Murder in the Queen's Armes

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SEVENTEEN

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IT was apparent that Leon sensed something was wrong the moment Gideon told him he wanted to speak with him. Quietly, he stepped away from the group at the dig and trailed Gideon to the workroom with the anxious air of an eight-year-old following his father out to the woodshed.

'I want to ask you something about the Poundbury skull,” Gideon said as soon as they sat down at the table, “and I think you'd better consider very carefully before you answer it.'

Leon's hand darted to his short golden beard, tugging at it under his chin. “The P-P-Poundbury skull?'

Gideon was finally onto something real. It was the first time he'd seen Leon genuinely ruffled. “Did you take the Poundbury calvarium from the Dorchester Museum,” he said, sounding to himself very much like Inspector Bagshawe at his most orotund, “bury it here at Stonebarrow Fell, and then lead Nate to it?'

'Lead him to it? What do you m-mean, lead him to it?'

Gideon took the roll of Polos from his jacket pocket and slapped it onto the table. Leon's left eyelid twitched and then began to quiver, and the color drained from his face as suddenly as if someone had pulled a plug. A muscle leaped at the side of his throat. It was extremely quiet in the shed. The metal walls creaked gently, expanding in the afternoon sunlight. Someone had been gluing pottery not long ago, and the air was sharp with acetone.

'Yes,” Leon said, so faintly that the whispered, sibilant s was all that could be heard.

Gideon was surprised. He didn't quite know what he had been expecting, but it wasn't a flat admission.

'To make Nate look bad?” he asked quietly. “To get him out of your hair?'

'Yes,” Leon said again, more audibly this time. His eyelid still trembled slightly, and now it drooped stubbornly halfway over the eye. He tilted his head slightly back to look out from under it. “W-what are you going to do?'

'Leon, there's only one thing to do. Everyone concerned in this has to be told.'

Leon lunged forward in his chair, his clenched fists coming down hard on the table. “Gideon, please! I n-n-never meant to go this far—I'm begging you...!'

'It's got to be done, Leon.'

'But what w-will happen to me?'

'I don't know. When we're done here, I'm going to go down and see Nate. I want him to know first, and we'll see where he wants to take it from there.” Assuming, of course, that he was sober enough to make any sense of it.

Leon dropped his head and massaged his eyes hard. “Oh, God,” he whispered, “I can't believe this is happening.'

Paradoxically, Gideon was sorry for this intelligent, articulate, advantaged young man, now reduced to twitching and stuttering, who had cold-bloodedly and deceitfully tried to ruin his gullible professor. Nate's career, it now seemed, might be salvaged, but Leon, with all his bright promise, was through in anthropology. An episode like this would never be forgiven. Nor should it, Gideon reminded himself sternly.

'Who else was in on this?” he asked on a hunch. Professor Hall-Waddington had mentioned an American student “slouching about” Pummy's case, and that didn't sound like the quick, graceful Leon.

'What?” Leon asked dully, his face still pale, his eyelid still drooping.

'Was anyone else involved?'

Leon sighed again. “Uh ... no.'

'I understand the ‘no.’ What does the ‘uh’ mean?'

Leon said nothing.

'Come on, Leon. Who else?'

Leon finally had his eyelid under control. “Randy Alexander,” he said, not looking at Gideon.

Randy. Gideon didn't know if he was surprised or not, or if it made sense or not. On the whole, he thought it did. If nothing else, it forged that missing link, that connection Abe had foreseen, between the Poundbury affair and the murder. But beyond that, Gideon was almost as much in the dark as ever. Just what was the connection? Had Randy been killed because he'd threatened to expose the hoax? Had he in fact threatened to expose it? Had he gotten cold feet, and then tried to lie his way out of it before he got into trouble, first with Frawley and then with Gideon?

Gideon made a slight head-shaking motion. The more he found out, the less clear—if that were possible— everything became. “Why was Randy in on it?” he asked. “The same reason you were?'

'Randy? No, he just did it for a lark, for the fun of it. I talked him into it. It was easy.'

That fit in with what Gideon knew about Randy. “Leon,” he said, “this throws a new light on Randy's murder.'

'His murder! I don't—you don't th-th-think I had anything to do with that? Jesus...” His voice petered out in a plaintive squeak.

'I'm not sure. Did you?'

'No!' Leon said. “I swear! I'm telling you the truth. How can y-y-y-you th-th-th...” In