'Did you notice the postmark on the original letter?'
'London. So what?'
'London? Really?' (Lewis sounded like a man who knows all the answers.) 'You get a lot of people going up to the London sales from all over the country, don't you? I mean anyone from anywhere — from Oxford, say — could go up to the January sales and drop a letter in a postbox outside Paddington.'
Morse was frowning. 'What exactly are you trying to tell me, Lewis?'
'I just wondered if you had any idea of who'd written that letter to you, that's all.'
Morse's hand was on the doorknob. 'Look, Lewis! You know the difference between you and me, don't you? You don't use your eyes enough! If you had done — and very recently, too! — you'd know perfectly well who wrote that letter.'
'Yes?'
'Yes! And it so happens — since you're suddenly so very interested in my private affairs, Lewis — that I'm going to take the particular lady who wrote that particular letter out for a particularly fine meal tonight — that's if you've no objections?'
'Where are you taking her, sir?'
'If you must know, we're going out to Springs Hotel near Wallingford.'
'Pretty expensive, so they say, sir.'
'We shall go halves — you realize that, of course?' Morse winked happily at Lewis — and was gone.
Lewis, too, was smiling happily as he rang his wife and told her that he wouldn't be long.
At 7.50 p.m. the telex reply came through from Gatwick: on the scheduled 12.05 flight that had left that morning for Barcelona, the passenger list had included, apart from a Mr. Edward Wilkins, a Mrs. Margaret Bowman, the latter giving an address in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.
At 8.00 p.m., Lewis pulled on his overcoat and left Kidlington HQ. He wasn't at all sure whether Morse would be pleased, or displeased, with the news he had just received. But the last thing he was going to do was to ring Springs Hotel. He just hoped — very much he hoped — that Morse would have an enjoyable evening, and an enjoyable meal. As for himself, the missus would have the egg and chips ready; and he felt very happy with life.