The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn

CHAPTER TWENTY

MORSE WAS IN HIS office at 7.30 a.m. the next morning, tired and unshaven. He had tried to catch a few hours' sleep, but his mind would give him no rest, and he had finally given up the unequal struggle. He knew that he would be infinitely better able to cope with his problems if he had a complete change. But while there was no chance of that, at least he could sharpen his brain on the crossword; and he folded over the back page of The Times, looked at his watch, wrote the time in the left-hand margin, and began. It took him twelve and a half minutes. Not his best, this week; but not bad. And barring that one clue, he would have been within ten minutes: In which are the Islets of Langerhans (8). — A — C — E — S had been staring him in the face for well over two minutes before he'd seen the answer. He'd finally remembered it from a quiz programme on the radio: one contestant had suggested the South China Sea, another the Baltic, and a third the Mediterranean; and what a laugh from the studio audience when the question master had told them the answer!

During the morning the seemingly endless flood of news poured in. Lewis had managed to see Martin who (so he said) had felt restless and worried the previous evening, gone out about 7.30 p.m., and got back home at about a quarter to eleven. He had taken his car, called at several pubs near Radcliffe Square, and on his return had been banished by his wife to the dog-house. Roope (so he said) had been at home working all evening. No callers — seldom did have any callers. He was preparing a series of lectures on some aspect of Inorganic Chemistry which Lewis had been unable to understand at the time, and was unable to remember now. 'So far as I can see, sir, they're both very strongly in the running. The trouble is we seem to be running out of suspects. Unless you think Miss Height—'

'It's a possibility, I suppose.'

Lewis grudgingly conceded the point. 'That's still only three, though.'

'Aren't you forgetting Ogleby?'

Lewis stared at him. 'I don't follow you, sir.'

'He's still on my list, Lewis, and I see no earthly or heavenly reason why I should cross him off. Do you?'

Lewis opened his mouth but shut it again. And the phone went.

It was the Dean of the Examinations Syndicate, phoning from Lonsdale. Bartlett had rung him up the previous evening. What a terrible business it all was! Frightening. He just wanted to mention a little thing that had occurred to him. Did Morse remember asking about relationships within the Syndicate? Well, somehow the murders of Quinn and Ogleby had brought it all back. It had been just a little odd, he'd thought. It was the night when they'd had the big do at the Sheridan, with the Al-jamara lot. Some of them had stayed very late, long after the others had gone off to bed. Quinn was one of them, and Ogleby another; and the Dean had felt at the time (he could be totally wrong, of course) that Ogleby had been waiting for Quinn to go; had been watching him in a rather curious way. And when Quinn had left, Ogleby had followed him out almost immediately. It was only a very small thing, and actually putting it into words made it seem even smaller. But there it was. The Dean had now unburdened himself, and he hoped he hadn't wasted the Inspector's time.

Morse thanked him and put the phone down. As the Dean said, it didn't seem to add up to much.

In mid-morning Bell rang from Oxford. The medical evidence suggested that Ogleby had died only minutes before he was found. There were no prints other than Ogleby's on the poker or on the desk where the papers had been strewn around; Morse could re-examine whatever he wanted at any time, of course, but there seemed (in Bell's view) little that was going to help him very much. The blow that had crushed Ogleby's thin skull must have been struck with considerable ferocity, but may have required only minimal strength. It had probably been delivered by a right-handed person, and the central point of impact was roughly five centimetres above the occipital bone, and roughly two centimetres to the right of the parietal foramen. The result of the blow—'

'Skip it,' said Morse.

'I know what you mean.'

'Is Miss Height still—?'

'You can't see her till Iunchtime. Doc's orders.'

'Still in the Radcliffe?'

'Yep. And you'll be the second person to see her, I promise.'

A young nurse put her head round the screens curtaining the bed on the women's accident ward. 'You've got another visitor.'

Monica appeared drawn and nervous as Morse looked down at her, sitting up against the pillow, her ample hospital nightie softening the contours of her lovely body. Tell me about it,' said Morse simply.

Her voice was quiet but firm: 'There's not much to tell, really. I called to see him about half past eight. He was just lying—'

'You had a key?'

She nodded. 'Yes.' Her eyes seemed suddenly very sad, and Morse pressed the point no further. Whether Philip Ogleby had been to see The Nymphomaniac was a question still in doubt; but it was perfectly clear that the nymphomaniac had been to see him—at fairly regular intervals.

'He was lying there—?'

She nodded. 'I thought he must have had a heart attack or something. I wasn't frightened, or anything like that. I knelt down and touched his shoulder — and his — his head was — was almost in the fireplace, and I saw the blood—' She shook her head, as though to rid herself of that horrific sight. 'And I got blood and — and stuff, over my hands — and I didn't know what to do. I just couldn't stay in that terrible room. I knew there was a phone there but — but I went out into the street and rang the police from the phone box. I don't remember any more. I must have stepped out of the box and just — fainted. The next thing I remember was being in the ambulance.'

'Why did you go to see him?' (He had to ask it.)

'I–I hadn't really had any chance to talk to him about — about Nick and—' (Lying again!)

'You think he knew something about Quinn's murder?'

She smiled sadly and wearily. 'He was a very clever man, Inspector.'

'You didn't see anyone else?'

She shook her head.

'Could there have been anyone else — in the house?'

'I don't know. I just don't know.'

Should he believe her? She'd told so many lies already. But there must have been some cause for the lies; and Morse was convinced that if only he could discover that cause he would make the biggest leap forward in the case so far. It was the Studio 2 business that worried him most. Why, he repeated to himself, why had Monica and Donald Martin lied so clumsily about it? And as he wrestled with the problem once again, he began to convince himself that all four of them — Monica, Martin, Ogleby, and Quinn — must have had some collective reason for being in Studio 2 that Friday afternoon, for he just could not bring himself to believe that their several paths had converged for purely fortuitous reasons. Even Morse, who accepted the majority of improbable coincidences with a curiously credulous gullibility, was not prepared to swallow that! Something—something must have happened at Studio 2 that afternoon. What? Think of anything, Morse, anything — it wouldn't matter. Quinn had got there early, just after the doors opened. Then Martin had come in, sneaking into the back row and waiting and looking nervously around. Had he seen Quinn? Had Quinn seen him? The lights must have been dim; but not so dim as all that, especially as the eyes slowly accustomed themselves to the gloom. Then, what? Monica had come in, and Martin saw her, and they sat there together, and Martin told her that he had seen Quinn. What would they do? They'd leave. Pronto! Go on, Morse. If Martin had seen Quinn — and Quinn had not seen him — he would have left the cinema immediately, waited outside for Monica, told her that they couldn't stay there, and suggested somewhere else. Yes. But where had Ogleby fitted in? The number on his ticket, some forty-odd numbers after Quinn's, suggested (if the manageress had done her sums right) that Ogleby had not appeared in Studio 2 until about four or five o'clock. How did that fit into the pattern, though? Augh! It didn't fit. Try again, Morse. Something must have frightened Monica off, perhaps. Yes. That was a slightly more promising hypothesis. Had she seen something? Someone? The cause of all the lies? After learning that Quinn had been in Studio 2, she had told another lie, and. Oh Christ! What a muddle his mind was in! The pictures flickered fitfully upon the wall, the faces fading and changing, and fading again.

'You've been a long way away, Inspector.'

'Mm? Oh, sorry. Just daydreaming.'

'About me?'

'Among others.'

On the table beside the bed was a copy of The Times, folded at the crossword page; but only three or four words were written into the diagram, and Morse found himself wondering and wandering off again. Wondering if Monica knew where the Islets of Langerhans were situated. Well, if she didn't, the nurse could soon—Just a minute! His thinning hair seemed to be standing on end, and his scalp suddenly tingled with a thousand tiny prickles. Oh yes! It was a beautiful idea, and the old questions flooded his brain. In what sea are the Islets of Langerhans? When was George Washington assassinated? Who was Kansas-Nebraska Bill? In what year did R.A. Butler become prime minister? Who composed the Trout Quartet? By what name was the Black Prince known when he became king? The questions were all non-questions. Georgie W. wasn't assassinated, and K.N. Bill wasn't anybody; he was a Bill before the Senate. The same with all of them. They were questions which couldn't be answered, because they were questions which couldn't be asked. Morse had become besotted with trying to find out who had been at Studio 2, when they had been there, why they had been there. But what if they were all non-questions? What if no one had been in Studio 2? Everything in the case had been designed to mislead him into thinking that they had been there. Some of them — all of them, perhaps—wanted him to think so. And he had blindly stumbled along the gangway down the darkened cinema, groping his way like a blind man, and trying to see (O fool of a fool!) who was sitting there. But perhaps there was no one, Morse. No one!

'Who did you see going into Studio 2, Miss Height?'

'Why don't you call me "Monica"?'

The nurse put her head through the curtains, and told Morse that he really ought to leave now; he'd already gone way over his time. He stood up and looked down at her once more, and kissed the top of her head gently.

'You didn't see anyone going in to Studio 2, did you, Monica?'

For a second there was hesitation in her eyes, and then she looked at him earnestly. 'No. I didn't. You must believe that.'

She took Morse's hand and squeezed it gently against her soft breast. 'Come again, won't you? And try to look after me.' Her eyes sought his and he realized once more how desperately desirable she would always be to lonely men — to men like him. But there was something else in her eyes: the look of the hunted fleeing from the hunter; the haunted look of fear. 'I'm frightened, Inspector. I'm so very frightened.'

Morse was thoughtful as he walked the long corridors before finally emerging through the flappy celluloid doors into the entrance road by the side of the Radcliffe, where the Lancia stood parked on an 'Ambulance Only' plot. He started up the engine and was slowly steering through the twisting alleys that led down into Walton Street when he saw a familiar figure striding up towards the hospital. He stopped the car and wound down the window.

'I'm glad to see you, Mr. Martin. In fact I was just coming along to see you. Jump in.'

'Sorry. Not now. I'm going to see—'

'You're not.'

'Who says?'

'No one's going in to see her until I say so.'

'But when—?'

'Jump in.'

'Do I have to?'

Morse shrugged his shoulders. 'Not really, no. You please yourself. At least, you please yourself until I decide to take you in.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'What it says, sir. Until I decide to take you in and charge you—'

'Charge me? What with?'

'Oh, I could think up something pretty quickly, sir.'

The dull eyes stared at Morse in anxious bewilderment. 'You must be joking.'

'Of course I am, sir.' He leaned across and opened the Lancia's nearside door, and Donald Martin sullenly eased his long body into the passenger seat.

The traffic was heavy as they drove up the narrow street, and Morse decided to turn right and cut straight across to Woodstock Road. As he stopped at yet another Pelican crossing, he realized just how close the Syndicate building was to Studio 2. And as the lights turned to flashing amber, he held the car on half-clutch as a late pedestrian galloped his way across: a bearded young man. He was in too much of a rush to recognize Morse; but Morse recognized him, and the last words that Monica had spoken re-echoed in his mind. In his rear mirror he could see that the man was walking briskly down the right-hand side of Woodstock Road towards the Radcliffe Infirmary, and he swung the Lancia sharp left at the next turning, furiously cursing the crawling stream of cars. He parked on the double yellow lines at the back of the Radcliffe, told Martin to stay where he was, and ran like a crippled stag to the accident ward. She was still there: still sitting up prettily amid the pillows as he peeped behind the screens. Phew! He rang up HQ from the Sister's office, told Dickson he was to get there immediately, and stood there breathing heavily.

'You all right, Inspector?'

'Just about, thank you, Sister. But listen. I don't want anyone to talk to Miss Height or to get anywhere near her. All right? And if anyone does try to visit her, I want to know who it is. One of my men will be here in ten minutes.'

He paced impatiently up and down the corridor waiting for Dickson's arrival. Like Pilgrim he seemed to be making but sluggish progress — up the hill of difficulty and down into the slough of despond. But there was no sign whatsoever of Richard Bartlett. Perhaps Morse was imagining things.