The Jewel That Was Ours

CHAPTER TWENTY

IT WAS HALFWAY through the slow movement of Dvorak's American Quartet — with Morse mentally debating whether that wonderful work might just edge out the 'In Paradisum' from the Fauré Requiem for the number eight spot in his Desert Island cassettes — when the phone rang. For the second time that evening. Some while earlier, a weary-sounding Lewis had informed Morse that Mr. Eddie Stratton had gone off somewhere just after lunchtime — from the railway station and had still not returned to The Randolph. Naturally such a prolonged absence was a little worrying, especially in view of, well, the circumstances; and in fact an anxious Ashenden had rung Kidlington a few minutes previously, just in case the police knew anything. So Lewis thought he perhaps ought to mention it before going off duty. To that earlier call Morse had listened with a grudging, half-engaged attention; but he was listening far more carefully now.

Both Lewis and Max were already on the scene when Morse arrived, the surgeon (incongruously suited in evening-dress) immediately putting the chief inspector into the picture — in a somewhat flushed and florid manner:

'The dead man lay there, Morse'—pointing to the moonlit water by the weir—' "something pale and long and white", as the young lady said. Rather good, eh? Somebody'd poked him along here with a punt-pole; and when I arrived his body — his naked, semi-waterlogged body — was nudging against the side of the bank — just here — just in front of the changing cubicles, face down, his head washed clean of blood — much blood, methinks, Morse! — his hair rising and falling—'

'Have you been rehearsing all this stuff, Max?'

'Just drinking, dear boy. hair rising and falling in the water like some half-knackered jelly-fish.'

'Very fine!'

'I read that bit about the jelly-fish somewhere. Too good to let it go, eh?'

'He needed a hair-cut, you mean?'

'You've no poetry in your soul.'

'What party was it tonight?

'Oxfordshire Health Authority. Guest Speaker — no less!' Max flicked his bow-tie with the index-finger of his right hand, before pointing the same finger at the figure of a man lying covered with a plastic sheet on the splashed grass beside the water's edge.

'Who is it?' asked Morse quietly.

'Ah, I was hoping you could tell me that. You're the detective, Morse. Have a guess!'

'A seventy-year-old Californian whose wife died yesterday — died, according to the best informed medical opinion, of purely natural causes.'

'And what did he die of?'

'Suicide — suicide by drowning — about three or four hours ago, just as it was getting dark. Crashed his head against a jagged branch as he was floating by. Anything else you want to know?'

'Back to school, Morse! I'm not sure he's an American or whether he was recently severed from his spouse. But he's certainly not in his seventies! Forties more like — you could put your pension on the forties.'

'I propose keeping my pension, thank you.'

'See for yourself!'

Max drew back the covering from the corpse, and even Lewis gave his second involuntary shudder of the night. As for Morse, he looked for a second or two only, breathed very deeply, lurched a fraction forward for a moment as if he might vomit, then turned away. It was immediately clear, as Max had said, that there had earlier been much blood; soon clear, too, that the body was that of a comparatively young man; the body of the man whom Morse had interviewed (with such distaste) the previous evening; the man who had been cheated of the Wolvercote Jewel — and the man who now had been cheated of life.

Dr. Theodore Kemp.

Max was putting his bag into the boot of his BMW as Morse walked slowly up to him.

'You got here early, Max?'

'Just round the corner, dear boy. William Dunn School of Pathology. Know it?'

'How did he die?'

'Blood probably coagulated before he entered the water.'

'Really? I've never heard you say anything so definite before!'

'I know, Morse. I'm sorry. It's the drink.'

'But you'll know for certain tomorrow?'

' "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow." '

'It wasn't suicide, then?'

'Oh no, Morse. That was your verdict.'

'No chance?'

'I'm only a pathologist.'

'How long in the water?'

'Couldn't possibly say.'

'Roughly?'

'Eight, seven, six, five, four hours. "Roughly", you said?'

'Thank you very much.'

Max walked round to the front of his car: 'By the way, I was talking to Dr. Swain again this evening. He's reporting you to the Chief Constable.'

' 'Night, Max.'

' 'Night, Morse.'

When the surgeon had departed, Morse turned with unwarranted ferocity upon his ill-used sergeant: 'You told me, Lewis, that Mr. Eddie bloody Stratton had been missing in quite extraordinarily suspicious circumstances since early afternoon, and that a frenetically distraught Ashenden had rung you up—'

'I didn't! I didn't say that!'

'What did you tell me, then?'

'Well, I did mention that Stratton had gone AWOL. And I also said that Dr. Kemp hadn't turned up at the railway station when they'd arranged for a taxi to pick him up and take him—'

'What time was that?'

'Three o'clock, sir.'

'Mm. So if there's some evidence of a whacking great crack on his head. and if this had been deliberately inflicted rather than accidentally incurred. about seven hours ago, say. Three o'clock, you say, Lewis, when Kemp turned up again in Oxford?'

'When he didn't turn up in Oxford, sir.'

So many lights; the yellow lights of the arc-lamps that shone down on the river-bank; the white lights from the flashes of the police photographers; the blue lights of the police cars that lingered still around the scene. But little light in Morse's mind. He could hang around, of course, for the following hour or two, pretending to know what it was that he or anybody else should seek to discover. Or go back to HQ, and try to think up a few lines of enquiry for the staff there to pursue — men and women looking progressively more unwashed and unkempt and incompetent as the small hours of the morning gradually wore on.

But there was another option. He could drive down to The Randolph, and sort out that lying sod Ashenden! The bar would still be open, wouldn't it? At least for residents. Surely the bar never closed in a five-star hotel? Isn't that what you paid for? Yes! And occasionally, as now, it so happened that duty and pleasure would fall together in a sweet coincidence; and from Parson's Pleasure, after dutifully forbidding Lewis to linger more than a couple of hours or so, Morse himself departed.

It was twenty-five minutes after Morse had left the scene that Lewis discovered the first, fat clue: a sheet of yellow A4 paper on which the details of the Historic Cities of England Tour had been originally itemised; and on which the time of the final item that day had been crossed through boldly in blue Biro, with the entry now reading:

7.30 8.00 pm Dinner

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE PARKING PLOTS on either side of St. Giles' were now virtually empty and Morse drew the Jaguar in outside St. John's. It was two minutes past midnight when he walked through into the Chapters Bar, where a dozen or so late-night (early-morning) drinkers were still happily signing bills. Including Ashenden.

'Inspector! Can I get you a drink?'

After 'a touch of the malt' had been reasonably accurately translated by Michelle, the white-bloused, blue-skirted bar-maid, as a large Glenlivet, Morse joined Ashenden's table: 'Howard and Shirley Brown, Inspector — and Phil here, Phil Aldrich.' Morse shook hands with the three of them; and noted with approval the firm, cool handshake of Howard Brown, whose eyes seemed to Morse equally firm and cool as he smiled a cautious greeting. The reason for such a late session, Ashenden explained, was simple: Eddie Stratton. He had not been seen again since he was observed to leave the hotel just after lunch; observed by Mrs. Roscoe (who else?) — and also, as Morse knew, by Lewis himself. No one knew where he'd gone; everyone was worried sick; and by the look of her, Shirley Brown was worried the sickest: what could a man be doing at this time of night, for heaven's sake? Well, perhaps supping Glenlivet, thought Morse, or lying with some lovely girl under newly laundered sheets; and indeed he would have suggested to them that it was surely just a litde early to get too worried — when the night porter came through and asked Chief Inspector Morse if he was Chief Inspector Morse.

'How the hell did you know I was here, Lewis?'

'You said you were off home.'

'So why—?'

'No answer when I rang.'

'But how—?'

'I'm a detective, sir.'

'What do you want?'

A phone call made just before midnight to St. Aldate's Police Station had been relayed to the murder scene at Parson's Pleasure: Mrs. Marion Kemp, of 6 Cherwell Lodge, had reported that her husband, who had left for London early that morning, had still not arrived back home; that such an occurrence was quite unprecedented, and that she was beginning (had long begun!) to feel a little (a whole lot!) worried about him. She was herself a cripple, constantly in need of the sort of attention her husband had regularly given her in the evenings. She knew something, though not all, of his day's programme: she'd rung The Randolph at 10.45 p.m. and learned from the tour leader that her husband had not turned up at any point during the day to fulfil his commitments — and that in itself was quite out of character. After an evening of agonising and, now, almost unbearable waiting, she'd decided to ring the police.

Such was the message Lewis passed on, himself saying nothing for the moment of his own extraordinarily exciting find, but agreeing to pick up Morse in about ten minutes' time, after briefly reporting in to St. Aldate's.

'News? About Eddie?' asked an anxious Phil Aldrich, when the frowning Morse walked back into the bar.

Morse shook his head. 'We get all sorts of news, sir, in the Force: good news, sometimes — but mostly bad, of course. No news of Mr. Stratton, though. But I wouldn't worry too much, not about him, anyway. ' (the last words mumbled to himself). He wondered whether to tell the four of them seated there about the death of Dr. Kemp, for they'd have to know very soon anyway. But he decided they probably had enough on their minds for the moment; and swiftly tossing back the Glenlivet, he left them, making his way thoughtfully to the front entrance, and wondering something else: wondering whether any announcement of Kemp's death — Kemp's murder — would have come as too much of a surprise to one of the four people who still sat round their table in the Chapters Bar.

There was no time, however, for him to develop such a fascinating, and probably futile thought; for as he stood waiting on the pavement outside the hotel entrance, a taxi drew up, and with the help of the driver a very drunken man staggered stupidly into the foyer. Morse was usually reasonably tolerant about fellow-tipplers, and indeed occasionally rather enjoyed the company of slightly tipsy sirens; but the sight of this fellow pathetically fighting to extricate a wallet from an inner pocket, and then forking out and handing over three £10 notes — such a sight filled even Morse with mild disgust. Yet at least it was all a bit of a relief, wasn't it?

For the man was Eddie Stratton!

Clearly there could be little point in interviewing Stratton then and there; and already a solicitous (if censorious) Shirley Brown on one side, and a business-like (if unsmiling) Howard Brown on the other, were guiding the prodigal son to the guest-lift. No! Stratton could wait. With any luck he'd still be there the following morning.

Unlike the taxi driver.

Morse caught the man's arm, and held him back as he was walking down the steps. 'You must have brought him quite a way?'

'You wha'?'

'Thirty quid? Must have been — Banbury, was it?'

'Yeah — could a' bin. Nothin' to do with you, mate.'

'I'm not your mate,' said Morse, fishing for his warranty.

'So? Wha's the trouble?'

'Where did you pick him up?'

'North Oxford.'

'Expensive ride!'

'I didn't ask for—'

'You took it.'

'Not short of a quid or two though, these Yanks—'

'I quite like the Yanks.'

'Me too, officer.'

'There's a bottle there' (Morse pointed back to Reception). 'Leukaemia Fund. Doesn't look as if it's quite full yet.'

'How much?'

'Twenty?'

Shrugging, the taxi-man handed Morse two of the £10 notes.

'Where was it in North Oxford? What was the address?'

'I forget.'

'Shall we make it twenty-five?'

'Down the bottom of Hamilton Road, somewhere — ninety-seven, I think it was.'

'Name?'

'Same name as mine. Huh! Coincidence, eh?'

'I've always liked coincidences.'

'She rang up an' said, you know, take this fellah down to The Randolph.'

'Good! Thanks! Good night then, Mr., er. '

'Williams. Jack Williams.'

Lewis had pulled in behind the taxi, and was in time to find Morse slowly — reluctantly? — pushing two £10 notes into the slot of a Charity Bottle. He smiled happily. Morse had a bit of money — he knew that, but the chief's generosity, certainly in pubs, was seldom in evidence; and it was most reassuring to find that there was an unexpectedly munificent side to the chief inspector's soul. So Lewis watched, and said nothing.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

IT WAS NOT DIFFICULT for Lewis to find his way to the Kemps' home in Cherwell Lodge, the ground-floor flat on the extreme right of the three-storey building, since it was the only window in the whole street, let alone the block of flats, wherein electric light still blazed at a quarter to one that morning. By this time, Lewis had shown Morse the yellow A4 sheet; and Morse had seemed so delighted with it that he'd turned on the car's internal light in transit. He folded the sheet along its original creases, and was putting it inside his breast-pocket as Lewis quietly pulled the car alongside the pavement outside number 6.

'We can ring from there—be easier really,' suggested Morse, pointing to the Kemps' property. 'We'll need a WPC — there should be one at HQ, don't you think?'

Lewis nodded.

'And a doc,' continued Morse. 'Her doc, if he's not too far sunk in slumber or wine.'

Again Lewis nodded. 'You're right, sir. The more the merrier, isn't it, with this sort of thing? It's about the only time I really hate the job, you know — with accidents and so on. having to tell the relatives, and all that.'

It was Morse's turn to nod. 'Always hard, isn't it, Lewis? I hate it too, you know that.'

'Well, at least there are the two of us tonight, sir.'

'Pardon?'

'I said, at least with the two of us—'

'No! Only you, Lewis. We can't waste precious resources at this unearthly hour.'

'You mean you're not—'

'Me? I'm just going to walk round to, er, talk to our other witness.'

'Who's that?'

'That, Lewis, is Mrs. Sheila Williams. She could very well have something vital to tell us. It was Mrs. Williams, remember, who ordered the taxi—'

'But she'll be in bed!'

By not the merest flicker of an eyebrow did Morse betray the slightest interest in the prospect of interviewing an attractively proportioned and (most probably) scantily clad woman at such an ungodly hour.

'Well, I shall have to wake her up then, Lewis. Our job, as you rightly say, is full of difficult and sometimes distasteful duties.'

Lewis smiled in spite of himself. Why he ever enjoyed working with this strange, often unsympathetic, superficially quite humourless man, well, he never quite knew. He didn't even know if he did enjoy it. But his wife did. For whenever her husband was working with Morse, Mrs. Lewis could recognise a curious contentment in his eyes that was not only good for him, but good for her, too. Very good. And in a strange sort of way, she was almost as big an admirer of Morse as that faithful husband of hers — a husband whose happiness had always been her own.

'Perhaps, I'd better run you round there, sir.'

'No, no, Lewis! The walk may do me good.'

'As you say.'

'Er. just one more thing, Lewis. About the Jaguar. I left it just outside St. John's, I think. If, er. ' He held up his car-keys between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, as if saving his nostrils the distress of some malodorous handkerchief. Then he got out of the car.

As Lewis watched him walk away up to Hamilton Road, he wondered, as he'd so often wondered, what exactly Morse was thinking; wondered about what was going on in Morse's mind at that very moment; the reading of the clues, those clues to which no one else could see the answers; those glimpses of motive that no one else could ever have suspected; those answers to the sort of questions that no one else had even begun to ask.

When Morse opened the ramshackle gate to number 97, his mind was anticipating a potentially most interesting encounter. If a diabetic patient was in need of so-called 'balance'—namely, the appropriate injection of human insulin for the control of blood-sugar levels — equally so did Morse require the occasional balance of some mildly erotic fancy in order to meet the demands of what until recently he had diagnosed as a reasonably healthy libido. Earlier that very week, in fact, as he'd filled up the Jaguar with Gulf-inflated gasoline, he'd found himself surveying the display of the semi-pornographic magazines arranged along the highest shelf above the dailies; and re-acquainted himself with such reasonably familiar titles as Men Only, Escort, Knave, Video XXXX, and so many others, each of them enticing the susceptible motorist with its cover of some provocatively posed woman, vast-breasted and voluptuous. And it was just after he'd flicked through one of them that Detective Constable Hodges (blast his eyes!) had come in, walked over to the newspaper stall, and picked up the top copy but one from the Daily Mirror pile. Morse had immediately picked up a copy of The Times, and proceeded to hold this newspaper like a crusader flaunting his emblazoned shield as he'd stood beside Hodges at the check-out.

'Nice day, sir?'

'Very nice.'

It had seemed to Morse, at that moment, that the dull eyes of Hodges had betrayed not the slightest suspicion of Morse's susceptibility. But even Morse — especially Morse! — was sometimes wholly wrong.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

LEWIS WATCHED THE silhouette gradually form behind the opaque glass in the upper half of the front door.

'Hullo? Who is it?' The voice sounded sharp, and well educated.

'Police, Mrs. Kemp. You rang—'

'All right! All right! You took your time. Let me take mine!'

With much clicking of locks and a final scrabbling of a chain, the door was opened, and Lewis looked down with ill-disguised surprise.

'For Heaven's sake! Didn't they tell you I was a cripple?' And before Lewis could reply: 'Where's the policewoman?'

'Er, what policewoman, Mrs. Kemp?'

'Well, I'm not going to be put to bed by you—let's get that straight for a start!'

Lewis might almost have been amused by the exchanges thus far, were it not for the heavy burden of the news he was bearing.

'If I could just come in a minute—'

Marion Kemp turned her chair through one hundred and eighty degrees with a couple of flicks of her sinewy wrists, then wheeled herself swiftly and expertly into the front room. 'Close the door behind you, will you? Who are you by the way?'

Lewis identified himself, though Marion Kemp appeared but little interested in the proffered warranty.

'Have you found him yet?' The voice which Lewis had earlier thought well under control now wavered slightly, and with her handkerchief she quickly wiped away the light film of sweat that had formed on her upper lip.

'I'm afraid—' began Lewis.

But for the moment Marion simulated a degree of hospitality. 'Do sit down, Sergeant! The settee is quite comfortable — though I have little first-hand experience of it myself, of course. Now, the only reason I rang — the chief reason — was that I need a little help, as you can see.'

'Yes, I do see. I'm, er, sorry. '

'No need! My husband managed to crash into another car on the Ring Road down near Botley.'

'Er, I'll just, er. ' Lewis had seen the phone in the entrance-hall and with Mrs. Kemp's permission he now quickly left the room and rang HQ for a WPC. He felt profoundly uneasy, for he'd known the same sort of thing on several previous occasions: surviving relatives rabbiting on, as if so fearful of hearing the dreaded information.

'She'll be along soon, madam,' reported Lewis, seating himself again. 'Very dangerous that stretch by the Botley turn. '

'Not for the driver, Sergeant! Not on this occasion. One broken collar-bone, and a cut on the back of his shoulder — and even that refused to bleed for more than a couple of minutes.' The bitterness in her voice had become so intense that Lewis couldn't think of anything, even anything inadequate, to say. 'It would have been better if he'd killed me, and had done with the whole thing! I'm sure he thinks that. You see, he can't get rid of me — not the way he could get rid of any normal wife. He has to keep coming back all the time to look after my needs when. when he'd much rather be out having his needs looked after. You do know what I'm talking about, don't you, Sergeant?'

Lewis knew, yes; but he waited a little, nodding his sympathy to a woman who, for the moment, had said her immediate say.

'What time did your husband leave this morning?' he asked quietly, noting a pair of nervous eyes suddenly flash across at him.

'Seven-twenty. A taxi called. My husband was banned for three years after he'd killed me.'

Lewis shook his head helplessly: 'He didn't kill you, madam—'

'Yes he did! He killed the woman in the other car — and he killed me, too!'

Lewis it was who broke the long silence between them, and took out his note-book: 'You knew where he was going?'

'His publishers. He's just finished a book and now he's doing some chapters for the new Cambridge History of Early Britain.'

'And he actually—went, did he?'

'Don't be silly! Of course he went. He rang me up from London. The post hadn't come when he left, and he wanted to know if some proofs had arrived.'

'What time did you expect him back?'

'I wasn't sure. There'd been some trouble at The Randolph. You know all about that?'

Lewis nodded — ever dreading that inexorable moment when she, too, would have to know all about something else.

'They'd changed the programme — I forget exactly what he said. But he'd have been home by half-past ten. He's never later than that. '

The slim, dark-haired, rather plain woman in the wheelchair was beginning to betray the symptoms of panic. Talk on, Lewis! Write something in that little book of yours. Do anything!

'You've no idea where he might have gone to when he came back from London?'

'No, no, no, Sergeant! How could I? He'd hardly even have the time to see his precious Sheila bloody Williams, would he? That over-sexed, pathetic, alcoholic. '

Talk on, Lewis!

'He must have been pretty upset about the Wolvercote Jewel.'

'He'd been waiting long enough to see it.'

'Why didn't he go over to America to see it?'

'I wouldn't let him.'

Lewis looked down at the uncarpeted floor-boards and put his note-book away.

'Oh no! I wasn't going to be left here on my own. Not after what he did to me!'

'Mrs. Kemp, I'm afraid I've got—'

But Marion was staring down into some bleak abyss. Her voice, so savagely vindictive just a moment since, was suddenly tremulous and fearful — almost as if she already knew. 'I wasn't very nice to him about if, was I?'

Blessedly the front-door bell rang, and Lewis rose to his feet. 'That'll be the policewoman, Mrs. Kemp. I'll — if it's OK — I'll go and. Look, there's something we've got to tell you. I'll just go and let her in.'

'He's dead. He's dead, Sergeant, isn't he?'

'Yes, Mrs. Kemp. He's dead.'

She made no sound but the tips of her taut and bloodless fingers dug into her temples as if seeking to sever the nerves that carried the message from ears to brain.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

'SIT DOWN, INSPECTOR! Can I get you a drink?'

Sheila Williams, fairly sober and fully respectable, was drinking a cup of black coffee.

'What — coffee?'

Sheila shrugged: 'Whatever you like. I've got most things — if you know what I mean.'

'I drink too much as it is.'

'So do I.'

'Look, I know it's late—'

'I'm never in bed before about one — not on my own!' She laughed cruelly at herself.

'You've had a long day.'

'A long boozy day, yeah.' She took a few sips of the hot coffee. 'There's something in one of Kipling's stories about a fellow who says he knows his soul's gone rotten because he can't get drunk any more. You know it?'

Morse nodded. ' "Love o' Women".'

'Yeah! One of the greatest stories of the twentieth century.'

'Nineteenth, I think you'll find.'

'Oh, for Christ's sake! Not a literary copper!' She looked down miserably at the table-top; then looked up again as Morse elaborated:

'It was Mulvaney, wasn't it? "When the liquor does not take hold, the soul of a man is rotten in him." Been part of my mental baggage for many a year.'

'Jesus!' whispered Sheila.

The room in which they sat was pleasantly furnished, with some good quality pieces, and several interesting and unusual reproductions of Dutch seventeenth-century paintings. A few touches of good taste all round, thought Morse; of femininity, too — with a beribboned teddy-bear seated upright on the settee beside his mistress. And it was in this room, quietly and simply, that Morse told her of the death of Theodore Kemp, considering, in his own strange fashion, that it was perhaps not an inappropriate time for her to know.

For a while Sheila Williams sat quite motionless, her large, brown eyes gradually moistening like pavements in a sudden shower.

'But how. why.?'

'We don't know. We were hoping you might be able to help us. That's why I'm here.'

Sheila gaped at him. 'Me?'

'I'm told you had a — well, a bit of a row with him.'

'Who told you that?' (The voice sharp.)

'One of the group.'

'That Roscoe bitch!'

'Have another guess.'

'Ugh, forget it! We had a row, yes. God, if anyone was going to kill themselves after that, it was me—me, Inspector — not him.'

'Look! I'm sorry to have to ask you at a time like this—'

'But you want to know what went on between us — between Theo and me.'

'Yes. Yes, I do, Mrs. Williams.'

'Sheila! My name's Sheila. What's yours?'

'Morse. They just call me Morse.'

'All bloody "give" on my part, this, isn't it?'

'What did pass between you and Dr. Kemp, Mrs. — er, Sheila?'

'Only my life—that's what! That's all!'

'Go on.'

'Oh, you wouldn't understand. You're married, I'm sure, with a lovely wife and a couple of lovely kids—'

'I'm a bachelor.'

'Oh, well. That's all right then, isn't it? All right for men.' She drained her coffee and looked, first wildly, then sadly around her.

'G and T?' suggested Morse.

'Why not?'

As Morse poured her drink (and his), he heard her speaking in a dreamy, muted sort of voice, as though dumbfounded by the news she'd heard.

'You know, I was married once, Morse. That's how I got most of this' (gesturing around the room).

'It's nice — the room,' said Morse, conscious that the shabby exterior of the property belied its rather graceful interior, and for a second or two he wondered whether a similar kind of comment might not perhaps be passed on Mrs. Williams herself.

'Oh, yes. He had impeccable taste. That's why he left me for some other woman — one who didn't booze and do embarrassing things, or get moody, or stupid, or passionate.'

'And Dr. Kemp — he'd found another woman, too?' asked Morse, cruelly insistent. Yet her answer surprised him.

'Oh, no! He'd already found her; found her long before he found me!'

'Who—'

'His wife — his bloody wife! He was always looking at his watch and saying he'd have to go and—'

She burst into tears and Morse walked diffidently over to the settee, where he temporarily displaced the teddy-bear, put his right arm along her shoulder, and held her to him as she sobbed away the storm.

'I don't know whether I'm in shock or just suffering from a hangover.'

'You don't get hangovers at this time of night.'

'Morning!'

'Morning.'

She nuzzled her wet cheek against his face: 'You're nice.'

'You've no idea why Dr. Kemp—?'

'Might kill himself? No!'

'I didn't say "kill himself''.'

'You mean—?' For a few seconds she recoiled from him, her eyes dilated with horror. 'You can't mean that he was murdered?'

'We can't be sure, not yet. But you must be honest with me, please. Did you know anyone who might have wanted to kill him?'

'Yes! Me, Inspector. Kill his wife as well while I was at it!'

Morse sedately disentangled himself from Mrs. Williams. 'Look, if there's anything at all you think I ought to know. '

'You don't really think I had anything to do with — with whatever's happened?'

'You were seen walking up St. Giles' towards North Oxford, just after lunch yesterday. And it wasn't Mrs. Roscoe this time, either. It was Sergeant Lewis.'

'I was going—' replied Sheila slowly, 'I went—to the Bird and Baby. Would you like a guess, this time? A guess about what I went for?'

'You were on your own there, in the pub?'

'Ye-es.' She had hesitated sufficiently, though.

'But you saw someone in there?'

'No. But — but I saw someone cycling past; cycling up towards Banbury Road. It was Cedric — Cedric Downes. And he saw me. I know he did.'

Morse was silent.

'You do believe me, don't you?'

'One of the secrets of solving murders is never to believe anybody — not completely — not at the start.'

'You don't really see me as a suspect, surely!'

Morse smiled at her: 'I promise to take you off the list as soon as possible.'

'You know, I've never been suspected of murder before. Thank you for being so civilised about it.'

'It'll be just as well if you don't say anything to the group about it. Not till we're a bit further forward.'

'And you're not very far forward at the minute?'

'Not far.'

'Couldn't we make a little more progress, Morse?' The fingers of her left hand were toying with the top button of her scarlet blouse, and Morse heard the siren voice beside his ear: 'What would you say to another little drink before you go?'

'I'd say "no", my lovely girl. Because if I'm not reasonably careful, if I do have another drink, in fact if I stay a further minute even without another drink — then I shall probably suggest to you that we proceed — don't forget that we don't "progress" in the police force, we always "proceed" — to, er. ' Morse waved a hand vaguely aloft, drained his glass, rose from the settee, and walked to the door.

'You'd enjoy it!'

'That's what's worrying me.'

'Why not, then?'

Sheila had not moved from the settee, and Morse stood in the doorway looking back at her: 'Don't you know?'

A few minutes later, as he turned right into the Banbury Road, now beginning to think once more with some semblance of rationality, Morse considered whether his witness had been telling him the whole truth. Just as ten minutes earlier, as he had driven back to St. Aldate's, Lewis had wondered the same about Mrs. Kemp; in particular recalling the curious fact that, for a woman who had so manifestly hated her husband, she had reacted to the news of his death with such terrible distress.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

AT KIDLINGTON HQ Morse and Lewis swapped notes at 7.45 a.m.: both felt very tired, but neither confessed to it; and one of them had a headache, about which he likewise made no comment. The Jaguar had been parked outside his flat that morning, with the keys found on the door-mat; but just as of his weariness and of his hangover, Morse made no mention of his gratitude.

At least the morning plan was taking shape. Clearly the biggest problem was what to do about the tour, scheduled to leave Oxford at 9.30 a.m. bound for Stratford-upon-Avon. It would certainly be necessary to make some further enquiries among the tourists, particularly about their activities during the key period between the time Kemp had arrived back in Oxford, and the pre-dinner drinks when everyone except Eddie Stratton, it appeared, was accounted for. One of the tourists, quite definitely, would not be able to produce his or her copy of the Oxford stage of the programme, for the yellow sheet found in Parson's Pleasure was now safely with forensics; might even produce some new evidence. And even if no fingerprints could be found on it, even if several of the tourists had already discarded or misplaced their own sheets, there would not be too many Americans, surely, who regularly wrote their sevens with a continental bar across the down-stroke. Then there was Cedric Downes. He would have to be seen a.s.a.p., and would have to come up with a satisfactory explanation of exactly why and when he'd left The Randolph.

In addition it was to be hoped that Max could come up with some fairly definite cause of death; and it was even possible (if only just) that the surgeon might throw caution to the wind for once and volunteer a tentative approximation of the time it had actually happened.

An hour later, as he drove the pair of them down to Oxford, Lewis felt strangely content. He was never happier than when watching Morse come face to face with a mystery: it was like watching his chief tackle some fiendishly devised crossword (as Lewis had often done), with the virgin grid on the table in front of him, almost immediately coming up with some sort of answer to the majority of the clues — and then with Lewis himself, albeit only occasionally, supplying one blindingly obvious answer to the easiest clue in the puzzle, and the only one that Morse had failed to fathom. Whether or not he'd be of similar help in the present case, Lewis didn't know, of course. Yet he'd already solved a little 'quick' crossword, as it were, of his own, and he now communicated his findings to Morse. The first part of Kemp's day had probably been something like this:

Left home earlyish for his visit by rail to London to see his publishers; been picked up by taxi at about 7.20 a.m., almost certainly to catch the 07.59, arriving Paddington at 09.03; obviously with only some fairly quick business to transact, since he'd appeared confident of meeting his commitments with the tourists at lunchtime at The Randolph, and then again during the afternoon; likely as not, then, he would originally have intended to catch the 11.30 from Paddington, arriving Oxford at 12.30.

'Have you checked with BR?'

'No need.' Lewis reached inside his breast-pocket and handed Morse the Oxford-London London-Oxford Network South-East timetable; but apart from briefly checking the arrival time of the 13.30 from Paddington, Morse seemed less than enthusiastic.

'Did you know, Lewis, that before nine o'clock the third-class rail fare—'

'Second-class, sir!'

'—is about, what, seven times — eight times! — more expensive than getting a coach from Gloucester Green to Victoria?'

'Five times, actually. The coach fare's—'

'We ought to be subsidising public transport, Lewis!'

'You're the politician, sir — not me.'

'Remember Ken Livingstone? He subsidised the tube, and everybody used the tube.'

'Then they kicked him out.'

'You know what Ken Livingstone's an anagram of?'

'Tell me!'

' "Votes Lenin King." '

'They wouldn't be voting him king now, though.'

'I thought you might be interested in that little snippet of knowledge, that's all.'

'Sorry, sir.'

'Why are you driving so slowly?'

'I make it a rule never to drive at more than forty-five in a built-up area.'

Morse made no reply, and two minutes later Lewis drew up in front of The Randolph.

'You've not forgotten Ashenden, have you, sir? I mean, he was the one who took the call from Kemp — and he was the one who wasn't looking round Magdalen.'

'I'd not forgotten Mr. Ashenden,' said Morse quietly, opening the passenger door. 'In fact I'll get him to organise a little something for me straightaway. I'm sure that all these tourists—almost all these tourists — are as innocent as your missus is—'

'But one of 'em writes these peculiar sevens, right?'

'They're not "peculiar"! If you live on the Continent its ours that look peculiar.'

'How do we find out which one it is?'

Morse permitted himself a gentle grin: 'What date did the tour start?'

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

AT JUST AFTER 9.30 A.M., Morse sat with Lewis, Ashenden, Sheila Williams, and the (now fully apprised) Manager of The Randolph in a first-floor suite which the latter had readily put at police disposal. Without interruption, quietly, quickly, Morse spoke.

'I've no wish to hold up the tour a minute longer than necessary, Mr. Ashenden, but I've got certain duties in this case which will involve your co-operation. Likewise, sir' (to the Manager) 'I shall be grateful if you can help in one or two practical ways — I'll tell you how in a few minutes. Mrs. Williams, too — I shall. we, Sergeant Lewis and I, shall be grateful for your help as well.'

Morse proceeded to expound his preliminary strategy.

The tour, originally scheduled to leave at 9.30 a.m., could not now leave until well after a buffet lunch, if this latter could be arranged by the kitchen staff (the Manager nodded). A meeting of all the tourists would be summoned straightaway (Ashenden felt a pair of unblinking blue eyes upon him) — summoned to meet somewhere in the hotel (the Manager nodded again — the St. John's Suite was free), and Morse himself would then address the group and tell them as much or as little as he wanted to tell them, believing, he admitted, that Rumour had probably lost little of her sprinting speed since Virgil's time, and that most of the tourists already had a pretty good idea of what had happened. After that meeting had finished, it would help police enquiries if the tourists could be kept amused for the rest of the morning. And if Mrs. Williams — and how very grateful Morse was that she'd agreed to his earlier telephone request to be present! — if Mrs. Williams could possibly think of some diversion. some talk, some walk. Yes, that would be excellent.

So! There was much to be done fairly quickly, was there not?

Ashenden left immediately, with the manifold brief of herding his flock together, of informing the coach-driver of the postponed departure, of phoning Broughton Castle to cancel the special out-of-season arrangements; of explaining to the Stratford hotel the cancellation of the thirty lunches booked for 1 p.m.; and finally of reassuring the lunchtime guest-speaker from the Royal Shakespeare Company that her fee would still be paid.

The Manager was the next to leave, promising that his secretary could very quickly produce thirty photocopies of the brief questionnaire that Morse had roughed out:

Sheila Williams, however, appeared less willing to cooperate than her colleagues: 'I willingly agreed to come here, Inspector — you know that. But my only specialism is mediaeval manuscripts, and quite honestly not many of this lot are going to be particularly ecstatic about them, are they? I could — well, I will, at a pinch — traipse around these inhabited ruins and try to remember whether Queens is apostrophe "s" or "s" apostrophe. But like Dr. Johnson I must plead ignorance, Inspector — sheer ignorance.'

Here Lewis chipped in with his first contribution: 'What about shipping them all off on one of these circular tours — you know, on the buses?'

Morse nodded.

'Or,' pursued an encouraged Lewis, ' "The Oxford Story" — brilliant, that!'

'They went on it yesterday — most of them,' said Sheila.

'I suppose we could just ask them to stay in their rooms and watch the telly,' mused Morse; but immediately withdrew the suggestion. 'No! People will be arriving—'

'They could just walk around Oxford, couldn't they, sir? I mean there's an awful lot to see here.'

'Christ, Lewis! That's what I suggested, at the start. Don't you remember?'

'What about Cedric, Inspector?' (This from Sheila.) 'I'm pretty sure he's free this morning, and he's a wonderfully interesting man once he gets going.'

'Could he do the sort of talk Dr. Kemp was going to give yesterday?'

'Well, perhaps not that. But he's a bit of a Renaissance Man, if you know what I mean. The only thing he's a bit dodgy on is modern architecture.'

'Good! That's fine, then. If you could ring this polymath pal of yours, Mrs. Williams.?'

'He'd take far more notice of you if you rang him, Inspector. And. he probably won't know yet about—'

'Not unless he was the one who murdered Kemp,' interposed Morse quietly.

Cedric Downes had himself been on the phone for about five minutes, trying frustratedly to contact British Rail about times of trains to London that day; yet he could have had little notion of the irrational and frenetic impatience of the man who was trying to contact him; a man who was betweenwhiles cursing the incompetence of British Telecom and bemoaning the cussedness of the Universe in general.

'Hullo! Is that British Rail?' (It was, by the sound of it, Mrs. Downes, surely.)

'What?' answered Morse.

'Oh, I'm sorry. It's just that my husband couldn't get through to BR, and he rang the operator and I thought. ' Clearly Mrs. Downes had little idea what she'd thought. Her manner was rather endearingly confused, and Morse switched on what he sometimes saw in himself as a certain charm.

'I do know what you mean. I've been trying to get your number. er. Mrs. Downes, isn't it?'

'Yes. I'm Mrs. Downes. Can I help you?'

'If you will. Chief Inspector Morse here.'

'Oh!'

'Look, I'd much rather be talking to you than. '

'Ye-es?' The voice, as before, sounded a little helpless, more than a little vulnerable. And Morse liked it.

'. but is your husband in?'

'Ah! You want Cedric. Just a minute.'

She must, thought Morse, have put her hand over the mouthpiece, or perhaps Downes himself had been waiting silently (for some reason?) beside the phone, for there was no audible summons before a man's voice sounded in his ear.

'Inspector? Cedric Downes here. Can I be of help?'

'Certainly, if you will, sir. We have a bit of a crisis here with the American Tour. I'm speaking from The Randolph, by the way. The sad news is—'

'I know.' The voice was flat and unemotional. 'Theo's dead — I already knew.'

'Do you mind telling me how you know?'

'John Ashenden phoned a couple of hours ago.'

'Oh, I see!' On the whole Morse was not unhappy that Ashenden had been ringing around. 'Why I'm calling, sir, is to ask if you're free to come to The Randolph this morning.'

This morning? Well. er. er. Well, I've got commitments after lunch, but this morning's free, I think.'

'If you could get down here, sir, I'd be very grateful. We've got our hands a bit full with things.'

'Of course.'

'If you could—'

'Walk 'em round Oxford again?'

'A different route, perhaps?'

'Or I might be able to get the Oxford University Museum to open up a bit early — you know, Inspector, the dodo and Darwin and the dinosaurs.'

'Wonderful idea!'

'Glad to help, really. It's awful, terrible—isn't it? — about Theo.'

'You'll contact the Museum, sir?'

'Straightaway. I know someone there who's still trying to classify a few of the South American crabs that Darwin left to the Museum. Fascinating things, crabs, you know.'

'Oh yes!' said Morse. 'I'm most grateful to you, sir.'

'Anyway, I'll call in at The Randolph, so I'll see you soon.'

'Er, just before you ring off, sir?'

'Yes?'

'It's only fair to tell you that we shall be asking everyone here a few questions about what they were doing yesterday afternoon.'

'As is your duty, Inspector.'

'Including you, sir.'

'Me?'

'I shall be asking you why you were cycling up St. Giles' towards North Oxford after lunch yesterday. So if you can have your answer ready? It's only a formality, of course.'

'Would that all questions were so easy to answer!'

'Where were you going, sir?'

'I was going home to get a new hearing-aid. I almost always carry a spare, but I didn't yesterday. At lunchtime the aid started going off and I suddenly realised that I wasn't going to get through the afternoon—'

'Your hearing's not all that bad, is it, sir? You don't seem to have much of a problem hearing me now.'

'Ah, but I'm very fortunate! My dear wife, Lucy, bought me a special phone-attachment — bought it for my last birthday, bless her heart.'

Something had stirred in the back of Morse's brain, and he sought to keep the conversation going.

'It sounds as if you're very fond of your wife, sir?'

'I love my wife more than anything else in the world. Can that be so surprising to you?'

'And you'd do anything to keep her?' It seemed a brusque and strange reply, but Downes seemed in no way disconcerted.

'Yes! Certainly.'

'Including murdering Kemp?'

From the other end of the line there was no manic laughter; no silly protestation; no threat of lawyers to be consulted. Just the simple, gentle confession: 'Oh yes! Including that, Inspector.'

For the moment, Morse was completely wrong-footed, and he would have discontinued the exchange without further ado. But Downes himself was not quite finished:

'It was Sheila, I know that, who saw me yesterday afternoon. And I don't blame her in the slightest for telling you. If you have got a murder on your hands, it's the duty of all of us to report anything, however insignificant or innocent it may appear. So I may as well tell you straightaway. As I biked up St. Giles' yesterday afternoon I passed one of the group walking up to North Oxford. Would you like to know who that was, Inspector?'

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

AS LEWIS SAW THINGS, Morse's talk to the tourists was not one of his chief's more impressive performances. He had informed his silent audience of the death — just 'death'—of Dr. Kemp; explained that in order to establish the, er, totality of events, it would be necessary for everyone to complete a little questionnaire (duly distributed), sign and date it, and hand it in to Sergeant Lewis; that the departure of the coach would have to be postponed until late afternoon, perhaps, with lunch by courtesy of The Randolph; that Mr. Cedric Downes had volunteered to fix something up for that morning, from about 10.45 to 12.15; that (in Morse's opinion) activity was a splendid antidote to adversity, and that it was his hope that all the group would avail themselves of Mr. Downes's kind offer; that if they could all think back to the previous day's events and try to recall anything, however seemingly insignificant, that might have appeared unusual, surprising, out-of-character — well, that was often just the sort of thing that got criminal cases solved. And here, sad to relate, was more than one case — not only the theft of a jewel, but also two deaths: of the person who was to present that jewel to the Ashmolean, and of the person who was to take official receipt of such benefaction.

When he had finished Morse had the strong feeling that what he had just implied was surely true: there must be some connection between the disturbing events which had developed so rapidly around the Wolvercote Tongue. Surely, too, it must be from within the group of American tourists, plus their tutors and their guide, that the guilty party was to be sought. And fifteen minutes later, with all the completed questionnaires returned, there was good reason to suppose that Morse could be right, since three of those concerned, Eddie Stratton, Howard Brown, and John Ashenden, appeared temporarily unable to provide corroboration of their individual whereabouts and activities during the key period of the previous afternoon — the afternoon when the original groups, three of them, had been re-formed slightly (following Kemp's telephone call), and when anyone wishing to absent himself for some purpose would have been presented with a wonderful opportunity so to do. And keeping check on who was doing what, and when, and where, could well have proved as complicated as calling the roll after Dunkirk.

For Morse, the information gleaned from the questionnaires was eminently pleasing; and when, at 10.50 a.m., Cedric Downes led the way out of The Randolph towards South Parks Road and the University Museum, with every single member of the group present (except Mr. Eddie Stratton), he looked tolerably pleased with himself. Especially of interest was the fact that one of the two men clearly experiencing difficulty with section (c) on the examination paper, Howard Brown (Morse wondered why his wife hadn't been willing to cover for him), had filled in section (e) with the correct date of arrival, 27 October; or, to be more precise about the matter, '27 October'.

Nor would Morse be forgetting the only man who had not been present at the meeting — the man who still lay with a wicked headache and a barely touched breakfast-tray beside him in Room 201, to which room Shirley Brown had shepherdessed him when, after his unexplained absence, he had reeled into The Randolph the previous night.

But it was with Ashenden that Morse's attention was immediately engaged. Ashenden! — the man whom Cedric Downes now claimed to have passed on his bicycle; the man who had lied about his visit to Magdalen; the man who, like Howard Brown (and possibly Eddie Stratton?), was as yet unable to produce a single witness to his whereabouts the previous afternoon.

Three of them. How easy it had been almost immediately to uncover three possible suspects for the murder of Theodore Kemp!

Too easy, perhaps?

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

'HOW ARE YOU, MORSE?'

'Optimistic'

'Oh!' Max appeared disappointed by the reply as he peered down again at the grisly work on which he was engaged.

The contrast between the two men would have struck any observer that morning. The stout, hump-backed surgeon — circumspect, but perky and confident; Morse — looking distinctly weary, his jowls semi-shaven by an electric razor that had seemingly passed peak efficiency, and yet somehow, somewhere underneath, a man on the side of the angels.

'There's some deep bruising here,' began Max, pointing to Kemp's left temple, 'but the main blow'—he jerked the head towards him before caressing the crushed skull with a gentle reverence—'was here.'

Characteristically Morse sought to swallow back the bitter-tasting fluid that had risen in his gorge; and the surgeon, with understanding, pulled the rubber sheet over the head again.

'Bit messy, isn't it? Bled a lot, too. Whoever killed him had a bucket of blood to wipe away.'

'He was murdered, then?'

'What? Ah! Slipped up a bit there, didn't I?'

'But he was, wasn't he?'

'Your job, that side of things.'

'Which blow killed him?'

'Paper-thin skull like that? Either! Little knock on the right place. '

'Probably the blow on the back of the head, Max.'

'Oh yes — certainly could have been that.'

'Or.?'

'Yes—could have been the crack on the temple.'

'Someone could have hit him and then he fell over and hit himself on the fender or the door-jamb or the bedpost—'

'Or the kerb, if he was out in the street.'

'But you don't believe he was, do you?'

'Not my province, belief.'

'Could he have suffered either of the injuries in the water?'

' "Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay To muddy doom." '

' "Death", Max — not "doom". And he hadn't got any garments, had he?'

'Good point, Morse. And I've got something else to show you.' Max now exposed Kemp's torso and heaved the corpse a few inches off the table. Along the back of the right shoulder was a scratch, some five or six inches long: a light, fairly superficial scratch, it appeared, yet one made quite recently, perhaps.

'What caused that, Max?'

'Dunno, dear boy.'

'Try!'

'An instrument of some sort.'

'Not a blunt instrument, though.'

'I would suggest a sharp instrument, Morse.'

'Amazing!'

'Fairly sharp, I should have said.'

'Caused as he was floating along like Ophelia?'

'Oh, I couldn't possibly say.'

'Could it have been done before he was murdered — when he was wearing a shirt, say?'

'Ah! A not unintelligent question!'

Together the two men looked again at the light wound, stretching down diagonally from the back of the neck towards the armpit.

'Could it have been, Max?'

'I think not.'

'Then he was possibly naked when he was murdered?'

'Oh, I wouldn't go that far. Anyway he might have hit a willow twig in the river.'

'What other possibilities are there?'

'The evidence extends only as far as the lower scapula, does it not? He could have been wearing an off-the-shoulder toga.'

Morse now closed his eyes and turned away from the body: 'A toga pinned together with the Wolvercote Tongue, no doubt.'

'Oh no! I can assure you of one thing: that was not upon his person.'

'You don't mean — you didn't.?'

Max nodded. 'And he didn't swallow it, either.'

'And he didn't drown.'

'No. None of the usual muck one finds in the lungs when a man's fighting for his breath. Could he swim, by the way?'

'Don't know. I haven't seen his wife yet.'

The pathologist suddenly dropped his habitual banter, and looked Morse in the eye. 'I know you've got a lot on your plate, old boy. But I'd see her soon, if I were you.'

'You're right,' said Morse quietly. 'Just tell me, please, whether you think he was naked when he was murdered — that's all I ask.'

'I've told you. I don't know.'

'Not many reasons why people are naked, are there?'

'Oh, I dunno. Having a bath; standing on the weighing-scales; sun-bathing in Spain — so they tell me.'

'Having sex,' added Morse slowly. 'Not so much a willow's twig, perhaps, as a woman's talon.'

'Less likely, I'd say.'

'But you're sometimes wrong.'

'Not so often as you, Morse'

'We'll see.'

Max grinned. 'Glad it was you who mentioned sex, though. I was beginning to suspect you'd misplaced your marbles.'

'No, no! No chance of that, Max. Not yet, anyway.'

And as Morse left the pathology block, a quiet little smile of confidence could be seen around the chief inspector's lips.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

APART FROM HIS former wife, Mr. Edward Stratton was the only one of the original group who had not listened to Morse that morning. Although his head was throbbing almost intolerably, he'd felt sober enough to ring for breakfast in his room, and had done his best to contemplate the 'Full English' he'd so foolishly ordered for 7 a.m. His brain drew a veil over the sickening consequences.

Edward Stratton had always been interested in machinery, or 'working parts' as he'd always liked to think of things. As a boy in high school he'd progressed from World-War-I aircraft-kits to model railways, his mind and his hands responding most happily to the assemblage of pistons, valves, wheels, with their appropriate adjustments and lubrications. Not marrying, he had set up a small business in specialised agricultural machinery — which had gone bust in 1975. After a long period of depression, and a short period of training, he had taken on a new career — one which also demanded dexterity with the hands: that of a mortician. Was there ever an odder switch of professions? But Stratton had soon grown proficient in the gruesome, sometimes disgusting, demands of his new job; and in the process of preparing an aged philanthropist for his silk-lined resting-place, he had met the man's disconsolate widow, Laura. And married her a year later. Or, perhaps, it may have been that she had married him. Convenience, that's what it had been for her — little more. Maybe for him, too? He'd assumed that she had money; everyone assumed that she had money. But he'd never known for certain and still didn't know now.

It was the Wolvercote Tongue which monopolised Stratton's thoughts as he sat on his unmade bed, head between his hands, that Saturday mid-morning. The thing was insured, he knew that — well insured. How otherwise? Yet insured in exactly what circumstances, under exactly what provisions, Stratton was wholly ignorant. Why had Shirley Brown had to mention the point on her brief visit to him earlier that morning, and sowed those slowly germinating seeds of doubt? Would it make a difference if it could be maintained that Laura had died before the Tongue was stolen? Would the money then go to the Ashmolean? But there could never be any proof on the matter, and if she had died after it was stolen, then surely the money would have to be credited to her estate, would it not? Stratton shook his aching head. He could get no real grip on the situation, and the more he pondered, the more confused his thinking became. But if he could get the police to believe it was after. because that would mean it was still in her possession when she died. wouldn't it.?

Augh!

Stratton rose from the bed and walked to the bathroom. He was dipping his heavy aching head into a basin of cold water when he heard the sharp knock on the door, and was soon admitting Chief Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis into his bedroom.

The former had immediately recognised the symptoms of a Caesar-sized hangover and offered practical aid in the form of two tablets of Alka Seltzer which he appeared to carry regularly on his person.

And almost immediately Stratton had been talking freely.

They must have thought him a bit insensitive — running off like that, the day after. But he'd seen the advert in The Oxford Mail, and the prospect of an Open Day at Didcot had proved irresistible. He'd walked round the engine sheds, he said, where he'd looked long and lovingly at the old locomotives, and where he'd seen schoolboys and middle-aged men carefully recording numbers and wheel-arrangements in their note-books. ('All of them apparently sane, Inspector!') And then he'd had the thrill of actually seeing ('a life-time's ambition') the Flying Scotsman! He'd stayed there ('in Didcart') much longer than he'd intended; and when finally he tore himself away from the Cornish Riviera and the Torbay Express he'd walked back to Didcot Parkway Station at about five o'clock, and caught the next train back to Oxford, where he'd, er, where he'd had a quick drink in the Station Buffet. Then he'd been walking back to The Randolph when he suddenly felt he just couldn't face his excessively sympathetic countrymen, and he'd called in a pub and drunk a couple of pints of lager.

The pubs were open, were they, Mr. Stratton?' asked Lewis.

But it was Morse who answered: 'If you wish, Lewis, I will give you the names and addresses of the three of them there that open all day. Please continue, Mr. Stratton.'

Well, at about half-seven he'd gone into a restaurant in St. Giles', Browns; had a nice steak, with a bottle of red wine; left at about half-nine — and was strolling down to The Randolph when he'd met Mrs. Sheila Williams, just outside the Taylorian, as she was making for the taxi-rank. They had stood talking for quite some time, each of them perhaps slightly the worse for wear, and then she had invited him up to her North Oxford home for a night-cap.

And that was it.

The strong-bodied American, with his rugged features, had spoken with a quiet simplicity; and as he'd watched him and heard him, Morse thought he could well have enjoyed a pint with the fellow. Yet in Morse's view it was always a good idea to ask a few inconsequential questions. So he did.

'You say you had a drink at Oxford Station?'

'Yep.'

'Which platform would that have been on?'

'Search me! But the same side the train came in, I'd swear to it.'

'And they have booze there, do they?'

'Sure do! I had a can — coupla cans. Expensive it was, too.'

Lewis's eyebrows lifted under a frown, and he looked across at his chief: 'I'm afraid that's not right, sir. Mr. Stratton couldn't have got any beer or lager at Oxford Station — not yesterday. There was a great big notice outside: "No Refreshments" or something like that, due to modernisation.'

' "Owing to" modernisation, Lewis.'

'I've never known the difference.'

'No need. Just say "because of" and you'll always be right.'

'As I was saying, sir, the buffet was shut.'

'Interesting point!' remarked Morse, suddenly turning again to a now distinctly uncomfortable-looking Stratton. 'So if you didn't stay on the station between about five-thirty and six-thirty, where exactly were you, sir?'

Stratton sighed deeply, and seemed to be pondering his position awhile. Then he sighed again, before opening the palms of his hands in a gesture of resignation. 'Your Sergeant's right, Inspector. I asked if I could get a drink anything. But, like he says, they were refurbishing all the places there. I did stay, though. I stayed about half an hour longer, perhaps. I'd gotten myself a Herald Tribune and I sat reading it on one of the red seats there.'

'Bit chilly, wasn't it?'

Stratton remained silent.

'Was there someone outside you didn't want to meet?' suggested Morse.

'I didn't — I didn't want to go out of the station for a while. It, er, it might have been a little awkward for me — meeting someone who might. might be waiting for a bus, or a taxi.'

'You saw someone from the group on the train, is that what you're saying? Someone sitting in a compartment in front of you when you got on the train at Didcot?'

Stratton nodded. 'He'd not got on at Didcot, though. He must have come from Reading, I suppose—'

'Or Paddington,' added Morse quietly.

'Yes, or Paddington.'

Morse looked across at Lewis. Paddington was beginning to loom slightly larger than a man's hand on the horizon; Paddington was where the murdered Kemp had stood and phoned The Randolph the previous day. So was it too much to believe that it was Kemp that Stratton had seen — about five o'clock, hadn't he said?

'You'll have to tell me, you know that,' said Morse gently.

'It was Phil Aldrich,' replied Stratton quietly, his eyes searching those of the two policemen with a look of puzzlement — and perhaps of betrayal, too.

Phew!

'Let me ask you one more question, please, sir. Do you stand to profit much from your wife's death?'

'I do hope so,' replied Stratton, almost fiercely. 'You see, I'm pretty hard-up these days, and to be honest with you I'm certainly not going to say "no" to any insurance money that might be pushed my way.'

'You're an honest man, Mr. Stratton!'

'Not always, Inspector!'

Morse smiled to himself, and was walking over to the door when Stratton spoke again: 'Can I ask you a favour?'

'Go ahead!'

'Can you leave me another coupla those Alka Seltzer things?'

CHAPTER THIRTY

MORSE THOUGHT IT must be the splendid grandfather clock he'd seen somewhere that he heard chiming the three-quarters (10.45 a.m.) as he and Lewis sat beside each other in a deep settee in the Lancaster Room. Drinking coffee.

'We're getting plenty of suspects, sir.'

'Mm. We're getting pretty high on content but very low on analysis, wouldn't you say? I'll be all right though once the bar opens.'

'It is open — opened half-past ten.'

'Why are we drinking this stuff, then?'

'Stimulates the brain, coffee.'

But Morse was consulting the Paddington-Oxford timetable which Lewis had picked up for him from Reception, and was nodding to himself as he noted that the 13.30 arrived at Oxford 14.57, just as Kemp had claimed. Now if Kemp had been held up, for some reason, for even longer than he'd expected. for considerably longer than he'd expected. Yes, interesting! The train Stratton must have caught—said he'd caught — must have been the 16.20 from Paddington, arriving at Didcot 17.10, and Oxford 17.29. For several seconds Morse stared across Beaumont Street at the great Ionic pillars of the Ashmolean. What time had Kemp left Paddington? For left Paddington he certainly had, at some point, after ringing through to The Randolph to explain his delayed departure.

But what if.?

'You know, sir, I was just wondering about that telephone call. What if—?'

Morse grinned at his sergeant. 'Great minds, Lewis — yours and mine!'

'You really think there's a possibility it wasn't Kemp who rang?'

'Yes, I do. And it would give us a whole new time perspective, wouldn't it? You know, with the best will in the world, Max will never give us too much help if he thinks he can't. Quite right, too. He's a scientist. But if we can narrow the time down — or rather, widen it out, Lewis. '

For a while he appeared deep in thought. Then, pushing his half-finished coffee away from him, he stood up and gave Lewis his orders: 'Go and find Ashenden for me. I shall be in the bar.'

'There we are, then!' said John Ashenden.

It was twenty minutes later, and Morse had decided (insisted) that his temporary HQ in the Lancaster Room should be moved to more permanent quarters in the Chapters Bar Annexe. He had questioned Ashenden in detail for several minutes about the crucial phone call with Kemp, and asked him to write down in dialogue-form the exchanges as far as he could recall them.

Ashenden himself now sat back in his armchair, crossed his lanky legs, and watched with slightly narrowed eyes as Morse took the sheet from him and proceeded to read the reconstructed conversation:

K. I've been held up at Paddington, John

A. Oh no! What's you're trouble?

K. Just missed the train, but I'll catch the half-past one and be with you for quarter-past three, at the very latest. Sorry to let you down like this, and miss the drinks and the lunch and the first bit of p.m. Apologies apologies, John!

A. Not the end of the world, though — not quite! (sotto voce.) I'll do my best to sort things out, of course, and let your group know. Trouble is I changed the time to quarter-to three.

K. I'm a bloody nuisance, I know.

A. It could be worse. Shall I arrange a taxi for you from the station?

K. Is it worth it?

A. Save ten minutes.

K. All right. I get in at just before three o'clock.

A. I'll ring Luxicars just in case there's not a taxi there.

K. Thanks.

A. Make sure you don't miss the next one!

K. No danger. Er, before I ring off can I have a quick word with Cedric please — if he's there?

A. He's here. I'll get him. Hold on!

'You write fairly well,' said Morse, after reading through the sheet for a second time, and still refraining from pointing out the single grammatical monstrosity. 'You ought to try your hand at some fiction one of these days.'

'Fact, Inspector — it's not fiction. Just ask that nosy Roscoe woman if you don't believe me! She was sitting near the phone and she misses nothing.'

Morse smiled, if a little wanly, and conceded the trick to his opponent. Yet he sensed that those next few minutes, after Ashenden had finished speaking with Kemp, might well have been the crucial ones in that concatenation of events which had finally led to murder; and he questioned Ashenden further.

'So you called over to Mr. Downes?'

'I went over to Mr. Downes.'

'But he didn't want to talk to Dr. Kemp?'

'I don't know about that. He was having trouble with his hearing-aid. It kept whistling every now and then.'

'Couldn't he have heard without it?'

'I don't know. Perhaps not. The line was a bit faint, I remember.'

Morse looked across at Lewis, whose eyebrows had risen a self-congratulatory millimetre.

'Perhaps you only thought it was Dr. Kemp, sir?' continued Morse.

But Ashenden shook his head firmly. 'No! I'm ninety-nine per cent certain it was him.'

'And Sheila — Mrs. Williams — she spoke to him then?'

'Yes. But you put it most accurately, Inspector. She spoke to him. And when she did, he put the phone down. So he didn't actually speak to her—that's what she told me anyway.'

Oh!

'We've still only got his word for it,' said Lewis, after Ashenden had gone. 'Like we said, sir, if it wasn't Kemp, we'd have a different time-scale altogether, wouldn't we? A whole lot of alibis that wouldn't wash at all.'

Morse nodded thoughtfully. 'Yes, I agree. If Kemp was already dead at twelve-thirty. '

'There was somebody else who heard him, sir.'

'Was there?'

'The woman on the switchboard who put the call through.'

'She wouldn't have known the voice, Lewis! She gets thousands of calls every day—'

'She'd be a very busy girl if she got a hundred, sir.'

Morse conceded another trick. 'Fetch her in!'

Celia Freeman was of far greater help than either Morse or Lewis could have wished. Especially Morse. For just as he had begun to survey the picture from a wholly different angle, just as he thought he espied a gap in the clouds that hitherto had masked the shafts of sunlight — the switchboard-operator dashed any hope of such a breakthrough with the simple statement that she'd known Theodore Kemp very well indeed. For five years she had worked at the Ashmolean before moving across the street to The Randolph; and for the latter part of that time she had actually worked for Dr. Kemp, amongst others. In fact, it had been Dr. Kemp who had written a reference for her when she'd changed jobs.

'Oh yes, Inspector! It was Dr. Kemp who rang — please believe that! He said, "Celia? That you?" or some such thing.'

'Mr. Ashenden said that the line was a bit faint and crackly.'

'Did he? You do surprise me. It may be a little faint on one or two of the extensions, but I've never heard anyone say it was crackly. Not since we've had the new system.'

'He never said it was "crackly",' said Lewis after she had gone.

'Do you think I don't know that?' snapped Morse.

'I really think we ought to be following up one or two of those other leads, sir. I mean, for a start there's. '

But Morse was no longer listening. One of the most extraordinary things about the man's mind was that any check, any set-back, to some sweet hypothesis, far from dismaying him, seemed immediately to prompt some second hypothesis that soon appeared even sweeter than the first.

'. this man Brown, isn't there?'

'Brown?'

'The continental-seven man.'

'Oh yes, we shall have to see Brown, and hear whatever cock-and-bull story he's cooked up for us.'

'Shall I go and get him, sir?'

'Not for the minute. He's on the walkabout with Mr. Downes.'

'Perhaps he's not,' said Lewis quietly.

Morse shrugged his shoulders, as if Brown's present whereabouts were a matter of indifference. 'At least Mr. Downes is on the walkabout, though? So maybe we should take the opportunity. What's Downes's address again, Lewis?'

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

IT WAS JUST BEFORE mid-day when Lewis braked sedately outside the Downes's residence at the furthest end of Lonsdale Road.

'Worth a few pennies, sir?' suggested Lewis as they crunched their way to the front door.

'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, Lewis. Just ring the bell!'

Lucy Downes was in, and soon stood at the door: an attractive, slim, fair-haired woman in her early thirties, dressed in a summerish cotton suit of pale green, with a light-beige mackintosh over her left arm. Her eyes held Morse's for a few seconds — eyes that seemed rather timid, yet potentially mischievous, too — until her mouth managed a nervous little 'Hullo'.

'Good morning, madam!' Lewis showed his ID card. 'Is Mr. Downes in, please? Mr. Cedric Downes?'

Lucy looked momentarily startled: 'Oh! Good Lord! He's not here, I'm afraid, no! He's been showing some Americans round Oxford this morning — and he's got a lecture this afternoon, so. Er, sorry! Can I help? I'm his wife.'

'Perhaps you can, Mrs. Downes,' interposed Morse. 'We spoke earlier on the phone, if you remember? May we, er, come in for a little while?'

Lucy glanced at her watch. 'Yes! Yes, of course! It's just'—she held the door open for them—'I'm just off to — whoops!'

Morse had knocked his shin against a large suitcase standing just inside the door, and for a moment he squeezed his eyes tight, the whiles giving quiet voice to a blasphemous imprecation.

'Sorry! I should have — that wretched case! It's bitten me twice this morning already. Sorry!'

She had a pleasing voice, and Morse guessed that her gushy manner was merely a cover for her nervousness.

Yet nervousness of what?

'I'm just on my way,' continued Lucy. 'London. Got to change some curtains. A friend recommended a reasonably priced shop near King's Cross. But you really can't trust any of the stores these days, can you? I quite specifically ordered French pleats, and then — oh, sorry! Please sit down!'

Morse looked around him in the front living room, slightly puzzled to find the carpet, the decoration, the furniture, all that little bit on the shabby side, with only the curtains looking bright and new, and (in Morse's opinion) classy and tasteful. Clearly, in any projected refurbishment of the Downes's household, Lucy was starting with the curtains.

'I'd offer you both coffee but the taxi'll be here any time now. Cedric usually takes me to the station—' she giggled slightly, 'I've never learned to drive, I'm afraid.'

'It's purely routine, madam,' began Morse, sitting down and sinking far too far into an antiquated, unsprung settee. 'We just have to check up everything about yesterday.'

'Of course! It's awful, isn't it, about Theo? I just couldn't believe it was true for a start—'

'When exactly was that?' Morse asked his question in a level tone, his eyes, unblinking, never leaving hers.

She breathed in deeply, stared intently at the intricate pattern on the carpet, then looked up again. 'Cedric rang up from The Randolph just before he came home. He said — he said he shouldn't know himself really, but one of the people there, the tour leader, told him and told him not to say anything, and Cedric'—she breathed deeply again—'told me, and told me not to say anything.'

'Bloody Ashenden!' muttered Morse silendy.

'His poor wife! How on earth—?'

'How many other people did you tell?'

'Me? I didn't tell anyone. I haven't been out of the house.'

Morse glanced at the phone on the table beside the settee, but let the matter rest. 'Dr. Kemp tried to talk to your husband yesterday lunchtime.'

'I know. Cedric told me. He came back here.'

'What time was that?'

'One-ish? Quarter-past one — half-past?'

'He came back for his spare hearing-aid?'

Lucy was nodding. 'Not only that, though. He picked up some notes as well. I forget what they were for. Well, I don't really forget. I never knew in the first place!' She smiled nervously, and (for Lewis) bewitchingly, and (for Morse) heart-eatingly. 'Anyway he just grabbed some papers — and he was off again.'

'With his spare hearing-aid, too?'

She looked up at Morse with her elfin grin. 'Presumably.'

'I thought the NHS only issued one aid at a time.'

'That's right. But Cedric's got a spare — two spares in fact. Private ones. But he always votes Labour. Well, he says he does.'

'He's not all that deaf, is he, Mrs. Downes?'

'He pretends he's not. But no, you're right, he's not that bad. It's just that when he talks to people he gets a bit frightened. Not frightened about not knowing the answers but frightened about not hearing the questions in the first place.'

'That's very nicely put, Mrs. Downes.'

'Thank you! But that's what he says. I'm only copying him.'

'What time did he get home last night?'

'Elevenish? Just after? But he'll be able to tell you better than me.'

The door bell rang; and in any case the three of them had already heard the steps on the gravel.

'Shall I tell him to wait a few minutes, Inspector? He's a bit early.'

Morse rose to his feet. 'No. I think that's all. I — unless Sergeant Lewis here has any questions?'

'What are French pleats?'

She laughed, her teeth showing white and regular. 'Like that!' She pointed up to the curtains on the front window. 'It's the way they're gathered in at the top, Sergeant.'

'Oh! Only the missus keeps on to me about getting some new curtains—'

'I'm sure, Lewis, that Mrs. Downes will be able to arrange a private consultation with Mrs. Lewis at some convenient point. But some other time, perhaps? She does have a train to catch — her taxi driver is waiting impatiently on the threshold. '

'Sorry, sir!'

Lucy smiled again, especially at Sergeant Lewis, as he carried her heavy suitcase out to the taxi.

'You know when you're coming back, Mrs. Downes?' Lewis asked.

'Seven o'clock. Just before — or is it just after?'

'Would you like me to ask your husband to meet you? We shall be seeing him.'

'Thank you. But he is coming to meet me.'

She climbed aboard, and the two policemen stood and watched as the taxi drove off into Lonsdale Road.

'Lovely woman, that!'

For the moment Morse made no reply, staring back at the house with a slightly puzzled air. 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, Lewis! Exodus, chapter something.'

'I didn't mean anything like that. You've got a one-track mind, sir!'

'You are perfecdy correct, Lewis: one track only. My mind wants to know what the theft of the Wolvercote Tongue has got to do with the murder of Theodore Kemp. And I would be very surprised if that "lovely woman" of yours doesn't know a little more than she's prepared to admit — even to you!'

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

OF A SUDDEN, on the way back down the Banbury Road, Morse decided to view Parson's Pleasure by daylight. So Lewis drove down to the bottom of South Parks Road, where he was ushered through into the University Parks by a policeman on duty at the entrance to the single-track road which led down to the bathing area. Here the whole of the site was lightly cordoned off, and one of the Park Attendants was talking to (the newly promoted) Sergeant Dixon as Morse and Lewis moved alongside. The Park had closed at 4.30 p.m. the previous day, the detectives learned, yet it was not unknown for nimble adolescents and desperate adults to gain access to the Parks from half-a-dozen possible places. And the number of expended condoms discovered in and around the bathing-area suggested that not only ingress and egress, but congress too, were not unusual there, with the cover of the night, and the cover of the cubicles, combining to promote this latter activity — even when frost was forecast. But the cubicle in which the yellow sheet had been found could reveal no further secrets, and all hope had early been abandoned of learning anything from the scores of footprints which had criss-crossed the grassy area since the murder. Two divers had gone down into the river during the morning, but had found no item of relevance; and perhaps would not have recognised its relevance had they found it. Certainly no clothes, Sergeant Dixon asserted.

Morse walked over to the water's edge, the river-level high against the banks, and there he dipped his fingers in: not quite so cold as he would have thought. Dixon's mention of clothes had pulled his mind back to the discovery of Kemp's body, and he asked Lewis much the same question he had asked Max, receiving much the same answers.

'But I don't think he'd have been swimming here, sir.'

'Not unknown, Lewis, for people to bathe naked in this stretch.'

'Too chilly for me.'

'What about sex?'

'You don't have to take all your clothes off to do that.'

'No? Well, I'll take your word for it. I'm not an expert in that area myself.' He stood pondering the waters once more. 'Do you ever have any rows with your wife?'

' "Not unknown", as you would say, sir.'

'Then you patch things up?'

'Usually.'

'When you've patched things up, do you feel even closer together than before?'

Lewis was feeling puzzled now, and a little embarrassed at the course of the conversation: 'Probably a good thing now and then — clears the air, sort of.'

Morse nodded. 'We know of two people who had a row recently, don't we?'

'Dr. Kemp and Mrs. Williams? Yes! But she's got a whacking great alibi, sir.'

'A much better alibi than Stratton, certainly.'

'I could try to check on Stratton: Didcot — the pub he mentioned — Browns Restaurant.'

Morse looked dubious: 'If only we knew when Kemp was murdered! Nobody's got an alibi until we know that.'

'You think Mrs. Williams might have killed him?'

'She might have killed him all right. But I don't think she could have dumped him. I'd guess it was a man who did that.'

'He wasn't very heavy, Kemp, though. Not much fat on him.'

'Too heavy for a woman.'

'Even a jealous woman, sir?'

'Yes, I know what you mean. I keep wondering if Kemp had found some other floozie — and Sheila Williams found out about it.'

' "Hell hath no fury. " '

'If you must quote, quote accurately, Lewis! "Heaven has no rage, like love to hatred turned, Nor Hell a fury like a woman scorned." '

'Sorry! I never did know much about Shakespeare.'

'Congreve, Lewis.'

'He seems to have been a bit of a ladies' man—'

'And if he couldn't make love to his wife because she was paralysed from the waist down. '

'I got the feeling she wasn't too worried about that, perhaps. It was Mrs. Williams she had it in for.'

'She might have forgiven him if it had been anyone else, you mean?'

'I think — I think you ought to go to see her, sir.'

'All right,' snapped Morse. 'Give me a chance! We've got these Americans to see, remember? Aldrich and Brown — find out where they were yesterday afternoon. Where they say they were.'

Morse turned to look at the waters once more before he left, then sat silently in the passenger-seat of the police car as Lewis had a final word with Sergeant Dixon. In the side panel of the door he found a street map of Oxford, together with a copy of Railway Magazine; and opening out the map he traced the line of the River Cherwell, moving his right index-finger slowly northwards from the site marked Bathing Pool, up along the edge of the University Parks, then past Norham Gardens and Park Town, out under the Marston Ferry Road; and then, veering north-westerly, up past the bottom of Lonsdale Road. Portland Road. Hamilton Road. Yes. A lot of flood water had come down from the upper reaches of the Cherwell, and a body placed in the river, say, at Lonsdale Road.

And suddenly Morse knew where the body had been launched into the river and into eternity; knew, too, that if Lucy Downes could so quickly arouse the rather sluggish libido of a Lewis, then it was hardly difficult to guess her effect upon the lively carnality of a Kemp.

Lewis had climbed into the driving seat, and seen Morse's finger seemingly stuck on the map, at the bottom of Lonsdale Road.

'He couldn't have done it, sir — not Downes. He was with the Americans all the time — certainly till after we found the body. If anybody's got an alibi, he has.'

'Perhaps it was your friend Lucy Downes.'

'You can't think that, surely?'

'I'm not thinking at all — not for the minute,' replied Morse loftily. 'I am deducing — deducing the possibilities. When I've done that, I shall begin to think.'

'Oh!'

'And get a move on. We can't keep the Americans here all day. We're going to have to let 'em get on their way. Most of 'em!'

So Lewis drove back from Parson's Pleasure, back on to the Banbury Road, down St. Giles', and then right at the lights into Beaumont Street. And all the time Chief Inspector Morse sat, less tetchy now, staring at the street map of Oxford.

No doubt, as Lewis saw things, 'deducing'.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

SHEILA WILLIAMS WAS feeling miserable. When Morse, himself looking far from serene, had come into The Randolph and demanded to see Messrs Aldrich and Brown immediately, he had resolutely avoided her eyes, appearing to have no wish to rekindle the brief moments of intimacy which had occurred in the morning's early hours. And the tourists, most of them, were getting restless — understandably so. Only Phil Aldrich had seemed as placid as ever, even after being interrupted in the middle of his lunch, and thereafter being seated in the Lancaster Room, writing busily on the hotel notepaper; and being interrupted just the once, and then only briefly, by Janet Roscoe — the latter intent, it appeared, on fomenting further dissatisfaction whenever possible.

Like now, for instance.

'I really do think, Sheila—'

'I do envy you so, Mrs. Roscoe. I haven't had a genuine thought in years! Oh, Cedric! Cedric?'

He had been trying to steal silently away from the post-lunch chatter, but was stopped in his tracks at the foot of the great staircase as Sheila, glass in her left hand, laid the crimson-nailed fingers of her right hand along his lapel.

'Cedric! How that bloody woman has lived this long without getting murdered. '

Cedric grinned his sad, lopsided grin, removed the somewhat disturbing hand, and looked at her — her upper and lower lips of almost equal thickness, moist and parted, and temptingly squashable. She was a woman he had known for several years now; one with whom he had never slept; one who half repelled, and ever half attracted him.

'Look! I've got to be off. I've got a tutorial shortly, and I ought to sober up a bit between times.'

'Why do that, darling?'

'Sheila! You're a lovely girl, but you — you let yourself down when you drink too much.'

'Oh, for Christ's sake! Not you as well.'

'Yes! Me as well! And I've got to go. I'm meeting Lucy off the train later on anyway, and if you want to know the truth'—he looked about him with rolling eyes—'I'm completely pissed off with the whole of this bloody set-up. I've done my best, though. First I stood in for—' Suddenly he stopped. 'Sorry, Sheila! I shouldn't have said that. Forgive me!' He kissed her lightly on the cheek, then turned and walked out of the hotel.

As Sheila watched him go, she knew that in spite of the hurtful words he had just spoken she would always have a soft spot for the man. But she knew, too, what a lousy judge of men she'd always been. Her husband! God! A quietly cultivated, top-of-the-head English don, incurably in the grip of the Oxford Disease — that tragic malady which deludes its victims into believing they can never be wrong in any matter of knowledge or opinion. What a disaster that had all been! Then a series of feckless, selfish, vain admirers. then Theo. Poor Theo! But at least he was — had been — an interesting and vital and daring sort of man.

Sheila walked slowly over to the window and watched Cedric as he wheeled his bicycle across Beaumont Street towards St. Giles'. He never drove his car if he was having any drink with his lunch. Not like some people she'd known. Not like Theo, for instance. He'd been over the limit, they'd said, when he'd crashed his BMW, and there could have been no sympathy whatsoever for him from the relatives of the woman killed in the other car. Or from his wife, of course — his bloody wife! And yet there was the suggestion that he'd been just a little unlucky, perhaps? Certainly many people had mumbled all that stuff about 'there but for the grace of God. ' And there was a lot of luck in life: some people would go to jail for badger-baiting; but if they'd baited just the foxes they'd like as not be having sherry the next day with the Master of the Foxhounds. Yes, Theo may have been a fraction unlucky about that accident.

Even unluckier now.

And Cedric? Was he right — about what he'd just said? Already that morning she had drunk more than the weekly average for women she'd noticed displayed on a chart in the Summertown Health Centre waiting-room. But when she was drinking, she was (or so she told herself) perfectly conscious of all her thoughts and actions. It was only when she was reasonably sober, when, say, she woke up in the morning, head throbbing, tongue parched, that she suspected in retrospect that she hadn't been quite so rationally conscious of those selfsame thoughts and actions.

God! What a mess her life was in!

She looked miserably back across the coffee-lounge, where several of the group were mumbling none too happily. Six o'clock. Morse had changed their departure-time to six o'clock, unless something dramatic occurred in the meantime.

She walked through into the Lancaster Room again, where Phil Aldrich was still scribbling away on the hotel's notepaper; and for the moment (as Sheila stood in the doorway) looking up with his wonted patience and nodding mildly as Janet propounded her latest views on the injustice of the tour's latest delay. But even as Sheila stood there, his mood had changed. None too quietly, he asked the woman if she would mind leaving him alone, just for a while, since he had something more important to do for the minute than listen to her gripes and belly-aching.

Who would have believed it?

Sheila had heard most of the exchange; and, with the volume of Janet's voice, so probably had several of the others too. It had been a devastating rebuke from the quiet little fellow from California; and as Sheila watched the hurt face of the formidable little woman from the same State (wasn't it the same Church, too?), she almost felt a tinge of sympathy for Mrs. Janet Roscoe.

Almost.

Lewis, too, had been watching as Aldrich wrote out his statement; and wondering how a man could write so fluently. Huh! When Aldrich handed it to him there were only three crossings out in the whole thing.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

I was stationed in Oxford in early 1944 for Training as a 22-year old GI for the forthcoming landings in Normandy. One night in Chipping Norton I met a married woman and I fell deeply in love with her. Her husband had been serving in the British Merchant Navy on the Russian Convoy run, but after 1943 he was receiving psychiatric treatment in Shropshire somewhere for his nerves. They said nobody survived that posting without getting his nerves shattered. Well while he was in hospital his wife had gotten herself pregnant and she had a baby daughter 2nd Jan. 1945. From what I half learnt the father must have been a forgiving sort of man because he treated the daughter (my daughter) as if she were his own little girl. But there was some trouble with her in her early teens and perhaps she'd guessed something of the truth. The fact is she ran away from her home in late 1962 and her mother heard a few months later that she was living as a common street girl near Kings Cross Station. I only knew something of all this because the girl's mother kept in touch with me occasionally through innocent looking postcards and just the one phone call put through to our telephone me when her husband died in 1986. She moved soon after to Thetford in your E. Anglia and I was able to phone her there a few times. But I could tell there was no real wish on her part to renew any old ties of love and friendship and if I am going to be honest no real wish on my part either. I valued my independence too much to get into any deep down involvement and particularly with a woman who goddamit I probably wouldn't have recognized anyway! But I felt so different about my daughter and tried to learn where she'd gotten to. She attended the funeral so I guess there must have been some contact there. Well then her mother died last Feb. with some awful cancer and her daughter had been beside her when she died and probably learnt then about the secret which must have burdened her poor mother's life for so many years. I guess I ought to be more honest about this because my daughter wrote me after her mother's funeral and said she'd guessed what had happened anyway. I'd never had any children of my own and somehow she seemed very precious just then, but I never expected to see her. She'd not given any address but the stamp had a WC1 postmark. So when this tour was advertised and I saw three days would be spent in London I just decided to go, that's all. It would be good to see old England again and even if I didn't find her I could tell myself I'd just tried that little bit. So when we were there in London I asked around at several centers for rehabilitating women and I struck lucky. At one place there were about a dozen young women having a lunch together. I don't recall the name of the place but there was royal blue woodwork there and gray walls and all the pipes were bright red. It was a biggish house in a Terrace, yellowish brick and white window frames about five or ten minutes walk from Kings Cross. The only other thing I remember is that there was litter everywhere in that street there. The Warden was a wonderful guy and he mentioned my daughter's name to these girls and one of them knew her! There were a lot of street walkers and petty criminals, he called them his pros and cons, but one of them had seen my daughter Pippa a week earlier in a cafeteria somewhere near. So I left her £10 and asked her to please tell the warden if she saw her again so that he could call me with any news. Yesterday was the last possible day we could have on the tour that was near enough to London to get up there easily, only about an hour away. Then I had a phone call yesterday from my daughter herself! I'd given the warden details of our itinerary, and the call got put straight through to my own room just before we went for lunch. So we arranged to meet in The Bronel Bar in the Great Western Hotel at Paddington at a quarter after two and I just decided to go without telling anyone in the group. I got to Paddington just after 2 o'clock right on schedule and I walked straight over to the hotel bar and got me a big whiskey because gee was I was nervous. You see, I'd never seen my own daughter before. I waited and waited and waited — until about 3 o'clock and then when the bar closed until about 4 o'clock in the lounge there. But she didn't come though I was willing and praying for any woman round forty-five or so who came in to be her, so I caught the 4.20 train back to oxford which stopped at Reading and then Didcot. I didn't see Eddie get in the train at Didcot but I know he saw me. I only know because he told me this morning, he'd not meant to say anything but his conscience was worrying him so he told me what he'd told you. I just hope the police can come nearer solving the murder if we all tell the truth even if there are a few skeletons in the cupboard. I only ask for my secret to stay a secret. But just one more thing. I asked Janet Mrs. Janet Roscoe to sigh that she saw me yesterday afternoon at one of the sessions. Please don't blame her because I just told her I'd gotten a bad headache. She is a much nicer lady than the others may think and I admire her such a lot.

Philip Aldrich

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

FOR ALL THE swiftness of his thought, Morse was quite a slow reader. And as Lewis (who had already read through the statement) watched his chief going through the same pages, he felt more than a little encouraged. It was like finding a Senior Wrangler from Cambridge unable to add seventy-seven and seventeen together without demanding pencil and paper.

'Well?' asked Morse at long last. 'What did you make of that?'

'One odd thing, sir. It's an alibi for Aldrich all right, but not really one for Stratton, is it?'

'It isn't?'

'Surely not. Aldrich didn't actually see Stratton — on the train, did he?'

'You mean Stratton might not have been on the train? Ye-es. But if so, how did he know Aldrich was on the train?'

Lewis shook his head: 'I'm thinking about it, sir.'

'But you're right, Lewis,' added Morse slowly, as he sat back and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds. 'And I'll tell you something else: he writes well!'

'Clever man, sir!'

'More literate than his daughter, I should think. Only those couple or so spelling mistakes, wasn't it?'

'Only the two I spotted,' replied Lewis, his features as impassive as those of a professional poker-player, as Morse, with a half-grin of acknowledgement, started shuffling inconsequentially through the completed questionnaires.

'Bit sad' ventured Lewis, 'about Mr. Aldrich's daughter.'

'Mm?'

'Wonder why she didn't turn up at Paddington.'

'Probably met a well-oiled sheik outside The Dorchester.'

'She'd agreed to meet him, though.'

'So he says.'

'Don't you believe him?' Lewis's eyes looked up in puzzlement. 'He can't have made up all that stuff about the army. or the train—'

'Not those bits, no.'

'But you don't believe the bits in the middle?'

'As you just said, he's a clever man. I think he went up to London, yes, but I'm not at all sure what he did there. All a bit vague, don't you think? Just as I'm not quite sure what Kemp was doing, after he left his publishers. But if they met each other, Lewis.? Interesting, don't you think?'

Lewis shook his head. It was almost invariably the same: halfway through any case Morse would be off on some improbable and complicated line of thought which would be just as readily abandoned as soon as a few more facts emerged. And, blessedly, it was facts that Morse now seemed to be concentrating on as, forgetting Aldrich for the moment, he browsed once again through the questionnaires.

'See here, Lewis!' He passed over three of the sheets and pointed to the answers to question (e):

P. Aldrich 10-27-90

E. Stratton 27th Oct 1990

H. Brown October 27

'Not conclusive though, is it, sir?'

But Morse appeared to have boarded a completely different train of thought: 'I was just wondering about their dates of birth. '

'Soon find out. I got Ashenden to collect in all their passports this morning.'

'You did?'

Lewis felt gratified to note the surprise and appreciation in Morse's eyes and voice, and very soon he was back with the passports.

'All here, are they?'

'Except Ashenden's. You're not, er, forgetting Ashenden, are you, sir?'

'Oh no! I'm not forgetting Ashenden,' replied Morse quietly, as taking out his Parker pen he wrote three d.o.b.s on a table napkin:

Aldrich: 8.4.1922

Stratton: 29.9.1922

Brown: 3.8.1918

'Two of 'em sixty-eight now, and one seventy-two. '

'You wouldn't think Brown was the oldest, though, would you, sir? He trots around like a two-year-old.'

'A two-year-old what?

Lewis sighed, but said nothing.

'He stayed in his room when his wife went off for a jaunt round Oxford, remember? And I still think one of the oddest things in this case is why Stratton didn't see his wife safely up to her room. It's not natural, Lewis. It's not how things happen.'

'What are you suggesting?' asked Lewis, vaguely.

'Brown said he stayed in his room when his wife and Stratton decided to look round Oxford. Said he was tired. Huh! As you said, he's as sprightly as a two-year-old.'

'A two-year-old what, sir?'

But Morse appeared to have missed the question.

In the Annexe, as if on cue, a tune could be heard quite clearly. First a few exploratory notes, presumably on the Steinway Grand that Morse had earlier admired in the Lancaster Room; then the whole melody as the pianist hired for the afternoon tea-room session fingered his way through the nostalgic chords of 'Love's Old Sweet Song'.

The two men listened in silence, before Morse resumed:

'You know, I'm beginning to wonder exactly who was having an affair with who.'

Lewis's eyebrows shot up yet again.

'All right! "Whom", if you prefer it. Stratton and Shirley Brown go out together and everybody says "tut-tut". Agreed? And we all focus our attention on the potential scandal — completely ignoring a far more suggestive state of affairs. Brown and Laura Stratton are there right next to each other in Rooms 308 and 310. It's shenanigans between the sheets, Lewis! It's a crime passionnel! Stratton comes back in and catches Brown in the missionary position — and all this Wolvercote Tongue business is just a secondary blind.'

But Lewis would have nothing to do with such futile speculation: 'She was tired, sir. She'd be far more interested in a bath than. '

'. than in a bonk?'

'Well, people that age—'

'What? I've heard that sex can be very good for the over sixty-fives.'

'Only ten years for you to go, then.'

Morse grinned, though with little conviction. 'I'm sure of it, though. It's Love's Old Sweet Song — that must come into things somewhere. A woman dies. An art-work goes missing. An art-expert gets murdered. You following me, Lewis? There's a link — there's got to be a link. But for the present I can't—' He broke off, and looked at the three dates again. 'You realise, don't you, that those three would have been — what? — twenty-two, twenty-two, and twenty-six in 1944?' His eyes gleamed with what might have been taken for some inner illumination. 'What about all of them being stationed in or near Oxford?'

'What difference would that make, sir?'

Morse seemed not to know.

Picking up Aldrich's statement, Lewis rose to his feet. 'Shall I go and get Howard Brown?'

But again Morse's mind seemed to be tuned to another wave-length. 'Why did you say 'he'—indicating the statement—'he was a clever man?'

'Well, for a start, there's only the three crossings out, aren't there? And he just — well, he just sort of sat down and wrote it straight off.'

'Ye-es,' said Morse, but to himself, for Lewis had already left the Annexe to summon Brown.

He looked around at the two other tables occupied in the Bar-Annexe. At the first, a middle-aged woman with an enormous bosom was digging a fork into a plate of salad with the precision of an accountant jabbing at his calculator, before transferring the accumulated forkful up to her rapidly masticating jaws; and Morse knew that if he had married her, it would all have been over within the week. But there was another woman, at the second table: a woman only half the age of her executively suited escort; a woman who was having a fairly difficult time by the look of things, earnestly rehearsing a whole chapter of body language with her ringless hands. Perhaps, thought Morse, the illicit little office affair was drawing to its close. Then her sad eyes met Morse's in a sort of distant, anonymous camaraderie: she smiled across, almost fully. And Morse did the same, feeling for a few small moments an intense and splendid happiness.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

FACED WITH THE evidence of the tell-tale Howard Brown capitulated immediately. Yes, Morse was right in one respect: Aldrich, Stratton, and himself had been stationed in or around Oxford in 1944, and he (Brown) had in fact known Stratton vaguely in those far-off days. They'd been delighted therefore to renew acquaintanceship at the beginning of the tour; and thereafter had spent many an hour together, talking about old comrades they'd known — those who'd come through, and those who hadn't. and reminiscing about some of the 'local talent' the GIs had been only too happy to discover, in Oxford itself and in some of the surrounding towns and villages. Brown had fallen miserably in love (so he said) with a girl named Betty Fowler, whom he'd met one Friday evening at a hop held in the Oxford Town Hall, and already on their second meeting they had vowed a mutual, eternal love.

Then, when the war ended in the summer of 1945, after being demobbed from Germany, he'd gone straight back to the US, with no possible hope of any real communication between them except for one or two impermanent and unreliable addresses. So, slowly, the memories of their idyllic times together had faded. He'd met up with a marvellous girl in Münster, anyway; then a fully consenting Hausfrau from Hamburg. and so it had gone on. He'd gradually come to terms with the fairly obvious fact (as most of his comrades already had) that wartime associations were almost inevitably doomed to dissolution.

Back home in California, he'd met Shirley; and married her. OK, there mightn't perhaps be all that much left over now from the early joys of their marriage; yet, in an odd sort of way, the longer they'd abjured the divorce-courts, the stronger had grown the ties that bound them together: home, children, friends, memories, insurance policies; and above all, perhaps, the sheer length — the ever-increasing length — of the time they'd spent together as man and wife. Forty-three whole years of it now.

Before marrying Shirley, he'd written an honourable and honest letter to Betty Fowler, but he'd received no reply. Whatever the actual reasons for this, in his own mind he'd singled out the fact that she must have got married. She was an extraordinarily attractive girl, with a pale complexion, a freckled face, and ginger hair: a girl for whom most of the other GIs would willingly have given a monthly pay-packet. Or an annual one.

Then, only six months since, he had received a letter ('Private and Strictly Confidential'). Although sent to his 1947 address in Los Angeles, it had finally, almost flukily, caught up with him — and thereby opened a floodgate of memories upon which the years had added their sentimental compound-interest. She had (Betty confessed) received his letter all that while ago; still had it, in fact. But by that time she had married a car-worker from Cowley, was four months' pregnant, and was eventually to become the mother of four lovely children — three girls and one boy. Her husband had retired in 1988 and then, so sadly, died only seven months later. She was all right, herself. No worries — certainly no financial worries. And eight (eight!) grandchildren, though she had not herself been tempted to enter the local 'Glamorous Grandmother' contest. So, the only reason for her writing was to say that if he ever did get the chance to come over to the UK again, well, she'd like — well, it would be nice.

From America, how earnestly he'd longed to reach her on the telephone! But she had given him neither an address nor a telephone number; and the complexities of finding either had posed rather too much of a problem on a transatlantic line. Yet here he was now — so near to her! And with his wife gone out for long enough with one of her admirers. So, he'd watched her go from the hotel, and then contacted Directory Enquiries from the phone-booth in the foyer. Miraculously, within a couple of minutes, he'd found himself speaking to a woman he'd kissed goodbye in the early May of 1944—over forty-six years ago! Could she meet him? Would she like to meet him? The answer was yes, yes, yes. And so they had met (it had been so easy, as it happened, for him to sneak away the previous afternoon) nervously and excitedly outside the main entrance to the University Parks at 2.30 p.m.

'And she turned up, did she?' asked Morse.

'Yes.' Brown appeared a fraction puzzled by the question. 'Oh, yes! I'd walked up St. Giles' about two o'clock, and then down Keble Road to the Parks. And, well, there she was waiting for me.'

'Then you went to Parson's Pleasure and sat in one of the cubicles.'

'But you won't get me wrong, will you, Inspector? I want to set the record straight. We just had a quiet little kiss and cuddle together and — well, that was that, really.'

'My only wish,' said Morse, looking now with somewhat irrational distaste at the remarkably well-preserved Lothario from Los Angeles, 'is to set, as you say, the record straight. So thank you for your honesty!'

Brown stood up and prepared to leave. He looked, little doubt of it, considerably relieved, but clearly there was something on his mind, for he stood hesitantly beside the table, his eyes scouting around for some object upon which to focus.

'There is one thing, Inspector.'

'And that is?'

'When I was walking up to Keble Road yesterday I saw someone standing at the bus-stop outside St. Giles' Church, waiting to get up to Summertown. Well, I suppose it was Summertown.'

'And who was that, sir?'

'It was Mr. Ashenden.'

'I just don't believe all this,' said Morse after Brown had gone.

'You mean you wonder who Ashenden saw, sir?'

'Exactly.'

'He sounded as if he was telling the truth.'

'They all do! But somebody isn't telling the truth, Lewis. Somebody stole the Wolvercote Tongue, and somebody murdered Kemp! If only I could find the connection!'

'Perhaps there isn't a connection,' said Lewis.

But he might just as well have been talking to himself.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

ASHENDEN, BUTTONHOLED as he was once again in the coffee-lounge by the diminutive dynamo from Sacramento, appeared only too glad to be given the opportunity of escaping, albeit to an interview with Chief Inspector Morse.

'Do you always get one like that?' sympathised Lewis.

'Well, she'd probably take the prize,' conceded Ashenden with a weary grin. 'But Janet's not such a bad old stick sometimes — not when you get to know her.'

'Makes you wonder how anyone ever married her, though.'

Ashenden nodded as he walked through into the Bar-Annexe: 'Poor chap!'

With this next hand (Ashenden), Morse took no finesses at all. Just played off his aces and sat back. Question: Why had Ashenden lied about his visit to Magdalen? Answer: It wasn't a lie really. He had gone up to Magdalen College, asked at the Porters' Lodge, discovered the grounds were closed; then just carried on walking over the bridge, around the Plain, and back again down the High. Silly to lie, really. But it was only to avoid any tedious and wholly inconsequential explanation. Question: What about the previous afternoon, at about 2 p.m.? (Morse admitted his willingness to listen to a little more 'tedious and wholly inconsequential explanation'.)

'No secret, Inspector. In fact I'd told a couple of the group — Mr. and Mrs. Rronquist, I think it was — that I was going up to Summertown.'

'Why bother? Why explain? You're a free agent, aren't you, sir?'

Ashenden pondered the question awhile. 'I did realise, yesterday, that you perhaps weren't completely satisfied with the account of my whereabouts when, er—'

'The Wolvercote Tongue was stolen,' supplied Morse.

'Yes. That's why it seemed no bad idea for somebody to know where I was yesterday afternoon.'

'And where was that?'

Ashenden, looking decidedly uncomfortable, drew a deep breath: 'I spent the afternoon in the betting-shop in Summertown.'

Lewis looked up: 'Not a crime, that, is it?'

Morse seemed to appreciate the interjection: 'Surely Sergeant Lewis is right, sir? Certainly it's not a criminal offence to line a bookie's pockets.'

Ashenden suddenly seemed more relaxed: 'I had a tip. I met this fellow from Newmarket when we were at The University Arms in Cambridge. He said be sure to back this horse — over the sticks at Fontwell Park.'

'Go on.'

'Well, that's it, really. I picked another horse, in the race before — I'd got to the bookie's at about half-past two, I suppose. I put three pounds to win on a horse in the two-fifty, and then five pounds to win on the "dead cert" this fellow had told me about in the three-fifteen or three-twenty — something like that.'

'How much did you win?'

Ashenden shook his head sadly: 'I don't think you can be a racing man, Inspector.'

'Would they have records at the bookie's to show you'd been there, sir?'

It was Lewis who had asked the question, and Ashenden turned in his chair to face him: 'Are you suggesting I wasn't there?'

'No, sir. Certainly not. But it was the key sort of time, wasn't it? Three o'clock time? Just the time when Dr. Kemp was getting back to Oxford.'

'Yes,' replied Ashenden slowly. 'I take the point.'

'Would anyone recognise you,' continued Lewis, 'if you went there again?'

'I don't know. There were quite a few there during the afternoon — eight, ten — more, perhaps, for some of the time, some of the races. But whether anyone would recognise me. '

'They'd have your betting-slips, surely?' suggested Morse.

'Oh yes — they'd keep those — if the horses had won.'

'Bit of bad luck you didn't pick a winner, then. You could have collected your winnings and proved your alibi both at the same time.'

'Life's full of disappointments, Inspector, as I'm sure—' Suddenly he stopped; and his eyes lit up as he withdrew a black-leather wallet from the breast-pocket of his sports jacket. 'With a bit of luck. Yes! Thank goodness! I thought I might have torn them up.'

'They tell me betting-shops are littered with torn-up betting-slips,' said Morse, as he looked down at the two pink slips that Ashenden had handed to him.

'You might just as well tear those up as well, Inspector, I'm afraid.'

'Oh, no, sir. We mustn't destroy any evidence, must we, Lewis?'

Ashenden shrugged, and seemed for the moment somewhat less at ease. 'Anything else?'

'I think not,' said Morse. 'But it's a mug's game, betting, you know. A dirty game, too.'

'Perhaps you should go into a betting-shop yourself one day. It's quite a civilised business, these days—'

But Morse interrupted the man, and his eyes were ice. 'Look, lad! Once you've lost as much money as me on the horses—then you come and give me a sermon on gambling, all right?' He flicked his right hand in dismissal. 'And tell your coach-driver he can leave at five o'clock. That should please everybody. It's only thirty-seven or thirty-eight miles to Stratford — and Lewis here once managed it in half an hour.'

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

ON THE COACH, as it headed north up the Woodstock Road, and thence out on to the A34, the members of the touring party were mostly silent, their thoughts monopolised perhaps by the strange and tragic events they had left behind them in Oxford. What tales they would be able to tell once they got back home again! John Ashenden, seated alone in the front nearside seat, debated with himself about reaching for the microphone and saying a few words about Somerville College, the Radcliffe Infirmary, the Tower of the Winds, the large, late nineteenth-century redbrick residences, St. Edward's School. But he decided against it: the mood was not upon him — nor upon anyone else in the coach, as far as he could gather.

Opposite him, in the seat immediately behind the driver, sat a sour-faced Mrs. Roscoe, her nicely shaped little nose stuck deep into the text of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Immediately behind him sat Howard and Shirley Brown, silent and sombre, each thinking thoughts that were quite impossible for any observer to ascertain — even for the two of them themselves fully to comprehend. And behind the Browns, the enigmatic Kronquists, now the only other married couple registered on the tour, reluctant, it seemed, to engage in even the most perfunctory of conversations: she now reading Lark Rise to Candleford; he, the Good Beer Guide (just published) for 1991. At the back, as if distanced to the utmost from the woman who ab initio had publicly sought to claim him as escort, friend, and guide, sat Phil Aldrich, slowly reading the evening's edition of The Oxford Mail. Nor had the sudden coolness between himself and Mrs. J. Roscoe escaped most of the other tourists; indeed, this development was proving one of the few topics of conversation as the coach accelerated along the dual carriageway towards Woodstock.

Only two of the party that had arrived at The Randolph, some fifty hours earlier, were no longer in their original seats — the seats immediately behind Mrs. Roscoe. One of these missing persons was still lying (lying still, rather!) in the police mortuary in St. Aldate's; the other person, with Morse's full permission, had that afternoon departed by train for London, not stopping on this occasion (as he had claimed to have stopped earlier) at Didcot Parkway, but travelling straight through — past Reading, Maidenhead, Slough — to Paddington, whence he had taken a taxi to the Tour Company HQ in Belgravia in order to discuss the last wishes and the last rites of his erstwhile legal spouse, Mrs. Laura Mary Stratton.

As the coach pulled powerfully up the hill away from Woodstock, Ashenden once again looked slightly anxiously at his watch. He had rung through to the Swan Hotel in Stratford to set a revised time of arrival at 6.15 p.m.; but by the look of things it was going to be, in Wellington's words, 'a damn close-run thing'. Yet he made no attempt to harass the driver into any illegitimate speed. They'd arrive a little late? So what! Twenty-six plates of 'Mousse Arbroath Smokies' were already laid out, they'd said — with just the single carrot juice for just the single Vegan girl.

Was Inspector Morse (Ashenden pondered) quite the man most people seemed to think he was? A man with a mind that might have left even the mythical Mycroft just floundering a fraction? Ashenden doubted it, his doubt redoubling as the coach drew further and further away from Oxford along the A34.

Everything would be all right.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

FROM THE STREET-WINDOW of the coffee-lounge, Morse and Lewis had watched them go.

'Think we shall be seeing any of them again, sir?'

'No,' said Morse flatly.

'Does that mean you've got some idea—?'

'Ideas, plural, Lewis! We've seldom had so many clues, have we? But I can't help feeling we've missed all the really vital ones—' Morse broke off and resumed the drift of his earlier thought. 'It's this wretched love business — and I still think that Kemp was killed because he had one too many fancy woman.'

'I know I keep on about Mrs. Kemp, sir, but don't you think we ought—'

Morse ignored the interruption. 'Why was he naked? I thought for a start it was because moving the dead body might have been a very messy business. Max said there'd have been buckets of blood, and if someone's going to get it all over a suit, or a dress. It's a possibility, Lewis. Or he may have been stripped to delay any identification, I suppose. The longer delayed it is—'

'—the more difficult it gets for us to disprove an alibi.'

Morse nodded. 'But I don't think it was either of those reasons.'

'You think he was making love to a lady?'

'Well, a woman, Lewis. And since we know that woman wasn't likely to have been his wife because she'd. well, because of the car crash, we've got to decide who it could have been. Just think a minute! We get the husband, or whoever the jealous party was, bounding into the boudoir and catching 'em copulating. Who was she, though? I can't for the life of me see how it could have been Sheila Williams he was with. No, we've got to look down the race-card for some attractive, available, acquiescent filly — and the likeliest filly is surely—'

Suddenly Morse stopped, his mind once more six furlongs ahead of the field. He had bought a copy of The Times before he had come to The Randolph that morning, but hitherto had not even glanced at the headlines:. Now he looked again at the two betting-slips that lay on the table in front of him; then turned to the back of the Business section for the Sport, his eye running down the results of the previous day's racing at Fontwell Park. Ashenden's stake in the 2.50 race, £3 win on Golden Surprise, had contributed further, it appeared, to the luxurious life-style of the bookmaking fraternity. But as Lewis now saw them, Morse's eyes seemed to grow significantly in circumference as they fell upon the result of the 3.15:

1 THETFORD QUEEN (J. Francis) 30-1

'Bloody 'ell!' whispered Morse.

'Sir?'

'Ashenden backed a horse yesterday — a horse he said someone in Cambridge had tipped — he put a fiver on it — and it won! Thetford Queen. There! — it's on the betting-slip.'

'Whew! That means he's got a hundred and fifty pounds coming to him.'

'No. He didn't pay any tax on it, so he'd only get one hundred and forty back — including his stake.'

'I didn't realise you knew quite so much about the gee-gees, sir?'

But again Morse ignored the comment: 'He says he was there, Lewis — in the betting-shop. He's put his money on the hot tip, and the thing wins, and. he doesn't pick up his winnings!'

Lewis considered what Morse was saying, and shook his head in puzzlement. Surely Ashenden would have gone up to the Pay-Out desk immediately, if he'd been there — especially since that was the only time he was going to be in the betting-shop. And if for some strange reason he'd been misinformed, been told that the horse had lost, then it was difficult to see why he'd kept the slips so carefully in his wallet. Why not tear them up like everyone else and contribute to the litter found on every bookie's floor?

Morse interrupted Lewis's thoughts: 'Shall I tell you exactly what our leader was doing in the betting-shop? Establishing his alibi! If you've backed a couple of horses, and if you'll be gone the next day, you stay there like everybody else and listen to the commentaries. But if you pick a couple of complete no-hopers, rank outsiders, well, there's no need to stay, is there? Look at the odds on Golden Surprise! 50-1! So Ashenden spent eight quid of his money in order to buy himself an alibi.'

'Bit of bad luck the horse won, if you see what I mean, sir.'

'Where did he go, though?'

'Well he can't be that "jealous husband" you're looking for.'

'No, but he went somewhere he didn't want anyone to know about. I just wonder whether it might have been somewhere like—'

The Manager walked swiftly through: 'Can you come to the phone, Inspector? Very urgent, they say.'

It was Max.

'Morse? Get over here smartish! Bloody Hell! Christ!'

'Tell me, Max,' said Morse softly.

'Mrs. Kemp, that's what! Tried to cross the nighted ferry; might've made it but for a district-nurse calling unexpectedly.'

'She's not dead?'

'Not yet.'

'Likely to be?'

'Oh, I couldn't say.'

'For God's sake, Max!'

'Not even for His.'

Morse had never seen Mrs. Marion Kemp, but from the marriage photograph that hung in the living room he realised that she must once have been quite a vivacious woman: dark, curly hair; slim, firm figure; and curiously impudent, puckish eyes. She had already been removed to the Intensive Care Unit at the JR2, but in the bedroom there seemed quite sufficient evidence that she had planned a deliberate departure. A brown-glass bottle of sleeping pills stood capless and empty on the bedside table, and beside it, lying on the top of a Georgette Heyer novel, was a short, soberly legible (though unsigned) note:

If found still alive, please let me die.

If found dead, please contact

Dr. M. Davies at the Summertown

Health Centre — the only man who

ever tried to understand my

suffering.

CHAPTER FORTY

MORSE AND MAX stood for a few moments silently just outside the front door of the Kemp residence. Nothing, as both men knew, could be quite as sombre and sickening as a suicide (or, as here, an attempted suicide), for it spoke not only of unbearable suffering but also of a certain misguided fortitude. Morse had looked quickly round the flat but had found nothing much to engage his interest.

'Let's try to keep her alive, if we can, Max,' he said quietly.

'Out of my hands, now.'

'Fancy a glass of Brakspear? Only just along the road here.'

'No time, dear boy! Presumably you consider the Henley branch of the Brakspear family to be greater benefactors than that St. Albans fellow?'

'Wha—?' For a few seconds even Morse was lost a little; but then he grinned acknowledgement: 'You're a cultured sod.'

'You know, Morse,' panted Max as he eased his overweight frame into his car, 'I've always thought of myself more as a Renaissance man, actually.'

He was gone, and Morse looked around the area somewhat fecklessly. A maintenance man, with a garden fork and wheelbarrow, was tending the herbaceous border that stretched along the frontage of the flats and, in response to Morse's question, he said he was one of a small team that looked after the three blocks of flats that stood on the eastern side of Water Eaton Road. And yes, he'd been working there for several days. Had he seen anyone coming in, during the afternoon of the previous day? After three o'clock, say? But the man, looking to Morse far too young to have graduated with any glory from a landscape-gardening apprenticeship, shook his head dubiously.

'Difficult, innit? I mean, I was out the back most o' the time. There were some people comin' in, I remember, but they'd probably bin shoppin' and that, 'adn't they?'

'You saw this man?' Morse held up the photograph of Theodore Kemp which he had just removed from the living room. Clearly it had been taken several years earlier, but it showed, even then, the supercilious cast of a face which had looked into the camera with head held well back, and lips that seemed to smile with a curious arrogance above the Vandyke beard.

'Yea! I seen 'im before — but I dunno about yesterday. As I said, I was out the back most o' the time — doin' the bits by the river.'

The river.

Morse thanked the man, and walked along to the ramp at the side of the fiats, and down to a concreted area where five garages directly in front of him shielded the immediate view. Then, turning to his right, he came to a stretch of well-trimmed lawn that sloped down to the river, the far bank of which was policed by a row of severely pollarded willow trees. Here the water was green-scummed and semi-stagnant. But a bridge ('Residents Only') led him across to the main channel of the Cherwell, where the water was still flowing fairly swiftly after the week's earlier rains, and where pieces of debris were intermittently knocking into the sides of the banks, and then turning and twisting, first one way then the other, like dodgem cars at the fun-fair. For several minutes Morse looked down at the turbid, turgid river; and his thoughts were as restless as the waters below him. Then, of a sudden, he nodded to himself firmly — and the look around his mouth was almost as arrogant as that of the late Theodore Kemp, who at some time, at some point, had recently been manoeuvred into these selfsame murky, swollen waters.

Lewis was waiting for him as he reached the road again.

'What now, sir?'

'What we need is a little liquid refreshment, and there's a little pub'—Morse got into the passenger seat—'just along the road here.'

'Might as well walk, sir. It's only fifty yards.'

Morse said nothing, but sat where he was and picked up the Railway Magazine from the door-pocket and pretended to read it; then did read it — for a few seconds.

Lewis had backed the car a few feet down the ramp and was about to turn towards the Cherwell Arms when he heard his master's voice — a single hissed and incredulous blasphemy:

'Chrissst!'

'More clues, sir?'

'Look! Look at this!'

Lewis took the magazine and read through the brief article to which Morse was pointing:

GOLDEN OLDIES

Members of the GWR Preservation Society will learn with particular interest that w.e.f. 21st October the world-famous Torbay Express will be making a nostalgic return visit to a few stretches of its old track, and will first be housed for three weeks in Railway Shed 4 at Plymouth.

His eyes looked across to Morse's: 'And he said he'd seen the Torbay Express at Didcot, didn't he? It's in his statement, surely.'

Morse stared in front of him, his eyes a-glitter: 'He's a liar, Stratton is; he's a bloody liar!'

'Is — is that a 1990 magazine?' asked Lewis diffidently.

Morse turned to the colourful cover, then placed the magazine back casually into the door-pocket.

'Well, sir?'

'September 1988,' said Morse, very quietly indeed.

'What's it all mean?' asked Lewis, as he sat at the table, with a pint of Brakspear for Morse and a half of the same for himself. He had never understood why Morse almost always expected him to buy the beer. It was as though Morse believed that he, Lewis, was on some perpetual expense-account.

'You mean about Mrs. Kemp?'

'I mean about everything. I just don't know what's happening.'

'You think I do?'

'I thought you might have an idea.'

'Perhaps I have.' He drained his pint with extraordinary rapidity. 'Is it your round or mine?'

Lewis walked over to the bar with the single glass — almost happily.

Whilst he was gone, Morse turned to the back of The Times and had filled in the whole of the bottom right-hand quarter of the crossword when Lewis returned two minutes later.

'Do you always do crosswords that way round, sir?'

'Uh? Oh, yes! I always try solving problems by starting at the end — never the beginning.'

'I shall have to try that sometimes.'

'I didn't know you did crosswords, Lewis?'

'Yes! Me and the missus, we usually try to do the Daily Mirror Quick Crossword of an evening.'

'Oh!' said Morse, though without much wonderment in his voice. 'Well, let me tell you something. If I'm doing a crossword, and I think I'm getting stuck—'

'Not that you do, sir.'

'No. Not that I do — not very often. But if by some freak mischance I do get a bit stuck, you know what I do?'

'Tell me!'

'I stop thinking about the problem. Then, when I come back to it? No problem at all!'

'Have we got a problem, sir?'

'Oh yes! That's why we need the break — the drinking break.'

Morse took an almighty swig from his replenished pint, leaving only an inch of beer in the glass. 'Our problem is to find the connection between the theft of the jewel and the murder of Kemp. Once we find that. So the best thing to do is to think of something completely different. Tell me about something, Lewis — something that's got nothing to do with Mrs. Kemp.'

'I was just thinking about those betting-slips, sir. They've got the time on them — the time the bet was placed.'

'I said something different, Lewis! Anything. Tell me anything! Tell me the name of your first girl-friend! Anything!'

'I can't, sir. Not for the minute. I just think I let Mrs. Kemp down. in a way.'

'What the hell are you talking about? It's me who let her down! How many times did you tell me I ought to see her?'

'Why do you think she tried.?'

'How the hell do I know!'

'Just asked, that's all.'

'All right. What do you think?'

'I suppose she just felt life wasn't worth living without him — without her husband.'

'You didn't feel that, though, when you met her, did you? From what you told me, you seemed to feel the opposite: life might have been worth living if he wasn't there.'

Yes, Lewis knew that Morse was right. He'd felt the anger and the bitterness of the woman — far more than any sense of anguish or loss. He knew, too, that his lack of sleep was beginning to catch up with him.

'You talk about giving your mind a rest, sir, but I shall have to give my body a bit of a rest soon. I'm knackered — absolutely knackered!'

'Go home, then! What's stopping you? I can always get Dixon—'

'I don't want to go home, sir. We've got the decorators in and I keep getting nagged about getting new carpets and new curtains and—'

Morse jumped up from the table, his face radiant: "You've done it, Lewis! You've done it again!'

Lewis too rose from his seat, a tired, bewildered expression across his honest features.

What had he just said?

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

IT WAS A QUARTER-PAST six when Sheila Williams saw the police car draw up outside, and she answered the front door immediately.

'Come in, Inspector!' The colourless liquid in the glass she carried might just have been water, perhaps; but whatever it was she seemed unwontedly sober.

'No. I — we've got a lot to do. Look. I'm very sorry to have to tell you this — but Mrs. Kemp tried to kill herself this afternoon.'

Sheila's right hand jumped to her mouth with a convulsive jerk: 'Oh, no!' she whispered.

'She took enough pills to kill a healthy elephant, Sheila, but fortunately a nurse found her — in time, we think. If only just.'

'Where—?'

'She's in the JR2. She's having the best care she could get anywhere.'

Sheila took a deep breath. 'Oh dear!' she managed to say in a broken voice as the tears began to trickle. Then, somewhat to Morse's embarrassment, she suddenly buried her head on his shoulder and clung tightly to him.

'Did she love him?' asked Morse gently.

'She possessed him!'

'But did she love him?'

Sheila Williams straightened herself and pulled away from him, searching her pockets for a handkerchief. Her voice was almost fierce as she answered: 'No! I was the only one who really loved him.'

'Do you know anyone else who loved him? Was there someone else? A third woman in his life?'

Sheila shook her head in deep anguish.

'You quite sure about it, Sheila? It's so very important that you're honest with me,' urged Morse.

'He said not. He swore it!'

'And you believed him?'

She nodded, and wiped her eyes. And Morse nodded, too, and looked very sad.

'All right. Thank you.' He turned to go, but she called him back, the tears springing once more.

'Inspector — please!'

Morse turned, and laid his right hand lightly on her shoulder.

'No need to tell me, really. I know there was another woman in his life.'

Her 'yes' was barely audible.

'And I think you knew who it was.'

She nodded again.

'It was only recently though, wasn't it, Sheila? Only recently that he'd started seeing Mrs. Downes?'

Lewis, standing at the front gate, had managed to catch most of the exchanges; had watched Mrs. Williams as she'd finally turned away from Morse in tearful distress. And now, as they got back into the car, both men sat in silence as they watched the light switched on in the front bedroom — and then the curtains being drawn across.

'Curtains!' said Morse, his voice sounding tired yet triumphant. 'As you said, Lewis — curtains.'

The Downes's house was in darkness, and the sound of the front-door bell seemed somehow to re-echo along empty passageways, around empty rooms. Morse looked at his watch: just after half-past six — and Downes would be meeting his wife at seven o'clock.

A wooden gate at the side of the house led to a neatly tended garden at the back, the lawn sloping down to the river, with a path of paving stones laid along the middle, ending on the edge of the waters at what looked like a small landing-stage, perhaps once used to moor a small boat or punt, but apparently (as Lewis shone his torch across it) not in recent use.

'You think.?' Lewis pointed down to the fast-flowing Cherwell.

'Launched from here? Yes, I do. Launched from here into eternity.'

'But when, sir? He wasn't back in Oxford—'

'All in good time, Lewis! For the moment, be a good boy-scout and shine your little torch over those back windows?'

As in the front, the windows here were fully curtained, all of them looking decidedly posh and new; and all of them with some approximation to those French pleats whose acquaintance Lewis had so recently made — and, if truth were told, Morse too.

'You see, Lewis,' began Morse, as the two strolled back to the front of the property, 'Kemp had grown tired of Sheila Williams and was starting out on a new conquest — the delectable Lucy Downes. Unfortunately for Kemp, however, Cedric Downes discovered the guilty pair in flagrante delicto, which as you will remember, Lewis, is the Latin for having your pants down. He's got to have a woman, has Kemp. His motto's amo amas amat it again. And he's at it again when Downes hits him with whatever's to hand; kills him; wonders where he's going to dump the corpse; can't dress him — far too difficult dressing a corpse—'

' 'Specially for a woman, sir.'

'What?'

'Don't you think it might have been a jealous woman? Not a jealous man?'

'No, no, Lewis! Not Sheila Williams.'

'She left the group, though — she went to the pub—'

'She hadn't got the time, Whoever killed Kemp had time: time to cart him off to the river, and dump him there—gently, Lewis — without even a splash to startle the cygnets. '

'But it couldn't have been like that. The times are all wrong.'

'Speak on, Lewis! Like the murderer, we've got plenty of time.'

We're waiting here, you mean?'

'Oh, yes! I'm very much looking forward to meeting Mr. and Mrs. Downes again.'

'And you think, in that suitcase of hers.?'

But as the two detectives stood beside the car, the radio crackled into life.

'Lewis here!'

'Bad news, Sarge. Mrs. Kemp died at the JR2—fifty minutes ago. We've only just heard.'

Morse stood where he was, listening, and staring up at the sky as if viewing the unsuspected behaviour of some distant galaxy. His shoulders were sagging, and his face looked sad, and very weary.

'You look all in, sir.'

'Me? Don't talk so daft!' Morse looked quickly at his watch.

'He's meeting her in seven minutes! Put your foot down!'

'I thought you said we were waiting here?'

'Get on with it Lewis — and turn the bloody siren on!'

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

THE POLICE CAR drove into the Bus and Taxi area in front of the railway station. Across on Platform 2, the train from Paddington was just pulling in; and passengers were already beginning to stream across the new pedestrian bridge as Morse and Lewis first ascended, then descended the steps, darting challenging looks around them as they dodged their way through the bustling contra-flow.

The train still stood at the platform; and a group of Post Office workers were lobbing a stack of bulging mail-bags into the guard's van. And there — yes, there right in front of them! — passing from one window to another, peering into each of the carriages, his face drawn and anxious, was Cedric Downes. Morse placed a restraining hand on Lewis's arm, and the two of them stood watching the man while two or three heavily luggaged travellers finally made their way along the platform. Soon Downes had reached the last carriage, in front of the diesel locomotive, staring quickly through the windows of the compartment as the few doors still remaining open were banged shut and a whistle blew, and with a slight chug and then with a mighty heave the long, north-bound train began slowly to move forward, gradually picking up a little speed, before moving out and away along the curving stretch of line that led to Banbury.

Downes looked down at his wristwatch, and at last turned away, walking back along the bare platform towards the foot-bridge — where he was confronted by the bulk of the broad-shouldered Lewis.

'Good evening, sir. We have met before.'

Downes seemed slightly surprised — but hardly more than that: 'It's about Theo, I suppose? Theo Kemp?'

'Er — yes.' Lewis hardly managed to climb up to any plateau of assertiveness.

'Well, I've nothing more to tell you, I'm afraid. Nothing I can add to the statement I've already—'

'Meeting your wife, Mr. Downes?' interrupted Morse.

'Pardon? Just a minute, Inspector! I. just a minute, please.' Downes fitted a hearing-aid taken from his pocket into his right ear, the aid promptly emitting a series of shrill whistles as he fiddled rather fecklessly with the controls.

'I was asking whether you were meeting—' bawled Morse — to no avail, as it appeared.

'If you'll just bear with me a few minutes, gentlemen, I'll just nip along to the car, if I may. I always keep a spare aid in the glove compartment.' The beseeching grin around the slightly lop-sided mouth gave his face an almost schoolboyish look.

Morse gestured vaguely: 'Of course. We'll walk along with you, sir.'

In front of the railway station, a second police car (summoned by a confident Morse as Lewis had driven him from North Oxford) was now waiting, and the Chief Inspector nodded a perfunctory greeting to the two detective-constables who sat side by side in the front seats as they watched, and awaited, developments; watched the three men walk over to the twenty-minute waiting-area set aside for those meeting passengers from British Rail journeys — an area where parking cost nothing at all; watched them as they passed through that area and walked into the main car-park, with the bold notice affording innocent trespassers the clearest warning

PARKING FOR BRITISH RAIL

PASSENGERS ONLY.

FOR OTHER USERS WITHOUT

PARKING-TOKENS, £10 PER DAY

'Mind telling me, sir, why you didn't just wait in the twenty-minute car-park? Parking where you have done seems a rather unnecessary expense, doesn't it? Doesn't it.?'

'Pardon, Inspector? If you give me just a second. a second or two. just. '

Downes took a bunch of car-keys from his pocket, opened the door of a British-Racing-Green MG Metro, got into the driver's seat, and leaned over left to open the glove compartment.

Both Morse and Lewis stood, rather warily, beside the car as Downes began to fiddle (once more) with a hearing-aid — one which looked to them suspiciously like the model that had earlier given rise to such piercing oscillation.

'There we are then!' said Downes, as he got out of the car and faced them, his face beaming with an almost childlike pleasure. 'Back in the land of the living! I think you were trying to say something, Inspector?'

'No. I wasn't trying to say anything, Mr. Downes. I was saying something. I was saying how odd it seemed to me that you didn't park your car in the twenty-minute car-park.'

'Ah! Well, I did in a way. I seem to have collected an awful lot of those parking-tokens over the last few months. You see, I often have to go to London and sometimes I don't get back until pretty late. And late at night the barrier here where you slip in your parking-token is often open, and you can just drive straight through.'

'But why waste one of your precious tokens?' persisted Morse.

'Ah! I see what you're getting at. I'm a very law-abiding citizen, Inspector. I came here a bit early this evening, and I didn't want to risk any of those clamps or fines or anything. There's an Antiques Fair this week just along Park End Street, and I'd got my eye on a little set of drawers, yew-wood veneer. Lucy's birthday's coming up, November the seventh. '

'And then you called in the Royal Oxford, no doubt?'

'I did not! I no longer drink and drive. Never!'

'Some people do, sir,' said Morse. 'It's the most common cause of road accidents, you know.'

There was a silence between the three men who now. stood slightly awkwardly alongside the MG Metro. Downes, as it appeared, had read the situation adequately, and was expecting to accompany the policemen — well, somewhere! — and he opened the driver's door of the Metro once more. But Morse, leaning slightly towards him, opened his right palm, like a North-African Berber begging for alms.

'We'd like you to come with us, sir. If you just hand over your car-keys to me, Sergeant Lewis here will see that your car is picked up later and returned to your home address.'

'Surely this isn't necessary, is it? I know where the police station is, for Christ's sake!' Suddenly, within the last few words, Downes had lost whatever composure he had hitherto sought to sustain.

'The keys, please!' insisted Morse quietly.

'Look! I just don't know what all this bloody nonsense is about. Will you please tell me.'

'Certainly! You can hear me all right now?'

Downes almost snarled his reluctant 'Yes'; and listened, mouth agape with incredulity, as Morse beckoned over to the two detective-constables from the second police car.

'Cedric Downes, I arrest you on suspicion of the murder of Dr. Theodore Kemp. It is my duty to advise you that anything you now say may be noted by my sergeant here and possibly used in evidence in any future criminal prosecution.'

But as one of the detective-constables clicked a pair of handcuffs round his wrists, Cedric Downes was apparently in no state at all to mouth as much as a monosyllable, let alone give utterance to any incriminating statement. For many seconds he just stood where he was, as still as a man who has gazed into the eyes of the Medusa.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

AFTER DOWNES HAD been driven away, Morse and Lewis walked back to their own car, where Morse gave urgent instructions to the forensic lab to send a couple of their whizz-kids over to the railway station — immediately! — and to Kidlington HQ to see that a breakdown van would be available in about an hour's time to ferry away a certain Metro.

'You're absolutely sure about Downes, aren't you,' said Lewis. But it was a statement, not a question.

'Oh, yes!'

'What now, sir?'

'We'll wait for forensics. Then we'll go and see how Downes is making out — do him good to kick his heels in a cell for half an hour. He was lucky, you know, Lewis. Bloody lucky, one way or another.'

'Hadn't you better start at the beginning, sir? We've got a few minutes' wait, like as not.'

So Morse told him.

The key thing in the case was the phone call made by Kemp. And, yes, it was made by Kemp, although some doubt could quite properly have been harboured on the matter: Ashenden knew the man, and knew his voice; and in spite of what was probably a poorish extension-line, confirmation that the call was from Kemp had come from the telephone-operator, someone else who knew him — knew him very well, in fact. No, the call was not made by anyone pretending to be Kemp. But Kemp had not made the call, as he'd claimed, from Paddington! He'd made it from Oxford. He was anxious about making absolutely sure that another person was present in The Randolph at the lunch session with the American tourists; and he learned quite unequivocally that this person was there, although he didn't actually speak to him. Furthermore, Kemp's absence that afternoon would mean that this other person — yes, Downes — would be all the more committed to staying with the tourists for the scheduled 'informal get-together'. This arrangement, cleverly yet quite simply managed, would give him a couple of hours to get on with what he desperately wanted to get on with: to climb into bed with Downes's beautiful and doubtlessly over-sexed wife, Lucy, and get his bottom on the top sheet before his time ran out. The pair of them had probably not been having an affair for long — only perhaps after Kemp's long infatuation with the semi-permanently sozzled Sheila had begun to wear off. But where can they meet? It has to be at Downes's place: Kemp hasn't got a room in college, and it can't be at Kemp's place because his wife is a house-bound invalid. So, that morning presented a wonderful opportunity — and just a little compensation perhaps for the huge disappointment Kemp must undoubtedly have experienced over the theft of the Wolvercote Tongue. The jewel was almost in his grasp; almost about to be displayed and photographed and written up in all the right journals: a jewel he himself had traced, and one he'd worked so hard to get donated to the Ashmolean. No wonder his interest in swopping pleasantries with ageing Americans had sunk to zero; no wonder the prospect of the lubricious Lucy Downes proved so irresistible. Now the deception practised by Kemp was a very clever one. If he was going to be late on parade—3 p.m., he'd promised — every pressure would be on the other two group leaders, Sheila Williams and Cedric Downes, to keep the tourists adequately amused by each of them shouldering an extra responsibility. It would not, incidentally, have occurred to Kemp that a consequence of such last-minute rearrangements was that several members of the group took the opportunity this afforded to perform a strange assortment of extra-mural activities — from viewing steam locomotives to tracing lost offspring. Red herrings, all.

But then things started to go wrong. Downes is not very deaf at all yet; but sometimes, with certain kinds of background noise, and when people are asking questions, well, there can be difficulty. A deaf person, as Lucy Downes told us, is not so much worried about not knowing the answer to any question put to him; he's worried, embarrassingly so, about not hearing the question. And at lunchtime — there are witnesses — Downes's hearing-aid began to play up and he discovered he wasn't carrying his spare aid with him. He decided to go home and pick it up, and in fact he was seen going up St. Giles' on his bicycle towards North Oxford. It's hardly difficult to guess the sequence of events immediately after he'd quietly inserted his key in the Yale lock. He may have had a sixth sense about the presence of some stranger in the house; more likely he saw some physical evidence — a coat, a hat — belonging to a person he knew. He picked up a walking-stick — or something — from the hall-stand, and leapt up the stairs to find his wife and Kemp in medio coitu, both of them completely naked. In a fury of hatred and jealousy he thrashed his stick about Kemp's head while Kemp himself tried to extricate himself from the twisted sheets, to get out of the bed, and to defend himself — but he didn't make it. He staggered back and fell, and got his head crashed — a second time, as we know — against the corner-post of the double bed or the sharp edge of the fireplace. He had a thin skull — a medical fact — and there was a sudden, dreadful silence; and a great deal of blood. The despairing, faithless, gaping, horrified wife looked down at her lover, and knew that he was dead. Now, sometimes it is extremely difficult to kill a man. Sometimes it is quite extraordinarily easy, as it was then.

And Downes himself? The emotions of hatred and jealousy are immediately superseded by the more primitive instinct of survival, and he begins to realise that all may yet be well if he can keep his head. For he is suddenly, miraculously, aware that he has got a wonderful — no! — a perfect alibi; an alibi which has been given to him by the very person he has just killed. O lovely irony! Kemp had told Ashenden, and Ashenden had then told everyone else, that he (Kemp) would not be back from London until 3 p.m. And that meant that Downes could not possibly have killed Kemp before that time, and Downes was going to make absolutely certain — as he did — that he was never out of sight or out of touch with his group — except for the odd, brief visit to the loo — at any time that afternoon or early evening.

It is hardly difficult to guess what happened at the Downes's residence immediately after the death of Kemp. Downes himself could not stay for more than a few minutes. He instructed his panic-stricken, guilt-ridden wife to pack up Kemp's clothes in a suitcase, and to clean up the bloody mess that must have been left on the carpet, and probably on the sheets. The body was left—had to be left — in the bedroom. Downes himself would have to deal with that. But later. For the present he seeks to compose himself as he cycles back down to The Randolph.

That evening, at about seven o'clock, he returns to his house in Lonsdale Road, the very far end of Lonsdale Road, where the lawn slopes down directly to the bank of the River Cherwell. He manoeuvres Kemp's body down the stairs and carries it across the lawn, probably in a wheelbarrow. It was a dark night, and doubtless he covered the corpse with a ground-sheet or something. Then slowly, carefully, without even the suspicion of a splash perhaps, he slid Kemp into the swift-flowing waters of a river swollen by the recent heavy rains. Two hours later, the body has drifted far downstream, finally getting wedged at the top of the weir in Parson's Pleasure — the place where the careless Howard Brown had earlier left his yellow programme — and his continental seven.

It was at this point in Morse's recapitulation that the forensic brigade arrived; and soon afterwards a royal-blue BMW carrying no lesser a personage than Chief Superintendent Bell from the City Police.

'You know, Morse,' began Bell, 'you seem to breed about as many problems as a pregnant rabbit.'

'You could look at it the other way, I suppose,' replied the radiant Morse. 'Without me and Lewis half of these fellows in forensics would be out on the dole, sir.'

About an hour before these last events were taking place, the American tourists had registered into the two-star Swan Hotel in Stratford-upon-(definitely 'upon')Avon. As throughout the tour, Ashenden had observed the opportunist self-seekers at the front of the queue (as ever) for the room-keys; and in the rear (as ever) the quieter, seemingly contented souls who perhaps knew that being first or last to their rooms would make little difference to the quality of their living. And at the very back, the small, patient figure of Phil Aldrich, seeking (of this, Ashenden could have little doubt) to avoid the embarrassment of refusing to sign Janet Roscoe's latest petition.

The evening meal had been re-scheduled for 8.30 p.m.; and with time to spare, after throwing his own large hold-all on to the counterpane of his single bed, Ashenden joined a few of the other tourists in the Residents' Lounge, where he took some sheets of the hotel's own note-paper, and began to write a letter. When he had finished, he found a red, first-class stamp in his wallet, fixed it to the envelope, and walked out into Bridge Street to find a pillar-box. The letter was addressed to Chief Inspector Morse, St. Aldate's Central Police Station, Oxford, and in the top left-hand corner was written the one word: URGENT.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

UNWONTEDLY, LEWIS WAS philosophising as he and Morse sat in the canteen at St. Aldate's: 'Amazing, really: you get all these statements and alibis and secret little meetings, and then really, in the end, it's just — well, it's just the same old story, isn't it? Chap goes home and finds the missus in bed with one of the neighbours.'

'Remember, though, this is only half the case. And we've got to get some evidence. No, that's wrong! We've got some evidence — or we shall have, very soon.'

'Perhaps we shouldn't wait too much longer, sir?'

'It'll be here. Patience, Lewis! Eat your cheese sandwich!'

'I couldn't help feeling just a bit sorry for him, though.'

'Sorry? Why do you say that?'

'Well, you know, it might have been a bit sort of accidental, don't you reckon?'

'I do not,' replied Morse, with the fullest conviction.

Downes sat at the table in Interview Room Two on the ground floor, spell-bound and motionless, as if a witch had drawn a circle round him thrice. Seated opposite, Sergeant Dixon was finding the silence and the stillness increasingly embarrassing.

'Like a cuppa tea?'

'No! Er, yes! Yes please.'

'Milk and sugar?'

But Downes appeared not to hear the supplementary questions, and Dixon nodded to the constable who stood at the door, the latter now making for the canteen on a less than wholly specific mission.

At the Swan Hotel in Stratford, Mrs. Roscoe had just completed her evening meal, a concoction of beans so splendidly bleak as to delight the most dedicated Vegan. She immediately wrote a brief congratulatory note, insisting that the waiter convey it forthwith to the chef de cuisine himself.

At this same time (it was now 9 p.m.) Eddie Stratton was sitting on the only chair in a small third-floor room of a hotel just north of Russell Square. The facilities here were minimal — a cracked wash-basin, one minuscule bar of soap, and one off-white towel. Yet the bed looked clean-sheeted and felt comfortable; and there was a lavatory just along the corridor (the lady had said), a bathroom one floor down, and a Residents' TV Lounge beside Reception. On the bedside table was a Gideon Bible, and beside it an entry form which, if and when completed and dispatched, would entitle the fortunate applicant to inclusion in a free draw for a ticket to one of the following summer's golfing championships. Stratton availed himself of neither opportunity.

Earlier he had visited the American Consulate, where an attractive and sympathetic fellow countrywoman from North Carolina had advised him on all the sad yet necessary procedures consequent upon the death of an American national in Britain, and acquainted him with the costs of the transatlantic conveyancing of corpses. And now, as he sat staring fixedly at the floral configuration on the faded green carpet, he felt a little sad as he thought of Laura, his wife for only the last couple of years. They had been as contented together as could have been expected, he supposed, from a union which had been largely one of convenience and accommodation; and he would always remember, with a sort of perverse affection, her rather loud voice, her over-daubed war-paint — and, of course, the painful state of those poor feet of hers. He nodded slowly to himself, then looked up and across at the lace-curtained window, like a bird perhaps suddenly spotting the open door of its cage. And an observer in that small room would have noticed the suspicion of a smile around his loose and slightly purplish lips.

It was just after 9 p.m. that a PC arrived from the railway station carrying a small brown envelope, which Morse accepted with delight, smiling radiantly at Lewis but saying nothing as he slit open the top and looked briefly inside. Then, with smile unfading, he handed the envelope to Lewis.

'Wish me luck! I'll let you know when to come in.'

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

AT LEAST MORSE spared Cedric Downes the charade of a cordial re-greeting; he even forbore to express the hope that conditions were satisfactory and that the prisoner was being well treated. In point of fact, the prisoner looked lost and defeated. Earlier he had been officially advised that it was his legal right to have his solicitor present; but surprisingly Downes had taken no advantage of the offer. A cup of tea (sweetened) stood untouched at his right elbow. He raised his eyes, morosely, as Morse took Dixon's seat opposite him and pulled another chair alongside for a very blonde young WPC, who amongst other accomplishments was the only person in St. Aldate's HQ with a Pitman shorthand qualification for 130 w.p.m. Not that she was destined to get any practice at such a mega-speed, since Downes, at least for the first half of the interview, was to enunciate his words with the slow deliberation of a stupefied zombie. Morse waited patiently. That was always the best way, in the long run. And when Downes finally spoke, it was to ask about his wife.

'Did someone meet the train, Inspector? The next train?'

'Please don't worry about her, sir. She'll be looked after.'

Downes shook his head in stupefaction. This is madness — absolute madness! There's been some dreadful misunderstanding somewhere — don't you understand that? I–I can't think straight. I don't know what to say! I just pray I'm going to wake up any second.'

'Tell me about Dr. Kemp,' said Morse.

'Tell you what? Everyone knows about Kemp. He was the biggest philanderer in Oxford.'

'You say "everyone"?'

'Yes! Including his wife. She knows.'

'Knew. She died this afternoon.'

'Oh God!' Downes closed his eyes and squeezed them tightly shut. Then he opened them, and looked across at Morse. 'I think I know what you're going to ask me now, Inspector.'

Morse tilted his head to the left: 'You do?'

'You're going to ask me whether Lucy — whether my wife was. is aware of it, too.'

Morse tilted his head to the right, but made no reply.

'Well, the answer's "yes". Once or twice he'd — well he'd tried to make some sort of advances to her. At receptions, parties — that sort of thing.'

'Your wife told you about this?'

'She was a bit flattered, I suppose.'

'Was she?'

'And amused. More amused than flattered, I think.'

'And you? You, Mr. Downes? Were you amused?'

'I could have killed the bloody swine!' So suddenly, so dramatically, the manner had changed — the voice now a harsh snarl, the eyes ablaze with hatred.

'It's not all that easy actually to kill a man,' said Morse.

'It isn't?' Downes's eyes appeared perplexed.

'What exactly did you hit him with? When you went home for — for whatever it was?'

'I — pardon? — you don't—'

'Just in your own words, sir, if you will. Simply what happened, that's all. The WPC here will take down what you say and then she'll read it back to you, and you'll be able to change anything you may have got wrong. No problem!'

'Wha—?' Downes shook his head in anguished desperation. 'When am I going to wake up?'

'Let's just start from when you put your key — Yale lock, isn't it? — into the front door, and then when you went in. '

'Yes, and I got my other hearing-aid, and some notes—'

'Whereabouts do you keep the spare hearing-aid?'

'In the bedroom.'

Morse nodded encouragement. 'Twin beds, I suppose—'

'Double bed, actually — and I keep my spare aid in a drawer of the tallboy'—he looked directly into Morse's eyes again—'next to the handkerchiefs and the cufflinks and the arm-bands. You do want me to be precise about what I tell you?'

'And your wife was in the double bed there — yes, we do want you to be precise, sir.'

'Wha—? What makes you think my wife was in bed? This was at lunchtime.'

'Where was she?'

'In the living room? I don't know! I forget. Why don't you ask her? He suddenly sprang to his feet. 'Look! I've got to talk to her! Now! You've no right to hold me here. I know you've got your job to do — I understand that. Some people get held on suspicion — I know! But I must speak to Lucy!'

His voice had become almost a screech of anger and frustration. And Morse was glad of it. So often the loss of self-control was the welcome prelude to a confession — a confession that was usually, in turn, a vast relief to the pent-up pressures of a tortured mind. And already Downes seemed calmer again as he resumed his seat, and Morse resumed his questioning.

'You understood, didn't you, the real point of Dr. Kemp's phone call? No one else did — but you knew.' In contrast to the crescendo of fury from Downes, Morse's voice was very quiet indeed, and beside him WPC Wright was not absolutely sure that she'd transcribed his words with total accuracy.

As for Downes, he was leaning across the table. 'Could you please speak up a bit, Inspector? I didn't hear what you said, I'm afraid.'

It is likely, however, that he heard the loud knock on the door which heralded the entry of a rather harassed-looking Lewis.

'Sorry to interrupt, sir, but—'

'Not now, man! Can't you see—?'

'It's very urgent, sir,' said Lewis, in a voice of hushed authority.

WPC Wright had heard what Sergeant Lewis said all right; and she glanced across at Downes. Had he heard? Something in his face suggested to her that he might well have done, perhaps.

But it was difficult to tell.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

I do love to note and to observe

(Jonson, Volpone)

'I JUST DON'T BELIEVE IT!' declared Morse.

It had been Lewis himself who a few minutes earlier had taken the call from the Met.

'Trying to cross over the road by King's Cross Station — about five-thirty — hit by a car. From Oxford she is. A Mrs. Downes: Mrs. Lucy Claire Downes according to her plastics. Lonsdale Road.'

'She — is she dead?' Lewis had asked.

'ICU at St. Pancras Hospital. That's all we know.'

'Was she carrying a case?'

'No more details — not yet, Sarge. Seems she just stepped off the pavement to get in front of a row of people and. '

Morse sat down and rested his forehead on his right hand. 'Bloody 'ell!'

'Circle Line from King's Cross to Paddington, sir — about twenty minutes, say? She must have been going for the six o'clock train, and she was probably in a dickens of a rush when. ' Lewis had taken the news badly.

'Yes? Dickens of a rush when she what?'

'When she stepped off the pavement—'

'An intelligent woman deliberately stepping out into the London traffic — in the rush hour? Do you really believe that? Or do you think she might have been pushed? Do you hear me, Lewis? Pushed.'

'How can you say that?'

For a few moments Morse sat where he was. Then he rose to his feet, slowly — his eyes glowing savagely. 'He did it, Lewis. He did it!'

'But he was in Oxford!'

'No he wasn't! He wasn't waiting on the Oxford platform at all. He'd just got off the train. And then he saw us. So he turned round the second he did, and made it look as though he was waiting for the woman he'd just tried to kill — when they were walking along together. He loved her, you see probably never loved anyone in the world except his Lucy. And when he saw her copulating with Kemp. He just couldn't get it out of his mind, not for one second. He thought he was never going to be able to get it out of his mind.' Morse shook his head. 'And I'm an idiot, Lewis. That key! The key they found under the floor-mat in the car, or wherever. I'd guessed that Downes wanted to go back to his car to hide something, so I played along with all that hearing-aid rubbish. And when they brought the key, I knew exactly what it was a left-luggage locker-key. But tell me this, Lewis! How the hell did he get hold of that key if he hadn't met his wife?'

'That's what it is, sir? Left-luggage key? You're sure of it?'

Morse nodded. 'And I'll tell you which station, unless you want to tell me.'

'King's Cross.'

'Could be Paddington, I suppose.'

'The bastard' muttered Lewis, with an unwonted show of emotion.

Morse smiled: 'You like her, don't you?'

'Lovely woman!'

'That's what Kemp thought.'

'Perhaps.?' started Lewis.

'Oh, no! We shall waste no sympathy on Kemp. Look! I want you to get someone to drive you up to the hospital to see her. All right? You can get a bit of kip in the car. Then go to King's Cross and see if there's anything in locker sixty-seven. If there is, bring it back. And if you can get anything in the way of a statement — fine. If not, well, just try to see what she's got to say.'

'If she's. shall I say we've got him here?'

'Perhaps not. I dunno, though. Play it by ear!'

'OK, sir.' Lewis stood up and walked over to the door, where he halted. 'Have you ever thought it might have been Mrs. Downes who killed Dr. Kemp? What if when her husband came home he found Kemp already dead, and then he did all this stuff, you know, to cover up for her?'

'Oh, yes, Lewis. I've thought of every possibility in this case. Including Lucy Downes.'

'You don't think—?'

'I think you will be completely safe in London. I don't think you'll be in the slightest danger of being knifed as you practise your bedside-manner sitting by a semi-conscious young woman in an intensive care unit.'

Lewis grinned weakly, and felt in his pocket to make sure that the brown envelope containing a small red key, number 67, was still there.

Janet Roscoe had finished re-reading A Midsummer Night's Dream, and felt just a little less certain now about her long-held view (she had earlier been an actress) that Mr. Shakespeare was sometimes way below his best when it came to the writing of comedy. And she had just turned on the TV, hoping for a late news-programme, when she heard the light knock on her bedroom door. It was Shirley Brown. She had been stung by something, and could Janet help? But of course she knew Janet could help! Invited in, Shirley watched the little woman delving into her capacious handbag (a gentle little joke with the rest of the group) from whose depths had already emerged, in addition to the usual accessories, a scout-knife, an apostle spoon, and a miniature iron. And something else now: two tubes of ointment. A little bit of each (Janet maintained) could do no possible harm, unsure as Shirley was whether the offending insect had been wasp, bee, gnat, flea, or mosquito.

For five minutes after the medication, the two women sat on the bed and talked. Had Janet noticed how quiet Mr. Ashenden had seemed all day? Not his usual self at all, one way or another. Janet had noticed that, yes: and he was the courier, wasn't he? Got paid for it. And Janet added something more. She thought she knew what might have been on his mind, because he'd been writing a letter in the Lounge. And when he'd put the envelope down to put a stamp on it—'Face upwards, Shurley!'—why, she couldn't help noticing who it was addressed to, now could she?

Suddenly, and perhaps for the first time, Shirley Brown felt a twinge of affection for the lonely little woman who seemed far more aware of what was going on than any of them.

'You seem to notice everything, Janet,' she said, in a not unkindly way.

'I notice most things,' replied Mrs. Roscoe, with a quiet little smile of self-congratulation.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

'ARE YOU GOING to save us an awful lot of time and trouble, sir, or are you determined to burden the taxpayer further?'

Downes licked his dry lips. 'I don't know what this is all about — except that I'm going mad.'

'Oh, no! You're very sane—' began Morse. But Downes, at least for the moment, had taken the initiative.

'And if you're worried about the taxpayer, shouldn't you perhaps be attending to the urgent little matter your sergeant told you about?'

'You heard that?' asked Morse sharply.

'He speaks more clearly than you do.'

'Even when he whispers?' For a few seconds a bemused-looking Morse appeared slightly more concerned with the criticism of his diction than with the prosecution of his case, and it was Downes who continued:

'You were commenting on the degree of my sanity, Inspector.'

WPC Wright glanced at Morse, seated to her left. She had never worked with him before, but the man's name was something of a legend in the Oxfordshire Constabulary, and she was experiencing a sense of some disappointment. Morse was talking again now, though — getting into his swing again, it seemed, and she took down his words in her swift and deftly stroked outlines.

'Yes. Very sane. Sane enough to cover up a murder! Sane enough to arrange for your wife to cart off the incriminating evidence to King's Cross Station and stick it in a left-luggage locker—'

'I can't be hearing you right—'

'No! Not again, sir — please! It's getting threadbare, you know, that particular excuse. You used it when Kemp rang up—rang up from your own house. You used it again when you'd just got off the train from Paddington tonight, when you pretended you were waiting for Mrs. Downes—'

In her shorthand book, WPC Wright had ample time to write the word that Downes now shrieked; write it in in long-hand, and in capitals. In fact she would have had plenty of time to shade in the circles in the last two letters.

She wrote 'STOP!'

And Morse stopped, as instructed — for about thirty seconds. No rush. Then he repeated his accusation.

'You got your wife to take Kemp's clothes to London—'

'Got my wife — got Lucy? What? What do you mean?'

'It's all right, sir.' Morse's tone now (thought WPC Wright) was rather more impressive. Quiet, cultured, confident — gentle almost, and understanding. 'We've got the key your wife gave you after she'd deposited the clothes and the blood-stained sheets—'

'I've been here all day — here in Oxford!' The voice had veered from exasperation to incredulity. 'I've got a marvellous alibi — did you know that? I had a tutorial this afternoon from—'

But Morse had taken over completely, and he held up his right hand with a confident, magisterial authority. 'I promise you, sir, that we shall interview everyone you saw this afternoon. You have nothing — nothing! — to fear if you're telling me the truth. But listen to me, Mr. Downes! Just for a little while listen to me! When my sergeant came in to see me — when you yourself heard him — he'd just learned that on my instructions the locker had been opened in London. And that inside the locker was a case, the case your wife took with her to London today; a case which she told me — told me and Sergeant Lewis — contained some curtains. Curtains! We both saw her take it, in a taxi. And shall I tell you again what it really contained?'

Downes thumped the table with both fists with such ferocity that WPC Wright transferred her shorthand-book to her black-stockinged knee, and failed completely to register the next three words that Downes had thundered.

'No! No! No!'

But Morse appeared wholly unperturbed. 'Please tell me, Mr. Downes, how the key came to be in your possession? Under the mat in the driver's seat, was it? Or in the glove compartment? Can you explain that? Are you going to tell me that it was someone who came back on the train from London who gave you the key?'

'Wha—?'

'Couldn't have been your wife, could it?'

'What's Lucy got to do with—?'

'The key!' roared Morse. "What about the key?'

'Key? You mean.?' Downes's cheeks were very white, and slowly he started to get up from his chair.

'Sit down!' thundered Morse with immense authority; and simply, silently Downes did as he was bidden.

'Do you remember the number of the key, sir?'

'Of course.'

'Please tell me,' said Morse quietly.

'Number sixty-seven.'

'That's correct. That's correct, Mr. Downes.' Morse briefly placed his right hand on WPC Wright's arm, and gave her a scarce-perceptible nod of encouragement. It would be vital, as he knew, for the next few exchanges to be transcribed with unimpeachable certitude. But as Downes spoke, with a helpless little shrug of his shoulders, the newly sharpened pencil of WPC Wright remained poised above the page.

'That's the key to my locker at the North Oxford Golf Club, Inspector.'

Suddenly, Interview Room Two was still and silent as the grave.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

THE TRAFFIC ALONG Western Avenue had been quiet, and it was only an hour and a quarter after leaving Oxford that Lewis was speaking to the Night Sister on the third floor of the hospital, a neat, competent-looking brunette who appeared rather more concerned about the unprecedented police interest in matters than in the medical condition of her most recent road-casualty, now lying behind a curtained bed in Harley Ward. A casualty not all that badly injured, anyway: broken left humerus, broken left clavicle, some nasty bruising and laceration round the left shoulder — but no broken legs or ribs, and fairly certainly no head injuries, either. Yes, said Sister, Mrs. Downes had been remarkably lucky, really; and, yes, Sergeant Lewis could see her for a short while. He would find her under sedation — a bit dopey and drowsy, and still in a state of some disorientation and shock. Quite lucid, though. 'And,' added Sister, 'you'd better have something ready to tell her if she asks you when her husband's coming. We've put her off as best we can.'

Lewis stood by the bed and looked down at her. Her eyes were open, and guardedly she smiled an instant recognition. She spoke softly, lisping slightly, and Lewis immediately noticed (what he had not been told) that two teeth in the upper left of her jaw had been broken off.

'We met this morning, didn't we?'

'Yes, Mrs. Downes.'

'Cedric knows I'm all right, doesn't he?'

'Everything's in hand. Don't worry about anything like that.'

'He'll be here soon, though?'

'I've told you,' said Lewis gently, 'we're looking after everything. No need for you to worry at all.' 'But I want to see him!'

'It's just that the hospital don't want you to have any visitors — not just for the time being. The doctors, you know, they've got to patch you up a bit.'

'I want to thee Thedric,' she moaned quietly, her lips quivering and her eyes now brimming with tears as the good Lewis laid a hand on the pristine-white plaster encasing her upper arm.

'Soon. In good time. As I say—'

'Why can you see me if he can't?'

'It's just routine — you know — accidents. We have to make reports on—'

'But I've seen the police already.'

'And you told them—?'

'I told them it was my fault — it wasn't the driver's fault.' Her eyes looked pleadingly up at Lewis.

'Would you just repeat what you said. Please, Mrs. Downes.'

'There was nothing to say. It was my fault, what else do you want me to say?'

'Just how, you know. '

'I was walking along there. I was in a hurry to catch the tube — it was the rush hour — I didn't want to miss the train — Cedric. you see, Cedric was waiting—'

'At Oxford, you mean? He was waiting at Oxford?'

'Of course. I was just trying to get past some people in front of me and I stepped off the pavement and the driver — he didn't have a chance. It was my fault, don't you believe me? He braked and. It was the case really. If it hadn't been for the case, I think perhaps. '

'The car hit the case, you mean? Hit the case first?'

Lucy nodded. 'It sort of, well — cushioned things, and I hit a litter-bin on the kerb and. ' She lifted her right hand and pointed vaguely across to the left-hand side of her body.

'So you still had the case with you, then? When the car hit you?'

For the first time the hitherto lucid Lucy looked a little bemused, as if she was unable to follow Lewis's last question. 'I don't quite follow. I'm sorry.'

'I just wanted to know if you were carrying the case, that's all.'

'Of course I was.'

'Do you — do you know where it is now, Mrs. Downes?'

'Isn't it still under the bed, Sergeant?'

Morse took the call just after 11 p.m.

'You'll never guess what's happened, sir!'

'Don't put your bank balance on it, Lewis!'

'She's going to be all right, they think, sir. The Met got it wrong about the ICU.'

Morse said nothing.

'You are — well, pleased about that, aren't you?'

'I take no delight in death, Lewis, and if one thing worries me above all else it is accidents — the random concourse of atoms in the void, as Epicurus used to say.'

'You feeling tired, sir?'

'Yes.'

'You knew it was an accident all the time?'

'No. Not all the time.'

'You're losing me — as usual.'

'What is this news of yours, Lewis, that I shall never guess?'

'The case, sir! The case we both saw Mrs. Downes take up to London.'

'We both saw her put in the taxi, if we are to be accurate.'

'But she did bring it to London! And you won't guess what was in it.'

'Curtains, Lewis? Any good? Curtains with French pleats? By the way, remind me one day to explain this business of French pleats to you. Mrs. Lewis would be glad if you took a bit more interest in household furnishings and interior decoration.'

'What do you want me to do about this left-luggage key, sir?'

'What are you talking about? What makes you think that's a left-luggage key?'

After Lewis had rung off, Morse sat at his desk and smoked three Dunhill International cigarettes one after the other. He'd been shaken, certainly, when Cedric Downes had invited him to go along to the North Oxford Golf Club and knock up the caretaker if necessary. And Lewis's phone call had surely hammered the last coffin-nail into the Cedric-Lucy theory. Yet Morse's mind was never more fertile than when faced with some apparently insuperable obstacle, and even now he found it difficult to abandon his earlier, sweet hypothesis about the murder of Theodore Kemp. He gazed out through the curtainless window on to the well-lit, virtually deserted parking-area: only his own red Jaguar and two white police cars. He could — should! — get off now and go to bed. He would be home in ten minutes. Less, perhaps, at this hour. Yes, it was extremely useful to have a car, whatever people said about traffic and pollution and expense. yes.

Morse was conscious that his mind was drifting off into an interesting avenue of thought, but also that he was drifting off to sleep, as well. It was the cars that had started some new idea. For the minute, though, it was gone. Yet there were other new ideas that jostled together in his brain for some more prominent recognition. First, the conviction that there was — must be! — a link, perhaps a blindingly obvious link, between the theft of the Wolvercote Jewel and the murder of Theodore Kemp. Second, the growing belief that two people must have been involved in things, quite certainly in the murder. Third, the worrying suspicion that amongst the evidence already accumulated, the statements taken, the people interviewed, the personal relationships observed, the obiter dicta, the geography of North Oxford — that amongst all these things somewhere there was a fact that he had seen or heard but never fully recognised or understood. Fourth, the strange reluctance he felt about abandoning Downes as Suspect Number One. And as Morse opened his passenger door, he stood for a while looking up at the Pole Star, and asking himself the question he had been asking for the past two hours: was there any way in which Downes could still have been the murderer after all?

Many of Morse's ideas were either so strange or so wildly improbable that most of them were always doomed to early disappointment. Yet, as it happened, he was registering well above par that evening, for three of the four ideas he had formulated were finally to prove wholly correct.

Lewis had fallen fast asleep on the back seat of the police car and remained so for the whole of the journey back to Oxford. In his younger days, he had been a middle-weight Army boxing champion, and now he dreamed that he was in the ring again, with a right-cross from a swarthy, swift-footed opponent smashing into the left-hand side of his jaw. He had tried to feel inside his mouth to see if any teeth were broken or missing, but the great bulk of his boxing-glove precluded any such investigation.

When the car finally pulled up in St. Aldate's, the young driver opened the rear door and shook Sergeant Lewis awake, failing to notice that the first action of his passenger was to run the forefinger of his left hand slowly along his upper teeth.