Murder in the Queen's Armes

by Aaron Elkins

  Abe was a thin, active man—Gideon had once made the mistake of calling him "spry" within his hearing—whose nervous energy and shock of frizzy white hair gave him a distinct resemblance to Artur Rubinstein. Years ago, when Gideon had been walking with him during an anthropological conference in Boston, they had been approached by a teenager who shyly asked for Abe’s autograph. Abe, who had been the subject of magazine articles and television programs, complied with a flourish, and the boy watched him with adulation in his eyes. But when he looked at the signature, his face fell; he had thought, he stammered, that Abe was the great pianist. Abe had responded in character: He had put his arm around the boy’s shoulder, drawn his head close, and said, in a conspiratorial whisper, "Ah, but Abraham Irving Goldstein is my real name."

  When he clambered down to the Axminster platform, he did it with painful slowness—he was increasingly troubled with arthritis—and when Gideon embraced him, he was keenly aware of just how frail the old man’s body was.

  "Abe, you are all right, aren’t you?" he asked, then suddenly laughed.

  "So what’s so funny?"

  "I’m laughing because I know exactly what you’re going to say."

  "What am I going to say?"

  "You’re going to say, ‘So why shouldn’t I be all right?’ "

  Abe smiled. "So why shouldn’t I say it?"

  THEY talked of other things on the short drive to Char-mouth, and it was not until they joined Julie that Gideon told him about his visit to Stonebarrow Fell, about the murder of Randy Alexander, about his lagoon hypothesis, and, in passing, about the disappearance of the Poundbury calvarium.

  He had talked through a round of predinner sherries in front of the fire in the Tudor Room, and then a second round, to which Andy Hinshore contributed an accompaniment of pâté and bread.

  When they thanked him, he grinned. "It does my heart good to see people enjoying themselves in this room. Just think, people have been sitting before this fireplace in comradeship and warmth—this very fireplace—for five hundred years. Five centuries ago, someone stood here, sheltered from the night, just as I stand here, with his hand on this stone, just as mine is. It’s almost as if…as if I’m communicating with him, like."

  "Mr. Hinshore," Abe said, smiling, "did anyone ever tell you you got the soul of an anthropologist?"

  Hinshore seemed genuinely pleased. "Why, thank you, Professor. I take that as a real compliment. Well," he said, and cleared his throat, "here I am, chattering away, with you trying to talk business. Is it all right if I serve dinner in ten minutes?"

  Gideon continued talking, and Abe and Julie continued listening through the sherry and pâté, and then through bowls of oxtail soup in the dining room, where they were the sole diners, Robyn and Arbuckle not yet having returned from Swanscombe. Hinshore had already served their main course of roast lamb with mint jelly before Abe said anything.

  "So what do you think, Gideon? This is too tall an order for me, bringing Nathan to his right mind?"

  Gideon shook his head slowly as he dipped a slice of lamb in Mrs. Hinshore’s homemade mint jelly. "I don’t know, Abe. I don’t think Nate’s about to listen to reason. He’s really gone overboard on this theory of his."

  Abe rolled his eyes. "This cockamamy Mycenaean theory."

  "That’s the one. I really think he’s gotten obsessive about it. Nate’s not his old self, Abe. All the old nastiness is there, but none of the healthy skepticism about his own ideas. You’ll find him changed." Gideon grimaced. Hadn’t Jack Frawley used just those words?

  Abe swallowed the bread he’d been chewing. "Changed, obsessive…" He exhaled a long, noisy sigh. "I made a big trip for nothing, you think?" He seemed suddenly tired, drained. As he ought to be, Gideon thought; he had been traveling for at least fourteen hours, and according to his Sequim-based biological clock, it was now about 4:00 a.m.

  The same thought apparently occurred to Julie. With a small crease of concern on her brow, she said. "We probably ought to get you to bed early, Abe. You’ve had a long day, with an important one coming up tomorrow."

  Ordinarily he would have rounded good-humoredly on her at the nursely "we," but instead he shrugged wearily. "I was going to go yet tonight and have a talk with Nathan, but maybe you’re right. Anyway, I wouldn’t want Arbuckle and the Dorset man, what’s his name, Robyn, should think I was fraternizing with the enemy."

  "I’d never met Robyn before last night," Gideon said. "Do you know him?"

  "Yeah, I know him a little."

  "What do you think of him?"

  Abe chewed his lamb and pondered. "A very clean person," he said finally. "A nice dresser. You got to give him that."

  Gideon laughed. "I gather you don’t think too much of his professional abilities."

  "I got nothing against him. A doppes, a dilettante. He plays at archaeology, like in the nineteenth century rich people did."

  "Will he be fair at the inquiry?"

  "Sure," Abe said, "I think so. Why not? So will the other one, the one from Horizon, Arbuckle. Not the most brilliant person in the world, but he does his job. In the words of Dr. Johnson, ‘a harmless drudge.’ "

  Hinshore came to clear the table. "Everything to your liking, Professor Goldstein?" Since Gideon had explained to him who Abe was, he had treated him with solicitous respect.

  "Fine," Abe said. "Delicious."

  Hinshore’s narrow face lit up with pleasure. "I’ll tell the missus. And now perhaps a little cheese? We have a fine old Brie and some first-class Gorgonzola. A little more St. Emilion to go with it, perhaps?"

  They had the cheese but not the wine. Julie’s brows knitted. "Gideon," she said, spreading the pungent, runny Brie on a slice of bread, "this student you think was murdered—"

  "There’s no ‘think’ about it. The broken ulna and radius, the fractured hyoid, the crushed larynx—"

  She shut her eyes and waved the bread at him. "All right, I believe you."

  Gideon grinned as he cut some blue-veined Gorgonzola. "I’m starting to sound like Merrill."

  "Heaven forbid. We’d have to get a divorce." She popped the bread into her mouth and licked her finger. "From what you said, Inspector Bagshawe thinks the killer is someone at the dig, maybe Nate himself. Is that right?"

  "He didn’t say it in so many words, but that was the impression I got, yes. With Nate at the head of the list."

  "But why? Why not somebody from outside the dig?"

  "Well, I think Bagshawe’s just beginning with known factors. Where else could he start?"

  "Didn’t Alexander belong to some kind of motorcycle gang in Missouri? Couldn’t there have been some sort of grudge, and they bumped him off?"

  Abe looked accusingly at Gideon. "Bumped him off? This is what comes of being married to a skeleton detective? And such a nice girl she was."

  "She certainly was," Gideon said. "But no, I don’t think a motorcycle gang is too likely. Why come all the way to nice, quiet Dorset to do it, when he could have been just as easily bumped off the road in nice, quiet Missouri?"

  He turned suddenly to Abe. "Do you remember if Nate is left-handed?"

  "No," Abe said promptly.

  "No you don’t remember, or no he’s not left-handed?"

  "No he’s not left-handed."

  Gideon heaved a relieved sigh, then looked up. "How can you be that sure? You haven’t seen him in years."

  "Because," Abe explained. "I remember. Julie, you’re thinking something?"

  "Uh-huh, I am," she said slowly, reaching for another piece of bread. "Let me ask this. Now don’t you two jump down my throat—remember, I don’t know the man—but is there a possibility that Nate Marcus actually did kill him— to keep him from telling whatever it was?"

  Gideon was hardly about to jump down her throat. His protests to Bagshawe notwithstanding, the idea ranged uncomfortably about the perimeters of his mind. "I don’t think so, but I’m not as sure as I’d like to be. What do you think, Abe? You probably know him b
etter than I do."

  Abe still had a little dinner wine left. He swirled it thoughtfully. "You know how you read in the paper when there’s some terrible murder and the mother says, ‘No, it couldn’t be my son who did it, such a darling boy, always so polite’? Well, this is how I feel about Nathan. Maybe not always so polite, but a murderer? Impossible." He drained the wine, tilted his head, lifted a white eyebrow. "Still, who knows? All the time the criminologists are telling us anybody could be a murderer with the right motivation."

  "I don’t really believe that, though," Gideon said.

  "Me neither," said Julie.

  "Me neither," said Abe. "Nu, so much for the criminologists."

  Gideon paused in the act of slicing a chunk of Gorgonzola and snapped his fingers softly. "Something just occurred to me. I need to make a telephone call. Be right back."

  He found Barry Fusco on his first attempt, at the Coach and Horses, and waited impatiently while the landlord called him to the telephone.

  "Barry, when I was up at the dig a couple of weeks ago, you came down to the gate to let me in. Are you responsible for letting people in, or were you just being helpful?"

  "Huh?" Barry sounded as if he’d been asleep. "No, I’m on gate duty this month."

  That was what Gideon had hoped. "So you’d know about any visitors?"

  "Uh-huh," Barry said through a yawn. "I mean, we all have our own keys, but if it’s a visitor, someone who doesn’t have one, I’m supposed to let him in."

  "Do you remember if there were any other visitors the day I was there?"

  "There were some school kids—"

  "No, they left before I did. Was there anybody there after me?"

  "Uh-uh. Nope."

  "Why so sure?"

  "Because the whole time I’ve been on, I only had to let visitors in twice, and that was on the same day—you and that school group. That was it."

  "You’re positive?"

  "Sure. Nobody else. We used to get some people in the summer, but not now. What’s the difference, Dr. Oliver?"

  From the way he was talking, Gideon knew he hadn’t heard about Randy. Evidently, Bagshawe hadn’t yet made his trip up the hill. "Barry," he said casually, "are you right-handed?"

  "Am I…" He laughed, as if Gideon had asked him a riddle. "All right, I’m right-handed. Why?"

  "What about the others? Leon, Sandra, Dr. Frawley?"

  "I don’t know. I think everyone’s right-handed, but I’m not sure. Wait a minute, Randy’s a lefty. He used to pitch Class-A ball. Did you know that?"

  "I think I did hear something about it. Thanks a lot, Barry."

  "Things are shaping up," Gideon said as he returned to the dining room. "It looks like it must have been somebody

  from the dig who killed him. If not Nate, then one of the others: Frawley, Leon, Sandra… who am I forgetting? Oh, Barry. Five suspects."

  "How come?" Abe asked. "Why?"

  "Let’s assume I’m right about Randy’s body being tossed into that lagoon from the top of Stonebarrow Fell itself, okay? Well there haven’t been any outsiders up to the fell since before Randy was killed—I was the last one, in fact…. So an insider must have done it. Simple."

  "How do you know this?" Abe asked. "About no outsiders." The fatigue seemed to have left him; there was color in his cheeks and a liveliness in his eyes; he sensed a mystery, an adventure.

  Gideon told him about the call to Barry. "I suppose someone could have climbed over the fence, and Barry might not have seen him, but that’s pretty doubtful. It’s a pretty small dig."

  "Gideon," Julie said, "you’ll need to tell Inspector Bagshawe about this, won’t you?"

  Gideon nodded. "I was going to call him in the morning anyway—about the lagoon."

  On Hinshore’s suggestion, they took their coffee in the Tudor Room, where the fire had been renewed for them. For a few lazy minutes they sipped quietly, gazing into the orange flames.

  "I got a question," Abe said, still looking into the fire, his cup at his lips, the saucer held just below it. "This theft of the Poundbury skull in Dorchester; where do you think it fits in?"

  "Fits in with what?" Gideon asked.

  "With what?" Abe repeated, waggling the saucer impatiently. "With everything—the whole mish-mosh."

  "Why should it fit in at all?"

  Over the rim of his cup, Abe looked at him as if Gideon had asked why one and one should be two. The old man put the cup down and wiped his lips with a napkin. "Listen, how far from Dorchester to Charmouth?"

  "Thirty miles, maybe."

  "Fine. Now, let me ask you: In your whole career, did you ever run into a… what are they calling it…an inquiry into a dig?"

  "Not personally, no."

  "No," Abe said. "What about a murder on a dig?"

  "No."

  "No. And stealing a calvarium from a museum? This, did you ever see?"

  Gideon shook his head.

  Abe nodded his. "No, no, and no. Three things that never happen, and they all happen inside of a few weeks of each other, and inside of thirty miles of each other. And you think they’re just three separate pieces of monkey business, nothing to do with each other?" He looked at Julie and jerked a thumb at Gideon. "Some detective!"

  Gideon grumbled in mock annoyance. "In the first place, Dr. Goldstein, I’m not a detective—"

  "Hoo, boy, you’re telling me."

  They all laughed then, and Gideon poured more coffee for them from the silver pot. "Maybe you have a point, Abe," he said.

  "Of course. And here’s another connection between all three things: you."

  "Me?"

  "You. You just happen to discover Poundbury’s missing; you just happen to arrive here the next day; you just happen to be the one Alexander wants to tell a secret—and you just happen to be the one that winds up analyzing the poor guy’s bones."

  "But it’s true: I did just happen—"

  "Of course." He put down his half-empty cup and rose.

  "I think I’ll go ahead to bed now." He clasped Gideon’s shoulder and spoke to Julie. "This husband of yours; sometimes his fancy-dancy anthropological theories get a little ungepotchket—you know ungepotchket?"

  Julie shook her head.

  "Screwed up," Gideon murmured. His years of friendship with Abe had taught him a great many Yiddish expressions—by osmosis, as it were.

  Abe narrowed his eyes, considering. "Screwed up? No, this I wouldn’t say. Ungepotchket is more, well… unnecessarily rococo."

  Julie laughed. "Does it really mean that?"

  "Sure," Abe said. "But about Gideon, this I got to say. Wherever he is…always it gets interesting. Good night, folks."

  His papery face suddenly crinkled in a laugh, and on the spur of the moment Gideon got up and gently embraced the frail figure. "Good night, Abe. Sleep well. I’m glad you’re here."

  When he had left, Gideon said to Julie, "He really could have a point, you know."

  "Of course I got a point!" floated down the hall, followed by the closing of a door.

  "Well," Julie said, "you do seem in the thick of things for a man who was going to be uninvolved."

  "I know. It’s funny, isn’t it? But none of it was my doing, and once I give Bagshawe a call in the morning—and go up to the site at ten—I’m out of it."

  Julie smiled and leaned back comfortably in her chair. In the firelight her cheeks were peach-colored and transparent-looking, as smooth and soft as the petals of a rose; she might have been a candlelit Madonna of Geertgen or La Tour. "Sure you are," she said. "All the same…"

  "All the same you just have a feeling."

  "Uh-huh."

  "Me, too. And to tell the truth, I wish there was something I could do."

  "Well," she said, and leaned forward to stroke the line of his jaw, "Abe’s certainly right about one thing. Life with you isn’t dull."

  ELEVEN

  THE next morning Gideon called police headquarters. Inspector Bagshawe wasn’t in, but Wilson Mer
rill was. The pathologist began to talk excitedly as soon as he picked up the telephone; the remains had definitely been identified as those of Randy Alexander.

  "How?" Gideon asked, "Dental records?"

  "Yes, the forensic people telephoned the police in Missouri—or is it Missoula? Or are they the same place?—and were put in touch with the young man’s dentist. Indeed, Alexander’s dental records matched exactly what we’d found in the cadaver. The charts are on their way, but there’s no doubt about it. The only mildly disturbing element, of course, is the state of decomposition of the body after only two weeks, but I suppose we just have to attribute that to—"

  Gideon quickly outlined his hypothesis about Alexander’s body having lain in the warm lagoon at the base of Stonebarrow Fell for two weeks before it drifted out to sea.

  "Why, yes, that would account for it, of course!" Merrill was delighted. "In summer, no doubt, someone would have discovered it the next day, but in winter there’d be no one on the beach to find it. Splendid work! I’ll go and have a look at that lagoon myself." There was a pause. "Oh, I say. That would mean—unless there are similar lagoons in the area—that he might very well have been thrown from Stonebarrow Fell itself, wouldn’t it?"

  "I’m afraid so. Highly likely, I’d say. And what’s more, it appears that there haven’t been any visitors to the dig for a month, so…"

  "Oh, dear. The murderer would have to be a member of the expedition, wouldn’t he? Unpleasant."

  "It looks that way, yes. But of course I might be off-base. I’m afraid the inspector will think it’s all pretty speculative."

  "I’m afraid it’s a better guess than you think. The instrument that broke Alexander’s arm has been quite positively identified as a mallet from the tool chest of the excavation."

  "But how is that possible? How could you make such an identification?"

  "Not I, but our forensic scientists in London once again, and a first-rate piece of sleuthing it was too. Do you remember Inspector Bagshawe’s idea about the sleeve of Alexander’s leather jacket providing some clue as to the weapon?"