Murder in the Queen's Armes

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 pate 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 pate, 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?'