Murder in the Queen's Armes

'Terribly sorry to interrupt, Inspector, but would you have any objection to my sending Miss Mazur along home? She's on the near edge of hysteria. I'd like to give her a sedative and see that she's put to bed.'

'Damn,” Bagshawe said, “I want to talk to them all. You haven't given her anything yet?'

'No.'

'Is she capable of answering a few questions, then?'

'Oh, yes. It's just that she's working herself up into a bit of a state. It appears that she and the young man were—'

'Yes, I know. Damn. Well, let me talk to her for five minutes, and then you can have her, all right?'

'Yes, I think so. Only I wouldn't put too much pressure on her right now.'

Merrill left and Bagshawe said, “Dr. Arbuckle, would you mind if we continued this later?'

'Again, you mean? Yes, sure,” Arbuckle said unenthusiastically. “Certainly.'

* * * *

GIDEON was not long in following Arbuckle from the room. He had already noticed on his own that Sandra was uncomfortably close to some sort of emotional histrionics— all bony, exaggerated motions, stiff-fingered smoking, and quavery grimaces—and he had no wish to sit in on her interview. Anyway, he doubted if he'd be much help; he certainly hadn't contributed to Arbuckle's interrogation, and had, in fact, felt both extraneous and intrusive. No, he'd be happy to leave the murder investigation to Bagshawe at this point. Besides, he wanted to have a look at the photographs from Randy's camera and see if that human femur, left, partial was to be found.

Bagshawe accepted his withdrawal with his usual equanimity, and Gideon went into the sitting room with the manila envelope of photographs. This rectangular room had been tacked onto the original structure a few centuries earlier, first to serve as a Methodist school, then as an antique shop, and finally as a second lounge for hotel guests. It was a pleasant, intimate place, much like the living room of a private home, with couches and armchairs, a television set, and cases of books.

The atmosphere was anything but intimate when he entered. Frawley was sitting in one of the armchairs, chewing his lip and looking wretched. Barry sat in the chair next to him, with an open magazine on his lap, staring nervously into space, no doubt anticipating his turn in the dining room. Arbuckle was in a third chair, near the silent television set, occasionally and inattentively turning a page of a large picture book in his lap: A History of Dorset. Near him Nate sprawled, propped upright against the back of a couch like a board, his skinny legs out straight before him and his hands thrust into his pockets. He looked less intoxicated but more ill than when Gideon had seen him last, and Gideon suspected he'd been happier before the administration of the guggle-muggle.

On the other couch, Abe and Julie sat together, talking quietly. On the fringes of the room, Andy Hinshore was bustling nervously about, straightening things, brushing off spotless tabletops, and generally fussing. A tray of tea things and several bottles of beer were on one of the tables, untouched. Gideon pulled a chair up to Julie and Abe, sat down, and opened the manila envelope.

'These are Randy's photographs,” he explained.

They both looked uncomprehendingly at him.

'It was your idea, Abe. The photographs that were in Randy's camera—we wanted to see if that femur turned up in them.'

'Oh,” Abe said, and Julie smiled blankly, just with her lips. Gideon couldn't blame them for their scant interest. An inconsistency on a find card didn't seem terribly important at the moment.

They were large black-and-white photographs, about eight inches by twelve, and Gideon began to go slowly through them. It took him a little while to figure out what he was looking at, because the backgrounds seemed unfamiliar. But he soon realized that they were pictures not of the wedge-shaped trenches, but of the square test pit that had been dug near the shed and then abandoned. If he remembered correctly, it had been sunk near the beginning of the month, so at least the timing was right; Leon's find card had been dated November 1.

In the twelfth photograph he found what he was looking for. The four pictures that followed showed different perspectives of the same object, but there was no mistaking what it was: the head, neck, and a little of the greater trochanter of a human left femur, lying in situ in the pit.

He handed it to Abe.

'What do you know?” Abe's interest perked up at once. “So it's real. And a steatite carving it's definitely not, which means Leon was lying about it.'

'It looks like it.” Gideon turned in his chair. “Paul,” he called, “didn't you say you visited the site around the beginning of the month?'

'What?” Arbuckle surfaced vaguely from his book. “Yes, that's right; on an audit.'

'Do you remember anyone turning up a human femur?” He waved the photographs at him.

Arbuckle shook his head. “I was only there a couple of hours.'

Gideon returned to the photographs. Something about the look of that bone was vaguely bothersome, but what? It was human, all right, and yet... what was wrong with it? It was a little too heavy, a little too—

The thought shook him like a jolt of electricity. This was from the test pit—the test pit! Not the Bronze Age barrow but the test pit, with its Riss glacial layer sixteen inches below the surface! This bone had been found at twenty-five inches, so it was probably two hundred thousand years old or even more; from the very dawn of Homo sapiens, the obscure, Middle Pleistocene dawn over which anthropologists still quarreled—and from which nothing but some artifacts and a few scattered, fragmentary cranial remains had ever been recovered; never— until now—a leg bone.

'Good God!” he exclaimed without meaning to.

'What is it?” Julie said, her hand at her throat. “What's the matter?'

'It's nothing,” Gideon said quickly. “That is, nothing about the murders. But this bone—it's fantastic! It's a Second Interglacial femur!'