Morse's Greatest Mystery and Other Stories (26 page)

Lewis’s eyebrows shot up. “Big word, that.”

Dr. Hobson smiled at him, attractively. “I’ve finished with it for now, Sergeant. It’s all yours if you’d like to have it.”

On the dressing table to the right of the bathroom door, beside the phone, lay two items which had been recovered from the bathroom floor: a calibrated syringe, its
orange hood still in place over the needle; and the glass fragments of what had been a small phial, some three inches long, which had contained (as indicated by its label) “Human Actrapid Insulin”—the colourless liquid having almost completely seeped away into a layer of white tissue-paper.

For a minute or so longer, Chief Inspector Morse stood exactly where he was, visualizing much—visualizing almost everything, perhaps—of what had happened there on the threshold of the bathroom, his eyes finally concentrating on the telephone, its receiver cradled firmly on its base.

Then he announced his strategy: “I think we’ll just nip down to the bar, Lewis—which Doctor Hobson finishes off here.” He looked at his wrist-watch. “That’s two nights running I’ve missed
The Archers
. For nothing, too—there’s been no murder here.”

But before leaving Room 231, he dipped a hand gently into the inside breast-pocket of the dead man’s jacket, withdrawing a wallet of pigskin leather.

“Do we know who found him—and how?” asked Lewis, as the two detectives walked down the grandly wide staircase to the reception area of The Randolph.

“That’s exactly what I hope you’re going to find out for me.”

Three-quarters of an hour later Sergeant Lewis had discovered all there was to be known. Not much, but enough. And he reported to Morse.

Sherwood had reserved the double-bedded, en suite, five-star room by phone only the previous evening—with no opportunity thus afforded for any written
confirmation. He had booked in, on his own, at about 5:40
P.M.
But the form, duly completed at reception, was comparatively uninformative:
Name(s)
—“Sherwood”;
Home Address
—”53 Leominster Drive, Shrewsbury”;
Signature
—“Peter Sherwood.” The two boxes beside the questions
Are you here on business? On leisure?
remained unticked, and the space for
Car Registration
was completed with a dismissive dash. That was all, except for a tick in the
Cash
box alongside
How do you intend to settle your account?

The Guest Registration Card thus negotiated, £140 (in twenties) had been paid; and no further details were disclosed by Sherwood or demanded by the chicly uniformed receptionist. Any wake-up call in the morning? “No.” Any newspaper? “Yes—the
Telegraph.”
Sherwood had taken the key, politely declined the offer of help with his two suitcases, and that was that.

No woman on the scene—no one remembered a woman at all.

Sherwood was scheduled to attend a two-day conference on Computer Technology being held at Rewley House—very close by, just up at the top of St. John Street, almost immediately opposite The Randolph.

Now clearly of importance had been two telephone calls. The first, probably an outside call, asking to be put through to Mr. Sherwood; the second, presumably made from inside the hotel, reporting to the operator that medical assistance was urgently required in Room 231. The Senior Concierge, Roy Harden, had immediately gone up to the room, where he’d found the door slightly ajar—and Sherwood lying across the threshold of the bathroom. Already dead by the look of him. From the room itself Harden had promptly
telephoned the house-doctor; and then the manager, with whose assistance two minutes later he’d carried Sherwood’s body over to the bed. A room-maid had cleared up the broken glass from the bathroom—for there seemed to be no suspicious circumstances at the time. It was only because of the house-doctor’s marginal unease over the head wound that the manager had deemed it prudent to call in the police. Just to be on the safe side.

“What do you think so far?” asked Morse.

“Same as you, sir.
Cherchez la belle femme
. He’s off to another conference—he invites his mistress—they know how to work things—he has a heart attack—she’s scared out of her wits—rings for the doc—and then gets pretty smartish out of it.”

“Ye-es …” Morse picked up the dead man’s wallet. “No railway tickets in here, Lewis.”

“So?”

“They don’t very often
collect
railway tickets from passengers these days, do they?”

Lewis followed the drift of Morse’s thinking. “They probably came by car, you mean?”

“Her
car, like as not. He tells his wife he’s going to the railway station, and his lady-love picks him up there. Then when she gets him here, she just nips off and parks her car somewhere nearby—and there’s no need for anyone to know her registration number or anything. Very neat. Very easy.”

Lewis nodded agreement. “It’s getting easier all the time to commit adultery.”

Morse looked up sharply. “Let’s be slightly more accurate about things, Lewis. What you mean is that the preconditions for adultery are easier to handle: fewer
eyebrows raised; fewer questions asked; fewer details to be filled in; just fork out your fee for the room … But whether it’s really become emotionally easier, psychologically easier … 
physically
easier—well, I just wouldn’t know, would I?”

Saving Lewis the possible embarrassment of any reply, the young pathologist now appeared beside them in the Chapters Bar.

Morse beamed happily, and pushed forward his emptied glass. “Ah, Doctor Hobson! What’ll you have to drink? Lewis here is in the chair.”

But Dr. Hobson shook her pretty head. “I can’t stay, I’m afraid.”

“Pity!”

“You’re feeling all right, Chief Inspector?”

“Pardon?”

“They told me the only thing you ever wanted from any pathologist was an estimated time of death.”

“Oh, I know that already,” replied Morse. “Six o’clock—to the minute, I’d say.”

Laura Hobson smiled, refusing to rise to the bait. “About six o’clock, yes. I hope you don’t expect me to be
quite
so precise as you, though? I’m just a humble medical scientist myself. No foul-play, though. I’m fairly sure of that.”

“Fairly
sure?”

“As I say, I’m just a scientist. Good night.”

“He was a neat and tidy enough man,” resumed Lewis. “The bag he’d packed for himself—well, it was all laid out with sort of military precision. You know, socks, hankies, spare pants, washing kit—all in their proper compartments.”

“Condoms?”

“Yes, sir, in a little compartment at the front.”

“It’s all very sad, isn’t it?”

“More sad for the wife, if you ask me.”

“It was the wife I was thinking of,” replied Morse quietly.

Lewis thought it wise to change tack. “You seem very sure about the time?”

“There a Diabetic Card here in the wallet, giving details and times of daily injections: 7
A.M.
; 6
P.M.
; 10:30
P.M.
‘Military precision,’ did you say? I think you’re right.”

“We’d know it was just before or just after six anyway, wouldn’t we? From the telephone calls, I mean.”

“Ye-es.”

“Who do you think made the first call, sir?”

“Same woman who made the second. She rang from a phone-box outside—said she’d parked OK—asked him for the room number—told him to leave the door slightly ajar—promised she’d be with him in just a few minutes …”

“… saw him lying there—realized he was dead—and rang for help.”

“Where did she ring from, though?” asked Morse slowly.

“Bedroom, I should think?”

“I wonder … She’d have to stand just over him when she rang, wouldn’t she?”

“Not everybody’s quite so put off by dead bodies as you, sir.”

The Senior Concierge, now re-summoned, briskly confirmed his earlier evidence, and Morse had only one additional question.

“Was the telephone off the hook when you went into the room?”

“Yes, sir. Dangling on the cord.”

“And you replaced it?”

“I replaced it.”

“I see.”

“Should I have left it?”

“No, no!” For some reason Morse seemed almost relieved, and the concierge left.

“I wish all our witnesses were as bright and unequivocal as Mr. Harden, Lewis!”

“Important, is it, this phone business?”

“No. I don’t think so. Not now.”

Lewis looked at his watch. “We shall have to do something about his wife, sir.”

“You know the routine better than I do.”

Yes, Lewis did.

“Tell ’em to be gentle with her. Just to say her husband’s had a fatal heart attack. We can arrange transport—well,
they
can—if she wants to come to Oxford tomorrow. Not tonight, though. Get her local GP in. Well—you know the ropes.”

Morse drained his beer and his eyes reflected the curious sadness he clearly felt for the woman left alone that night in Shrewsbury.

“Another pint?” suggested Lewis.

But Morse shook his head and stood up to go, the pigskin wallet held tightly in his right hand.

Three-quarters of an hour later, a police car drew up outside the double-garaged property that stood at 53 Leominster Drive, Shrewsbury. Accompanying the police sergeant was a young smartly attractive WPC, who did the talking:

“Mrs. Sherwood?”

“Yes?”

“I’m afraid we’ve got some bad news for you.”

Sometimes the police had the lousiest job in the whole world.

Mid-morning the following day Morse had received Dr. Hobson’s preliminary report:

And now Lewis read through the findings.

“Things seem to have happened, er, contemporaneously, sir.”

“Clears it up, certainly, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Mrs. Sherwood’s coming down this morning. Identify the body and …”

Morse nodded. “Keep her out of The Randolph, if you can. No need for her to know anything about the room or … or anything.”

“I suppose not.”

“Look! Nobody’s going to profit from parading any dirty linen, agreed?”

“Least of all Mrs. Sherwood.”

“And
her family.”

“OK.”

“Have we discovered much about her?”

Lewis consulted his note-book.

“Aged forty-five; son and daughter—both early twenties; she works part-time; bags o’ money; everybody seemed to think the marriage was fine.”

Morse nodded sombrely. “Death’s bad enough, but … Remember that Greek Archbishop, Lewis? Had a heart attack in his local knocking-shop at Athens? Poor sod!”

“At least he hadn’t got a wife.”

“How do
you
know?”

“Perhaps
Mrs
. Sherwood was having a bit on the side, too.”

But Morse appeared not to be listening. He took from the dead man’s wallet a passport-sized colour photograph of a duskily tressed and deeply tanned young beauty, wearing thinly rimmed schoolma’amish spectacles, and looking half-seriously into the camera—yet with lips beginning to curl in a sensuous smile.

“Lovely!” said Morse. “Lovely!”

“And that’s …?”

“That’s
Mr
. Sherwood’s ‘bit on the side,’ as you so elegantly phrase things.”

Then Morse, after glancing briefly at the back of the photo, slowly tore it into smaller and smaller pieces.

“Destroying evidence, that is. Could be valuable in the case—”

“What case
?”

Lewis shrugged. “You’re in charge, sir.”

Morse was now on his feet. “Just nip me down to Oxford, will you? Railway station for a couple of minutes
—then on to St. Aidâtes. What time’s Mrs. Sherwood due here?”

“Eleven-thirty. Driving down—dunno if it’s the Rolls or the BMW, though!”

Morse shot off at an odd angle: “Do you believe in any after-life, Lewis?”

“Not sure, really. What about you?”

“No, not me. I think death’s just a process of chemical disintegration.”

“Perhaps
she
could tell us—Mrs. Sherwood. She took a Chemistry degree at Cambridge.”

“How on earth did you find that out?”

Lewis, too, now rose. “I’m a detective, sir, remember?”

“She must have been a clever lass at school.”

“But you still don’t want to see her?”

“No.”

As he’d promised, Morse spent only a brief while inside Oxford railway station; and five minutes later Lewis was driving down St. Aidâtes, when Morse peremptorily announced a slight change of plan. It was just after 11
A.M.

“Drop me anywhere here! I’ll just nip in to see how the landlord is.”

He gestured vaguely to the Bulldog, and Lewis brought the police car to a stop opposite Christ Church.

“Just give this to Mrs. Sherwood, will you?”

Lewis took the proffered wallet. “No more photos in it?”

“Only one of the four of ’em: mum and dad and the two kids. Everything’s all right now.”

* * *

Lewis had arrived back at Kidlington HQ at 2
P.M.
to find that the chief had not yet returned—from wherever.

Mrs. Sherwood had been a quarter of an hour late (in the BMW), and Lewis had looked quickly through the contents of her late husband’s wallet as he’d waited in a small ante-room in the Pathology Institute. The usual plastic cards were there, relating to monies and memberships; £110 in banknotes; the family photograph that Morse had mentioned (but no others); and something else, yes—two green-and-orange British Rail tickets, one “Out” and one “Return,” between Shrewsbury and Oxford. Neither had received the attention of any ticket-collector’s clip. Yet they looked genuine enough.
Were
genuine enough, except for the fact that the date printed on each of them was not yesterday’s—but today’s.