Skeleton dance

Chapter 8

Some things never changed.

So Gideon thought with a smile as he stood unnoticed in the doorway of the Cafe du Centre's small, plain back room. It was a few minutes before eleven o'clock and the institute's fellows had gathered early for their meeting. There they were at the same scarred round table, the only table in the room, coffee cups and frosted carafes of water at hand, going at it hammer and tongs, just as they'd been doing three years ago, two of them stalwartly standing up for the Neanderthals as brothers, or at least cousins (despite the recent DNA evidence to the contrary), and the other three just as vigorously (and more accurately, in Gideon's view) in favor of demoting them to distant in-laws, no closer to humans than they were to the great apes.

Leading the anti-Neanderthal charge, as before, was the diminutive but formidable Audrey Godwin-Pope, one of the two Americans on the staff, and at 68 its second oldest member, after Beaupierre; a forthright, free-spoken woman with iron-gray hair done up in a bun, author of over a hundred monographs, and president of Sisters in Time, the feminist caucus of the International Archaeological Society. Audrey was on her second-or was it her third?-four-year appointment to the institute. (According to the charter the American fellows received four-year renewable appointments; the French fellows were appointed to indefinite terms.) Three years earlier, the last time the directorship had been open, she too had been a competitor, along with Beaupierre and Carpenter, but of course Carpenter had been selected and then a few months later Beaupierre had been appointed to replace him. Now it was widely and approvingly understood that Audrey was next in line in the unlikely prospect that Beaupierre were to leave any time soon.

Supporting her against the pro-Neanderthalers was the vinegary, pedantic Emile Grize, the staff paleopathologist, the only Frenchman Gideon knew who affected bow ties, generally oversized and usually with a gaudy, multicolored pattern, both of which sadly accentuated his own meager frame and vaguely reptilian features. Today it was flying yellow egrets on a field of mauve, not a happy choice for a man with the complexion of an over-the-hill Roquefort cheese.

The third and final member of the Neanderthal-as-poor-relation group was the other American, and the other woman, on the staff, Prudence McGinnis, her flyaway red hair more or less held back by a couple of barrettes. Sitting within easy reach of a plate of chocolate brioches, Pru was big, jolly, and irrepressible, with a washerwoman's thick, red wrists and forearms, and a body like an only slightly gone-to-seed female Russian shot-putter's. Gideon's and Pru's friendship went back to his days at Northern California State, when Pru, only three years younger than Gideon, had been a student in the very first graduate course he had taught. With her cocky, funny, shoot-from-the-hip New York manner she had struck many on the faculty as insufficiently reverent, but Gideon had taken to her from the first. Irreverence had been in short supply in the anthro department at Northern Cal, and from Gideon's perspective view Pru had been a breath of fresh air.

At odds with them on almost every point was the smaller pro-Neanderthal contingent, comprised, as before, of Jacques Beaupierre, the affable, constitutionally absent-minded director; and the gruff, bearlike Michel Montfort, distinguished Paleolithic archaeologist, diplomate of the French Academie des Sciences, and generally acknowledged to be the institute's most distinguished scholar if not its most diplomatic member. As befitting his status, he had been offered the directorship several times, offered it on a silver platter, but having no interest in or patience with administrative matters he had consistently declined-to the relief of all concerned.

Although outnumbered three to two and on the less generally accepted side of the argument, Beaupierre and Montfort more than managed to hold their own, thanks mostly to Montfort's imposing persona and acknowledged preeminence.

It was amazing, really, that they never got tired of haranguing each other, or that they'd never physically attacked one another in sheer frustration. (Or maybe they had, who knew?) Probably, the answer lay in the fact that they were out of each others' sight for seven months out of every twelve. According to the terms of its charter, the institute was in session only five months a year, from late June to the end of November, typically allowing them a three-month digging season followed by a two month "data consolidation" period. Except for Jacques Beaupierre, whose administrative duties were year-round, and Pru McGinnis, who held no outside faculty position, the staff members spent the rest the year away from the institute and each other on half-or three-quarter-time appointments at their home universities.

But whatever the reason, their endless debate had never been in danger of growing stale. "Ridiculous!" Montfort was declaring in his blunt Alsatian French at the moment. "Do you really think that if we could take a typical Neanderthal, give him a shave, dress him up in a jogging suit, and sit him down in a New York subway train, that any of the other passengers would even look twice at him?"

Pru received this with a hearty laugh. "You're absolutely right, and you want to know why? Because people who ride the New York subways know better than to notice anybody. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about here."

Watching from the doorway, Gideon smiled. It was nice to see that Pru was still Pru.

"As to the New York subway," said Emile Grize dryly, the egrets bobbing under his chin, "that is a subject on which, happily, I am unable to speak with conviction. However, as a trained paleopathologist-" As Gideon remembered, Emile began a lot of sentences with "As a trained paleopathologist"; in his own mind he was the one real scientist in this band of rock-hunters. "-as a trained paleopathologist I can assure you that a Neanderthal would not pass unnoticed in the Paris Metro, however well-shaven."

He sounded positively offended at the idea, as if, were poor Charlie Caveperson to shamble unassumingly aboard at the Etoile metro station, he, Emile Grize, would personally boot him off at the next stop.

"Be that as it may," said Audrey Godwin-Pope in her usual no-nonsense manner, "I would think we might agree that the outward appearance of these beings is beside the point."

" Does this interminable discussion actually have a point?" Montfort asked. "It continues to elude me."

"It was my impression," Audrey said, standing up to him (no surprise there), "that it was their social organization that was under discussion, and there even you, Michel, have to admit the evidence is unambiguous. They had none-at least not on a human level. Everything we know about Neanderthal society tells us that it was on a par with that of a wandering troop of mountain gorillas, nothing more."

"Is that so?" Montfort snorted, leaning combatively forward. "Suppose you tell me then: when was the last time you encountered a wandering troop of mountain gorillas that made a practice of burying their grandfathers?"

Touche, Gideon thought. Montfort was on the wrong side of the argument, but touche all the same.

"I saw a study recently," Jacques Beaupierre piped up, "that suggests there is now good reason to believe that the morphological differences between Neanderthal Man-"

"Neanderthals," said Audrey with the stoic demeanor of someone who was making the same correction for the thousandth time and had no hope that it was going to take this time any more than it had before. Nice to see that she hadn't changed either. "Or Neanderthalers, if you prefer."

"Differences between Neanderthals," said Beaupierre without missing a beat-he was used to it too-"and modern humans are not evolutionary at all, but nothing more than the result of an iodine-deficient diet, due to their distance from the seacoast."

"Iodine deficiency is well-known to result in thyroid dysfunction and eventually, if severe and protracted enough, in cretinism," Emile observed in his surgical but long-winded fashion. "Are we therefore to assume that the position of this study that the Neanderthal population is not a separate race or species at all, but simply an assemblage of cretins?"

Beaupierre's brow furrowed. "Ah… well, yes, I suppose that would follow, yes."

It was enough to make people sigh, and shake their heads, and glance around the room, finally becoming aware of Gideon. Pru at once jumped up and strode to the door to welcome him, her hand outstretched and her lively gray eyes almost on a level with his own. He smiled, equally glad to see her, although he could have done without her bonecracking gorilla-handshake, which he saw coming but couldn't in decency avoid. Audrey, more restrained, merely said, "Hello, Gideon, it's nice to see you again," but her stern mouth softened and even curved upward a little at the corners. These, fellow-Americans, were the two people he knew best and liked most. Montfort, whom he knew less well, was his usual crusty self but went so far as to rise halfway, grunt, and shake hands somewhat absently (a relief after Pru's knuckle-grinder). Only Emile Grize limited himself to no more than a frugal nod, which Gideon accepted as a cordial welcome, considering the source.

Audrey and Pru made room for him between them, a cafe creme was brought for him, and the business part of the meeting was attended to. With the institute in its annual data-consolidation mode, archaeological digs had been suspended while members concentrated on interpreting the season's findings. Thus, the discussion concerned little more than the publication schedules of various institute proceedings and monographs, and these were quickly, almost cursorily, dealt with. The language of discussion was then mercifully switched to English as a kindness to the newcomer, and Beaupierre turned the floor over to "our old friend, Gideon Oliver, the Skeleton Detective of America."

Ignoring the raised hairs on the nape of his neck that this hated phrase invariably produced, Gideon began: "As you all know, I'm here in connection with the book I'm doing on errors and fallacies in the social sciences; anthropology in particular. The Old Man of Tayac-"

But the sudden sensation of wary, quivering antennae all about him produced by these few words told him that they did not all know-in fact that none of them, apart from Beaupierre, had known-anything about it. Surprised, Gideon turned inquiringly to the director. "I thought you said…?"

"Ah, I've told everyone that you would be coming here to interview them," Beaupierre said nervously. "But it may be, now that I think of it, that perhaps I neglected to mention, ah, the exact subject matter of your, ah, interest in, mm…" He closed his mouth, took a sip of coffee, and apparently lost interest, gazing tranquilly out the window, an earnest, cogitative look on his face. Beaupierre had a way of doing that-simply quitting in the middle of a sentence, giving the impression that it was still going on somewhere in the ether, only not out loud. It was as if a radio had been switched off in the middle of a sentence. Sometimes he'd flip the switch back on again in the middle of another sentence, which was equally disconcerting.

There was a polite interval, apparently to permit the director to continue if he wished, which he didn't, and then Audrey filled her water glass and looked at Gideon. "Is this a serious academic work, Gideon?"

Oh boy; not a question he'd been looking forward to answering. His throat began to get a little dry and he too filled his glass from one of the carafes. "Well, not exactly, no, Audrey. It's intended for a popular audience, but I do mean to treat the subject in a serious, scholarly way." Well, in as serious and scholarly a way as Lester would let him get away with.

"And what, may I ask," said Emile Grize, "is the title of this popular yet scholarly book?" As it often was with Emile, it was a toss-up as to whether or not he meant to be sarcastic.

" Wrong Turns, Dead Ends, and Popular Misconceptions in the Study of Humankind," Gideon said, figuring he was better off ignoring for the moment the less scholarly-sounding Bones to Pick part. Even so, it didn't do much to tone down the general air of mistrust. (Thank God he had held out against Lester's Bungles, Blunders and Bloopers.) Still, what could he expect? How happy could they be about dusting off a farce that had made them a public laughing stock only a few years earlier? The Tayac hoopla had even made it to the Jay Leno show for four nights running, surely a first for the field of Middle Paleolithic decorative technology.

"I do mean this to be as serious and scholarly a piece of work as I can make it," he said truthfully. "I've been over this with my publisher a hundred times. I'm not interested in cheap laughs or in making our field look as if it's full of charlatans and fools. Scientists have made mistakes plenty of times, sure, and sometimes-but not very often-they've been plain dishonest-villains, even."

Pru's hand flew to her heart. She gasped. "Good God, sir, surely you jest."

"And I don't intend to cover any of that up," Gideon went on. "But the story of almost every hoax and every mistake has a scientist as hero too, and it's the heroes that I mean to concentrate on."

The eminent Michel Montfort had had little to say since Gideon's arrival, preferring instead to sit staring out the window in one of his well-remembered, scowling silences, tapping his fingernails on the table, making inroads into the chocolate brioches, and presumably thinking great thoughts. Now his snuffling bass broke in again.

"And who is the 'hero' in the saga of the Old Man of Tayac?"

Gideon hesitated. "You are, sir."

Montfort was visibly startled. " I am! Thank you very much, no! You can leave me out of your damned book."

"But you are." Gideon leaned earnestly toward him. "Professor Montfort, in my view the whole structure of anthropology-of any science-depends on the moral integrity of individual scientists who put the extension of knowledge ahead of any personal stake, however great, in the outcome of research. And you did that."

Gideon's forehead was suddenly warm. What he'd said had come across as painfully stuffy and pretentious, even to him, but it had come from the heart; Montfort was the hero of the story. Decades earlier, he had been one of the first to propound the idea of the essential humanity of the Neanderthals-their sensitivity, their intelligence, their cultural development. He had written eloquently and spoken-less eloquently but just as fervently-on the subject for two decades, presenting papers at one conference after another, eventually becoming its acknowledged spokesman. Ely Carpenter, taking up archaeology late in life, had been his student, a protege-although younger by only a few years-who whole-heartedly embraced his views and in whose subsequent success his mentor had taken enormous pride.

When Carpenter, by that time the director of the institute, had come up with those four perforated bones, Montfort had been ecstatic too. He had trumpeted the find as the long-hoped-for confirmation of his own theories and had stood shoulder to shoulder with Carpenter, zestfully fending off the doubters and the attackers.

But when evidence began mounting that the bones had actually been pilfered from a nearby museum, then doctored and 'planted' in the Tayac abri, the scholarly abuse (and scholars were in a class of their own when it came to abuse) rained down on Carpenter, on Montfort, and even on the blameless institute. It must have felt to Montfort as if his life's work had been made ludicrous, and yet, in the best tradition of science, he had calmly, objectively re-examined the now-discredited bones on his own and had eventually published the definitive paper, a landmark piece of scientific detective work showing exactly how the bones had been treated to make them look authentic. He had stoutly continued to maintain that Carpenter was the victim, not the perpetrator, but at the same time he had unshrinkingly established for good and all that he and his protege had been in the wrong, gullible dupes at best; his enemies had been right all the while. And that, as far as Gideon was concerned, was enough to make him a hero.

"Permit me to offer a small but significant semantic correction, Gideon," Emile said into the silence. "I submit that what you're describing is nothing more than simple scholarly disinterestedness-commendable, certainly, but hardly heroic. Now, speaking as a-"

Trained paleopathologist, Gideon thought.

"-trained scientist," Emile said, "I have to assume that disinterestedness is the foundation on which we-that is, all of us who call ourselves scientists-guide all of our actions. To accord it 'heroic' status is to make the error of implying that it is singular rather than customary and expected. I mean no disrespect, Michel."

But Montfort had been visibly moved by Gideon's speech. He slowly massaged his forehead, one hand at each temple, and grunted something about the desirability of leaving sleeping dogs to themselves, but said that if Gideon cared to interview him about Tayac he would make himself available. That turned the tide. There was a little grumbling, but in the end, much to Gideon's relief, everyone came around and agreed to talk to him.

Once the schedule was settled, the subject turned immediately and surprisingly to the new skeleton from the abri. They had been following the story all week, they said. It had been well-covered from the start in Sud Ouest, the local newspaper, and even more so when Inspector Joly was brought in, and this morning there had been an interview with Prefect of Police Marielle in which Gideon was mentioned by name. Questions flew: Did he know whose body it was? Was it true that the individual had been shot, murdered? Had he completed his analysis? Could he tell how long the body had been there? Did the police have a suspect? Was No, he said, he didn't know whose body it was; and yes, he had been shot to death; and no, his analysis wasn't complete, he'd be going to the St.-Cyprien morgue that afternoon to clean the bones and examine them further; and yes-He paused. "Wait, hold it, why is everyone so interested in this?"

"And why wouldn't we be interested?" Beaupierre asked; the first time he'd been heard from since introducing Gideon. "A murdered man found in one of our own rockshelters."

"Your own-? I don't-you mean those were your test trenches?"

"Certainly," Beaupierre said, laughing. "I dug them myself. They were sunk more than thirty years ago, one of the institute's early endeavors. You'll find the site in the archaeological record as PN-119. Unfortunately, it held nothing of interest."

Maybe not, Gideon thought, but the coincidences-the kind of coincidences that Joly liked so much-were beginning to pile up. First it turns out that the murdered man might have been a former institute employee, and now it seems that the body was buried in an old institute site. And what about that trowel, don't forget about that.

There was something going on behind the scenes here, but what?

"Unless, of course," Pru said to the director, "you accidentally overlooked a body buried in the middle of the floor."

But the unswervingly literal-minded Jacques Beaupierre was the wrong man for such banter. Confounded, he stared at her. "Are you joking?"

"Yes, Jacques."

Beaupierre didn't get it. "I'm sure I would never have overlooked such a thing."

"You didn't overlook anything, Jacques," Gideon assured him. "He wasn't buried there until much later, in the backfill from the trenches. He's only been there three years or so."

There was a sudden shift in mood around him, nothing so obvious as darting eyes or pregnant glances, but a sort of ripple, a fraction of a second that was out of kilter, as if a movie film had skittered over a torn sprocket hole. The discontinuity wasn't lost on Gideon, but what did it mean? Three years ago-that was when the commotion over the Old Man of Tayac had erupted. Was there a connection there?

Pru cleared her throat. "We had no idea it was so recent."

"The newspaper implied it'd been there for decades," Audrey said.

Gideon shook his head. "No, nowhere near that. Right around three years, that's all." Well, two to five, to be honest, but he'd clearly struck a chord of some kind with three, and if ever there was a time to do what Joly had asked him to, this was it. "You know, I was talking to the inspector this morning, and he wanted me to check something with you. He seems to think he might know who those bones belonged to: a man by the name of Jean Bousquet. I understand he worked here."

It was Audrey who answered after a barely perceptible general pause. "Bousquet? Yes, he was a temporary laborer, a hard man to get along with. It was a mistake to hire him-I don't think anyone here would argue with that-but temporary help isn't easy to find. It's hard, dirty work; they have to dig on their knees, or even on their bellies, half the time."

Pru laughed. "What, and we don't?"

"…really be Bousquet?" Beaupierre mumbled, coming in from his private wavelength. "But I don't see how, ah, mm…" And off he went again.

This time Gideon stayed with him. "You don't see what, Jacques?"

Beaupierre absently ran his fingers over his scalp, assuring himself that the few dozen heavily sprayed strands of hair that he combed over the top were still in place. "Well, only that it would mean that he must have returned from Corsica afterwards, and why would he-"

"From Corsica?" Gideon exclaimed. "He went to Corsica? Do you mean, after he disappeared from here?"

"After he left, yes."

"But how do you know that?"

"Why, because he telephoned us. It was a few weeks afterward."

"Maybe even longer than that," Pru said.

"It was a month, perhaps even more," said Montfort.

"Are you sure?" Gideon asked.

"Certainly I'm sure," Montfort told him. "I spoke to him myself. He was after a reference, a character reference." Montfort was one of those rare individuals who could successfully bring off a "harrumph," and he did so now, adding: "Which, I need hardly say, he was unsuccessful in procuring."

"I see," Gideon said thoughtfully. "Huh."

"I'm not tracking here, Gideon," Pru said. "Why is this important?"

"Well, it means he didn't really 'disappear' after all; he just took off for Corsica. So there goes our reason for assuming those were his bones in the cave."

"I see," Pru said with a shrug. "Yeah, I guess that's so."

Others nodded noncommittally. That would seem to have been that, and yet something queer was in the air. Something…

"The idea," said Jacques, continuing roughly from where he'd left off, "that that man would have the nerve to come back to Les Eyzies after all the-"

Audrey cut in. "I don't know about you, but I'm all in favor of changing the subject. Do we really want to burden Gideon with old gossip, Jacques?"

"Quite right," Beaupierre agreed, busying himself with his coffee. "No we don't, quite right."

"I understand," Gideon said, increasingly certain that he didn't. Corsica or no Corsica, he couldn't get away from the feeling-the conviction-that those bones were Bousquet's and that most of the other people in the room thought so too. "It's only that Inspector Joly mentioned that he'd had some kind of unpleasantness here, with one of his co-workers. I was wondering what that was about." This was hardly the smooth and subtle approach he was supposed to be taking, but he had hold of something and he didn't want to let go until he had at least some idea of what it was.

"Oh, well," said Beaupierre, "that's a long story-"

"A long story and a pointless one," Montfort muttered bluntly. Beaupierre might be the director, but it was clear where the fount of moral authority lay.

"Perhaps so," Beaupierre responded. "I only thought-that is-well, won't the police be prowling about soon in any case, asking their questions? But then again, of course, mm, it might be best, after all…" He subsided, fumbling with the heavy black temples of his glasses.

"If the police want to ask us about our views on Jean Bousquet's relationships with others, I'm sure we'll all answer as honestly as we can," Audrey said, "but for the time being, I think we'd all agree-I hope we'd all agree-that it would be premature-premature and unfair-for us to engage in speculation?"

The others did agree, but it seemed to Gideon there was something furtive, even shamefaced, in their nods.

"Besides," Pru said, "if nothing else, it'd put Gideon in an uncomfortable position."

But Gideon was already in an uncomfortable position. When he'd raised the subject of Jean Bousquet with them, he'd done it under the impression that Joly's "unpleasantness with a fellow-worker" had referred to a problem Bousquet had had with another laborer. But now a less palatable idea had slowly taken root: Bousquet's dispute had been with one of them. Why else were they banding together to prevent any discussion of it in front of him?

It was an extremely strong impression; something he felt bound to pass on to Joly, and it went against his instincts. Asking questions openly, getting open answers, and passing them along was one thing. Catching them off-guard and surreptitiously gauging their reactions was another, and it felt too damn close to informing on his friends. Not, of course, that he thought for a moment that one of these people-one of his fellow-anthropologists, after all-was guilty of murdering the unfortunate Bousquet (if it was Bousquet). Still, it made him feel like a rat.

To his surprise he found that he'd emptied his water glass, and he refilled it while he framed his words. "I'd like to set something straight. The basic reason I'm here is to work on my book, to fill in the gaps in my understanding of the Tayac affair. I hope everybody understands that. On the other hand, I am also helping Inspector Joly with those remains."

When he glanced up from the glass, he found them looking at him somewhat uncomprehendingly.

"What I'm trying to tell you is that I just want you to know that-well, that I am working with him…"

"Which means," Emile said, the egrets jiggling, "that anything we say may be used against us?"

"Not used against you, no-"

"But passed on to the stalwart inspector."

"Well… yes," Gideon said miserably. "If it's relevant. I think I have to."

"That's completely as it should be, Gideon," said Beaupierre. "It's only that, mm…"

Audrey picked up the ball. "It's only that we'd all be better served if we stayed away from gossip and stuck to facts. Is there anything we can do to assist that doesn't involve speculation, Gideon? I know we'd all like to help."

Gideon wished he were more sure of that himself, but in any case it was the chance he was looking for, and before anyone could disagree he said: "Yes, there is. You could tell me what Bousquet looked like."

They did, but nothing they said was useful. Brown eyes, brown hair, balding at the crown. An average guy, nothing special, not particularly tall, or short, or fat, or thin.

It fit the body in the cave, all right, but so did every other average white guy in France. "Does anybody remember his having any sort of serious infection?" he asked after a moment, thinking of the inflammation he'd found on the left ulna. "Skin ulcers that wouldn't heal, maybe?"

"Skin ulcers where?" asked Beaupierre.

"No, it works better if you tell me."

"No, no skin ulcers," Beaupierre said.

Then why did you ask where? thought Gideon. But of course with Beaupierre, you couldn't necessarily assume he had anything logical in mind when he spoke. Or anything at all.

Thoughtfully, Audrey lifted a hand. "Do you mean an infection that he had while he was here, or are you also interested in earlier ones?"

"Either," Gideon said. He wasn't sure how old the bone inflammation was.

"Well, he had t.b. when he was a boy, I know that. He told me about it once. He got it in West Africa-his father was a well-driller when Jean was in his teens, and the family lived in Mali for a while. Afterward, he had to spend some time at a government sanatorium in Menton."

"Do you mean skeletal t.b.?" Gideon asked with interest. He hadn't spotted any signs of it in his earlier examination-whatever the inflammation on the ulna was, it wasn't tubercular-but then he hadn't been looking for it, and the bones hadn't been cleaned yet, and if it had been a slight case he might easily have missed it. In the morgue, with good lighting and cleaned bones, it would be different.

"No, I don't think so," she said uncertainly. "The other kind, that affects the lungs."

"Pulmonary tuberculosis," Emile said professorially. "Consumption, in the vernacular. That will be no help to you, Gideon. As a trained paleopathologist I'm well aware-as I'm sure you are-that it leaves no evidence whatever on the bones."

"Actually it does sometimes," Gideon said. He knew he was stepping on Emile's ultra-sensitive toes, but science was science. "It turns out there are some characteristic skeletal lesions that show up about half the time. It's a new finding. There was a paper in the AJPA a few years ago. You might have missed it."

"Apparently I did," Emile said, tight-mouthed. "And what sort of lesions would these be?"

"Extremely subtle ones," Gideon said diplomatically. "That's why no one's noticed them until now. What you find is this diffuse periostitis on the internal aspects of some of the ribs-generally four through eight, on the left side. They're faint, but they can be seen if you know to look for them."

"Is that so?" said Emile, growing interested. He might not like being taught anything by the younger Gideon, but he was a paleopathologist (a trained paleopathologist)-one of the best there was, Gideon was ready to admit-and this was new data. "And this would presumably be a byproduct of chronic pulmonary tubercular infection of the subjacent pleural tissue?"

"Exactly. The-"

"Chronic pulmonary tubercular infection of the subjacent pleural tissue," said Beaupierre. "My, my, the waters are growing deep for us mere archaeologists. Well, well, Gideon, it's been most interesting, but I think we ought to conclude now. It's almost noon, and I'm sure we all have some final preparations to make for the symposium."

"One thing more," Montfort said, re-emerging from the solitary, superior plane to which he'd retreated again. "In regard to your book, Dr. Oliver: I don't want-I'm sure none of us want-to see Professor Carpenter made to look ridiculous."

There were murmurs of assent around the table; heartfelt, as far as Gideon could tell. Carpenter had been a popular and-until the debacle that had ended his career-a respected director.

"I won't make him look ridiculous," Gideon said.

"Nor his scholarship either," added Beaupierre.

But that was a trickier proposition. "I'm not trying to make anything look ridiculous, Jacques, but I don't see how I can get around the fact that his scholarship is suspect. How else could he have been-"

Montfort interrupted. "Dr. Beaupierre refers not to the unfortunate episode of the Old Man of Tayac, but to the entire body of Professor Carpenter's work, the total thrust of his research. And mine," he added with unmistakable emphasis. "As unfortunate as his lapse of judgment in this case was, I hope you will make it clear that it has no bearing on the fact that other Neanderthals in other places do demonstrate beyond any possible doubt the existence of artistic proclivities."

"They do, do they?" said Audrey, her hackles rising. "Beyond any possible doubt?"

"Better duck," Pru breathed in Gideon's ear. "We're off again."

She was right. Montfort rounded on Audrey, his eyes glittering with the zeal of battle. "Doctor, I am at a loss to understand how you can continue to dispute the existence of art, legitimate art, in the Middle Paleolithic. We now have evidence of pigment traces-yellow, red, black, brown-applied to stone at well over two dozen Neanderthal sites. Are you seriously suggesting that this was all unintentional, the result of some kind of repeated accident?"

"Of course not," said Audrey, taking up the challenge, "but I hope you're not suggesting that the application of coloring materials to a surface is necessarily an artistic act."

"Not an artistic act?" put in Beaupierre. "But… but of course it's an artistic act. What else would you call it?"

"Any one of a hundred things: simple curiosity, or a primitive enjoyment of novel effects, or an instinct for play. In all these sites you mention, can you point to a single application of color that could be called a pattern, a meaningful design?"

"Oh… pouf," said Beaupierre weakly.

"Go ahead and pouf all you like, Jacques," Emile said, "but Audrey is clearly in the right. All these pigment traces of yours are no more than smears or formless dabs. Oh, at best I suppose they might represent a naIve form of aesthetic appreciation on the part of Neanderthal Man-"

"Neanderthals," Audrey said automatically.

"On the part of Neanderthals, but nothing to be confused with artistic intent as we use the term."

"Oh, yes?" said Montfort, warming to the debate, "and just how do you propose to separate the two? Is there really so obvious a difference between artistic appreciation and aesthetic appreciation-even 'naIve' aesthetic appreciation, as you choose to call it?"

"That's right," said Beaupierre. "Yes, very true. We all know, mm, ah…"

"Oh, come on, people, give me a break," Pru said. "Babies play with crayons. Give a chimp some finger paints and he's happy for hours. So what? Does that make him an artist?"

"But what about the incised stone, the worked bone?" said Montfort. "Do chimpanzees carve crosses in stone?"

Several voice responded, but Audrey's was the most penetrating. "For heaven's sake, Michel, are you back on that nummulite fossil from Hungary? One of the lines on that "cross" is a natural crack, you know that as well as I do."

"And the other?"

"The other," said Emile, "is an ambiguous mark that could easily have been caused by skinning, butchering, or any one of a thousand utilitarian, totally unaesthetic activities."

Montfort looked sadly at him. "Always and forever the ready answer."

"I may not be an archaeologist-" Emile said

Montfort muttered something inaudible.

"-but it hardly takes an archaeologist to see it's just a scratch , that's all, a simple scratch on a stone. To refer to it as an 'incision,' a term connoting human agency, is spurious and misleading. I don't mean this in a personal sense, of course, Michel."

Montfort snorted. "And do you also have an answer for the complexly incised-pardon me, the scratched -bone fragment from Peche de l'Aze?" He thumped the table, making empty coffee cups rattle in their saucers.

"Natural erosion," said Emile, uncowed, with his chin thrust out.

"-the perforated reindeer phalanges from La Quina-"

"Carnivore activity."

Montfort, shaking his head, gazed sadly at him.

"But… but the perforated wolf metacarpal from Bocksteinschmiede?" said Beaupierre, taking up the argument as well as he could. "What about that?"

"Not proven to be Middle Paleolithic, as opposed to Upper Paleolithic!" cried Audrey, partway to her feet.

Beaupierre and Montfort let fly at the same time. Oh, yes? How did she explain the artifacts from Bilzingsleben? What about Repolusthohle? Arcy-sur-Cure? Cueva Morin in Spain?

Gideon had been long forgotten. All of them, including even the usually mellow Pru were talking at once, or rather shouting; banging the table and waving their arms for emphasis. Through the open door of the room Gideon saw the cafe's proprietor, standing behind the bar, exchange smiles and wags of the head with a couple of his customers. These scientists!

"I guess I'll be going," he announced. "Thanks very much for your help."

He thought no one had heard him over the din, but as he rose from his chair Pru touched his elbow, smiled, and said in her fluent French:

"Bienvenue chez les fous. "

Welcome back to the madhouse.