"I’m not sure if I agree," Julie said.

Gideon, slightly annoyed, was about to reply when she suddenly added, "But who am I to disagree with a world-renowned authority?" and broke into another warm smile. She really was extraordinarily attractive, Gideon thought, even beautiful.

"Male," said John flatly, writing. "Okay. Anything else you can tell us?"

He looked so dejected that Gideon laughed. "You mean anything to justify my fee? Yes, I think so." He picked up the scapula and turned it slowly in his large hands. "He’s over twenty-three," he said after a while. "All the epiphyses are fused."

Gideon put the bone on the table and leaned close to it, using the magnifying glass like a jeweler’s lens. "And he’s definitely under forty. "No sigh of atrophic spots."

"Of what spots?" asked John dully, writing.

"Atrophic. As you get into middle age, the supply of blood to the scapula decreases, and the bone atrophies in places." When John winced, he added, "Don’t worry, it’s harmless."

Gideon turned the bone over several times more, still peering through the magnifying glass. "Ah!" he said, "Look at this. Just the tiniest bit of lipping on the circumferential margin of the glenoid fossa-"

"Doc," said John, "you’re going to have to go a little slower or else speak English."

"Don’t worry, I’ll write it up for you. The important thing is that lipping starts about thirty. I’d say he’s twenty-nine, or maybe just turned thirty, considering that the epiphyses look as if they’ve been fused six or seven years."

John put down his pad and looked squarely at Gideon. "Doc, is this on the level? Eckert was twenty-nine. Did you know that before?"

"I don’t play games like that, John, you know that."

"No," said John, "you don’t." He wrote some more on his pad.