Old Bones

after all, and if they kept their noise to a minimum, used the back entrances, and were generally discreet, why, no impropriety would be done.

Beatrice deferred and led the workmen around the kitchen entrance. Rene was well-pleased with the results of his timely and authoritative intercession, but before his second cup of coffee had been drunk the foreman was back. His trousers and sleeves were powdered with fine gray dust.

'Monsieur?” He approached, a great deal more diffident than he'd been before; actually wringing his hands, in fact. Had he not left his beret in the cellar he would certainly have been twisting it. The toothpick was not to be seen.

'Monsieur...we've found...in the cellar ...we've found...'

'What, what?” asked Rene, alarmed.

The foreman swallowed and took another step forward. “In the cellar ...there's a...a...'

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SIX

* * * *

'A skeleton?” Sergeant Denis stopped doodling. He sat straight up in his hard plastic chair and pressed the telephone closer to his ear with his shoulder. “Did you say a skeleton?'

'Yes...Well, that is, not a whole one. There's no ... no head.'

'No head. I see. Monsieur du Rocher, is it?'

'Yes, Rene du Rocher.” This time Denis wrote it down. “And you found it in the cellar?'

'Yes. That is, the workmen did. It was buried in the floor, under the stones. It's been, er, wrapped in paper.'

'And you're certain it's human?'

A pause. “Well, we think so. Mr. Fougeray, my—one of my guests—said it was.'

'A doctor, this Mr. Fougeray?'

'Oh, no. He owns—er, he's a butcher.” “A butcher,” Denis said, writing dutifully.

'He said if it wasn't a person, then it might be a large monkey of some kind, perhaps a gorilla.'

Oh, yes, Denis thought. A gorilla buried in the cellar of the Manoir de Rochebonne. Wrapped in paper. Well, it had been a foolish question.

'Monsieur du Rocher, please touch nothing—'

'Oh, no, of course not.'

'—and lock up the cellar.'

'Lock it up? I'm not sure there's a lock.'

'Close the door, then.” Denis paused. “There is a door?'

'Yes. Well, I'm sure there must be.'

'Close it then, and don't allow anyone in. I'll have someone there shortly.'

'Fleury,” Denis said when he replaced the receiver, “go on out to the Manoir de Rochebonne—you know the place?'

Fleury looked up from the well-thumbed office copy of Lui. “Near Ploujean?'

'Yes. Someone's found a skeleton in the cellar. I want you to keep it secure until the chief gets there. And take some statements.'

'Fine,” Fleury said, rolling up the magazine and wedging it into its place behind the A-G file cabinet. He stretched. Nothing ever surprised Fleury very much. “You're really going to call Monsieur Giscard on this? It's probably just a goat.'

Denis looked up. “A goat? Why a goat?'

Fleury shrugged. “Why a person?'

Sergeant Denis eyed him. He had never understood Fleury very well. “People don't bury goats in cellars.” Or gorillas either.

Fleury shrugged. “Isn't Monsieur Giscard at his convention in St. Malo all week?'

'It's not a convention, it's an institute, very scientific, with professors giving lectures. But he'll have to be interrupted.'

Fleury grinned. “He'll probably appreciate it. He gets grumpy when he's around anyone smarter than he is.'

* * * *

FLEURY was right. Four and a half days of relentlessly abstruse scientific lectures had made Monsieur Giscard— that is, Inspector Lucien Anatole Joly—somewhat irascible. And the fact that most of the undeniably brilliant presenters were a decade or two younger than he was had not helped matters. True, there had been some high points: Gideon Oliver in particular was a lucid and engaging lecturer with, thank God, a sense of humor—an