Colin Dexter - The Jewel That Was Ours

He did neither now.

'We go ahead with everything, Sheila — except for the presentation bit, of course.'

'Unless they find it.'

'Which they won't.'

'Which they won't,' agreed Sheila.

'In spite of this fellow—'

'That's him!' whispered Sheila, laying a beautifully manicured hand across Ashenden's fore-arm. 'That's Morse!'

Ashenden looked across at the greying man, of middle height and middle age, who beamed briefly at the brunette behind the bar as he ordered a pint of best bitter.

'Drinks too much— beer,' volunteered Ashenden, sticking in the last word rapidly as he found Sheila's eyes switch to his with a glare of displeasure. 'Bit overweight — round the middle — that's all I meant.'

'Yes! I know.' Her eyes softened, and Ashenden was aware — had often been aware — that he found her attractive, especially (what a cussed world it all was!) as she was now, when all that seemed required was a pair of strong arms to cart her up to the nearest bed.

But she suddenly ruined every bloody thing!

She had moved closer to him, and spoke close to his ear — softly and sensuously: 'I shouldn't really tell you this, John, but I find him awfully attractive. Sort of, you know, dishy, and. sexy. '

Ashenden removed the hand that had found his sleeve once more. 'For Christ's sake, Sheila!'

'Clever, too, John! Very clever — so they say.'

'And what's that supposed to mean?' Ashenden's voice sounded needlessly tense.

'I'll tell you,' replied Sheila, the clarity of her articulation beginning to disintegrate: 'He's going to wanna know wha'—wha' you were up to between — between — about — four-thirty and five-fifteen.'

'What's that got to do with him? '

'It's not me wants to know, darling. All I say is, that's. that's wha' he's goin' to ashk — ask you. That's wha' he's goin' to ask everybody'

Ashenden looked down silently at his drink.

'Where were you, John?' (Was the lovely Sheila sober once again already?)

'There's no law against anyone having a look round the colleges, is there?'

'Quite a few people were wondering where you'd got to—'

'I've just told you, for heaven's sake!'

'But where exactly was it you went, John? Tell me! Come on! Tell mummy all about it!'

Ashenden decided to humour her: 'If you must know I went and had a look round Magdalen—'

But he got no further. A few yards away Morse was walking towards the Bar-Annexe as Sheila greeted him:

'Inspector! Inspector Morse! Come and join us!'

Morse's half-smile, grudging and potentially aloof, suggested he might have preferred his own company. But Sheila was patting the settee beside her, and Morse found himself looking down into the same dark-brown, pleading eyes that had earlier held such a curious fascination for him on the floor above.

'I, er—'

'Meet John Ashenden, Inspector — our leader!'

Morse nodded across, hesitated, then surrendered, now positioning himself and his pint with exaggerated care.

'John was just saying he'd been round Magdalen this afternoon. That's right, isn't it, John?'

'Yep. It's, er, not a college I've ever got to know really. Wonderful though, isn't it? I'd known about the deer-park, but I'd never realised what a beautiful walk it was along the Cherwell there — those hundreds of acres of fields and gardens. As well as the tower, of course. Surely one of the finest towers in Europe, wouldn't you agree, Inspector?'

Morse nodded, seeming that evening to have a particular predisposition to nodding. But his brain was suddenly engaged, as it had never been engaged at any other point since arriving on the scene.

He had always claimed that when he had to think he had to drink — a dictum indulgently interpreted by his colleagues as an excellent excuse for the disproportionate amount of time the chief inspector seemed to spend at various bars. Yet Morse himself was quite convinced of its providential truth; and what is more, he knew that the obverse of this statement was similarly true; that when he was drinking he was invariably thinking! And as Ashenden had just spoken, Morse's blue eyes had narrowed slightly and he focused on the leader's face with a sudden hint of interest, and just the slightest tingle of excitement.

It was twenty minutes later, after a dinner during which they had spoken little, that Howard and Shirley Brown sat brooding over their iced tomato-juices at a table just inside the main bar.

'Well,' maintained Howard, ' you've gotten yourself an alibi OK, Shirl. I mean, you and Eddie. No prarblem! What about me, though?' He grinned wryly, good-humouredly: 'I'm lying there next door to Laura, right? If I'd wanted to, well—'

'What you thinking of, honey? Murder? Theft? Rape?'

'You don't think I'm capable of rape, Shirl!'

'No, I don't!' she replied, cruelly.

'And you saw Ashenden, you say. That gives him an alibi, too.'

'Half an alibi.'

'He saw you —you're sure?'

'Sure. But I don't reckon he thought we saw him.'

'Down Holywell Street, you say?'

'Uh-huh! I noticed the sign.'

'What's down there?'

'Eddie looked it up on the street map. New College, then Magdalen College — that's without the "e".'

DCs Hodges and Watson were now going systematically through their lists; and, almost simultaneously, Hodges was re-questing both Mrs. Williams and Mr. Ashenden to accompany him to the Manager's office, with Watson asking Howard and Shirley Brown if they would please mind answering a few questions in the deserted ballroom.

On the departure of his two drinking companions — the lady reluctantly, the gentleman with fairly obvious relief — Morse looked again at the Osbert Lancaster paintings on the walls around him and wondered if he really liked these illustrations for Zuleika Dobson. Perhaps, though, he ought at last to read Beerbohm's book; even discover whether she was called 'Zuleeka' or 'Zuleyeka'.

His glass was empty and he returned to the bar, where Michelle, the decidedly bouncy brunette, declined to accept his proffered payment.

'The lady, sir. The one that was with you. She paid.'

'Uh?'

'She just said to get a pint for you when you came up for a refill.'

'She said "when", did she?'

'She probably knows your habits, sir,' said Michelle, with an understanding smile.

Morse went to sit in the virtually deserted Annexe now, and thought for more than a few minutes of Sheila Williams. He'd had a girl-friend called Sheila when he'd been an undergraduate just across St. Giles' at St. John's — the very college from which A. E. Housman, the greatest Latinist of the twentieth century, had also been kicked out minus a degree. A hundred years ago in Housman's case, and a thousand years in his own. Sheila. the source, in Milton's words, of all our woe.

After his fourth pint of beer, Morse walked out to Reception and spoke to the senior concierge.

'I've got a car in the garage.'

'I'll see it's brought round, sir. What's the number?'

'Er. ' For the moment Morse could not recall the number. 'No! I'll pick it up in the morning if that's all right.'

'You a resident here, sir?'

'No! It's just that I don't want the police to pick me up on the way home.'

'Very sensible, sir. I'll see what I can do. Name? Can I have your name?'

'Morse. Chief Inspector Morse.'

'They wouldn't pick you up, would they?'

'No? Funny lot the police, you know.'

'Shall I call a taxi?'

'Taxi? I'm walking. I only live at the top of the Banbury Road, and a taxi'd cost me three quid at this time of night. That's three pints of beer.'

'Only two here, sir!' corrected Roy Halford as he watched the chief inspector step carefully — a little too carefully? — down the shallow steps and out to Beaumont Street.