The Jewel That Was Ours (34 page)

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.

Some circumstantial evidence is very strong - as when you find a trout in the milk

(Henry Thoreau,
unpublished manuscript)

'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 - gende 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.

Darkness is more productive of sublime ideas than light

(Edmund Burke,
On the Sublime and Beautiful)

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 hps 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.'