Colin Dexter - Death Is Now My Neighbor

“Excuse me, sir — but how do you get that?”

“Easiest of all the clue types, that. The letters are all there, in their proper, consecutive order. It’s called the ‘hidden’ type.”

“Ah, yes!” Lewis looked and, for once, Lewis saw. “Shall I leave you for two or three minutes to finish it off, sir?”

“No. It’ll take me at least five. And it’s time you sat down and gave me the latest news on things here.”

Owens’ body Morse had already viewed, howsoever briefly, sitting back, as it had been, against the cushions of the living room settee, the green covers permeated with many pints of blood. His face unshaven, his long hair loose down to the shoulders, his eyes open and staring, almost (it seemed) as if in permanent disbelief; and two bullet wounds showing raggedly in his chest. Dead four to six hours, that’s what Dr. Laura Hobson had already suggested — a margin narrower than Morse had expected, though wider than he’d hoped; death, she’d claimed, had fairly certainly been “instant,” or “instantaneous,” as Morse would have preferred. There were no signs of any forcible entry to the house: the front door had been found still locked and bolted; the tongue of the Yale on the back door still engaged, though not clicked to the locked position from the inside. On the mantelpiece above the electric fire (not switched on) was a small oblong virtually free of the generally pervasive dust.

The body would most probably not have been discovered that day had not John Benson, a garage mechanic from Hartwell’s Motors, agreed to earn himself a little untaxed extra income by fixing a few faults on Owens’ car. But Benson had been unable to get any answer when he called just after 11:15 A.M.; had finally peered through the open-curtained front window; had rapped repeatedly, and increasingly loudly, against the pane when he saw Owens lying asleep on the settee there.

But Owens was not asleep. So much had become gradually apparent to Benson, who had dialed 999 at about 11:30 A.M. from the BT phone box at the entrance to the Drive.

Thus far no one, it appeared, had seen or heard anything untoward that morning between seven and eight o’clock, say. House-to-house inquiries would soon be under way, and might provide a clue or two. But concerning such a possibility Morse was predictably (though, as it happened, mistakenly) pessimistic. Early Sunday morning was not a time when many people were about, except for dog owners and insomniacs: the former, judging from the warnings on the lampposts concerning the fouling of verges and footpaths, not positively encouraged to parade their pets along the street; the latter, if there were any, not as yet coming forward with any sightings of strangers or hearings of gunshots.

No. On the face of it, it had seemed a typical, sleepy Sunday morning, when the denizens of Bloxham Drive had their weekly lie-in, arose late, walked around their homes in dressing gowns, sometimes boiled an egg, perhaps, and settled down to read in the scandal sheets about the extramarital exploits of the great and the not-so-good.

But one person had been given no chance to read his Sunday newspaper, for the News of the World lay unopened on the mat inside the front door of Number 15; and few of the others in the Drive that morning were able to indulge their delight in adulterous liaisons, stunned as they were by disbelief and, as the shock itself lessened, by a growing sense of fear.

At 2:30 P.M. Morse was informed that few if any of the neighbors were likely to be helpful witnesses — except the old lady in Number 19. Morse should see her himself, perhaps?

“Want me to come along, sir?”

“No, Lewis. You get off and try to find out something about Storrs — and his missus. Bath, you say? He probably left details of where he’d be at the Porters’ Lodge — that’s the usual drill. And do it from HQ. Better keep the phone here free.”

Mrs. Adams was a widow of some eighty summers, a small old lady who had now lost all her own teeth, much of her wispy white hair, and even more of her hearing. But her wits were sharp enough, Morse sensed that immediately; and her brief evidence was of considerable interest. She had slept poorly the previous night; got up early; made herself some tea and toast; listened to the news on the radio at seven o’clock; cleared away; and then gone out the back to empty her wastebasket. That ’s when she’d seen him!

“Him?”

“Pardon?”

“You’re sure it was a man? ”

“Oh yes. About twenty... twenty-five past seven.”

The case was under way.

“You didn’t hear any shots or bangs?”

“Pardon?”

Morse let it go.

But he managed to convey his thanks to her, and to explain that she would be asked to sign a short statement. As he prepared to leave, he gave her his card.

“I’ll leave this with you, Mrs. Adams. If you remember anything else, please get in touch with me.”

He thought she’d understood; and he left her there in her kitchen, holding his card about three or four inches from her pale, rheumy eyes, squinting obliquely at the wording.

She was not, as Morse had quickly realized, ever destined to be called before an identity parade; for although she might be able to spot that all of them were men, any physiognomical differentiation would surely be wholly beyond the capacity of those tired old eyes.

Poor Mrs. Adams!

Sans teeth, sans hair, sans ears, sans eyes — and very soon, alas, sans everything.

Seldom, in any investigation, had Morse so badly mishandled a key witness as now he mishandled Mrs. Arabella Adams.

Alibi( adv. ): in another place, elsewhere.

Some persons in life eschew all sense of responsibility, and are never wholly at ease unless they are closely instructed as to what to do, and how and when to do it. Sergeant Lewis was not such a person, willing as he was always to shoulder his share of responsibility and, not infrequently, to face some apportionment of blame. Yet to be truthful, he was ever most at ease when given some specific task, as he had been now; and he experienced a pleasing sense of purpose as he drove up to Police HQ that same afternoon.

One thing only disturbed him more than a little. For almost a week now Morse had forgone, been forced to forgo, both beer and cigarettes. And what foolishness it was to capitulate, as Morse had done, to both, within the space of only a couple of hours! But that’s what life was all about — personal decisions; and Morse had clearly decided that the long-term disintegration of his liver and his lungs was a price well worth paying, even with diabetes, for the short-term pleasures of alcohol and nicotine.

Yet Morse was still on the ball. As he had guessed, Storrs had left details of his weekend whereabouts at the Porters’ Lodge. And very soon Lewis was speaking to the Manager of Bath’s Royal Crescent Hotel — an appropriately cautious man, but one who was fully cooperative once Lewis had explained the unusual and delicate nature of his inquiries. The Manager would ring back, he promised, within half an hour.

Lewis picked up the previous day’s copy of the Daily Mirror , and sat puzzling for a few minutes over whether the answer to 1 across — “River (3)” — was CAM, DEE, EXE, FAL, and so on through the alphabet; finally deciding on CAM, when he saw that it would fit neatly enough with COD, the fairly obvious answer to 1 down — “Fish (3).” He had made a firm start. But thereafter he had proceeded little, since the combination which had found favor with the setter of the crossword (EXE/EEL) had wholly eluded him. His minor hypothesis, like Morse’s earlier major one, was sadly undone.