The Jewel That Was Ours (39 page)

'. . . yes, it would be extremely interesting for all of us to learn your answer. But not - not for the moment, please!'

The man now walked down the central aisle and halted beside the projector, where he turned and spoke. Was it to her? Was it to her audience?

'I'm sorry to interrupt. But the people here know who I am - who we are. And I shall have to ask you, I'm afraid, to leave the next half hour to Lewis and to me.'

Dr Barbara Moule almost smiled. She'd picked up the literary allusion immediately, and enjoyed those few seconds during which the man's intensely blue eyes had held her own.

It was Ashenden who went upstairs to knock on the door of Room 46.

'But didn't Sam here explain? I have a headache.' 'I know. But it's the police, Mrs Kronquist.' 'It is?'

'And they want everybody to be there.' 'Oh my Gard!'

And summed up so well that it came to far more than the Witnesses ever had said

(Lewis Carroll,
The Barrister's Dream)

The beautiful if bemused Dr Moule, invited to stay if she so wished, took a seat in the front row. The man spoke, she thought, more like a don than a detective.

'Let me outline the case, or rather the two cases, to you all. First, a jewel was stolen from Mrs Laura Stratton's room in The Randolph. At the same time - whether just before or just after the theft - Mrs Stratton died. What is medically certain is that she died of coronary thrombosis: there is no question of any foul play, except of course if the heart attack was brought on by the shock of finding someone in her room stealing the jewel she had come all the way from America to hand over to the Ashmolean Museum, or more specifically to Dr Theodore Kemp on behalf of the Museum. I tried to find out -1 may be forgiven - who would benefit from the theft of the jewel, and I learned from Mr Brown here' (heads swivelling) 'that Mrs Stratton was always slightly mysterious - ambivalent, even -about her own financial affairs. So I naturally had to bear in mind the possibility that the jewel had not been stolen at all by any outside party, but "caused to disappear", let us say, by the Strattons themselves. It had been the property of Mrs Stratton's first husband, and it was he who had expressed the wish, as stated in his will, that it be returned to England to find a permanent place in the Ashmolean Museum with its counterpart, the Wolvercote Buckle. As a piece of treasure of considerable historical importance, the Wolvercote Tongue was of course beyond price. In itself, however, as an artefact set with precious stones, it was, let us say, "priceable", and it was insured by Mrs Stratton for half a million dollars. I am not yet wholly sure about the specific terms of the policy taken out, but it appears that in the eventuality of the jewel being stolen, either before or after her death, the insurance money is payable to her husband - and is not to be syphoned off into some trust fund or other. At any rate, that is what Eddie Stratton believed - believes, rather - for I learned most of these facts yesterday from Stratton himself, who is now back in America.' Morse paused a moment and looked slowly around his audience. 'I don't need, perhaps, to underline to you the temptation that faced Mr Stratton, himself a virtually penniless man, and a man who knew -for such seems to be the case - that his wife had run through almost all of the considerable money she had inherited from her first husband.'

Several faces looked pained and incredulous, but Janet Roscoe was the only person who did not restrain her disquietude:

'But that could nart
be,
Inspector! Eddie was out walking - Morse held up his right hand, and spoke to her not ungently:

Tlease hear me out, Mrs Roscoe
...
It was easy to pin-point the period of time within which the theft must have occurred, and not too difficult - was it? - to find out where the great majority of you had been during the crucial forty-five minutes. Not
all
of you felt willing to be completely honest with me, but I don't wish to labour that point now. As I saw things - still see things - the thief had to be one of you here, one of the touring party, including your courier' (heads swivelling again) 'or one of the staff at The Randolph. But the latter possibility could be, and was, fairly quickly discounted. So you will be able to see where things are heading, ladies and gentlemen . . .

'The immediate effects of the theft were considerably lessened both by the death of Laura Stratton and on the very next day by the murder of Dr Kemp, the man to whom the

Tongue was due to be handed over that day at an official little ceremony at the Ashmolean. Now one of the jobs of the police force, and especially the CID, is to try to establish a
pattern
in crime, if this is possible, and in this instance both Sergeant Lewis and myself found it difficult not to believe there was some
link
between the two events. They may of course have been quite coincidental; but already there
was
a link, was there not? Dr Kemp himself! - the man who had one day been deprived of a jewel which he himself had traced to an American collector, a jewel for which he had been negotiating, a jewel that had been found in the waters below the bridge at Wolvercote in 1873, a jewel which once united with its mate would doubtless be the subject of some considerable historical interest, and bring some short-term celebrity, possibly some long-term preferment, to himself - to Kemp. Indeed a photograph of the re-united Buckle and Tongue was going to be used on the cover of his forthcoming book. And then, on the very next day, Kemp is murdered. Interesting, is it not? Did, I asked myself, did the
same
person commit both the theft and the murder? It seemed to me more and more likely. So perhaps I needed just the one criminal, not two; but I needed a reason as well. So my thinking went a little further in that direction - the correct direction. If the criminal was the same in each case, was not the
motive
likely to have been the same? In both crimes, the person who had suffered by far the most had been the same man, Kemp. In the first, he had been robbed of something on which he had set his heart; in the second he was robbed of his life. Why? - that is what I asked myself. Or rather that is
not,
in the first instance, what I asked myself, because I was driven to the view - incorrectly - that there could be no link between the two crimes.

'So let us come to Kemp himself. It is a commonplace in murder investigations that more may often be learned about the murderer from the
victim
than from any other source. Now what did we know of the victim, Dr Kemp? He was a Keeper of Antiquities at the Ashmolean, a man somewhat flamboyant in dress and manner, not only a ladies' man but one of the most dedicated womanisers in the University; a man who patently, almost on first sight, appeared self-centred and self-seeking. Yet life had not gone all his way: far from it. The University had recognised Kemp for what he was: his promotion was slow; a full fellowship was withheld; no family; a very modest two-bedroomed flat in North Oxford; and, above all, a great personal tragedy. Two years ago he was involved in a dreadful crash on the western Ring Road in which his wife, who was sitting beside him in the passenger seat, received such serious injuries to the lower half of the body that for the rest of her life

a life which ended tragically last week - she was confined to a wheel-chair. But that was only the half of it. The driver of the other car was killed instantaneously - a Mrs Mayo from California who was in England doing some research project on the novels of Anthony Trollope. The settlements of the dead woman's Accidental Death Benefit, and of the policy covering the "passenger-liability" responsibility of the surviving driver

a driver by the way almost completely unscathed - were finally settled. But the legal tangle surrounding "culpability" was never really unravelled: no eye-witnesses, contradictory evidence on possible mechanical faults, discrepancies about the time recorded for the breathalyser test - these factors resulted in Kemp getting away comparatively lightly, being banned from driving for three years only, with what must have seemed to many the derisory fine of only four hundred pounds. What had really confused everyone was the fact that Kemp always carried a hip-flask of brandy in the car's glove compartment, and that he had given his wife

trapped by the legs beside him - several sips from this flask before the ambulance arrived; and had even drunk from it himself! Everyone who subsequently learned of this action condemned it as utterly stupid and irresponsible, but perhaps such criticism may be tempered by the fact that the man was in a deep state of shock. At least that was what he said in his own defence.

'But let me revert to the crimes committed last week.

The crucial happening, whichever way we look at things, was the telephone call made by Kemp. I formed several theories about that call - all wrong, and I will say nothing about them. Kemp had reported to the group that he would be arriving in Oxford at 3 p.m. - and the simple truth is that he
did
arrive in Oxford at 3 p.m. And somebody knew about that telephone call,
and met Kemp at the railway station,
doubtless informing the taxi-driver who had been hired that he was no longer required.'

Janet Roscoe half opened her mouth as if she were contemplating breaking the ensuing silence. But it was Morse who did so, as he continued:

'A taxi, you see, would have been easily traceable, so a different plan was adopted. Someone went to a car-rental firm in North Oxford in the early afternoon and hired a Vauxhall Cavalier. There was only one real difficulty: after vehicle-licence, credit-worthiness, and so on, were formally checked, the firm required some reference to establish the
bona fides
of the client. But this difficulty was quickly and neatly overcome: the man who hired the car - a
man,
yes! - gave the telephone number of The Randolph, and as the firm's representative was dialling the number he casually mentioned that the Deputy Manageress of The Randolph could be immediately contacted on a certain extension. The call was put through, confirmation obtained, and the car handed over. You will appreciate of course that an
accomplice
was essential at this juncture, but not just someone prepared to perform a casual favour. No! Rather someone who was prepared to be an accomplice to
murder.
Now, I believe it to be true that before this tour - with one exception - none of you had known each other. That exception was Mr Stratton and Mr Brown, who had met in the Armed Forces. But at the time the car was being hired, Mr Stratton was on his way to Didcot Railway Centre - of that fact there can be no doubt whatsoever. And Mr Howard Brown' (Morse hesitated) 'has given a full and fairly satisfactory account of his own whereabouts that afternoon, an account which has since been substantially corroborated.' Lewis's eyebrows shot up involuntarily, but he trusted that no one had noticed.

'There were one or two other absentees that afternoon, weren't there? Mr Ashenden for one.' The courier was staring hard at the patch of carpet between his feet. 'But he was up in Summertown for the whole of that afternoon with friends - as we've now checked.' (Lewis managed to keep his eyebrows still.) 'And then, of course, there's Mr Aldrich.' Heads were swivelling completely round this time - to the back row where sat Phil Aldrich, nodding his head in gentle agreement, a wry smile on his long, lugubrious face. 'But Mr Aldrich can't possibly have been our guilty party either, can he? He went up to London that day, and in fact was travelling on the same train as Stratton when the two of them arrived back in Oxford. Mr Aldrich himself claims, and I am fully prepared to believe him, that he did not see Mr Stratton on the train.
But Mr Stratton saw Mr Aldrich;
and so in an odd sort of way, even if we had no proof of Stratton being in Didcot, the pair of them quite unwittingly perhaps had given each other an utterly unshakeable alibi. And in addition we now
know
that Stratton was in Didcot most of that afternoon. You see, ladies and gentlemen, whatever happens in life, no person can ever be in two places at the same time, for the laws of the Universe forbid it. And the person perfecting his plans in Oxford, the person who had taken possession of the red Cavalier, that person had plenty to do, and precious little time in which to do it - to do it
in Oxford.
There is, perhaps, a brief additional point to be made. It occurred to me that if Stratton and Brown had known each other, so might their wives, perhaps. But one of these wives was already dead; and it was a man,' said Morse slowly, 'and not a woman, who hired the car that afternoon.