by Colin Dexter
‘In itself, yes. But let’s turn to Monica Height. How on earth are we to account for the bundle of lies she was prepared to tell? It’s fairly easy now to see why Martin must have been happy to agree to the lies they cooked up together after Monica told him she’d seen Bartlett coming out of the cinema. In fact I should think that he almost certainly instigated them himself, because it was going to suit his book very well not to have himself associated with Studio 2 in any way. And later, after Monica learned that Quinn himself might have been in Studio 2 that same afternoon she immediately realized that things would look pretty black for Bartlett if she said anything about seeing him there. And so she continued to conceal the truth. Why, Lewis? For the very same reason that Quinn couldn’t face Bartlett: because she just couldn’t believe that he was guilty.’
Lewis nodded. Perhaps it was all adding up slightly better now.
‘And above all,’ continued Morse, ‘there was Ogleby. He worried me the most, Lewis, and you made the key point yourself: why didn’t he tell me what he knew? I think there are two possible reasons. First, that Ogleby was quite prepared to go it alone – he was always a loner, it seems. He knew he hadn’t long to live anyway, and it may have added that extra bit of mustard to his life to carry out a single-handed investigation into the quite extraordinary situation he’d stumbled across. It couldn’t have mattered much to him that he might be living dangerously – he was living dangerously in any case. But that’s as may be. I feel sure there was a second reason, and a much more compelling one. He’d discovered what looked like extremely damning evidence against Bartlett – a man he’d known and worked with for fourteen years – and he just couldn’t believe that he was guilty. And he was determined to say nothing which could lead us to suspect him – not until he could prove it, anyway.’
‘But he didn’t get a chance—’
‘No,’ said Morse quietly. He leaned back in his chair and gently rubbed his swollen lip. ‘Anything else while we’re at it, my son?’
Lewis thought back over the whole complex case and realized that he hadn’t quite got it straight in his mind, even now. ‘It was Martin, then, who did all of the things you accused Bartlett of?’
‘Indeed it was. And more. Martin killed Quinn at exactly the same time and in almost exactly the same way. The deed was done in Martin’s office, and Martin had exactly the same opportunity as Bartlett would have had. Admittedly, he was taking a slightly bigger risk, but he’d planned the whole thing – at least up to this point – with meticulous care. You see, the main plot must have been hatched up immediately after Bartlett had announced the fire drill for Friday. But the Syndicate staff only received that notice on the Monday, and there wasn’t all that much time; and in the event they had to improvise a bit as the situation developed. On the whole I suppose they made the best of the opportunities that arose, but they tried to be a bit too clever – especially about the Studio 2 business, which landed them both in a hell of a lot of unnecessary trouble.’
‘Don’t get cross with me, sir, but can you just go over that again. I still—’
‘I don’t think Studio 2 figured in the original plan at all – though I may be wrong, of course. The original idea must have been to try to persuade any caller at Quinn’s office that he was there or thereabouts during that Friday afternoon. It was all a bit clumsy, but just about passable – the note to his typist, the anorak, the filing cabinet, and so on. Now, I’d guess that Martin’s nerves must have been pretty near breaking-point after he’d killed Quinn, and he must have breathed a huge sigh of relief when he managed to persuade Monica to spend the afternoon with him: the fewer people in the office that afternoon the better, and being with Monica gave him a reasonable alibi if things didn’t go according to plan. As I say, I don’t think that at this state there was the remotest intention of planting the torn half of a cinema ticket on Quinn’s body. But remember what happened. Martin and Monica decided to lie about going to the cinema; and Martin himself gradually began to take stock of the situation. He must have realized that the elaborate attempt to convince everyone that Quinn was alive and well at the Syndicate was pretty futile. No one’s there to be convinced. Bartlett’s not there – he knows that; he himself and Monica are not there, either; Quinn is dead; and Ogleby is out lunching with the OUP people and may not go back to the office at all. So. He gets his brainwave: he’ll get Roope to put the cinema ticket in one of Quinn’s pockets.’
‘But when—?’
‘Just a minute. After leaving the cinema – by the way, Martin lied to me there, and I ought to have noticed it earlier. He tried to stretch his alibi by saying he left at a quarter to four; but as we know from Monica they both left just before the film was due to end – at about a quarter past three. Obviously they’d want to get out before the general exodus – less risk of being seen. Anyway, after leaving the cinema, they went their separate ways: Monica went home; and so did Martin, except that on his way he called in at the Syndicate, at about 3.20, found no one about – not even Ogleby – and left his own cinema ticket in Bartlett’s room for Roope to pick up.’
‘But Roope wouldn’t have known—?’
‘Give me a chance, Lewis. Martin must have written a very brief note – “Stick this in his pocket”, or something like that – and put it with the ticket and the keys. Then, about ten minutes later, Ogleby got back, found everyone else out, and decided that this was as good an opportunity as he’d get of poking around in Bartlett’s room; and he was so puzzled by what he found there that he copied out the cinema ticket into his diary.’
‘And then Martin went home, I suppose.’
Morse nodded. ‘And made sure, I should think, that somebody saw him, especially during the vital period between 4.30 and five o’clock, when he knew that Roope was performing his part in the crime. He must have thought he could relax a bit; but then Roope rang him up from Quinn’s house at just after five o’clock with the shattering news that Quinn’s charlady – Well, you know the rest.’
Lewis let it all sink it, and he finally seemed to see the whole pattern clearly. Almost the whole pattern. ‘What about the paperboy? Did Roope send him with a letter to Bartlett just—’
‘ – just to make things difficult for Bartlett, yes. Roope must have said he wanted to have an urgent talk with him about police suspicions – or something like that. Roope knew, of course, that we were watching him like a hawk, and so he walked slowly down to the railway station and let us follow him.’
‘You haven’t talk to Bartlett about that?’
‘Not yet. After we’d let him go, I thought we ought to give him a bit of a breather, poor fellow. He’d had a rough time.’
Lewis hesitated. ‘There is just one more thing, sir.’
‘Yes?’
‘Bartlett will have something to explain away, won’t he? I mean he did go to Studio 2.’
Morse smiled as widely as his swollen mouth would allow him. ‘I reckon I can answer that one for you. Bartlett’s as human as the rest of us, and perhaps it’s a long time since he’s seen the likes of Inga Nielsson unbuttoning her blouse. The film started at 1.30, and since he didn’t need to leave for Banbury until about 2.30, he decided to be a dirty old man for an hour or so. But don’t blame him, Lewis! Do you hear me? Don’t blame him. He must have gone in immediately the doors opened, sat there in the rear lounge, and then, as his eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness, he saw Martin come in. But Martin didn’t see him; and Bartlett did what anyone in his position would do – he got out, quick.’
‘And that’s when Monica saw him?’
‘That’s it.’
‘So he didn’t see the film after all?’
Morse shook his head sadly. ‘And if you’ve got any more questions, leave ’em till tomorrow. I’ve got a treat for you tonight.’
‘But I promised the wife—’
Morse pushed the phone over. ‘Tell her you’ll be a bit late.’
They sat side by side in a fairly crowded gath
ering, with only the green ‘Exit’ lights shining up brightly in the gloom. Morse had bought the tickets himself – rear lounge: after all, it was something of a celebration.
‘Christ, look at those!’ whispered Morse, as the camera moved in on the buxom blonde beauty, her breasts almost toppling out over the low-cut closely-clinging gown.
‘Take it off!’ shouted a voice from somewhere near the front, and the predominantly male audience sniggered sympathetically, whilst Morse settled himself comfortably in his seat and prepared to gratify his baser instincts. And with only token reluctance, Lewis prepared to do the same.
EPILOGUE
THE SYNDICATE WAS forced to close down as soon as the autumn examination results had been issued, and its overseas centres were parcelled out amongst the other GCE Boards. The building itself has been taken over by a department of HM Inspectorate of Taxes, and today female clerks clack up and down its polished corridors, and talk of girlish things in the rooms where once the little Secretary and his graduate staff administered their examinations.
From her considerable private income, Mrs Bartlett bought a farm in Hampshire, where Richard at last found a life which served to soothe his troubled mind, and where his father’s eyes were occasionally seen to blink almost boyishly again behind the rimless spectacles.
Until Sally had completed her undistinguished school career, Miss Height stayed in Oxford, taking on some part-time teaching. Several times in the months that followed the conviction of the Syndicate murderers, she had found her way to the Horse and Trumpet – just for old time’s sake, she told herself. How dearly she would have loved to see him again! She owed him a drink, anyway, and she wanted to square the account; to make up for things, as it were. But much as she had willed it, she had never found him there.
More than sufficient evidence was found to justify the immediate disqualification of Master Muhammad Dubal from all his autumn O-level examinations; and six weeks later his father, the sheik, was listed among the ‘missing’ after a ‘bloodless’ coup within the emirate.
George Bland, though reported to have been seen in various eastern capitals, remains unpunished still; yet perhaps no criminal can live without some little share of justice.
No 1 Pinewood Close is tenanted again, both upstairs and down; and Mrs Jardine is thinking of buying herself a new outfit. As she’d expected, it had been no more than a few weeks before the notoriety had died down. Life was like that, as she had known.
Just after Christmas, at a christening in East Oxford, the minister dipped a delicate finger into the font, and in the name of the Holy Trinity enlisted his little charge in the myriad of ranks of the great Church Militant. But the water was icy cold and Master Nicholas John Greenaway squawked stentoriously. In the end, the name had been Frank’s choice: it had sort of grown on him, he said. But as Joyce took the baby in her arms and lovingly there-thered his raucous cries, her mind ranged back to the day when Nicholas, her son, was born, and when another man called Nicholas had died.
Praise for
Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse Mysteries
‘No one constructs a whodunit with more fiendish skill than Colin Dexter’
Guardian
‘Traditional crime writing at its best; the kind of book without which no armchair is complete’
Sunday Times
‘A character who will undoubtedly retain his place as one of the most popular and enduring of fictional detectives’
P. D. James, Sunday Telegraph
‘Dexter has created a giant among fictional detectives’
The Times
‘The writing is highly intelligent, the atmosphere melancholy, the effect haunting’
Daily Telegraph
‘Colin Dexter is the crime writer of perfect pitch and perfect pace’
Jonathan Gash
‘What construction! What skill! Why isn’t this author ever on the Booker shortlist?’
Beryl Bainbridge
‘[Morse is] the most prickly, conceited and genuinely brilliant detective since Hercule Poirot’
New York Times Book Review
‘Colin Dexter’s superior crime-craft is enough to make lesser practitioners sick with envy’
Oxford Times
‘The triumph is the character of Morse’
Times Literary Supplement
‘Superb entertainment indeed’
Yorkshire Evening Press
THE SILENT WORLD OF NICHOLAS QUINN
COLIN DEXTER graduated from Cambridge University in 1953 and has lived in Oxford since 1966. His first novel, Last Bus to Woodstock, was published in 1975. There are now thirteen novels in the series, of which The Remorseful Day is, sadly, the last.
Colin Dexter has won many awards for his novels, including the CWA Silver Dagger twice, and the CWA Gold Dagger for The Wench Is Dead and The Way Through the Woods. In 1997 he was presented with the CWA Diamond Dagger for outstanding services to crime literature, and in 2000 was awarded the OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
The Inspector Morse novels have been adapted for the small screen with huge success by Carlton/Central Television, starring John Thaw and Kevin Whately. Spin-offs from Dexter’s much-loved novels also include the popular series, Lewis, featuring Morse’s former sergeant, Robbie Lewis, and Endeavour, a prequel starring the young Endeavour Morse.
Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse Mysteries
Last Bus to Woodstock
Last Seen Wearing
The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn
Service of All the Dead
The Dead of Jericho
The Riddle of the Third Mile
The Secret of Annexe 3
The Wench Is Dead
The Jewel that Was Ours
The Way Through the Woods
The Daughters of Cain
Death Is Now My Neighbour
The Remorseful Day
Also available in Pan Books
Morse’s Greatest Mystery and Other Stories
First published 1977 by Macmillan
First published in paperback 1978 by Pan Books
This electronic edition published 2016 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-0-330-50416-4
Copyright © Colin Dexter 1977
Cover Images © Adam Hirons/Millennium Images, UK
The right of Colin Dexter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Pan Macmillan does not have any control over, or any responsibility for, any author or third-party websites referred to in or on this book.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.
>share