Read Online Murder in the Queen's Armes by Aaron Elkins - Free Book Online
Authors: Aaron Elkins
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should see his chopper—it’s about twenty feet long; you practically have to lay on your back to ride it."
"Is he making it at Gelden?"
"Well, he’s not really that dumb," Nate allowed grudgingly. "He can read and write, more or less, and he’s loaded; his old man’s Alexander Toilet Tissue—not that the old guy isn’t always yelling about cutting him off. Anyway, that’s enough to get into Gelden—in fact, never mind the read-and-write bit. I voted against admitting the guy in the first place, but I got overruled. But this time I’m kicking his ass out of the department. The dean can stick him in classical lit if he want to. Look, why are we talking about him? What’s the big deal?"
"Well, he just seemed so anxious to talk to me."
"I’m telling you the guy likes to put people on. He really made an idiot out of Jack Frawley once; he even tried to do it to me. Forget him, will you? Hey, you’re gonna be there Thursday, aren’t you? Ten o’clock?"
"That’s why I’m here. Nate, are you still feeling good about this? Are you sure you don’t want me to have a private look before the board meets? I could come up tomorrow."
"You kidding, you want to ruin the suspense? No, you be there at ten, and bring your calipers and stuff. I’m gonna make you famous."
Gideon hung up, not as relieved as he might have been. For one thing, his concern over Nate’s coming disaster had been freshened, even though the man was so damn
confident. Could
there have been a Mycenaean migration?
Could
Nate refute the accumulated wisdom of the specialists? Gideon shook his head, wishing he knew more about Bronze Age anthropology. All he’d be able to do Thursday would be a conventional skeletal examination and analysis; someone else would have to do the interpretation. Deep down, he wasn’t sorry. He didn’t want to be the one to tell Nate he’d made a fool of himself.
Something else was bothering him. Despite everything Nate had said, Gideon still had an unsettling sense of foreboding about the fate of Randy Alexander. And it wasn’t simply the unkept appointment; it was the very atmosphere of Stonebarrow Fell—an unhealthy stew of tension, dislike, pretense….
He stood up and stretched. He was getting a little paranoid himself. Time to get his mind on other things and go on down to say hello to the archaeologists in the lounge; did he really know an Arkle, Barkle, or Carbuncle?
When he pushed open the Dutch door of the Tudor room, it was the slender, well-dressed man who rose, smiling.
"Unless I’m very much mistaken," he said in an urbane, slightly nasal drawl, "here is the eminent Professor Oliver now." That would be the sexy Englishman. He even talked like Sherlock Holmes.
The figure in the other chair turned and rose as well. "Hello, Gideon," he said, his voice gloppy with the postnasal drip that had plagued him ever since Gideon had known him. "How are you?"
"Hi, Paul. It’s good to see you."
This was not strictly true. It wasn’t that he disliked Paul Arbuckle. In fact, he rather liked him in short doses. He’d never heard Paul say a malicious or envious word about a colleague—no common virtue in academe—and he sometimes revealed an exacting intelligence. But there was a dull, dogged, enervating persistence about him. Paul was the kind of researcher who would not let go of an idea until he had smothered it to death, but he seemed to Gideon always to have hold of the wrong idea, always to be drudging away at some arcane, dry-as-dust minutiae, while all the provocative, exciting patterns eluded him.
Although he was an archaeologist, he was, like Gideon, an earnest student of Pleistocene man (indeed, if he had other interests, he’d yet to mention them), but the two had never gotten to know one another very well. At anthropological gatherings they usually managed a scholarly, reasonably agreeable conversation of twenty or thirty minutes, which sufficed until the next year’s meeting. But when two
"Is he making it at Gelden?"
"Well, he’s not really that dumb," Nate allowed grudgingly. "He can read and write, more or less, and he’s loaded; his old man’s Alexander Toilet Tissue—not that the old guy isn’t always yelling about cutting him off. Anyway, that’s enough to get into Gelden—in fact, never mind the read-and-write bit. I voted against admitting the guy in the first place, but I got overruled. But this time I’m kicking his ass out of the department. The dean can stick him in classical lit if he want to. Look, why are we talking about him? What’s the big deal?"
"Well, he just seemed so anxious to talk to me."
"I’m telling you the guy likes to put people on. He really made an idiot out of Jack Frawley once; he even tried to do it to me. Forget him, will you? Hey, you’re gonna be there Thursday, aren’t you? Ten o’clock?"
"That’s why I’m here. Nate, are you still feeling good about this? Are you sure you don’t want me to have a private look before the board meets? I could come up tomorrow."
"You kidding, you want to ruin the suspense? No, you be there at ten, and bring your calipers and stuff. I’m gonna make you famous."
Gideon hung up, not as relieved as he might have been. For one thing, his concern over Nate’s coming disaster had been freshened, even though the man was so damn
confident. Could
there have been a Mycenaean migration?
Could
Nate refute the accumulated wisdom of the specialists? Gideon shook his head, wishing he knew more about Bronze Age anthropology. All he’d be able to do Thursday would be a conventional skeletal examination and analysis; someone else would have to do the interpretation. Deep down, he wasn’t sorry. He didn’t want to be the one to tell Nate he’d made a fool of himself.
Something else was bothering him. Despite everything Nate had said, Gideon still had an unsettling sense of foreboding about the fate of Randy Alexander. And it wasn’t simply the unkept appointment; it was the very atmosphere of Stonebarrow Fell—an unhealthy stew of tension, dislike, pretense….
He stood up and stretched. He was getting a little paranoid himself. Time to get his mind on other things and go on down to say hello to the archaeologists in the lounge; did he really know an Arkle, Barkle, or Carbuncle?
When he pushed open the Dutch door of the Tudor room, it was the slender, well-dressed man who rose, smiling.
"Unless I’m very much mistaken," he said in an urbane, slightly nasal drawl, "here is the eminent Professor Oliver now." That would be the sexy Englishman. He even talked like Sherlock Holmes.
The figure in the other chair turned and rose as well. "Hello, Gideon," he said, his voice gloppy with the postnasal drip that had plagued him ever since Gideon had known him. "How are you?"
"Hi, Paul. It’s good to see you."
This was not strictly true. It wasn’t that he disliked Paul Arbuckle. In fact, he rather liked him in short doses. He’d never heard Paul say a malicious or envious word about a colleague—no common virtue in academe—and he sometimes revealed an exacting intelligence. But there was a dull, dogged, enervating persistence about him. Paul was the kind of researcher who would not let go of an idea until he had smothered it to death, but he seemed to Gideon always to have hold of the wrong idea, always to be drudging away at some arcane, dry-as-dust minutiae, while all the provocative, exciting patterns eluded him.
Although he was an archaeologist, he was, like Gideon, an earnest student of Pleistocene man (indeed, if he had other interests, he’d yet to mention them), but the two had never gotten to know one another very well. At anthropological gatherings they usually managed a scholarly, reasonably agreeable conversation of twenty or thirty minutes, which sufficed until the next year’s meeting. But when two
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