by Colin Dexter
‘You deny the charges then?'
'Charges? What charges? I'm not aware that you've made any charges.'
‘You deny that the sequence of events—'
'Of course, I deny it! Why the hell should anyone go to all that trouble—?’
'Whoever murdered Quinn had to try to establish an alibi. And he did. A very clever alibi. You see all the. indications in this case seemed to point to Quinn being alive on Friday evening, certainly until the early evening, and it was vital—'
'You mean Quinn wasn't alive on Friday evening?'
'Oh no,' said Morse slowly. 'Quinn had been dead for several hours.'
There was a long silence in the small room, broken finally by Roope. 'Several hours, you say?'
Morse nodded. 'But I'm not quite sure exactly when Quinn was murdered. I rather hoped you might be able to tell me.'
Roope laughed aloud, and shook his head in bewilderment. 'And you think I killed Quinn?'
That's why you're here, and that's why you're going to stay here - until you decide to tell me the truth.'
Roope's voice suddenly became high-pitched and exasperated. ‘But - but I was in London that Friday. I told you that. I got back to Oxford at four-fifteen. Four-fifteen! Can't you believe that?'
"No, I can't,' said Morse flatly.
‘Well, look, Inspector. Let's just get one thing straight. I don't suppose I could account for my movements - at least not to your satisfaction - from, let's say, five o'clock to about eight o'clock that night. And you wouldn't believe me, anyway. But if you're determined to keep me in this miserable place much longer, at least charge me with something I could have done. All right I I drove Quinn's car and did his shopping and God knows what else. Let's accept all that bloody nonsense, if it'll please you. But charge me with murdering Quinn as well At twenty past four - whenever you like, I don't care! Five o'clock.-Six o'clock. Seven o'clock. Take your pick. Bur for Christ's sake show some sense. I was in London until three o'clock or so, and I was on the train until it reached Oxford. Don't you understand that? Make something up, if you like. But please, please tell me when and how I'm supposed to have murdered the man. That's all I ask.'
As Lewis looked at him, Morse seemed to be growing a little less confident. He picked up the papers in front of him and shuffled them around meaninglessly. Something seemed to have misfired somewhere - that was for sure.
‘I’ve only got your word, Mr Roope' (it was Mr Roope now) ‘that you caught that particular train from London. You were at your publishers', I know that. We've checked. But you could—'
'May I use your phone, Inspector?'
Morse shrugged and looked vaguely disconsolate. 'It's a bit unusual, I suppose, but—'
Roope looked through the directory, rang a number, and spoke rapidly for a few minutes before handing the receiver to Morse. It was the Cabriolet Taxis Services, and Morse listened and nodded and asked no questions. 'I see. Thank you.' He put down the phone and looked across at Roope. 'You had more success than we did, Mr Roope. Did you find the ticket collector, too?'
‘No. He's had flu, but he'll be back at work this week sometime.’
‘You've been very busy.'
‘I was worried - who wouldn't be? You kept asking me where I was, and I thought you'd got it in for me, and I knew it would be sensible to try to check. We've all got an instinct for self-preservation, you know.'
‘Ye-es.' Morse ran the index finger of his left hand along his nose - many, many times; and finally came to a decision. He dialled a number and asked for the editor of the Oxford Mail’ 'I see. We're too late then. Page one, you say? Oh dear. Well, it can't be helped. What about Stop Press? Could we get anything in there? ... Good. Let's say er "Murder Suspect Released. Mr C. A. Roope (see page 1), arrested earlier today in connection with the murder of Nicholas Quinn, was released this afternoon. Chief Inspector—" What? No more room? I see. Well, it'll be better than nothing. Sorry to muck you about... Yes, I'm afraid these things do happen sometimes. Cheers.'
Morse cradled the phone and turned towards Roope. 'Look, sir. As I say, things like this do—'
Roope got to his feet. ‘Forget it! You've said enough for one day. Can I assume I'm free to go now?' There was a sharp edge on his voice.
‘Yes, sir. And, as I say ...' Roope looked at him with deep contempt as the feeble sentence whimpered away. 'Have you a car here, sir?'
‘No. I don't have a car.'"
'Oh no, I remember. If you like, Sergeant Lewis here will—' ‘No, he won't! I've had quite enough of your sickening
hospitality for one day. I'll bus it, thank you very much!' Before Morse could say more, he had left the room and was
walking briskly across the courtyard in the bright and chilly
afternoon.
During the last ten minutes of the interview Lewis had felt himself becoming progressively more perplexed, and at one
stage he had stared at Morse like a street-idler gaping at the village idiot. What did Morse think he was doing? He looked again at him now, his head down over the sheets of paper on the table. But even as Lewis looked, Morse lifted his head, and a strangely self-satisfied smile was spreading over his face. He saw that Lewis was watching him, and he winked happily.
twenty-six
The man inside the house is anxious, but reasonably calm. The phone rings stridently, imperiously, several times during the late afternoon and early evening. But he does not answer it, for he has seen the post-office van repairing (repairing!) the telephone wires just along the road. Clumsy and obvious. They must think him stupid. Yet all the time he knows that they are not stupid, either, and the knowledge nags away in his mind. Over and over again he tells himself that they cannot know, can only guess; can never prove. The maze would defeat an indefatigable Ariadne, and the ball of thread leads only to blind and bricked-up alleyways. Infernal phone! He waits until the importunate caller has exhausted a seemingly limitless patience, and takes the receiver off its stand. But it purrs - intolerably. He turns on the transistor radio at ten minutes to six and listens, yet with only a fraction of his conscious faculties, to the BBCs City correspondent discussing the fluctuations in the Financial Times index, and the fortunes of the floating pound. He himself has no worries about money. No worries at all.
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 count
er 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, lie'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.
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 No x 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?
In the corridor outside Lewis whispered briefly to Morse. ‘You were right, sir. It rang for two minutes. Noakes confirms it.'
'Excellent. I think it's time to make a move then, Lewis. Car outside?'
‘Yes, sir. Do you want me with you?'
‘No. You get to the car; we'll be along in a minute.' He walked along the corridor, knocked quietly on the door, and entered. She was sitting at her desk signing letters, but promptly took off her reading glasses, stood up, and smiled sweetly. 'Bit early to take me for a drink, isn't it?'
'No chance, I'm afraid. The car's outside -I think you'd better get your coat.'
The man inside does not go out this same Wednesday morning. The paper boy lingers for a few seconds as he puts The Times through the letter box, but no lucrative errand is commissioned this morning; the milkman delivers one pint of milk; the postman brings no letters; there are no visitors. The phone has gone several times earlier, and at twelve o'clock it goes again. Four rings; then, almost immediately it resumes, and mechanically the man counts the number of rings again - twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. The phone stops, and the man smiles to himself. It is a clever system. They have used it several times before.
The man outside is still waiting; but expectantly now, for he thinks that the time of reckoning may be drawing near. At 4.20 pm. he is conscious of some activity at the back of the house, and a minute later the man inside emerges with a bicycle, rides quickly away up a side turning, and in less than five seconds has completely disappeared. It has been too quick, too unexpected. Constable Dickson swears softly to himself and calls up HQ, where Sergeant Lewis is distinctly unamused.
The car park is again very full today, and Morse is standing by the window in the buffet bar. He wonders what would happen if a heavy snowshower were to smother each of the cars in a thick white blanket; then each of the baffled motorists would need to remember exactly where he had left his car, and go straight to that spot - and find it. Just as Morse finds the spot again through his binoculars. But he can see nothing, and half an hour later, at 5.15 pm., he can still see nothing. He gives it up, talks to the ticket collector, and learns beyond all reasonable doubt that Roope was not lying when he said he'd passed through the ticket barrier, as if from the 3.05 train from Paddington, on Friday, 21st November.
As he steps out of his front door at 9.30 a.m. the next day, Thursday, 4th December, the man who has been inside is arrested by Sergeant Lewis and Constable Dickson of the Thames Valley Constabulary, CID
Branch. He is charged with complicity in the murders of Nicholas Quinn and Philip Ogleby.
twenty-eight
The case was over now, or virtually so, and Morse had his feet up on his desk, feeling slightly over-bee red and more than slightly self-satisfied, when Lewis came in at 2.30 on Thursday afternoon. ‘I found him, sir. Had to drag him out of a class at Cherwell School - but I found him. It was just what you said.'
