Skeleton Dance

pellet.'

'An air gun pellet?” Gideon said incredulously. “I've never heard of anyone killed by an air gun.” Actually, he had; a teenager accidentally shot through the eye so that the pellet had lodged in his brain, but in this case they were dealing with penetration of skin, of muscle, of bone. “I didn't think it was possible.'

'No, no, not an air gun, an air rifle. This is not from one of your—what is it, your toys that shoot, what are they called . . .'

'BB's.'

'Yes, BB's. No, my friend, an air rifle is a different matter—a weapon, not a toy. Equipped, for example, with a sophisticated gas-compression system and the proper ammunition, it can be quite powerful, quite accurate; as a hunting weapon, for example.'

'I didn't know that,” Gideon said, happy to give Joly a chance to do some showing off of his own.

The pellet having been duly photographed in situ, Joly stooped, picked it up, and placed it on his palm. “I believe this is what is called a magnum, probably a 6.35-mm. pellet, or perhaps only 5 mm. Larger and heavier than most, but of course quite light compared to your average firearm bullet.” He closed his eyes while he hefted it. “I doubt if it weighs even fifty grains,” he said with a significant look at Gideon.

'Oh?” Gideon said, completely out of his element by now.

'That would suggest,” Joly explained, “that he was shot from close range, certainly less than twenty meters and probably a great deal less, considering that bone was penetrated. Such a light projectile would lose energy very quickly, regardless of the initial muzzle velocity, you see.'

'I see,” Gideon said. “That would also explain why it didn't make it all the way through.'

Joly nodded his agreement. “Very good, Durand,” he said with satisfaction, giving the strange pellet to the officer to bag.

He brushed invisible dirt from spotless hands and smiled, pleased with the day's efforts. “Come, shall we go and meet your Julie?'

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Chapter 6

* * * *

'Julie, this is my old friend and valued colleague, Inspector Joly. Lucien, allow me to present my wife.'

Joly bowed, straight-backed and stiff. “A great pleasure, madame.'

'Please, call me Julie.'

'Yes? Thank you, and please call me . . .'

Ahum, thought Gideon.

'. . . ahum, Lucien.'

* * * *

The soft gurgle of the nearby river floated through the open French windows of the restaurant Au Vieux Moulin, set, as its name implied, in an ancient stone mill at the entrance to the village of Les Eyzies. At the table nearest the window the second course, risotto aux truffes, had been cleared away, the silverware removed and replaced for the third time, and the ravioles de langoustine aux jus de crustaces announced and presented in a ceramic tureen from which the waiter deftly whipped the cover with a practiced flourish.

The conversation, easy and pleasantly unfocused to this point, flagged as they worked their way attentively through the ravioli, and the plates and silver had been removed once again before Joly spoke, introducing a new subject. “Gideon, I would like to know a little more about this notorious scandal that has so plagued the Institut de Prehistoire—the Old Gentleman of Tayac. Tayac—that is the name of an abri, I presume?'

'Yes, a Neanderthal abri just north of here, probably no more than a quarter-of-a- mile from the one we were working in today. The institute ran a summer dig there for a few seasons in the early nineties. The habitation level was carbon-dated at around 35,000 years B.P.'

'B.P.?'

'Sorry, before the present.'

Joly poured them all a little more of the local white wine, a fruity Montravel. “I see. And what of this hoax, this argument?'

'Well, first you have to understand—as Julie pointed out yesterday—that anthropologists love to argue—'

'Is that so?” Joly murmured.

'—and nowhere is that more true than in Neanderthal research.” He leaned back out of the way as the waiter laid the gleaming arsenal of utensils for the next course. “Right from the beginning—and the original Neanderthal Man was found in 1856—there's been a continuing, usually noisy fight over where to put him.'

Joly showed his surprise; one of his eyebrows went up a millimeter. “Where to put him? He's not in a museum?'

'What I meant,” Gideon said, laughing, “was where to put him taxonomically.'

The issue, he explained, was the place of the Neanderthals in the long progression of human evolution. Were