Morse was away from the office when Lewis returned at 4.30 p.m and of this fact he was strangely glad. All the way back from Swindon he had been wondering what that ‘accident’ might have been. He suspected that had Morse been there he would of guessed immediately; and it was a pleasant change to be able tackle the problem at his own, rather slower, pace. He rang the War Office once again, was put through to the Archives section, and soon began to realize that he was on to something important.
‘Yes we might be able to help in some way. You’re Thames Valley Police you say?’
‘That’s right’
‘Why are you asking for information about this man?’
‘It’s in connection with a with a murder, sir.’
‘I see what’s your number? Can’t be too careful in these things -you’ll know all about that.’ He spoke with the bark of a machine-gun.
So Lewis gave him his number and was rung back inside thirty seconds, and was given an extraordinary piece of information. Private John Gilbert of the Royal Wiltshires had not been killed in the El Alamein campaign. He had played no part in it. The night before the offensive, he had taken his army rifle, placed the muzzle inside his mouth, and shot himself through the brain. The incident had been hushed up on the highest orders; and that for obvious reasons. A few had known, of course – had to know. But “officially” John Gilbert died on active service in the desert, and that is how his family and his friends had been informed.
‘This is all in the strictest confidence, you understand that?’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘Never good for morale, that sort of thing, eh?’
Morse was having a far less fruitful day. He realized that with the first of his self-imposed assignments he could for the present make little headway, since that would necessitate some far from disagreeable investigations in Soho-a journey he had planned for the morrow. Which only left him with the same old tantalizing problem that had monopolized his mind from the beginning: the identity of the corpse. From the embarrassment of clues contained in Browne-Smith’s letter, the shortest odds must now be surely on the man whom Browne-Smith had finally encountered in London. But who was that man? Had it been Gilbert, as the letter so obviously suggested? Or was the body Westerby’s? If Browne-Smith had killed anyone, then Westerby was surely the most likely of candidates. Or was the body that of someone who had not yet featured in the investigations? Some outsider? Someone as yet unknown who would make a dramatic entry only towards the finale of Act Five? A sort of deus ex machinal Morse doubted this last possibility-and amidst his doubts, quite suddenly the astonishing thought flashed through his mind that there might just be a fourth possibility. And the more Morse pondered the idea, the more he convinced himself that there was: the possibility that the puffed and sodden salt-white corpse was that of Dr Browne-Smith.
On the way home that evening, Lewis decided to risk his w &’s wrath, to face the prospect of almost certainly reheated daps- and to call on Simon Rowbotham in Botley.
Simon Rowbotham invited him into the small terraced bouse in which he lived with his mother. But Lewis declined, learning over the doorstep that Simon had been one of three anglers who had spotted the body, and that it was he, Simon, who had readily volunteered to dial the police in lieu of looking further upon the horror just emerging from the waters. He often fished out along the banks at Thrupp, a good place for specialists such as himself. As it happened, they were just about to form a new angling club there, for which he had volunteered his services as secretary. In fact (just as Lewis had called) he had been checking a proof of the new association’s letter-head for the printer. They had managed to persuade a few well-known people to support them; and clearly, for Simon Rowbotham, the world was entering an exciting phase.
Lewis waited until 8.30 p.m. before ringing Morse (who had been strangely absent somewhere since lunch-time). He found him at his flat and promptly reported on his day’s work.
When he had finished, Morse could hardly keep the excitement out of his voice. ‘Just go over that bit about John Gilbert again, will you, Lewis?’
So Lewis repeated, as accurately as he could recall it, the news he had gleaned from the War Office archivist; and he felt very happy as he did so, for he knew that the news was pleasing to his master-a master, incidentally, who now had guessed the whole truth about the desert episode.
‘You’ve done a marvellous day’s work, old friend. Well done!’
‘Did you find out anything new, sir?’
‘Well, yes and no, really. I’ve-I’ve been thinking about the case for most of the day. But nothing startling.’
‘Anyway, have a good day in London tomorrow, sir!’
‘What Ah yes-tomorrow. I’ll-er-give you a ring if I find out anything exciting.’ -‘Perhaps you’ll do that, sir.’
‘What? Ah yes-perhaps I will.’
A rather sad footnote to the events described in this chapter is that if Lewis had been slightly more interested in the formation of a new angling association and if he had asked to see the proof of the proposed letter-heading (but why should he?), he would have found that one of the two honorary vice-presidents listed at the top left-hand corner of the page was a man with a name which was now very familiar to him: Mr G. Westerby (Lonsdale College, Oxford).
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Morse appears to have a powerful effect on two women, one of whom he has never met.
For Lewis, a 10 a.m. visit to Lonsdale was pleasantly productive, since the college secretary (she liked Lewis) had brought him a cup of coffee, and been quite willing to talk openly about Westerby as a person. So Lewis made his notes. Then he found out something about cars, since – in spite of Morse’s apparent indifference to the problem – it seemed to him of great importance to discover exactly how the corpse had been transported from London to Thrupp, and he learned that Browne-Smith – doubtless on doctor’s orders – had sold his Daimler a month or so ago, whilst Westerby still ran a red Metro, occasionally to be seen in the college forecourt.
‘Why would Westerby want a car, though?’ asked Lewis. ‘He lived in college.’
‘I don’t know. He’s a bit secretive – doesn’t tell anyone much about what he does.’ ‘He must go somewhere?’
‘I suppose so,’ she nodded vaguely.
‘Nice little car, the Metro. Economical!’
‘Roomy in the back, too. You can take the seats out, you know -get no end of stuff in there.’
‘So they tell me, yes.’
‘You’ve got a car, Sergeant?’
‘I’ve got an old Mini, but I don’t use it much. Usually go to work on the bus and then use a police car.’
The college secretary looked down at her desk. ‘Has Inspector Morse got a car?’
Lewis found it an odd question. ‘He’s got a Lancia, He’s had a Lancia ever since I’ve known him.’
‘You’ve known him long?’
‘Long enough.’
‘Is he a nice man?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t exactly call him “nice”.’
‘Do you like him?’
‘I don’t think you “like” Morse. He’s not that sort of person, really.’
‘But you get on well with him?’
‘Usually. You see-well, he’s the most remarkable man I’ve ever met, that’s all.’
‘He must think you’re a remarkable man-if he works with you all the time, I mean.’