Colin Dexter - The Jewel That Was Ours

'Gee, that's exactiy—' began Shirley; but Howard laid a hand on her arm, and the embarrassed lady held her peace.

'Not much good trying to perpetuate a surname, though — not if your daughter gets married. She can keep her maiden name, of course. Can't she? Can't she.? But it's easier with Christian names, especially sometimes. A father whose name is "George", say, can call his daughter "Georgie", "Georgina", "Georgette".' (Lewis glanced up at Morse.) 'And the woman who was killed in the road accident was called Mrs. Philippa J. Mayo, remember? Her father couldn't give her his own name exactly, but he could give her the female equivalent of "Philip". And Philippa Mayo was the daughter of the only man here who has that name.

'Wasn't she, Mr. Aldrich?' asked Morse in a terrifying whisper.

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

. that fair field

Of Enna, where Proserpin gathring flowrs

Her self a fairer Flowre by gloomie Dis

Was gathered, which cost Ceres all that pain

To seek her through the world.

( John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV)

'YOU'RE SERIOUS ABOUT all this, sir?' Phil Aldrich cocked his head to one side and his sad features seemed incredulous, and pained.

'Oh, yes,' said Morse, with a quiet simplicity — perhaps also with some pain. 'You've no daughter in London — or anywhere else now, I'm afraid. You've lost your' alibi, too — the very clever alibi provided by Eddie Stratton as the first of his services for you. before he performed his second service, later that same day, by disposing of Kemp's body in the River Cherwell.'

Momentarily, it seemed, Aldrich was on the point of protesting, but Morse shook his head wearily:

'No point — no point at all in your saying anything to the contrary, Mr. Aldrich. We've been in touch with the police department in Sacramento, with your neighbours, with the local institution there, including the High School your daughter attended. We've got your passport, and we've checked your home address, and it's perfectly correct. You carried through all your details accurately on to the t.h.f. Guest Registration Card at The Randolph, and doubtless here too, in Bath. But your wife? She was a little "economical with the truth", wasn't she? Your wife— your accomplice, Mr. Aldrich — she made just a few little changes here and there to her details, didn't she? It was all right for it to be seen that you both lived in the same district, the same street, even— but not in the same apartment. Yet you do, don't you, live in the same apartment as your wife? You've been married together, happily married together, for almost forty-two years, if my information is correct. And apart from your daughter, there has only ever been one woman in life you have loved with passion and tenderness — the woman you married. She was a gifted actress, I learned. She was well known on the West Coast of America in many productions in the fifties and sixties — mostly in musicals in the earlier years, and then in a series of Arthur Miller plays. And being an actress, a successful actress, it was sensible for her to keep her stage name — which was in fact her maiden name. But she gave her Christian name to her daughter, just as you did. Philippa J. Aldrich — Philippa Janet Aldrich — that was her name.' Morse nodded sadly to himself, and to the two people who sat so near to one another now.

Then a most poignant and exceedingly moving thing occurred. Only a few minutes since, Phil Aldrich had rejected (as it seemed) the blandishments of a diminutive, loud-mouthed, insufferable termagant. But now he accepted her invitation. He rose, and moved forward, just the one row, to sit beside the woman in the front, and to take her small hand gently into his — the tears now spilling down his cheeks. And as he did so, the woman turned towards him with eyes that were pale and desolate, yet eyes which still lit up with the glow of deep and happy love as she looked unashamedly, unrepentantly, into her husband's face; the eyes of a mother who had grieved so long and so desperately for her only daughter, a mother whose grief could never be comforted, and who had journeyed to England to avenge what she saw as an insufferable wrong — the loss of the jewel that was hers.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

Je ne regrette rien

(French song)

AFTER THE ARRESTS, after the statements from the two Aldriches and from a repentant Stratton, after a second search of the Kemps' residence, the case — at least from Morse's point of view — was finished.

The major statement (the statement to which Morse awarded the literary prize) was made by Mrs. Janet Roscoe, who properly insisted on vetting the transcription of her lengthy evidence typed out by WPC Wright. Except at one point, this agreed with the parallel statement made by Mr. Phil Aldrich, with each, in turn, substantially corroborated by Mr. Edward Stratton's testimony about his own collusion with the Aldriches. The one colossal discrepancy arose from the two wholly contradictory accounts of Kemp's death. Neither Mr. or Mrs. Aldrich was willing to give any detail whatsoever about what, as Morse imagined, must have been a savagely bitter altercation between Kemp and themselves before the fateful (though maybe not immediately fatal?) blow struck with the stick that originally had rested across Marion Kemp's knees as she sat in her wheel-chair, her eyes (in Janet's splendid phrase) 'glowing with a sort of glorious revenge'. So much was agreed. Kemp had stumbled blindly against a chair and then fallen heavily, the back of his head striking the corner of the fireplace with 'a noise reminiscent of a large egg trodden under foot — deliberately'. So much was agreed. Then there was all that blood. Such a surprising amount of it! And the carpet where most of it had dripped; and his clothes 'sticky and messy with the stuff'. So much was agreed. But which of the two it was who had lashed out ferociously at Kemp with that stick ('Please return to the Radcliffe Infirmary' branded upon it) — ah! that was proving so difficult to decide. It had been Phil, of course — Janet confessed: 'He must have gone quite berserk, Inspector!' But no! It had been Janet all the time, as Phil had so sadly admitted to Morse: a frenetic Janet who had been the happy instrument of eternal Justice. But when Morse had told Janet of the wild discrepancy, she'd merely smiled. And when Morse had told Phil of the same ridiculous discrepancy, he too had merely smiled — and lovingly.

There had been one or two minor surprises in the statements, but for the most part things had happened almost exactly as Morse had supposed. What finally, it appeared, had transmuted an intolerable grief into an implacable hatred, and a lust for some sort of retribution, was the fact that in all the reports the parents had received of the coroner's proceedings and the magistrate's hearing, Philippa's name had never once occurred. A curious catalyst, perhaps, and yet what a devastating one! But the name of Dr. Theodore Kemp had been mentioned many, many times; and when they had read of the Historic Cities of England Tour, they had seen that name again. Their plans were made (for what they were) and they duly took their places on the tour — almost enjoying the distanced yet sometimes friendly roles they had assumed. And it was on the coach that Janet had learned of the deceit that the Strattons were plotting. And after Janet had taken Laura Stratton's handbag, and put it immediately into her own, far more capacious one, she had gone to her own room, on the same floor, and happily discovered that the Wolvercote Tongue fitted almost perfectly into the small case she'd brought with her containing her portable iron.