "Why? Why didn’t I stop him? Well… speaking candidly…it wasn’t my place… I’m only…and how could I be sure Randy was telling the truth? Maybe he was lying."

"Wouldn’t that be all the more reason to go to Nate, or just to check it out yourself?"

"And why, Professor," asked Bagshawe, "did you not go to the authorities?"

"Authorities?" Frawley’s eyes were beginning to take on a hunted look.

"The Horizon Foundation, the Wessex Antiquarian Society… the police?"

"Well, gosh, I hope you fellows don’t think I’m some sort of criminal." He managed a gummy little giggle. "I was just trying to do my job. There are times," he said sanctimoniously, "when fidelity outweighs adherence to scientific research. Nate is my…my superior, and I believe I owe him my support and my loyalty."

And may no one ever be that loyal to me, Gideon thought, or that supportive.

"No, Professor," Bagshawe tolled, "I don’t think that’s the way it was."

"I beg your pardon?" Frawley said.

"Shall I tell you how I think it was?"

Frawley looked mutely at him and licked his lips. His cheeks glistened unhealthily.

"I think," the inspector said at his slowest, "that when you heard that Professor Marcus planned a hoax, you were only too delighted with the news, and the last thing you wanted to do was to stop him. You wanted him to bring off this dirty great fraud of his."

Frawley made incredulous noises.

"If you had stopped him in time," Bagshawe continued, "it would have been no more than an embarrassment, with no one the wiser, except for you, him, and the young man. All in the family, you might say. But

…if he was allowed to bring it off-and was then exposed-ah, then there would be hell to pay. His career would be finished. As indeed it is-as indeed you wanted."

"Wanted? That’s ridiculous! Why would I want such a thing?"

"Jealousy. Envy."

"Me jealous of Nate? " From somewhere he summoned a sort of soggy dignity. "I don’t think I should have to stand for this."

"Jack," Gideon said, "are you the one who gave Ralph Chantry his information?"

"What?" Frawley stared at him with convincing blankness. "Who?"

Barely pausing for this uninformative exchange, Bagshawe continued in his inexorable way. "I’ve looked into things, Professor Frawley, and I know that Professor Marcus was made head of a department of which you are the senior and eldest member. I know that he, a much younger man, was made a full professor while you remained an associate. I know that you advised in faculty council against his hiring."

Shielding his eyes against the sun, Frawley looked up at the massive policeman. "What has that got to do with anything? Just who do you think you are?"

Bagshawe went on remorselessly. "Now then, I ask myself: Might there not be another reason why you haven’t told us this before? And why, when you finally did tell us, you so carefully implied that Professor Marcus might be not only a hoaxer but a murderer as well?"

"I don’t know what you’re talking about," Frawley practically squeaked. "Why don’t you say what you mean?"