IV

The Cigarette End

THE DAY OF the inquest was a Friday. It got three lines in one of Saturday’s morning papers, but the rest ignored it. Things were very different next day. The Sunday Examiner devoted virtually its entire issue to Dr Arbolent’s discoveries – ‘the scoop of the millennium’ it called its publication of them. Television and radio took up the story, and so did Monday’s papers, one of the populars coming out with the inspired headline, ‘Britain Started The Lot!’

In Marlborough, extra police had to be found for traffic control as sightseers poured in on their way to Avebury and Wansdyke. Most of them were disappointed. The fallen stone and the dramatic burial chamber beneath it were under police guard, and nobody except officials of the Department of the Environment was admitted to the site. The South Down Camp swarmed with reporters and TV crews, but the Wansdyke Great Barrow was also roped off and guarded. The Sunday Examiner did a brilliant job in rushing out a fine descriptive pamphlet, copies of which sold in tens of thousands. Hotels, cafés and pubs throughout North Wessex did a roaring trade.

Revers was less happy. On Monday morning he had a long session with Superintendent Macleod. They had had a report on the broken timber from the forensic laboratory, but like everything else so far in the case it was suggestive without being in any way conclusive. The wood had fractured round a knot-hole, which was reasonable enough if there had been any reason for it to break at all. On each side of the break there were scratches and shallow indentations which suggested that it might have been held in clamps to be fractured deliberately, but the whole baulk was rough wood which had seen a lot of service, there were many other marks and scratches on it, and those near the break might mean anything or nothing. ‘What do you really want to do, John?’ Macleod asked. ‘Have we found any single scrap of evidence that points to any crime? Should we just close the file?’

‘I don’t know, honestly, I just don’t know. Remember your own lectures, that detection is applied common sense. So much that seems to have happened here is against all sense. There was no reason for young Clayton to be anywhere near that stone in the middle of the night. There is no reason that I can see why it should have fallen on him. Yes, there was this burial chamber underneath it, but if we’re to believe the archaeologist it’s been there for 4,000 years or more. Clayton’s preliminary excavation had not gone far. It hadn’t even reached the shaft leading into the burial chamber: I found that by prodding down myself. Of course, when I got there the earth was all disturbed by the wrenching out of the heel of the stone – it’s hard to say now what the ground was like before the thing collapsed. But I don’t think there was enough digging to upset the stone.

‘Then what are we to make of that queer engine noise in the night? The tractor driver and his wife are good witnesses, and they certainly heard something. We’ve gone over the wheel tracks, and there does seem to have been a Land Rover there before the firemen and the ambulance got there – its tracks are overlaid by theirs. The tyre marks are not very clear, but it looks as if it was the archaeological team’s own Land Rover, the one that Mr Armitage brought their equipment on. Again, why not? We can say it was there before the morning when Clayton’s body was found because of the overlying tracks, but we can’t say how long before. The only evidence that puts it in the night is the noise the tractor driver heard, and there’s nothing to connect an engine noise with any particular vehicle. It would have been quite in order for Clayton to have driven the Land Rover there himself – he was authorised to use it. But if so, who drove it away? He couldn’t, because he was dead.

‘And what about the doctors? They’re not happy about some of the head injuries. Yes, I know that twenty or thirty tons of rock on the rampage can do almost anything, but it was a very odd position for the body to be found. I don’t like questions I can’t answer, and I don’t want to close the file, Super. But how far we’re justified in spending more time on the case, I don’t know.’

Macleod considered things for a moment, then he said, ‘We can’t close the file yet, John, and in any case, we’re covered for a bit by the Coroner, who adjourned the inquest for further inquiries to be made. But just what we can do is another matter, and the present hullabaloo with the public stampeding all over the place doesn’t help. Have you come across no line of any sort in the personal inquiries?’

‘Nothing at all. Dr Arbolent seems open and above board. He’s got a good job at Oxford, and although some people think he’s given to pretty wild theories, he seems to be held in general esteem in his profession – at least, that’s what the Department of the Environment’s experts tell me. He’s a queer bird with an offputting manner, but there doesn’t seem to be anything else against him. George Armitage, who appears to be acting as his number two now, also seems about as harmless as they come. He’s got a reputable post with that museum in Manchester, and he’s held it for some years. The Manchester police say that he’s expected to get the top job when the present curator retires next year. I haven’t made inquiries about all the young people at the camp – there hasn’t seemed much point. But I’ve got a list of all their names and addresses. Perhaps I ought to start on that.’

‘You might as well, unless something better turns up.’

*

Something, or rather, somebody, did turn up next day. Revers was in his office, dealing with the papers in a routine case of breaking and entering, when a constable came in. ‘There’s a gentleman downstairs who says he wants to see someone in connection with the Avebury case,’ he said. ‘He gave me this card. Will you see him?’

Revers took the card, and read,

Anthony Marryat, M.A., Ph.D.,

St James’s College,

Cambridge

‘Yes, certainly I’ll see him,’ he said. ‘You can bring him up now.’

Dr Marryat was a man of about Revers’s own age, with a pleasantly craggy face, and clear blue, rather deep-set eyes, looking at the moment decidedly troubled. The constable announced ‘Inspector Revers’, and withdrew. Revers got up from his desk and held out his hand. ‘I don’t know yet if I can help you, but if you’ll tell me what it is, I’ll do my best,’ he said. There was a chair facing the desk, and Dr Marryat sat down in it. Revers, wanting to seem as informal as he could, sat on the edge of the desk.

‘It is good of you to see me so quickly.’ said his visitor, ‘but I’ve only just heard of Paul Clayton’s death, and I don’t know anything about it. Now there’s all this tremendous excitement about Arbolent’s fantastic discoveries, and I can’t make sense of any of the newspapers. So I came here. I was excavating in Greece, and I heard the news on the radio, with something about a young archaeologist called Clayton being killed by a falling stone. I am a Fellow of St James’s, and I was his director of studies when he was an undergraduate. Then he got a research studentship, and since his interests in Megalithic cultures were similar to my own, we worked together quite closely. I had a tremendous respect for him – he was very able indeed, and his death is an appalling loss to archaeology. But I don’t yet know what happened. I flew back from Greece yesterday, and thought the best thing I could do was to go to the police straightaway. You see, I had a letter from him, only a few days ago.’ He took a folded letter from his pocket and gave it to Revers.

It was a longish letter, in neat, small handwriting. Most of it was a straightforward description of life at the South Down camp, and of the work on Wansdyke Great Barrow, and there were inquiries about someone called ‘Ruth’. The letter was signed simply ‘Paul’. Underneath the signature was written,

‘P.S. Did you know that they smoked cigarettes in the second millennium BC?’

‘Who is Ruth?’ Revers asked.

‘My sister. She was at Newnham when Paul was an undergraduate and now she works for an international bank in Switzerland. If Paul had lived I think she would have married him.’

Revers went to his safe and took out the envelope with the contents of Paul Clayton’s wallet. He extracted the photograph and handed it to Dr Marryat. ‘Is that Ruth?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘He carried it in his pocket.’

Marryat was deeply moved, but said nothing. Revers was moved, too: this was a side of police work about which he could never acquire professional detachment.

*

‘What does the postscript about cigarettes mean?’

‘I haven’t the least idea. It looks like a sort of joke, but it hasn’t any point that I can see. And it’s quite unlike Paul to make cryptic jokes.’

Revers thought of the cigarette end among the contents of the wallet. ‘Does your sister smoke? Did Mr Clayton himself smoke?’ he asked.

‘No, neither of them. Why?’

‘I was just wondering about that postscript.’ He said nothing about the cigarette end, but decided that he must examine it more closely. He’d rather dismissed it as a pathetic little keepsake – kept because it had touched some girl’s lips. That, now, seemed improbable. He didn’t see what bearing it could possibly have on the case, but it was another unanswered question. He took back the photograph from Marryat. ‘I’d like to give you this,’ he said, ‘but at the moment I can’t. It’s inventoried as among Mr Clayton’s possessions, and until we know if he left a will I’m afraid it must stay here.’

‘As a matter of fact, Paul did make a will. I know, because he asked me if I’d act as his executor, and later on he brought me the will to show me.’

‘Did he have much to leave?’

‘He lived carefully, and he’d always worked in the vacations. He wrote a couple of books in that series of Rucksack Guides – one on Stonehenge and the other on the prehistoric monuments of Brittany. They sell quite well, and I think made a few hundred pounds. And he had some other savings, I don’t know exactly, but probably not much. He’d never had anything but grants and scholarships, and what he managed to earn by doing odd jobs. I think that’s why he didn’t marry Ruth – he didn’t feel that he had enough for marriage. He had a good chance of a college Fellowship next year, and the idea was that he and Ruth would get married after that, at least, I think so, but there was nothing formal about it.’

‘Do you know who benefits from his will?’

‘Yes. He left some books and a few odds and ends to me, and everything else to Ruth. There can’t be very much, though.’ Marryat paused. ‘But can you tell me how Paul died? I understand that the inquest has only been opened, and adjourned.’

Revers took a decision. ‘Until there is a verdict at the inquest,’ he said, ‘there is much that must remain in doubt. I can tell you how your friend died; I cannot yet say why he died. Physically, he was killed by a falling stone, one of the megalithic boulders at Avebury. It may be of some small comfort to you to know that he must have died instantly. Apparently the accident happened in the middle of the night, and why Mr Clayton was there at all at such a time we do not yet know. There are some other puzzling features about the case. You are his executor, and as far as I know he had no relatives. It is possible that you can help us to get at the facts behind his death. There is no evidence of any crime, but there is much that is as yet unexplained. If I take you into my confidence, Dr Marryat, are you willing to help us?’

‘Of course. But what on earth can I do?’

‘You are an archaeologist, working in much the same field as Mr Clayton was – indeed, in much the same field as everybody connected with this case. I feel that the explanation of Mr Clayton’s death can be found only by a reconstruction of precisely what he was doing in the Wansdyke and Avebury excavations. As a policeman, I can only go a little way to find out: apart from the fact that I lack specialised knowledge of archaeology, people are inevitably on their guard when talking to a police officer, and I feel that I just would not be told many little things that may be of the first importance. It is asking a lot, Dr Marryat, but would it be possible for you to join Dr Arbolent’s team for the rest of this summer?’

Marryat did not answer at once. Then he said, ‘I know Arbolent, of course, though I can’t say that I like him very much. But I think nobody likes him very much – he has an unfortunate arrogance of manner that gets other scholars’ backs up. I’m sure that’s why he didn’t get the chair at Oxford – on paper he was well qualified, almost entitled to it, when Sir Charles Torridon retired, but he didn’t get it. I’m certainly a ranking scholar as far as he’s concerned, but he’s an Oxford man, and I’m Cambridge. Whether he’d let me join his team, I don’t know – he might be flattered, he might be supercilious and enjoy turning me down. I can try, anyway.’

‘Good. In spite of what happens in some detective stories, we don’t employ amateur detectives. I can’t offer you any money, or official support. I don’t want you to do any cloak and dagger work. I do want you to work with Dr Arbolent’s team – which may be useful to you, anyway – and to tell me anything that you can find out about the last weeks of Mr Clayton’s life. All this is highly irregular, and most improper. I’m trusting you, Dr Marryat, and I hope you feel that you can trust me.’

‘I not only trust you, Inspector – do you know, I never even got your name properly – but I respect you, and appreciate very much what you are trying to do for Paul. Arbolent should be around somewhere this afternoon, and I’ll try to see him, and get taken on the strength. Where can I get in touch with you?’

‘Here. But have you had any lunch? If you don’t mind taking pot-luck, I’d be delighted if you’d come home and have lunch with me.’

*

Diana Revers was used to feeding all sorts and conditions of men at all sorts and conditions of times. Dr Marryat was pleasanter, and more interesting, than most. Revers decided that he both liked, and trusted him. They didn’t discuss Paul Clayton’s death, but Marryat did talk a little about his background. His father had been a doctor, who had died when Paul was about three. A few months later his mother had married again and gone to Australia with her new husband. Apparently regarding the child as just a nuisance, she had simply left him behind in the house. Next day he had been found bewildered, crying and very hungry by a neighbour. There being no other relatives, and the mother having left no address, Paul was taken into care by the County Council and brought up in various orphanages and children’s homes. He had become a voracious reader, escaping from his orphanages into books. One result of his loneliness was that he did exceedingly well at school and had won a major Cambridge scholarship. ‘He once told me that he had turned to ancient history and archaeology when he was a kid because everything had happened long ago and nobody could be hurt any more,’ Marryat said. His mother had never made the slightest effort to get in touch with him, or even, as far as anyone knew, to find out what had happened to him. ‘It seems barely credible,’ Marryat said, ‘but it happened. The result, as far as Paul was concerned, was that he grew up into an absolutely splendid person, self-reliant and reserved, as I suppose he had to be, but about the most unselfish and considerate of men I’ve ever met. He had pretty harsh standards, though, for himself as well as others. He hated any sort of dishonesty.’

*

After lunch Marryat went off to see if he could get hold of Dr Arbolent, and Revers went back to his cigarette end. It seemed an entirely normal stub, about three-quarters of an inch long. It was tobacco, not a filter tip, and had been smoked below any brand name it might once have had. It bore no marks of lipstick, which argued against Revers’s original sentimental theory, but not conclusively, for not all young women necessarily use lipstick, or use it all the time. Since Clayton was apparently in love with Ruth Marryat, who did not smoke, it was unlikely that he was treasuring the cigarette end as a memento of any other woman. The absence of lipstick marks suggested that the smoker was probably a man, again, though, not conclusively. Why on earth had Clayton kept the thing in his wallet? He didn’t smoke himself, so he couldn’t have been collecting cigarette ends for further use. The fact that it had been put carefully in the wallet and not just in a pocket suggested that it had been kept deliberately for some particular reason. Revers asked himself what reasons might prompt the keeping of a cigarette end. He could think of none that seemed obvious. It was possible that an exceptionally tidy minded individual might pick up a cigarette end that he regarded as littering some beauty spot or holy place, but it was not very likely, and if a cigarette end were picked up like that it would be put in a pocket to be thrown away again at the first opportunity. A smoker, feeling guilty about smoking in some place where smoking was prohibited, might pocket a cigarette-end to hide the evidence, but he would not put it away in a wallet. But Paul Clayton wasn’t a smoker. A detective might guard a cigarette-end as evidence that someone had been in a particular spot, but Clayton wasn’t a detective. Or – was he? If so, what was he trying to detect? There was no evidence of any sort of crime at the camp, but it was possible that there had been an outbreak of pilfering and that Clayton, as a senior member of the team, was trying to discover the thief. Mentally, Revers kicked himself for not having asked about this when he was interviewing the team, but then he thought that there had been no reason why he should. Now it was something that would have to be gone into, though what bearing it could have on the fall of the stone at Avebury was hard to imagine.

Revers decided to have the cigarette end photographed, and then to send it to the forensic laboratory for an analysis of the tobacco.

*

Marryat found Dr Arbolent in his office at the South Down Camp. There were five reporters and three photographers also trying to see him. They were far from happy. At first they took Marryat for another reporter, and one of them said, ‘The bastard said he’d see us here this morning, but he’s kept us hanging around all day. He may be the cat’s whiskers at deciphering old stones, but I’ve got a deadline to make.’

Marryat was wondering what he ought to do when a girl came out of the office with a sheet of typescript. ‘Dr Arbolent is very sorry,’ she said, ‘but he’s been far too busy all day to have time to see anyone. Here is today’s statement on the progress of the excavations – I’m going to pin it on the notice-board. Dr Arbolent says that you may quote it as being said by him provided that you use the exact words.’

The reporters gathered round the camp notice-board to copy the statement, and one of the photographers asked, ‘What about pictures?’

‘Dr Arbolent will be available for photographs in about half an hour,’ the girl said.

As she turned to go back into the office, Marryat gave her his card. ‘Dr Arbolent knows me,’ he said. ‘Would you be good enough to ask if he can spare me a few minutes.’

The girl glanced at the card, but it didn’t seem to mean anything to her. ‘I’ll ask, but I don’t suppose it will be much good,’ she said. ‘Anyway, wait here.’

Much to Marryat’s surprise, the girl came out again in a couple of minutes and said, ‘Dr Arbolent will be delighted to see you. Will you please come in?’

Dr Arbolent was sitting in a camp chair at a trestle table that served as a desk. It was littered with papers, some of which had overflowed onto the one chair in front of the desk, and from the chair onto the floor. He did not get up, nor did he invite his visitor to clean the chair to sit down. ‘Well, Marryat,’ he said, ‘this is a surprise. I didn’t think you’d be on my side!’

‘I’ve come to congratulate you,’ Marryat said. ‘Of course, I’ve only seen the newspaper reports of your discoveries, but they seem of the most fundamental importance, putting Layard, Rawlinson, Evans and everybody else in the shade.’

Dr Arbolent was clearly pleased. ‘I suspect things, you see, Marryat, and as I’ve remarked before, my suspicions have a way of being right. But surely you’re a great easterner, like all the rest?’

‘One can be wrong, and it’s the job of scholarship to look for truth.’

‘Indeed yes! Would that there were more people like you! It is good of you to come down to congratulate me. Do you know, you are the only archaeologist of any merit who has so far bothered to do so! The rest are all too jealous, I suppose.’

‘I was wondering, Arbolent, if you’d let me join your team for a few weeks. I could be quite useful, you know – you must have a fearful lot on your plate.’

‘Jumping on the band-wagon, eh?’

‘Well, if that’s how you feel –’ Marryat turned to go.

‘No, no. Come back! I fear I spoke hastily – I have cause for feeling aggrieved at many of my fellow archaeologists. Yes, Marryat, you could certainly be useful, and you may stay in the camp if you wish. But you will understand that this remains my expedition – you must be supernumerary, acting under my instructions.’

‘Of course.’

‘As long as that’s clear, well and good. I have a second-in-command, George Armitage, of the Dennison Museum in Manchester. He’s not a Megalithic man, but he’s a sound archaeologist: you may have come across him. He volunteered for this dig as long ago as last year, and I shall explain to him that you are not to outrank him in any way. The rest are all students and you must fit in as you and Armitage think best. Now I have an appointment with some photographers, and you must please excuse me. Go and see Armitage and get yourself fixed up.’

Marryat felt so angry that he had to walk round the hut twice in order to cool off. The reporters had gone away, and the photographers had been called in to take pictures of the great man seated at his camp desk. For the moment there was nobody else about. Marryat regretted having come, and was in two minds about getting in his car and driving back to Cambridge straightaway. Then he reflected that he had a job to do, at least for Paul Clayton’s memory and, in some sense, for Ruth. He had his kit from Greece in the boot of the car, so if the camp would give him a bed, he could clock in straightaway.

He knew his way about archaeological camps, and decided that the best place to start looking for George Armitage would be in the Mess. He went across to the Mess hut, to find it empty, except for a rather pretty girl who was laying the trestle tables for tea.

‘Hullo,’ she said. ‘Are you looking for somebody?’ She spoke with a rather attractive American accent.

‘Yes, I’m looking for Mr Armitage. Do you know where I can find him?’

‘Well, I’m Juliet Boyce, and I’m new here, so they put me on canteen duty. I don’t know much about what goes on yet, but I expect Mr Armitage will be at the barrow. He’ll be coming back for tea quite soon. You can wait here if you like.’

‘Thanks. Would there be any chance of having a cup of tea?’

The girl laughed. ‘You English and your everlasting tea! Well, I haven’t been able to find any teabags, but there’s some stuff they call tea in the urn.’ She handed him a mug. ‘You can certainly help yourself to that.’

Marryat shuddered slightly, but duly filled the mug from the urn. ‘Shall I fill a cup for you?’ he asked.

‘No, thanks. I’ve got to set out the pork pies before they come. It’s a cold tea today, thank goodness!’

Marryat quite enjoyed watching her. ‘Where do you come from?’ he asked.

‘Well, I come from Iowa. My dad’s a professor at Milman – that’s a university there. I’m doing archaeology, and Dr Arbolent let me join the team here. I reckon it’s just about the luckiest thing that ever happened to me.’

‘I’m joining the team, too,’ said Marryat.

‘Oh, that’s nice. Are you an archaeologist?’

‘Yes, from Cambridge, England.’

*

George Armitage walked in. ‘I came down a bit ahead of the others,’ he said to Juliet, ‘to see if you needed a hand.’

‘That’s nice of you, but I think everything’s all right. And you’ve got a visitor.’ To Marryat she said, ‘Here’s Mr Armitage.’

Marryat introduced himself. ‘Tony Marryat,’ he said. ‘Dr Arbolent has invited me to join the work here for a bit, and he told me to report to you.’

‘Are you Anthony Marryat, the Cambridge man?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s an honour to meet you. I’ve read and re-read Circles of Stone and Prehistoric Man in Spain, and I think all your papers in Antiquity.’

Marryat laughed. ‘It’s good to be flattered, but really, I don’t deserve it. And you’re the boss – Dr Arbolent made it clear that I’m here only as a supernumerary observer. I’ll do whatever work you want me to, of course, but I’m not trying to gate-crash your team. I’m just very, very interested.’

‘Are you staying tonight?’

‘Yes, if you’ve got a bed for me.’

‘We certainly have. Look, Juliet. I’d better take Dr Marryat across to the sleeping hut. If the others come before I get back don’t wait for me. Dr Marryat, will you come with me?’

*

The men’s sleeping hut was empty. Armitage seemed suddenly rather ill-at-ease. ‘You ought to have the bed in the corner, because it has a scrap of privacy,’ he said. ‘It’s vacant, but I don’t know whether you’d like it.’

‘Whyever not?’

‘Well, it was Paul Clayton’s bed. You must have heard about Paul Clayton!’

‘Yes, indeed: a dreadfully sad business. He was at my college – that’s partly why I’m here. I don’t at all mind taking over his bed.’

‘Well, that’s all right then. You knew Paul quite well, I suppose.’

‘Very well. And liked him enormously. He was a very able chap, and his death is a pitiful loss. But I’m afraid I know very little about it – I’ve only just got back from Greece.’

‘None of us knows much about it, and it’s upset the camp a great deal. We had the police here making inquiries, but there wasn’t much we could tell them. I went to the inquest last week, but it was just opened and adjourned. So we’re none the wiser for it. Paul was killed by one of the monoliths at Avebury falling on him. Apparently it happened during the night. He’d begun some excavation work at the foot of the stone, and I suppose that must have disturbed the thing in some way, though Paul knew what he was doing, and I can’t imagine him taking any silly risks. But the worst thing is that nobody knows what on earth he was doing there at night. We just speculate endlessly, but no one can suggest any reason that seems even remotely sensible. Some people think that he must have had some sudden anxiety about the stone, and gone there to inspect the digging. But if so, why did he go off alone? He couldn’t have done anything by himself. And it just wasn’t like Paul to try to cover up a mistake, or something like that.’

The two men were silent for a bit. Then Marryat put his hand on Armitage’s shoulder in a quick gesture of sympathy. ‘Poor Paul,’ he said. ‘And poor you, and poor all the others . . . It’s a horrible thing to have happened, but it has happened, and it’s hard to see that it could have been anybody’s fault. It’s not the kind of thing that anyone can forget, but the work must go on. Paul would have wanted that.’

‘Thank you,’ said Armitage. ‘Let’s go across to tea.’

‘If you don’t mind, I think I’ll cut tea for this evening. I’ve got some friends in Marlborough, and I promised to look them up. I’ll sleep here tonight, if I may, and clock on for work in the morning. Will that be OK?’

‘Fine, if it suits you. See you either late tonight or in the morning, then. That’s my bed, over in the other corner. Just wake me up if you’re late, and want anything.’

‘I won’t, but thanks all the same.’

*

In Marlborough, Marryat found a telephone box and rang the police station, to be told that Inspector Revers had gone home. Revers had given him his home number, so he rang that. Revers answered almost at once.

‘It’s Marryat here. I’ve got myself taken on all right, but there are one or two things I’d like to ask you about. Can I come to see you straightaway? I won’t keep you very long.’

‘Of course you can. And, since I’m off duty, I can even offer you a drink.’

‘Thanks. I rather think I need it.’

*

Diana Revers was putting the two-year-old to bed. ‘Whisky or beer?’ Revers asked.

‘If it’s not a strain on the economy, whisky please.’ Revers poured whisky for both of them.

‘Lord, that’s good,’ said Marryat. ‘Inspector Revers, I’ve had a most horrible afternoon.’

‘I rather feared you might. But I gather you stuck it out?’

‘Yes. I’ve been given permission to join the team, but put firmly in my place and told that it can be only in a supernumerary capacity. Still, that’s good enough. The Number Two, George Armitage, seems a very decent chap. I’m going back to the camp to sleep there tonight.’

‘You seem to have done jolly well.’

‘Where I really did well was in keeping my hands off that insufferably pompous man Arbolent.’

‘I know just what you mean. But his discoveries seem to be of some importance.’

‘Well, I suppose so. I don’t doubt that Arbolent has found some interesting inscriptions, but his extension of his theories seems to me preposterous. But that’s Arbolent all over. He’s able enough, and he’s certainly done some good work, but all this ballyhoo is not scholarship, Inspector – it’s more a newspaper stunt. Yes, I know that academics like me can be criticised as stick-in-the-mud; and there’s so little money for archaeology nowadays that without newspaper sponsorship some really important work would never get done. But the interests of a newspaper and of a scholar are not the same. If this had been a university dig, or, say, a British Museum dig, every find would have been carefully evaluated before any announcement was made at all. I read in the Sunday Examiner that you were present when the cremation urn was found.’

‘I was.’

‘So you saw the urn, but have you any idea of even its most approximate date?’

‘Dr Arbolent put it early in the second millennium BC.’

‘He may think so, he’s a considerable expert, and his views deserve respect. But he’s prostituting scholarship by rushing off into sensational print. You cannot date an urn just by looking at it. You need to make measurements and exact comparisons with similar urns that have already been dated, you need thermo-luminescency tests on the pottery, and Carbon-14 tests on the remains of any organic matter found with it. Of course he and the Sunday Examiner have covered themselves by saying that they’ve published only preliminary findings, that every sort of test is going to be carried out and all the rest of it, but the harm’s done. Arbolent would say that this is professional jealousy. That may come into it a bit, but I don’t think so. It’s more a question of respect for standards. I’m not explaining very well, I’m afraid.’

‘You’re explaining perfectly well, and my own instincts are all on your side. We’ve both been brought up to test the evidence, I suppose. But you said you wanted to ask me something.’ Revers poured another drink.

‘Yes, I do, but I’m not sure that it’s quite fair. More than that, though, I just want to talk to you. I don’t know why Arbolent took me on.’

‘You seem pretty eminent in his own line. I’ve been asking the Ministry’s experts about you.’

‘Yes, but he would regard me as a rival more than anything else. At one stage this afternoon he accused me point-blank of wanting to jump on his band-wagon, and I began to walk out. Then he suddenly changed his mind, came as near as he’s capable of making an apology and asked me to stay. Why?’

‘There’s bound to be a lot of controversy over his views. Perhaps he thinks you’ll strengthen his position.’

‘I thought of that – in fact, that’s what I played for when I asked to be taken on. But it’s not good enough. If I were Arbolent, I wouldn’t want me around. He’s making a great reputation with the lay public. I’m not a layman. It’s understood that I’m not part of his team, I can’t make statements to the Press or anything like that, but I don’t fit in with this sort of sensational archaeology, and I should have thought that my mere presence in the camp would rather cramp his style. I’m sure he wants to try to use me for something, but I haven’t any idea what.’

Revers said nothing for a moment. Then he changed the subject slightly. ‘What was it you wanted specifically to ask me?’

‘Well, I’d very much like to have a look at the burial chamber underneath Paul’s stone, if possible when Arbolent’s not there. I understand that the place is still under police guard. I wondered if you could give me a note to say that I can go in. But I don’t know that this is very fair to Arbolent. He’d hate to have me sniffing around at his discovery in his absence.’

‘I see what you mean, but I want you to examine the place. It’s not just a matter of Dr Arbolent’s discoveries –there’s the mystery of Paul Clayton’s death to be unravelled. How would it be if we went there together? You could feel that you weren’t snooping on Dr Arbolent, but helping me. I agree that we don’t want Dr Arbolent around. According to the evening paper, he’s holding a big Press conference in London tomorrow, so he’ll be safely out of the way then. Can you arrange to meet me at the stone some time tomorrow?’

‘Yes, but may I telephone you to fix the time? I’ve got to try to detach myself from Armitage, and I’m not clear yet how to tackle this. Will you be at your office tomorrow?’

‘What sort of time?’

‘That’s just the difficulty. They’re working on the Great Barrow – I think no more work is being done at Avebury for the moment. I feel that I ought to go down with Armitage in the morning. They knock off for dinner at noon, and I’ll try to telephone some time between twelve and half-past, to fix a meeting for the afternoon. Would that be all right?’

‘Splendid. I won’t go to lunch until you’ve telephoned and I’ll keep the afternoon free for any time you like.’

*

Marryat felt it was high time that he left the Reverses to such family life as they had, so he gave himself a meal in Marlborough and got back to the camp just before nine. Armitage was listening to the radio in the Mess hut. He was obviously glad to see him back so early. ‘How about a drink before turning in?’ he said. ‘There’s not a bad little pub about half a mile away.’

‘Thanks, I’d like that,’ Marryat said.