The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn

CHAPTER NINETEEN

MRS. BARTLETT GOT up to answer the phone at a quarter to eleven and Morse realized that it would be as good an opportunity as he would get of taking a reasonably early leave of his hosts.

'It's probably Richard,' said Bartlett. 'He often feels a bit sorry later on, and tries to apologize. I shouldn't be surprised if—'

Mrs. Bartlett came back into the room. 'It's for you, Inspector.'

Lewis told him as quickly and as clearly as he could what had happened. The Oxford City Police had been called in about nine o'clock — Chief Inspector Bell was in charge. It was only later that they realized how it might all tie in, and they'd tried to get Morse, and had finally got Lewis. The man had been killed instantly by a savage blow with a poker across the back of the skull. No prints or anything like that. The drawers had been ransacked, but not in any methodical way, it seemed. Probably the murderer had been interrupted.

'I'll see you there as soon as I can manage it, Lewis.'

As Morse came back into the room his face was pale with shock and he tried to keep his voice steady as he told the Bartletts the tragic news. 'It's Ogleby. He's been murdered.'

Mrs. Bartlett buried her head in her hands and wept, whilst the Secretary himself, as he showed Morse to the front door, had difficulty in putting his words together coherently. He suddenly seemed an old man, shattered and uncomprehending. 'You asked about Quinn — when he rang — when he rang me — you asked about it — I said—'

Morse put his hand gently on the little man's shoulders. 'Yes. You tell me.'

'He said that — he said that he'd found out something I ought to know — he said that — that someone from the office was deliberately leaking question papers.'

'Did he say who it was?' asked Morse quietly.

'Oh yes, Inspector. He said it was me.'

When Morse arrived at the neat little terraced house in Walton Street, Lewis was engaged in low conversation with Bell. It was an ugly sight, and Morse turned his head away, closed his eyes, and felt the nausea rising in his gorge. 'Look, Lewis. I want you to get on to one or two things straightaway. Phone, if you like, or go around to see 'em — but I want to know exactly where Roope was tonight, where Martin was, where Miss Height was, where—'

Bell interrupted him. 'I've just been telling the Sergeant. We know where Miss Height was. She was here. She was the one who found him.'

It was not what Morse had expected, and the news appeared to confound whatever provisional procedure he had planned. 'Where is she now?'

'She's in a pretty bad way, I'm afraid. She rang through on a 999 call and then fainted, it seems. Somebody found her slumped by the public telephone box just up the road. She's been seen by the doc and they've taken her to the Radcliffe for the night.'

'She's got a young daughter.'

Bell put his hand on Morse's shoulder. 'Relax, old boy. We've seen to all that. Give us a bit of credit.'

Morse sat down in an armchair and wondered about himself. He seemed to be losing his grip. He closed his eyes again, and breathed deeply several times. 'Do as I tell you, anyway, Lewis. Get on to Roope and Martin straightaway. And there's something else. You'd better go up to the Littlemore hospital sometime, and find out what you can about Richard Bartlett — got that? Richard Bartlett. He's a voluntary patient there. Find out what time he got in tonight—if he got in, that is.'

Morse forced himself to look once more at the liquid squelch of brains and blood commingled on the carpet, beyond which the fire was now no more than an ashen glow. 'And try to find out if any of them changed their clothes, tonight. What do you think, Bell? Blood must have spurted all over the place, mustn't it?'

Bell shrugged his shoulders. 'The girl had blood on her hands and sleeves.'

'I'd better see her,' said Morse.

'Not tonight, old boy, I'm afraid. Doc says she's to see nobody. She's in a state of deep shock.'

'Why did she come here? Did she say.'

'Said she wanted to talk to him about something important.'

'Was the door unlocked?'

'No. She says it was locked.'

'How the hell did she get in then?'

'She's got a key.'

Morse let it sink in. 'Has she now! She certainly spreads the joys around, doesn't she?'

'Pardon?' said Bell.

It was in the early hours of Saturday morning that Morse found what he was looking for and he whispered incredulously. Only he and Lewis remained, apart from the two Oxford City constables standing guard outside.

'Come here, Lewis. Look at this.' It was the diary found in Ogleby's hip pocket. Bell had earlier flipped cursorily through it, but had found no entries whatsoever, and had put it down again. It was a blue University diary with a small flap at the back which could be used for railway tickets and the like. And as Morse had prised open the flap, he could hardly believe his eyes. It was a ticket, torn roughly in half, with IO 2 printed across the top, 'Rear Lounge' beneath it, and along the right edge, running down, the numbers 93592.

'What do you make of it?'

'He was there after all, then, sir.'

'Four of them. Just think of it. Four out of the five!'

Lewis himself picked up the diary and looked with his usual thorough care at every page in turn. It was clear that Ogleby had never used the diary during the year. But on a page headed 'Notes' at the back of the diary, Lewis saw something that made his eyeballs bulge. 'Sir!' He said it very quietly, as though the slightest noise might frighten it away. 'Look at this.'

Morse looked at the diary, and felt the familiar constriction of the temples as an electric charge seemed to flash across his head. There, drawn with accuracy and neatness, was a small diagram.

'My God!' said Morse. 'It's the same number as the ticket we found on Quinn.'

Half an hour later, as the two policemen left the house in Walton Street, Morse found himself recalling the words of Dr. Hans Gross, one-time Professor of Criminology at the University of Prague. He had them by heart: 'No human action happens by pure chance unconnected with other happenings. None is incapable of explanation.' It was a belief that Morse had always cherished. Yet as he stepped out into the silent street, he began to wonder if it were really true.

No more than fifty or sixty yards down the street he saw the building which housed both Studio 1 and Studio 2. The neon lighting still illuminated the white boards above the foyer, the red and royal-blue lettering garish and bright in the almost eerie stillness: The Nymphomaniac X (Strictly Adults Only). Was she trying to tell him something? He walked down to the cinema with Lewis and stood looking at the stills outside. She was certainly a big and bouncy girl, although a series of five-pointed stars had been superimposed by some incomparable idiot over the incomparable Inga's nipples.