The man outside the house continues to watch. Already he has been watching for over three and a half hours, and his feet are damp and cold. He looks at his luminous watch: 5.40 p.m. Only another twenty minutes before his relief arrives. Still no movement, save for the shadow that repeatedly passes back and forth across the curtained window.
If sleep be defined as the relaxation of consciousness, the man inside the house does not sleep that night. He is dressed again at 6 am. and he waits. At 6.45 am. he hears the clatter of milk-hordes in the darkened road outside. But still he waits. It is not until 7.45 a.m. that the paper boy arrives with The Times. It is still dark, and the little business is speedily transacted. Uncomplicated; unobserved.
The man outside the house has almost given up hope when at 1.15 p.m. the door opens and a man emerges and walks unhurriedly down towards Oxford. The man outside switches to 'transmission' and speaks into his mobile radio. Then he switches to 'reception', and the message is brief and curt: 'Follow him, Dickson! And don't let him see you!'
The man who had been inside the house walks to the railway station, where he looks around him and then walks into the buffet, orders a cup of coffee, sits by the window, and looks out onto the car park. At 1.35 a car drives slowly past — a familiar car, which turns down the incline into the car park. The automatic arm is raised and the car makes for the furthest corner of the area. The car park is almost full. The man in the buffet puts down his half-finished coffee, lights a cigarette, puts the spent match neatly back into the box, and walks out.
At 2.00 p.m. the young girl in the maroon dress can stand it no longer. The customers, too, though they are only few, have been looking at him queerly. She walks from behind the counter and taps him on the shoulder. He is not much above medium height. 'Excuse me, sir. Bu' have you come in for a coffee, or somethin'?'
'No. I'll have a cup o' tea, please.' He speaks pleasantly, and as he puts down his powerful binoculars she sees that his eyes are a palish shade of grey.
It is just after five when Lewis gets home. He is tired and his feet are like ice.
'Are you home for the night?'
'Yes, luv, thank goodness! I'm freezing cold.'
'Is that bloody man, Morse, tryin' to give you pneumornia, or somethin'?'
Lewis hears his wife all right, but he is thinking of something else, 'He's a clever bugger, Morse is. Christ, he's clever! Though whether he's right or not. ' But his wife is no longer listening, and Lewis hears the thrice-blessed clatter of the chip pan in the kitchen.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
IN THE SYNDICATE building on Wednesday morning, Morse told Bartlett frankly about the virtual certainty of some criminal malpractice in the administration of the examinations. He mentioned specifically his suspicions about the leakage of question papers to Al-jamara, and passed exhibit № 1 across the table.
3rd March
Dear George,
Greetings to all at Oxford. Many thanks for your
letter and for the Summer examination package.
All Entry Forms and Fees Forms should be ready
for final despatch to the Syndicate by Friday
20th or at the very latest, I'm told, by the 21st.
Admin has improved here, though there's room
for improvement still; just give us all two or three
more years and we'll really show you! Please
don't let these wretched 16+ proposals destroy
your basic O- and A-pattern. Certainly this
sort of change, if implemented immediately,
would bring chaos.
Sincerely yours,
Bartlett frowned deeply as he read the letter, then opened his desk diary and consulted a few entries. 'This is, er, a load of nonsense — you realize that, don't you? All entry forms had to be in by the first of March this year. We've installed a minicomputer and anything arriving after—'
Morse interrupted him. 'You mean the entry forms from Al-jamara were already in when that letter was written?'
'Oh yes. Otherwise we couldn't have examined their candidates.'
'And you did examine them?'
'Certainly. Then there's this business of the Summer examination package. They couldn't possibly have received that before early April. Half the question papers weren't printed until then. And there's something else wrong, isn't there, Inspector? The 20th March isn't a Friday. Not in my diary, anyway. No, no. I don't think I'd build too much on this letter. I'm sure it can't be from one of our—'
'You don't recognize the signature?'
'Would anybody? It looks more like a coil of barbed wire—'
'Just read down the right-hand side of the letter, sir. The last word on each line, if you see what I mean.'
In a flat voice the Secretary read the words aloud: 'your — package — ready — Friday—21st — room — three — Please — destroy — this — immediately.' He nodded slowly to himself. 'I see what you mean, Inspector, though I must say I'd never have spotted it myself. You mean you think that George Bland was—'
'—was on the fiddle, yes. I'm convinced that this letter told him exactly where and when he could collect the latest instalment of his money.'
Bartlett took a deep breath and consulted his diary once more. 'You may just be onto something, I suppose. He wasn't in the office on Friday 21st.'
'Do you know where he was?'
Bartlett shook his head and passed over the diary, where among the dozen or so brief, neatly-written entries under 21st March Morse read the laconic reminder: 'GB not in office.'
'Can you get in touch with him, sir?'
'Of course. I sent him a telegram only last Wednesday — about Quinn. They'd met when—'
'Did he reply?'
'Hasn't done yet.'
Morse took the plunge. 'Naturally I can't tell you everything, sir, but I think you ought to know that in my view the deaths of both Quinn and Ogleby are directly linked with Bland. I think that Bland was corrupt enough to compromise the integrity of this Syndicate at every point — if there was money in it for him. But I think there's someone here, too, not necessarily on the staff, but someone very closely associated with the work of the Syndicate, who's in collaboration with Bland. And I've little doubt that Quinn found out who it was, and got himself murdered for his trouble.'
Bartlett had been listening intently to Morse's words, but he evinced little surprise. 'I thought you might be going to say something like that, Inspector, and I suppose you think that Ogleby found out as well, and was murdered for the same reason.'
'Could be, sir. Though you may be making a false assumption. You see, it may be that the murderer of Nicholas Quinn has already been punished for his crime.'
The little Secretary was genuinely shocked now. His eyebrows shot up an inch, and his frameless lenses settled even lower on his nose, as Morse slowly continued.
'I'm afraid you must face the real possibility, sir, that Quinn's murderer worked here under your very nose; the possibility that he was in fact your own deputy-secretary—Philip Ogleby'
Lewis came in ten minutes later as Morse and Bartlett were arranging the meeting. Bartlett was to phone or write to all the Syndicate members and ask them to attend an extraordinary general meeting on Friday morning at 10 a.m.; he was to insist that it was of the utmost importance that they should cancel all other commitments and attend; after all, two members of the Syndicate had been murdered, hadn't they?