The Jewel That Was Ours (4 page)

'I do hope the people here realise the great difference between Vegetarian and Vegan—'

'Janet!
This is one of the finest hotels in the UK—'

But Ashenden's voice now cut across their conversation:

'So! If we can all
...
St John's Suite, St
John's -
that's on the first floor, just up the main staircase - tea or coffee - right away. I know some of you will just want to settle in and have a wash and
...
So if you take your forms to Reception - that's straight ahead of you as you go through the main doors here - and just sign the documentation forms there and get your keys . . . The lift, the guest-lift, is just to your right, in the corridor . . .'

'Get a
move
on!' hissed Laura under her breath.

'. . . I shall be calling round to your rooms later, just to make sure everything's . . .'

Ashenden knew what he was doing. Experience had taught him that the first hour or so in any new hotel was always the most vital, since some small problem, dealt with promptly, could make the difference between a contented life and an anxious existence. Blessedly, Ashenden was seldom, if ever, confronted with such positive complaints as cockroaches, mice, or the disgusting habits of a room's previous occupants. But a range of minor niggles was not unfamiliar, even in the best regulated of establishments: no soap in the bathroom; only two tubs of cream beside the self-service kettle; no instructions on how to operate the knobless TV; no sign -
still
no sign - of the luggage . . .

Eddie Stratton had managed to squeeze into second spot in the queue for keys, and Laura had grabbed their own key, 310, from his hand before he'd finished the documentation.

'I'm straight up, Ed, to draw me a bairth - I can't wait.'

'Yeah, but leave the door, honey - there's only the one key, OK? I'll have a cup of tea in the Saynt Jam Suite.'

'Sure. I'll leave the door.' She was gone.

As Laura hobbled away towards the guest-lift, Eddie turned round and looked directly into the eyes of Mrs Shirley Brown. For a few seconds there seemed to be no communication between the two of them;
but
then, after glancing briefly towards her husband, Shirley Brown nodded, almost imperceptibly, and her eyes smiled.

All saints can do miracles, but few can keep a hotel

(Mark Twain,
Notebook)

'At last!'
muttered Laura Stratum for the third (and final) time as she inserted her key and turned it clockwise (and correctly) in the lock.

The room itself did not open immediately off the main corridor on level three; but a small plaque fixed beside double swing-doors (a
FIRE EXIT
sign above them) had pointed the way to Room 310. Once through these doors Laura had found herself in a further corridor, only four or five feet wide, which ran parallel to the main corridor, along which (after she had turned left) she walked the five yards or so to the bedroom door - on her right. Just beyond this door, the corridor turned at right angles and came to an almost immediate stop in the shape of another double-doored
FIRE EXIT
- doubtless, as Laura guessed (again correctly), leading down some back stairs to the ground floor. It did not occur to her that a person could stand in this narrow square of space, pressed tightly back behind the wall, and remain completely unobserved from the narrow corridor leading to her room.

If anyone wished to remain thus unobserved . . .

Laura extracted the key and carefully let the door close, or almost close, behind her, with the tongue of the lock holding it slightly ajar. The two large black-leather cases were on the floor immediately inside, and she looked around to find herself in a most pleasantly appointed room. A double bed stood immediately to her right, covered by a pale-green quilt, with a free-standing wardrobe beyond it; facing her were the three lancet windows of the outside wall, with curtains down to the carpeted floor; and in front of these windows, from right to left, a tea-maker, a TV, a low, mirrored dressing table, and a red-plush chair. Her swift glance around missed little, except for the rather fine reproduction of Vermeer's
View of Delft
above the bed. Laura and her first husband had once seen the original of this in the Mauritshuis in The Hague, when the guide had mentioned that it was Marcel Proust's favourite painting; but strangely enough she had found it disappointing, and in the very few minutes of life remaining to her she was to have no opportunity of revising that rather harsh judgement.

She stepped to the window and looked across at the tetrastyle portico of Ionic columns, with the figure of Apollo, right arm raised and seated (a little precariously, as Laura judged) at the apex of the low-pitched pediment. Between the two central columns, a large Oxford-blue banner was suspended:
Musaeum Ashmoleanum apud Oxonienses.
Oh yes, Laura knew quite a lot about the Ashmolean Museum, and there appeared the flicker of a smile around her excessively lip-sticked mouth as she let the curtain fall back and turned to the door on her left, half-open, which led to the champagne-tiled bathroom. Without for the moment entering, she pushed the door a little further open: WC to the right; bath immediately facing her, the shower-curtains half drawn across; and to the left a hand-basin with a series of heated rails beside it, fully laden with fluffy white towels.

Laura had always slept on the left-hand side of any double bed, both as a young girl with her sister and then with both her husbands; and now she sat down, rather heavily, on the side of the bed immediately beside the main door, placed her white-leather handbag below the various switches for lights, radio, and TV, on the small table-top next to the bed - and removed her shoes.

Finally
removed her shoes.

She fetched the kettle, filled it from the wash-basin in the bathroom, and switched on the current. Then, into the bathroom once more where she put the plug in the bath and

turned on the hot tap. Returning to the main room again she picked up a
do not disturb
sign, hung it over the outside door-knob, and returned to the bathroom to pour some pink Foaming Bubbly into the slowly filling bath.

Beryl Reeves had noted the single arrival in Room 310. At 4.40 p.m. she had put in a final burst of corridor hovering and hoovering, and knew even from her very limited experience that before she went off duty at 5.00 there would be several queries from these Americans about the whereabouts of the (non-existent) 'ice-machine' and the (readily available) replenishments of coffee sachets. Beryl was from Manchester; and her honest, if slightly naive attitude to life - even more so, her
accent
- had already endeared her to many of her charges on Level Three. All in all, she was proving a very good employee: punctual, conscientious, friendly, and (as Morse was later to discover) a most reliable witness.

It had been exactly 4.45 that afternoon (and who could be more accurate than that?) when she had looked in at Room 310; noticed the sign hanging over the door-knob, wondering why the door itself was slightly ajar; peered momentarily into the room itself; but immediately retreated on seeing the steam emanating from the bathroom. Yes, she
thought
she would have probably noticed a white leather handbag if it had been somewhere just inside. No, she had
not
passed beyond the door and looked around the corner beside the Fire Exit. She had seen an American guest going into Room 308 shortly after this - a man; a friendly man, who'd said 'Hi!'. Yes, of course she would recognise him. In fact she could tell them who he was straightaway: a Mr Howard Brown from California.

Just before 6 p.m. the phone rang in the office of Chief Superintendent Strange at the Thames Valley Police HQ at Kidlington. The great man listened fairly patiently, if with less than obvious enthusiasm, to his colleague, Superintendent Bell from St Aldate's in Oxford.

'Well, it doesn't sound particularly like Morse's cup of tea, Bell, but if you're really short. . . No, he's trying to get a few days off, he tells me, says he never gets his full ration of furlough. Huh! If you take off the hours he spends in the pubs . . . what? Well, as I say, if you
are
short. . . Yes, all right. You know his home number? . . . Fine! Just tell him you've had a word with me. He's usually happier if Lewis is with him, though
..
. What? Lewis is already
there?
Good. Good! And as I say, just tell him that you've had a word with me. There'll be no problems.'

There are worse occupations in this world than feeling a woman's pulse

(Laurence Sterne,
A Sentimental Journey)

‘You here already, Lewis?'

'Half an hour ago, sir. The Super called me. They're short-staffed at St Aldate's—'

'Must be!'

'I've already been upstairs.' 'No problems?' 'I'm - I'm not quite sure, sir.' 'Well - "Lead on, Macduff!" '

'That should be "Lay on Macduff!", sir. So our English teacher—' 'Thank you, Lewis.' 'The lift's just along here—'

'Lift? We're not climbing the Empire State Building!'

'Quite a few stairs, sir,' said Lewis quietly, suspecting (rightly) that his chief was going through one of his temporary get-a-little-fitter phases.

'Look! Don't you worry too much about me, Lewis. If by any chance things become a bit too strenuous in the ascent, I shall stop periodically and pant, all right?'

Lewis nodded, happy as always (almost always) to be working with the curmudgeonly Morse once more.

For a few seconds Morse stood outside Room 310, breathing heavily and looking down at the door-knob. He raised his eyebrows to Lewis.

‘No, sir - waste of time worrying. Four or five people been in.'

‘Who's in there now?' asked Morse quietly.

'Only the quack - Doc Swain - he's been the house-doctor here for a few years.' 'Presumably the
corpse
as well, Lewis?' 'The corpse as well, sir.' 'Who else has been in?'