Twenty Blue Devils

What was true of eggshells was true of skulls. A crack could not leap across open space to the far side of an aperture and continue, no matter how narrow the cleft. And in the skull before them, as he now pointed out to the enchanted Viennot, two of the cracks coming from the bullet hole were clearly cut off by cracks radiating from the depressed fracture. Therefore, the depressed fracture already existed when the bullet entered; the crushing blow to Tari's head had come before he was shot, not after.

'Before he was shot, yes,” echoed Viennot, nodding. “And that means...'

That meant that Rudy had not merely been forgetful, or unobservant, or overexcited in reporting what had happened. Rudy, seemingly so helpless and distraught, had been lying through his teeth, coolly and calculatingly.

'This explains the incomplete exit wound on the other side too,” Gideon said, reconstructing the scene in his mind (minus the blood and brains). “Tari already had his skull cracked open before he was shot. He must have been lying on the floor unconscious or maybe barely conscious. Rudy bent down, put the gun next to Tari's right temple —'

'Yes, that's right, a point-blank wound.'

'—and pulled the trigger. The pressure of the floor kept the bullet from exiting completely from the other side of his head.'

He had been staring at the skullcap all the time he spoke, but now he looked up to meet Viennot's eyes. “He murdered him,” he said with the dreamy satisfaction of a man who had put in a hell of a good morning's work. Not that it wasn't about time he'd done something useful.

'Colleague,” said Viennot, leaning back in his chair, “I salute you.'

* * * *

Colonel Bertaud contained his admiration more successfully than Dr. Viennot had ('You're certainly full of surprises this morning.'), but he quickly grasped the significance of the new information that Gideon had brought him, which was all that Gideon was really interested in.

'Thibault, call the hospital,” he said into his telephone in rapid French. “Find out what room Mr. Rudolph Druett is in. And bring my car around.'

'I do see one difficulty, however,” he told Gideon in that silky voice. “Not insurmountable but a difficulty all the same.” He turned his swivel chair so that he could look out on the avenue Bruat. It was a little after 9 A.M. Papeete's rush-hour traffic, such as it was, was settling down. Only a few motor scooters and bicycles were on the street. “How do you propose that we should account,” he asked thoughtfully, “for Tari's having struck his head on the hearth in the first place? Tari was a giant, yes? Rudy is a slight man, no more than half his weight. Is it conceivable that he could knock him down or throw him to the floor?'

'I don't think he did. My guess is Tari never did hit his head on the hearth; that the wound was caused by something else.'

The colonel swiveled back to face Gideon. “But we have his blood, his hair, on the hearth. Our laboratory confirms it.'

'Here's what I think happened, Colonel: I think Rudy clubbed Tari with something—maybe with a poker from the fireplace. Maybe it was premeditated, or maybe there was an argument, I don't know. Something. Anyway, Rudy hit him over the head from behind, then shot him to make sure he was dead, then smeared his head against the hearth—and banged his own head against the wall a little too—to back up his story about Tari's trying to kill him and how the whole thing was an accident, and so on.'

He glanced at the skullcap on Bertaud's desk (Gideon had carried it from the hospital in a paper sack). “If you think about the placement of the fracture—high up, back, and on the right side—you'll see it's just where you'd expect it to be if Tari had been crept up on from behind by a right-handed assailant.'

'Ah, is that so?'

'Definitely.” Then after a moment: “Well, it's also where you'd expect it to be if Tari had hit his head on the hearth in falling, so it's hardly proof of anything, but at least it fits. But you know,” he added as the thought occurred to him, “if I could have a look at that hearth and the poker and anything else along those lines, I just might be able to match one of them to the fracture in the skull. If nothing else, I ought to be able to rule some things out. Do you—'

Bertaud's telephone buzzed. Bertaud picked it up, listened with the faintest tck of irritation, and replaced it in its cradle.

'He's not there,” he said to Gideon. “He was released this morning.'

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Chapter 29

* * * *

Clearly, Nelson Lau was on pins and needles. “I suppose you're wondering why I asked you to come and see me,” he said, twiddling with his ballpoint pen.

'Kind of,” John said.

'I trust it wasn't any trouble.” He turned the pen with his fingers, round and round, tapping it on the desk at each half-rotation.

'Nope.'

'It's just that I thought it would be better to talk here at the Papeete office, rather than back at the Hut. It's more private.” Round and round went the pen. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. “Don't you agree?” Tap.

'Nelson,” John said, “how about just telling me what you want to tell me? Also, if you don't stop fooling with that pen I'm gonna rip your arm off.'