“I do, yes. I had Bayley tailed and he went out to meet Sylvia Grainger — in the bar at The Randolph — about a quarter to twelve, that was. She’d told her husband she was going to her sister’s for a few hours. That’s what she said. So! So there’s really not much point in us sitting here freezing any longer, is there?”
Lewis turned the key in the ignition, the Jaguar spurted into life, and the two detectives now sat silently side by side for several minutes as they drove back down into Oxford.
It was Lewis who spoke first: “You know, it really is nonsense what you say, sir — about the first person finding the body. I just don’t know where the evidence is for that. And then you say it’s ‘compulsive’ — didn’t you say that? — for murderers to want the body found. But some of ’em take enormous time and trouble for the body never to be found.”
“You’re right, I agree. I was exaggerating a bit.”
“So what did make you think it was Bayley? There must have been something.”
“It’s all these wretched crosswords I do. You meet some odd words, you know. The first time I saw Bayley in his room I thought what a great big fat-arsed sod he was. And then, this morning, I read Sheila Poster’s story again — and well, things went sort of ‘click.’ You remember that long word Sheila Poster used — about the odd-job man? Mind you, she was an English graduate.”
Lewis did remember, but only vaguely; he’d look it up once they got back to HQ.
“It was always going to be a straightforward case,” continued Morse. “We’d have been sure to find out where Bayley had been working, sooner or later.”
“ ‘Sooner or later,’ ” repeated Lewis. “And for once I thought it was me who was sooner. It’s just like I said: I’ve got a second-class mind — I’m just like a second-class—”
“Ah! That reminds me. Just pull in here a minute, will you?”
Lewis turned into a slip-road alongside a row of brightly lit shops just before the Thames Valley Police HQ buildings.
“Where exactly—?”
“Here! Here’s fine.”
Morse jabbed a finger to the left, and Lewis braked outside a sub post-office.
“Just nip in and get me a book of stamps, please.”
“First- or second-class?” For some reason Lewis was feeling reasonably happy again.
“No need to go wild, is there? I’ll have one book of second-class, all right? These days they get there almost as quickly as first, you know that.”
Morse had been pushing his hands one after the other into the pockets of overcoat, jacket, trousers — seemingly without success.
“You’ll never believe it, Lewis, but...”
“I think I will, sir. Remember what that fellow Diogenes Small wrote about people’s flights of imagination?”
“You’ve been soaring up there yourself, you mean?”
“Not quite, no. All I’m saying is it wouldn’t take a detective to see what you’re trying to tell me.”
“Which is?”
“You haven’t got any money.”
“Ah!”
Morse looked down silently at the car-mat; and Lewis, now smiling happily, opened the driving-seat door of the Jaguar, and was soon to be seen walking towards the premises of the sub post-office in Kidlington, Oxon.
Monty’s revolver
Women sometimes forgive those who force an opportunity, never those who miss it.
(Talleyrand)
It wasn’t often that Professor Rawlins bothered her with his personal letters. Occasionally, though — like this afternoon; and like yesterday afternoon, come to think of it. But he always insisted on putting his own stamps on such letters, never allowing them through the Department’s franking-machine. Bit too obviously self-righteous, she thought. She glanced at the tiny gold watch (a wedding present) on her left wrist: almost a quarter to five. TGFF. Thank God For Friday!
Rawlins took off his half-glasses, pinched the top of his nose, turned over a page of his desk diary, lit another cigarette, and looked across at Carol Summerson.
“Professor Smithson’s coming on Monday morning. Will you nip out first thing and get me a bottle of Glenfiddich?”
Carol made a note, closed her shorthand book, uncrossed her elegant legs, and smiled as she looked at him. And he, half smiling himself, looked back across at her; and she felt pleasingly surprised. (Or was it surprisingly pleased?) There had been so few moments of real communication between them during the three months she’d been working for him — the man she’d more than once heard described as “the cleverest fellow in Oxford.”
She was glad to get out of his office, though. He would never open the window and the smell in the room was invariably horrid. How she wished he’d stop smoking! (John never smoked, thank goodness.) How old was he? Sixty? Overweight, and with a chest that sounded like a loose-strung harp, he was just the sort to die before his time from heart trouble or lung cancer or chronic bronchitis or emphysema — or like as not the whole lot of them listed on his death certificate. Why didn’t his wife do something about him, for Christ’s sake?
“Good night, sir,” she heard herself say; and for a moment she fancied that she’d almost like to look after him herself.
John was waiting for her, sitting on his wife’s swivel-chair and turning over the papers that lay on her desk. (He always picked Carol up on Fridays.) While she was out in the cloakroom, he looked through a few more recent carbons, each neatly stapled to its originating letter. One carbon in particular caught his eye:
Dear Jack,
Glad you still remember me and — yes! — I still keep the old collection going. But anything that belonged to Monty is sure to spark off some keen bidding — all a bit too high for me. As you say, though, the reserve price seems fair enough.
How long is it since we met? Seven — eight years? Marion died six years ago — malignant tumour. Not unexpected, but all desperately sad and very upsetting for the boys. I remarried two years later, and since then I’ve had another son! — and another!! — and another!!! Do you know the odds against a penny coming down six times on the trot?
If you’re ever near Oxford, let me know. I promise not to show you round the Department.
Sincerely yours,
Carol looked at her husband as she re-entered her office. At twenty-two, he was a year younger than herself; yet in many ways since their marriage two years previously, he’d shown himself the more mature, the more dependable, of the two. There had been a few patches of squabbling — mostly her fault; and the one continuing sadness... But she was glad she’d married him.
That, at least, is what Carol Summerson was telling herself that December afternoon.
“You reading my boss’s correspondence again?”
He nodded.
“Interesting?”
“Not really.”
As she unhooked her coat from the wall-cupboard, John glanced quickly at the originating letter, stapled behind the carbon he had just been reading. A letterhead announced a “J. Wingate, Gunsmith,” with an address in Guildford, the letter itself reporting the forthcoming auction of a revolver that had belonged to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery — reserve price £3,000.
“I didn’t know he was interested in revolvers,” said John, unlocking the nearside door to the Metro.
“I’ve told you before. You shouldn’t read—”
“Didn’t mind, did you?”
“Course not!” She brushed her full lips against his cheek as she fastened her safety-belt.