Twenty Blue Devils

Bertaud, crisp and dapper, looked down on him from what seemed to be a very great height.

'No doubt,” he said.

'Give us one more minute,” John said. “One lousy minute, that's all we ask.'

'And what will happen in one more minute?'

'Doc'Il prove to you we're right.'

Gideon winced. Thanks, John.

'By all means, then,” Bertaud said, “continue.'

* * * *

It took five minutes, not one, of painstaking scraping and probing, but at the end of that time Gideon picked a last bit of tissue off with his fingernails and looked up from his knees with a sense of satisfaction.

'Now then,” he said, shifting instinctively into professorial gear. Bertaud moved in closer and leaned over Gideon and John, his hands on his knees. The big Tahitian cop, on the other hand, appeared to be happier keeping his distance.

'As you see, some of the smaller bones have come loose—” He gestured at four terminal phalanges, heaped together like miniature arrowheads. “—but the dirt and the ligaments have held the rest of the hand together pretty well. These, here, are the metacarpals, the bones that form the body of the hand; the fingers themselves start here.'

'We are seeing the palm?” Bertaud asked.

'Yes, the palm. And can you see this little notch near the head of the second metacarpal—this one, the one that leads to the first finger—and then this notch a little more distal on the third metacarpal, and then this groove on the first phalanx of the fifth digit's—'

'No, I see nothing,” Bertaud snapped. “Bones have many natural grooves and notches. They all look very much the same. Make your point, please.'

'In English,” added John.

'Does anybody have a knife?” Gideon asked.

At a nod from Bertaud, the Tahitian took a Swiss Army knife from his pocket and handed it to Gideon, who opened it to its largest blade, about four inches long, and gently laid it, edge down, across the skeletal palm. It fit so perfectly into the line of notches that when he let go of the knife it remained upright, lodged in the bones.

He looked up. “There are no such natural grooves, Colonel. These are defense wounds.'

Bertaud peered intently at the knife, eyes keen, lips set. It didn't look as if he was taking this very well. Gideon carefully lifted the knife from the bone, laid it across his own palm in approximately the same position, and closed his fist around the blade. When he opened it fifteen seconds later for Bertaud's inspection there was an indentation in his skin, running from the webbing between his thumb and forefinger, diagonally across the palm, and onto the bottom portion of his little finger.

'Ho!” John exulted, and then, just in case Bertaud failed to comprehend: “That's just where those maggots were, remember?'

'That son of a bitch,” was Bertaud's surprising response. He walked a few paces off and stared fretfully into the jungle.

Gideon and John looked at each other and shrugged. It was nice to have the colonel ticked off at somebody else for a change.

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Chapter 21

* * * *

With the help of two more men from Bertaud's office, it took only an hour to get the remains up from the grave. At Gideon's request, Bertaud had gotten a thin, flexible panel of sheet metal from a shop in Papeete, and they used it to slide under the body and lift it all at once. This was done successfully, although it did disarticulate at the pelvis and skull, and a few additional bits and pieces came loose as well. Along with displaced odds and ends—the left patella, a few phalanges—that were located with the aid of a sieve, these were placed in paper bags, and by 4 P.M. all of the existing mortal remains of Brian Scott were lying on a table in the autopsy room located in the basement of the Centre Hospitalier Territorial on Papeete's avenue Georges Clemenceau. There Dr. Viennot, the police physician, had been waiting to perform the autopsy, but after one look at the body he took a thin, black, crooked cigar from his mouth and laughed.

I hereby certify that this man is dead and has been so for some considerable time,” he said in French. “Beyond that'— this to Gideon—'he's all yours, colleague, and welcome to him.'

'When can you have a report ready?” Bertaud asked when the doctor had gone.

I haven't been invited to consult yet, was the answer that sprang to mind, but better to let well enough alone. Bertaud was irritated enough as it was. “What's left of the soft tissue will have to come off first,” he said.

'And that will take how long?'

That was the problem. Ordinarily, with chemical help, it took four or five days to deflesh and properly clean a skeleton, but Gideon intended to be on his way home by that time, not working in this bleak, sterile, windowless room. On the other hand, this particular corpse had made substantial headway on its own toward becoming a skeleton, and with a little extra attention the process might be speeded up considerably.

'We're going to have to cook him down some first,” he said. “Can I get a vat or something to do that in?'