Colin Dexter - The Silent World Of Nicholas Quinn

'The grave's a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace. .'

Yes, Quinn was lying in the police mortuary, and Quinn had hoped his hopes and dreamed his dreams as every other mortal soul. . He slotted the book back into its shelf, and turned with a slightly chastened spirit to the second drawer.

The two men worked for three-quarters of an hour, and Lewis felt himself becoming progressively more dispirited. 'Do you think we're wasting our time, sir?'

'Are you thirsty, or something?'

'I just don't know what I'm looking for, that's all.'

Morse said nothing. He didn't either.

By seven o'clock Lewis had looked through the contents of two of the three cabinets, and now inserted the key into the third, whence he took a further armful of thick folders and once again sat down to his task. The first file contained many carbons of letters, stretching back over two years, all marked GB/MF, and the replies from various members of the Syndicate's English Committee, all beginning 'Dear George'.

'This must be the fellow Quinn took over from, sir.'

Morse nodded cursorily and resumed his study of a black Letts desk diary which was the only object of even minimal interest he had so far unearthed. But Quinn had obviously shown no inclination to emulate an Evelyn or a Pepys, and little more than the dates and times of various meetings had been entered. 'Birthday' (under 23rd October), and 'I owe Donald £1' seemed to form the only concession to an otherwise autobiographical blank. And since he could think of nothing more purposeful to pursue, Morse idly counted the meetings: ten of them, almost all for the revisions of various question papers, within twelve weeks or so. Not bad going. And one or two other meetings: one with the English Committee on 30th September and one, a two-day meeting, with AED — whatever that was — on the 4th and 5th November.

'What's AED stand for, Lewis?'

'Dunno, sir.'

'Have a guess.'

'Association of Eccentric Dentists.'

Morse grinned and shut the diary. 'You nearly finished?'

'Two more drawers.'

'Think it's worth it?'

'Might as well go through with it now, sir.'

'OK.' Morse leaned back in the chair, his hands behind his head, and looked across the room once more. Not a particularly memorable start to a case, perhaps; but it was early days yet. He decided to put a call through to HQ. The grey telephone seemed the one used for outside calls, and Morse pulled it towards him. But as soon as he had picked up the receiver he put it down again. Underneath the orange code book he saw a letter which had escaped his notice hitherto. It was written on the official notepaper of the Frederic Delius School, Bradford, and was dated Monday, 17th November:

Dear Nick,

Don't forget me when you sort out your examining teams for next year. I trust you've had the form back by now. Gryce wasn't all that cooperative about the testimonial at first, but you'll have noticed that I'm 'a man of sound scholarship, with considerable experience of O- and A-level work.' What more can you ask for? Martha sends her love, and we all hope you'll be up here on your old stamping ground this Christmas. We've decided we can't please both lots of parents, and so we are going to please neither — and stay at home. By the way, old sour-guts has applied for the headship of the new Comprehensive!

O tempora! O mores!

As ever,

Brian.

The letter was ticked through in black biro, and Morse considered it carefully for a moment. Had Quinn rung up his friend? A former colleague, possibly? If so, when? It might be worth while finding out.

But it was Lewis who, quite accidentally, was to stumble through the trip-wire and set off the explosive that blew the case wide open, although he himself was quite unaware at the time of his momentous achievement. As he was about to jam the latest batch of files back into its cabinet he caught sight of an envelope, squashed and crumpled, which had become wedged beneath the moveable slide designed to keep the file cases upright. He worked it out and took the single sheet of paper from the envelope. 'I can tell you what AED stands for, sir.' Morse looked up without enthusiasm and took the letter from him. It was an amateurishly-typed note, written on the official, headed notepaper of the Al-jamara Education Department, and dated 3rd March.

Dear George,

Greetings to all at Oxford. Many thanks for your

letter and for the Summer examination package.

All Entry Forms and Fees Forms should be ready

for final dispatch to the Syndicate by Friday

20th or at the very latest, I'm told, by the 21st.

Admin has improved here, though there's room

for improvement still; just give us all two or three

more years and we'll really show you! Please

don't let these wretched 16+ proposals destroy

your basic O and A pattern. Certainly this

sort of change, if implemented immediately,

would bring chaos.

Sincerely yours,

Apart from the illegibly scrawled signature, that was all.

Morse frowned slightly as he looked at the envelope, which was addressed to G. Bland, Esq, MA, and marked 'STRICTLY PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL' in bold red capitals. But his face quickly cleared, and he handed the letter back to Lewis without a word. It really was time they went.

Idly he opened the Letts diary again and his eyes fell upon the calendar inside the front page. And suddenly the blood began to freeze in his arms, and from the quiet, urgent tone of his voice Lewis immediately realized that the Inspector was strangely excited.

'What's the date of the postmark on that envelope, Lewis?'

'Third of March.'

'This year?'

Lewis looked again. 'Yes, sir.'

'Well, well, well!'

'What is it?'

'Funny, wouldn't you say, Lewis? Friday the 20th, it says in the letter. But which Friday the 20th?' He looked down at the calendar again. 'Not March. Not April. Not May. Not June. Not July. And it must refer to entry forms for last summer's examinations.'

'Somebody could have made a mistake over the date, sir. Could have been using last year's—'

But Morse wasn't listening. He picked up the letter again and studied it for several minutes with a fierce intensity. Then he nodded slowly to himself and a quiet smile spread over his face. 'Lewis, my boy, you've done it again!'

'I have, sir?'

'I'm not saying we're much nearer to finding out the identity of the person who murdered Nicholas Quinn, mind you. But I'll tell you one thing: I'm beginning to think we've got a pretty good idea why he was murdered! Unless it's a cruel coincidence—'

'Hadn't you better explain, sir?'

'Look at the letter again, Lewis, and ask yourself why such a seemingly trivial piece of correspondence was marked "Strictly Private and Confidential". Well?'

Lewis shook his head. 'I agree, sir, that it doesn't seem very important but—'

'But it is important, Lewis. That's just the point! We start reading from the left and then go across, agreed? But they tell me that some of these cockeyed foreigners start from the right and read down!'

Lewis studied the letter once more and his eyes gradually widened. 'You're a clever old bugger, sir.'

'Sometimes, perhaps,' conceded Morse.

At 7.35 p.m. the caretaker knocked deferentially and put his head round the door. 'I don't want to interrupt, sir, if—'

'Don't, then,' snapped Morse, and the door was quietly reclosed. The two policemen looked across the table at each other — and grinned happily.

WHEN?

CHAPTER NINE

MORSE HAD NEVER been in the slightest degree interested in the technicalities of the science of pathology, and on Wednesday morning he read the reports before him with the selectivity of a dedicated pornophilist seeking out the juciest crudities. The smallest dose which has proved fatal is a ½ drachm of the pharmacopoeial acid, or 0.6 gram of anhydrous hydrocyanic acid. . rapidly altered in the body after death, uniting with sulphur. .' Ah, here we are: '. . and such in this instance were the post-mortem appearances that there is reason to believe that death must have occurred almost immediately. . fruitless, in the absence of scratches or abrasions, to speculate on the possibility of the body having been moved after death. .' Interesting. Morse skipped his way along. '. . would suggest a period of between 72-120 hours before the body was discovered. Any greater precision about these time limits is precluded in this case. .' As in all cases you ever have, muttered Morse. He had never ceased to wonder why, with the staggering advances in medical science, all pronouncements concerning times of death remained so disconcertingly vague. For that was the real question: when had Quinn died? If Aristotle could be believed (why not?) the truth would probably lie somewhere in the middle 94 hours, say. That meant Friday lunchtime or thereabouts. Was that possible? Morse put the report aside, and reconsidered the little he as yet knew of Quinn's whereabouts on the previous Friday. Yes. Perhaps he should have asked Quinn's colleagues where they were on Friday, not when they had last seen Quinn. But there was plenty of time; he would have to see them all again soon, anyway. At least one thing was clear. Whoever had tinkered with Quinn's sherry bottle had known something about poison — known a great deal about poison, in fact. Now who. .? Morse went to his shelves, took down Glaister and Rentoul's bulky and definitive tome on Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology , and looked up 'Hydrocyanic Acid' (page 566); and as he skimmed over the headings he smiled to himself. The compiler of the medical report he had just read had beaten him to it: some of the sentences were lifted almost verbatim. Why not, though? Cyanide wasn't going to change much over the years. . He recalled Hitler and his clique in the Berlin bunker. That was cyanide, wasn't it? Cyanide. Suicide! Huh! The obvious was usually the very last thing that occurred to Morse's mind; but he suddenly realized that the most obvious answer to his problem was this: that Quinn had committed suicide. Yet, come to think of it, that was no real answer either. For if he had, why on earth. .?