“The dig is not part of a crime scene,” Darcy said. “I’m sure your inspector can’t prevent people from speaking to each other in an open field.”

“I suppose not,” the young Garda replied, his forehead still wrinkled. “All right, then, but don’t be long. I don’t want to get that inspector breathing down my neck.”

Darcy helped me from the motorcar and we plowed through mud to the field. Tarps had now been removed and a large trench was revealed. Two women were down in this hole and a man was standing at a trestle table on which sat what looked like some lumps of mud. He glanced up as we approached him.

“Sorry, this place is off-limits,” he said, coming around the table to fend us off. He was thin, bald and worried looking and had that distinctive academic air to him—the worn tweed jacket and baggy trousers.

“I’m Darcy O’Mara, heir to the Kilhenny title, and this land has been in my family for at least a thousand years,” Darcy said. “Any antiquities you find represent my family’s history.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. O’Mara—or is it ‘Lord’ something?” he asked.

“Just ‘mister.’ So can you tell me what made you excavate here and what you hope to find?”

“We’re excavating here because Pamela, down there in the trench, is doing her PhD thesis on burial chambers, and from aerial photographs she is convinced that she has found an ancient settlement here. Based on the present lay of the land she thinks the burial chamber must be close to this position. And of course the historic Burda club was found nearby, wasn’t it? That’s what really inspired the dig and gives us hope.”

“What have you found so far?” I asked.

He turned to look at me with interest and I could see him sizing up who I might be. “Only the usual, such as one finds in almost any field in Ireland. Pottery shards. Old farming implements. A couple of nice spearheads. Would you like to see the latest?” And he led us to the table on which the brown lumps now revealed themselves to be muddy shards.

“Are you Pamela’s professor?” Darcy asked, looking down at the girl in the trench who had now stopped work and was watching us.

“That’s right. Alex Harmon, professor of archeology, Trinity College.” The man held out his hand.

“And just the three of you working here? All from Trinity?” Darcy continued.

“Not just the three of us. The numbers fluctuate depending on who has time to come and help, and the weather conditions. Sometimes we’ve had as many as ten . . . but that’s a bit of overkill, actually. We get in each other’s way.”

“But they are all your students?”