The Riddle Of The Third Mile

by Colin Dexter

  ‘Continent mostly, sir-and Greece.’

  ‘You think it’s all those topless beaches, perhaps?’

  For a few seconds the young porter leered as though he were about to produce a dirty postcard from one of the innumerable pigeon-holes, but he quickly resumed his dignity. ‘I wouldn’t know about that, sir.’

  ‘What about Dr Browne-Smith? Is he still away?’

  ‘I’ve not seen him in college since we had a note from him… and then we had a-just a minute.’He went over to his desk and returned to the ‘Enquiries’ window with a sheaf of papers. In spite of having to read them upside-down, Morse was able to read some of the messages clearly: ‘Professor M. Liebermann-back 6th August. All post to Pension Heimstadt, Friederichstrasse 14, Zurich’; ‘Mr G. Westerby-off to Greece until end of August. Keep all mail at the Lodge’; ‘Dr Browne-Smith…’

  ‘Here we are, sir.’

  Morse took the handwritten sheet and read the few words: ‘Away untill further notice no forwarding adress.’ Mentally deleting an T, inserting a ‘d’, and introducing a major stop into mid-message, Morse handed the sheet back. ‘Phone message, was it?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Yesterday, I think it was-or Tuesday.’

  ‘You took it yourself?’

  The porter nodded.

  ‘It was Dr Browne-Smith who rang?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  ‘You know him well?’

  The young man shrugged. ‘Pretty well.’

  ‘You’d recognize his voice all right?’

  ‘Well-’

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘More than three months now.’

  ‘Just let me have the key to his rooms, will you?’ Morse pointed peremptorily to a bunch of keys hanging beside the pigeon-holes, and the porter did as he was told.

  The book-lined room to which Morse admitted himself was shady and silent as the grave. Everywhere there were signs of the academic pursuits to which Browne-Smith had devoted his life: on the desk, a large stack of typescript of what appeared to be a forthcoming opus on Philip, father of Alexander the Great, and scores of photographs, slides, and postcards; on a bookcase beside the desk a marble bust of a sombre-featured Cicero; on the few square yards of the walls still free from books, many black-and-white photographs of temples, vases and statuary. But nothing untoward; nothing out of place.

  Leading off this main room were two other rooms: one a bleakish-looking, rather dirty WC; the other a small bedroom, containing a single bed, hundreds more books, a white washbasin and a large mahogany wardrobe. The door of the wardrobe creaked noisily as Morse opened it and looked vaguely along the line of suits and shirts. He told himself he should have brought a tape-measure, but he accepted the fact that usually such forward-planning was quite beyond him. Apart from patting a few pockets, his only other interest appeared to lie in a very large selection of socks, whence he abstracted a brand-new pair and stuffed them in his pocket.

  Back in the main room, his eyes wandered along the shelves and into the alcoves (failing to observe the small cooking-ring); but again he seemed mildly satisfied. He picked up a virgin sheet of paper, flicked it into the portable typewriter which stood beside the typescript, and clumsily tapped his way through the leap of the lazy, brown fox over the something or other. Morse couldn’t quite remember it all, but he knew he’d got most of the letters included.

  As he closed the door behind him (forgetting to re-lock it), he felt a few more sudden jabs in his lower jaw; and, although that unsettled July had at last turned hot and sunny, he pulled his scarf round his throat once more as he stood on the wide, wooden landing. He looked around him, first up the stairs, then down them; then across to the room immediately opposite, where the name G. D. Westerby was printed above the door. Yes! He had seen that name ten minutes ago in the Porters’ Lodge; and the owner of that name was, at that very moment, sunning himself on some Aegean island, surely. Yet the door stood slightly open, and Morse stepped silently across the landing and listened.

  There was someone there. For a few seconds Morse felt a childlike shudder of fear, but only (he told himself) because of his recent prying in the quiet rooms behind him. Anyway, it would only be some staircase-scout doing a bit of tidying up, dusting… But suddenly the rustling noises ceased, succeeded by the more reassuring clean-cut metallic clacks of hammer upon nails; and Morse felt better. Pushing open the door he saw a room very similar to the one he had just left, except that tea-chests and packing crates (most of them with address labels already attached) were bestrewn over almost the whole of the carpet-area, in the midst of which a youth of no more than sixteen or seventeen, dressed in a khaki overall, was inexpertly fixing a lid to one of the wooden crates. As Morse came in, the youth looked up; but only it seemed from curiosity, for he promptly returned to his amateurish hangings.

  ‘Excuse me, is Mr-er-Westerby in?’

  ‘On holiday, I think,’ said the spotty-faced youth.

  ‘I’m -er-one of his colleagues. I was very much hoping to catch him before he went.’ This explanation appeared unworthy of further comment, for the youth merely nodded and drove yet another nail askew into the wooden lath.

  Almost exactly the same layout of rooms as opposite-even the similar positioning of the working desk, with a similar pile of typescript, and exactly the same model of portable typewriter. And Morse knew in a flash what he was about to do, although he had almost no idea of why he did it.

  ‘I’ll just leave a note for him, lad, if you’ll let me through.’

  From his pocket he took out the sheet he had just typed, and put the lazy, brown fox through his faltering paces once more.

  ‘Your firm’s moving the old boy, I see.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Lot of stuff-he always kept a lot of stuff.’

  ‘Books!’ (Clearly the youth had as yet no great respect for literature.)

  The crate that was in the process of being lidded was doubtless packed with objects that were eminently breakable, since three quarters of its contents appeared to be wrapped in crumpled newspaper. And there was another crate, alongside, presumably designated for a similar purpose, with a battalion of cut-glass objects, still unwrapped, surrounding it on the carpet. But other objects had already been deposited in this second crate-bulkier objects; and one in particular that lay snugly in the middle, swathed in past editions of The Times. It was about the shape of a medium-sized goldfish bowl, almost the size of a-yes!-almost the size of a head.

  ‘I’m glad to see you’re being careful with the old boy’s valuables,” Morse heard himself saying as he knelt down beside this crate and, with a shaking hand, touched the packaged article, where his probing fingers soon felt the configurations of a human nose and a human mouth.

  ‘What’s this?’ he managed to ask.

  The youth looked across at him. ‘Mr Gilbert told me to be very careful about that.’

  ‘Who’s Mr Gilbert?’

  ‘I’m Mr Gilbert!’

  Morse almost panicked as he turned to the door and saw a man of about sixty, perhaps-grey-flannelled and shirt-sleeved, with a pair of gold-rimmed, half-glasses on his nose, and a pair of no-nonsense eyes behind them. But there was something else about him-the first thing that anyone would notice: for, like Morse, he wore a scarf that draped his lower jaw.

  ‘Hullo, Mr Gilbert. I’m – ah – one of Westerby’s colleagues here. He asked me to look in from time to time to see, you know, that the stuff was being stowed away carefully.’

  ‘We’re looking after that all right, sir.’

  ‘He’s got some valuable things here-’

  ‘Have no fears, sir! We’re looking after everything beautifully.’ With agility he picked his way across the room and stood above the still-kneeling Morse. ‘You know we get more fusspots in this business, especially with the women-’

  ‘But some of this stuff-well, you just couldn’t replace it, could you?’

  ‘No?’ Mr Gilbert’s tone sounded too
knowledgeable for Morse to demur. I’ll tell you one thing, sir. Almost all my clients would prefer to collect their insurance money.’

  ‘Perhaps so.’ Morse rose to his feet, and as he did so Gilbert’s shrewd eyes seemed to measure him for crating, like some melancholy undertaker surveying a corpse for coffining. ‘It’s just that he asked me-’

  ‘Look around and check up, sir! We’re only too anxious to give every satisfaction-aren’t we, Charlie?’

  The young assistant nodded. ‘Yes, Mr Gilbert.’

  Almost involuntarily Morse’s eyes were drawn down once again to the head in the unlidded crate, and Gilbert’s eyes were following.

  ‘He’s all right. Don’t worry about him, sir. Took us a good ten minutes to put him to bed.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Morse weakly.

  ‘You want me to-?’ There was annoyance in Gilbert’s face.

  Morse nodded.

  If it had taken ten minutes to put this particular valuable finally to rest, it took less than ten seconds to resurrect it. And it was a head, a marble head of Gerardus Mercator, the Flemish geographer- a head chopped off at the neck, like the head of the man who had been dragged from the canal out at Thrupp.

  A somewhat foolish-looking Morse now hastened to take his leave, but before doing so he sought briefly to mitigate the awkward little episode. He addressed himself to Gilbert: “You’re a fellow sufferer, I see.’

  For a second or two Gilbert’s eyes looked puzzled – suspicious almost. ‘Ah-the scarf-yes! Abscess. But the dentist won’t touch it. What about you, sir?’

  So Morse told him, and the two men chatted amiably enough for a couple of minutes. Then Morse departed.

  From the window, Gilbert watched Morse as he walked towards the Lodge.

  ‘How the hell did he get in?’

  ‘I must have left the door open.’

  ‘Well, you’re going to have to learn to keep doors shut in this business – understand? One of the first rules of the trade, that is. Still, you’ve not been with us long, have you?’

  ‘Month.’ The youth looked surly, and Gilbert’s tone was deliberately softer as he continued.

  ‘Never mind -no harm done. You don’t know who he is, do you?’

  ‘No. But I saw him go into the room opposite, then I heard him come out again.’

  ‘Opposite, eh?’ Gilbert opened the door, and looked out. ‘Mm. That must be Dr Browne-Smith, then.’

  ‘He said he was a friend o’ this fella here.’

  ‘Well, you believed him, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah – course.’

  ‘As I say, though, we can’t be too careful in this job, Charlie. Lots of valuables around. It’s always the same.’

  ‘He didn’t take anything.’

  ‘No, I’m sure he didn’t. He-er-just sort of looked round, you say?’

  ‘Yeah, looked around a bit- said he wanted to leave a message for this fella, that’s all.’

  ‘Where’s the message?’ Gilbert’s voice was suddenly sharp.

  ‘I dunno. He just typed-’

  ‘He what?’

  The unhappy Charlie pointed vaguely to the portable. ‘He just typed a little note on that thing, that’s all.’

  ‘Ah, I see. Well, if that’s all-’ Gilbert’s face seemed to relax, and his tone was kindly again. ‘But look, my lad. If you’re going to make a success of this business, you’ve got to be a bit cagey, like me. When you’re moving people, see, it’s easy as wink for someone to nip in the property and pretend he’s a relative or something. Then he nicks all the silver- and then where are we? Understand?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So. Let’s start being cagey right away, OK? You be a good lad, and just nip down to the Lodge, and see if they know who that fellow was in here. It’ll be a bit of good experience for you.’

  Without enthusiasm, Charlie went out, and for a second Gilbert walked over to the window, and waited until the young apprentice was out of sight. Then he put on a pair of working gloves, picked up the portable typewriter and crossed the landing. He knew that the door opposite was unlocked (since he had already tried it on his way up), and very swiftly he entered the room and exchanged the typewriter he carried for the one on Dr Browne-Smith’s desk.

  Gilbert was kneeling by one of the crates, carefully repacking the head of Gerardus Mercator, when a rather worried-looking Charlie returned.

  ‘It was the police.’

  ‘Really?’ Gilbert kept his eyes on his work. ‘Well, that’s good news. Somebody must have seen you here and thought the college had a burglar or something. Yes-that explains it. You see, lad, there aren’t many people in the colleges this time of year. They’ve nearly all gone, so it’s a good time for burglars, understand?’

  Charlie nodded, and was soon attaching an address label to the recently lidded crate: G. D. Westerby, Esq., Flat 6, 29 Cambridge Way, London, WC1.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Thursday, 24th July

  Preliminary investigations are now in full swing, and Morse appears unconcerned about the contradictory evidence that emerges.

  It might perhaps appear to the reader that Morse had come off slightly the worse in the exchanges recorded in the previous chapter. But the truth is that after a late pub lunch Morse returned to his office exceedingly, satisfied with his morning’s work, since fresh ideas were breeding in profusion now.

  He was still seated there, deep in thought, when three quarters of an hour later the phone rang. It was the police surgeon.

  ‘Look, I’ll cut out the technicalities. You can read ‘em in my report-and anyway you wouldn’t be able to follow ‘em. Adult, male, Caucasian; sixtyish or slightly more; well nourished; no signs of any physical abnormality; pretty healthy except for the lungs, but there’s no tumour there-in fact there’s no tumour or neoplasm anywhere-we don’t call it cancer these days, you know. By the way, you still smoking, Morse?’

  ‘Get on with it!’

  ‘Dead before immersion-’

  ‘You do surprise me.’

  ‘-and probably curled up a bit after death.’

  ‘He was carried there, you mean?’

  ‘I said “probably”.’

  ‘In the boot of a car?’

  ‘How the hell do I know!’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Dismembered after death-pretty certain of that.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ mumbled Morse.

  ‘And that’s almost it, old man.’

  Morse was secretly delighted with these findings, but for the moment he feigned a tone of disappointment. ‘But aren’t you going to tell me how he died? That’s what they pay you for, isn’t it?’

  As ever, the surgeon sounded unperturbed. Tricky question, that. No obvious wounds -or unobvious ones for that matter. Somebody could have clobbered him about the head -a common enough cause of death, as well you know. But we haven’t got a head, remember?’

  ‘Not poisoned?’ asked Morse more quietly.

  ‘Don’t think so. It’s never all that easy to tell when you’ve got your giblets soaked in water.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Drop of Scotch there, Morse. But, after all, there’s a drop of Scotch in most – by the way, Morse, you still boozing?’

  ‘I’ve not quite managed to cut it out.’

  ‘And some kippers. You interested in kippers?’

  ‘For breakfast?’

  ‘He’d had some, yes. But whether he’d had ‘em for breakfast-’

  ‘You mean he might have had the Scotch for breakfast and the kippers for lunch?’

  ‘We live in a strange world.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘As I said, that’s almost the lot.’

  With huge self-gratification, Morse now prepared to launch his Exocet. ‘Well, thanks very much, Max. But if I may say so I reckon somebody at your end – I’m sure it isn’t you! – deserves a hefty kick up the arse. As you know, I don’t pretend to be a pathologist myself but- ‘

  ‘I said it was
“almost” the lot, Morse, and I know what you’re going to say. I just thought I’d leave it to the end -you know, just to humour an old friend and all that.’

  ‘It’s that bloody arm I’m talking about!’

  ‘Yes, yes! I know that. You just hold your horses a minute! I noticed you looking down at that arm, of course, almost as if you thought you’d made some wonderful discovery. Discovery? What? With that bloody great bruise there? You don’t honestly think even a part-time hospital porter could have missed that, do you?’

  Morse growled his discomfiture down the phone, and the surgeon proceeded placidly.

  ‘Funny thing, Morse. You just happened to be right in what you thought-not for the right reasons, though. That contusion on the left arm, it was nothing to do with giving blood. He must have just knocked himself somewhere-or somebody else knocked him. But you were right, he was a blood donor. Difficult to be certain, but I examined his arms very carefully and I reckon he’d probably had the needle about twenty to twenty-five times in his left arm; about twelve to fifteen in his right.’

  ‘Mm.’ For a few seconds Morse was silent. ‘Send me the full report over, please, Max.’

  ‘It won’t help much.’

  ‘I’ll decide that, thank you very much.’

  ‘What do I do with the corpse?’

  ‘Put it in the bloody deep-freeze!’

  A few minutes later, after slamming down the phone, Morse rang Lonsdale and asked for the college secretary.

  ‘Can I help you?’ She had a nice voice, but for once it didn’t register with Morse.

  ‘Yes! I want to know whether the college had kippers for breakfast on Friday llth July.’

  ‘I don’t know. I could try to find out, I suppose.’

  ‘Well, find out!’ snapped Morse.

  ‘Can I ring you back, sir?’ She was obviously distressed, but Morse was crudely adamant.

  ‘No! Do it now!’

  Morse heard a hectic, whispered conversation at the other end of the line, and eventually a male voice, defensive but quite firm, took over.

  ‘Andrews, here. Perhaps I could help you. Inspector.’