April Fool’s story about the Neanderthal tuba, hook, line, and sinker.
“I fail to see where you’re going with this,” Audrey said crankily. She and Buck, having returned from police headquarters themselves not long before, were still wearing the clumsy, collarless suicide-watch paper uniforms given to them by the police to replace their sopping clothes. On Audrey’s neck were two flesh-colored Band-Aids. “If there’s a point, I wish you’d get to it. I’d like to go to bed before morning.”
“Easy, honey,” Buck gentled. “The man’s doing his best.” His big hand was steadily, gently massaging the nape of her neck.
The point, Gideon said, was that, of all the people who might have been behind the killings, Rowley Boyd was the only one who could possibly have taken seriously the newspaper story about how Gideon’s presentation at St. Michael’s Cave was going to be “the most sensational expose of a scientific scam in history.” And given the commemorative nature of the meetings, the fifth anniversary of the Europa Point dig, and their location, here in Gibraltar, what else could the scam in question be but the faking of Gibraltar Woman and the First Family?
“And that’s why he tried to electrocute you?” a skeptical Adrian demanded. “To prevent your revelation of the hoax?”
“Yes.”
“I fail to see how that makes sense,” Corbin said bluntly. “It was Rowley who saved you from being electrocuted. I was right there. He was the one that called your attention to the absence of a rubber mat.”
“No, it was Buck who saved me from being electrocuted.”
“Me?” Buck exclaimed, looking pleased. “What did I do? I never even noticed it.”
“No, but on that little tour just before, you told Rowley what I was going to be talking about – erect posture, varicose veins, birth problems – so it finally got through to him that I had no big hoax to reveal. There was no point in killing me; it would only be another complication, another risk. So he told me about the mat – which he was perfectly aware of, since he’s the one who set the whole electrocution thing up in the first place.”
“But you can’t know that,” Audrey said. “Or has Rowley confessed? ”
“Not as of the time I left New Mole House. Fausto says he’s not saying anything until he sees a solicitor in the morning. And you’re right, at this point I can’t know he set it up, or that he’s the one who tried to shove me off the Rock – who did shove me off the Rock. I told you, there really isn’t any one piece of incontrovertible evidence at this point; there’s a combination of a lot of things that all point in one direction: that it was Rowley who killed Sheila, it was Rowley who killed Ivan, and it was Rowley who was trying to kill me.”
“Now there’s another thing right there,” Adrian declared truculently, pouring some Tullamore Dew – rather more than his usual few drops – into his coffee. “If it was Ivan who perpetrated the hoax, as you claim, then why in the world would Rowley be the one going around killing anybody and everybody to keep it a secret? Are you telling us he was involved in it originally? With Ivan?”
“Well, as far as anyone knows,” Gideon said, “Rowley didn’t even know Ivan at the time of the Guadalcanal dig, so I’m assuming-”
“Assuming,” Adrian sniffed.
“-assuming that he wasn’t, but at some point later on, Ivan must have told him about it, or accidentally let it slip. After all, Rowley was probably closer to him than anyone else, especially these last few years, as Ivan was declining.”
“But then why would Rowley want to kill him?” Buck asked.
“Because-”
“More assumptions?” Adrian said.
“Look, Adrian, if you-” he began heatedly, but stopped himself. As far as anger went – real, teeth-gnashing anger – Gideon had a pretty high boiling point. It was an emotion that didn’t come naturally to him; he’d felt it only once or twice in his life. But temper was another story. It wasn’t that hard to get under his skin, and the belligerent, confrontational, openly skeptical nature of the their questioning had done just that. They were acting as if the whole mess was his fault. Still, he understood their feelings and he did sympathize. Put a lid on it, Oliver, he told himself. This is all coming as an extremely unpleasant shock to them.
“It is an assumption, yes, but a reasonable one,” he said more quietly, “one that Chief Inspector Sotomayor goes along with. It was that Guadalcanal slip at the testimonial dinner that did it for Ivan. When Rowley realized that he could make that kind of gaffe in public – and remember, he was going to give a speech at Europa Point the next day – Ivan had to go. Rowley was worried sick he might do it again and the whole scam would come tumbling down.”
“No, no, no,” Corbin said. “If it was Ivan who perpetrated the fraud, what in the world did Rowley have to be so worried about? It simply doesn’t make sense. No.” His head rotated slowly, decisively, back and forth. “No, no, no. Sorry.”
That did it. The hell with their feelings. “What he was so worried about is what you’re all so worried about,” he shot back. “And I don’t think I have to tell you what that is.”
“Oh?” said Audrey coldly. “And just what would that be?”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Julie pleadingly lift her hands a few inches off the table, palms outward, as if holding him back. Take it easy, now. Nevertheless, he was about to get himself in deeper when Pru intervened, coming valiantly to his defense. “What Rowley was so worried about, and what we’re all so worried about right now – including me – is that, when it gets out that the First Family was a sham, that Gibraltar Woman was a complete, unadulterated hoax – or rather, an adulterated one – we’re all going to look like a bunch of bumbling, gullible idiots – complete chumps. And it’s scaring the socks off us.”
“Well, now, I’d hardly say-” Corbin huffed.
“No, you wouldn’t say it,” Pru interrupted, “but that doesn’t make it any less true. We’ve all been dining off Europa Point for five years – books, lectures, cushy appointments – and the whole thing was nothing but a hoax, right from day one.” A tinge of bitterness had put a metallic edge on her voice. “We were clueless, that’s the whole truth of it. Ivan – the great, the generous Ivan – suckered us all, and we never knew what hit us.” She folded her arms and sat back, head down, glowering at the table.
“She’s right,” Audrey said softly into the silence that followed. “Ivan hoodwinked us. He made fools of us, and we let it happen because we wanted it to be true. And taking it out on Gideon,” she muttered, “isn’t going to help any. I think we owe him an apology.” She looked sharply around the table. “Or would you rather that he hadn’t discovered it?”
There were embarrassed murmurs of demurral and apology, and then a thoughtful, more receptive mood seemed to take hold. The tension evaporated.
“It has been the bane of science since time immemorial,” Adrian said sadly. “It has happened before, and it will happen again, because fidelity to truth is implicit in the scientist’s creed. And that makes us gullible, because there will always be charlatans, but in the end, archaeology, like any science, must rely on the integrity of its practitioners.”
Gideon and Julie couldn’t help exchanging a small, private smile at that, and then Audrey said, “Please continue, Gideon. Is there more?”
“Not much. When it turned out that Rowley had been at the right place at exactly the right time to steal the missing gelignite, Fausto had heard enough. And of course, when Rowley grabbed Audrey – and by the way, Audrey, if I haven’t said it before, you were magnificent.. .”
“Hear, hear,” said Adrian, and Audrey modestly bowed her head while Buck grinned proudly and rubbed her neck a little harder.
“Well, that sealed Rowley’s fate, and… I guess that’s it.”
There was a round of nodding and a few dejected sighs, after which Audrey and Buck were the first to rise, their paper clothes rustling. “Thank you, Gideon,” she said civilly in leaving, and within a few minutes the rest followed suit. Gideon and Julie were left alone at the table.
“That was tough,” Julie said. “You want another drink?”
“No. Yes.” He signaled the bartender, who brought him another Scotch and water, and a second glass of Riesling for Julie, although she hadn’t meant to order it.
“So I was right after all,” she mused with some satisfaction.
“About what?”
“About Rowley. Don’t you remember? I pointed out that he would have had the easiest time setting up the electrical stuff in the cave. But you maintained it couldn’t have been him because he was the one who warned you
