'Perhaps from the little we've learned about the two brothers' characters this wasn't surprising: it was Conrad who'd always been ready to play second fiddle, and Charles who'd always been the more dynamic. So they decided to swap roles again for the Friday evening, with Conrad taking his brother's place in a talk which-very much at the eleventh hour-had been brought forward, thus almost certainly cutting down what would have been a meagre audience at the best of times. Charles had already written out his notes for the speech, and Conrad probably knew more about the workings of the business, anyway. Conrad, I'm sure, was quite happy to do this; what he adamantly refused to do was to go down to Canal Reach. As ever, in his own mild way, he was quite willing to co-operate wherever he felt he could-but it had to be Charles who went to face Jackson. Now, I'm fairly sure in my own mind, sir, that although Charles Richards wasn't reckoning on murder, he was determined to get that letter back-or else. He tried to scare Jackson and pushed him around from room to room as he tried to find what he wanted-the letter which would implicate him deeply in Anne Scott's death, and pretty certainly put paid to his marriage-and possibly his business, too. And when they got to the bedroom he got so exasperated that he literally shook the life out of Jackson against the bedpost. At that point Charles Richards was in a tight spot. He knew his own name was likely to crop up somewhere in police inquiries into Anne Scott's death, and he realised how vital it was that Conrad, who was at that very moment talking to an audience under the alias of 'Charles Richards', should be given an utterly unassailable alibi. So he rang up the police-and then he got the hell out of Jericho and waited at the Martyrs' Memorial for Conrad to pick him up.'
'He didn't find the letter?'
'So he says-and I'm inclined to believe him.'
'What about the change of date for the meeting? Was that deliberate?'
'I don't really see how it could have been, sir: there wasn't the time, I don't think. No. Charles had to go to Spain on business some time this month, and it so happened that one of his girl friends told him that she could get away, too, and join him. But only during that week. So Charles pleaded urgent business, the meeting was changed, and the brothers took full advantage of-'
'Lucky for them, wasn't it? Keeping the audience down, I mean.'
'Luckier than you realise, sir. Miss Universe or World or something was on the telly that night and-'
'I’m surprised you weren't watching it, Morse.'
'Did they pick the right girl, sir?'
'Well, personally I'd have gone for Miss- Go on!'
'I should think things must have looked pretty black as they went home that night and talked over what had happened. But very soon one thing must have become increasingly clear to the pair of them. Perhaps all would be well, if only they could keep up the pretence. The real danger would come if the police, in connection with Anne Scott's death, discovered that the "Charles Richards" of the OBA talk was not Charles Richards at all-but his brother Conrad, because the speaker that night had an alibi that no one in the world could shake. So the brothers made their decision. Celia Richards had to be brought into the picture straight away, and Charles had no option but to tell her everything about his affair with Anne Scott and to plead with her to take her part-a pretty big part, too-in the deception that followed.'
The ACC nodded. 'Ye-es. You'd better tell me how they worked that.'
'To an outsider, sir, I think that one thing about this case would seem particularly odd: the fact that Sergeant Lewis and myself had never been together when we'd met Conrad Richards; and, at the same time, we'd neither of us met the two brothers when they were together. Let me explain, sir. I met Charles Richards-or rather the man I thought was Charles Richards-for the first time at the OBA, when his physical appearance was firmly fixed for me as Charles Richards. As it happened, I did ring up the actual Charles Richards the next day, but the line, as I well remember, was very poor and crackly, and we ended up almost shouting to each other. In any case, I'd only heard him speak the once-and it just didn't occur to me that the man I was speaking to was any other than the man I'd sat listening to on the back row. Then, a day or two later, I rang Charles Richards again; but he was out at the time and so I left a message with his secretary for him to ring back. As we now know, sir, the two brothers were able to solve that little problem without too much trouble. When Charles received the message, he got Conrad to ring me back. Easy, But I asked for a meeting with him the next day, and that took a bit more organisation. When I called at Charles Richards' office I was treated to a neat and convincing little charade by Celia-acting as the receptionist-and by Conrad-playing the part of Charles. It was, by the way, sir, at that point that I should have taken more notice of one very significant fact. Celia asked me for a cigarette that day-something she surely would never have done if the man who was with her was really her husband, because I was later to learn that Charles Richards was a heavy smoker. Anyway, I suspected nothing at the time, and the three of them must have felt encouraged about keeping up the pretence if the police were to bother them again.'
'Then we were a bit unlucky. Lewis and myself paid a surprise visit to Abingdon one afternoon, to get Conrad's fingerprints. But I didn't join him for a start, sir. I had another er lead to follow up, and so I wasn't with Lewis when he called at the office and met Conrad-the same man who'd twice passed himself off to me as Charles. We had reason to believe that Conrad might have been involved in things somehow, and we wanted to find whether his prints matched those found in Jackson's bedroom. So Lewis got the prints-Conrad's prints-and of course they matched nothing, because it had been Charles who had been in Jackson's house. That same afternoon we returned to the Richards' firm-but we were too late. We searched the offices that the brothers used, and as you know we found the blackmail note in Charles's desk. But the real clue I missed, I'm afraid. It was pretty clear from the ashtrays full of stubs that Charles was virtually a chain-smoker, but in Conrad's room there was no physical sign whatsoever of smoking and not the faintest smell of stale tobacco. Then we made a final visit to Abingdon, when Celia and Conrad-this time with ample warning-put on another little performance for me, playing the parts of a reconciled couple very cleverly. But they were wasting their time, I'm afraid. You see, there were two reasons for my visit. First, to get the man I'd been interviewing to the front door so that Lewis could see him and so corroborate what we'd suspected-that the man I'd been meeting all the time was in fact Conrad Richards.'
'But why all the clever-clever stuff, Morse? Why didn't you just arrest him there and then and get it over with?'