Gideon, not notably slow to take offense when warranted, wondered if it were warranted now. He looked up sharply, but Robyn’s expression was coolly benign.
"Of course," the Englishman went on, "knowing you were coming, they would naturally assume your visit was connected to our inquiry. Don’t you think so?"
"I suppose so." Gideon sipped his Scotch. "The question is, how did they know I was coming at all? I barely knew myself."
"I’m sure I have no idea."
"Well, I sure didn’t know you were coming," Arbuckle said. He placed his glass on the table and looked doubtfully at Gideon. "Why are you here?"
Gideon shook his head and laughed. "Everybody’s suspicious of me. Honestly, it’s not very mysterious. Mostly because I’m trying to take a peaceful, inconspicuous English honeymoon. As for Stonebarrow Fell, I’d heard that Nate was having difficulties, and I thought I might lend a little moral support, so I went up to see him."
"A sympathetic compatriot in a strange land?" Robyn asked. "That sort of thing?"
"That’s about it. And when I was there, Nate asked me if I’d come back when he takes the wraps off that find of his. I’d like to do that, if it’s all right with you. I might be of some help."
Gideon caught a small negative shake of Robyn’s head and saw him form the words "Well, I…," but Arbuckle spoke up more loudly.
"I think that’d be great, " he said sincerely. "You’re an old friend of his, aren’t you? Maybe you could talk some sense into him. Don’t you think so, Frederick?"
"Yes," said Robyn, deciding after all not to demur, "I suppose so."
"I’ve already tried to talk some sense into him," Gideon said, "I wasn’t too successful."
"But it isn’t too late," Arbuckle said, leaning forward with his typical earnest gravity. "Gideon, this isn’t an inquiry in the usual sense. No one’s disputing any facts. It’s my responsibility, and Frederick’s, to simply talk with Marcus and get him to…well, to grow up and start acting like the first-rate professional he is." He pulled at his beer, set it down, and frowned with myopic ardor. "However, if he won’t do that, we will certainly relieve him and close down the dig. But I just can’t believe it’ll come to that!"
"Is that true, Paul? The outcome’s still open?"
It was Robyn who answered. "My dear Oliver," he said lighting another cigarette, "Arbuckle and I are not a couple of hit men hired to perform a character assassination. We represent, as you well know, two of the most prestigious of archaeological research organizations. Both of us, I should add, were firm supporters, in the face of some rather severe opposition, of Professor Marcus’s original application for permission and funding."
He paused to taste his sherry, then pressed his lips together, holding the glass to his temple, as if listening to it. "Quite nice," he said, "although as olorosos go, perhaps the least bit thin."
Gideon doubted that he could taste anything at all. The cigarette in his other hand was his third one.
"But," Robyn went on at his own leisurely pace, "how can we ignore the bizarre nature of his recent statements?…Well, you saw what was attributed to him in the newspaper. There are, I assure you, other even more outrageous and offensive examples." He crossed one leg over the other, first arranging an already impeccable trouser crease. "Nevertheless, I think I can speak for both of us in saying we would consider our mission successful if the man would simply give us his promise to restrain his outbursts and stick to the business of pursuing the excavation-which I must admit he does very well. Wouldn’t you agree with all that, Arbuckle?"
"What?" Arbuckle asked with a start. He had been staring into the flames. "Sorry, I guess I was thinking about my own dig."
Gideon smiled. When Paul was involved in research, his one-track mind never strayed very far from it.
"Got something interesting going in France?" Gideon asked.
"I do. I sure do." He thrust his stocky body forward, twisting his glass in stubby fingers. All at once, he was more alert, more alive, "It’s in Burgundy, near Dijon- Gideon, it’s been fluorine-dated at 220,000 b.c.-Middle Pleistocene! Just think, it’s as old as Swanscombe or Stein-hem! We’ve got Acheulian handaxes, cleavers… What are you laughing at?"
"You," Gideon said, "It’s the first time this afternoon I’ve seen you really come alive. Poor Paul; there you are in the middle of a great dig, with the chance to learn something about the earliest Homo sapiens, and you have to break it off to get involved in a minor squabble over the Bronze Age."
"Really," Robyn murmured in the manner of an actor delivering an aside, "I’d hardly call it a minor squabble."
Arbuckle looked at Gideon, but it was hard to tell what he was thinking. The firelight bouncing opaquely off his thick glasses made his never-too-mobile face look more wooden than ever. Finally he laughed, something he didn’t do often.
"You’re right. Who cares about the Bronze Age? All I want to do is get this thing over with and get back to Dijon. And don’t tell me you wouldn’t feel just the same."
"I would," Gideon said, meaning it.
"Now, see here," said Robyn. "I feel I must stand up on behalf of the Bronze Age. For myself, I’d rather deal with jeweled daggers and filigreed breastplates, and pendants of Baltic amber-all neatly tucked away for me in barrows-than go grubbing in muddy riverbeds for vulgar rock choppers and gnawed elephant bones left by coarse and unhygienic man-apes."
Gideon was about to reply when he heard the front door of the hotel open and close, and then the welcome sound of Julie’s footsteps in the entry hall. (When had he learned to recognize them?) He half rose, but Robyn was even quicker, springing lightly to his feet.
"Ah, my dear Mrs. Oliver," he said, oozing urbanity, "you are indeed a welcome sight. We’ve been discussing the most dreary sorts of things for far too long. Now I’d like to propose that you and Professor Oliver join us for dinner. I know a perfectly delightful old coaching inn at Honiton."
He smiled engagingly, the lines around his eyes folding into a fan of handsome crinkles. "I won’t take no for an answer."
SIX
The restaurant was as charming as Robyn had promised, and they finished two bottles of wine, so the four of them passed a reasonably pleasant evening, during which the subject of Stonebarrow Fell never arose. Robyn was witty and gallant, and Paul made polite, vague conversation. He even managed to come out of his shell in his own blinking, resolute fashion when Robyn said that since the inquiry wasn’t until Thursday, why didn’t he and Arbuckle motor to Swanscombe the next day and have a look at the famous site where England’s oldest human remains had been discovered fifty years before?
When they got back to the hotel, Arbuckle was, in fact, loosened up enough to suggest they have after-dinner drinks in the lounge, where Hinshore had kept the fire going for them. Gideon declined, and he and Julie went up to their room, leaving the two men sprawled (Robyn even managed to sprawl elegantly) in the big chairs, each with a brandy snifter at his elbow.
"Whew!" Julie sighed the moment they’d shut the door. She flung herself into his arms, driving him back against the wall with a thump. "I love you," she said, and pulled his face down to kiss him firmly on the lips. "You neat, attractive man!" She put her head against his shoulder and hugged him hard.
"Hey," he said, delighted. "What’s all this about?"
"I haven’t had you alone almost all day! Do you realize this is the first time that’s happened since we’ve been married?"
"Well, the magic has to end sometime," he said lightly, but he hadn’t liked it either. He liked this very much better. He put his lips to her hair, fresh-smelling despite Robyn’s endless smoking.
Julie slipped her arms under his sport coat and pressed her palms flat against his back, pulling him against her. He could feel how warm her hands were through the thin cloth of his shirt. She was wearing a blouse with a wide, square-cut neckline, and he placed his hands gently along her throat. Under the heavy, dark hair, the nape of her neck was lusciously long and curved. And naked. He let his fingers move to her shoulders under the border of the blouse and felt her flesh respond to his touch.