Murder in the Queen's Armes Read Online Free PDF

analysis. Gideon had found it rather long on broad cultural values and short on ceramic analysis, but it had been competently done. He remembered being put off by a certain insolence in Leon’s manner, a smug expectation of esteem due him from an audience composed of distinguished men and women, many of whom were two or three times his age.
    "I did," Gideon said. "I thought it was a fine paper."
    "Thanks. I sat in on your panel on Neanderthal population genetics the next day. I thought you made some damn good points."
    This was delivered man to man, one colleague to another, and Gideon was freshly and unreasonably nettled by Leon’s offhand self-satisfaction.
    While they had been talking, Barry had begun to pick up crumpled gum and candy wrappers that had been left behind by the school group. "You know the way Dr. Marcus is about housekeeping," he said to Gideon.
    "No, I don’t. Is he a stickler?"
    It was Leon who replied. "White-glove inspection every day. One tool out of place, one shovelful of dirt where it’s not supposed to be, and we have to stay after class for a twenty-minute lecture."
    The three students snickered among themselves and settled back to work.
    When the older man still had not emerged from the shed after another minute or two—what was taking so long?— Gideon said, "Looks like you have an interesting dig going. Mind if I come down and have a look?"
    "Sure!" Barry said. "You can tell us about the ribs."
    "Ribs?" Gideon ducked under the rope and dropped easily into the pit.
    Sandra pushed at her sandy hair with the back of her wrist. "We uncovered a couple of broken ribs over there in the northeast quadrant," she said, squinting through cigarette smoke, "and we’ve been arguing about them for days. Everybody but Leon says they’re human. And he won’t give up, because he can’t believe he could be wrong." She turned a bright, toothy smile on Leon.
    Leon did not return it. He jerked his head petulantly. "It’s just that I happen to be right."
    "Well, let’s have a look," Gideon said.
    In the wall of the trench, two sections of rib had been carefully excavated, the dirt around them shaved away so that they lay like an offering to the gods on an eight-inch pedestal of earth. Gideon knelt to look briefly at them, then straightened up.
    "What makes you so sure they couldn’t be human, Leon?"
    His lips pursed, Leon studied the bones with professional nonchalance. Absently, he took a roll of mints from the pocket of his windbreaker and pushed one into his mouth with his thumb. "It’s the shape. It’s hard to put into words, but they just don’t look human."
    "But they’re the right size," Barry put in. "Too small for a cow, too big for a dog."
    "No, Leon’s right," Gideon said. "They’re not human; not enough curvature. If you made a cross section of a human body and looked down on the ribs from above, the rib cage would be kind of heart-shaped, sort of like a big, fat apple, with the stem at the back, where the spine is. But a quadruped’s rib cage—a deer, say, which I think this is— would be shaped more like a… oh, like an elongated egg—like a bucket, really."
    "Gee," Barry said, "they sure look human to me."
    "No, human ribs are more curved, like arcs of a circle. You can see these are much more flattened."
    "Yes, it’s caused by evolution," Leon said easily. "In a four-footed animal, gravity would make the weight of the internal organs bear on the front of the rib cage, so it would naturally be shaped like a bucket to hold them in. But a human stands on his hind feet, so to speak, so his organs aren’t supported by his ribs, and they spread out into a nice, roomy circle instead."
    He
is
quick, Gideon thought; no doubt about that. By comparison, Barry’s glazed eyes showed that he’d been left far behind.
    "That’s right," Gideon said, "except that it isn’t
caused
by evolution. Evolution isn’t the cause of anything, strictly speaking; it’s a set of responses, of