the Jewel That Was Ours

by Colin Dexter

  'And she turned up, did she?' asked Morse.

  'Yes.' Brown appeared a fraction puzzled by the question. 'Oh, yes! I'd walked up St Giles' about two o'clock, and then down Keble Road to the Parks. And, well, there she was waiting for me.'

  'Then you went to Parson's Pleasure and sat in one of the cubicles.'

  'But you won't get me wrong, will you, Inspector? I want to set the record straight. We just had a quiet little kiss and cuddle together and - well, that was that, really.'

  'My only wish,' said Morse, looking now with somewhat irrational distaste at the remarkably well-preserved Lothario from Los Angeles, 'is to set, as you say, the record straight. So thank you for your honesty!'

  Brown stood up and prepared to leave. He looked, little doubt of it, considerably relieved, but clearly there was something on his mind, for he stood hesitantly beside the table, his eyes scouting around for some object upon which to focus.

  'There is one thing, Inspector.'

  'And that is?'

  'When I was walking up to Keble Road yesterday I saw someone standing at the bus-stop outside St Giles' Church, waiting to get up to Summertown. Well, I suppose it was Summertown.'

  'And who was that, sir?'

  'It was Mr Ashenden.'

  * * *

  'I just don't believe all this,' said Morse after Brown had gone. 'You mean you wonder who Ashenden saw, sir?' 'Exactly.'

  'He sounded as if he was telling the truth.'

  'They all do! But somebody isn't telling the truth, Lewis. Somebody stole the Wolvercote Tongue, and somebody murdered Kemp! If only I could find the connection!'

  'Perhaps there isn't a connection,' said Lewis.

  But he might just as well have been talking to himself.

  37

  Sic, ne perdiderit, rum cessat perdere lusor (To recoup his losses, the gambler keeps on backing the losers)

  (Ovid, Ars Amatoria)

  Ashenden, buttonholed as he was once again in the coffee-lounge by the diminutive dynamo from Sacramento, appeared only too glad to be given the opportunity of escaping, albeit to an interview with Chief Inspector Morse.

  'Do you always get one like that?' sympathised Lewis.

  'Well, she'd probably take the prize,' conceded Ashenden with a weary grin. 'But Janet's not such a bad old stick sometimes - not when you get to know her.'

  'Makes you wonder how anyone ever married her, though.'

  Ashenden nodded as he walked through into the Bar-Annexe: 'Poor chap!'

  With this next hand (Ashenden), Morse took no finesses at all. Just played off his aces and sat back. Question: Why had Ashenden lied about his visit to Magdalen? Answer: It wasn't a lie really. He had gone up to Magdalen College, asked at the Porters' Lodge, discovered the grounds were closed; then just carried on walking over the bridge, around the Plain, and back again down the High. Silly to lie, really. But it was only to avoid any tedious and wholly inconsequential explanation. Question: What about the previous afternoon, at about 2 p.m.? (Morse admitted his willingness to listen to a little more 'tedious and wholly inconsequential explanation'.)

  'No secret, Inspector. In fact I'd told a couple of the group - Mr and Mrs Rronquist, I think it was - that I was going up to Summertown.'

  'Why bother? Why explain? You're a free agent, aren't you, sir?'

  Ashenden pondered the question awhile. 'I did realise, yesterday, that you perhaps weren't completely satisfied with the account of my whereabouts when, er—'

  'The Wolvercote Tongue was stolen,' supplied Morse.

  'Yes. That's why it seemed no bad idea for somebody to know where I was yesterday afternoon.'

  'And where was that?'

  Ashenden, looking decidedly uncomfortable, drew a deep breath: 'I spent the afternoon in the betting-shop in Summertown.'

  Lewis looked up: 'Not a crime, that, is it?'

  Morse seemed to appreciate the interjection: 'Surely Sergeant Lewis is right, sir? Certainly it's not a criminal offence to line a bookie's pockets.'

  Ashenden suddenly seemed more relaxed: 'I had a tip. I met this fellow from Newmarket when we were at The University Arms in Cambridge. He said be sure to back this horse - over the sticks at Fontwell Park.'

  'Go on.'

  'Well, that's it, really. I picked another horse, in the race before - I'd got to the bookie's at about half-past two, I suppose. I put three pounds to win on a horse in the two-fifty, and then five pounds to win on the "dead cert" this fellow had told me about in the three-fifteen or three-twenty - something like that.'

  'How much did you win?'

  Ashenden shook his head sadly: 'I don't think you can be a racing man, Inspector.'

  'Would they have records at the bookie's to show you'd been there, sir?'

  It was Lewis who had asked the question, and Ashenden turned in his chair to face him: 'Are you suggesting I wasn't there?'

  'No, sir. Certainly not. But it was the key sort of time,

  wasn't it? Three o'clock time? Just the time when Dr Kemp was getting back to Oxford.'

  'Yes,' replied Ashenden slowly. 'I take the point.'

  'Would anyone recognise you,' continued Lewis, 'if you went there again?'

  T don't know. There were quite a few there during the afternoon - eight, ten - more, perhaps, for some of the time, some of the races. But whether anyone would recognise me ...'

  'They'd have your betting-slips, surely?' suggested Morse.

  'Oh yes - they'd keep those - if the horses had won.'

  'Bit of bad luck you didn't pick a winner, then. You could have collected your winnings and proved your alibi both at the same time.'

  'Life's full of disappointments, Inspector, as I'm sure—' Suddenly he stopped; and his eyes lit up as he withdrew a black-leather wallet from the breast-pocket of his sports jacket. 'With a bit of luck . . . Yes! Thank goodness! I thought I might have torn them up.'

  'They tell me betting-shops are littered with torn-up betting-slips,' said Morse, as he looked down at the two pink slips that Ashenden had handed to him.

  'You might just as well tear those up as well, Inspector, I'm afraid.'

  'Oh, no, sir. We mustn't destroy any evidence, must we, Lewis?'

  Ashenden shrugged, and seemed for the moment somewhat less at ease. 'Anything else?'

  'I think not,' said Morse. 'But it's a mug's game, betting, you know. A dirty game, too.'

  'Perhaps you should go into a betting-shop yourself one day. It's quite a civilised business, these days—'

  But Morse interrupted the man, and his eyes were ice. 'Look, lad! Once you've lost as much money as me on the horses - then you come and give me a sermon on gambling, all right?' He flicked his right hand in dismissal. 'And tell your coach-driver he can leave at five o'clock. That should please everybody. It's only thirty-seven or thirty-eight miles to Stratford - and Lewis here once managed it in half an hour.'

  38

  The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day: Now spurs the lated traveller apace To gain the timely inn

  (Shakespeare, Macbeth)

  On the coach, as it headed north up the Woodstock Road, and thence out on to the A34, the members of the touring party were mostly silent, their thoughts monopolised perhaps by the strange and tragic events they had left behind them in Oxford. What tales they would be able to tell once they got back home again! John Ashenden, seated alone in the front nearside seat, debated with himself about reaching for the microphone and saying a few words about Somerville College, the Radcliffe Infirmary, the Tower of the Winds, the large, late nineteenth-century redbrick residences, St Edward's School. . . But he decided against it: the mood was not upon him - nor upon anyone else in the coach, as far as he could gather.

  Opposite him, in the seat immediately behind the driver, sat a sour-faced Mrs Roscoe, her nicely shaped little nose stuck deep into the text of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Immediately behind him sat Howard and Shirley Brown, silent and sombre, each thinking thoughts that were quite impossible for any obs
erver to ascertain - even for the two of them themselves fully to comprehend. And behind the Browns, the enigmatic Kronquists, now the only other married couple registered on the tour, reluctant, it seemed, to engage in even the most perfunctory of conversations: she now reading Lark Rise to Candleford; he, the Good Beer Guide (just published) for 1991. At the back, as if distanced to the utmost from the woman who ab initio had publicly sought to claim him as escort, friend, and guide, sat Phil Aldrich, slowly reading the evening's edition of The Oxford Mail. Nor had the sudden coolness between himself and Mrs J. Roscoe escaped most of the other tourists; indeed, this development was proving one of the few topics of conversation as the coach accelerated along the dual carriageway towards Woodstock.

  Only two of the party that had arrived at The Randolph, some fifty hours earlier, were no longer in their original seats - the seats immediately behind Mrs Roscoe. One of these missing persons was still lying (lying still, rather!) in the police mortuary in St Aldate's; the other person, with Morse's full permission, had that afternoon departed by train for London, not stopping on this occasion (as he had claimed to have stopped earlier) at Didcot Parkway, but travelling straight through - past Reading, Maidenhead, Slough - to Paddington, whence he had taken a taxi to the Tour Company HQ in Belgravia in order to discuss the last wishes and the last rites of his erstwhile legal spouse, Mrs Laura Mary Stratton.

  As the coach pulled powerfully up the hill away from Woodstock, Ashenden once again looked slightly anxiously at his watch. He had rung through to the Swan Hotel in Stratford to set a revised time of arrival at 6.15 p.m.; but by the look of things it was going to be, in Wellington's words, 'a damn close-run thing'. Yet he made no attempt to harass the driver into any illegitimate speed. They'd arrive a little late? So what! Twenty-six plates of 'Mousse Arbroath Smokies' were already laid out, they'd said - with just the single carrot juice for just the single Vegan girl.

  Was Inspector Morse (Ashenden pondered) quite the man most people seemed to think he was? A man with a mind that might have left even the mythical Mycroft just floundering a fraction? Ashenden doubted it, his doubt redoubling as the coach drew further and further away from Oxford along the A34.

  Everything would be all right.

  39

  I feel like I done when Slippery Sun Romped 'ome a winner at 30 to 1

  (A. P. Herbert, 'Derby Day')

  From the street-window of the coffee-lounge, Morse and Lewis had watched them go.

  'Think we shall be seeing any of them again, sir?'

  'No,' said Morse flatly.

  'Does that mean you've got some idea—?'

  'Ideas, plural, Lewis! We've seldom had so many clues, have we? But I can't help feeling we've missed all the really vital ones—' Morse broke off and resumed the drift of his earlier thought. 'It's this wretched love business - and I still think that Kemp was killed because he had one too many fancy woman.'

  'I know I keep on about Mrs Kemp, sir, but don't you think we ought—'

  Morse ignored the interruption. 'Why was he naked? I thought for a start it was because moving the dead body might have been a very messy business. Max said there'd have been buckets of blood, and if someone's going to get it all over a suit, or a dress . . . It's a possibility, Lewis. Or he may have been stripped to delay any identification, I suppose. The longer delayed it is—'

  '—the more difficult it gets for us to disprove an alibi.'

  Morse nodded. 'But I don't think it was either of those reasons.'

  'You think he was making love to a lady?'

  'Well, a woman, Lewis. And since we know that woman wasn't likely to have been his wife because she'd . . . well, because of the car crash, we've got to decide who it could have been. Just think a minute! We get the husband, or whoever the jealous party was, bounding into the boudoir and catching 'em copulating. Who was she, though? I can't for the life of me see how it could have been Sheila Williams he was with . . . No, we've got to look down the race-card for some attractive, available, acquiescent filly - and the likeliest filly is surely—'

  Suddenly Morse stopped, his mind once more six furlongs ahead of the field. He had bought a copy of The Times before he had come to The Randolph that morning, but hitherto had not even glanced at the headlines:. Now he looked again at the two betting-slips that lay on the table in front of him; then turned to the back of the Business section for the Sport, his eye running down the results of the previous day's racing at Fontwell Park. Ashenden's stake in the 2.50 race, £3 win on Golden Surprise, had contributed further, it appeared, to the luxurious life-style of the bookmaking fraternity. But as Lewis now saw them, Morse's eyes seemed to grow significantly in circumference as they fell upon the result of the 3.15:

  1 THETFORD QUEEN (J. Francis) 30-1

  'Bloody 'ell!' whispered Morse. 'Sir?'

  'Ashenden backed a horse yesterday - a horse he said someone in Cambridge had tipped - he put a fiver on it - and it won! Thetford Queen. There! - it's on the betting-slip.'

  'Whew! That means he's got a hundred and fifty pounds coming to him.'

  'No. He didn't pay any tax on it, so he'd only get one hundred and forty back - including his stake.'

  'I didn't realise you knew quite so much about the gee-gees, sir?'

  But again Morse ignored the comment: 'He says he was there, Lewis - in the betting-shop. He's put his money on the hot tip, and the thing wins, and ... he doesn't pick up his winnings!'

  Lewis considered what Morse was saying, and shook his head in puzzlement. Surely Ashenden would have gone up to the Pay-Out desk immediately, if he'd been there - especially since that was the only time he was going to be in the betting-shop. And if for some strange reason he'd been misinformed, been told that the horse had lost, then it was difficult to see why he'd kept the slips so carefully in his wallet. Why not tear them up like everyone else and contribute to the litter found on every bookie's floor?

  Morse interrupted Lewis's thoughts: 'Shall I tell you exactly what our leader was doing in the betting-shop? Establishing his alibi! If you've backed a couple of horses, and if you'll be gone the next day, you stay there like everybody else and listen to the commentaries. But if you pick a couple of complete no-hopers, rank outsiders, well, there's no need to stay, is there? Look at the odds on Golden Surprise! 50-1! So Ashenden spent eight quid of his money in order to buy himself an alibi.’

  'Bit of bad luck the horse won, if you see what I mean, sir.'

  'Where did he go, though?'

  'Well he can't be that "jealous husband" you're looking for.'

  'No, but he went somewhere he didn't want anyone to know about. I just wonder whether it might have been somewhere like—'

  The Manager walked swiftly through: 'Can you come to the phone, Inspector? Very urgent, they say.' It was Max.

  'Morse? Get over here smartish! Bloody Hell! Christ!'

  'Tell me, Max,' said Morse softly.

  'Mrs Kemp, that's what! Tried to cross the nighted ferry; might've made it but for a district-nurse calling unexpectedly.'

  'She's not dead?'

  'Not yet.'

  'Likely to be?’

  'Oh, I couldn't say.'

  'For God's sake, Max!' ‘Not even for His.'

  Morse had never seen Mrs Marion Kemp, but from the marriage photograph that hung in the living room he realised that she must once have been quite a vivacious woman: dark, curly hair; slim, firm figure; and curiously impudent, puckish eyes. She had already been removed to the Intensive Care Unit at the JR2, but in the bedroom there seemed quite sufficient evidence that she had planned a deliberate departure. A brown-glass bottle of sleeping pills stood capless and empty on the bedside table, and beside it, lying on the top of a Georgette Heyer novel, was a short, soberly legible (though unsigned) note:

  40

  He

  That kills himself to avoid misery, fears it, And, at the best, shows but a bastard valour

  (Philip Massinger, The Maid of Honour)

  Morse and M
ax stood for a few moments silently just outside the front door of the Kemp residence. Nothing, as both men knew, could be quite as sombre and sickening as a suicide (or, as here, an attempted suicide), for it spoke not only of unbearable suffering but also of a certain misguided fortitude. Morse had looked quickly round the flat but had found nothing much to engage his interest.

  'Let's try to keep her alive, if we can, Max,' he said quietly.

  'Out of my hands, now.'

  'Fancy a glass of Brakspear? Only just along the road here.'

  'No time, dear boy! Presumably you consider the Henley branch of the Brakspear family to be greater benefactors than that St Albans fellow?'

  ‘Wha—?' For a few seconds even Morse was lost a little; but then he grinned acknowledgement: 'You're a cultured sod.'

  'You know, Morse,' panted Max as he eased his overweight frame into his car, 'I've always thought of myself more as a Renaissance man, actually.'

  He was gone, and Morse looked around the area somewhat fecklessly. A maintenance man, with a garden fork and wheelbarrow, was tending the herbaceous border that stretched along the frontage of the flats and, in response to Morse's question, he said he was one of a small team that looked after the three blocks of flats that stood on the eastern side of Water Eaton Road. And yes, he'd been working there for several days. Had he seen anyone coming in, during the afternoon of the previous day? After three o'clock, say? But the man, looking to Morse far too young to have graduated with any glory from a landscape-gardening apprenticeship, shook his head dubiously.

  'Difficult, innit? I mean, I was out the back most o' the time. There were some people comin' in, I remember, but they'd probably bin shoppin' and that, 'adn't they?'

  'You saw this man?' Morse held up the photograph of Theodore Kemp which he had just removed from the living room. Clearly it had been taken several years earlier, but it showed, even then, the supercilious cast of a face which had looked into the camera with head held well back, and lips that seemed to smile with a curious arrogance above the Vandyke beard.