Skeleton Dance

stone house that had originally been an outbuilding of the medieval cliffside chateau—a granary, perhaps, or a winery, or even a dovecote—but owned for most of the last century by a family with tobacco holdings in the nearby Lot valley. When the last male scion had died the previous year at the age of 101 and the house had come on the market, it had been bought by the Universite du Perigord and sparklingly refurbished for the use of the institute, which would have its own quarters at last, after thirty years of renting space from the foie- gras cooperative.

Like the chateau itself, the structure had been erected on a long, level terrace about a third of the way up the cliff, its back wall built into a recess in the cliff face, its front coming out to the very edge of the terrace, so that from the big windows of the main room, mullioned in the Baroque style, there was a straight drop of 100 feet down to the main street and an unobstructed view over the village and across the green valley of the Vezere.

The light-filled windows, some of which had been swung open to dissipate the remaining fumes from the recent painting, made a splendid backdrop for the speakers, of whom there were an alarming number. Everybody who was anybody in Les Eyzies was there: the mayor, the deputy mayor, the nine-member municipal council, the administrative magistrate, and, of course, the prefect of police. Unfortunately, most felt the need to utter a few words of civic benediction and of eulogy for Jacques, which made for a long, long morning.

Conspicuously absent from the table of honored guests at the front was Jacques’ wife, who had responded to her invitation with a curt reference to other commitments.

'One would think she holds us personally responsible for his death,” said Emile Grize, sitting next to Pru McGinnis in the row of folding chairs immediately behind Julie and Gideon.

'Like maybe,” Pru said out of the corner of her mouth, “it might just have something to do with the choice of weapon? Duh.'

It was meant to relieve the general tedium and sobriety, and Gideon smiled, but a glance at Julie showed that they were both thinking the same thing: Madame Beaupierre was right: one of them was responsible. The possible why's behind Jacques’ death, and the other murders as well, might still be murky, but the possible who's were crystal-clear. When you took everything into consideration, starting back with the hoax itself, you couldn't get away from the conclusion that it had to be somebody from the institute: Audrey, Montfort, Emile, Pru. And as a long shot, Madame Lacouture. That was it; the total list of suspects, all of them right there in the room with them, listening to the obsequies for Jacques, gravely smiling or soberly nodding as the situation required.

The speeches ground on, made more formal and stilted by the fact that the main speaker, the director of the Horizon Foundation, Bob Cram—an administrator better known for his scratch golf than his linguistic skills—felt obliged to deliver his address in French, in keeping with the institute's bilingual tradition. But at last they were over and the fifty or so people in the room rose, to the creaking of many aged and not-so-aged knees, and shuffled gratefully toward the bar that had been set up in front of the windows, where coffee, soft drinks, bottled water, and cordials were available. Audrey's presentation as the new director was yet to come, after which everyone could go home for lunch.

Julie and Gideon got their bottles of Evian and spent most of the break chatting somewhat awkwardly with Audrey, whose eyeglasses were still patched with Scotch tape, but who was otherwise more her old self, although stiff and formal in her unaccustomed black skirt-suit; and with a remote, brusque Michel Montfort, no hand at social amenities even at the best of times.

As they took their seats again, Julie put her hand on Gideon's arm. “Tom Cabell!'

'Pardon?'

'Tom Cabell, your friend from Calgary, the medical examiner, the one with the squinchy little mustache—'

'Julie, I know who Tom Cabell is. What about him?'

'It was when the AAFS convention was in Seattle, remember? And we all went out to dinner in the Space Needle. That's when I heard about it.'

'I suppose,” Gideon said mildly, “that if I wait patiently, you'll eventually let me in on this.'

'Gideon, I'm trying to tell you that I remember the case I was trying to think of—the one like Bousquet, where the different indicators didn't match and they had all that trouble coming up with the time of death? I thought it was one of yours, but it was one of his. Don't you remember? He was going on and on about it over the veal scallopine and I was doing my best not listen, but I couldn't help hearing.'

'Julie, I honestly don't—'

It hit him like an electric shock. “I remember!” he said, sitting bolt upright. “You're right! I wasn't thinking of it because it wasn't a murder at all, or even a forensic case, it was just a hiker who got—who got . . .” He stared at her as the full impact hit him. “Julie, do you realize—'

'S-s-s-t,” Emile hissed from behind them. Audrey had begun her address.

Gideon didn't hear two words of it. He was scowling out the windows and into space, not thinking as much as simply sitting there, barely breathing, letting things fall into place as if by gravity. They'd been wrong about everything—everything. It was as they'd been trying to play some gigantic, frustrating pinball game, only without their being aware of it the game board had been upside down from the beginning. Now, in a single instant it had been turned right side up, and the little steel balls were rolling merrily about, bumping into flippers, setting off lights and buzzers, and plunking neatly and satisfyingly, one after another, into their cups.

'Christ, could it really be true?” he murmured, bringing an inquisitive arching of her eyebrows from Julie and another reproving s-s-s-t from Emile.

Gideon patted Julie's knee and broke from his chair. A few seconds later he was at the telephone in the reception area, calling Joly's office in Perigueux and being told that the inspector had gone to Les Eyzies. A second call to the local mairie brought Sergeant Peyrol to the phone to explain that Inspector Joly was conducting an important investigation and couldn't be disturbed.

'Disturb him, Sergeant. He'll thank you, take my word for it.'

'Lucien,” he said when Joly picked up the receiver, “we've been on one hell of a wild goose-chase.'

'No,” said Joly crossly, “you don't tell me.'

'Listen, when you read that description of Bousquet to us yesterday, the one that was filed when he disappeared, the one that mentioned the ring—'