‘Let us now switch forward again. It was all phoney: I soon began to realize that. There were those two bottles of everything, for example: two of them-in whatever the client (in this case, me) should happen to indulge. Why two? The one of them about two thirds empty (or is it one third full?); the other completely intact, with the plastic seal fixed round its top. Why go, then, to the new bottle for the first, perfunctory drinks? I didn’t know, but I soon began to wonder. And then her accent! Oh dear! Had she been at an audition, any director worth a tuppence of salt would have told her to flush her Gallic vowels down the nearest ladies’ lavatory. And then at one point she opened her handbag-a handbag she must have owned for twenty years. A professional whore with an aged handbag? And not only that. She was introduced to me by an unconvincing old hag as “Yvonne”; so why are the faded gilt initials on the inside flap of her handbag clearly printed “W.S.”? You see where all this suspicion is leading? But I had my revolver. I was going to be all right. I
‘After that? If I may say so, I performed my part professionally. Making vaguely somnolent noises, I now assumed the role of a man (as the Americans have it) in a totally negative response situation. Then the woman left me; and after hearing whispered communications on the other side of the door, I sensed that someone else was in the room. Let us leave it there.
‘I am getting tired with this lengthy typing, but it is important that I should go on a little longer.
‘You were a fool when you were an undergraduate-wasting, as you did, the precious talent of a clear, clean mind. It was me (or do you prefer “I”?) who marked some of your Greats papers, and even amidst the widespread evidence of your appalling ignorance there were moments of rare perception and sensitivity. But since that time you have made a distinguished reputation for yourself as a man of the Detective (as Dickens has it), and I was anxious that it should be a worthy brain that was to be pitted against my own. Why else should the body be discovered where it was? Who made sure that it should be found at Thrupp-a place almost in your own back-yard? You will, I suspect, have almost certainly discovered by now why I was not able to leave the head and the hands for your inspection? Yes, I think so. You would have been quite certain that it was not my body had I done so, and I wished to sharpen up your brain, for (believe me!) it will need to be as sharp as the sword of Achilles before your work is finished. Here then is a chance for you to show the sort of quality that was apparent in your early days at Oxford. Perhaps this case of yours will afford for you the opportunity to kill an ancient ghost, since I shall quite certainly (albeit posthumously) award you a “first” this time if you can grasp the inevitable (and basically so simple) logic of all these strange events.
‘I shall make no further communication to you; and I advise you not to try to track me down, for you will not find me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Investigations proceed with a nominal line drawn down the middle of needful inquiries.
So many clues now, and as Morse and Lewis saw things there were four main areas of inquiry:
1. What were the real facts about that far-off day in the desert when Browne-Smith had faced his one real test of character-and (apparently) failed so lamentably?
2. Where exactly did Westerby (a name cropping up repeatedly now) fit into the increasingly complex pattern?
3. Who was the person whom Browne-Smith had met after his anti-climactic sexual encounter with the pseudonymous “Yvonne”?
4. And (still, to Morse the most vital question of all) whose was the body they had found?
Obviously the strands of these inquiries would interweave at many points; but it seemed sensible to the two detectives that each should make his own investigations for a day or two, with Lewis concentrating his attentions on the first two areas, and Morse on the second two.
Lewis spent most of the morning on the telephone, ringing,
amongst other numbers, those of the War Office, the Ministry of Defence, the HQ of the Wiltshire Regiment, and the Territorial Unit at Devizes. It was a long, frustrating business; but by lunch-time he had a great deal of information, much of it useless, but some of it absolutely vital.
First, he discovered more about Browne-Smith: Captain, acting Major, (Royal Wiltshires); served North Africa (1941-42); wounded El Alamein; Italy (1944-45); awarded the MC (1945).
Second, he learned something about Gilbert. There had been three Gilbert brothers, Albert, Alfred, and John. All had fought at El Alamein; the first two, both full corporals, had survived the campaign (although both of them had been wounded); the third, the youngest brother, had died in the same campaign. That was all.
But it couldn’t be quite all, Lewis knew that. And it was from the Swindon branch of the British Legion that he learned the address of a man in the Wiltshires who must certainly have known the Gilbert brothers fairly well. Immediately after lunch, Lewis was driving out along the A420.
‘Yes, I knew ‘em, Sergeant – s’funny, I wur a sergeant, too, you know. Yes, there wur Alf ‘n’ Bert – like as two peas in a pod, they wur. One of ‘em, ‘e got a bit o’ the ol’ shrapnel in the leg, and I ‘ad a bit in the ‘ead. We wur at base ‘ospital for a while together, but I can’t quite recolleck… Real lads, they wur – the pair of ‘em!’
‘Did you know the other one?’ asked Lewis.
‘Johnny! That wur ‘is name. I didn’t know ‘im very well, though.’
‘You don’t know how he was killed?”
‘No, I don’t.’
‘They were all tank-drivers, weren’t they?’
‘All of’em-like me.’
‘Was he killed in his tank?’
For the second time the old soldier looked rather vague and puzzled, and Lewis wondered whether the man’s memory could be relied upon.
‘There wur a bit of an accident as I recolleck. But ‘e wurn’t with us that morning, Sergeant – not when we all moved up long Kidney Ridge.’
‘You don’t remember what sort of accident?’
‘No. It wur back at base, I seem to… But you get a lot of accidents in wartime, Sergeant. More’n they tell the folk back ‘ome in Blighty.’
He was an engaging old boy; a sixty-nine-year-old widower for whom, it seemed, the war had been the only intermission of importance in a largely anonymous life, for there was no real sadness in him as he recalled those weeks and months of fighting in the desert-only an almost understandable nostalgia. So Lewis wrote down the facts, such as they were, in his painstakingly slow long-hand, and then took his leave.