"I don't think so, Lucien," Gideon said. "We've been working on our itinerary for weeks-"

" We've been working?" said Julie to the ceiling. "I really love that."

"-making reservations, arranging flights, and so forth. We already have room reservations in Les Eyzies next month, at the Hotel Cro-Magnon. That's where I stayed the last time I was there and I really like it. I wouldn't want to lose-"

"I'm sure I would have no trouble changing your reservation for you. The thing is, you see, these rather intriguing bones have just turned up here-"

"But we don't even arrive in France until-" He stopped. "Um… bones, did you say?"

"Yes, it's a curious case. They've been found in what seems to be a Paleolithic cave, oddly enough-by a dog, as it happens-and although I have no doubt that it's a homicide, I can't prove it. I was hoping that if you came earlier you might look them over while they're still there and see what you can turn up. It would be a great service to me, but, of course, if it's impossible…"

"Well, no, I wouldn't say it's impossible…"

Up into the air in a fountain of glossy, colored paper went the brochures. "I knew it," Julie muttered. "The minute I heard that 'um… bones?' I knew it. Les Eyzies, here we come. Honestly-"

"Lucien, it seems to be a little noisy at this end. Could you speak up a bit?"

Chapter 4

Paris may well be the most beautiful city in the world, but its outskirts are nothing to brag about. Leaving the Gare d'Austerlitz by train and rolling south toward the Dordogne one travels first through what seem like tens of miles of railroad yards, empty of people but dotted with grimy, isolated freight cars and passenger coaches that stand like tombstones on spurs that lead nowhere. Then come block on block of drab apartment houses, followed by grubby, gray suburbs that are succeeded in turn by grubby gray villages (relieved by an occasional glorious church), all set in flat, featureless countryside.