The Riddle Of The Third Mile (6 page)

‘Did you tell her she’d got a first?’ A smile was playing slowly around Morse’s mouth, and the” Master’s shrewd eyes were again upon him.

‘Not much point pretending with you, is there? But no! No, I
didn’t
tell her that. But I did tell her that perhaps she had every reason to be-er, let’s say, optimistic about her-ah, future. Anyway, it’s time we went down for lunch. You ready to eat?’

‘Can I keep this?’ Morse held up the single sheet, and the Master nodded.

‘Seriously, I’m just a fraction worried. And you just said, didn’t you, that I might be right?’

‘You
are
right. At least, you’re almost certainly right in suggesting that he didn’t
type
it. He could have dictated it, of course.’

‘Why are you so sure?’

‘Well,’ said Morse, as the Master locked the door behind them, ‘he was a literary pedant for a good many years before
you
met him. He was one of my “Mods” tutors, you see; and even then he’d bark away at the most trivial sort of spelling mistake as if it were the sin against the Holy Ghost. At the time, of course, it didn't seem to matter two farts in the universe; but in an odd sort of way I came to respect his views- and I still do. I'd never let a spelling mistake go through
my
secretary-not if I could help it.'

‘Never?’

‘Never!’
said Morse, his grey-blue eyes sober and serious as the two men lingered on the landing outside the Master's rooms. ‘And you can be absolutely sure of one thing, Master. Browne-Smith would have died sooner than misspelt “irresistible”.'

‘You don't think-you don't think he
is
dead?’

‘Course he's not!’ said Morse, as the two old friends walked down the stairs.

It had been 2.30 p.m. when Morse finally left Lonsdale; and after stocking himself up from a tobacconist's shop just along the High, he was back in his Kidlington office just before three o'clock, where nothing much appeared to have happened during his absence.

On leaving Lonsdale, he had promised the Master to ‘keep an eye on things’ (a quite meaningless phrase, as Morse saw it) should any aspect of Browne-Smith's sudden departure take on a slightly more sinister connotation.

To an observer, Morse's eyes would have appeared slightly ‘set’, as Shakespeare has it, and his mood was mellowly maudlin. And as he sat there, his freely-winged imagination glided easily back to the fateful days of his time at Oxford…

After eighteen months as a National Serviceman in the Royal Signals Regiment, Morse had come up to St John's College, where his first two years were the happiest and most purposeful of his life. He had worked hard at his texts, attended lectures regularly, been prompt with unseens and compositions; and it had been no surprise to his tutors when such an informed and intelligent young man had duly gained a first in Classical Moderations. With two years ahead of him- two years in which to study for Greats-the future seemed to loom as sure as the sun-bright day that would follow the rosy-fingered dawn -particularly so, since the slant of Morse’s mind was ideally suited to the work ahead of him in History, Logic, and Philosophy. But in the middle of his third year he had met the girl who matched the joy of all his wildest dreams.

She was already a graduate of Leicester University, whence a series of glowing testimonials had proved sufficiently impressive for her application to take a D.Phil. at Oxford to be accepted by St Hilda’s. For her first term, she had been alloted digs way out in the distances of Cowley Road. But amidst the horsehair sofas and the sombre, dark-brown furnishings, she had been unhappy and had jumped at the opportunity of a smaller flat in Number 22 St John Street (just off St Giles’) at the start of the Hilary Term. It was so much brighter, so much nearer the heart of things, and only a short walk from the Bodleian Library, where she spent so much of her time. She felt happy in her new room. Life was good.

At this same time it was customary for the Dean of St John’s to farm out most of his third-year undergraduates to some of the nearby College property and, from the start of the Michaelmas term, Morse had moved into St John’s Road: Number 24.

They first met one night in late February, during the interval of the OUDS’ production of
Doctor Faustus
at the New Theatre, only some fifty yards or so away, in Beaumont Street. Morse had finally managed to order a pint of beer at the crowded bar when he felt a lightly laid hand upon his shoulder -and turned round to find a pale face, the blonde hair high upswept, the hazel eyes looking into his with an air of pleading diffidence.

‘Have you just ordered?’

‘Yes-I’ll soon be out of your way.’

‘You wouldn’t mind, would you, ordering a drink for me as well?’

‘Pleasure!’

Two gins and tonics, please.’ She pushed a pound note into his hand-and was gone.

She was seated in a far corner of the bar, next to a dark-haired dowdy-looking young woman; and Morse, after negotiating his way slowly through the throng, carefully placed the drinks on the table.

‘You didn’t mind, did you?’

It was the blonde who had spoken, looking up at him with widely innocent eyes; and Morse found himself looking at her keenly – noting her small and thinly nostrilled nose, noting the tiny dimples in her cheeks, and the lips that parted (almost mischievously now) over the rather large but geometrically regular teeth.

‘Course not! It’s a bit of a squash in here, isn’t it?’

‘You enjoying the play?’

‘Yes. Are you?’

‘Oh yes! I’m a great Marlowe fan. So’s Sheila, here. Er-I’m sorry. Perhaps you don’t know each other?’

‘I don’t
know you,
either!’ said Morse.

‘There you are! What did I tell you?’ It was the dark girl who had taken up the conversation. She smiled at Morse: ‘Wendy here said she recognized you. She says you live next door to her.’

‘Really?’ Morse stood there, gaping ineffectually.

A bell sounded in the bar, signalling the start of the last act; and Morse, calling upon all his courage, asked the two girls if they might perhaps like to have a drink with him after the performance.

‘Why not?’ It was the saturnine Sheila who had answered. ‘We’d love to, Wendy, wouldn’t we!’

It was agreed that the trio should meet up again in the cocktail-bar of the Randolph, a stone’s throw away, just along the street.

For Morse, the last act seemed to drag its slow length interminably along, and he left the theatre well before the end. The name “Wendy” was re-echoing through his mind as once the woods had welcomed “Amaryllis”. With the bar virtually deserted, he sat and waited expectantly. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. The bar was filling up now, and twice, with some embarrassment, Morse had assured other customers that, yes, there
was
someone sitting in each of the empty seats at his table.

She came at last-Sheila, that is-looking around for him, coming across, and accepting his offer of a drink.

‘What will-er- Wendy have?’

‘She won’t be coming, I’m afraid. She says she’s sorry but she suddenly remembered-’

But Morse was no longer listening, for now the night seemed drear and desolate. He bought the girl a second drink; then a third. She left at ten-thirty to catch her bus, and Morse watched with relief as she waved half-heartedly to him from the bar entrance.

It was trying to snow as Morse walked slowly back to St John Street, but he stopped where he knew he would stop. On the right of the door of Number 22, he saw four names, typed and slotted into folders, a plastic bell-push beside each one of them. The first name was ‘Miss W. Spencer (Top Floor)’, but no light shone at the highest window, and Morse was soon climbing the stairs to his cold bed-sitter.

For the next three days he spent much of the time hanging about in the vicinity of St John Street, missing lectures, missing meals, and missing, too, any sight of the woman he was aching to see once more. Had she been called away? Was she ill? The whole gamut of tragic forebodings presented itself to his mind as he frittered away his hours and his energies in fruitless and futile imaginings. On the fourth evening he walked over to the Randolph, drank two double Scotches, walked back to St John Street, and with a thumping heart rang the bell at the top of the panel. And, when the door opened, she was standing there, a smile of gentle recognition in her eyes.

‘You’ve been a long time,’ she said.

‘I didn’t quite know-’

‘You knew where to find me-I told you that.’

‘I-’

‘It wasn’t
you
who made the first move, was it?’

‘I-’

‘Would you like to come in?’

Impetuously-even that first night-Morse told her that he loved her; and she, for her part, told him how very glad she was that they had met. After that, their days and weeks and months were spent in long, idyllic happiness: they walked together across the Oxfordshire countryside; went to theatres, cinemas, concerts, museums; spent much time in pubs and restaurants; and, after a while, much time in bed together, too. But, during those halcyon days, both were neglecting the academic work that was expected of them. At the end of the Trinity term, Morse was gently reminded by his tutor that he might be in danger of failing to satisfy the examiners the following year unless he decided to mount a forceful assault upon the works of Plato during the coming vacation. After a similar interview with her own supervisor, Wendy Spencer was firmly informed that unless her thesis began to show more obvious signs of progress, her grant-and therewith her doctorate-would be in serious jeopardy.

Surprisingly, perhaps, it was Morse who saw the more clearly the importance of some academic success-and who sought the more anxiously to promote it. But such success was not to be. Just before the Christmas vac a tearful Wendy announced that her doctorate was terminated; her grant, w.e.f. January 1st, withheld. Yet the two of them lived on very much as before: Wendy stayed on in her digs, and almost immediately got a job as a waitress in the Randolph; Morse tried hard to curb his beer consumption and occasionally read the odd chapter of Rate’s
Republic.

Ironically, it was one day before the anniversary of their first, wonderful evening together that Wendy received the telegram, informing her that her widowed mother had suffered a stroke, and that help was urgently required. So she had gone home-and stayed there. Scores of letters passed between the lovers
during the dark months that followed; and twice Morse had
made the journey to the West Country to see her. But he was very short of money now; and slowly he was learning to assimilate the truth that (for some reason) her mother was a more important figure in Wendy’s life than he was. His performances for his tutors were now so pathetically poor that his college exhibition was rescinded, and he had the humiliating task of writing to beg his county authority to make up the deficit. Then, three weeks before Greats, he had received his last letter from her: she could not see him again; she had almost ruined his life already; she had a duty to stay with her mother, and had irrevocably decided to do so; she had loved him-she had loved him desperately-but now they had come to the end; she implored him not to reply to her letter; she urged him to do himself some semblance of justice in his imminent examination;
that
would always be important for her. Morse had immediately sent a telegram, begging her to meet him once more. But he received no reply-and had no money for a further journey. In his despair, he did nothing-absolutely nothing.

Two months later he learned that he had failed Greats; and, although the news was no surprise, he departed from Oxford a withdrawn and silent young man, bitterly belittled, yet not completely broken in spirit. It had been his sadly disappointed old father, a month or so before his death, who suggested that his only son might find a niche somewhere in the police force.

Morse’s attractive young secretary came into the office and handed over his letters for signature.

‘Do you want to dictate the others, sir?’

‘A little later. I’ll give you a ring.’

After she had gone, he continued his earlier train of thought-but not for long. In any case, there was nothing more to recall. Of Wendy Spencer he had never heard another word. She would still be alive, though, surely? Even at that minute -that very second-she’d be
somewhere.
He repeated to himself the line from “Wessex Heights”: ‘But time cures hearts of tenderness – and now I can let her go.’ It was a lie, of course. But so it had been for Hardy.

Nor had Morse ever met any of his Greats examiners since he had first come down from Oxford. Yet even now he could remember with dramatic clarity the six names that were subscribed to the class-list on that bleak day some thirty years ago:

Wells (Chairman)

Styler

Stockton

Sherwin-White

Austin

Browne-Smith.

During the following week Morse did nothing about bis tenuous promise to the Master. Well, virtually nothing. He
had
rung Lonsdale early on the Monday morning, but neither the Master, nor the Vice-Master, nor the Senior Fellow, nor the Bursar, was on the premises. Everyone had either gone or was about to be gone. With the heavy work over for another academic year, the corporate body of the University appeared to be taking a collective siesta. The thought suddenly occurred to Morse that this would be a marvellous time to murder a few of the doddery old bachelor dons. No wives to worry about their whereabouts; no families to ring their fathers from railway stations; no landladies to whine about the unpaid rents. In fact, nobody would miss most of them
at all-not,
that is, until the middle of October.