Murder in the Queen's Armes

ambulated majestically to the table, where he sank confidently down onto a metal folding chair that looked alarmingly flimsy for the job. “I shouldn't be very long today, and I'll try my best not to get in the way of your scientific pursuits.'

'It's no trouble, Inspector,” Abe said. “I'm just going. Make yourself at home. Have some coffee. Gideon, when you're finished talking, you'll come join us at the dig?'

When Abe had left, Bagshawe looked at Gideon across the table with placid expectation, his big, curving cherry-wood pipe between his teeth, and his huge hands clasped loosely on the table.

'Well, I don't think I really have anything important,” Gideon said, suddenly diffident, “but I wanted to mention that the day Randy was killed there may have been some outsiders at Stonebarrow Fell after all. It's just possible that Frederick Robyn or Paul Arbuckle might have been here. They had their own keys, and Barry wouldn't be likely to consider them ‘visitors.’ Anyway, if it's okay with you, I thought I could discreetly check around—'

Bagshawe grinned. “In this case, lad, the CID, ever alert, are far ahead of you. Dr. Arbuckle was here before, all right, on an audit, but that was weeks ago, when Mr. Alexander was demonstrably alive and well. As for the afternoon of November thirteen, when he presumably ceased being either, Dr. Arbuckle was provably in Dijon, and Mr. Robyn in London. Of course, either of them might have nipped away for a few hours and slipped into Stonebarrow Fell—seen by no one—but in all honesty I don't think so. And as for your prowling about, why, if I were you I wouldn't do anything about it. Why not leave that sort of thing to us?'

A fragment of remembered conversation leaped into Gideon's mind. His eyes widened. “What did you say?'

'I said, ‘Why not leave that sort of thing to us?’ And what's wrong with that?'

'No, the sentence before that.'

Bagshawe took the pipe out of his mouth and looked oddly at Gideon. “The sentence before that? I said I wouldn't do anything about it if I were you. Merely a turn of phrase, Professor, nothing more.'

'Inspector, when Randy tried to tell me whatever it was, and I suggested he tell Frawley instead, he said, quote: ‘He wouldn't do anything about it.’ “

Bagshawe stuck the pipe back between his teeth. “He wouldn't do anything about it,” he repeated, frowning, and sat a moment longer. “So?'

'What would that mean to you?'

'That even if he told Frawley, Frawley wouldn't do anything about it, that's what it would mean.” The inspector's patience was wearing a little thin.

'Sure, that's what I thought at the time. But let's say Randy already had told Frawley—before he ever talked to me—and Frawley just refused to do anything about it. What would Randy have said to me in that case?'

'He would have said...why, he might have said the very same thing: ‘He wouldn't do anything about it.’ “ He lowered his chin to his chest and looked at Gideon with dawning appreciation. “Professor Frawley just might know what the young man was trying to tell you, mightn't he? Well, now, that's worth exploring. Do you know, I've already asked him—as I've asked everyone—if he had any idea what it might be.'

'And he said he didn't?'

'As did they all. But with Professor Frawley—ah, I had my suspicions. There was a sort of hitch, a holding back, a sidling away of the eyes, if you know what I mean.'

Gideon nodded. He knew very well.

'Well then,” Bagshawe said, “let's try again. Why don't we just go and chat Mr. Frawley up right now?'

'We?'

Bagshawe looked squarely at Gideon, not unkindly. “Professor, since it's all too apparent that you're going to be sniffing and poking about up here in any event, why, I'd be a great deal more comfortable having you doing it where I can see you. I've got enough trouble here already, and it wouldn't do to have Gideon Oliver done in under my very nose while pursuing inquiries of his own.” He huffed on the bowl of his pipe and rubbed it on his sleeve. “Think of the paperwork.'

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FIFTEEN

* * * *

THEY found Jack Frawley at the dig, completing some cross-sectional diagrams of the pits on a sheet of quadrille paper attached to a clipboard. He was wearing a shapeless, colorless canvas fisherman's hat, a decrepit old windbreaker, worn cotton jeans, and old tennis shoes. His stubby, metal-stemmed pipe, unlit, was clenched in his teeth, the bowl upside down. He was, Gideon thought, working at looking like an archaeologist. What he looked like was Monsieur Hulot.

When Bagshawe had said, “We would like a word with you, Professor Frawley,” his face had paled, and pale it remained. Bagshawe had led them—not by accident, Gideon was sure—to a flat, rocky area near the cliff edge: just about the spot from which Randy must have plummeted into the rock-encircled lagoon. Far below, the tide was in. It boomed and gurgled hollowly, as it must have done that day.

'Now, Professor,” Bagshawe began without preface, “when I asked you yesterday if you had any idea of what

Mr. Alexander had wanted to tell Professor Oliver, you said you did not.'

Frawley nodded. “I, uh, I believe I did say something to the effect that I couldn't think of anything right offhand.'

From the twitchy wobble of Frawley's eyes, Gideon knew instantly that he was lying. And he sure was that