A Late Phoenix Read Online Free Page A

scoop with his big hands. “And then we might never have known he was here. Man, that digger really digs. A couple of goes and the driver not really looking and that would have been the end of him.”
    â€œOn the other hand,” remarked the observant Dr. Latimer, “they very nearly found him yesterday from the looks of it.”
    â€œYesterday?” said Burrows at once.
    â€œThe archeologists. Look where they were digging …”
    â€œPretty near,” agreed the foreman. He looked down at the archeologists’ neat little trench in very much the same way as the captain of an ocean liner might have regarded a cabin cruiser. “Thank goodness they didn’t find him or we’d never have got on to the site at all.”
    William moved over the rough ground a little. “It looks to me as if it was a nearer thing than you might think, Mr. Burrows. Look over here. You can see where they drove their first markers in and then changed their minds.”
    â€œWonder what made them do that?” said Burrows politely, but he obviously wasn’t really interested in the vagaries of the archeologists. What he was interested in was the present and the immediate future. He stepped back to the crowd. “Would one of you lads go and find a copper, smartish, while I try to ring the firm? Mr. Garton’ll want to know about the holdup as soon as possible …”
    William finally straightened up. “There’s just one other thing, Mr. Burrows. If you’ve found this body and it did happen to have been the bombing …”
    â€œYes, Doctor?” Burrows already had his foot on the bottom rung of the ladder.
    â€œâ€¦ then there may be others here too.”
    â€œOh, no there won’t,” said the foreman flatly. “I’ve told them not to find any more.”
    The consultant pathologist to the Berebury and District Hospital Group Management Committee was Dr. Dabbe.
    It was slightly more than dusk by the time he and Detective Inspector C.D. Sloan got to the site. Sloan was the head of Berebury’s tiny Criminal Investigation Department. It was so tiny a department that if there were any odd jobs going it got them too. This was one of the odd jobs.
    In spite of the dusk they were not short of light. The contractors had rigged up arc lamps so that their own men could go on working after dark.
    But not tonight.
    Dr. Dabbe and the police were the only people working on the site tonight.
    â€œIt’s human, Sloan,” said the pathologist immediately he saw the skull. “At least they haven’t got us out here for an old sheep.”
    â€œNo, Doctor.” Sloan wouldn’t have minded particularly if they had. In the police world a false alarm was probably the best sort of alarm of all.
    â€œAnd it isn’t an ancient Greek.”
    â€œNo, Doctor,” said Sloan stolidly. “I didn’t think it was.”
    â€œThe Greeks always put an obol between the teeth of the dead to pay Charon, the ferryman, his fare.”
    â€œDid they, Doctor?” There was only one thing worse than a pathologist in a bad mood: a pathologist in a playful mood.
    â€œNowadays,” said Dr. Dabbe with mock gravity, “we are all ferried across the River of Death on the National Health.”
    â€œSo it’s not an ancient Greek,” began Sloan encouragingly. He was in a hurry even if the doctor wasn’t.
    â€œI’m afraid not,” said Dabbe. “I’m afraid it’s not ancient anything.”
    â€œThat’s what young Dr. Latimer thought,” offered Sloan, who had spoken to the general practitioner.
    â€œLatimer? Don’t know him.”
    â€œJust been appointed to Dr. Tarde’s old practice. Shouldn’t think he’s been here above ten minutes.”
    â€œTaken their time, haven’t they?” said the pathologist.
    â€œWhy, Doctor?”
    â€œWell, it must be a good couple of months