Skeleton Dance

invisible until they were almost on it. Pulling the panting, excited dog back and keeping it still with a handhold on the collar of rope around its neck Joly squatted on his haunches to peer into the opening. The crevice was an irregular, waist-high space between the base of the concave wall of the cliff and the lower part of one of the big boulders that leaned against it, forming a constricted corridor, narrowing toward the top, about four meters long and less than a meter high. At the far end, dim and shadowed, was what appeared to be a shallow, low-ceilinged cave in the base of the cliff; what the locals called an abri—the sort of place that little boys were forever stumbling into and turning up one prehistoric find or another, bringing real and would-be archaeologists out in droves.

Just over his shoulder Marielle laughed aloud. “It's an abri. Those bones are ten thousand years old. We've been on a wild goose chase, looking for what's left of some stone-age man, what do you think of that?'

It was clear that the prefect regarded this as a personal victory. In the rear, the dutiful Noyon chuckled wanly.

'We'll see soon enough,” Joly said. “I'll go first.” He handed the rope to Noyon. “Officer, you stay here with the dog.'

'It's the story of my life,” Noyon murmured.

With a resigned glance, first at the dirt floor of the crevice and then at his crisply creased trousers—what immutable law was it that ordained that he would have to be wearing the new suit from Arnys today?—Joly settled to his knees and began to crawl through the corridor. Behind him, the amazed, deeply offended Toutou yapped loudly away.

'Marielle,” Joly called back as he neared the end, “it gets quite narrow in here. If it's too difficult—'

'Don't worry about me, I can make it fine,” Marielle snapped, and by dint of a few contortions, a torn epaulet, and an iron determination not to be outdone, he did.

By the time he reached the cave, Joly was sitting on a rounded boulder near the entrance, trying to make sense of the jumbled bones and disturbed earth around him. Obviously, the body had originally been buried in the center of the space, where some of it—the pelvis, the lower part of the vertebral column, and at least one of the upper leg bones were still partially interred. As for the rest—as much as was still there—it was clear that Toutou had been busy, and probably some of his friends as well. Dozens of bones had been wrenched out of the ground and scattered around the cave. There were a shoulder blade and some hand and foot bones in a little heap at the rear, a rib practically at the inspector's feet, vertebrae here and there, and half of an upside-down human jawbone near the cave entrance. All had been heavily gnawed, with edges and bone-ends virtually chewed away. Many, if not most, of the bones were missing altogether; possibly they were in the cardboard box at the Les Eyzies mairie, courtesy of Toutou.

Marielle, on his hands and knees, emerged huffing and red-faced from the crevice into the abri. “Ha,” he said jovially, getting to his feet, “what do we have here?'

Joly held up his hand. “Stop there, please. We don't wish to disturb the site any further until it's been processed.'

Marielle smiled at him. “Inspector, I hope you won't think it impertinent of me,” he said, “but I find myself wondering what process you are referring to. This is a Cro-Magnon abri, many thousands of years old. I assure you, I'm familiar with these things. You see those bits of flint scattered about? They are tool flakes.'

'I believe so, yes.'

'And the black deposits up there? The result of centuries of fires.'

'Yes, I thought as much.'

'The cave opening, as you observe, is oriented toward the south to take advantage of the sun, as was typical of the Stone Age; the rock fall which now blocks it is clearly recent. And this—” he gestured at the skeleton. “—is without doubt a Cro-Magnon burial.'

'There I have to disagree. I'm afraid we have a homicide investigation on our hands.'

'If so, I fear the perpetrator may be somewhat beyond our reach by now.'

Joly was astonished. Was the man capable of humor then? “No, I don't think so. I believe this is a recent burial.'

'Recent!” Marielle shook his head. “Everything here bespeaks antiquity. Believe me, I've studied these things. Observe the placement of the body, the flexed position, the orientation relative to the cave opening. Observe the fact that the skeleton is without any sign of clothing. Observe—'

'I'm not a student of these things myself, Marielle,” Joly said shortly, standing up and coming within a couple of inches of striking his head on the stony roof. The smug and gassy Marielle had finally gotten his goat, as he usually managed to do after an hour or so. “Do you suppose that's why I wasn't aware that the Cro-Magnon people went in for dentistry?'

'Dentistry?. . . ?” Marielle took a harder look at the broken jawbone, where he was dismayed to see the dull sheen of a gold crown on one of the rear teeth. He felt himself flush, hoping that Joly couldn't see it in the dimness of the cave. “It's, ah, possible that I was mistaken about the age . . .'

'Highly possible, I should say. Now then, Marielle—'

'But on the other hand,” the stung Marielle interrupted, “with all due respect, it seems possible that you are mistaken as to the immediate need for a homicide investigation. Where is the evidence of a crime? Many people—villagers, campers, tourists—explore these caves. People have died in them before. They slip and fall, they are crushed by loosened rocks, they die of natural causes—'

Joly looked at him, only barely managing to keep from shaking his head at the man's never-ending obtuseness.

'And do they bury themselves as well?” he asked.

[Back to Table of Contents]