by Aaron Elkins
"I’m not sure. Did you?"
"No!" Leon said. "I swear! I’m telling you the truth. How can y-y-y-you th-th-th…" In his frustration, he hammered on the table with his fist. This was no simple, frightened stammer, Gideon saw, but a profound speech impediment, hidden before, but now surfacing under pressure.
"All right, Leon, all right, but there’s a connection; I’m sure of that. Whether you know what it is I don’t know."
"I don’t. You’ve got to buh-buh-believe me!"
"Okay, calm down. That’s up to the inspector to look into, anyway."
"You have to tell him about it?"
"You better believe it."
Leon twisted restlessly in his chair, then jumped up and walked to the other end of the table, picking up a couple of as-yet-unglued pottery shards and aimlessly pressing them together while he stared out the window. Gideon could see he was trying to pull himself together as well, and he let him take his time. Leon’s surprising collapse into stuttering panic had unnerved Gideon, had made him feel unaccustomedly mean.
After a long time Leon spoke in a subdued, calm voice. "I’d like to be the one Nate hears it from."
Gideon hesitated, but the idea appealed to his sense of justice, or possibly of poetic justice. "All right. But I want to be there."
"Can I do it tomorrow morning?"
"No, I think it had better be today. This evening," he amended. That would give Nate a chance to sober up. "And the others are going to have to be told too. We’ll call a meeting after dinner, say seven o’clock, and get Nate there. You can tell everyone at once."
With his back still to Gideon, he nodded stiffly. "God!" he said with muffled fervor.
"I’ll tell them if you don’t want to," Gideon said.
Leon shook his head. "No, let me, please. Really, it isn’t the way you think it is—not exactly. You’ll see."
"All right. But I still have a few more questions—"
"One more favor?" Leon interrupted. "Can I answer them tonight? I promise I’ll be there, and I promise to answer everything. I give you my word. I just …I need to psych myself up. But right now, I…I mean I can hardly stand to hear myself talk."
Gideon felt much the same. "Okay, Leon," he said after a moment’s hesitation. "Tonight."
"Thank you. You won’t regret it. Would I be pushing my luck if I asked you not to tell anyone about it before then?"
"Why not?"
Leon shrugged, turning the brown ceramic fragments over and over. "I guess it just feels right for me to … to ’fess up on my own." He smiled weakly. "And right after the meeting I’ll go to the police station with you. Or tomorrow morning if they’re not open. Please."
For the third time Gideon hesitated, and for the third time he acquiesced, this time against what he knew to be his better judgment. He knew why he was doing it too. At the back of his mind was an image of Randy asking for his help on the misty hillside and Gideon stiffly putting him off—and a second image of Randy the next time he saw him, on the mortuary table. Irrational as it might be, Gideon found it hard to be adamant with Leon.
"All right," he said. "I’ll keep it between us. But only until seven p.m. If you’re not there right on the button, then I tell them.’ "
"Fair enough. But I’ll be there. And thanks."
At the door, Gideon stopped Leon by placing a hand on his sleeve. "Leon, there’s something I don’t understand."
Leon turned mutely toward him.
"Why a Polos wrapper, of all things? Didn’t it occur to you someone might connect it with you?"
Leon’s smile, if it could be called that, reminded Gideon of the stiffened rictus sometimes encountered on a corpse. "I never meant him to find the damn thing. It was an accident, can you believe it?"
"I still don’t understand."
Leon sighed. "Look, Randy and I spent a whole night up there, getting the skull in the ground just right, you know? Then the next afternoon we were going to check it out again just to make sure it looked all right—no footprints or trowel marks, that kind of thing. And then we were going to leave some junk around to catch Nate’s eye—an old pop bottle, a milk carton—"
"So why the Polos?"
Leon made an impatient little clicking noise with his teeth. "I told you—it was just an accident. I must have dropped the thing there while I was working on the skull. I would have found it the next day when I checked things over, but Nate found it first—absolutely by accident."
He laughed wonderingly. "Still, it added up to the same thing, didn’t it? Nate found the skull and went off the deep end. Everything went just the way it was supposed to, until…" His eyes, which had been fixed on the floor, rose to meet Gideon’s. "Ah," he said softly, "what the hell. I guess I’ve got it coming." His eyes remained locked on Gideon’s. "But I didn’t kill anyone."
AS soon as he walked with Leon back out to the dig and then took Abe aside, Gideon regretted his promise.
"You want to have an all-hands meeting at seven o’clock, but the reason is a secret?" There was real surprise in the old man’s voice. "From me, it’s a secret?"
"Well, it’s just…"
Gideon glanced down in the pit at Leon, who, with a rake in his hands, was watching him anxiously, his face still pale.
"It’s just that I made a promise."
"To who did you make a promise?" Up went a peremptory hand. "Hup! Never mind. A secret is a secret. Excuse me I should ask."
"Come on, Abe," Gideon said miserably, "it’s a promise. Give me a break."
Both of Abe’s hands went up now, palms toward Gideon, and the frail shoulders shrugged. "Not another word. Why should your old teacher—who taught you everything, and who helps you on your cases all the time, and who’s supposed to be running this dig—know what’s going on?"
"Good," Gideon said more firmly. "I’m glad you feel that way. We’re liable to have a problem with Nate, by the way. He ought to be there, and he was pretty well soused when I left him an hour ago."
"Nate?"
"Yes, indeed. He’s sleeping it off, I think."
Abe made a decisive little nod. "When we’re finished here, I’ll go down and fix him up. I’ll make him take a guggle-muggle."
"Come again?"
"An old remedy. You mix whiskey, hot tea, molasses, and raw eggs, and swallow it in one gulp."
Gideon made a face. "It sounds terrible."
"That’s why you got to drink it in one gulp. You call it a guggle-muggle because that’s what it sounds like when it goes down: Guggle, muggle. Believe me, by seven o’clock he’ll be fine."
He walked a few steps to the pit and called for attention, his voice thin in the crisp air.
"Hold it a minute, please! We need to have a meeting tonight at seven o’clock. I hope it doesn’t interfere with anybody’s plans."
Only Sandra appeared annoyed. "How long will it be?"
Abe looked at Gideon, who said, "An hour; maybe more."
"No problems?" Abe asked the group, and waited. Sandra sighed gustily. The others were quiet. "Let’s meet at the Queen’s Armes, in that room next to the lounge, with all the sofas."
"The sitting room," Gideon said.
"Right, the sitting room. I’ll see there’s something to nosh on; a little coffee and some Danish."
Gideon started for the shed to do some pottery sorting, but had gone only a few steps when he remembered his promise to Julie. He turned around.
"I just remembered. I can’t make it at seven. How about eight?"
No one objected. Leon gave him a small, pallid nod. Only Abe spoke. "And why not at seven?"
"Because…well, it’s just hard for me."
"A secret?" Abe asked drily.
"No, not a secret," Gideon growled. "I just promised my wife I’d walk out with her to Dyne Meadow and, uh, watch the moon come up. At seven-oh-four."
Everyone seemed to look at him for a long time before Abe clapped his hands together. "Okay, folks," he said, "let’s get the backfilling
all finished up. Leon, you look a little green around the gills. You’re all right?"
"I… I’m not sure."
Abe nodded knowingly. "The fish paste. You want to lie down? Maybe you should go home early?"
"No—yes, I think maybe that’d be a good idea."
"Go ahead; get some rest. You’ll be at the meeting tonight?"
"Definitely." Leon’s grayish lips stretched in a sickly smile. "I wouldn’t miss it."
BY four o’clock the rest of the crew had also left, and Abe and Gideon locked up the gate and walked down the hill together, "Abe," Gideon said as they approached the bottom, "I’ve been thinking about that femur."
"I’ve been thinking too."
"In spite of everything else, Nate seems to have run a pretty professional dig. That means that whatever it was Leon found, it would have been photographed right away. There must be photographs of it. I think we ought to look through the whole photographic file—"
"This I already did," Abe said. "Nothing."
"Huh," Gideon said.
They walked across the wooden footbridge over the Char, their feet making homely, muffled thumping sounds. Abe stopped suddenly.
"Wait a minute. Tell me something. The boy that got killed—Randy—he was the technician, right? He took the photographs?"
"Right."
"So, tell me, Mr. Skeleton Detective: If the police were investigating his murder, wouldn’t they develop any film he had in his camera? In case it should give them a clue?"
"I don’t know."
"Of course they would. I read it all the time in detective books. Randy got killed when?"
"November thirteenth, probably."
"And Leon’s card got filled out November first. So the pictures were maybe still in the camera. I think you should give Inspector Bagshawe a telephone call."
"I think you’re right," Gideon said after a moment.
He called from a red telephone booth on Lower Sea Lane and got Sergeant Fryer. Abe had been correct. They had indeed found that Randy’s camera contained film, and had developed it. To their disappointment, the pictures had all been of rocks, potsherds, and other such useless things. If Gideon wanted them, he could have them. Inspector Bagshawe had to pass through Charmouth on his way from work and would no doubt be glad to drop them off at the Queen’s Armes. Would eight o’clock or thereabouts be convenient? Eight o’clock, Gideon said, would be perfect.
Abe nodded with satisfaction when Gideon hung up and told him. "Good," he said, stopping under a sedate sign that read Dampiers of Charmouth. Licensed Grocers. Provision Merchants. "Maybe we’ll find out something. Now I got to buy what goes into the guggle-muggle, and then maybe I can get Nate to have a bite before the meeting."
TEN minutes later Gideon was hammering on the door of the Queen’s Armes, hoping that Julie was inside and could hear him. Andy and his wife, he’d remembered too late, had gone off shopping again, and Gideon had neglected to take his key with him. Abe, who probably had one, was of course at the Cormorant, pouring his horrific concoction into poor Nate. Whether it sobered him up or not, Gideon thought, it would surely cure him of any incipient tendency toward alcoholism.
As far as he knew, there were no other guests at the hotel to come to his rescue, and the George, which looked so inviting across the street, would not be open until five, thereby ruling out the expedient of a cozy pint before the fire. Gideon was just beginning to feel sorry for himself when the heavy door swung inward. Paul Arbuckle stood there, looking, as usual, surprised and gently perturbed.
"Well, hi, Gideon."
"Paul—I thought you weren’t due back until tomorrow."
"No, getting back from Dijon is complicated. I had to leave there today." His eyes brightened. "Boy, Gideon, we came up with another Acheulian scraper, and some worked Dama clactonia bones. It’s fantastic! You ought to come and see it!"
Gideon, envying him, smiled. "How about letting me in? It’s a little chilly out here."
"Sorry." Arbuckle laughed and stood aside.
They walked down the long entry corridor, lined with dark wooden walls, still redolent of cedar after five hundred years. Gideon stopped opposite the Tudor Room.
"Listen, Paul, have you taken any official action on this mess yet?"
"No, not till tomorrow."
"Good. Are you free at seven o’clock tonight?—eight o’clock, rather?"
"Yes, why?"
"There’s going to be a meeting of the whole crew here in the sitting room. Something’s come up that you’re going to want to hear about."
"What?"
"Well, I made a promise that I’d keep the thing under wraps until then," Gideon said, feeling silly, "but you’re going to want to rethink the action against Nate when you hear about it."
"And it’s a secret?" Arbuckle looked doubtfully at Gideon, then broken into his doughy smile. "All right, I guess I can wait till eight. But don’t get your hopes up too high. Nate really has behaved like a fool. Robyn believes he should be drummed out of the corps entirely, and… well, to be perfectly frank, I think the poor dumb bastard has it coming." He colored slightly at this excess. "I don’t know what your surprise is, but I hope it’s a good one."
"It’s a good one," Gideon said. Nate might be a poor dumb bastard, but at least he wasn’t a dishonest, fraudulent dumb bastard, and that ought to count for something.
"NO," Julie called from the bathroom, "I never heard you knocking. I was washing my hair." She came out, with a towel wrapped turban-style around her head, her pretty face freshly scrubbed. She was one of those people who look clean when they’re dirty, and when she was newly washed she positively glowed. "What are you looking for?"
Gideon was on his knees and elbows, poking about under the bed. "My tennis shoes," he said. He got up, went to the bureau in the corner, and looked through the drawers for a second time. "I thought I’d wearthem on ourwalk tonight in case it’s still muddy; they’ll be easy to wash." He stood looking around the room, hands on his hips. "Now where the heck are they? Or did I bring them with me at all?"
Standing before the mirror, Julie tucked her blouse neatly into her gray slacks. "Yes, Gideon," she said patiently, "you were wearing them this morning. When you couldn’t find your slippers."
"Well, I found my slippers. They were under the bed. But my tennis shoes are gone. Don’t bother looking in the closet," he said as she went to it, "I’ve already looked in there."
"But you don’t always see things when you look."
"I’m telling you they’re not there," Gideon grumbled. "I may be a little absentminded when I’m thinking about something important, but—"
With her head still in the closet, Julie stuck out an arm and waggled a large, white, blue-trimmed tennis shoe.
"Sonofagun, that wasn’t there two minutes ago," Gideon said.
Julie laughed. "All I can see is this one. We’ll find the other one after dinner. You know, you’re sure lucky you have me to take care of you. What did you do before you found me?"
He came up behind her and wrapped her in his arms. "God only knows," he said.
EIGHTEEN
SINCE Abe was ministering to Nate and Arbuckle was having dinner in a Lyme Regis restaurant, they had the cozy dining room to themselves. Gideon was able to put Stonebarrow Fell out of his mind, and they enjoyed a relaxed, dreamy meal.
Then, after another unsuccessful search for the missing sneaker, they walked out to Dyne Meadow. At the end of Barr’s Lane, they turned off the flashlight that Hinshore had lent them, and tried to edge gingerly past Bowser’s pen, but of course the thing came bounding out, throwing himself hysterically against the chain-link fence.
Once past the formidable hindrance, however, they walked to the meadow and found the big log they had sat on before, damp now in the evening dew. All that was left of the day was a thin, ruddy streak in the west, against which a rolling shoulder of hillside and the ravage silhouette of an ancient stone barn stood out as crisply as an artificial ho
rizon in a planetarium. The rest of the sky was black and as yet moonless, with only a few dim stars, so that they could see little of the meadow around them. A knee-high fog hung over the ground, wispy and vaporous, like mist onstage in a play. The only sounds were the thin plashing of an unseen stream and the soughing of breeze-stirred branches.
In a few minutes the northern sky grew lighter, and then the top of a stupendous orange moon rose behind distant trees and swam up with marvelous speed. At the first sight of it, Julie gasped and reached for Gideon’s hand. He put his other arm around her and pulled her closer, and she leaned her head on his shoulder. He could smell the clean fragrance of her hair and, more faintly, that sweet, damp, grassy bouquet of rural England. How adolescent this was, he thought, and how heart-wrenching perfect. He sat as still as he could, wanting nothing to change, and watched the moon, as three-dimensional as an enormous golf ball, float upward, paling to a cool alabaster and shrinking as it rose.
When he first heard the sound, he hardly noticed it—a distant, deep tolling like the pealing of a great, faraway bell. And then, when it finally did register, it was not in the neatly organized, orderly convolutions of the cortex, but somewhere deep in the dark and brutish brain stem that he perceived it. Before he even knew what it was he heard, the skin on the back of his neck raised itself, in obedience to primeval laws, and sent a long shiver crawling down his spine. He leaped to his feet, turning in the direction of the sound.
Julie jumped up too. "What is it?" she said, her voice hollow. "Oh, my God—the dog?"
For it was unquestionably the dog, and he was unquestionably loose and closing on them, his frenzied baying nearer now. Speechless, they stared toward the tortured, echoing howl. The moon was behind them, throwing some light; they could see before them about a hundred feet of misty meadow, and beyond that the edge of a beech spinney through which the path from Barr’s Lane came.
Paralyzed, his blood like cold sludge in his veins, Gideon stood stupefied, mindlessly waiting. Now, in addition to the wild, swelling howl, there was a rapid, rustling patter, and with the new sound Gideon suddenly found he could move again. He bent, looking desperately for anything that would serve as a weapon, and picked up the weathered stub of a thick branch, as big around as a loaf of bread. Gripping the damp, heavy wood, he turned toward the awful sounds and moved in front of Julie, who stood as if petrified.