Colin Dexter: The Jewel That Was Ours

'Thank you, Sheila! I sometimes feel that some of our tourists must think that here in Oxford we're all mediaeval, Early English, Gothic, Tudor, Jacobean, Georgian, and so on. But we do have — though I'm no expert in this field — we do have a few fine examples of contemporary design. I don't want to get too serious about things — not tonight! But take St. Catherine's, for example — the work of that most famous Danish architect, Arne er Johansen—'

'Jacobsen!' ( Sotto voce from Kemp.)

'Pardon?'

'You said "Johansen",' murmured Kemp.

'Surely not! I said "Jacobsen", didn't I?'

A chorus of assorted tourists assured Downes that he had most certainly not said 'Jacobsen'; and for a second or two Downes turned upon his fellow lecturer a look of what might have been interpreted as naked detestation, were it not for the slightly weary resignation in his eyes. To his audience he essayed a charming smile, and resumed:

'I'm sorry! It's all these Danes, you know! You never actually meet one called "Hamlet", do you? And talking of Hamlet, I see you'll all be at Stratford-on-Avon—'

'I thought it was Stratford-upon-Avon,' chirruped a shrill, thin voice.

But by now Downes was getting into his stride: 'How good it is for us all in Oxford, Mrs., er—'

'Mrs. Roscoe, sir. Mrs. Janet Roscoe.'

'How good it is for Dr. Kemp and Mrs. Williams and myself to meet a scholar like you, Mrs. Roscoe! I was just going to mention — only in passing, of course — that the Swan Theatre there, in my view. '

But everyone had seen the door open, and now looked with some puzzlement at the newcomer, a man none of them had seen before.

'Mrs. Williams? Is there a Mrs. Williams here?'

The said lady, still standing beside the drinks-table, no more than a couple of yards from the door, raised the index-finger of her non-drinking hand to signify her identity.

'Could I have a quiet word with you, madam?' asked Sergeant Lewis.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Madame, appearing to imbibe gin and It in roughly equal measures, yet manages to exude rather more of the gin than of the 'it'

( Hugh Sykes-Davies, Obiter Dicta)

INSIDE THE MANAGER'S office, situated at the head of the first flight of stairs, Morse found his attention almost immediately drifting towards the large drinks-cabinet which stood to the left of the high-ceilinged suite of rooms wherein Mr. Douglas Gascoigne, a bespectacled, intelligent-looking man in his early forties, sought, and sought successfully, to sustain the high standards of service expected from his multi-starred establishment. Early photographs, cartoons, diplomas, framed letters, and a series of pleasing watercolours, lined the walls of the main office, above the several tables on which VDU screens, print-out machines, telephones, in- and out-trays, fax machines, and file-cases abstracted from surrounding shelves, vied with each other for a few square feet of executively justifiable space. As in the St. John's Suite, the curtains were drawn, this time across the window behind Gascoigne as he sat at his desk, concealing the view of the Ashmolean facade upon which, though from a higher elevation, Mrs. Laura Stratton had gazed so very briefly some three hours earlier.

'It's just' (Gascoigne was talking) 'that we've never had — well, not in my time — anyone actually dying in the hotel.'

'Some thefts, though, I suppose?'

'Yes, a few, Inspector. Cameras left around — that sort of thing. But never anything so valuable. '

'Wonder why she didn't leave it in your safe, sir?'

Gascoigne shook his head: 'We always offer to lock away anything like that but—'

'Insured, was it?'

'Mr. Stratton'—the Manager lowered his voice and gestured to the closed door on his right—'thinks probably yes, but he's still in a bit of a daze, I'm afraid. Dr. Swain gave him some pills and he's still in there with one of his friends, a Mr. Howard Brown.' And indeed Morse thought he could just about hear an occasional murmur of subdued conversation.

Lewis put his head round the door and signified his success in securing the appearance of Mrs. Sheila Williams. Gascoigne got to his feet and prepared to leave the two detectives to it.

'As I say, just make use of any of our facilities here for the time being. We may have to keep coming in occasionally, of course, but—'

'Thank you, sir.'

So Gascoigne left his own office, and left the scene to Morse.

And to Sheila Williams.

She was — little question of it — a most attractive woman, certainly as Morse saw her: mid-thirties (perhaps older?), with glistening dark-brown eyes that somehow managed to give the simultaneous impression of vulnerability, sensuality, and mild inebriation.

A heady mixture!

'Sit down! Sit down! You look as if you could do with a drink, Mrs. Williams.'

'Well, I — it is all a bit of a shock, isn't it?'

'Anything suitable in there, Lewis?' Morse pointed to the drinks-cabinet, not without a degree of self-interest.

'Looks like he's just about got the lot, sir.'

'Mrs. Williams?'

'G and T — that would be fine.'

'Gin and tonic for the lady, Lewis. Ice?'

'Why dilute the stuff, Inspector?'

'There's no ice anyway,' muttered Lewis.

'Look,' began Sheila Williams, 'I'm not myself in charge of this group. I do liaise with the group and arrange speakers and so on — but it's John Ashenden who's the tour leader.'

Morse, however, appeared wholly uninterested in the activities of Mr. Ashenden: 'Mrs. Williams, I'm going to have to ask everyone in the group what they were doing between about four-thirty and five-fifteen this afternoon — that's between the time Mr. Stratton last saw his wife and when he got back from his walk with, er, with Mrs. Brown. '

As Sheila tossed back the last of her G and T, Lewis thought he saw the hint of a smile about her full lips; but Morse had turned to the wall on his left where he was minutely studying a late nineteenth-century Henry Taunt photograph of some brewery drays, and his last few words may well have been spoken without the slightest hint of implication or innuendo.

'I'm sure they'll all co-operate, Inspector, but they don't know yet about. '

'No. Perhaps we should wait a while? After dinner? No later than that. I wouldn't want Sergeant Lewis here to be too late in bed — Ah! Another, Mrs. Williams?'

'I'm sorry. I seem to be—'

'Nothing to be sorry about, is there?'

'Same again then, please, Sergeant. Little less tonic, perhaps?'

Lewis's eyebrows rose a centimetre. 'Anything for you, sir?'

'No thank you, Lewis. Not on duty.'

Lewis's eyebrows rose a further centimetre as he collected Mrs. Williams's glass.

The tour was, as Morse and Lewis learned, a pretty expensive, pretty exclusive business really. Most of them had been to England before (not all, though) and most of them were well enough off to be coming back again before too long, whatever the strength of the pound sterling. One of them wouldn't be, though. Yes, Sheila Williams knew quite a bit about the Wolvercote Tongue, although Dr. Kemp was the real authority, of course. It seemed that Laura Stratton's first husband, a real-estate man operating in California and, in later life, quite a collector, had come to find himself in possession of a jewelled artefact which, after learning of its provenance, he had bequeathed — he had died two years since — to the Curators of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Oh yes, she had seen it dozens of times, though only in a series of technicolour slides, from which she had been able to sketch out a diagram of the whole jewel, buckle and tongue; and in fact she herself had executed the final coloured illustration which was at that moment on show at the Ashmolean. Come to think of it, she was glad she had done the drawings; whatever happened now, people could know exactly how the Wolvercote Jewel in its entirety would have appeared. Doubtless the police would find the Tongue, but.