by Colin Dexter
Mr Quinn. I can't do all the cleaning this afternoon because Mr Evans is off sick and I've got to get him a prescription from the doctor. So I'll call back and finish just after six if that's convenient for you. A. Evans (Mrs)
Morse handed the note over to Lewis. 'Interesting.'
‘How long do you think he's been dead, sir?'
Morse looked down at Quinn once more and shrugged his shoulders. 'I dunno. Two or three days, I should think.'
'It's a wonder someone didn't find him earlier.'
‘Ye-es. You say he just has these downstair rooms?'
'So Mrs Jardine says. There's a young couple living upstairs usually, but she's in the John Radcliffe having a baby, and he works nights at Cowley and he's been staying with his parents in Oxford somewhere.'
'Mm.' Morse made as if to leave, but suddenly stopped. The bottom of the door had been amateurishly planed to enable it to ride over the carpet and a noticeable draught was coming beneath it, occasionally setting the low, blue gas jets flickering fitfully into brighter yellow flames.
'Funny, isn't it, Lewis? If I lived in this room I wouldn't choose the armchair immediately in line with the draught.'
‘Looks as if he did, air.'
‘I wonder, Lewis. I wonder if he did.'
The front-door bell rang and Morse sent Lewis to answer it. Tell 'em they can start as soon as they like.' He walked out of the room and through into the kitchen at the back of the house. Again, everywhere was tidy. On a red Formica-topped table stood a stack of recently purchased provisions: half a dozen eggs in their plastic containers £ lb butter; £ lb English Cheddar; two generous slices of prime steak under a cellophane wrapper; and a brown-paper bag full of mushrooms. Beside the groceries was a curling pay-out slip from the Quality supermarket, and a flicker of excitement showed in Morse's grey eyes as he looked it through.
‘Lewis!'
Nothing else here looked particularly interesting: a sink unit, a gas cooker, a fridge, two kitchen stools, and by the side of the back door, filling the space under the stairs, a small larder. Lewis, who had been chatting to the police surgeon, appeared at the door. 'Sir?'
‘What's going on in there?'
‘Doc says he's been poisoned.'
'Amazing thing - medical science, Lewis! But we've got other things to worry about for the minute. I want you to make a complete inventory of the food in the fridge and in this larder here.'
'Oh.' Lewis was almost thinking that a man of his own rank and experience should be above such fourth-grade clerical chores; but he had worked with Morse before, and knew that whatever other faults he had the Chief Inspector seldom wasted his own or other people's time on trivial or unnecessary tasks. He heard himself say he would get on with it - immediately.
‘I’m going back to the station, Lewis. You stay here until I get back.'
Outside, Morse found Dickson and Mrs Jardine standing beside the police car. 'I want you to drive me back to HQ, Dickson.' He turned to Mrs Jardine. ‘You've been very kind and helpful. Thank you very much. You've got a car?'
The landlady nodded and walked away. In truth, she felt disappointed that her small part in the investigation seemed now to be over, and that she had warranted no more than a cursory question from the rather abrupt man who appeared to be in charge. But as she drove away from the crescent her thoughts, soon veered to other, more practical considerations. Would anyone be over-anxious to move into the rooms so lately rented by that nice young Mr Quinn? People didn't like that sort of thing. But as she reached the outskirts of Oxford she comforted herself with the salutary thought that the dead are soon forgotten. Yes, she would soon be able to let the rooms again. Just give it a month or so.
Morse read the statement aloud to the youngish man seated rather nervously at the small table in Interview Room No I.
I Have known Nicholas Quinn for three months. He came to work at the Foreign Examinations Syndicate as an assistant secretary on 1st September this year.
On Monday, 24th November, he did not appear at the office and did not ring in to say that anything was wrong. It is not unusual for the graduates to take a day or two off when they can, but the Secretary, Dr Bartlett, always insists that he should be kept fully informed of any such arrangement. None of my colleagues saw Mr Quinn on Monday, and no one knew where he was. This morning, Tuesday, 25th November, Dr Bartlett came to my office and said that Mr Quinn had still not arrived. He said that he had tried to phone him, but that there was no reply. He then asked me to drive round to Mr Quinn's house and I did so, arriving at about 9.30 am. The front door was locked and no one answered the doorbell. I could see that Mr Quinn's car was still in the garage, so I proceeded to the back of the house. The light was on in the ground-floor room and the curtains were drawn; but there was a gap in the curtains and I looked inside. I could see someone lying quite still on the floor in front of the fireplace, and I knew that something was seriously wrong. I therefore rang the police immediately from the public call box in the main street, and was told to wait at the house until the police came. When Sergeant Lewis arrived with a constable, they discovered who owned the house. The landlady turned up with the key about ten minutes later. The police then proceeded into the house for a short while, and when Sergeant. Lewis came out he told me that I must prepare myself for a shock. He said that Mr Quinn was dead.
'You happy to sign this?' Morse pushed the statement across the table.
'I didn't use the word "proceeded".'
'Ah, you must forgive us, sir. We never "go" anywhere in the force, you know. We always "proceed".'
Donald Martin accepted the explanation with a weak smile and signed the statement with nervy flourish.
'How well did you know Mr Quinn, sir?'
‘Not very well really. He's only been with us—'
'So you say in your statement. But why did the Secretary send you - not one of the others?'
'I don't know. I suppose I knew him as well as any of them.'
'What did you expect to find?'
‘Well, I thought he was probably ill or something, and couldn't let us know.' 'There's a phone in the house.'
‘Yes, but it could have - well, it could have been a heart attack, or something like that.'
Morse nodded. 'I see. Do you happen to know where his parents live?'
'Somewhere in Yorkshire, I think. But the office could—'
'Of course. Did he have a girlfriend?'
Martin was aware of the Inspector's hard grey eyes upon him and his mouth was suddenly very dry. ‘Not that I know of.'
‘No pretty fillies he fancied at the office?'
'I don't think so.' The hesitation was minimal but, for Morse, sufficient to set a few fanciful notions aflutter.
'I'm told such things are not unknown, sir. He was a bachelor, I take it?'
‘Yes.'
‘You a married man, sir?' ‘Yes.'
'Mm. Perhaps you've forgotten what it's like to be single.' Morse would have been happier if Martin had told him not to talk such drivel. But Martin didn't.
'I don't quite see what you're getting at, Inspector.'
'Oh, don't worry about that, sir. I often don't know what I'm getting at myself.' He stood up, and Martin did the same, fastening his overcoat. ‘You'd better get back to the office, or they'll be getting worried about you. Tell the Secretary I'll be in touch with him as soon as I can - and tell him to lock up Mr Quinn's room.'
‘You've no idea—?' said Martin quietly.
'Yes, I'm afraid I have, sir. He was almost certainly murdered.' The sinister word seemed to hang on the air, and the room was suddenly and eerily still.
six
During the previous decade the Foreign Examinations Syndicate had thrown its net round half the globe; and for its hundred or so overseas centres the morning of Tuesday, 25th November, had been fixed for the 'retake' of the Ordinary-level English Language papers. For the vast majority of the foreign candidates involved, the morning afforded the chance of a sec
ond bite at the cherry; and such was the importance of a decent grade in English Language, either for future employment or for admission to higher education, that there were very few of the candidates who were treating the two ^question papers (Essay and Comprehension) with anything but appropriate respect. Only those few who had been ill during the main summer examination were taking the examination for the first time; the remainder were the 'returned empties' who, either through some congenital incapacity or a prior history of monumental idleness, had yet to succeed in persuading the examiners that they had reached a standard of acceptable competence in the skills of English usage.
At 11.55 a.m. this same morning, in strict accord with the explicit instructions issued by the examining body, invigilators in Geneva, in East and West Africa, in Bombay, and in the Persian Gulf, were reminding their candidates that only five minutes remained before scripts would be collected; that all candidates should ensure that their full names and index numbers appeared on each sheet of their work; and that all sheets must be handed in in the correct order. Some few candidates were now scribbling furiously and for the most part fruitlessly; but the majority were having a final look through their answers, shuffling their sheets into order, and then leaning back in more relaxed postures, shooting the occasional grin at fellow examinees who sat at desks (the regulation five-feet apart) in commandeered classrooms or converted gymnasia.
At twelve noon, in an air-conditioned, European-style classroom in the Sheikdom of Al-jamara, a young Englishman, who was invigilating his first examination, gave the order to 'stop writing'. There were only five pupils in the room, all Arabs, all of whom had finished writing several minutes previously. One of the boys (not a pupil of the school, but the son of one of the sheiks) had in fact finished his work some considerable time earlier, and had been sitting back in his chair, arms folded, an arrogant, self-satisfied smirk upon his dark, Semitic features. He was the last of the five candidates, and handed in his script without saying a word.
Left alone, the young Englishman filled in the inviligation form with great care. Fortunately, no candidate had failed to turn up for the examination, and the complexities of the sections dealing with 'absentees' could be ignored. In the appropriate columns he filled in the names and index numbers of the five candidates, and prepared to place the attendance sheet, together with the scripts, in the official buff-coloured envelope. As he did so his eyes fell momentarily upon the work of Muhammad Dubai, Index Number 5; and he saw immediately that it was very good - infinitely better than that of the other four. But then the sheik's son had doubtless had the privilege of high-class private tuition. Ah well. There would be plenty of opportunity for him to try to jack up the standards of his own pupils a bit before next summer ...
He left the room, licking the flap of the envelope as he did so, and walked through to the school secretary's office.
It was just after noon, too, that Morse returned to Pinewood Close. He made no effort to move on the curious crowd who thronged the narrow crescent, for he had never understood why the general public should so frequently be castigated for wishing to eye-witness those rare moments of misfortune or tragedy that occurred in their vicinity. (He would have been one of them himself.) He threaded his way past the three police cars, past the ambulance, its blue light flashing, and entered the house once more. There were almost as many people inside as outside. 'Sad thing, death,' said Morse.
'Mors, mortis, feminine,' mumbled the ageing police surgeon. Morse nodded morosely. ‘Don't remind me.' ‘Never mind, Morse. We're all dying slowly.' ‘How long's he been dead?'
‘Dunno. Could be four, five days - not less than three, I shouldn't think.'
‘Not too much help, are you?'
'I shall have to take a closer look at him.'
'Have a guess.'
‘Unofficially?'
‘Unofficially.'
‘Friday night or Saturday morning.'
'Cyanide?'
'Cyanide.'
‘You think it took long?'
‘No. Pretty quick stuff if you get the right dose down you.' 'Minutes?'
'Much quicker. I'll have to take the bottle and the glass, of course.'
Morse turned to the two other men in the room who had been brushing the likeliest-looking surfaces with powder. 'Anything much?'
'Seems like his prints all over the place, sir.' 'Hardly surprising.' 'Somebody else's, though.' The cleaner's, most likely.'
'Just the one set of prints on the bottle, sir - and on the glass.' 'Mm.'
'Can we move the body?'
'Sooner the quicker. I suppose we'd better go through his pockets, though.' He turned again to the surgeon. ‘You do it, will you, doc?'
‘You getting squeamish, Morse? By the way, did you know he wore a hearing aid?'
At one minute to two, Morse got to his feet and looked down at Lewis.
Time for another if you drink that up smartish.' 'Not for me, sir. I've had enough.'
'The secret of a happy life, Lewis, is to know when to stop and then to go that little bit further.' 'Just a half, then'
Morse walked to the bar and beamed at the barmaid. But in truth he felt far from happy. He had long since recognized the undoubted fact that his imagination was almost invariably fired by beer, especially by beer in considerable quantities. But today, for some reason, his mind seemed curiously disengaged; sluggish even. After the body had been removed he had spent some time in the downstairs front room, used by Quinn as a bedroom-cum-study; he had opened drawers, looked through papers and folders, and half-stripped the bed. But it had all been an aimless, perfunctory exercise, and he had found nothing more incriminating than the previous month's copy of Playboy; and it was whilst sitting on the uncovered mattress scanning a succession of naked breasts and crotches that Lewis, after completing his tedious inventories, had found him.
'Anything interesting, sir?'
‘No.' Morse had guiltily returned the magazine to the desk and fastened up his overcoat.
Just as they were about to leave, Morse had noticed the green anorak on one of the clothes pegs in the narrow hallway.
seven
Bartlett knew that the man had been drinking and found himself feeling surprised and disappointed. He had been expecting the call all the afternoon, but it had not come through until half past three. The four of them had been seated in his office since lunchtime (the red light on outside) talking in hushed voices amongst themselves about the shattering news. Graphically Martin had recounted again and again the details of his morning discovery, and had taken some muted pleasure, even in these grim moments, at finding himself, quite unprecedentedly, at the centre of his colleagues' attention. But invariably the conversation had reverted to the perplexing question of who had been the last to see Quinn alive - and where. They all agreed, it seemed, that it had been on Friday, but exactly when and exactly where no one seemed able to remember. Or cared to tell...
Monica Height watched the Inspector carefully as he came in, and told herself, as they were briefly introduced, that his eyes held hers a fraction longer than was strictly necessary. She liked his voice, too; and when he informed them that each would be interviewed separately, either by himself or by Sergeant Lewis (standing silently by the door), she found herself hoping that in her case it would be him. Not that she need have worried on that score: Morse had already mentally allocated her to himself. But first he had to see what Bartlett could tell him.
'You've locked Quinn's door, I hope, sir.'
‘Yes. Immediately I got your message.'
‘Well, I think you'd better tell me something about this place: what you do, how you do it, anything at all you think may help. Quinn was murdered, sir - little doubt about that; and my job's to find out who murdered him. There's just a possibility, of course, that his murder's got nothing at all to do with this place, or with the people here; but it seems much more probable that I may be able to find something in the office here that will give me some sort of lead. So, I'm
afraid I shall be having to badger you all for a few days - you realize that, don't you?'
Bartlett nodded. ‘We shall all do our best to help you, Inspector. Please feel completely free to carry out whatever inquiries you think fit.'
Thank you, sir. Now, what can you tell me?'
During the next half-hour Morse learned a great deal. Bartlett told him about the purpose, commitments, and organization of the Syndicate, about the personnel involved at all stages in the running of public examinations. And Morse found himself surprised and impressed: surprised by the unexpected complexities of the operations involved; and, above all, impressed by the extraordinary efficiency and grasp of the Pickwickian little Secretary sitting behind his desk.
‘What about Quinn himself?'
Bartlett opened a drawer and took out a folder. 'I looked this out for you, Inspector. It's Quinn's application for the job here. It'll tell you more than I can.'
Morse opened the folder and his eyes hurriedly scanned the contents: curriculum vitae, testimonials, letters from three referees, and the application form itself, across the top of which Bartlett had written: 'Appointed w.e.f. 1st Sept'. But again Morse's mind remained infuriatingly blank. The cogs in the machine were beginning to turn all right, but somehow they refused to engage. He closed the folder, defensively mumbling something about studying it later, and looked again at Bartlett. He wondered how that clear and supremely efficient mind would be tackling the problem of Quinn's murder, and it appeared that Bartlett could almost read his thoughts.
‘You know that he was deaf, don't you, Inspector?'
‘Deaf? Oh yes.' The police surgeon had mentioned it, but Morse had taken little notice.
‘We were all very impressed by the way he coped with his disability.'
