'Yessir,' the sergeant said, and disappeared.
The inspector went back to his table, balled Dr. Forsythe's unreadable autopsy report, and pitched it against the wall.
16
'The archaeologist must he something or a detective, in the sense that he must extract irom the site enough evidence to allow him to conclude what happened there, when it happened, and to whom. If the archaeologist is also an historian (and the best are), he weaves this inrormation into a larger narrative which allows him to conclude why it happened.'
An hour later, Charles was seated in Sir Archibald Fairfax's field tent at the excavation, declining an offer of tea. 'Thank you,' he said, 'but I just had a cup with Inspector Wain wright.'
'The police!' Sir Archibald exclaimed, concerned. 'My dear boy, is everything quite all right?'
'Oh, quite,' Charles said. 'I dropped off my photographs of yesterday's find.'
'With the police?' Sir Archibald asked, puzzled. 'But I fail to see-' His face cleared. 'Oh, to be sure. The dead man in the dig. I'd forgotten. We made a discovery yesterday afternoon-another mosaic. Drove the miserable wretch straight out of my mind.'
'It's the miserable wretch I've come about, actually,' Charles said. 'I've been to the excavation after more photographs, but the place is a muddle. Yesterday's police work
was altogether negligent. No attention paid to roping off the site or maintaining proper custody of evidence.'
'What did y'expect?' Sir Archibald asked pettishly. 'Bad mannered as bison, police. Brainless. Tramping about, never minding where they put their boots. Almost as bad as women,' he added, 'whisking along in their deuced skirts. Shifty as a squadron of street sweepers.'
'It's hardly the fault of the police, I suppose,' Charles reflected. ' 'Not much training, little education, no money for equipment or adequate staff. Not held in high regard by society.'
'And not a thought in their heads for the preservation of history,' Sir Archibald went on, as if Charles hadn't spoken. 'Police or women.'
'I suppose you can hardly expect them to have a proper scientific attitude,' Charles said, half to himself. 'Their outlook is dictated by tradition. Scarcely disposed to the progressive point of view.'
'Puts me in mind of the way our business was done twenty years ago-still done, on most sites.' Sir Archibald stood up and started to stride back and forth. 'No attention to the proper documentation of artifacts, to stratigraphic records, to analysis. Does no good to dig, if carelessness results in the loss of proper in situ information. Like that great oaf Schlie-mann, you recall, the idiot who destroyed Troy while he was digging it up. Bloody treasure hunter, yanking artifacts out of the ground like turnips. Once something's dug up, it can't be put back.' He raised his hand in an imperial gesture. 'Our paramount responsibility is to extract every ounce of information that the ground can reveal. Without that, what's in the museum is of no more worth than bits salvaged out of the dustbin.'
'Just so,' Charles said hastily, remembering that Sir Archibald's animosity toward Heinrich Schliemann could lead to an hour's impassioned discourse. And while Sir Archibald's remarks opened several intriguing parallels between archaeology and criminal detection, he needed to get on with the business.
'I have a question for you, Sir Archibald,' he said, 'regarding vehicular access to the dig. Specifically, the cart track behind the spot where the body was found. What vehicles might be expected to use that track?'
'None, sir,' Sir Archibald said firmly. 'Horses are as destructive as police-worse, when one considers the size of the beast. Once when I was working at Mycenae, a horse went berserk and crashed into a field tent, smashing a grand lot of urns, not to mention two fine young archaeologists. No, no, horses won't do at all. Debris is removed to the spoil heaps by barrow.'
'I see,' Charles said. 'So any hoofprints-'
'Don't tell me that you have found hoofprints!'
'I'm afraid so. Along the cart track.'
Sir Archibald shook his head. 'Patrols,' he muttered. 'There will have to be patrols, day and night. And a cordon, and-'
Charles stood up. 'I leave it to you, Sir Archibald,' he said. 'I am confident that you will take every measure in your power to protect the site from intrusion.'
'Oh, I shall, sir,' Sir Archibald said, with great fervor. 'You can depend upon it.' He sat down heavily. 'Police,' he muttered. 'Horses.' He dropped his head into his hands. 'Next thing you know, it'll be women.'
'Excuse me, sir.' Charles did not rum, but he recognized the voice from the doorway behind him. It belonged to the student archaeologist who had started the whole thing.
Sir Archibald looked up. 'What is it?' he asked testily. 'Well, well, speak up. Not another dead man, I hope?'
'No,' the student said. 'Actually, it's a woman.'
Sir Archibald leaped to his feet, his face filled with horror. 'A dead woman?' he cried.
'Oh, no, sir,' the student said hastily. 'She's very much alive.'
Charles glanced over his shoulder. The first thing he saw was a pair of ankle-high black boots and a dark serge divided skirt, almost like full-cut trousers, so short as to show an inch of black stocking. Startled, his gaze traveled upward-past
slim dark jacket, white shirt, manly tie-and came to rest on the woman's face, topped by a mound of undisciplined auburn hair.
It was Kathryn Ardleigh.
17
'O let us love our occupations, Bless the squire and his relations, Live upon our daily rations, And always know our proper stations.'
An' bless this food to our use an' us in Thy service,' Mudd said. 'Amen.'
' 'men,' chorused the servants obediently, from benches — arranged along both sides of the staff dining table.
From her place at the foot of the table, opposite Mudd, Cook saw Pocket slip a boiled egg under his jersey. 'Pocket,' she remarked, 'if yer'll be so good as t' put that egg on yer plate, Mr. Mudd'll ladle th' soup.'
Reddening, Pocket-at seventeen, he served as groom, doubled as footman and coachman, and did a great deal of the garden work beside-placed the egg on his plate. 'Thought I'd 'ave a bit o' snack a'ter,' he muttered. 'Didn't mean nothin', Mrs. Pratt.'
'That's all right, Pocket,' Amelia comforted him. 'Th'
times is long t' tea. I gets hungry m'self, and I don't have yer heavy work.'
Cook looked down the table. The household staff was gathered for the midday meal in the servants' hall, a damp room lacking the comforts of fire and carpet, with a patch of mildew the very shape of Ireland on the wall beside the door. Cook blackly credited the room's cheerlessness to Jaggers, who, when she ordered the carpet
