Colin Dexter - The Jewel That Was Ours

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Solvitur ambulando

(The problem is solved by walking around)

(Latin proverb)

AS HE WALKED UP the Banbury Road that Thursday night, Morse was aware that by this time Lewis would know considerably more than he did about the probable contents of Laura Stratton's handbag, the possible disposition of the loot, and the likely circle of suspects. Yet he was aware, too, that his mind seemed — was! — considerably more lucid than he deserved it to be, and there were a few facts to be considered — certainly more facts than Lewis had gleaned in his school-days about Alfred the Great.

Facts: carrying her handbag, a woman had gone up to Room 310 at about 4.35 p.m.; this woman had not been seen alive again — or at least no one so far would admit to seeing her alive again; inside 310 a bath had been run and almost certainly taken; a coffee-sachet and a miniature tub of cream had been used; a DO NOT DISTURB sign had been displayed on the outside door-knob at some point, with the door itself probably left open; the woman's husband had returned at about 5.15 p.m., and without reporting to Reception had gone up to the third floor, in the guest-lift, with a fellow tourist (female); thence a hurried scuttle down to Reception via the main staircase where a duplicate key was acquired. On finally gaining access to his room, the husband had discovered his wife's body on the floor, presumably already dead; the hotel's house-doctor had arrived some ten or fifteen minutes later, and the body duly transferred from floor to bed — all this by about 5.40 p.m. At some point before, during, or after these latter events, the husband himself had noticed the disappearance of his wife's handbag; and at about 6 p.m. a call had been received by St. Aldate's CID with a request for help in what was now looking a matter of considerably more moment than any petty theft.

Yes, those were the facts.

So move on, Morse, to a few non-factual inferences in the problem of the Wolvercote Tongue. Move on, my son — and hypothesize! Come on, now! Who could have stolen it?

Well, in the first place, with the door to 310 locked, only those who had a key: the Manager, the housekeeper, the room-maids — namely, anyone with, or with access to, a duplicate key to the aforementioned room. Not the husband. In the second place, with the door to 310 open, a much more interesting thieves' gallery was open to view: most obviously, anyone at all who would happen to be passing and who had glimpsed, through the open door, a handbag that had proved too tempting an opportunity. Open to such temptation (if not necessarily susceptible to it) would have been the room-maids, the occupants of nearby rooms, any casual passer-by. But just a moment! Room 310 was off the main corridor, and anyone in its immediate vicinity would be there for a reason: a friend, perhaps, with a solicitous enquiry about the lady's feet; a fellow tourist wanting to borrow something; or learn something. Then there was Ashenden. He'd said he would be going around at some point to all the rooms to check up on the sachets, shampoos, soaps, switches. Opportunity? Yes! But hardly much of a motive, surely? What about the three guest speakers? Out of the question, wasn't it? They hadn't been called to the colours at that point — weren't even in The Randolph. Forget them! Well, no — not altogether, perhaps; not until Lewis had checked their statements.

So that was that, really. That set the 'parameters' (the buzz-word at HQ recently) for the crime. No other portraits in the gallery.

Not really.

No!

Or were there?

What about the husband? Morse had always entertained a healthy suspicion of anyone found first on the scene of a crime; and Eddie Stratton had been a double-first: the first to report both the death of his wife, and the theft of the jewel. But any man who finds his wife dead — dead! — surely he's not going to. Nobody could suspect that.

Except Morse.

And what about — what about the most unlikely, improbable, unthinkable. Unthinkable? Well, think about it, Morse! What about the wife herself: Mrs. Laura Stratton? Could she have been responsible for the disappearance of the jewel? But why? Was it insured? Surely so! And doubdess for a hefty sum. All right, the thing was unsellable, unbuyable; the thing was useless — except, that is, as a link in a cultural continuum in a University Museum. Or else — yes! — or else as an insurance item which in terms of cash was worth far more lost than found; and if the Strattons were getting a bit hard up it might not have been so much if it were lost as when. And what — it was always going to hit Morse's brain sooner or later — what if the thing had never been there to get lost in the first place? Yes, the possibility had to be faced: what if the Wolvercote Tongue had never been inside the handbag at all? (Keep going, Morse!) Never even left America?

Morse already found himself in the Summertown shopping centre; and it was some five minutes later, as he came to his bachelor flat just south of the A40 Ring Road, that the oddest possibility finally struck him: what if the Wolvercote Tongue didn't exist at all? But surely there would have been all sorts of descriptive and photographic pieces of evidence, and so on? Surely such an authority as Dr. Theodore Kemp could never have been so duped in such a matter? No! And he'd almost certainly flown over to see it, anyway. No! Forget it! So Morse almost forgot it, and let himself into his flat, where he played the first two movements of the Bruckner No. 7 before going to bed.

He woke up at 2.50 a.m., his mouth very dry. He got out of bed and went to the bathroom, where he drank a glass of water; and another glass of water. In truth, water — a liquid which figured little during Morse's waking life — was his constant companion during the early hours of almost every morning.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

( Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray)

THE BACHELOR MORSE had only the wraith-like, gin-ridden spectre of a lush divorcee to share his pillow that night, unlike the male speakers scheduled for the following day's Historic Cities of England programme, both of whom, when Morse had made his first visit to the bathroom, were dutifully asleep beside their respective spouses and in their own homes — homes in North Oxford, separated by only about a quarter of a mile.

The traveller who heads north from the centre of Oxford may take, at St. Giles' Church, either the fork which leads up the Woodstock Road, or the right-hand fork, the Banbury Road, which leads after a mile or so to Summertown. Here, just past the shopping area, he will come to the new, yellow-bricked premises of Radio Oxford on his left; and then, almost immediately on his right, the first of the four roads — Lonsdale, Portland, Hamilton, Victoria — which stretch between the main Banbury Road and the River Cherwell (pronounced by most of the locals 'Charwell'). At all hours, each of these roads is suitable only for one-way traffic because of the continuous lines of parked cars on either side. The majority of houses here, built in the 1920s and 30s, are without integral garages; and many an amateurishly painted sign, alongside the edges of the pavement or on boards beside front gates, urges with courtesy, warns with threats of trespass, or simply begs with a pathetic 'Please', those motorists who commute to Summertown not to park their wretched vehicles there. In vain! For the life-blood along these roads ever flows, as it were, through arteries clogged with atherosclerosis.