Aaron Elkins - Murder In The Queen's armes

"Yes," Gideon said. "he told me that the two of you have had a few friendly arguments about that."

" Friendly arguments? " Astonished, Nate stared woozily at Julie. "You hear that? Friendly arguments! Ha, ha."

"They weren’t friendly?" Gideon asked.

" Un friendly arguments, that’s what they were. I told him last summer, back at Gelden, oh, yeah." He looked accusingly at his glass. "You bet I did."

"Told him what, Nate?"

"Told him," Nate said, "that unless he showed me on this dig that he was at least trying to learn how to do the grubwork, I wasn’t going to approve his dissertation, and I was going to recommend that he be fulnk…flunked out. And…and he hasn’t made one goddamn effort-not one. So’s gonna be good-bye, Leon. Ho, ho, ho."

"Wait a minute, Nate. You’re telling me Leon is flunking? "

"Damn right. I don’t give a damn how many Grabows he wins. Archaeology is ninety percent grubwork, eighty percent-"

"And he knows you’re flunking him?"

"Well… sure…"

"Leon Hillyer!" Gideon whispered fiercely. Why hadn’t it occurred to him before? Nate had practically leveled an accusing finger at Leon ten minutes ago-without knowing it, of course-and it had gone right by Gideon. He jumped up and went to the bar.

"Do you have any candy?"

The man behind the bar gestured to a rack of packaged candies near the cash register. "What’ll it be?"

Gideon pointed. "Those."

He handed over seven pence, took the candy, and went back to the table. Nate was hectoring Julie.

"Grubwork! Grubwork, grubwork, grubwork-"

"Nate," Gideon interrupted, slipping back into his seat, "you found the skull when you were on a walk during the lunch break, right?"

" ’S right."

"Do you usually take the same walk?"

"Sure, why shouldn’t I?" He glared truculently at Gideon. "Eat a sandwich, then circle the fell. Takes ten minutes. So what?"

"And a scrap of paper caught your attention, and then you saw the fragment?"

Nate made a vexed sound deep in his throat. He was getting sleepy. "Already tol’ you, din’ I?"

"And what color was the paper?"

"How the hell would I know? Who gives a-" He turned to Julie. "Par’n me."

"You already told me once," Gideon said. "I just want to hear it again."

Nate squeezed his eyes shut and puffed out his cheeks. "Boo," he said.

"Blue?"

"Buh-loo." One eye opened stickily, and then the other. "Or was it gheen?"

"Or both?" Gideon asked. "Like this?" He opened his hand to show the roll of Polos lying on his palm; green and white lettering on a blue background.

Nate stared for so long that Gideon began to think he’d gone to sleep again, this time with his eyes open, but at last, with amazement in his voice, he said, " ’S right. ‘S what it was-Polos. How the hell you know tha’?"

Very far gone now, he fell back in his chair, made a swipe at his empty glass of stout, and knocked that over too. "Don’ feel too great," he said. "Think I'll go home." Then he started snoring again, a little less softly and a lot more wetly.

Julie, who had continued to make progress with her lunch, wrinkled her nose and pushed away her plate. "I guess I’ve had enough. Now will you tell me what this is all about? What’s so important about Polos?"

"If you had a project director," Gideon said, "who took a predictable walk every day, and who was a bug on housekeeping, and you wanted him to ‘accidentally’ find a half-buried skull fragment, what would be easier than planting it in his path and then leaving a crumpled-up, bright-blue candy wrapper right there where it would be sure to catch his eye?"

"And you think that’s what this Leon Hillyer did?"

"Well, he’s popping one of these mints every time you look at him, so he’d sure have a supply of wrappers. And a reason."

"To make Nate look bad, you mean? Maybe get him fired?"

"That’s the idea. Leon might easily do better with another major prof who saw things more his way."

Julie shook her head doubtfully. "It sounds pretty farfetched."

"This whole affair is far-fetched. Anyway, it worked; Nate’s in disrepute, isn’t he? And he’s damn likely to lose his job at Gelden."

"But wait a minute now. Didn’t you tell me that Jack Frawley said that Randy said…whew, I’m getting mixed up… that Randy told him that Nate had planted the skull himself?"

"That’s what he said, all right, and you’re not the only one who’s confused." Gideon pushed his chair back from the table. "I think I ought to go back up the hill and talk with a few people, starting with Leon."

"And leave me," Julie said, her voice rising, "with this"- she pointed at the rhythmically oinking archaeologist-"this body? "

"No, I’ll get him back to his place first. You stay and finish your Guinness. See you later, honey." He tapped Nate on the arm. "Ready?"

"Hoo," Nate said, "I feel lousy."

With Gideon’s considerable help, he got to his feet and managed a reasonably steady gait to the door. Once in the street, the fresh air seemed to revive him a little, and they proceeded in stately silence to the Cormorant, a graciously moldering old inn with some elderly potted plants on the sidewalk in front and a proprietorial ale sign swinging gently over the entrance. Courage, it said, as if offering solace or guidance.

Unlocking the door to Nate’s room presented certain difficulties, inasmuch as Nate insisted on doing it himself, but finally it was accomplished, and he looked gravely across the threshold at Gideon.

"Who… whom…you think murdered Randy?"

"It beats me, Nate."

"Me, too. You b’lieve I did it?"

"No."

Nate nodded with satisfaction and beckoned Gideon closer with a crooked finger. "Me neither," he whispered. Then he burped, yawned, and gently closed the door.

It was apparent that Leon sensed something was wrong the moment Gideon told him he wanted to speak with him. Quietly, he stepped away from the group at the dig and trailed Gideon to the workroom with the anxious air of an eight-year-old following his father out to the woodshed.

"I want to ask you something about the Poundbury skull," Gideon said as soon as they sat down at the table, "and I think you’d better consider very carefully before you answer it."

Leon’s hand darted to his short golden beard, tugging at it under his chin. "The P-P-Poundbury skull?"

Gideon was finally onto something real. It was the first time he’d seen Leon genuinely ruffled. "Did you take the Poundbury calvarium from the Dorchester Museum," he said, sounding to himself very much like Inspector Bagshawe at his most orotund, "bury it here at Stonebarrow Fell, and then lead Nate to it?"

"Lead him to it? What do you m-mean, lead him to it?"

Gideon took the roll of Polos from his jacket pocket and slapped it onto the table. Leon’s left eyelid twitched and then began to quiver, and the color drained from his face as suddenly as if someone had pulled a plug. A muscle leaped at the side of his throat. It was extremely quiet in the shed. The metal walls creaked gently, expanding in the afternoon sunlight. Someone had been gluing pottery not long ago, and the air was sharp with acetone.

"Yes," Leon said, so faintly that the whispered, sibilant s was all that could be heard.

Gideon was surprised. He didn’t quite know what he had been expecting, but it wasn’t a flat admission.

"To make Nate look bad?" he asked quietly. "To get him out of your hair?"

"Yes," Leon said again, more audibly this time. His eyelid still trembled slightly, and now it drooped stubbornly halfway over the eye. He tilted his head slightly back to look out from under it. "W-what are you going to do?"

"Leon, there’s only one thing to do. Everyone concerned in this has to be told."