Colin Dexter - The Daughters of Cain

‘Would you recognize her again?’

For the first time the old lady hesitated, rubbing the thin ringless fingers of her left hand with her right.

‘Oh dear. Do you think she may have murdered him? I only—’

‘No, no. I’m sure she didn’t.’ Morse spoke with the bogus confidence of a man who was beginning to wonder if she had.

‘I only wanted to help. And I’m not at all sure if I would recognize her. Perhaps if she dolled herself up in some decent outfit and…’

Took that bull-ring out of her nose, thought Morse.

‘… and took that ring out of her nose.’

Phew!

But some of the bounce had gone out of the old girl, Morse could see that. It was time to wind things up.

‘Do you think they went to bed when she came?’

‘I expect so, don’t you?’

‘Things must have changed a good deal since your day, Miss Wynne-Wilson.’

‘Don’t be silly, Inspector! I could teach some of these young flibbertigibbets a few things about going to bed with men. After all, I spent most of my life looking after men in bed, now didn’t I? And, by the way, it’s Mrs Wynne-Wilson. I don’t wear a wedding ring any longer…’

Phew!

Morse got to his feet. He had only one more question: ‘Were you looking out of the window on Sunday morning — you know, about the time perhaps when Dr McClure was murdered?’

‘No. On Sunday mornings I always hear the omnibus edition of The Archers on the wireless, that’s from ten to eleven. Lovely. I have a really good long soak — and hear everything again.’

Dangerous thing that — having a radio in the bathroom, thought Lewis.

‘It’s dangerous they tell me — having a wireless propped up on the bath-rail. But I do so enjoy doing silly things, now that I’m so old.’

Phew!

It had not been much of a contest, Lewis appreciated that; but from his scorecard he had little hesitation in declaring Mrs W-W the winner, way ahead of Morse on points.

Quite mistakenly, of course.

‘What did you make of that, then?’ asked Lewis, when the two detectives had returned to McClure’s apartment.

Morse appeared disappointed. ‘I’d begun to think he was a civilized sort of fellow — you know…’ Morse gestured vaguely around the bookshelves.

‘But he wasn’t?’

‘We-ell.’

‘You mean… this woman he was seeing?’

Morse’s features reflected disapproval. ‘Rings in her nose , Lewis? Pretty tasteless, isn’t it? Like drinking lager with roast beef.’

‘For all you know she may be a lovely girl, sir. You shouldn’t really judge people just by appearances.’

‘Oh?’ Morse’s eyes shot up swiftly. ‘And why the hell not?’

‘Well…’ But Lewis wasn’t sure why. He did have a point, though; he knew he did. Morse was always making snap judgements. All right, one or two would occasionally turn out to be accurate; but most of them were woefully wide of the mark — as, to be fair, Morse himself readily acknowledged.

Lewis thought of events earlier in the day; thought of Phillotson’s withdrawal from the present case; thought of Morse’s almost contemptuous dismissal of the man’s excuses. Almost automatically, it seemed, Morse had assumed him to be parading a few phoney pretexts about his wife’s hospitalization in order to avoid the humiliation of failure in a murder case. Agreed, Phillotson wasn’t exactly Sherlock Holmes, Lewis knew that. Yet Morse could be needlessly cruel about some of his colleagues. And why did he have to be so sharp ? As he had been just now?

Still, Lewis knew exactly what to do about his own temporary irritation. Count to ten! — that’s what Morse had once told him — before getting on to any high horse; and then, if necessary, count to twenty. Not that there was much sign that Morse ever heeded his own advice. He usually only counted to two or three. If that.

Deciding, therefore, the time to be as yet inopportune for any consideration of the old lady’s testimony, Lewis reverted to his earlier task. There was still a great deal of material to look through, and he was glad to get down to something whose purpose he could readily grasp. The papers there, all the papers in the drawers and those stacked along the shelves, had already been examined — clearly that was the case. Not radically disturbed, though; not taken away to be documented in some dubious filing-system until sooner or later, as with almost everything in life, being duly labelled ‘OBE’.

Overtaken By Events.

Glancing across at Morse, Lewis saw the chief abstracting another book from a set of volumes beautifully bound in golden leather; a slim volume this time; a volume of verse by the look of it. And even as he watched, he saw Morse turning the book through ninety degrees and apparently reading some marginalia beside one of the poems there. For the present, however, the Do Not Disturb sign was prominently displayed, and with his usual competence Lewis resumed his own considerable task.

Thus it was that for the next half-hour or so the two men sat reading their different texts; preparing (as it were) for their different examinations; each conscious of the other’s presence; yet each, for the moment, and for different reasons, unwilling to speak his own immediate thoughts.

Especially Morse.

Yet it was the latter who finally broke the silence.

‘What did you make of her, then? Our Mrs Wynne-Wilson?’

‘“ Mrs ”, sir?’ asked Lewis slowly.

Morse threw an interested, inquisitive look at his sergeant. ‘Go on!’

‘Well, I’d noticed from the start she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. As you did, of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘But I couldn’t see any, you know, any mark of any ring like you’d normally have, wouldn’t you? A sort of, you know, pale ring of skin, sort of thing, where the ring had been — before she took it off.’

‘Not a particularly fluent sentence that, Lewis, if I may say so.’

‘But you noticed that too?’

‘Me? Your eyesight’s far better than mine.’

‘Makes you wonder, though.’

‘You reckon she was making it up — about her marriage?’

‘Wouldn’t surprise me, sir.’

‘And apart from that?’

‘She seemed a pretty good witness. Her mind’s pretty sharp. She got you weighed up all right.’

‘Ye-es… So you don’t think she was making anything else up?’

‘No. Do you?’

‘Lew-is! When will you learn. She’s a phoney. She’s a phoney from A to Z.’

Lewis’s look now was one of semi-exasperation. ‘There you go again! I think you’re far too quick—’

‘Let me tell you something. She just about takes the biscuit, that woman — give or take one or two congenitally compulsive liars we’ve had in the past.’

Lewis shook his head sadly as Morse continued:

‘Wedding ring? You’re right. Odds strongly against her having worn one recently. Not necessarily the same as not being married though, is it? Suggestive, though, yes. Suggestive that she might be telling a few other fibs as well.’

‘Such as?’

‘Well, it was obvious she wasn’t deaf at all. She heard everything I said. Easy. Kein Problem. ’

‘She didn’t hear me .’

‘She didn’t want to hear you, Lewis.’

‘If you say so, sir.’

‘What about her eyesight? Kept telling us, didn’t she, that she couldn’t see half as well as she used to? But that didn’t stop her giving us a detailed description of the woman who came to visit McClure. She knew she’d got a ring in one of her nostrils — at twenty-odd yards, Lewis! And the only reason she couldn’t tell us if she’d got two rings in her nose was because she saw her in profile — like she sees everyone in profile coming in through that entrance.’