Colin Dexter - The Daughters of Cain

‘And she’s got nothing to lose,’ added Morse more sombrely.

‘Not much, no.’

‘So your money’s on her, is it?’

Lewis hesitated. ‘You know, sir, in detective stories there are only two rules really, aren’t there? It’s never the butler; and it’s never the person you think it is. So — so I’ll go for Mrs Brooks.’

‘Leaving me with Mrs Stevens.’

‘You’d have gone for her anyway, sir.’

‘You think so?’

But Lewis didn’t know what he was thinking, and changed the subject.

‘Did you have any lunch earlier, sir?’

‘Not even a pint,’ complained Morse, lighting a cigarette.

‘You’re not hungry?’

‘A bit.’

‘What about coming back and having a bite with us? The missus’d be only too glad to knock something up for you.’

Morse considered the proposition. ‘What do you normally have on Fridays? Fish?’

‘No. It’s egg and chips on Fridays.’

‘I thought that was on Wednesdays.’

Lewis nodded. ‘And Mondays.’

‘You’re on,’ decided Morse. ‘Give her a ring and tell her to peel another few spuds.’

‘Only one thing, sir — as I said. We’re in a bit of a pickle at home, I’m afraid — with the decorators in.’

‘Have you got the beer in, though? That’s more to the point, surely.’

It was Lewis himself who took the call from the fingerprint bureau half an hour later. No match. No match anywhere. Whoever it was who had left some fingerprints on the Rhodesian knife, it had not been Mrs Brenda Brooks or Mrs Julia Stevens; nor, as they’d already learned, Ms Eleanor Smith. One other piece of information. Classifying and identifying fingerprints was an immensely complicated job and they couldn’t be absolutely sure yet; but it was looking almost certain now that the fingerprints on the knife-handle didn’t match those of any known criminals either — well over two million of them — in the Scotland Yard library.

‘So you see what it means, Sarge? Whoever murdered your fellow doesn’t look as if he had any previous conviction.’

‘Or she ,’ added Lewis, after putting down the phone.

There was no need to relay the message, since a glum-looking Morse had heard it all anyway.

In silence.

A silence that persisted.

The report that Lewis had written on the visit to Matthew Rodway’s mother was on the top of Morse’s pile.

‘Hope I didn’t make too many spelling mistakes, sir?’ ventured Lewis finally.

‘What? No, no. You’re improving. Slowly.’

‘I don’t suppose she gives tuppence really — Mrs Rodway, I mean — about who killed Brooks. So long as somebody did.’

Morse grunted inarticulately. His thoughts drifted back to their meeting with Mrs Rodway. It seemed an age ago now; but as his eyes skimmed through the report once again he could clearly visualize that interview, and the room, and the slim and still embittered Mrs Rodway…

‘I know it’s probably nonsense, sir, but you don’t think that she could have murdered Brooks, do you?’

‘She had as good a motive as anybody,’ admitted Morse.

‘Perhaps we ought to have another little ride out there and take her fingerprints.’

‘Not today, Lewis. I’m out for a meal, if you remember.’

‘I’ll see you there, sir, if you don’t mind. About six, is that all right?’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Lots of little things. Make a bit more progress with the keys, for a start. I’m expected at the Pitt Rivers in twenty minutes.’

After Lewis had left, Morse lit yet another cigarette and leaned back in the black leather chair, looking purposelessly around his office. He noticed the thin patina of nicotine on the emulsioned walls. Yes, the place could do with a good wash-down and redecoration: the corners of the ceiling especially were deeply stained…

Suddenly, he felt a brief frisson of excitement as if there were something of vital importance in what he’d just read, or what he’d just thought, or what he’d just seen. But try as he might, he was unable to isolate the elusive clue; and soon he knew it was of no use trying any more.

It had gone.

Her first sentence, spoken with an attractive Welsh lilt, was a perfect anapaestic pentameter:

‘We shall have to eat here in the kitchen, Inspector, all right?’

‘Wherever, Mrs Lewis. Have no fears.’

‘We’ve got the decorators in, see? But just go and sit down in the lounge — where I’ve put out some beer and a glass.’ (Anapaestic hexameter.)

As he passed the dining-room, Morse stopped to look inside. The decorators had finished for the day; almost finished altogether, it seemed, for only around the main window were some paint-stained white sheets still lying across the salmon-pink carpet, with all of the furniture now pushed back into place except for a bookcase, which stood awkwardly in mid-room, a wooden step-ladder propped up against it. Clearly, though, there would be no problem about its own relocation, either, for the site of its former habitation was marked by an oblong of strawberry-red carpet to the left of the window.

Mrs Lewis was suddenly behind him.

‘You like the colour?’

‘Very professionally painted,’ said Morse, a man with no knowledge whatsoever of professionalism in painting and decorating.

‘You were looking at the carpet, though, weren’t you now?’ she said shrewdly. ‘Only had it five years — and they told us the colours in all of their carpets would last till eternity.’ (Anapaests everywhere.)

‘I suppose everything fades,’ said Morse. It hardly seemed a profound observation — not at the time.

‘It’s the sun really, see. That’s why you get most of your discolouration. In the cupboards — on the lining for the cupboards — you hardly get fading at all.’

Morse moved on into the lounge where he opened a can of Cask Flow Beamish, sat contentedly back in an armchair, and was watching the Six o’Clock News when Lewis came in.

‘You look pleased with yourself,’ said Morse.

‘Well, that’s two more of the keys accounted for: that second Yale opens the staff entrance door at the back of the Pitt Rivers, just off South Parks Road; and that little “X 10” key — remember? — that’s a Pitt Rivers key, too: it’s a key to a wall-safe there that’s got rows and rows of little hooks in it, with a key on each of ’em — keys to all the display-cabinets.’

Morse grunted a perfunctory ‘Well done!’ as he reverted his attention to the news.

Mrs Lewis produced a slightly unladylike whistle a few minutes later: ‘On the table, boys!’

Morse himself had acquired one culinary skill only — that of boiling an egg; and he was not infrequently heard to boast that such a skill was not nearly so common as was generally assumed. But granted that Morse (in his own estimation) was an exemplary boiler of eggs, Mrs Lewis ( omnium consensu ) was a first-class frier ; and the milkily opaque eggs, two on each plate, set beside their mountains of thick golden chips, were a wonderful sight to behold.

As Morse jolted out some tomato sauce, Lewis picked up his knife and fork. ‘You know, sir, if they ever find a body with an empty plate of eggs and chips beside it—’

‘I think you mean a plate empty of eggs and chips, Lewis.’

‘Well, I reckon if the fingerprints on the knife don’t match any of those in our criminal library, the odds are they’ll probably be mine.’