Morse's Greatest Mystery

by Colin Dexter

The message had been typed on cheap thin paper with the signatory’s name written in light-blue Biro—“Marie,” the “i” completed in girlish fashion with a largish ring instead of the usual dot.

  But Mrs. S-G said nothing, and half an hour later I was on my way home—unobtrusively as ever.

  I had advertised to no one the fact that I was working as a part-time charwoman and I took care to be seen by as few people as possible.

  There were reasons for this. You will see.

  The following Monday I asked Mrs. S-G if I could vary my time slightly and start half an hour earlier.

  “Do you have to?” Her voice was contemptuous of the request.

  “It’s just that if I caught the earlier bus—”

  “Oh, don’t explain, for heaven’s sake! Do you have to?—that’s all I asked.”

  I said I did, and it was agreed that I should henceforth begin at 8:30 A.M.

  On Friday of that same week the postman called at 8:50 A.M., and three letters seemed to slither through the front door: a communication from British Telecom; a letter addressed to Mrs. S-G, marked “Strictly Private”; and a letter for Mr. S-G, the name and address written in light-blue Biro, the “i” of “Squitctley” completed in girlish fashion with a largish ring instead of the usual dot.

  Even as I picked up the letters I knew that my employer was just behind me.

  “Thank you. I’ll take them.”

  Her manner was offensively brusque. But I made no demur and continued wiping the skirting boards around the entrance hall.

  “I’m sorry,” I said (it was the following Wednesday), “but I shan’t be able to come on Friday.”

  “Oh?”

  “You see I’ve got to go to the ante-natal clinic …”

  “Don’t explain, for heaven’s sake. I thought I’d told you that before.”

  “You did, yes.”

  She said no more.

  Nor did I.

  The phone was seldom used at The Grange but that morning I heard her ring up someone from the conservatory.

  I stood close to the door and tried hard to listen but the only part of the proceedings I caught was “Saturday night …”

  My appointment at the hospital was for 10:30 A.M. but an emergency put the morning’s programme back by about an hour.

  During the wait I read a few articles from various magazines, including an interview with an old gardener now aged one hundred who claimed that for getting rid of dandelions there was nothing quite so effective as arsenic, a small quantity of which he always kept in his garden shed.

  Was it at this point I began to think of getting rid of Mrs. S-G? Along with the dandelions?

  I suppose I’d already pondered the problems likely to face unmarried mums. Problems so often caused by married dads.

  What really irks me more than anything, though, is all that sickening spiel they come up with. You know, about not wanting anyone to get hurt. Above all not wanting the little wife to get hurt.

  Hypocrites!

  It was my turn for receiving letters on the Thursday of the following week. Two of them.

  The first was from the hospital. I was fine. The baby was fine. I felt almost happy.

  The second was from the father of my child, with the postmark “Los Angeles.”

  Here’s the bit I want you to read:

  Haven’t you heard of women’s equal rights and responsibilities, you stupid girl? Yes, of course there’s such a thing as a condom. OK! And there’s also such a thing as the pill! What did you think you were playing at? But that’s all water under the bridge. Abortion’s the only answer. I’ll foot the bill on condition there’s a complete break between us. Things can’t go on like this. I land at Heathrow at lunchtime on Saturday 13th, so we can meet next Sunday. Let’s say the usual—twelve noon in the back room of the Bird and Baby. Please be there—for both our sakes.

  How nice and cosy that would be!

  And I would be there, perhaps.

  Yes, there was a chance that I would be there.

  The following day, Friday, was to be my last in employment as a cleaning lady, and that morning I put the finishing touches to my plan.

  Originally I had intended to kill only Mrs. S-G. But my terms of reference had now widened.

  That same afternoon I acted in an uncharacteristically careless way. I wrote a letter to my former employer:

  Dear Mrs. S-G

  I was grateful to you for employing me but I shall not be coming to work for you again.

  My circumstances have changed significantly in the past few days.

  I am sure you will not have any difficulty in finding a replacement.

  Yours

  Virginia

  It would have been tit-for-tat in the resignation-dismissal stakes. But I didn’t post the letter that day.

  Nor the next.

  Mrs. S-G however had clearly been better stocked with first-class stamps and her letter lay on the hall-mat the following morning, Saturday 13th, with mine still propped up against the Kellogg’s packet on the kitchen table.

  Dear Marie Lawson,

  Oh yes I do know your real name and I made no attempt to take up your bogus reference. At first I thought you were quite bright and I told you so. But in truth you must be as stupid as you obviously consider me to be. I was curious about why you’d applied and it amused me to offer you the job. So I watched you. And all the time you thought you were watching me! You see my husband told me all about your affair although I didn’t know you were pregnant. Nor, as it happens, do I believe you are. The charades with the note and the letter were prettily performed yet really quite unnecessary. I steamed open the letter as no doubt you wished me to in what (I have to assume) was your futile plan for bringing matters out into the open. I made a photocopy of the letter and forwarded your pathetic plea to America. I think the real reason for my writing—apart from giving you the sack—is to thank you for those two pieces of evidence you provided. I am informed by my lawyer that they will significantly expedite the divorce proceedings I shall be bringing against my husband. After that I expect my own life to turn into happier paths, and I trust that if I later re-marry I shall be more fortunate with my second husband than I was with the man who amused himself with a whole host of harlots besides yourself.

  V. Speneer-Gilbey (Mrs.)

  Stupid.

  Both of them had called me stupid.

  On that same Saturday night—or rather in the early hours of the Sunday morning—I waited with great patience for the light to be switched off in the master bedroom. (You remember it?)

  If they were not in the same bed at least they were in the same bedroom, since I had seen the two figures silhouetted several times behind the curtains.

  I further waited one whole hour, to the minute, before moving soundlessly along the side of the house and then into the rear garden where I stooped down beside the conservatory door.

  Good old Boswell! (Remember him?) I almost hoped he’d decided to sleep out in the open that night.

  I struck one of the extra-large Bryant & May matches. (Remember them?) And shielding the flame I pushed my hand slowly through the cat-flap.

  Behind the glass-panelled door I could see the loose sheets of paper (so carefully stacked) catching light almost immediately.

  No more than ten seconds later I felt rather than heard the sudden “whoosh” of some powerful updraught as a tongue of flame licked viciously at the items (so carefully stacked) beside the conservatory door.

  The colour of the blaze reminded me so very much of Boswell’s eyes.

  I departed swiftly via the front path before turning round fifty or so yards down the road.

  The window of the master bedroom was still in darkness. But at the rear of the house I had the impression that although it was still only 2:15 A.M. the rosy-fingered dawn was beginning to break already.

  * * *

  It was big news.

  Headlined in Monday’s edition of The Oxford Mail, for example,
I read:

  TWO DIE IN NORTH OXFORD INFERNO

  It seems unlikely that the burned-out shell of the listed thatch-and-timber property in Squitchey Lane (picture p. 2) will provide too many clues to the cause of the fire. The blaze spread with such rapid intensity that …

  My eyes skipped on to the next paragraph:

  The remains of two bodies, charred beyond all chance of recognition, have been recovered from a first-floor bedroom and it is feared that these are the bodies of Mr. J. Speneer-Gilbey and of his wife Valerie. Mr. Spencer-Gilbey had just returned from America where …

  But I wasn’t really interested about where.

  So I turned to look at the picture on page two.

  It hadn’t after all seemed worthwhile to turn up at the Bird and Baby the previous day. So I hadn’t gone.

  You can see why.

  The fire was still big (bigger) news in the Tuesday evening’s edition of The Oxford Mail:

  BLAZE MYSTERY DEEPENS

  The Oxford City Police were amazed to receive a call late yesterday evening from Heathrow. The caller was Mr. John Spencer-Gilbey who, it had been assumed, had perished with his wife in the fire which completely destroyed their home in Squitchey Lane, Oxford, in the early hours of Sunday morning.

  Mr. Spencer-Gilbey had been expected back in England on Saturday from a lecture tour in America. However it now appears that industrial action by air-traffic controllers on the western seaboard of America had effected the cancellation of the original flight, and Mr. Spencer-Gilbey told the police that he had earlier rung his wife to inform her of the rescheduling of his return to England.

  A police spokesman told our reporter that several aspects of the situation were quite extraordinarily puzzling and that further enquiries were being pursued. The police appeal to anyone who might have been in or near Squitchey Lane in the late evening of Saturday 13th or the early morning of Sunday 14th to come forward to try to assist in these enquiries. Please ring (0865) 266000.

  “… he had earlier rung his wife …”

  Yes.

  And he had also rung me.

  For a start I was tempted to “come forward” myself—over the phone and anonymously—with a tentative (hah!) suggestion about the identity of that second fire-victim.

  God rot his lecherous soul!

  But I shan’t make that call.

  One call I shall quite certainly make though. Once the dust, once the ashes have started to settle.

  You see, I think that a meeting between the two of us could possibly be of some value after all. Don’t you?

  And even as I write I almost hear the words that I shall use:

  “John? Sunday? The usual? Twelve noon in the back room of the Bird and Baby? Please be there!”

  Yes, John, please be there—for both our sakes …

  Part Three

  They flee from me, that sometime did me seek With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.

  (Sir Thomas Wyatt, Remembrance)

  Lewis came into Morse’s office just before four o’clock that afternoon.

  “Not much to report, sir. There’s a card on the notice-board there—looks as if it might be from a boyfriend.”

  “I saw it.”

  “And there’s this—I reckon it’s probably in the same handwriting.”

  Lewis handed over a postcard showing a caparisoned camel standing in front of a Tashkent mosque. On the back Morse read the brief message: “Travelling C 250 K E.”

  “What’s that all about, do you think, sir?”

  Morse shook his head: “Dunno. Probably the number of the aeroplane or the flight number or … something. Where did you find it, anyway?”

  “There was an atlas there and I was looking up that place—you know, Erzincan. The postcard was stuck in there. You know, like a sort of marker.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t you want to know where Erzincan is?”

  “No. I looked it up when I got back here.”

  “Oh.”

  With a glint of triumph in his eyes, Morse now picked up the pink folder containing the Sheila Poster story and quickly explained its provenance.

  “I want you to read this.”

  “What, now, sir?”

  “Did you think I meant on your summer holidays?”

  “I’m a slow reader, you know that.”

  “So am I.”

  “You want me to read it here?”

  “No. I’ve got things to be getting on with here. Go and have a sandwich. And take your time. Enough clues there to fill a crossword puzzle.”

  After Lewis had gone, Morse looked at his watch and started on The Times crossword.

  When, eleven minutes later, he filled in the four blanks left, in -E-S-I-, he knew he should have been quicker in solving that final clue: “Gerry-built semi is beginning to collapse in such an upheaval” (7).

  Not bad, though.

  A further hour passed before Lewis returned from the canteen and sat down opposite his chief.

  “Lot’s o’ clues, you’re right, sir. Probably made everything up, though, didn’t she?”

  “Not everything, not by a long chalk—not according to Diogenes Small.”

  “According to who, sir?”

  “To whom, Lewis—please!”

  “Sorry, sir. I’m getting better about spelling, though. She made one mistake herself, didn’t she?”

  “Don’t you start making things up!” Morse passed a handwritten list across the desk. “You just rope in Dixon and Palmer—and, well, we can get through this little lot in no time at all.”

  Lewis nodded: “Have the case sewn up before the pubs close.”

  For the first time that day there appeared a genuine smile on Morse’s face. “And these are only the obvious clues. You’ll probably yourself have noticed a good many clues that’ve escaped my notice.”

  “Temporarily escaped,” muttered Lewis, as he looked down at Morse’s notes:

  —Names (road, house, people): all phoney, like as not?

  —Gazette: same ad you found? check

  —Mr. X (potential father): an academic surely? lecture tour of USA?

  —Boswell: owners of this strange orange-eyed breed? check with the Cat Society

  —Publishers (OUP etc): any recent work known/ commissioned on Sir T W?

  —Ante-natal clinics: check—esp. JR2

  —Bird and Baby: check, with photograph

  “We should come up with something, I agree, sir. But it’s going to take quite a while.”

  “You think so?”

  “Well, I mean, for a start, is there such a thing as the Cat Society?”

  “That’s what you’re going to check up on, Lewis!”

  “Seven lots of things to check up on, though.”

  “Six!” Morse rose from his armchair, smiling happily once again. “I’ll check up on that last bit myself.”

  “But where are you going to get a photo from?”

  “Good point,” conceded Morse, allowing, in his mind, that occasionally it was perfectly acceptable to end a sentence with a preposition.

  At 10:15 P.M. Lewis rang Morse’s home number, but received no reply. Was the great man still immersed in his self-imposed assignment—with or without a photograph?

  In fact Morse was at that moment still sitting in the murder-room at 14 Jowett Place.

  His mind had earlier informed him that he had missed something there; and at 8:15 P.M. he had re-entered the property, assuring the PC guarding the front door that he wouldn’t be all that long.

  But nothing had clicked in that sad room. And the over-beered Morse had sat in the sole armchair there and fallen asleep—finally awakening half an hour after midnight, and feeling as rough (as they say) as a bear’s backside.

  The following morning Lewis reported on his failures, Dixon’s failures, Palmer’s failures; and Morse reported on his own failures.

  “You know this house business?” volunteered a rather subdued Lewis. “She’s very specifi
c about it, isn’t she? Listed building, thatched, timbered, conservatory at the back—couldn’t we try the Council, some of the upmarket estate-agents …”

  “Waste o’ time, I reckon.”

  “So? What do we do next?”

  “Perhaps we ought to look at things from the, er, the motivation angle.”

  “Doesn’t sound much like you, sir.”

  No, it wasn’t much like him—Morse knew that. He loved to have some juicy facts in front of him; and he’d never cared to peer too deeply down into the abyss of human consciousness. Yet there now seemed no alternative but to erect some sort of psychological scaffolding around Sheila Poster’s hopes and fears, her motives and mistakes … And only then to look in turn once more through each of the windows; once more to ask what the murdered woman was trying to tell everyone—trying to tell herself—in the story she had written.

  Morse sought to put his inchoate thoughts into words whilst Sergeant Lewis sat opposite and listened. Dubiously.

  “Let’s assume she’s had a fairly permanent job in the past—well, we know she has—but she’s been made redundant—she’s got hardly any money—everything she owns is just that bit cheap—she meets some fellow—falls for him—he’s married—but he promises to take her where the lemon trees bloom—she believes him—she carelessly gets herself pregnant—by chance she finds an advert his wife has put in the local rag—she goes to work there—she’s curious about the wife—jealous about her—she wants the whole situation out in the open—things turn sour though—lover-boy has second thoughts—he jilts her—the wife gives her the sack into the bargain—and our girl is soon nourishing a hatred for both of them—she wants to destroy both of them—but she can’t really bring herself to destroy the father of her child—so in her story she changes things a bit—and sticks the wife in bed with a lover of her own—because then her own lover, Sheila’s lover, will still be around, still alive—so there’ll always be the chance of her winning him back—but he’s bored with her—there’s some academic preferment in the offing perhaps—he wants to get rid of her for good—he’s prepared to play the faithful husband again—but Sheila won’t play ball—she threatens to expose him—and when he goes to see her she becomes hysterical—he sees red—he sees all the colours of the rainbow—including orange, Lewis—because he knows she can ruin everything—will ruin everything—and then he knifes her …”