Old Bones

'John, after the crushing this guy's bones went through, no doctor in the world would have spotted a mild case of rickets unless he did a microscopic analysis of the bone tissue. And why would Loti do that?'

'Yeah, but . . .” John shook his head with frustration. “His handwriting, what about his handwriting? There must have been things around that he signed before. You're telling me that no one ever noticed the difference in—” He stopped and fell back against the seat. “You're going to say that the paralyzed arm was the one he used to write with before the war. Aren't you?'

'I don't know, but I'll give you odds it was.'

As Gideon paid the bill and drove back out onto the N176, John watched him thoughtfully. “You're really starting to believe this stuff, aren't you?'

'God help me,” Gideon said, “I think I am.'

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EIGHTEEN

* * * *

MONT St. Michel. Everyone has seen pictures of the towering, medieval pyramid rising on its rocky island out of the sea, but no one can help being astounded at first sight of the real thing. It's like the Grand Canyon; you can look at photographs of it all your life, but the first time you stand on the rim looking down into it the words that jump to your lips are, “My God, I didn't know it looked like that!'

'Jesus H. Christ,” John said, “I didn't know it looked like that!'

They had pulled the car to the side of the road to stare at it from half a mile away at the foot of the long causeway that connects it to the nondescript town of Pontorson. It was a surprise to Gideon too. He'd been prepared for its size, for its stark beauty, for the way it twisted and rambled upwards, moving higgledy-piggledy through time: at the base, crenellated ramparts dating back to the Hundred Years’ War; in the center a colorful jumble of cramped stone houses form the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; and finally, at the top, the great abbey itself, its eighth-century core altered and enlarged a hundred times in a thousand years, yet strangely balanced and all of a piece.

What the pictures hadn't prepared him for was its raw, gray vigor. Despite the stone traceries, the spires, the arches, Mont St. Michel was rudely masculine; hard, plain, virile. The towers didn't soar, they surged and thrusted; the whole crowded rock was like a living animal, bunched, powerful, restlessly alert.

'So where's this shrine of French gastronomy?” asked John, who never stayed awed very long. “Even an omelet's starting to sound good.'

But Mere Poularde was closed until the season officially opened on April 1. So were most of the other restaurants on the Grand Rue. They worked their way up the steep, narrow street, growing increasingly pessimistic about the prospects for lunch. “We just can't come to a place like this and eat in one of these crummy fast-food places,” Gideon said, referring to the tiny shops where chilled-looking vendors sold lukewarm pizza slices and stale-looking sandwiches wrapped in plastic.

'I can,” John said, then stopped abruptly. “Hey, I just thought of something.” He chirped with laughter. “Wow.'

'What?'

'Well, Guillaume's will isn't worth a damn. Not if you're right about those bones.'

Gideon stared at him. As obvious as it was, it hadn't occurred to him. “Of course! It wasn't really Guillaume who made it out, was it? Whoever it was, he didn't have any right to give Guillaume's property away.'

'That's the way I see it,” John said, starting to walk again. “This gets weirder by the minute. All those people who got something in the will—they're not entitled to it. Boy, there's another great reason for murder right there.'

'How do you mean? How would they benefit from killing him?'

'Not him, you.'

'Oh,” Gideon said. “Me.'

He shook his head wearily. There were too many motives; that was the problem, just as Joly had said, and they kept coming up with new ones. If the invalid will really was behind everything in some way—and that made considerable sense—then any of the heirs who knew Guillaume hadn't really been Guillaume might well have wanted Gideon dead. But did any of them know? And even if they did, where did Claude come into it? Why kill him? Not because he'd threatened to challenge the will, certainly; Bonfante had made it clear that he couldn't have brought it off.

Was is possible that Claude knew about Guillaume's murder in 1942 and someone killed him to keep him quite? Not very likely. If he'd known he'd have told a long time ago, instead of fuming for forty years over a will he knew to be fraudulent.

And what about the pretend-Guillaume, with only a year to live? Assuming he was murdered (which even Gideon was beginning to have doubts about), who would benefit in any important way by moving up his death a few months?

No, there was something more than the will involved; more than vengeful hatred of Claude too. Something they were all missing, something at the heart of it that would make everything fall into place. That it had to do in some way with the dark affairs in the cellar of Rochebonne in 1942 he had little doubt. But what, exactly?

'Have you noticed,” he muttered to John, “that the more we figure out, the less we seem to know?'

At this point, happily, they came upon a sight that warmed them both: an open restaurant, a mellowed sixteenth-century inn with a hanging, filigreed metal sign over the door. Le Mouton Blanc, it said, and underneath, appropriately, was a picture of a contented-looking white sheep. It was the kind of place about which John might have had doubts, but as they approached it, two people came out, and the aroma of