'A seventy-year-old Californian whose wife died yesterday — died, according to the best informed medical opinion, of purely natural causes.'
'And what did he die of?'
'Suicide — suicide by drowning — about three or four hours ago, just as it was getting dark. Crashed his head against a jagged branch as he was floating by. Anything else you want to know?'
'Back to school, Morse! I'm not sure he's an American or whether he was recently severed from his spouse. But he's certainly not in his seventies! Forties more like — you could put your pension on the forties.'
'I propose keeping my pension, thank you.'
'See for yourself!'
Max drew back the covering from the corpse, and even Lewis gave his second involuntary shudder of the night. As for Morse, he looked for a second or two only, breathed very deeply, lurched a fraction forward for a moment as if he might vomit, then turned away. It was immediately clear, as Max had said, that there had earlier been much blood; soon clear, too, that the body was that of a comparatively young man; the body of the man whom Morse had interviewed (with such distaste) the previous evening; the man who had been cheated of the Wolvercote Jewel — and the man who now had been cheated of life.
Dr. Theodore Kemp.
Max was putting his bag into the boot of his BMW as Morse walked slowly up to him.
'You got here early, Max?'
'Just round the corner, dear boy. William Dunn School of Pathology. Know it?'
'How did he die?'
'Blood probably coagulated before he entered the water.'
'Really? I've never heard you say anything so definite before!'
'I know, Morse. I'm sorry. It's the drink.'
'But you'll know for certain tomorrow?'
' "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow." '
'It wasn't suicide, then?'
'Oh no, Morse. That was your verdict.'
'No chance?'
'I'm only a pathologist.'
'How long in the water?'
'Couldn't possibly say.'
'Roughly?'
'Eight, seven, six, five, four hours. "Roughly", you said?'
'Thank you very much.'
Max walked round to the front of his car: 'By the way, I was talking to Dr. Swain again this evening. He's reporting you to the Chief Constable.'
' 'Night, Max.'
' 'Night, Morse.'
When the surgeon had departed, Morse turned with unwarranted ferocity upon his ill-used sergeant: 'You told me, Lewis, that Mr. Eddie bloody Stratton had been missing in quite extraordinarily suspicious circumstances since early afternoon, and that a frenetically distraught Ashenden had rung you up—'
'I didn't! I didn't say that!'
'What did you tell me, then?'
'Well, I did mention that Stratton had gone AWOL. And I also said that Dr. Kemp hadn't turned up at the railway station when they'd arranged for a taxi to pick him up and take him—'
'What time was that?'
'Three o'clock, sir.'
'Mm. So if there's some evidence of a whacking great crack on his head. and if this had been deliberately inflicted rather than accidentally incurred. about seven hours ago, say. Three o'clock, you say, Lewis, when Kemp turned up again in Oxford?'
'When he didn't turn up in Oxford, sir.'
So many lights; the yellow lights of the arc-lamps that shone down on the river-bank; the white lights from the flashes of the police photographers; the blue lights of the police cars that lingered still around the scene. But little light in Morse's mind. He could hang around, of course, for the following hour or two, pretending to know what it was that he or anybody else should seek to discover. Or go back to HQ, and try to think up a few lines of enquiry for the staff there to pursue — men and women looking progressively more unwashed and unkempt and incompetent as the small hours of the morning gradually wore on.
But there was another option. He could drive down to The Randolph, and sort out that lying sod Ashenden! The bar would still be open, wouldn't it? At least for residents. Surely the bar never closed in a five-star hotel? Isn't that what you paid for? Yes! And occasionally, as now, it so happened that duty and pleasure would fall together in a sweet coincidence; and from Parson's Pleasure, after dutifully forbidding Lewis to linger more than a couple of hours or so, Morse himself departed.
It was twenty-five minutes after Morse had left the scene that Lewis discovered the first, fat clue: a sheet of yellow A4 paper on which the details of the Historic Cities of England Tour had been originally itemised; and on which the time of the final item that day had been crossed through boldly in blue Biro, with the entry now reading:
7.30 8.00 pm Dinner
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
You did not come,
And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb
(Thomas Hardy, A Broken Appointment)
THE PARKING PLOTS on either side of St. Giles' were now virtually empty and Morse drew the Jaguar in outside St. John's. It was two minutes past midnight when he walked through into the Chapters Bar, where a dozen or so late-night (early-morning) drinkers were still happily signing bills. Including Ashenden.
'Inspector! Can I get you a drink?'
After 'a touch of the malt' had been reasonably accurately translated by Michelle, the white-bloused, blue-skirted bar-maid, as a large Glenlivet, Morse joined Ashenden's table: 'Howard and Shirley Brown, Inspector — and Phil here, Phil Aldrich.' Morse shook hands with the three of them; and noted with approval the firm, cool handshake of Howard Brown, whose eyes seemed to Morse equally firm and cool as he smiled a cautious greeting. The reason for such a late session, Ashenden explained, was simple: Eddie Stratton. He had not been seen again since he was observed to leave the hotel just after lunch; observed by Mrs. Roscoe (who else?) — and also, as Morse knew, by Lewis himself. No one knew where he'd gone; everyone was worried sick; and by the look of her, Shirley Brown was worried the sickest: what could a man be doing at this time of night, for heaven's sake? Well, perhaps supping Glenlivet, thought Morse, or lying with some lovely girl under newly laundered sheets; and indeed he would have suggested to them that it was surely just a litde early to get too worried — when the night porter came through and asked Chief Inspector Morse if he was Chief Inspector Morse.
'How the hell did you know I was here, Lewis?'