Wu looked disapprovingly up at him. “Try not to bother them, will you?” He rammed the door closed and headed decisively up the hill toward the lodge.
John looked at Gideon. “Friendly little guy, isn't he?"
Gideon smiled. “A little testy, but he seems to know what he's doing. I guess we really do have ourselves a murder here."
"I guess we do. You want to come up with me and see what's happening?"
"No, thanks,” Gideon said. Not if Tremaine's unstiffening body was still there, he didn't.
"Okay. What do they do for lunch here?"
"They put out a buffet in the dining room from twelve to one-thirty."
"I want to get in a couple of interviews before then. How about meeting me there at one?"
"You're on,” Gideon said.
Chapter 12
For fifteen minutes, comfortably occupying the largest armchair in the upstairs lounge, Walter Judd had snuffled, chortled, and suspender-snapped his way through John's questions. No, he hadn't seen Audley after the cocktail hour last night. Yes, he himself had gone directly to his room after dinner and remained there all night. No, there wasn't anyone who could confirm that; just what was Mr. Lau insinuating? (Chuckle, rumble, snap, snap.) Yes, his room was next to Tremaine's, but no, he hadn't heard anything unusual, or anything at all for that matter.
Now, at John's latest question he stopped with his thumb hooked in a suspender strap. “Would you mind repeating that?"
"Sure. Who do you think killed Tremaine?"
"Now there's a question. My, my. Must I really answer that?"
"No, sir,” John said affably, “but I thought you'd want to help."
Judd slowly eased the band back. “Well, I just might. May I assume anything I tell you is confidential?"
"No,” John said, “you can't.” He had learned a long time ago that nine times out of ten, once someone got as far as asking him that question-paid informers excepted-the information was already as good as given, regardless of his answer. Refusing confidentiality at the outset made life simpler and saved grief all around.
Judd chuckled softly. “You certainly don't give a man a lot of room. Well, I don't imagine I'm telling you anything you don't already know if I say that the Illustrious Deceased had a somewhat, ah, shall we say, tarnished reputation when it came to using other people's ideas. Without attribution, I need hardly add."
"You don't sound as if you liked him very much."
"And who do you know who did?” Judd smiled. “Anyone of normal intelligence, I mean. And not counting his legion of adoring television fans.” The smile broadened. “Two mutually exclusive categories, I should think."
"Go ahead and tell me about his using other people's ideas."
"For example: A few years after the expedition, he published a very well received monograph on postglacial Rosacea dryas colonization. Anna Henckel claimed, quite probably with cause, that most of the ideas were stolen from her own unpublished work."
"And Dr. Henckel resented this?"
Judd gave him an amused look. “A bit,” he said drily. “To be frank, Anna still resents him quite bitterly. The other night in the bar, she was beating us about the head and shoulders with Audley's mismanagement of the Tirku survey.” He shook his bearish head wonderingly. “I mean to say, it's been thirty years."
"Us?"
"Gerald Pratt and me, though I don't think she ever quite got through to poor Gerald. One often doesn't."
"What was she saying?"
Judd blew out his lips and fluttered them like a horse. “God knows. She had some ancient memo, some self-serving document written by an obscure federal minion and mercifully lost in the files all these years, I suspect. Frankly, I wasn't paying much attention. Audley did botch things, of course, but after all this time, who cares? Unless, of course, he was going to gloss them over in his precious book and blame the problems on certain other people-which I wouldn't have put past him-in which case I, too, was prepared to set him straight. Oh, yes."
The botanist began chortling again. “If you were a botanist you'd have heard of the famous-the infamous-scene between Anna and Audley at the ASPT conference in 1969. Or 1968, was it? No, 1969; the year it was in Phoenix."
John waited patiently.
Judd's small eyes twinkled with remembered pleasure. “This was after an acrimonious exchange of letters in the Journal of Phylogeography that followed the publication of Audley's monograph. Anna had spat accusations and Audley had waffled, both true to form. Well, while Audley was speaking at a plenary session, Anna stood up in the audience and challenged him. And he refused to acknowledge her."
He leaned forward, eager and happy. “Whereupon the fearsome Henckel simply stood there and stared him down until he more or less wilted to a halt.” He rubbed his hands together. “Then she said-and I do mean said: ‘You, sir, have the balls of a fish!’ Upon which she stamped grandly out, thumping that staff of hers, her great black Dracula cape billowing."
His body began to jiggle with mirth. “Not being a piscine anatomist I can't vouch for how much sense it makes biologically, but I can tell you it brought down the house. Without fear of contradiction I may say that it has entered the annals of botanical legend.” He laid his head comfortably back and laughed without sound, eyes closed, shoulders shaking. It occurred to John that he was always making noise-sniffling, wheezing, snorting-except when he laughed. That he did silently.
The botanist was built like a turnip. His excess weight was all above the waist, mostly in that high, swollen belly. Below, he was chunky and solid, even at sixty. No spreading, sagging butt, no jellied thighs. A powerful man for all the fat, John thought; wide-shouldered, massive, thick-armed.
"Tell me,” John said, “did Tremaine ever steal any of your ideas?"
Judd clutched at his heart. “Egad, I'm a suspect!” His shoulders started jiggling again. “Sorry, Mr. Lau, I'm flattered, but I'm afraid I never impressed Audley enough for him to covet any of my ideas. More's the pity, more's the pity.” The jiggling slowly subsided. He batted a finger back and forth across pursed lips. “Although I suppose I should mention in this regard that there was some trouble between Audley and…no, no, that couldn't have any relevance to this."
John waited for him to go on. Outside of the movies, had he ever heard anyone say “egad” before?
"Really, no, it couldn't,” Judd said. “I don't know what I was thinking of."
"You never know,” John said. “Why don't you just tell me?"
"Well, it was one of Audley's graduate students: Steven Fisk. Steve seemed to think that Audley had appropriated some of his data, too. I seem to remember some grumbling about it from time to time, but it never came to anything. Of course he was Audley's student, and professors are expected to steal from their students, aren't they? In any case, Steve's been dead for all this time now, so…” He spread his palms and shrugged. “Well, you see, it just doesn't apply. Sed hoc nihil ad rem."
"Uh-huh,” John said, not willing to give him the satisfaction of asking him what it meant. “I understand you just missed getting caught in the avalanche yourself. You were sick that day?"
"I was attacked, sir. By a vicious specimen of Culex pipiens." Again he closed his eyes and shook his bulky shoulders, consumed with his odd, silent hilarity. “The things that lay men low."
John recrossed his legs and quietly sighed. He didn't think much of this heavy-footed posturing. He wasn't sure if the botanist was putting him down, or putting him on, or if maybe this was just some kind of standard routine he went in for. Whichever, it didn't make him like the man any better, or trust him, either.
"So what is that, some kind of bug?” he asked.
"Indeed, a mosquito of particularly nasty disposition. Apparently I'd been bitten several days before, and the bite had gotten infected without my realizing it. True, I wasn't feeling my best, but I flew out to Tirku with the others, determined to do my part. But when our exalted leader caught a glimpse of my wrist he said no. Despite my protestations, I was forced to remain down below on the beach, at the edge of the lateral moraine, while the others trekked across the glacier to the survey area."