"Supposed to be?" Professor Hall-Waddington echoed, bewildered. "Of course it is. Le Gros Clark himself aged it, and sexed it, and estimated the cranial index. Sir Arthur Keith verified it, and so did your own Hooton."

Gideon was well aware of all this. He had himself studied photographs and casts of Poundbury Man and had never doubted the original analysis. "Professor," he said, "would it be possible to take it from the case-to handle it?"

The curator used a key at his waist to unlock the small, ordinary padlock, and raised the glass lid of the case. He turned aside four simple spring-clips that held down the black-velvet-covered block to which the time-stained bone was attached by two loops of wire. Looking oddly at Gideon, he stepped back and gestured politely at it. "Please," he said.

Gideon picked up the block and turned it so that he could look at the back of the fragment more closely. He needed only a second to confirm his impression.

"It isn’t Poundbury Man, sir."

"Not Poundbury Man?" The old archaeologist laughed tentatively. "Not Poundbury Man?"

"I’m afraid I don’t see how it can be." Poundbury Woman, maybe, or Poundbury Girl, but not Poundbury Man. There was no doubt in Gideon’s mind that what lay in his hand was the left rear half of a woman’s skull-not elderly at all, but in her twenties. And clearly broad-headed, not long-headed.

"Look at the nuchal crest," he said, "or rather, the absence of it-and the supra-auricular ridge. They’re not nearly pronounced enough to be male-"

"But Le Gros Clark himself stood right here, right where you are… Or was it in my office…? Yes, in my office-"

"And look, sir," Gideon persisted gently, "you can see for yourself that none of the sutures show even incipient closure, so she’s probably no more than twenty-four or twenty-five-"