Murder in the Queen's Armes by Aaron Elkins Read Free Book Online

at Gideon, then turned suddenly to Frawley. "Right?"
    Frawley was caught raising his mug to his lips. He spluttered and set it down, then drew from one breast
    pocket a metal-stemmed, stubby pipe, from the other a foil tobacco pouch. "Well, yes," he said, "I would certainly say that what we’ve found provides considerable confirmation of your theory, yes." His pouchy eyes lit glancingly on Gideon and then dropped to his pipe, at which he poked assiduously with a paper clip.
    No wonder Nate was getting himself into deep waters. If the rest of his staff was like Frawley, he wasn’t getting any honest feedback or argument.
    "Look, Nate," Gideon said, "I know you’re excited about this, but think about what you’re saying. How can you
prove
something like that? At best—"
    "All right," Nate snapped, "you don’t need to lecture me." For a moment his hot, black eyes blazed, but the fire went out as quickly as it had come. "Sorry," he said. "I guess I’m a little edgy. You’re right, you’re right. We’re supposed to be scientists; we deal in probabilities, not certainties. But it just seems as if it’s so goddam obvious…." He grasped the edge of the table and leaned forward. "Look, if there was no Mycenaean invasion, how do you account for the sudden introduction of a complex, multi-tiered society with ‘Aegean’ stamped all over it? Tell me that! Where did those incised geometric pottery motifs come from? The faience beads?" He snatched up the bronze dagger again. "This?"
    Gideon spoke as gently as he could. "You know I’m no Bronze Age specialist, Nate. But even I know that the arguments you’re making were laid to rest decades ago. As far as I know, you’re the only modern scholar who still accepts them."
    "And that makes me wrong?"
    "Of course not. Look, you’re the expert, not me. All I’m trying to suggest is that the way you’re going about things has gotten the Horizon Foundation and the Wessex Antiquarian Society on your back, and you might want to be just a little less bellicose. If that inquiry goes against you and they relieve you here, you’ll never get another legitimate dig."
    Nate sighed impatiently, flicking a pottery fragment with the back of his finger. "Listen, you think I don’t know you’re trying to help me? I appreciate it, believe me. But I have to do this my own way. Do you want me to say I don’t believe what I know is true? I
know
I’m right; Jack knows it; all of us here know it."
    Frawley had continued to probe his pipe noncommittally. Angrily, Gideon rounded on him. "Jack, isn’t there anything you’d like to say about this?"
    Frawley shifted and shook his head, not meeting Gideon’s eyes. "I may have certain, ah, minor points of difference, but what Nate says, ah, makes real sense." The pipe seemed to be ready, and he concentrated on searching for his matches, pocket by pocket.
    It was amazing that Nate, never very kindly disposed toward yes-men, would tolerate Frawley’s sycophancy, let alone encourage it. Or maybe not so strange. Nate
had
changed. He had, of course, always been intense, frequently ardent, and yet underneath his passion there had always been that healthy, self-mocking sense of humor that kept him on a reasonably even keel. But if it was still there, it hadn’t surfaced so far. Was he so caught up in his strange theory that he didn’t know a yes-man when he saw one— even one as pusillanimous as Frawley?
    "Gid," Nate said, "you know what the
Times
said— rumors of a sensational new discovery? Well, it’s true. I’ve got proof that nobody can argue with. You’re not going to
believe
it!" He spoke with mounting excitement, as if he were about to hug himself or rub his hands together. Instead he jumped from his chair to pace restlessly up and down the narrow space behind the table. He’d gotten thinner, Gideon realized. His clothes flapped on him as if they were two sizes too large. This battle he was fighting was eating him up.
    "Just wait," he