The Jewel That Was Ours (10 page)

'What you thinking of, honey? Murder? Theft? Rape?' 'You don't think I'm capable of rape, Shirl!' 'No, I don't!' she replied, cruelly. 'And you saw Ashenden, you say. That gives
him
an alibi, too.' 'Half an alibi.' 'He
saw you
- you're sure?' 'Sure. But I don't reckon he thought we saw
him.'
'Down Holywell Street, you say?’ 'Uh-huh! I noticed the sign.' 'What's down there?'

'Eddie looked it up on the street map. New College, then Magdalen College - that's without the "e".'

DCs Hodges and Watson were now going systematically through their lists; and, almost simultaneously, Hodges was requesting both Mrs Williams and Mr Ashenden to accompany him to the Manager's office, with Watson asking Howard and Shirley Brown if they would please mind answering a few questions in the deserted ballroom.

On the departure of his two drinking companions - the lady reluctantly, the gentleman with fairly obvious relief - Morse looked again at the Osbert Lancaster paintings on the walls around him and wondered if he really liked these illustrations for
Zuleika Dobson.
Perhaps, though, he ought at last to
read
Beerbohm's book; even discover whether she was called 'Zuleeka' or 'Zuleyeka'
...

His glass was empty and he returned to the bar, where Michelle, the decidedly bouncy brunette, declined to accept his proffered payment.

The lady, sir. The one that was with you. She paid.'

‘Uh?'

'She just said to get a pint for you when you came up for a refill.' 'She said "when", did she?'

'She probably knows your habits, sir,' said Michelle, with an understanding smile.

Morse went to sit in the virtually deserted Annexe now, and thought for more than a few minutes of Sheila Williams. He'd had a girl-friend called Sheila when he'd been an undergraduate just across St Giles' at St John's -the very college from which A. E. Housman, the greatest Latinist of the twentieth century, had also been kicked out minus a degree. A hundred years ago in Housman's case, and a thousand years in his own. Sheila
...
the source, in Milton's words, of all our woe.

After his fourth pint of beer, Morse walked out to Reception and spoke to the senior concierge.

'I've got a car in the garage.'

'I'll see it's brought round, sir. What's the number?'

'Er . . .' For the moment Morse could not recall the number. 'No! I'll pick it up in the morning if that's all right.'

'You a resident here, sir?'

'No! It's just that I don't want the police to pick me up on the way home.'

'Very sensible, sir. I'll see what I can do. Name? Can I have your name?'

'Morse. Chief Inspector Morse.'

'They wouldn't pick you up, would they?'

‘No? Funny lot the police, you know.' 'Shall I call a taxi?'

Taxi? I'm walking. I only live at the top of the Banbury Road, and a taxi'd cost me three quid at this time of night. That's three pints of beer.'

'Only
two
here, air!' corrected Roy Halford as he watched the chief inspector step carefully - a little
too
carefully? - down the shallow steps and out to Beaumont Street.

Solvitur ambulando
(The problem is solved by walking around)

(Latin proverb)

As he walked up the Banbury Road that Thursday night, Morse was aware that by this time Lewis would know considerably more than
he
did about the probable contents of Laura Stratton's handbag, the possible disposition of the loot, and the likely circle of suspects. Yet he was aware, too, that his mind seemed - was! - considerably more lucid than he deserved it to be, and there
were
a few facts to be considered -certainly more facts than Lewis had gleaned in his school-days about Alfred the Great.

Facts: carrying her handbag, a woman had gone up to Room 310 at about 4.35 p.m.; this woman had not been seen alive again - or at least no one so far would
admit
to seeing her alive again; inside 310 a bath had been run and almost certainly taken; a coffee-sachet and a miniature tub of cream had been used; a
do
not
disturb
sign had been displayed on the outside door-knob at some point, with the door itself probably left open; the woman's husband had returned at about 5.15 p.m., and without reporting to Reception had gone up to the third floor, in the guest-lift, with a fellow tourist (female); thence a hurried scuttle down to Reception via the main staircase where a duplicate key was acquired. On finally gaining access to his room, the husband had discovered his wife's body on the floor, presumably already dead; the hotel's house-doctor had arrived some ten or fifteen minutes later, and the body duly transferred from floor to bed - all this by about 5.40 p.m. At some point before, during, or after these latter events, the husband himself had noticed the disappearance of his wife's handbag; and at about 6 p.m. a call had been received by St Aldate's CID with a request for help in what was now looking a matter of considerably more moment than any petty theft. Yes, those were the facts.

So move on, Morse, to a few non-factual inferences in the problem of the Wolvercote Tongue. Move on, my son - and hypothesise! Come on, now! Who
could
have stolen it?

Well, in the first place, with the door to 310
locked,
only those who had a key: the Manager, the housekeeper, the room-maids - namely, anyone with, or with access to, a duplicate key to the aforementioned room.
Not
the husband. In the second place, with the door to 310
open,
a much more interesting thieves' gallery was open to view: most obviously, anyone at all who would happen to be passing and who had glimpsed, through the open door, a handbag that had proved too tempting an opportunity. Open to such temptation (if not necessarily susceptible to it) would have been the room-maids, the occupants of nearby rooms, any casual passer-by . . . But just a moment! Room 310 was
off
the main corridor, and anyone in its immediate vicinity would be there
for a reason:
a friend, perhaps, with a solicitous enquiry about the lady's feet; a fellow tourist wanting to borrow something; or learn something . . . Then there was Ashenden. He'd said he would be going around at some point to all the rooms to check up on the sachets, shampoos, soaps, switches. Opportunity? Yes! But hardly much of a motive, surely? What about the three guest speakers? Out of the question, wasn't it? They hadn't been called to the colours at that point - weren't even
in
The Randolph. Forget them! Well, no - not altogether, perhaps; not until Lewis had checked their statements.

So that was that, really. That set the 'parameters' (the buzz-word at HQ recently) for the crime. No other portraits in the gallery.

Not really.

No!

Or were there?

What about the husband? Morse had always entertained a healthy suspicion of anyone found first on the scene of a crime; and Eddie Stratton had been a
double-first:
the first to report both the death of his wife,
and
the theft of the jewel. But any man who finds his wife dead - dead! - surely he's not going to . . . Nobody could suspect that.

Except Morse.

And what about - what about the most unlikely, improbable, unthinkable . . . Unthinkable? Well,
think
about it, Morse! What about the wife herself: Mrs Laura Stratton? Could she have been responsible for the disappearance of the jewel? But why? Was it insured? Surely so! And doubdess for a hefty sum. All right, the thing was unsellable, unbuyable; the thing was useless - except, that is, as a link in a cultural continuum in a University Museum. Or else - yes! - or else as an insurance item which in terms of cash was worth far more lost than found; and if the Strattons were getting a bit hard up it might not have been so much
if
it were lost as
when.
And what - it was always going to hit Morse's brain sooner or later - what if the thing had never been there to get lost in the first place? Yes, the possibility had to be faced: what if the Wolvercote Tongue had never been inside the handbag at all? (Keep going, Morse!) Never even left America?

Morse already found himself in the Summertown shopping centre; and it was some five minutes later, as he came to his bachelor flat just south of the A40 Ring Road, that the oddest possibility finally struck him: what if the Wolvercote Tongue didn't
exist
at all? But surely there would have been all sorts of descriptive and photographic pieces of evidence, and so on? Surely such an authority as Dr Theodore Kemp could never have been so duped in such a matter? No! And he'd almost certainly flown over to see it, anyway. No! Forget it! So Morse almost forgot it, and let himself into his flat, where he played the first two movements of the Bruckner No. 7 before going to bed.

He woke up at 2.50 a.m., his mouth very dry. He got out of bed and went to the bathroom, where he drank a glass of water; and another glass of water. In truth, water -a liquid which figured little during Morse's waking life - was his constant companion during the early hours of almost every morning.

It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

(Oscar Wilde,
The Picture of Dorian Gray)