Free Bone Rattler by Eliot Pattison Page B

deck,” Arnold explained. “He kept to his books,” he said in a louder, poised voice, as if he had decided to begin a eulogy. “When his wife died of fever a year ago he sought a new beginning. But he always seemed so lonely.”
    Duncan bent, studying the book in the scholar’s hand. “Why is it damaged?” he asked. “He loved his books, he would never do that.”
    “Do what?” Woolford asked.
    “The last pages are torn out.” Evering’s fingers did not resist as with his own fingertip Duncan pried up the back cover far enough to glance at the last page. “Revelations. Revelations has been ripped out of his Bible.”

    Arnold’s mouth opened and shut as if for an explanation, but no words came out. Someone had removed the pages about the end of the world.
    Duncan began examining Evering’s attire. “Are these not the clothes he wore when pulled from the sea?”
    “Dried and brushed, yes,” Arnold confirmed. “We added the waistcoat and the watch.”
    His waistcoat. Duncan did not recall ever seeing Evering without his waistcoat, the pockets of which were always bulging, filled with slips of paper, even sea biscuits to share with the prisoners, who had slowly warmed to the quiet, gentle scholar. But when they had pulled him from the water, Evering had not been wearing the sleeveless garment. As if he had died before fully dressing. As if he had died in his own quarters.
    “This is his everyday waistcoat,” Duncan observed. “He had a black one, for Sunday services. And this is his ordinary watch. He had a gold watch with a fob shaped like a book.”
    “Gone,” Arnold replied. “The thieves are as thick as rats on this ship.”
    “And his shoes?” Duncan asked.
    “One of the keepers polished them,” Arnold said.
    “And repaired this?” Duncan asked, pointing to the buckle on the left shoe, which was smaller and shinier than that of the right.
    “I suppose,” Woolford said impatiently. “Why would we possibly—” he began, but the words died in his throat as understanding lit his eyes.
    “What,” Duncan asked, “was the professor’s buckle doing by the blood-soaked compass?”
    Arnold bent over the shoe as Woolford stared at it with a dark expression. Neither offered an answer.
    Duncan paused again over Evering’s left knee, where the britches seemed somehow to adhere to the flesh. He rolled up the fabric, having to pry it from the skin at the knee. “He knelt on something before he died,” Duncan observed, squatting to study the chalky
skin of the knee. Numerous small punctures radiated out from the patella, the skin slightly discolored around each. Several held tiny shards that glistened in the light. Duncan studied them a moment, holding a lantern close. Glass. Small, sharp pieces of green glass. They would have made it impossible for Evering to walk without incredible pain. Which meant the professor had not knelt on the glass before he died, but as he died.
    Duncan moved to the pockets, discovering a slip of paper in the waistcoat. Hoping his companions did not mark his moment’s hesitation, Duncan used his other hand to open a second pocket as he palmed the paper. From the britches he extracted a handkerchief, wrapped around a ball of leaves and stems, which Duncan smelled before extending toward the others.
    “Seaweed?” Woolford inquired.
    “Tea,” Duncan replied. “Does a man contemplate a pot of tea and suicide at the same time?” He gazed into Evering’s lifeless face, feeling a strange connection with the man, realizing how much they had had in common, remembering the quiet conversations he and Adam and Evering had sometimes shared. Evering had spoken passionately about the calculations he had made that predicted a comet that would be visible in North America by mid-autumn. Duncan sensed that he and Evering would have become close friends had the professor lived. And now, for the first time, Duncan realized that even in his death Evering might provide the key to