They sat with the steam rising from their wet shoes until the blood seemed to move through their bodies again and they were able to take off their ponchos and think about ordering. On the bar was a placard listing the luncheon menu: Ploughman’s lunch,?1.20; shepherd’s pie,?1.20; haddock and chips, 90p; steak-and-kidney pie (with peas and chips),?1.20.
"Steak-and-kidney pie for me," Julie said, not surprisingly. In a few brief weeks she had developed a near-addiction to the pungent stew. "And a gallon of hot tea."
"And I’ll have the shepherd’s pie." He worked his way through a crowd at the little bar to order from a barmaid, as harassed as English barmaids always seemed to be, and as friendly, then came back to the table carrying two brandies. "To help us thaw out."
Gideon swirled his brandy, sniffed it, took a good-sized swallow. "Ah," he sighed, "that’s better. Hey, that trudge through the rain was fun. I speak retrospectively, of course."
"It was fun, and you know it." She watched him take a second, thoughtful sip from the snifter. "You’re wondering what happened at the hearing, aren’t you?"
Gideon smiled. Pretty soon they wouldn’t have to use words at all. "Yes-"
From across the room a high voice cut through the noise. "What’s the matter, you can’t even say hello?"
"Abe!" Gideon cried. "We didn’t know you were here. Come join us!"
At the far end of the bar, Abe disengaged himself from the group of English men and women he had been conversing with. There were hearty, teasing good-byes, and someone even clapped him on the shoulder. A young woman offered to carry his plate and glass for him, an offer Abe declined. Holding a nearly empty half pint of beer in one hand and a plate of fish and chips in the other, he threaded his way toward them.
Gideon marveled at him, not for the first time. How could anyone be more out of place in an English country pub? And how could anyone seem more at home? As tenaciously as Abe had clung to his old speech and mannerisms, he was at the same time the most adaptable of men, fitting himself to local custom-whether in a university faculty club, a Bantu kraal, or a Dorset pub-with a willing ease that was unmistakably genuine and enthusiastically reciprocated.
"So," he said as he sat down and arranged his food fussily before him, "you had a nice walk? You didn’t get wet?" He corrected himself with a smile. "Wet you didn’t get?"
"Wet we got," Gideon said, "but it was a nice walk all the same."
The barmaid came with their tea and food, and Gideon ordered another glass of beer for Abe. For a few minutes they busied themselves with their meals. Gideon’s shepherd’s pie was substantial and fortifying, an earthenware pot filled with spiced ground meat and overflowing with a thick covering of steaming, brown-crusted mashed potatoes. After a few minutes, as if by agreement, they sat back a little, ready to talk.
"Well," Abe said, "it didn’t go so good at the hearing. Nathan’s got troubles. They’re closing down the dig."
"You weren’t able to say anything that helped?" Gideon asked.
Abe pushed a golden shred of haddock back and forth on his plate. "I said, and they listened, but what do they care what a wonderful dissertation he wrote in 1969, or that he ran a beautiful dig on Baffin Island in 1977? This they already knew. With now they’re concerned." He shrugged and let his fork fall to the plate. "It was a fair decision; I can’t complain. As for Nathan, I could talk myself blue in the face and he wouldn’t know how to say, ‘I’m sorry, I made a mistake.’ "
"Poor guy," Gideon said quietly.
"Yeah, the poor guy, but what could they do? For this he has only himself to thank."
"Abe," Gideon said, "you don’t think it’s possible that he did it, do you? Stole the skull from Dorchester, buried it here, and pretended to discover it?"
Abe shrugged elaborately. "Who knows? First he swears up and down he didn’t do it, and then he swears up and down it’s impossible that anybody else should do it."
"I don’t understand," Julie said. "Why is it impossible?"
"Because," Gideon said, "the fragment was a couple of hundred feet from the dig, and barely visible. It could have gone unnoticed forever. Anybody who’d planted it would have made it more noticeable and put it near the trenches, where it would have been sure to be found."
"Well, if it was so impossible to find, how did Nate find it?"
"He…I don’t really know." Gideon turned inquiringly to Abe. "Did he say?"
"He found it because he’s a perfectionist who can’t stand it if one little pebble is out of place on his dig. He says he’s taking a walk, he sees a piece of paper on the ground, he bends down to pick it up, and out of the corner of his eye, bingo, he sees the bone. Just luck, that’s all. But," he said, addressing Julie, "the thing is, whether he put it there himself or not, he’s the director and he’s got to be responsible-and Stonebarrow Fell is now completely farpotshket. You know farpotshket? "
"That," Gideon said, "is screwed up, plain and simple."
Abe nodded. "Screwed up. You said it, buddy."
Like the others, Julie was toying with her food. "I suppose it’s a silly idea," she said, "but isn’t it possible that Nate is just as much the victim of a hoax as Horizon Foundation or anyone else?"
Gideon replied. "But as Abe said, it’s Nate’s dig; he’d get all the credit for anything found there. Who else would have anything to gain?"
"Wait a minute," Abe said, brightening. "Maybe that’s the wrong question. Maybe the question should be: Who had anything to lose?"
"And the answer," Julie said excitedly, "would be Nate Marcus. Couldn’t somebody have sabotaged him? Duped him into thinking he had a legitimate find that proved his theory, so that in the end he’d be ruined because the thing would eventually be shown to be a fraud?"
"That," Gideon said admiringly, "is absolutely labyrinthine. But I don’t know if it holds up. If someone was doing it to discredit Nate, how could he know for sure the fraud would even be discovered? Sure, I recognized it as Pummy when I saw it, but a lot of anthropologists might not, and for all anyone knew, the substitution in the Dorchester Museum might have gone unnoticed for years-and Nate would have been a hero."
"Unless," Abe said, "Julie’s secret hoaxer made sure the word got out; for example, a little word to the West Dorset Times? There was a reporter waiting at the gate for us, you know."
"Yes, I know," Gideon said. "And that reminds me… Abe, you never told the Times I was coming to Stonebarrow Fell, did you? Or anyone on the dig?"
Abe looked blankly at him. "What for?"
"That’s what I thought," Gideon said. "Now, back to this theory you two are cooking up-this unnecessarily rococo theory, to borrow a phrase-I think it falls down on one crucial point; from what you said, Abe, Nate’s maintaining that he discovered the thing personally, without any little hints from anyone else. So how could anyone be duping him?"
"That’s true," Abe mused. "Even when he saw it, he almost didn’t see it."
"That’s what he says, " Julie said vigorously. "Maybe he’s protecting someone."
"Protecting the one who sabotaged him?" Gideon asked.
"Well…" Julie laughed suddenly. "I think you’re right. This theory’s started to sound a little unga…umpki…"
"Ungepotchket," Abe said, a smile on his face. "Very good. You learn quick. But ungepotchket or not, I think maybe you got something. Only what, I don’t know."
Gideon thought so too. Something wasn’t quite right in her rationale, but the basic idea was starting to make sense. Nate had the most to lose, all right, and plenty of well-earned enemies who would love to see him lose it. Was it possible that he’d been set up? But how? They were silent for a moment, and then Julie asked, "Abe, what will happen to him now? What will they do to him?"