by Colin Dexter
“Why did you murder those workmen in 1893?”
“It wasn’t in 1893. It was in ’92.”
—Quoted by H. H. Asquith
“Do you want my wife to be here as well? I dropped her in the city center to do a bit of shopping. But she shouldn’t be long—if that’s what you want?”
“We’d rather talk to you alone, sir.”
“What’s this bloody ‘sir’ got to do with things?”
The three of them—Storrs, Morse, Lewis—were seated in Room 36, a pleasingly spacious room, whose windows over-looked the hotel’s pool and the sodden-looking croquet green.
“What’s all this about anyway?” Storrs’ voice was already sounding a little weary, increasingly tetchy. “Can we get on with it?”
So Morse got on with it, quickly sketching in the background to the two murders under investigation:
Storrs had been having an affair with Rachel James—and Rachel James had been murdered.
Storrs had been blackmailed by Owens—and Owens had been murdered.
The grounds for this blackmail were threefold: his extramarital relationship with Ms. James; his dishonest concealment of his medical prognosis; and his wife’s earlier career as striptease dancer and Soho call girl. For these reasons, it would surely have been very strange had Storrs not figured somewhere near the top of the suspect list.
As far as the first murder was concerned, Storrs—both the Storrs—had an alibi: they had been in bed with each other. How did one break that sort of alibi?
As far as the second murder was concerned, Storrs—again both Storrs—had their alibis: but this time not only were they in the same bedroom together, but also eighty-odd miles away from the scene of the crime. In fact, in the very room where they were now. But alibis could be fabricated; and if so, they could be broken. Sometimes they were broken.
(Storrs was listening in silence.)
Means? Forensic tests had established that both murders had been committed with the same weapon—a pistol known as the Howdah, often used by senior ranks in the armed forces, especially in India, where Storrs had served until returning to Oxford. He had acquired such a pistol; probably still had it, unless he had got rid of it recently—very recently.
The predominant cause—the Prime Mover—for the whole tragic sequence of events had been his obsessive, overweening ambition to gain the ultimate honor during what was left to him of his lifetime—the Mastership of Lonsdale, with the virtually inevitable accolade of a knighthood.
Motive, then? Yes.
Means? Yes.
Opportunity, though?
For the first murder, transport from Polstead Road to Kidlington was easy enough—there were two cars. But the target had not been quite so easy. In fact, it might well have been that Rachel James was murdered mistakenly, because of a mix-up over house numbers and a ponytailed silhouette.
But for the second murder, planning had to be far more complicated—and clever. Perhaps the “in-bed-together” alibi might sound a little thin the second time. But not if he was in a bed in some distant place; not if he was openly observed in that distant place at the time the murder must have been committed. No one had ever been in two places at the same time: that would be an affront to the rules by which the Almighty had established the universe. But the distance from Oxford to Bath was only eighty-odd miles. And in a powerful car, along the motorway, on a Sunday morning, early … An hour, say? Pushing it, perhaps? An hour and a quarter, then—two and a half hours on the road. Then there was a murder to be committed, of course. Round it up to three hours, say.
During the last few minutes of Morse’s exposition, Storrs had walked across to the window, where he stood looking out over the garden. The afternoon had clouded, with the occasional spatter of rain across the panes. Storrs was humming quietly to himself; and Morse recognized the tune of “September,” one of Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs:
Der Garten trauert
Kühl sinkt in die Blumen der Regen …
Then, abruptly, Storrs turned round.
“You do realize what you’re saying?” he asked quietly.
“I think I do,” replied Morse.
“Well, let’s get a few things straight, shall we? Last Sunday my wife Angela and I had breakfast here, in this room, at about a quarter to eight. The same young girl brought us breakfast this morning, as it happens. She’ll remember.”
Morse nodded. “She’s not quite sure it was you, though, last Sunday. She says you were shaving at the time, in the bathroom.”
“Who the hell was it then? If it wasn’t me?”
“Perhaps you’d got back by then.”
“Back? Back from Oxford? How did I manage that? Three hours, you say? I must have left at half past four!”
“You had a car—”
“Have you checked all this? You see, my car was in the hotel garage—and God knows where that is. I left it outside when we booked in, and gave the keys to one of the porters. That’s the sort of thing you pay for in places like this—didn’t you know that?”
Again Morse nodded. “You’re right. The garage wasn’t opened up that morning until ten minutes to nine.”
“So?” Storrs looked puzzled.
“You could have driven someone else’s car.”
“Whose, pray?”
“Your wife’s, perhaps?”
Storrs snorted. “Which just happened to be standing outside the hotel—is that it? A helicopter lift from Polstead Road?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Morse.
“All right. Angela’s car’s there waiting for me, yes? How did I get out of the hotel? There’s only the one exit, so I must have slipped unnoticed past a sleeping night porter—” He stopped. “Have you checked up whether the front doors are locked after midnight?”
“Yes, we’ve checked.”
“And are they?”
“They are.”
“So?” Again Storrs appeared puzzled.
“So the only explanation is that you weren’t in the hotel that night at all,” said Morse slowly.
“Really? And who signed the bloody bill on Sunday—what—ten o’clock? Quarter past?”
“Twenty past. We’ve tried to check everything. You signed the bill, sir, using your own Lloyds Visa Card.”
Suddenly Storrs turned his back and stared out of the rainflecked window once more:
“Look! You must forgive me. I’ve been leading you up the garden path, I’m afraid. But it was extremely interesting hearing your story. Outside, just to the left—we can’t quite see it from here—is what the splendid brochure calls its ‘outdoor heated exercise plunge pool.’ I was there that morning. I was there just after breakfast—about half past eight. Not just me, either. There was a rich American couple who were staying in the Beau Nash suite. They came from North Carolina, as I recall, and we must have been there together for twenty minutes or so. Want to know what we were talking about? Bosnia. Bloody Bosnia! Are you satisfied? You say you’ve tried to check everything. Well, just—check—that! And now, if you don’t mind, my dear wife appears to be back. I just hope she’s not spent—Good God! She’s bought herself another coat!”
Lewis, who had himself remained silent throughout the interview, walked across to the rain-flecked window, and saw Mrs. Storrs standing beneath the porchway across the garden, wearing a headscarf, dark glasses, and a long expensive-looking white mackintosh. She appeared to be having some little difficulty unfurling one of the large gaudy umbrellas which the benevolent management left in clumps around the buildings for guests to use when needed—needed as now, for the rain had come on more heavily.
Morse, too, got to his feet and joined Lewis at the window, where Storrs was quietly humming that tune again.
Der Garten trauert …
The garden is mourning …
“Would you and your good lady like to join me for a drink, sir? In the bar downstairs?”
Chapter Sixty-four
Hypoglycemia (n): abno
rmal reduction of sugar content of the blood—for Diabetes sufferers a condition more difficult to spell than to spot.
—Small’s Enlarged English Dictionary, 17th Edition
“What do you think they’re talking about up there, sir?”
“He’s probably telling her what to say.”
Morse and Lewis were seated side-by-side in the Dower House lounge—this time with their backs turned on Lord Ellmore, since two dark-suited men sat drinking coffee in front of the fireplace.
Julian Storrs and a black-tied waiter appeared almost simultaneously.
“Angela’ll be down in a minute. Just changing. Got a bit wet shopping.”
“Before she bought the coat, I hope, sir,” said Lewis.
Storrs gave a wry smile, and the waiter took their order.
“Large Glenfiddich for me,” said Storrs. “Two pieces of ice.”
Morse clearly approved. “Same for me. What’ll you have, Lewis?”
“Does the budget run to an orange juice?”
“And,” Morse turned to Storrs, “what can we get for your wife?”
“Large gin and slim-line tonic. And put ’em all on my bill, waiter. Room thirty-six.”
Morse made no protestation; and Lewis smiled quietly to himself. It was his lucky day.
“Ah! ‘Slim-line tonic,’ ” repeated Morse. “Cuts out the sugar, I believe.”
Storrs made no comment, and Morse continued:
“I know your wife’s diabetic, sir. We checked up. We even checked up on what you both had to eat last weekend.”
“Well done!”
“Only one thing puzzles me really: your wife’s breakfast on Sunday morning.” He gestured to Lewis, the latter now reading from his notebook:
“Ricicles—that’s sort of sugar-frosted toasted rice—my kids used to love ’em, sir—toast and honey, a fruit cocktail, orange juice, and then some hot chocolate.”
“Not, perhaps,” added Morse, “the kind of breakfast a diabetic would normally order, is it? All that sugar? Everything else she ate here was out of the latest diabetic cookbook.”
“Do you know anything about diabetes, Chief Inspector?”
It was a new voice, sharp and rather harsh—for Angela Storrs, dressed in the inevitable trouser-suit (lime green, this time), but most unusually minus the dark glasses, had obviously caught some (most?) of the previous conversation.
“Not much,” admitted Morse as he sought to rise from his deep, low chair. “I’ve only been diagnosed a week.”
“Please don’t get up!” It sounded more an order than a request.
She took a seat next to her husband on the sofa. “I’ve had diabetes for ten years myself. But you’ll learn soon enough. You see, one of the biggest dangers for insulin-dependent diabetics is not, as you might expect, excessively high levels of blood sugar, but excessively low levels: hypoglycemia, it’s called. Are you on insulin yourself?”
“Yes, and they did try to tell me something about—”
“You’re asking about last weekend. Let me tell you. On Saturday evening my blood sugar was low—very low; and when Julian asked me about breakfast I decided to play things safe. I did have some glucose with me; but I was still low on Sunday morning. And if it’s of any interest, I thoroughly enjoyed my sugary breakfast. A rare treat!”
The drinks had arrived.
“Look!” she continued, once the waiter had asked for her husband’s signature on the bill. “Let me be honest with you. Julian has just told me why you’re here. He’d already told me about everything else anyway: about his ridiculous affair with that young Rachel woman; about that slimy specimen Owens.”
“Did you hate him enough to murder him?”
“I did,” interrupted Storrs vehemently. “God rot his soul!”
“And about this Mastership business?” Morse looked from one to the other. “You were in that together?”
It was Julian Storrs who answered. “Yes, we were. I told Angela the truth immediately, about my illness, and we agreed to cover it all up. You see,” suddenly he was looking very tired, “I wanted it so much. I wanted it more than anything—didn’t I, Angela?”
She smiled, and gently laid her own hand over his. “And I did too, Julian.”
Morse drained his whiskey and thirsted for another.
“Mrs. Storrs, I’m going to ask you a very blunt question—and you must forgive me, because that’s my job. What would you say if I told you that you didn’t sleep with your husband last Saturday night—that you slept with another man?”
She smiled again; and for a few moments the angularity of her face had softened into the lineaments of a much younger woman.
“I’d just hope he was a good lover.”
“But you’d deny it?”
“A childish accusation like that? It’s hardly worth denying!”
Morse turned to Storrs. “And you, sir? What would you say if I told you that you didn’t sleep with your wife last Saturday night—that you slept with another woman?”
“I’d just hope she was a good lover, I suppose.”
“But you’d deny it, too?”
“Of course.”
“Anything else you want to check?” asked Angela Storrs.
“Well, just the one thing really, because I’m still not quite sure that I’ve got it right.” Morse took a deep breath, and exhaled rather noisily. “You say you came here with your husband in his BMW, latish last Saturday afternoon—stayed here together overnight—then drove straight back to Oxford together the next morning. Is that right, Mrs. Storrs?”
“Not quite, no. We drove back via Cirencester and Burford. In fact, we had a bite of lunch at a pub in Burford and we had a look in two or three antiques shops there. I nearly bought a silver toast rack, but Julian thought it was grossly overpriced.”
“I see … I see … In that case, it’s about time we told you something else,” said Morse slowly. “Don’t you think so, Sergeant Lewis?”
Chapter Sixty-five
“Is this a question?”
—from an Oxford entrance examination
“If it is, this could be an answer.”
—one candidate’s reply
Apart from themselves and the two men still drinking coffee, the large lounge was now empty.
“Perhaps we could all do with another drink?” It was Morse’s suggestion.
“Not for me,” said Angela Storrs.
“I’m all right, thank you,” said Julian Storrs.
“Still finishing this one,” said Lewis.
Morse felt for the cellophaned packet and almost fell. He stared for a while out of the windows: heavy rain now, through which a hotel guest occasionally scuttled across to the Dower House, head and face wholly indistinguishable beneath one of the gay umbrellas. How easy it was to hide when it was raining!
Almost reluctantly, it seemed, Morse made the penultimate revelation:
“There was someone else staying here last Saturday night, someone I think both of you know. She was staying—yes, it was a woman!—in the main part of the hotel, across there in Room fifteen. That woman was Dawn Charles, the receptionist at the Harvey Clinic on Banbury Road.”
Storrs turned to his wife. “Good heavens! Did you realize that, darling?”
“Don’t be silly! I don’t even know the woman.”
“It’s an extraordinarily odd coincidence, though,” persisted Morse. “Don’t you think so?”
“Of course it’s odd,” replied Angela Storrs. “All coincidences are odd—by definition! But life’s full of coincidences.”
Lewis smiled inwardly. How often had he heard those self-same words from Morse.
“But this wasn’t a coincidence, Mrs. Storrs.”
It was Julian Storrs who broke the awkward, ominous silence that had fallen on the group.
“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. All I’m saying is that I didn’t see her. Perhaps she’s a Fauré fan herself and came for the Abbey concert like we did. You�
��ll have to ask her, surely?”
“If we do,” said Morse simply, confidently, “it won’t be long before we learn the truth. She’s not such a competent liar as you are, sir—as the pair of you are!”
The atmosphere had become almost dangerously tense as Storrs got to his feet. “I am not going to sit here one minute longer and listen—”
“Sit down!” said his wife, with an authority so assertive that one of the coffee drinkers turned his head briefly in her direction as Morse continued:
“You both deny seeing Miss Charles while she was here?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. Sergeant? Please?”
Lewis reopened his notebook, and addressed Mrs. Storrs directly:
“So it couldn’t possibly have been you, madam, who filled a car with petrol at Burford on that Saturday afternoon?”
“Last Saturday? Certainly not!” She almost spat the words at her new interlocutor.
But Lewis appeared completely unabashed. “Have you lost your credit card recently?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“Because someone made a good job of signing your name, that’s all. For twelve pounds of Unleaded Premium at the Burford Garage on the A40 at about three o’clock last Saturday.”
“What exactly are you suggesting?” The voice sounded menacingly calm.
“I’m suggesting that you drove here to Bath that day in your own car, madam—”
But she had risen to her feet herself now.
“You were right, Julian. We are not going to sit here a second longer. Come along!”
But she got no further than the exit, where two men stood barring her way: two dark-suited men who had been sitting for so long beneath the portrait of the bland Lord Ellmore.
She turned round, her nostrils flaring, her wide naked eyes now blazing with fury; and perhaps, as Morse saw them, with hatred, too, and despair.
But she said nothing further, as Lewis walked quietly toward her.
“Angela Miriam Storrs, it is my duty as a police officer to arrest you on the charge of murder. The murder of Geoffrey Gordon Owens, on Sunday, the third of March 1996. It is also my duty to warn you that anything you now say may be taken down in writing and used in evidence at any future hearing.”