But Bousquet's body showed the reverse: the internal organs were fresher than the skin. That was what happened when a body was frozen; the freezing killed off all the intestinal bacteria. But later, when it was unfrozen, it would be the surface that naturally thawed first and was therefore the first to be available to new bacteria and other organisms. So decomposition proceeded from outside in-as it had in Bousquet's case. The skin was discolored, withered, sloughing off; the insides of the body had barely begun to break down.
Joly, having lit a Gitane, pondered this, continuing to stare across the Vezere valley. "Not all of the insides. I looked at Roussillot's report. It says the brain was considerably decomposed."
"The head is smaller than the body. It thaws faster."
"Ah."
"And don't forget the clothes, Lucien-the very same clothes he had on the day he disappeared. How else do you explain that? I'm telling you, the guy's been in cold storage for the last three years, right up until you found him yesterday."
Joly made a decisive movement with his head, turned from the parapet, dropped his cigarette, and ground it out with his heel. He briskly straightened his jacket, buttoned both buttons, and tugged on his cuff-linked sleeves. "Shall we go in? I believe it's time to make that arrest."
"Don't you want to know who did it first?"
It was an uncharacteristically smug remark, and Gideon got what he deserved. "Oh, I know who did it," Joly said casually. "What I didn't know was how."
Inside, most of the crowd was milling about near the reopened bar. Audrey, who had finished her presentation a few moments earlier, was accepting congratulations and good wishes. Montfort was berating a small, miserable-looking man about some abstruse archaeological point. Julie was talking to Pru, Emile to one of the people from the foundation. With a quick glance around the room, Joly spotted his quarry. He strode purposefully over the wooden floor, his thin lips set, and waited until he was recognized.
"Yes?"
Joly drew his feet together and stood even a little straighter than usual. "Michel Georges Montfort, in accord with the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure I now place you under temporary detention until a warrant for your formal arrest and confinement on the charge of murder shall be obtained. Will you come with me now?"
It wasn't delivered loudly or even particularly doomfully, and yet it crackled through the room like a rifle shot. The babble of conversation stopped in mid-sentence. Without anyone's having turned in an obvious way to stare, everybody was avidly watching the two men. Gideon had a dreamlike sense of being part of some surreal drawing-room tableau. Cups were balanced on saucers, cigarettes on lips, breathing suspended. The only movement was on the part of the man Montfort had been talking to, who shrank inconspicuously away, or as inconspicuously as possible under the circumstances, his feet sliding noiselessly backward over the floor.
To someone watching the scene from off to the side or from any distance, it would have seemed as if Montfort received Joly's pronouncement with no emotion whatever. Certainly he didn't blanche, or gasp, or flush with outrage or astonishment, his mouth didn't twitch, his body didn't jerk. His one visible reaction was to slowly roll the small cigar he was smoking from one side of his mouth to the other while Joly was speaking. His thumbs, which had been lodged in the pockets of his vest while he had been holding forth, remained there as he studied the equally impassive police inspector and weighed his reply.
But Gideon, standing 20 feet away near the windows, with the light at his back, was looking full into his face and saw an extraordinary series of expressions shoot across it with lightning speed: astonishment, disbelief, calculation, resignation, and finally decision, all in the space of two or three seconds.
"May I get my things?" he asked
Joly inclined his head.
Montfort removed the cigar from his mouth and placed it in an ashtray on a nearby table, first tapping it to remove the ash. As you see, I am in no hurry, he seemed to be saying. I am under no stress.
On the wall a few feet from Gideon was a coat rack with a wire shelf above it. Although it hadn't rained since the day before, the skies were mixed, and many attendees had brought raincoats or umbrellas and left them there. Montfort removed a brown raincoat from the rack and a large, furled black umbrella from the shelf. His eyes briefly met Gideon's, but now there was nothing at all in them; it was like looking into a statue's eyes. An ice-water chill trickled down Gideon's spine.
With the coat draped over his arm Montfort turned back to the noiseless room and stood there, coolly appraising the throng of rapt, appalled faces.
Joly only had so much patience. "If you please-" he began tartly.
Gideon must have glanced at Joly as he was speaking because he never saw the coat coming. He only knew that it had suddenly been thrown over his head, smelling of mildew and plunging him into darkness and that almost at the same time he took a heavy blow at the junction of his neck and left shoulder. He flung the coat off just in time to see Montfort lashing out again with the umbrella, a heavy, old-fashioned one with steel shaft and spokes. This time, throwing up his arm, Gideon caught it flush on the point of the elbow. Tears of pain jumped to his eyes, but still he managed to catch hold of it as Montfort raised it again.
"Michel, don't be stupid. What-"
Montfort was a heavy man with burly, powerful shoulders, and Gideon had had to pull hard on the umbrella to hold it back. Unexpectedly, Montfort let go. Gideon stumbled backward, tripping over his own feet, almost falling.
Montfort came after him. "Bastard!" he said, trying clumsily to shove him aside and get by. To the window, Gideon realized almost too late. To the open window, a hundred feet above the street. That's what this was about. Reaching out he managed to clamp his hand on Montfort's upper arm just as the archaeologist got a grasp on the window frame. Struggling, Montfort balled up his other fist and smashed it into Gideon's face like a man driving nails with a hammer. He felt blood spurt from his nose. The heavy, quivering fist was raised again and Gideon made a grab for that arm as well, using the thrust of his legs and the weight of his body to spin Montfort around and slam him hard against the wall beside the window.
The jolt seemed to take the fight out of the older man. "Gideon, don't let them do this to me," he whispered. Panting, he cast a terrified glance at the rapidly approaching Peyrol His once-ruddy face was drained of blood; gray-white below the eyes, sickly blue around the mouth. "How can I face this? I beg you-let me go, let me get it over with." One hand plucked ineffectually at Gideon's hold.
For a moment, Gideon softened-a man of Montfort's stature and accomplishments and very real contributions to endure a trial for murder, to go to prison for the rest of his life!-but only for a moment. He brushed Montfort's hand away. His own hand, which had very nearly loosened, tightened on Montfort's arm.
"You stood behind Jacques and crushed his skull," he said through set teeth. "You killed Ely." And you damn well cost me a bunch of neuro-axons I can't afford, let's not forget that. "You-"
"Permit me, monsieur," said Sergeant Peyrol to Gideon. And to Montfort, quite sternly. "This won't do, monsieur. Come with me at once, please."
Montfort, with a final, reproachful look at Gideon and a last, longing look at the open window and the empty space beyond, lowered his head and went with the sergeant.
Julie came up to Gideon as the room began buzzing with excited whispers again. "Are you all right?"