The Riddle Of The Third Mile (24 page)

‘But why all the bother, sir? Seems so unnecessary.’

‘Ah! But you’re missing the point. The plan they’d concocted demanded far more shrewdness-and, yes, far more
knowledge
-than poor Bert could ever have coped with. Just think! It involved a close knowledge of Browne-Smith’s position and duties in the College -and in the University. It involved an equally close knowledge of how final examinations work, and all the complicated procedures of results and so on. It’s not
easy
to find all that stuff out. Not unless-’

‘Unless
what,
sir?’

‘When I went to London I found out quite a lot about Alfred Gilbert. He
wasn’t
a bachelor. In fact, he was divorced about ten years ago, and his ex-wife-’

‘I suppose you went to see her.’

‘No. She’s living in Salisbury-but I rang her up. They had one child, a son. Know what they christened him, Lewis?’

‘John?’

Morse nodded. ‘After the younger brother. He was a bright lad, it seems, won a place at Oxford to read Music, and got a very good “second”. In fact,’ Morse continued with great deliberation, ‘he had viva for a “first”.’

Lewis sat back in his chair. All the pieces seemed to be falling neatly into place- or almost all of them.

‘Back to the main sequence of events, though. Browne-Smith went to London on Friday the 11th of July, and that doesn’t leave much time before most of the class-lists are due to be posted up. So if he decides – as he does – that he’s going to repeat the broad outlines of the plan, he’s got to get a move on. The Gilbert brothers had to be in on it, too, of course, and no doubt Browne-Smith agrees to pay them handsomely. There’s no time for any chancy postal delay, so Browne-Smith drafts a careful letter to Westerby, and that
letter, too, was probably written on Westerby’s typewriter the next day, Saturday the 12th, when Alfred Gilbert went up to Oxford again, and when Westerby was out clearing up his odds and ends at Thrupp. The letter -“By Hand” it must have been-was left on Westerby’s desk, I should think-’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘I don’t really. But what I know for sure is that Westerby turned up at an address in London at 2 p.m. on Tuesday the 15th.’

‘Not Cambridge Way, though, surely? That was his
own
address.’

‘No- but Alfred Gilbert wasn’t short of a few vacant properties, was he? And in fact it wasn’t all that far from Westerby’s flat, a little place-’

‘Yes, all right, sir. Go on!’

‘Now we come to the most fateful moment in the case. Westerby was given the same treatment as Browne-Smith: same pattern all through, same woman, same bottles of booze, with a few drops of chloral hydrate or something slipped in. But Westerby’s not so canny as Browne-Smith was, and very soon he’s lying there dead to the world on a creaking bed.
But what exactly happened then?
That’s the key to the case, Lewis. Messrs. W and S are waiting outside-’

‘
Who Sir?
’

‘They’re in your statement, Lewis -the men who made the arrangements at the topless bar. Haven’t you heard of W. S. Gilbert?’

‘Yes, but-’

‘You know what “W. S.” stands for, don’t you? William Schwenck!’

‘Oh.’

‘You know, there’s
something
to be said in the Gilberts’ favour: at least they had a warped sense of humour. You remember the name Soho Enterprises is registered under?’

Lewis remembered: Sullivan! He shook his head and then nodded. He knew he wasn’t being very bright.

‘Anyway,’ continued Morse, ‘Browne-Smith and Westerby are left alone. And when Westerby gradually comes round -with a splitting headache, I should think-he finds his age-long antagonist sitting on the bed beside him. And they talk-and no doubt soon they have a blazing row… and please remember that Browne-Smith’s got his old army revolver with him! And yet… and yet, Lewis…’

‘He doesn’t use it,’ added Lewis in a very quiet voice.

‘No. Instead they stay there talking together for a long, long time; and finally they bring one of the Gilbert Brothers in-and at that point the road is twisting again to take us forward on the third and final mile.’

Morse finished his coffee, and held out the plastic cop. ‘I
enjoyed that, Lewis. Little more sugar this time, perhaps?’

The phone rang whilst Lewis was gone. It was Max.

‘Spending most of your time in Soho, I hear, Morse.’

‘I’ll let you into a secret, Max. My sexual appetite grows stronger year by year. What about yours?’

‘About that leg. Lewis tell you about it?’

‘He did.’

‘Remember that piece you put in the paper? You got the colour of your socks wrong.’

‘What do you expect. I hadn’t got a leg to
go
on, had I?”

‘They were purple!’

‘Nice colour-purple.’

‘With green suede shoes?’

‘You don’t dress all that well yourself sometimes.’

‘You said they were blue!’

‘Just sucking the blinker out in the middle of a blizzard.’

‘What?
What?’

‘I’ve not had your report yet.’

‘Will it help?’

‘Probably.’

‘You know who it is?’

‘Yes.’

‘Want to tell me?
^’

So Morse told him; and for once the humpbacked man was lost for words.

‘We found the body,’ resumed Morse, ‘on Wednesday the 23rd, and the odds are that it had been in the water about three days. So the man must have been murdered either the previous Saturday or Sunday.’

‘He could have been murdered a few days before that, surely?’

‘No chance. He was watching the telly on the Friday night!’

Lewis let it go. If Morse was determined to mystify him, so be it. He’d not interfere again unless he could help it. But one plea he did make. ‘Why don’t you simply tell me what you think happened-even if you’re not quite sure about it here and there?’

‘All right. A
third
man goes to London on Saturday the 19th, taking up an offer which nobody in this case seems able to refuse. This time, though, all the initial palaver is probably dispensed with, and there’s no intermediary stop at the topless bar. This third man is murdered-by Browne-Smith. And if
both
the Gilberts were there, we’ve got four men on the scene with a body on their hands-a body they’ve got to get rid of. Of the four men, Westerby is wetting his pants with panic; and after a few tentative arrangements are made with him, he goes off- not, as we know, back to Oxford, but to a cheap hotel near Paddington. The other three-I think that Bert had probably kept out of the way while Westerby was still there-now confer about what can and what must be done. The body can’t just be dumped anyhow and anywhere-for reasons that’ll soon be clear, Lewis. It’s going to be necessary, it’s agreed, to sever the head, and to sever the hands. That gruesome task is performed, in London, by one of the Gilberts-I should think by Bert, the cruder of the pair-who promises Browne-Smith that the comparatively uncumbrous items he’s just detached can be I disposed of safely and without difficulty. Then two of the three, Browne-Smith and Ben Gilbert, drive off to Oxford in Westerby’s Metro-and with Westerby’s prior consent. It’s probably the only car immediately available anyway; but it’s got one incalculable asset, as you know, Lewis.

‘Once in Oxford-this is late Sunday evening now-Browne-Smith lets himself into Lonsdale via the back door in The High and goes into his rooms and takes one item only-a suit. I’m pretty sure, by the way, that it must have been on a second trip to his rooms, later-after Westerby decided he’d little option but to cancel his Greek holiday-that he took the Lonsdale College stamp and one of his Macedonian postcards. Anyway, the two men drive out to Thrupp-the only likely stretch of water either of ‘em can think of-where they stop, without any suspicion being roused, in Westerby’s car, outside Westerby’s cottage, to which Bert Gilbert has the key. Once inside with the body, Gilbert is willing (what he was paid for all this we shall never know!) to perform the final grisly task-of taking off the dead man’s clothes and re-dressing him in Browne-Smith’s suit. Then, long after the Boat Inn is closed, the two men carry the body the hundred yards or so along to the one point where no boats are moored or can be moored: the bend in the canal by Aubrey’s Bridge. The job’s done. It must have been in the early hours when the two of them get back to London, where the faithless Bert returns to his faithful Emily, and Browne-Smith to his room in the Station Hotel at Paddington. All right so far?’

‘Are you making some of it up, sir?’

‘Of course I bloody am! But it fits the clues, doesn’t it? And what the hell
else
can I do? They’re all
dead,
these johnnies. I’m just using what we
know
to fill in what we
don’t
know. You don’t object, do you? I’m just
trying,
Lewis, to match up the facts with the psychology of the four men involved. What
do you
think happened?’

Morse always got cross (as Lewis knew) when he wasn’t sure of himself, especially when ‘psychology’ was involved-a subject Morse affected to despise; and Lewis regretted his interruption. But one thing worried him sorely: ‘Do you really think Browne-Smith would have had the belly for all that business?’

‘He wasn’t a congenital murderer, if that’s what you mean. But the one real mystery in this case is that one man-Browne-Smith-actually did so many inexplicable things. And there’s more to come! What we’ve got to do, Lewis, is not to explain behaviour but to consider
facts.
And there’s a very sad but also a very simple
factual
explanation of all this, as you know. I rang up a fellow in the Medical Library to learn something about brain-tumours, and he was telling me about the completely irrational behaviour that can sometimes result… Yes… I wonder just what Olive Mainwearing of Manchester actually
did…’

‘Pardon, sir?’

‘You see, Lewis, we’re not worried about his belly-we’re worried about his
mind.
Because he acted with such a weird combination of envy, cunning, remorse, and just plain
ambivalence,
that I can’t begin to fathom his motives.’ Morse shook his head. ‘I’ll tell you one thing, Lewis. I’m just beginning to realize what a fine thing it is to have a mind like mine that’s mainly motivated by thoughts of booze and sex- infinitely healthier! But let’s go on. Just one more point about the body. Murderers aren’t usually quite as subtle as people think; and you were absolutely right, as you know, when you mentioned that pleasure-cruiser off the Bahamas or somewhere. In Max’s first report he said the legs were sheared off far more neatly than the other bits-and it’s now clear that a boat propeller hit the body and lopped the legs off. Well done!’

Lewis remained silent, deciding not to raise the subject of the corpse’s socks.

‘Back to Browne-Smith. His actions that next week are even stranger in some ways.
Abyssus humanae conscientiael’

Again, even more praiseworthily, Lewis remained silent.

‘On the Monday his conscience was crucifying him, and he writes me-
me
-a long letter. I just don’t know why we had the devious delivery through the bank… unless he thought he’d be giving himself a few days’ grace in which he could cancel his confession. Because that’s what it was. But it was something else, too. If you read the letter carefully, it contains a much more subtle message: in spite of vilifying Westerby throughout, it completely and deliberately exonerates him! And make no mistake; it was certainly Browne-Smith himself who wrote that letter. I
knew
him, and no one else could have caught that dry, exact, pernickity style. It’s almost as though with one half of his fevered brain he
wanted
us – wanted
me,
one of his old pupils – to find out the whole truth; and yet at the same time the other half of his brain was trying to stop us all the time with those messages and cards… I dunno, Lewis.’

‘I think the psychologists have a word for that sort of thing,’ ventured Lewis.

‘Well we won’t bother about that, will we!’

The phone rang in the ensuing silence.

‘That’s good… Well done!’ said Morse.

‘Can you describe them a bit?’ asked Morse.

‘Yes, I thought so,’ said Morse.

‘No. Not the nicest job in the world, I agree. It’ll be all right if I send my sergeant?’ asked Morse.

‘Fine. Tomorrow, then. And I’m grateful to you for ringing. It’ll put a sort of finishing touch to things,’ said Morse.

‘Who was that, sir?’

‘Do you know, there’ve been some thousands of occasions in my life when I’ve looked forward to a third pint of beer, but I can’t ever recollect looking forward to a third cup of coffee before!’

He held out the plastic cup, and once more Lewis walked away.

Only recently had Morse encountered the use of the word; “faction” in the sense of a combination of fact and fiction. Yet such a combination was all he could claim in any convincing reconstruction of the final events of the present case. While Lewis was away, therefore, he reminded himself of the few awkward facts remaining that had to be fitted somehow into the puzzle: the fact that he had been forcibly (significantly?) detained for an extra half-hour after his interrogation of the manager of the topless bar; that the door of Number 29, Cambridge Way had (for what reason?) been finally opened to him; that the head of Gerardus Mercator had been prominently (accusingly?) displayed on the mantelpiece of Westerby’s living-room; that an affluent Arab, doubtless a resident in the property, had looked round at him with such puzzlement (and suspicion?); and that somehow (via Browne-Smith?) Bert Gilbert had discovered Westerby’s address in London, and (via the fire-escape?) managed to enter Westerby’s room. Thus it was that when Lewis returned Morse was ready with his eschatology.