Morse's Greatest Mystery and Other Stories (5 page)

“—it was a new thing of theirs. ‘Cask Pour,’ they call it.”

Morse knew all about such things: “All the flavour from a can you’d normally expect from a barrel—that’s the idea.”

“Yes, but
that
particular product only came onto the market on the 28th March—
last Monday
—you couldn’t get it before then. Big launch on the telly, in the papers …”

“So … so the can with Muldoon’s fingerprints on it …?”

“Yes! Couldn’t
possibly
have come from the flat at the time we raided it.”

“Will anybody notice, though?”

“Watson noticed.”

“Not PC Watson?”

“PC Watson!”

Morse raised his eyebrows. “I see what you mean,” he said slowly. “Not exactly an Einstein, is he?”

“And if
he
? noticed it …”

“Ye-es.”

“All that palaver, Morse—and I go and act like a greenhorn.”

“Never mind. You’ve got your photographs.”

“No! They’re no bloody good either!”

“Don’t tell me your fellow forgot to put film in the camera?”

“Oh no. He took some fine photos. Marvellously clear—too bloody clear. You see, Muldoon almost
never
ventured out and about with his elbow-crutch—I’d forgotten that. And the original photo we took showed him with an artificial leg. Course it bloody did!”

“Oh dear! Did, er, did Watson spot that as well?”

“He did.”

“You know, if that fellow could only stop losing things, he’d probably make ‘inspector.’ ”

“He can have my job any time he likes!”

“Can’t you just cut the bottom off the photos?” suggested Morse.

“Trouble is, I’d cut off the flat numbers as well if I did that—the way they’ve turned out; then they might just as well have been taken in Timbuktu as in Bannister Close.”

“I take your point,” said Morse.

“Anyway, I didn’t come here to burden you with my troubles. As I say, I just wanted to thank you—in person. I didn’t want to say anything over the blower—can’t be too careful. So—if we can … if we can just, well, draw a veil over things? And I’m sorry I’ve been such a cretin.”

Morse got to his feet and stood in front of Crawford.

“Don’t say that.” He spoke in a kindly fashion, oblivious (it appeared) that this was the self-same word he’d used so recently himself to describe his fellow officer. “You could do with a drink.”

“I could do with
two,”
corrected Crawford.

Morse went to his drinks-cabinet and took out the Glenfiddich, at the same time switching on again, albeit softly, the “In Paradisum” from the Fauré
Requiem
.

Four days later, on Wednesday 6 April, an oblong buff envelope (“Please Do Not Bend”) arrived by Registered Delivery at the Thames Valley Police HQ, addressed to Chief Inspector Morse.

Inside the envelope, together with two very glossy black-and-white photographs, was an invoice—and a letter:

Morse looked at the two photographs; and like the Almighty surveying one of his acts of Creation, he saw that they were good.

He reached for the phone and rang Inspector Crawford to tell him of his eleventh-hour reprieve—soon learning from Sergeant Wilkins that Crawford had just been called in to see Strange. He’d pass the message on, though.

When, half an hour later, Crawford came in, Morse reached into a drawer for the envelope. But it was Crawford, looking preternaturally pleased with himself, who immediately seized the initiative.

“I was just going to call
you
. You’ll never guess what’s happened.”

“Watson’s unearthed his lost exhibits?”

“Better than that.”

“They’ve just appointed PC Watson Chief Constable?”

Crawford blurted it out: “Muldoon! He’s changed his plea—through his lawyer. He’s pleading guilty as charged on all counts.
And
he’s come clean on the Jericho and Botley places.
Very
interesting what he’s told us about
them
. Complete change of heart, that’s what he’s had, Muldoon—with the, er, encouragement of some, you know—one or two little privileges.”

“Well done!” said Morse, quietly slipping the envelope back into its drawer.

“And
Strange
? He’s over the moon.”

“Everybody’ll be pleased.”

“Lucky though, wasn’t I?” said Crawford reflectively.

“We all deserve a little bit of luck now and then,” said Morse.

After Crawford had gone, Morse once more took the photographs from their envelope, and looked at them briefly again—especially at that neatly sliced left ear—before
slowly tearing them up and dropping the pieces into his waste-paper basket.

Then he wrote out a cheque, and addressed an envelope to Manuel McSevich, Esquire, The Studio, High St., Abingdon, Oxon. It seemed to Morse a quite disproportionate sum to pay; yet, perhaps, not totally exorbitant—considering the nature of the entertainment which that most unusual of evenings had provided.

Only very occasionally did Superintendent Strange patronize the canteen at HQ. But that lunchtime, as the solitary Morse sat at the corner table, his back to his colleagues, rather dejectedly sipping a bowl of luke-warm leek soup, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Can I join you?”

Morse nodded a supererogatory “yes,” as Strange unloaded from his tray a vast plateful of steak-and-kidney pie, two bread rolls, and a substantial wodge of treacle-tart covered—nay smothered—with custard.

“You heard about Muldoon, Morse?”

“Inspector Crawford told me the good news.”

Strange rubbed his hands gleefully. “Excellent, isn’t it? Excellent! Not the slightest suspicion of any undue police pressure either—you know that!”

“So I understand, sir.”

“Above
suspicion, eh? Like Caesar’s wife.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“You
couldn’t remember her name, could you?”

“No.”

“Crawford could, though.”

Morse nodded. Crawford was clearly the flavour of the month. So be it.

“You’re not eating much?” queried Strange, forking another great gobbet of meat into his mouth.

“I’m not very hungry today.”

“It’s a wonder you’re not in the pub, then. You’re usually
thirsty
enough.”

The reminder did little to lighten Morse’s mood; and in sycophantic fashion he quickly sought to change the drift of the conversation.

“How’s that little grandson of yours, sir?”

“Fine. Absolutely fine! Did I show you his latest photo?”

Morse nodded, hurriedly. “Still behaving himself?”

For a few seconds, Strange looked slightly uneasy—before leaning over the almost empty plate of treacle-tart, a mischievous glint in his eye.

“To tell you the truth, Morse, his mother rang us only last night. Seems she left him with a baby-sitter when she went to church for Easter-morning service. And d’you know what the little bugger did? He went and bit the bloody baby-sitter’s hand!”

“Just a temporary lapse,” suggested Morse.

“Course it was! We can’t be good
all
the time, can we? None of us can.”

Morse nodded slowly. “No, sir. We all have the occasional moment when we’re not—we’re not particularly proud of ourselves.”

Strange appeared gratified by this latter sentiment; and after spooning up his last mouthful of custard he sat back, replete and relaxed. Taking out his wallet, he extracted, just as he had done a week earlier, the latest snapshot of Grandson Number One (two years, three months).

“Super little chap, Morse. You can leave him with anybody—well,
almost
anybody! As good as gold, almost.”

As if with mutual understanding, the two policemen looked at each other then.

And smiled.

He had knocked diffidently at Morse’s North Oxford flat. Few had been invited into those book-lined, Wagner-haunted rooms: and even he—Sergeant Lewis—had never felt himself an over-welcome guest. Even at Christmas time. Not that it sounded much like the season of goodwill as Morse waved Lewis inside and concluded his ill-tempered conversation with the bank manager.

“Look! If I keep a couple of hundred in my current account, that’s
my
look-out. I’m not even asking for any interest on it. All I
am
asking is that you don’t stick these bloody bank charges on when I go—what? once, twice a year?—into the red. It’s not that I’m mean with money”—Lewis’s eyebrows ascended a centimeter—“but if you charge me again I want you to ring and tell me
why
!”

Morse banged down the receiver and sat silent.

“You don’t sound as if you’ve caught much of the Christmas spirit,” ventured Lewis.

“I don’t like Christmas—never have.”

“You staying in Oxford, sir?”

“I’m going to decorate.”

“What—decorate the Christmas cake?”

“Decorate the kitchen. I don’t like Christmas cake—never did.”

“You sound more like Scrooge every minute, sir.”

“And
I shall read a Dickens novel. I always do over Christmas,
Re
-read, rather.”

“If I were just
starting
on Dickens, which one—?”

“I’d put
Bleak House
first,
Little Dorrit
second—”

The phone rang and Morse’s secretary at HQ informed him that he’d won a £50 gift-token in the Police Charity Raffle, and this time Morse cradled the receiver with considerably better grace.

“ ‘Scrooge,’ did you say, Lewis? I’ll have you know I bought five tickets—a quid apiece!—in that Charity Raffle.”

“I bought five tickets myself, sir.”

Morse smiled complacently. “Let’s be more charitable, Lewis! It’s
supporting
these causes that’s important, not
winning.”

“I’ll be in the car, sir,” said Lewis quietly. In truth, he was beginning to feel irritated. Morse’s irascibility he could stomach; but he couldn’t stick hearing much more about Morse’s selfless generosity!

Morse’s old Jaguar was in dock again (“Too mean to buy a new one!” his colleagues claimed) and it was Lewis’s job that day to ferry the chief inspector around; doubtless, too (if things went to form) to treat him to the odd pint or two. Which indeed appeared a fair probability, since Morse had so managed things on that Tuesday morning that their arrival at the George would
coincide with opening time. As they drove out past the railway station, Lewis told Morse what he’d managed to discover about the previous day’s events …

The patrons of the George had amassed £400 in aid of the Littlemore Charity for Mentally Handicapped Children, and this splendid total was to be presented to the Charity’s Secretary at the end of the week, with a photographer promised from
The Oxford Times
to record the grand occasion. Mrs. Michaels, the landlady, had been dropped off at the bank in Carfax by her husband at about 10:30
A.M.
, and had there exchanged a motley assemblage of coins and notes for forty brand-new tenners. After this she had bought several items (including grapes for a daughter just admitted to hospital) before catching a minibus back home, where she had arrived just after midday. The money, in a long white envelope, was in her shopping bag, together with her morning’s purchases. Her husband had not yet returned from the Cash and Carry Stores, and on re-entering the George via the saloon bar, Mrs. Michaels had heard the telephone ringing. Thinking that it was probably the hospital (it was) she had dumped her bag on the bar counter and rushed to answer it. On her return, the envelope was gone.

At the time of the theft, there had been about thirty people in the saloon bar, including the regular OAPs, the usual cohort of pool-playing unemployables, and a pre-Christmas party from a local firm. And—yes!—from the very beginning Lewis had known that the chances of recovering the money were virtually nil. Even so, the three perfunctory interviews that Morse conducted appeared to Lewis to be sadly unsatisfactory.