by Colin Dexter
"A unique museum, Inspector."
"Do you ever get anybody trying to steal things?"
Very rarely. Last summer we had someone trying to ge into the case with the shrunken heads in it, but--"
"Hope you caught him."
"Her, actually."
"I'd rather rob a bank, myself."
"I'd rather not rob at all."
Morse was losing out, he realised that; and reverted his questioning about Brooks The man was, in the Administrator's view, competent in his job, not frightened of work, punctual, reasonably pleasant with the public; private sort of person, though, something of a loner. There were certainly some of his colleagues with slightly more endearing qualities.
"If you'd known what you know now, would you have appointed him?"
"bio."
"Mind if I smoke?" asked Morse. "I'd rather you didn't."
"Did he smoke?"
"Not in the museum. No one smokes in the museum."
"In the Common Room, or whatever you have?"
"I don't know."
"You don't associate him with drugs at all?"
She glanced at him keenly before replying. '°There are no drugs here--not on my staff."
"You'd know--if there were?
"As you say, some women have a particularly well-developed sense of smell, Inspector."
Morse let it go. "Have you still got his references?" The Administrator unlocked a filing-cabinet beside her and produced a green folder marked "BROOKS, E"; and Morse looked through the half-dozen sheets it contained: Brooks's CV; a carbon of the letter appointing him wef September 1, 1993; a photocopied page giving details of Salary, National Insurance, Job Specification, Shift-Patterns; two open, blandly worded testimonials; and one hand-written reference, equally bland.
Morse read this last item a second time, slowly.
To the Administrator, Pitt Rivers Museum Dear Madam, I understand that Mr. Edward Brooks has applied to you for the post (as advertized in the University Gazette, June '93) of Assistant Attendant at the Mu se Ul TL Brooks has worked as a scout at Wolsey College for almost ten years and I recommend to you his ex perience and diligence.
Yours sincerely,
Felix Mc Clure (Dr.)
Well, well.
"Did you know Dr. Mc Clure?" asked Morse.
"No. And I shan't have a chance of knowing him now, shall I?"
"You heard...?"
"I read it in the Oxford Mail. I know all about Mr.
Brooks's illness, too: his wife rang through early on Mon-day morning. But from what they, s, y he's on the mend."
Morse changed tack once more. know a lot of the ex-hibits here are invaluable; but.., but are there things here that are just plain valuable, if you know what I mean? Commercially valuable, saleable... T'
"My goodness, yes. I wouldn't mind getting my fingers on some of the precious stones and rings here. Or do 1 mean in some of them T'
But Morse appeared to miss the Administrator's gentle humour.
"Does Mr. Brooks have access to, well, to almost every-thing here really?"
"Yes, he does. Each of the attendants has a key to the wall-safe where we keep the keys to all the cabinets and drawers and so on."
"So, if he took a fancy to one of your shrunken heads?"
"No problem. He wouldn't have to use a crow-bar."
"I see."
Jane Cotterell smiled, and thereby melted a little more ot Morse's heart.
"Do I gather you want me to show you a bit about the security system here?"
"Not really," protested Morse.
She rose to her feet. "I'd better show you then."
Twenty minutes later they returned to her office.
"Thank you," said Morse. "Thank you for your patience and your time. You're a very important person, I can see that."
"Really? Howm?'
"Well, you've got a capital 'A' for a start; then you've got a wall-to-wall carpet; and for all I know you've not only got a parking space, you've probably got one with your name on it."
"No name on it, I'm afraid."
"Still..."
"What about you?"
"I've got my name on the door, at least for the present.
But I've only got a little carpet, with a great big threadbare patch where my megapodic sergeant stands."
"Is there such a word--'megapodic'?"
"I'll look it up when I get home. I've just treated myself to the Shorter Oxford."
"Where is your home?"
"Top of the Banbury Road... Anywhere near you?"
"No. That's quite a way from where I live." For a few seconds her eyes looked down at the carpet--that old carpet of hers, whose virtues had so suddenly, so unexpectedly ex-panded.
Only semi-reluctantly, a few minutes earlier, had Brenda Brooks been persuaded to hand over the last sheet of her daughter's letter. Its content, as Julia saw things, was very much as before. But, yes, it was a bit self-incriminating; es-pecially that rather fine passage just before the end: He's undermined everything for me mum, including sex! But the very worst thing he ever did was to make me feel it could all have been my fault. Mum!
Mum! He's bloody fucked up my life, and if he exter tums up murdered somewhere you'll know it was me, alright?
Strangely, however, Julia had experienced little sense of shock. A hardening of heart, rather; and a growing convic tion that if Brooks were to turn up murdered somewhere his step-daughter would not be figuring alone on any list of possible suspects.
Chapter Twenty-three
One night I contrived to stay in the Natural History Mu-seum, hiding myself at closing time in the Fossil Inverte-brate Gallery, and spending an enchanted night alone in the museum, wandering from gallery to gallery with a flash-light (Ol. lv El S^ccs, The Observer, January 9, 1994)
Morse spent a while wandering vaguely around the galler-ies. On the ground floor he gave as much of his attention as he could muster to the tall, glass show-cases illustrating the evolution of fire-arms, Japanese Nob masks, the history of Looms and Weaving, old musical instruments, shields, pots, models of boats, bull-roarers, North American dress, and a myriad precious and semi-precious stones...
Then, feeling like a man who in some great picture gal-lery has had his fill of fourteenth-century crucifixions, he walked up a flight of stone steps to see what the Upper Gallery had to offer; and duly experienced a similar sense of satiety as he ambled aimlessly along a series of black-wood, glass-topped display-cases, severally containing scores of axes, adzes, tongs, scissors keys, coins, animal-traps, specialised tools... Burmeses Siamese, Japanese, In-donesian ··· In one display-case he counted sixty-four Early Medical Instruments, each item labelled in a neat manuscript, in black ink on a white card, with documentation of prove-nance and purpose (where known). Among these many items, all laid out flat on biscuit-coloured backing-material (clearly recently renovated), his attention was drawn to a pair of primitive tooth-extractors from Tonga; and not for the tm: st time he thanked the gods that he had been bom al~ ter the general availability of anaesthetics.
But he had seen quite enough, he thought, wholly un-aware, at this point, that he had made one extraordinarily interesting observation. So he decided it was time to leave. Very soon Lewis would be at the front waiting for him. Lewis would be on time. Lewis was always on time.
For the moment, however, he was conscious that there was no one else around in the Upper Gallery. And suddenly the place had grown a little forbidding, a little uncanny; and he felt a quick shiver down his spine as he made his way back into the main University Museum.
But even hem it was quieter now, more sombre, beneath the glass-roofed atrium, as if perhaps a cloud had passed across the sun outside. And Morse found himself wondering what it would be like to be in this place, be locked in this place, when everyone else had gone; when the school-children were back on their coaches; when the rest of the public, when the attendants, when the Administrator had all left.... Then perhaps, in the silent, eer
ie atmosphere, might not the spirits of the Dodo and the Dinosaur, never sus-pecting their curious extinction, be calling for their mates again on some primeval shore?
Jane Cotterell sat at her desk for several minutes after the door had closed behind Morse. She shouldn't really have said that about the beer. Silly of her! Why, she could just do with a drink herself, and it would have been nice if he'd asked her out for a lunchtime gin. She felt herself wishing that he'd forgotten something: a folding umbrella or a note-book or something. But as she'd observed, the Inspector had taken no notes at all; and outside, the sun now seemed to be shining gloriously once more.
Chapter Twenty-four
Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kind of sin. Intellectual cru-elty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty (G. K. CUSTETON, All Things Considered)
After reading the (now complete) letter, Julia Stevens re-arranged the pages and read them again; whilst beside her, in a semi-distraught state, sat the original addressee; for whom, strangely enough, one of the most disturbing aspects of the letter was the revelation that her sister Beryl had told her niece the events of that terrible night. Had she (Brenda) made too much of everything when Ted had handled her so roughly? Had it been as much an accident as an incident?
But no. No, it hadn't. And whether her account of it had been exaggerated or whether it had been understated--either to her sister over the phone or to her employer in person---certain it was that the recollection of that night in May would remain ever vivid in Brenda's memory....
"You're ever so late, Ted. What time is it?"
"Twelve, is it?"
"It's far later than that."
"If you know what the bloody time is, why the 'ell do you ask me in the first place?
"It's just that I can't get off to sleep when I know you're still out. I feel worried--"
"Christ! You want to worry when I start gettin' in 'all-past bloody three, woman."
"Come to bed now, anyway."
"I bloody shan't--no!"
"Well, go and sleep in the spare room, then--I've got to get some sleep."
"All the bloody same to me, innit if I go in there, or if I stay in 'ere. Might just as well a' bin in different rooms all the bloody time, you know that. Frigid as a fuckin' ice-box! That's what you are. Always 'ave bin."
"That's just not fair---that's not fair, what you just said!"
"If the bloody cap fits--"
"It can't go on like this, Ted--it just can't. I can't stick it any more."
"Well, bloody don't then! Sling your 'ook and go, if you can't stick it! But just stop moanin' at me, al'you bear? Stop fuckin' moanin'! All right?"
She was folding her candlewick dressing-gown round her small figure and edging past him at the foot of the double bed, when be stopped her, grabbing hold of her fiercely by the shoulders and glaring furiously into ber face before pushing her back.
"You stay where you are!"
Twice previously he had physically maltreated her in a similar way, but on neither occasion had she suffered phys-ical hurt. That night, though, she had stumbled--had to stumble--against the iron fireplace in the bedroom; and as she'd put out her right hand to cushion the fall, something had happened; something had snapped. Not that it had been too painful. Not then.
As a young girl Brenda had been alongside when her mother had slipped in the snow one February morning and landed on her wrist; broken her wrist. And passers-by had been so concerned, so belpful, that as she'd sat in the Casualty Department at the old Radcliffe Infirmary, she'd told her daughter that it had almost been worthwhile, the accident--to discover such unsuspected kindness.
But that night Ted had just told her to get up; told bet not to be such a bloody ninny. And sbe'd started to weep then--to weep not so much from pain or shock but from the humiliation of being treated in such a way by the man she had married....
Julia handed back the letter.
"I think she hates him even more than you do." Brenda nodded miserably. "I must have loved him on though, mustn't I? I suppose he was--well, after died--he was just there really. I suppose I need something--somebody--and Ted was there, and he mad bit of a fuss of me--and I was lonely. After that.., bu doesn't matter any more."
For a while there was a silence between the two worn, "Mrs. Stevens?"
"Yes?"
"What about this other thing? What am I going about it? Please help me! Please!"
It was with anger that Julia had listened to Brend earlier confidences; with anger, too, that she had read letter. The man was an animal--she might have kno' it; had known it. But the possibility that he was a m derer? Could Brenda have got it all wrong? Ridiculou wrong?
Julia had never really got to know Ted Brooks. In early days of Brenda working for her, she'd met him a times--4hree or four, no more. And once, only once, ] she gone round to the Brookses' house, when Brenda been stricken with some stomach bug; and when, as had left, Ted Brooks's hand had moved, non-accidenta against her breasts as he was supposedly helping her with her mackintosh.
Take your homy hands off me, you lecherous sod, sh thought then; and she had never seen him since that Never would, if she could help it. Yet he was not an looking fellow, she conceded that.
The contents of the letter, therefore, had come as sot thing less of a shock than may have been expected, sil she had long known that Brenda had fairly regularly on the receiving end of her husband's tongue and teml and had suspected other things, perhaps....
But Brooks a murderer?
She looked across with a sort of loving distress at busy, faithful little lady who had been such a godsenc her; a little lady dressed now in a navy-blue, two-piece I10 an oldish suit certainly, yet beautifully clean, with the pleats in the skirt most meticulously pressed for this special occa-sion.
She felt an ovexwhelming surge of compassion for her, and she was going to do everything she could to help.
Of course she was.
What about "this other thing," though? My god, what could she do about that?
"Brenda? Brenda7 You know what you said about... about the blood? Are you sure? Are you sure?"
"Mrs. Stevens?" Brenda whispered. "I wasn't going to tell you--I wasn't even going to tell you. But yes, I am sure. And shall I tell you why I'm sure?"
It was twenty-past two when Julia's taxi dropped Brenda--not immediately outside her house, but very close, just he-side the Pakistani grocer's shop on the comer.
"Don't forget, Brenda! Make sure you run out of milk again tonight. Just before nine. And don't say or do any-thing before then. Agreed? Bye."
On her way home, Julia spotted the Oxford Mail placard outside a newsagent's in the Cowley Road: POLICE HUNT MURDER WEAPON and she asked the taxi-driver to stop.
Just before 3 P.M., Ted Brooks was lining up the shot, his eyes coolly assessing the angle between the white cue-ball and the last colour. Smoothly his cue drove through the line of his aim, and the black swiftly disappeared into the bot-tom right-hand pocket.
His opponent, an older man, slapped a pound coin down on the side of the table.
"Not done your snooker much harm, Ted,"
"No. Back at work in a fortnight, so the doc says. With a bit o' luck."
Chapter Twenty-five
The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom (H. L. MENCKEN)
As Morse had expected, Lewis was already sitting waiting for him outside the museum. "How did things go, sir?"
"All right."
"Learn anything new.9"
"Wouldn't go quite so far as that. What about you?"
"Interesting. That woman, well---she's a sort of major-domo Amazonian type, sir. I wouldn't like her as Chief Constable."
"Give it five years, Lewis."
"Anyway, it's about Matthew Rodway. In the autumn term--"
"We call it the Michaelmas Term here, Lewis."
"In the Michaelmas Term, in his third year, when he was back in college again--"
"In the House."
<
br /> "In the House again, he was sharing rooms with another fellow---"
"Another undergraduate."
"Another undergraduate called Ashley Davies. But not for long, it seems. Davies got himself temporarily booted out of college--"
"Rusticated."
"Rusticated that term. Some sort of personal trouble, she said, but didn't want to go into it. Said we should see Da-vies tbr ourselves, really."
"Like me, then, you didn't learn very much."
"Ah! Just a minute, sir," smiled Lewis. "Mr. Ashley Da-vies, our undergraduate, in the Michaelmas Term 1993, was rusticated from the House on e sayso of one Dr. Felix Mc Clure, former Student--capital 'S,' sir--of Wolsey Col-lege.'
'°The plot thickens."
"Bad blood, perhaps, sir? Ruined his chances, cer-tainly--Davies was expected to get a First, she'd heard.
And he didn't return this year, either. Murky circum stances ... Drugs, do you think?"
"Or booze,"
"Or love."
"Well?"
"I've got his address. Living with his parents in Bed-ford."
"Did any good thing ever come out of Bedford?"
"John Bunyan, sir?"
"You go and see him, then. I can't do everything myself."
"What's wrong?" asked Lewis quietly.
"I dunno. My chest's sore. My legs ache. My bead's throbbing. I feel sick. I feel sweaty. It's the wrong question, isn't it? You mean, what's right?"
"Have you had your pills.9"
"Course I have. Somebody's got to keep fit."
"When were you last fit, sir?"
Morse pulled the safety-belt across him and fumbled for a few seconds to fix the tongue into the buckle. "I don't ever remember feeling really fit."
"I'm sure you'll blast my head off, sir, but--"
"I ought not to drink so much."
"I wouldn't be surprised if you'd just washed your pills down with a pint."
"Would you be surprised if you were quite wrong about that?"