'Yes he did! He killed the woman in the other car — and he killed me, too!'
Lewis it was who broke the long silence between them, and took out his note-book: 'You knew where he was going?'
'His publishers. He's just finished a book and now he's doing some chapters for the new Cambridge History of Early Britain.'
'And he actually—went, did he?'
'Don't be silly! Of course he went. He rang me up from London. The post hadn't come when he left, and he wanted to know if some proofs had arrived.'
'What time did you expect him back?'
'I wasn't sure. There'd been some trouble at The Randolph. You know all about that?'
Lewis nodded — ever dreading that inexorable moment when she, too, would have to know all about something else.
'They'd changed the programme — I forget exactly what he said. But he'd have been home by half-past ten. He's never later than that. '
The slim, dark-haired, rather plain woman in the wheelchair was beginning to betray the symptoms of panic. Talk on, Lewis! Write something in that little book of yours. Do anything!
'You've no idea where he might have gone to when he came back from London?'
'No, no, no, Sergeant! How could I? He'd hardly even have the time to see his precious Sheila bloody Williams, would he? That over-sexed, pathetic, alcoholic. '
Talk on, Lewis!
'He must have been pretty upset about the Wolvercote Jewel.'
'He'd been waiting long enough to see it.'
'Why didn't he go over to America to see it?'
'I wouldn't let him.'
Lewis looked down at the uncarpeted floor-boards and put his note-book away.
'Oh no! I wasn't going to be left here on my own. Not after what he did to me!'
'Mrs. Kemp, I'm afraid I've got—'
But Marion was staring down into some bleak abyss. Her voice, so savagely vindictive just a moment since, was suddenly tremulous and fearful — almost as if she already knew. 'I wasn't very nice to him about if, was I?'
Blessedly the front-door bell rang, and Lewis rose to his feet. 'That'll be the policewoman, Mrs. Kemp. I'll — if it's OK — I'll go and. Look, there's something we've got to tell you. I'll just go and let her in.'
'He's dead. He's dead, Sergeant, isn't he?'
'Yes, Mrs. Kemp. He's dead.'
She made no sound but the tips of her taut and bloodless fingers dug into her temples as if seeking to sever the nerves that carried the message from ears to brain.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice
(Mark Twain, Following the Equator)
'SIT DOWN, INSPECTOR! Can I get you a drink?'
Sheila Williams, fairly sober and fully respectable, was drinking a cup of black coffee.
'What — coffee?'
Sheila shrugged: 'Whatever you like. I've got most things — if you know what I mean.'
'I drink too much as it is.'
'So do I.'
'Look, I know it's late—'
'I'm never in bed before about one — not on my own!' She laughed cruelly at herself.
'You've had a long day.'
'A long boozy day, yeah.' She took a few sips of the hot coffee. 'There's something in one of Kipling's stories about a fellow who says he knows his soul's gone rotten because he can't get drunk any more. You know it?'
Morse nodded. ' "Love o' Women".'
'Yeah! One of the greatest stories of the twentieth century.'
'Nineteenth, I think you'll find.'
'Oh, for Christ's sake! Not a literary copper!' She looked down miserably at the table-top; then looked up again as Morse elaborated:
'It was Mulvaney, wasn't it? "When the liquor does not take hold, the soul of a man is rotten in him." Been part of my mental baggage for many a year.'
'Jesus!' whispered Sheila.
The room in which they sat was pleasantly furnished, with some good quality pieces, and several interesting and unusual reproductions of Dutch seventeenth-century paintings. A few touches of good taste all round, thought Morse; of femininity, too — with a beribboned teddy-bear seated upright on the settee beside his mistress. And it was in this room, quietly and simply, that Morse told her of the death of Theodore Kemp, considering, in his own strange fashion, that it was perhaps not an inappropriate time for her to know.
For a while Sheila Williams sat quite motionless, her large, brown eyes gradually moistening like pavements in a sudden shower.
'But how. why.?'
'We don't know. We were hoping you might be able to help us. That's why I'm here.'
Sheila gaped at him. 'Me?'