Morse's Greatest Mystery

by Colin Dexter

  “Just you bear in mind all the adverse publicity we’re getting about ‘confessions under duress,’ OK? We’ve got to tread carefully, you know that.”

  It was still only four o’clock, yet already the afternoon had darkened into early dusk.

  “Can you guess, sir, why Dr. Grainger was so worried about me interviewing his wife?”

  “He probably thought you were a bit crude, Lewis—preferred a sensitive soul like me. And by the way, don’t forget that there are few in the Force more competent at that sort of thing than me.”

  “You can’t think of any other reason?”

  “You obviously can.”

  Lewis savoured his moment of triumph. “Did you see the wedding-photo just now—the one Dr. Grainger had on the bureau?”

  “Well, yes—at a distance.”

  “Beautiful woman, Mrs. Grainger—very beautiful.”

  “Taken quite a few years ago, that photo—she’s probably changed since then.”

  “No! You’re wrong about that, sir.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I met her very recently. Met her yesterday morning, in fact. In the Westgate Library. She told me her name was Wendy Allsworth. But it isn’t, sir. It’s Sylvia Grainger.”

  “Extraordinary!” said Morse, his voice strangely flat.

  “You don’t sound all that surprised.”

  “Just tell me one thing. When you took the statement from—from Mrs. Grainger, do you think she knew about the murder?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You didn’t tell her?”

  “No. So unless they planned things—”

  “Very doubtful!” interposed Morse.

  “—Bayley must have rung her up early that morning.”

  “Do you think he told her?”

  “I don’t think so. If she’d known it was a murder enquiry … No, I don’t think he told her.”

  “I agree. She was prepared to go a long way—did go a long way. Not that far, though.”

  Lewis hesitated. “You’ll excuse me for saying so, but as I said you don’t sound very surprised about all this.”

  “What? Of course I am. From where I sat I couldn’t have recognized the Queen if she’d been in that photo. The old eyes are not as sharp as they were.”

  “You knew, though, didn’t you?” asked Lewis quietly.

  “Not all of it, no,” lied Morse.

  Yet Lewis’s silence was saddeningly eloquent, and Morse finally nodded. Then sighed deeply.

  “I’ve always told you, Lewis, haven’t I? The person who finds the body is going to be your prime suspect. That’s always been my philosophy. It’s compulsive with these murderers—they want their victim found. It’d send ’em crackers if the body lay undiscovered somewhere for any length of time.”

  “So?” asked Lewis dejectedly.

  “So! So I had Bayley brought in this morning—this lunchtime.”

  “While I was with the builder.”

  “Yes. And Bayley continues to be detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.”

  “You interviewed him yourself?”

  “Yes. And I just told you, there’s no one in the Force so firmly and fairly competent as me—not in that line of business.”

  Lewis was smiling wryly now—first nodding, then shaking his head. He might well have known …

  He nodded towards the Graingers’ home: “Shall we go and take her in as well?”

  “Actually she’s, er, she’s already helping with our enquiries.”

  Lewis almost exploded. “But you can’t—you can’t mean …”

  “I do, yes. I had Bayley tailed and he went out to meet Sylvia Grainger—in the bar at The Randolph—about a quarter to twelve, that was. She’d told her husband she was going to her sister’s for a few hours. That’s what she said. So! So there’s really not much point in us sitting here freezing any longer, is there?”

  Lewis turned the key in the ignition, the Jaguar spurted into life, and the two detectives now sat silently side by side for several minutes as they drove back down into Oxford.

  It was Lewis who spoke first: “You know, it really is nonsense what you say, sir—about the first person finding the body. I just don’t know where the evidence is for that. And then you say it’s ‘compulsive’—didn’t you say that?—for murderers to want the body found. But some of ’em take enormous time and trouble for the body never to be found.”

  “You’re right, I agree. I was exaggerating a bit.”

  “So what did make you think it was Bayley? There must have been something.”

  “It’s all these wretched crosswords I do. You meet some odd words, you know. The first time I saw Bayley in his room I thought what a great big fat-arsed sod he was. And then, this morning, I read Sheila Poster’s story again—and well, things went sort of ‘click.’ You remember that long word Sheila Poster used—about the odd-job man? Mind you, she was an English graduate.”

  Lewis did remember, but only vaguely; he’d look it up once they got back to HQ.

  “It was always going to be a straightforward case,” continued Morse. “We’d have been sure to find out where Bayley had been working, sooner or later.”

  “ ‘Sooner or later,’ ” repeated Lewis. “And for once I thought it was me who was sooner. It’s just like I said: I’ve got a second-class mind—I’m just like a second-class—”

  “Ah! That reminds me. Just pull in here a minute, will you?”

  Lewis turned into a slip-road alongside a row of brightly lit shops just before the Thames Valley Police HQ buildings.

  “Where exactly—?”

  “Here! Here’s fine.”

  Morse jabbed a finger to the left, and Lewis braked outside a sub post-office.

  “Just nip in and get me a book of stamps, please.”

  “First- or second-class?” For some reason Lewis was feeling reasonably happy again.

  “No need to go wild, is there? I’ll have one book of second-class, all right? These days they get there almost as quickly as first, you know that.”

  Morse had been pushing his hands one after the other into the pockets of overcoat, jacket, trousers—seemingly without success.

  “You’ll never believe it, Lewis, but …”

  “I think I will, sir. Remember what that fellow Diogenes Small wrote about people’s flights of imagination?”

  “You’ve been soaring up there yourself, you mean?”

  “Not quite, no. All I’m saying is it wouldn’t take a detective to see what you’re trying to tell me.”

  “Which is?”

  “You haven’t got any money.”

  “Ah!”

  Morse looked down silently at the car-mat; and Lewis, now smiling happily, opened the driving-seat door of the Jaguar, and was soon to be seen walking towards the premises of the sub post-office in Kidlington, Oxon.

  MONTY’S

  REVOLVER

  Women sometimes forgive those who force an opportunity, never those who miss it.

  (Talleyrand)

  It wasn’t often that Professor Rawlins bothered her with his personal letters. Occasionally, though—like this afternoon; and like yesterday afternoon, come to think of it. But he always insisted on putting his own stamps on such letters, never allowing them through the Department’s franking-machine. Bit too obviously self-righteous, she thought. She glanced at the tiny gold watch (a wedding present) on her left wrist: almost a quarter to five. TGFF. Thank God For Friday!

  Rawlins took off his half-glasses, pinched the top of his nose, turned over a page of his desk diary, lit another cigarette, and looked across at Carol Summerson.

  “Professor Smithson’s coming on Monday morning. Will you nip out first thing and get me a bottle of Glenfiddich?”

  Carol made a note, closed her shorthand book, uncrossed her elegant legs, and smiled as she looked at him. And he, half smiling himself, looked back across at her; and she felt pleasingly surprised. (Or was it surprisingly pleased?) Th
ere had been so few moments of real communication between them during the three months she’d been working for him—the man she’d more than once heard described as “the cleverest fellow in Oxford.”

  She was glad to get out of his office, though. He would never open the window and the smell in the room was invariably horrid. How she wished he’d stop smoking! (John never smoked, thank goodness.) How old was he? Sixty? Overweight, and with a chest that sounded like a loose-strung harp, he was just the sort to die before his time from heart trouble or lung cancer or chronic bronchitis or emphysema—or like as not the whole lot of them listed on his death certificate. Why didn’t his wife do something about him, for Christ’s sake?

  “Good night, sir,” she heard herself say; and for a moment she fancied that she’d almost like to look after him herself.

  John was waiting for her, sitting on his wife’s swivel-chair and turning over the papers that lay on her desk. (He always picked Carol up on Fridays.) While she was out in the cloakroom, he looked through a few more recent carbons, each neatly stapled to its originating letter. One carbon in particular caught his eye:

  Dear Jack,

  Glad you still remember me and—yes!—I still keep the old collection going. But anything that belonged to Monty is sure to spark off some keen bidding—all a bit too high for me. As you say, though, the reserve price seems fair enough.

  How long is it since we met? Seven—eight years? Marion died six years ago—malignant tumour. Not unexpected, but all desperately sad and very upsetting for the boys. I remarried two years later, and since then I’ve had another son!—and another!!—and another!!! Do you know the odds against a penny coming down six times on the trot?

  If you’re ever near Oxford, let me know. I promise not to show you round the Department.

  Sincerely yours,

  Carol looked at her husband as she re-entered her office. At twenty-two, he was a year younger than herself; yet in many ways since their marriage two years previously, he’d shown himself the more mature, the more dependable, of the two. There had been a few patches of squabbling—mostly her fault; and the one continuing sadness … But she was glad she’d married him.

  That, at least, is what Carol Summerson was telling herself that December afternoon.

  “You reading my boss’s correspondence again?”

  He nodded.

  “Interesting?”

  “Not really.”

  As she unhooked her coat from the wall-cupboard, John glanced quickly at the originating letter, stapled behind the carbon he had just been reading. A letterhead announced a “J. Wingate, Gunsmith,” with an address in Guildford, the letter itself reporting the forthcoming auction of a revolver that had belonged to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery—reserve price £3,000.

  “I didn’t know he was interested in revolvers,” said John, unlocking the nearside door to the Metro.

  “I’ve told you before. You shouldn’t read—”

  “Didn’t mind, did you?”

  “Course not!” She brushed her full lips against his cheek as she fastened her safety-belt.

  “His big hobby. One of the girls went to his house once when he’d got bronchitis or something and she said he’d got all these revolvers like in cases sort of thing hanging round the walls. Not very nice really, is it? You’d think that with all those young children—”

  She stopped suddenly and a silence fell between them.

  At 5:20 P.M. Rawlins locked the door of his office and left the Department. Florence (at thirty-two, exactly half his age) would have the fish all ready. TGFF. Thank God For Florence!

  That night, for no immediately apparent reason, Frank Rawlins dreamed of Carol Summerson.

  It was just before 11 A.M. the following Monday that Smithson arrived. Carol was not introduced to him, but from her adjacent room she could hear his voice; could hear, too, the occasional gurgle of Glenfiddich and the clink of the office glasses. Just over an hour later, after the pair of them had walked past her window, she entered Rawlins’s office, took the two glasses, washed them out in the ladies’ loo, and bent down to put them back in the cupboard beside the bottle—now empty.

  “Hello!”

  She hadn’t heard him come back in, and she felt slightly confused as he steered her by the elbow into her own office.

  “Don’t you think it’s about time I treated my confidential secretary to lunch?”

  He looked—and sounded—surprisingly sober; and she felt flattered. Soon he was holding her coat ready, and she was slipping her arms into the sleeves.

  Easily.

  He was interesting—no doubt about that. He told her of the time he and Smithson had worked together in a VD clinic in Vienna; and as he reminisced of this and other experiences Carol felt herself enriched, and newly important.

  “Another?”

  “I’ve had enough, thank you.”

  “Nonsense!” He picked up her glass and made his slightly unsteady way to the bar once more.

  Her third gin-and-tonic tasted strong. Nice, though! Was it a double? His own drink looked very much like the orange juice he’d promised himself; and after he’d left her to visit the gents’ she took a sip of it: it tasted even more strongly of gin than hers.

  “We’d better be getting back, sir.”

  “Yes.”

  “Thanks for a lovely lunch.”

  “Carol! I’ve had a lot to chink—you know that. But I just want you to know how ver’ much I’d like to go to bed with you this afternoon.”

  Carol’s heart sank.

  “Don’t be silly! Come on, let’s get back!”

  He was hurt, she knew that; a bit ashamed, too. And as they walked back he tried so very hard to sound his usual sober self.

  That night Carol Summerson dreamed of Frank Rawlins.

  Erotically.

  * * *

  Carol’s raise came through in mid-January, and she was thrilled.

  “I’m ever so grateful, sir.”

  “You deserve it.”

  “Will you come out one day and have lunch with me?”

  “When?”

  “Whenever you’re free.”

  “Today?”

  “Today!”

  She saw to it that he drank almost all the wine, and she insisted on buying him a glass of brandy after their meal. They were sitting close together now, and gently she moved her right leg against the rough tweed of his trousers. And, just as gently, he responded, saying nothing, yet saying everything.

  “Another brandy?” she ventured.

  Rawlins looked down at his empty glass, and smiled a little sadly.

  “Have you ever thought how wonderful it would be to have a quiet, civilized little place all to yourself where—”

  He stopped, and there was a long silence between them before Carol spoke softly in his ear.

  “But I’ve got a nice little place out at Wheatley. You see, John’s away for a few days …”

  Seven weeks later, Carol’s GP told her that she was quite definitely pregnant.

  On the Friday evening of that same week, John Summerson called as usual to collect his wife. It was quarter to five—exactly so—when he walked through into Rawlins’s office and sat down in the chair that his wife had just vacated.

  Over his glasses, Rawlins’s eyes registered puzzlement: it was as though a new boy had just strolled into the Masters’ Common Room.

  “Can I help you? John—isn’t it?”

  “You had sex with my wife.” Summerson spoke quietly, firmly—defying all denial.

  “Where on earth did you get such—?”

  “You’re lying!”

  “Look here! You can’t be serious—”

  “She’s pregnant!”

  “But you can’t—”

  “I watched you!” hissed Summerson.

  “But you—”

  “Shut up! I’m not the father. I can never be a father. You do understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”

  “Yes,”
answered Rawlins softly.

  “Did you enjoy it?” The young man’s eyes were blazing with a terrible anguish.

  “I just—”

  “Shut up!”

  Rawlins sank back in his chair, his shoulders sagging.

  “I’m redundant now,” continued Summerson. “They gave me £3,000 for the five years I worked there. There’s not much you can do with £3,000, is there, Professor?”

  Rawlins closed his eyes and thought of his sons and thought of Florence and thought of himself, too: he knew exactly what £3,000 might possibly have bought.

  When he opened his eyes he saw the revolver in Summerson’s right hand—a British Enfield .380, Number 2, Mark 1, the wooden stock a dirty nicotine-brown, the gunmetal of the fluted barrel as clean and gleaming as a polished stone. Summerson swivelled the revolver round until it pointed straight at Rawlins’s heart, and his finger squeezed the trigger until the hammer lifted to the limit of the catch.

  “Pretty accurate, they tell me, at such close range as this, Professor!”

  Rawlins said nothing, his eyes seemingly mesmerized as he stared at the cylinder-chamber. But now the revolver was no longer pointing at him; for with slow deliberation Summerson turned it round upon himself and brought the tip of the shining barrel up against his own right temple, where the index finger of his right hand finally exacted that minimal extra pressure on the double-action trigger, and the hammer drove against the cylinder-chamber.

  The children had eaten half an hour previously, and Florence Rawlins looked down sadly at the juiceless fillet that lay beneath the low-burning grill. Why couldn’t Frank be more thoughtful?

  Six o’clock.

  Ten past.

  Twenty past.

  At half-past six she rang his private office number, but there was no reply.

  “Fine! Fine!” The young gynaecologist had repeated. “No problems. Now you’ll promise not to smoke, won’t you?” “I promise.” Of course she wouldn’t smoke! Her thoughts drifted back happily to Rawlins … With a father like Rawlins, it would surely be a boy—and pretty certainly a clever little boy, at that! She’d longed to be a mother ever since she’d been a young girl, when she’d played incessantly, obsessively almost, with her dollies—dressing them, combing their lank locks, bending their stiff joints before propping them up against the backs of chairs …