Brian.
The letter was ticked through in black biro, and Morse considered it carefully for a moment. Had Quinn rung up his friend? A former colleague, possibly? If so, when? It might be worth while finding out.
But it was Lewis who, quite accidentally, was to stumble through the trip-wire and set off the explosive that blew the case wide open, although he himself was quite unaware at the time of his momentous achievement. As he was about to jam the latest batch of files back into its cabinet he caught sight of an envelope, squashed and crumpled, which had become wedged beneath the moveable slide designed to keep the file cases upright. He worked it out and took the single sheet of paper from the envelope. 'I can tell you what AED stands for, sir.' Morse looked up without enthusiasm and took the letter from him. It was an amateurishly-typed note, written on the official, headed notepaper of the Al-jamara Education Department, and dated 3rd March.
Dear George,
Greetings to all at Oxford. Many thanks for your
letter and for the Summer examination package.
All Entry Forms and Fees Forms should be ready
for final dispatch to the Syndicate by Friday
20th or at the very latest, I'm told, by the 21st.
Admin has improved here, though there's room
for improvement still; just give us all two or three
more years and we'll really show you! Please
don't let these wretched 16+ proposals destroy
your basic O and A pattern. Certainly this
sort of change, if implemented immediately,
would bring chaos.
Sincerely yours,
Apart from the illegibly scrawled signature, that was all.
Morse frowned slightly as he looked at the envelope, which was addressed to G. Bland, Esq, MA, and marked 'STRICTLY PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL' in bold red capitals. But his face quickly cleared, and he handed the letter back to Lewis without a word. It really was time they went.
Idly he opened the Letts diary again and his eyes fell upon the calendar inside the front page. And suddenly the blood began to freeze in his arms, and from the quiet, urgent tone of his voice Lewis immediately realized that the Inspector was strangely excited.
'What's the date of the postmark on that envelope, Lewis?'
'Third of March.'
'This year?'
Lewis looked again. 'Yes, sir.'
'Well, well, well!'
'What is it?'
'Funny, wouldn't you say, Lewis? Friday the 20th, it says in the letter. But which Friday the 20th?' He looked down at the calendar again. 'Not March. Not April. Not May. Not June. Not July. And it must refer to entry forms for last summer's examinations.'
'Somebody could have made a mistake over the date, sir. Could have been using last year's—'
But Morse wasn't listening. He picked up the letter again and studied it for several minutes with a fierce intensity. Then he nodded slowly to himself and a quiet smile spread over his face. 'Lewis, my boy, you've done it again!'
'I have, sir?'
'I'm not saying we're much nearer to finding out the identity of the person who murdered Nicholas Quinn, mind you. But I'll tell you one thing: I'm beginning to think we've got a pretty good idea why he was murdered! Unless it's a cruel coincidence—'
'Hadn't you better explain, sir?'
'Look at the letter again, Lewis, and ask yourself why such a seemingly trivial piece of correspondence was marked "Strictly Private and Confidential". Well?'
Lewis shook his head. 'I agree, sir, that it doesn't seem very important but—'
'But it is important, Lewis. That's just the point! We start reading from the left and then go across, agreed? But they tell me that some of these cockeyed foreigners start from the right and read down!'
Lewis studied the letter once more and his eyes gradually widened. 'You're a clever old bugger, sir.'
'Sometimes, perhaps,' conceded Morse.
At 7.35 p.m. the caretaker knocked deferentially and put his head round the door. 'I don't want to interrupt, sir, if—'
'Don't, then,' snapped Morse, and the door was quietly reclosed. The two policemen looked across the table at each other — and grinned happily.
WHEN?
CHAPTER NINE
MORSE HAD NEVER been in the slightest degree interested in the technicalities of the science of pathology, and on Wednesday morning he read the reports before him with the selectivity of a dedicated pornophilist seeking out the juciest crudities. The smallest dose which has proved fatal is a ½ drachm of the pharmacopoeial acid, or 0.6 gram of anhydrous hydrocyanic acid. . rapidly altered in the body after death, uniting with sulphur. .' Ah, here we are: '. . and such in this instance were the post-mortem appearances that there is reason to believe that death must have occurred almost immediately. . fruitless, in the absence of scratches or abrasions, to speculate on the possibility of the body having been moved after death. .' Interesting. Morse skipped his way along. '. . would suggest a period of between 72-120 hours before the body was discovered. Any greater precision about these time limits is precluded in this case. .' As in all cases you ever have, muttered Morse. He had never ceased to wonder why, with the staggering advances in medical science, all pronouncements concerning times of death remained so disconcertingly vague. For that was the real question: when had Quinn died? If Aristotle could be believed (why not?) the truth would probably lie somewhere in the middle 94 hours, say. That meant Friday lunchtime or thereabouts. Was that possible? Morse put the report aside, and reconsidered the little he as yet knew of Quinn's whereabouts on the previous Friday. Yes. Perhaps he should have asked Quinn's colleagues where they were on Friday, not when they had last seen Quinn. But there was plenty of time; he would have to see them all again soon, anyway. At least one thing was clear. Whoever had tinkered with Quinn's sherry bottle had known something about poison — known a great deal about poison, in fact. Now who. .? Morse went to his shelves, took down Glaister and Rentoul's bulky and definitive tome on Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology, and looked up 'Hydrocyanic Acid' (page 566); and as he skimmed over the headings he smiled to himself. The compiler of the medical report he had just read had beaten him to it: some of the sentences were lifted almost verbatim. Why not, though? Cyanide wasn't going to change much over the years. . He recalled Hitler and his clique in the Berlin bunker. That was cyanide, wasn't it? Cyanide. Suicide! Huh! The obvious was usually the very last thing that occurred to Morse's mind; but he suddenly realized that the most obvious answer to his problem was this: that Quinn had committed suicide. Yet, come to think of it, that was no real answer either. For if he had, why on earth. .?
Lewis was surprised when half an hour later Morse took him to his home in North Oxford. It was two years since he had been there, and he was pleasurably surprised to find how comparatively neat and clean it was. Morse disappeared for a while, but put his head round the door and told Lewis to help himself to a drink.
'I'm all right, sir. Shall I pour one for you?'
'Yes. Pour me a sherry. And pour one for yourself.'
'I'd rather—'
'Do as you're told for a change, man!'
It wasn't unusual for Morse suddenly to turn sour, and Lewis resigned himself to the whims of his superior officer. The cabinet was well-stocked with booze, and Lewis took two small glasses and filled them from a bottle of medium sherry, sat back in an armchair, and wondered what was in store for him now.
He was sipping his sherry effeminately when Morse reappeared, picked up his own, lifted it to his lips and then put it down. 'Do you realize, Lewis, that if that sherry had been poisoned, you'd be a goner by now?'