by Colin Dexter
Later the same afternoon, a business executive, immaculately dressed in a pin-striped suit, walked into the farthest cubicle of the gentlemen’s toilet at the Station Hotel, Paddington. When he pulled the chain, the cistern seemed to be working perfectly, as though the presence of a pair of human hands as yet was causing little problem to the flushing mechanism.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Monday, 4th August
In which Morse and Lewis retrace their journey as far as the terminus of the first milestone.
It was with growing impatience that Lewis waited from 8.15 a.m. onwards. Morse had arrived back in Oxford late the previous evening and had called in to see him, readily accepting Mrs Lewis’s offer to cook him something, and thereafter settling down to watch television with the joyous dedication of a child. He had refused to answer Lewis’s questions, affirming only that the sun would almost certainly rise on the morrow, and that he would be in the office-early.
At 9 a.m. there was still no sign of him, and for the umpteenth time Lewis found himself thinking about the astonishing fact that, of the four dubiously associated and oddly assorted men who had played their parts in the case, not one of them could now lay the slightest claim to be mistaken for the corpse that still lay in Max’s deep-refrigeration unit: Browne-Smith had died of a brain haemorrhage beside a railway-track; Westerby had been strangled to death in a cheap hotel near Paddington; Alfred Gilbert had been found murdered in a room a couple of floors above Westerby’s flat in Cambridge Way; and Albert Gilbert had thrown himself from a seventh-storey window in Berry-wood Court. So the same old question still remained unanswered, and the simple truth was that they were running out of bodies.
But there were one or two items that Lewis had discovered for himself, and at 9.30 a.m. he browsed through his neatly typed reports once more. He’d learned, for example-from the manager of the topless bar-that Browne-Smith seemed to have been unaccountably slow in identifying himself by the agreed words: ‘It’s exactly twelve o’clock, I see.’ Then (after applying a good deal of pressure) he’d learned from the same source that the “cine” equipment had definitely not been returned to the bar the next day; in fact, it had been nearer a week before any of the bar-clients could indulge their voyeuristic fantasies again. There was a third fact, too: that neither the manager nor any of his hostesses had previously set eyes upon the man with the brownish beard who had sat beside the bar that fateful Friday when Browne-Smith had been tempted down from Oxford…
Morse finally arrived just before 9.45 a.m., his lower lip caked with blood.
‘Sorry to be late. Just had her out. No trouble. Hardly felt a thing. “Decayed beyond redemption”-that’s what the little fellow said.’ He sat down expansively in his chair. ‘Well, where do you want me to start?’
‘At the beginning, perhaps?”
‘No. Let’s start before then, and get a bit of the background clear. While you were off gallivanting in London, Lewis, I called in to see your pal at the Examination Schools, and I asked him just one thing: I asked him what he thought were the potential areas for any crooked dealings in this whole business of the final lists. And he made some interesting suggestions. First, of course, there’s the possibility of someone getting results ahead of the proper time. Now this isn’t perhaps one of the major sins; but, as you told me yourself, all that waiting can become a matter of great anxiety: sometimes perhaps enough anxiety to make one or two people willing to pay-pay in some way-for learning results early. That’s only the start of it, though. You see if there’s some undergraduate who’s nearly up to the first-class honours bracket, he’s put forward for a viva-voce examination, but he’s never told which particular part of his work he’s going to be re-examined in. Now, if he did know, he’d be able to swot up on that side of things and get ready to catch all the hand-grenades they lobbed at him. Agreed? But let’s go on a stage further. Our budding “first” would be an even shorter-odds favourite if he knew the name of the man who was going to viva him: he could soon find out this fellow’s hobby-horses, read his books, and generally tune himself in to the right wavelength. Which leads on to the final consideration. If he did know exactly who it was who was going to settle his future, there’d always be the potential for a bit of bribery, the offer of money in return for that glowing recommendation for a “first”. You see, Lewis? The whole process is full of loop-holes! I’m not saying anyone wriggles through ‘em: I’m just telling you they’re there. And, depending on what the rewards are, there might be a few susceptible dons who could feel tempted to go along with one or two suggestions, don’t you think?’
Lewis nodded. ‘Perhaps a few might, I suppose.’
‘No “perhaps”, Lewis- just a few did!’
Again Lewis nodded-rather sadly-and Morse continued.
‘Then we found a corpse with a great big question-mark on the label round its neck.’
‘It hadn’t got a neck, sir.’
‘That’s true.’
‘And there isn’t a question-mark any longer?’
‘Patience, Lewis!’
‘But we had the letter to go on.’
‘Even that, though. If we hadn’t had a line on things to start with, the whole thing would have been a load of gobbledygook. Would you have made much of it without-’
‘I wouldn’t have made anything of it, anyway.’
‘Don’t underestimate yourself, Lewis-let me do it for you!’
‘What about that blood-donor business?’
‘Ah! Now if you’ve been a donor for a good many years you get a lot of little tiny marks-’
‘As a matter of fact I got my gold badge last year-for fifty times, that is-in case you didn’t know.’
‘Oh!’
‘So I don’t really need you to tell me much about that.’
‘But you do. Do you know when you have to pack up giving blood? What age, I mean?’
‘No.’
‘Well, you bloody should! Don’t you read any of the literature? It’s sixty-five.’
Lewis let the information sink in. ‘You mean that Browne-Smith wouldn’t have been on the current records…’
‘Nor Westerby. They were both over sixty-five.”
‘Ye-es. I should have looked in the old records.’
‘It’s all right. I’ve already checked. Browne-Smith was a donor until a couple of years ago. Westerby never: he’d had jaundice and that put him out of court, as I’m sure you’ll know!’
‘But the body wasn’t Browne-Smith’s.’
‘No?’ Morse smiled and wiped the blood gently from his mouth. ‘Whose was it then?’
But Lewis shook his head. ‘I’m just here to listen, sir.’
‘All right. Let’s start at the beginning. George Westerby is iust finishing his stint at Lonsdale. He’s looking for a place in London, and he finds one, and buys it. The estate agent tells him that all the removals from Oxford can easily be arranged, and that suits Westerby fine. He’s got two places: his rooms at Lonsdale, and his little weekend cottage out at Thrupp. So Removals Anywhere come on to the scene-and the supremely important moment in the case arrives: Bert Gilbert notices the name opposite Westerby’s rooms on T Staircase-the name of Dr O. M. A. Browne-Smith-the name of a man he’d always ranked among the legion of the damned – the man who’d been responsible for his younger brother’s death.
‘Now, very soon after this point-I’m sure of it! -we get a switch of brothers. Bert reports his extraordinary finding to his brother, and it’s Alfred-by general consent the abler of the two – who now takes over. He finds out as much as he can about Browne-Smith, and devises a plan that makes it ridiculously easy for Browne-Smith to go along with things. He writes a letter on Westerby’s typewriter -he’s in Westerby’s rooms whenever he likes now, remember -inviting Browne-Smith to do him a very small favour, and one that would entail no real compromise to Browne-Smith’s academic integrity. This offer, as we know, was taken up, and off Browne-Smith goes to London. But we also know-becau
se he told us-that; Browne-Smith played his own cards with equal cunning. And in the end Gilbert’s plan misfired-whatever that plan had been originally.
‘Gilbert came into the room to find that Browne-Smith wasn’t unconscious, as he’d expected. So they talked together straight away; and it wasn’t long before Gilbert discovered that the military records of young brother John were hardly a striking example of dedication to duty. In fact, far from being killed in action, he’d shot himself the night before El Alamein-and one of the few people who knew all this was Browne-Smith, John Gilbert’s platoon officer. So when the whole story was out at last, there couldn’t have been much wind left in the Gilberts sails, because it was quite clear to them that Browne-Smith hadn’t the slightest responsibility, direct or indirect, for the brother’s death! Now, at that point everything could have been over, Lewis. And if it had been, certainly four of the five people who’ve died in this case would still be alive. But…’
Yes, Lewis understood all this. It seemed simpler,though, that now that Morse had put it into words. ‘But then,’ he said quietly, ‘Browne-Smith saw the chance to duplicate-’
‘ “Replicate”-that’s the word I’d use, Lewis.’
‘-to replicate the process with Westerby.’
That’s it. That’s the end of the first mile, and we’re going to start on the second.’ ‘Off we go then, sir!’
‘Do you fancy a cup of coffee?’
Lewis got to his feet. ‘Any sugar?’
‘Just a little, perhaps. You know it’s a funny thing, were no end of tins of coffee in
Alfred Gilbert’s flat, and not single drop of alcohol!’
‘Not everybody drinks, sir.’
‘Course they do! He was just an oddball – that’s for certain. And I’ll tell you something else. When I was a lad I heard of a Methodist minister who was a bit embarrassed about being seen reading the Bible all the time-you know, on trains and buses. So he had a special cover made-a sort of cowboy cover with a gun-slinger on his horse; and he had this stuck round his Bible when he was reading Ezekiel or something. Well, I found a book in Gilbert’s flat that was exactly the opposite. It had a cover on it called Know Your Kochel Numbers-’
‘Pardon, sir?’
‘ “Kochel”. He was the chap who put all Mozart’s works into some sort of chronological order and gave ‘em all numbers.’
‘Oh.’
‘I had a look in this book-and do you know what I found? It was a load of the lewdest pornography I’ve ever seen. I-er-I brought it with me, if you want to borrow it?’
‘No, sir. You read it yourself. I-’
‘I have read it.’ The numbed lips were smiling almost guiltily: read it twice, actually.’
‘Did you find anything else in the flat?’
‘Found a beard-a brownish beard. Sort of theatrical thing, stuck with Elastoplast.’
‘That all?’
‘Found a scarf, Lewis. Not quite so long as mine, but a nice scarf. Still, that was hardly a surprise, was it?’
‘Just a little sugar, you say?’
‘Well, perhaps a bit more than that.’
Lewis stood at the door. ‘I wonder whether Gilbert had his tooth out.’
‘Didn’t need to, Lewis. He had false teeth – top and bottom.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Monday, 4th August
Gently we journey along the second mile, which appears to Morse to be adequately posted.
During the few minutes that Lewis was away, Morse was acutely conscious of the truth of the proposition that the wider the circle of knowledge the greater the circumference of ignorance. He was (he thought) like some tree-feller in the midst of the deepest forest who has effected a clearing large enough for his immediate purposes; but one, too, who sees around him the widening ring of undiscovered darkness wherein the wickedness of other men would never wholly be revealed. On his recent visit to London he had felled a few more trees; and doubtless he and Lewis (before the case was closed) would fell a few more still. But the men who might have directed his steps through the trackless forest were now all dead, leaving him with an odd collection of ugly, jagged stumps; ugly, jagged, awkward clues that could only tell a stark, truncated version of the truth. But that was all he had and-almost-it was enough, perhaps.
‘Tell me more about the Gilberts,’ said Lewis, handing across a paper cup of tepid coffee.
‘Well, you know as much about their background as I do. Just remember one thing, though. We learned they were identical twins, so closely alike that even their friends got them muddled up occasionally. But when you get to your sixties, Lewis, you’re bound to differ a bit: general signs of ageing, spots on the chin, gaps in the teeth, hair-style, scars, whether you’re fatter or thinner, the way you dress-almost everything is going to mark some ever-widening difference as the years go by. Now, I never saw Bert Gilbert alive-and I didn’t go and look at him when he was dead. You see, it was Alfred Gilbert I met in Westerby’s rooms that day-with a scarf wrapped round the bottom half of his face and a phoney tale about an abscessed tooth.’
‘He was frightened Browne-Smith would recognize him.’
‘Not just that, though. As it happened, Browne-Smith had already recognized his brother-although Alfred Gilbert wasn’t to know that. Like all visitors, Bert had already reported to the Porters’ Lodge a couple of times, and Alfred was anxious that no one should know that he and his brother had switched roles. He carefully selected a young assistant who’d only just joined the firm and who wouldn’t know and wouldn’t care which brother did what anyway-’
‘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 li
ttle 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?’