Colin Dexter - The Secret of Annexe 3

The Peep of Dawn (as engagingly named a pub as Morse could remember) boasted only one bar, with wooden wall-seats, and after finding out from the landlord which bitter the locals drank he sat with his pint in the window alcove and supped contentedly. He wasn't quite sure whether his own oft-repeated insistence that he could always think more lucidly after an extra ration of alcohol was wholly true. He certainly believed it to be true, though; and quite certainly many a breakthrough in previous investigations had been made under such attendant circumstances. It was only in recent months that he had found himself querying his earlier assumption about such a post hoc, ergo propter hoc proposition; and it had occasionally occurred to him that fallacious logic was not infrequently the offspring of wishful thinking. Yet for Morse (and he quite simply accepted the fact) the world did invariably seem a much warmer, more manageable place after a few pints of beer; and quite certainly he knew that (for himself, at any rate) it was on such occasions that the imaginative processes usually started . It may have been something to do with the very liquidity of alcohol, for he had often seen these processes in terms of just such a metaphor. It was as if he were lulled and sitting idly on the sea-front, and watching, almost entranced, as some great Master of the Tides drew in the foam-fringed curtains of the waters towards his feet and then pulled them back in slow retreat to the creative sea.

But whatever the truth of the matter, he knew he would have to do some serious thinking very soon, and for the moment the problem that was uppermost in his mind was how a letter which had been written from a non-existent address had also been received at the very same non-existent address. It was easy of course to write anything from anywhere in the world-say from 'Buckingham Palace, Kidlington'; but how on earth, in turn, was it possible for a letter to be delivered to such improbably registered premises? Yet that is what had happened, or so it seemed. The man who had been murdered was, on the face of things, the husband of a woman who had booked a room from an address which did not exist; had booked the room by letter; and had received confirmation of the booking, also by letter — with the pair of them duly arriving on December 31st, taking part in the evening's festivities (incidentally, with outstanding success), and finally, after joining their fellow guests in wishing themselves, one and all, a happily prosperous new year, walking back to their room in the annexe. And then. .

'You'd not forgotten me, had you?' said a voice above him.

'Lewis! You're a bit late aren't you?'

'We agreed to meet at the house, if you remember, sir!'

'I went there. There's no one at home.'

'I know that. Where do you think I've been?'

'What's the time now?'

'Twenty past eleven.'

'Oh dear! I am sorry! Get yourself a drink, Lewis — and a refill for me, please. I'm a bit short of cash, I'm afraid.'

'Bitter, was it?'

Morse nodded. 'How did you find me?'

'I'm a detective. Had you forgotten that, too?'

But it would have taken more than Morse's meanness with money, and more than Morse's cavalier notions of punctuality, to have dashed Lewis's good spirits that morning. He told Morse all about his encounter with the Welsh optician; and Morse, in turn, told Lewis (almost) all about his encounter with the fair Philippa at Paddington. At a quarter to twelve Lewis made another fruitless visit to Eddleston Road. But half an hour later, this time with Morse, it was immediately clear that someone had returned to number 45. It was the only house in the row whose occupants had dispensed with the need for keeping its front garden in any neat trim by the simple (albeit fairly drastic) expedient of covering the whole area with small beige pebbles, which crunched noisily as the two men walked up the sinking shingle to the door.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Friday, January 3rd: P.M.

You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.

(JAMES THURBER)

THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE of the last five years (admitted Helen Smith) the two of them had successfully contrived to defraud dozens of honourable institutions of their legitimate income. But neither her husband John nor herself had the means whereby to make any reparation even fractionally commensurate with such deceit. She, Helen, fully understood why society at large should expect some expiation for her sins; but (she stressed the point) if such compensation were to be index-linked to its £ s. d. equivalents, there was no prospect whatsoever of any settlement of the overdue account. She showed Lewis the note she had found on her return from London; and would be happy to show him, too, the little hidey-hole beneath the second floorboard from the left in the spare bedroom where she had duly found the £600 referred to — that is if Lewis wanted to see it. (Lewis didn't.) Unshakably, however, she refused to hazard any information about where her husband might have made for; and indeed her refusal was genuinely founded in total ignorance, both of his present whereabouts and of his future plans.

The pattern had seldom varied: ringing round half a dozen hotels at holiday periods; taking advantage of late cancellations (an almost inevitable occurrence); there and then accepting, by phone, any vacancy which so lately had arisen; promising a.s.a.p. a confirmatory letter (with both parties appreciating the unreliability of holiday-time postal services); staying only two nights where 'The Businessman's Break' was scheduled for three; or staying just the one night where it was scheduled for two. And that was about it. Easy enough. There were of course always a few little secrets about such professional deception: for example, it was advisable always to carry as little baggage as was consistent with reasonably civilized standards of hygiene; again, it was advisable never to park a car on the hotel premises, or to fill in the section on the registration form asking for car-licence numbers. Yet there was one principle above all that had to be understood, namely, that the more demands you made upon the establishment, the more enhanced would be your status vis-à-vis the management and staff of all hotels. Thus it was that the Smiths had learned always to select their meals from the higher echelons of the à la carte specialities of the chef, and wines and liqueurs from any over-valued vintage; to demand room-service facilities at the most improbable periods of day or night; and, finally, never to exchange too many friendly words with anyone in sight — from the manager down, through receptionist to waitress, porter or cleaner. Such (Helen testified) were the basic principles she and her husband had observed in their remarkably successful bid to extract courtesy and respect from some of the finest hotels across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. The only thing then left to be staged was their disappearance, which was best effected during that period when no one normally booked out of hotels-mid-afternoon. And that had usually been the time when the Smiths had decided to take leave of their erstwhile benefactors — sans warning, sans farewell, sans payment, sans everything.

When Helen Smith came to court (inevitably so, as Lewis saw things) it seemed wholly probable that this darkly attractive, innocent-looking defendant would plead guilty to the charges brought against her, and would pretty certainly ask, too, for one-hundred-and-one other offences to be taken into consideration. But she hardly looked or sounded like a criminal, and her account of the time she had spent at the Haworth Hotel appeared honest and clear. Four (yes!) bottles of champagne had been ordered — they both liked the lovely stuff! — two on New Year's Eve and two on New Year's Day, with the last of the four still in the larder if Lewis wanted to see it. (Lewis did.) Yes, she remembered a few things about the Ballards, and about the Palmers; but her recollections of specific times and specific details were even hazier than Philippa Palmer's had been the previous evening. Like Philippa, though, she thought that the evening had been well organized — and great fun; and that the food and drink had been very good indeed. The Smiths, both of them, enjoyed fancy-dress parties; and that New Year's Eve they had appeared — an oddly uncomplementary pair! — as a seductive Cleopatra and as a swordless Samurai. Would Lewis like to see the costumes? (Lewis would.) Whether Ballard had eaten much or drunk much that evening, she couldn't remember with any certainty. But she did remember, most clearly, Ballard walking back with her through the snow (Oh yes! it had been snowing heavily then) to the hotel annexe, and ruining the right shoulder-lapel of her mackintosh, where his right hand had left a dirty dark-brown stain — which of course Lewis could see if he so desired. (As Lewis did.)