by David Bishop
SURVEILLANCE REPORT: ‘The Inside Story’ was commissioned by American Express and published in a slim promotional volume by Pan. It was subsequently reprinted in the 1993 anthology Morse’s Greatest Mystery and Other Stories.
The story is divided into four parts, the second of which reprints Sheila’s short story entry in full.
Morse spouts a version of what is sometimes known as Morse’s Law – the person who finds the body must be the prime suspect for the murder.
THE VERDICT: For once Lewis thinks he has beaten his boss to the solution of a domestic murder. But Morse has already arrested the culprit. The story-within-a-story adds a nice wrinkle to a straightforward but entertaining tale.
MORSE’S GREATEST MYSTERY AND OTHER STORIES
FIRST PUBLISHED: 1993
Colin Dexter wrote a number of short stories and novellas in between creating the 13 Morse novels. In 1993 ten such works were collected under one cover as Morse’s Greatest Mystery and Other Stories. A revised edition was published in 1995, adding an eleventh tale to the anthology. The inspector stars in six of the 11 stories and makes a cameo appearance in another. In a poll of Inspector Morse Society members, Morse’s Greatest Mystery was chosen as the second worst book in the series.
THE CARPET-BAGGER
‘That, my lad, was Chief Inspector Morse.’ The Oxford detective is a minor player in events surrounding the escape of a prisoner.
FIRST PUBLISHED: 1993
SURVEILLANCE REPORT: Morse makes two cameo appearances in this story. PC Barry Watson sees a Jaguar parked at the end of a lay-by on the northbound A34. He approaches it and sees the grey head of the driver jerk round. A dusky-headed young maiden beside him quickly does up the buttons on her blouse.
The next day Morse is standing in front of Watson in the queue at the police canteen. The constable wonders why someone called Samuel Lambert is nicknamed Danny. Morse suggests the person came from Stamford. Anyone called Lambert in that town is often nicknamed Danny after Daniel Lambert, listed in The Guinness Book of Records for weighing 52 stone.
Afterwards a police sergeant identifies the man who spoke as Morse. Watson thinks he almost recognised the profile of Morse’s grey head... All of which begs the questions: what was Morse doing on a lay-by with a young maiden wearing an unbuttoned blouse at night, and who was she?
LAST CALL
‘There’s been no murder here.’ Morse goes round the houses before finally deducing a sudden death was due to natural causes.
FIRST PUBLISHED: 1993
STORYLINE: The detectives go to the Randolph where Peter Sherwood has died in his hotel room. Blood seeps from a gash over one eye. In the bathroom is a syringe and a broken phial of insulin. Sherwood had only just checked in to the hotel at 5.40 pm. The Shrewsbury man came to Oxford for a two-day conference.
An outside phone call was put through to his room. A second call was made from inside the hotel requesting urgent medical assistance in Room 231. The police were called because the hotel’s house doctor felt uneasy about the head wound. The detectives speculate that Sherwood came with his mistress. He checked in while she parked her car elsewhere. She found him dead in the room, called for help and then fled.
The dead man was a diabetic. He was due to take an insulin injection at 6.00 pm. The first call was about that time. Initial tests suggest a heart attack.
Next day a young woman calls at the hotel. She drove Sherwood to Oxford. He checked in and took their luggage to Room 231. He came back and gave her the key, saying he would expect her in a quarter of an hour. She parked the car elsewhere before returning to the hotel. But who made the earlier phone call to Sherwood’s room?
The detectives interview the dead man’s wife. She knows Sherwood’s mistress but refuses to name her. Morse suggests Mrs Sherwood planned to murder her husband by putting poison into his insulin. She works in a pharmaceutical lab and has access to poison. But the inspector believes she had a change of heart and called her husband to warn him. Mrs Sherwood agrees with this theory. She phoned her husband just before he was due to inject himself at 6.00 pm. She heard him collapse on the floor. When the detectives have gone, she smiles to herself. Mrs Sherwood never called the hotel. She wanted her husband dead. A heart attack was just as good as poison. Morse and Lewis search for the dead man’s lover.
Jane Ballantyre recalls what happened in Oxford. She parked and phoned Peter to say she was on her way. He got over-excited on the phone and had his heart attack. As she recalls the events, the detectives arrive at her flat...
DRINK UP, LEWIS: Morse drinks at least two pints in the Chapters bar at the Randolph. His sergeant pays. The inspector even volunteers Lewis to buy Dr Hobson a drink but she declines. The sergeant can’t be too upset – he offers to get Morse another pint later. Unusually, the inspector declines!
Morse goes to the Bulldog pub to see how the landlord is. The inspector visits a Shrewsbury pub while Lewis looks for the dead man’s lover.
ONE FOR THE MORGUE: Peter Sherwood dies of a massive heart attack.
MURDERS: none. BODY COUNT: one.
SOPHOCLES DID DO IT: Morse believes the case is death by natural causes, then murder, then death by natural causes again. At one point the inspector thinks the dead man’s wife poisoned him by putting chemicals into Sherwood’s insulin. She did, but her husband never got the chance to inject it.
SURVEILLANCE REPORT: Lewis isn’t sure if he believes in any afterlife. Morse thinks death is just a process of chemical disintegration.
THE VERDICT: The last story in the anthology is a small tale about murderous motives and lethal lust. It reads like the beginning of a novel that was curtailed when the threads of inspiration ran out too soon. As such it provides an adequate but ultimately forgettable finale to this collection.
THE DAUGHTERS OF CAIN
‘In detective stories there are only two rules really, aren’t there? It’s never the butler; and it’s never the person you think it is.’ Morse investigates one murder but ends up solving two when his prime suspect is slain.
FIRST PUBLISHED: 1994
STORYLINE: Oxford schoolteacher Julia Stevens is dying. Julia’s cleaning lady is Brenda Brooks. They are good friends. Brenda’s husband Ted recently broke a bone in his wife’s hand.
Morse and Lewis are assigned to solve the murder of Dr Felix McClure, a former don at Oxford’s Wolsey College, after the original investigating officer’s wife becomes ill. McClure was stabbed to death with an unusually broad-bladed knife. The retired don was killed at home on a Sunday morning. It seems the dead man let his killer inside. No murder weapon has been discovered.
The detectives find a phone number for someone called ‘K’ in McClure’s effects. She is a prostitute. Her real name is Eleanor ‘Ellie’ Smith. Lewis also finds newspaper cuttings in the dead man’s home about the suicide of Matthew Rodway, a student at Wolsey. He jumped to his death from a third-floor window in Drinkwater Quad. Rodway had been taking drugs. McClure was involved in efforts to get students away from drugs and lived on the same staircase as Rodway. The scout on the staircase was Ted Brooks. He changed jobs after the suicide and now works at the Pitt Rivers Museum.
The scout who replaced Brooks admits she has been receiving payments to ignore drug dealing. Morse believes McClure made Brooks leave Wolsey. When the retired don discovered Brooks was still dealing drugs, he demanded a meeting. Morse thinks Brooks murdered McClure. The prime suspect was taken to hospital with a heart attack on the day McClure died.
Brooks is the killer. His wife Brenda tells Julia that Ted came home covered in blood the day McClure died. She disposed of his clothes. Brenda also reveals a letter from her daughter. Ted sexually abused his stepdaughter for three years, from when she was 13. The abuse only stopped when she left home.
Rodway shared rooms with Ashley Davies, who was kicked out of college for fighting. Davies says he fought with Rodway for Ellie’s affections.
The detectives interview Ted and Brenda Brooks. She p
rovides an alibi for her husband. He does not have a car. Brooks says his bicycle has been stolen, but he didn’t bother reporting it. Brenda shows them a photo of her daughter Ellie.
An Oxford family returning from holiday finds a broad-bladed kitchen knife on their front lawn. It is washed and put away.
Julia makes a deal with Kevin Costyn, a former student. He agrees to do certain tasks in exchange for sexual favours. Morse, meanwhile, is taken to hospital with a bronchial infection.
Costyn uses a chisel to crack open a cabinet of knives at the Pitt Rivers Museum. Julia and Brenda go with a school trip to Stratford for a performance of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. They are late returning to Oxford, so Brenda stays at Julia’s house for the night.
The family that found the knife realise it could be the murder weapon. They give it to the police. The knife is very similar to a set used by Brenda.
Morse is discharged from hospital. He and Lewis are waiting for Brenda when she gets home from staying with Julia. Her husband is not at home.
The museum discovers the damaged cabinet. A knife from 1919 is missing. Morse thinks it is unlikely Brooks stole the knife, as he had a key and could have removed it without damaging the cabinet.
Morse interviews Julia, who corroborates Brenda’s alibi for Wednesday. The detectives then talk to Ellie, who also has a good alibi for Wednesday. She went to an abortion clinic in Birmingham, but decided to keep the baby. Davies is going to marry her. A week later she has a miscarriage, but decides to go ahead with the marriage.
Brooks’ bicycle is found. Forensic tests show McClure’s blood is on it. Brenda remembers sewing together a body-bag to dispose of her husband’s body. She tells police Brooks murdered McClure. Brooks’ carefully wrapped body is then found in the Isis, with a knife still protruding from the corpse. It’s the same knife stolen from the museum. Forensic tests prove the knife was the murder weapon. An unidentified fingerprint found on the knife doesn’t match those of Ellie, Julia or Brenda.
Morse realises nothing was stolen from the museum cabinet on the day it was broken open. The knife had already been removed by Brooks, who used it to murder McClure. He rearranged the other knives to conceal the loss and intended to put the knife back later. The kitchen knife was a red herring.
Before Julia can be arrested, she is admitted to hospital with a brain tumour. She summons Morse, planning to confess to killing Brooks. But she is too ill to say the words out loud. Julia dies soon afterwards. Ellie flees Oxford, leaving behind a note confessing to Brooks’ murder. Morse doesn’t believe it. Brenda is charged with murdering her husband.
UNLUCKY IN LOVE: When Morse first meets Ellie he is repulsed by the rings in her nose. But he thinks her beautiful. He says she suffers from inverted snobbery, pretending to be common. She tells him to stuff his fuckin’ Mozart.
They next meet in hospital after Ellie has had a miscarriage. Morse gives her a lift home. Ellie invites him in for a drink. She has removed her nose rings.
Ellie invites Morse to the Parsonage Bar for a drink on a Saturday night. She is almost unrecognisable, with stylish clothes replacing her usual punkish looks. The inspector is soon smitten with her, even when Ellie asks him to be a witness at her wedding. They hold hands in a taxi.
Morse buys Ellie a pendant of St Christopher with a gold chain. When he gives it to her, she tells him the wedding is off. She tells Morse she has fallen in love with him. As the case draws to a close, Ellie visits the police station. She leaves a hip flask for Morse. Ellie disappears from Oxford, wishing the inspector could have loved her.
DRINK UP, LEWIS: Morse thinks drinking lager with roast beef is tasteless. He turns down the sergeant’s offer of a beer at the King’s Arms after hearing that a colleague’s wife has died. Later that night he drinks four pints of best bitter at the same pub and follows them with half a bottle of Glenfiddich at home.
The landlord of the Turf Tavern pulls a pint of real ale on seeing Morse enter the pub. Lewis has an orange juice. By the time the pair sit down, the inspector is onto his second pint. Morse soon wants a third.
The inspector drinks a pint of Hook Norton at the White Horse pub to help him swallow a double dose of penicillin pills. Later Lewis finds him in bed, surrounded by medicines and an almost empty bottle of The Macallan.
The detectives visit the Marsh Harrier pub where Morse drinks a pint of Fuller’s London Pride. Lewis has to buy the second round, as he did the first. The inspector finally offers to pay for a drink – ten minutes after closing time. Morse goes home and pours himself a can of beer, to ‘replace lost moisture’. He is taken to hospital soon afterwards.
The inspector has a small celebratory drink of spirits after being released from the hospital.
Julia gives Morse a Scotch when they first meet.
The inspector takes Ellie for a meal at the King’s Arms. She has several glasses of red wine. Morse drinks best bitter.
He has Scotch with Ellie in her bed-sitter flat after she miscarries.
Morse has a glass of claret when he arrives at the Parsonage Bar, because it lacks real ale. Ellie persuades him to order a bottle of champagne.
He drinks a can of Cask Flow Beamish at the Lewis household.
ONE FOR THE MORGUE: Rodway commits suicide by jumping from a third-storey window. Dr Felix McClure is stabbed to death by Ted Brooks. The wife of the police inspector originally assigned to investigate McClure’s murder dies of cancer. Ted Brooks is stabbed to death by his wife Brenda. Julia Stevens dies from an inoperable brain tumour.
MURDERS: two. BODY COUNT: five.
INCREASE YOUR VOCABULARY: Julia can be a pedagogue (pedantic teacher). Morse pretends to have failed to hear the tintinnabulation (ring) of a bell. Brenda’s hands give a spasm of floccillation (a very unfavourable symptom). A scholar returning from holiday thinks his front lawn looks agrestal (rustic). Morse skilfully parries a physician’s questions about avoirdupois (measures) and alcohol. Brenda remembers the outer tegument (protective envelope) making her husband’s body heavier. Morse explains the ratiocination (deduction) that made him realise Brooks took the knife from the museum.
CRYPTIC CROSSWORDS: In the opening scenes Morse finishes the Times crossword in only six minutes – except for one clue: ‘Kick in the pants? (3, 5)’. The answer is ‘hip flask’.
YOU’VE DONE IT AGAIN, LEWIS: The sergeant wonders if his own fingerprints are on the knife which killed Brooks, since nobody else’s match. Morse realises the print on the knife is that of Brooks himself. ‘Bloody hell! You’ve done it again, Lewis. You’ve done it again!’
MORSE DECODED: Morse fell deeply in love at the age of 15 with a girl aged 14. They had both won scholarships to local grammar schools. The wonderful relationship lasted for three years. Morse wrote to her every day for 12 weeks while on National Service, until hearing one of his friends boasting about her sensually responsive lips. Morse grew up after making that discovery. But he also discovered a nearly boundless capacity for jealousy.
The inspector later tells Lewis he nearly met the right woman for him, once.
SOPHOCLES DID DO IT: When Brooks goes missing, Morse dismisses suggestions that the former scout has been murdered. The inspector believes Brooks is alive and well. He later decides Brooks’ body will never be found. Morse decides Ellie murdered Brooks.
LEWIS’ KITH AND KIN: Lewis invites Morse home for dinner. They eat in the kitchen, as the Lewis family has decorators working in the house. When the case concludes Lewis buys his wife a new set of five knives. She is pleased with the redecoration.
PEOPLE JUST CALL ME MORSE: Ellie asks for Morse’s Christian name. He will only say it starts with the letter E, like hers.
SOUNDTRACK: Morse selects the finale of Die Walküre to cheer himself up during a car journey, but doesn’t turn it on. The inspector suggests Lewis should improve the quality of his musical choices. The sergeant tries the slow movement of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto.
Siegfried is Morse’s least favourite of the
four separate Wagner operas which comprise Der Ring des Nibelungen. The inspector decides to listen to it again, to see if the fault is with himself or the composer. He considers the cycle one of the seven great wonders of the modern world.
QUOTE-UNQUOTE: Lewis reflects on the inspector’s methods: ‘Morse was a stickler for sifting evidence; always had been. The only trouble was that he never wanted to waste his own time in helping to sift it...’
The sergeant sees Morse has been reading a book called The Anatomy of Melancholy: ‘Trying to cheer yourself up, sir?’
Costyn likes to insert variants of the word ‘fucking’ in the middle of any longer word. He decides he will never speak of his deal with Julia: ‘And anyone who thought he would was suffering under a misapprefuckinhension.’
SURVEILLANCE REPORT: Chief Superintendent Strange intends to retire within a year. Morse says he may join him – he is within a couple of years of normal retirement anyway. Strange seeks the inspector’s help in completing the necessary papers, but they never get around to the task.
Morse tells Lewis about his retirement plans. The inspector says the one thing he will miss is his old friend Lewis. The sergeant feels a great sadness.
Morse doesn’t like the word womb. He has heard of Kylie Minogue, just. The inspector is a Libra. He has a quiet, unmusical baritone. Morse has always been afraid of the dark. He doesn’t know the difference between brake fluid and anti-freeze. The inspector now has an ex-directory telephone number. He hates the word scenario. Electricity is a mystery to him.
Lewis finds Morse’s conceit the inspector’s least endearing quality, even worse than his meanness with money and lack of gratitude. The Wind in the Willows is Lewis’ favourite book title. He can’t stand bagpipes.
THE VERDICT: The Daughters of Cain dispenses with the formula of concealing the killer’s name until the final pages. Instead the reader learns the names of the murderers long before Morse or Lewis. The mystery comes from trying to determine how the killers did their deeds. The solution is both ingenious and obvious, but only in retrospect. Dexter spins another compelling yarn with this novel.