being the third.” He smiled with the metaphor.
'Do you mean Sandra was having affairs with both of them?” This surprised Gideon. The brittle Sandra hardly seemed the sort of woman to stir up male instincts of violence or passion—not his at any rate.
'I know what you're thinking,” Bagshawe said, “but there's more involved than the young lady's charms; there's a tidy sum of money. Miss Mazur, you see, will come into a sizable inheritance on her thirtieth birthday. Both men were in grim pursuit, and each, I gather, had been unaware he had a rival. Sufficient reason for homicide, I should say, should one of them find out.'
Gideon thought it over. Leon, ambitious and bright, did seem the kind of man who wouldn't be at all averse to marrying for money. And although it might appear that Randy, coming from a wealthy family himself, had less to gain, his position had been insecure. From what Nate had said, his father had been threatening to disinherit him. It was obvious to Gideon, knowing what he knew about Randy's style of living, that Randy would have welcomed the advantages of a rich wife.
'You're saying,” he said, “that Leon might have found out about Randy and killed him?'
'Yes; without premeditation, I should think. Leon's a clever young man. If he'd planned to do Randy in, he'd choose someplace removed from the dig to do it. But I don't rule out an argument and a hot-blooded murder.'
'But where's the motive for Sandra in all that? And do you really think she could have killed Randy, even armed with a mallet? She can't weigh much more than a hundred pounds.'
Bagshawe waved dismissively. “Given the proper incentive, women have been known to kill men a great deal larger than themselves, as I'm sure you know very well. And she had an incentive. It seems she'd become disenchanted with the ways of our Randy and had, in fact, settled on the lucky Leon as her man. This, she claims, she finally told Randy, but he seems to have taken exception. He threatened to make their affair public—and a few little tidbits about certain of Miss Mazur's, ah, unusual proclivities as well.” He lowered his eyes and coughed delicately. “Well, then, Leon, you see, with his eye on a rising academic career in the Ivy League, if that's the right term, might very well bow out and find himself a more socially acceptable wife. You see?'
'I think I do, and I guess that Sandra might have a motive, all right. But why would she tell you all this?'
'She didn't, but a chambermaid at the Jug and Sceptre, where Randy was putting up, heard them shouting at each other early one morning, and told all to Sergeant Fryer—remarkable memory for details, that woman has—and with what Miss Mazur
He leaned over, tapped his pipe against a rock, blew through the stem, and put it in his pocket. “So you see, Professor, the investigation progresses satisfactorily, and there's no reason at all for you not to return to your bones.'
'I think I've just been fired,” Gideon said with a grin as Bagshawe got to his feet. “And speaking of bones, I have some questions to ask Leon about still another bone that's turned up, or rather, that hasn't turned up.'
'That's the ticket,” Bagshawe said with an amicable lack of interest.
'It's a piece of a femur that seems to have been found and then lost again. You're welcome to sit in if you like.'
Bagshawe let his expression answer for him, and very eloquent it was.
When Gideon went to the dig, he stood for a while, watching the crew work at backfilling under Abe's efficient direction. With newly informed eyes he took a good, long look at them, but Sandra seemed as drawn and hard- edged as ever, not his idea of a seductress—no matter how rich— and a pretty unlikely murderess, too, although she was a better bet for that. The rosy-cheeked Barry looked no less wholesome than ever, and Frawley no less ineffectual. And Leon, who was coolly lecturing Abe on some stratigraphic complexities, hardly fit the mold of Bagshawe's hot-blooded murderer. Cold-blooded, however . . . that might be another thing.
But when it came down to it, there was something unsatisfying, something inescapably spurious about every one of the hypotheses Bagshawe had advanced. And what about the left-handed mallet blow? None of them, after all, were left-handed. How could he fit that inescapable fact into even the few shadowy patterns that had emerged thus far? Or was he offbase in his continuing certainty that the killer was left-handed? Bagshawe disagreed with him, and Bagshawe was a pretty fair cop.
When Abe called a halt for lunch, Gideon took him aside. “Frawley says Leon never reported finding any bone.'
'Is that so?” Abe said thoughtfully. “Maybe we should have a little brown-bag talk with Leon.'
Most of the staff were taking advantage of the fine weather to eat their sack lunches on the bluff, but Leon had made for the shed. He was at the table writing a postcard, a cup of coffee beside him, when Abe and Gideon came in. He looked up, smiling.
'Hi, Abe. Hiya, Gideon.'
'Leon,” Abe said, “you wouldn't mind if we had a little talk? It shouldn't take long.'
'Not at all, Abe. Just let me finish this card or I'll never get back to it.'
Gideon went to the table in the corner to make coffee for himself and Abe. Above the hot plate, a small mirror was taped to the wall. In it he could see Leon bent over the postcard, writing slowly. There was something...
He put down the coffee jar and whirled around. “You're writing left-handed!'
There was a long, frozen moment during which Leon stared speechlessly back at Gideon, and Abe stared from one to the other. At last Leon mutely lifted the hand in which he held his pen.
It was his right hand, inarguably his right hand.
'I... sorry,” Gideon said lamely. “My mistake.'
'You were looking in the mirror,” Abe said. “You saw it backwards.'
'I guess so. Sorry,” he said again, feeling idiotic. “I don't know what I was thinking of.” But he knew very well; he had a case of left-handed mallet murderers on the brain.
'What's the big deal anyway?” Leon asked.
