Death Is Now My Neighbour Part 5

'Best one of her I could find.'

Lewis looked down at the young woman.

'Real good-looker,' he said softly.

Morse nodded. 'I bet she'd have set a few hearts all a-flutter.'

'Including yours, sir?'

Morse drank deeply on his beer before replying. 'She'd probably have a good few boyfriends, that's all I'm suggesting. As for my own potential susceptibility, that's beside the point.'

'Of course.' Lewis smiled good-naturedly. 'What else have we got?'

'What do you make of this? One of the few interesting things there, as far as I could see.' could see.'

Lewis now considered the postcard handed to him. First, the picture on the front: a photograph of a woodland ride, with a sunlit path on the left, and a pool of azured bluebells to the right. Then turning over the card, he read the cramped lines amateurishly typed on the left-hand side: Ten Times I beg, dear Heart, let's Wed!

(Thereafter long may Cupid reigne) Let's tread the Aisle, where thou hast led The fifteen Bridesmaides in thy Traine.

Then spend our honeyed Moon a-bed, With Springs that creake againe - againe!

(John Wilmot, 1672) That was all. No salutation. No valediction.

And on the right-hand side of the postcard - nothing: no address, with the four dotted, parallel lines devoid of any writing, the top right-hand rectangle devoid of any stamp.

Lewis, a man not familiar with seventeenth-century love-lyrics, read the lines, then read them again, with only semi-comprehension.

'Pity she didn't get round to filling in the address, sir. Looks as if she might be proposing to somebody.'

'Aren't you making an a.s.sumption?'

'Pardon?'

'Did you see a typewriter in the house?' 'She could have typed it at work.' 'Yes. You must get along there soon.' 'You're the boss.'

'Nice drop o' beer, this. In good nick.' Morse drained the gla.s.s and set it down in the middle of the slightly rickety table, whilst Lewis took a gentle sip of his orange juice; and continued to sit firmly fixed to his seat Morse continued: 'No! You're making a false a.s.sumption - I think think you are. You're a.s.suming she'd just written this to somebody and then forgotten the fellow's address, right? Pretty unlikely, isn't it? If she was proposing to him.' you are. You're a.s.suming she'd just written this to somebody and then forgotten the fellow's address, right? Pretty unlikely, isn't it? If she was proposing to him.'

'Perhaps she couldn't find a stamp.'

'Perhaps Reluctantly Morse got to his feet and pushed his gla.s.s across the bar. 'You don't want anything more yourself, do you, Lewis?'

'No thanks.'

'You've nothing less?' asked the landlady, as Morse tendered a twenty-pound note. "You're the first ones in today and I'm a bit short of change.'

Morse turned round. 'Any change on you, by any chance, Lewis?'

'You see,' continued Morse, 'you're still a.s.suming she wrote it, aren't you?' 'And she didn't?'

'I think someone wrote the card to her, her, put it in an envelope, and then addressed the envelope - not the card.' put it in an envelope, and then addressed the envelope - not the card.'

'Why not just address the card?'

'Because whoever wrote it didn't want anyone else to read it.'

'Why not just phone her up?'

'Difficult - if he was married and his wife was always around.'

'He could ring her from a phone-box.' 'Risky - if anyone saw him.'

Lewis nodded without any conviction: 'And it's only a bit of poetry.'

'Is it?' asked Morse quietly.

Lewis picked up the card again. 'Perhaps it's this chap called "Wilmot", sir - the date's just there to mislead us.'

'Mislead you, you, perhaps. John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, was a court poet to Charles II. He wrote some delightfully p.o.r.nographic lyrics.' perhaps. John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, was a court poet to Charles II. He wrote some delightfully p.o.r.nographic lyrics.'

'So it's - it's all genuine?'

'I didn't say that, did I? The name's genuine, but not the poem. Any English scholar would know that's not seventeenth-century verse.'

'I'm sure you're right, sir.'

'And if I'm right about the card coming in an envelope - fairly recently - we might be able to find the envelope, agreed? Find a postmark, perhaps? Even a bit of handwriting?'

Lewis looked dubious. 'I'd better get something organized, then.'

'All taken care of! I've got a couple of the DCs looking through the wastepaper baskets and the dustbin.'

You reckon this is important, then?'

'Top priority! You can see that. She's been meeting some man - meeting him secretly. Which means he's probably married, probably fairly well known, probably got a prominent job, probably a local man-'

'Probably lives in Peterborough,' mumbled Lewis.

'That's exactly why the postmark's so vital!' countered an unamused Morse. 'But if he's an Oxford man ...'

'Do you know what the population of Oxford is?' is?'

'I know it to the nearest thousand!' thousand!' snapped Morse. snapped Morse.

Then, of a sudden, the Chief Inspector's mood completely changed. He tapped the postcard.

'Don't be despondent, Lewis. You see, we know just a little about this fellow already, don't we?'

He smiled benignly after draining his second pint; and since no other customers had as yet entered the lounge, Lewis resignedly got to his feet and stepped over to the bar once more.

Lewis picked up the postcard again. 'Give me a clue, sir.'

You know the difference between nouns and verbs, of course?'

'How could I forget something like that?'

'Well, at certain periods in English literature, all the nouns were spelt with capital letters. Now, as you can see, there are eight eight nouns in those six lines - each of them spelt with a capital letter. But there are nouns in those six lines - each of them spelt with a capital letter. But there are nine nine capitals capitals - forgetting the first word of each line. Now which is the odd one out?'

Lewis pretended to study the lines once more. He'd played this game before, and he trusted he could get away with it again, as his eyes suddenly lit up a little.

'Ah ... I think - I think think I see what you mean.' I see what you mean.'

'Hits you in the eye, doesn't it, that "Wed" in the first line? And that's what it was intended to do.'

'Obviously.'

'What's it mean?'

'What, "Wed"? Well, it means "marry" - you know, get hitched, get spliced, tie the knot-' 'What else?' 'Isn't that enough?' 'What else?'

'I suppose you're going to tell me it's Anglo-Saxon or something.'

'Not exactly. Not far off, though. Old English, in fact. And what's it short for?'

'"Wednesday"?' suggested Lewis tentatively.

Morse beamed at his sergeant. 'Woden's day - the fourth day of the week. So we've got a day, Lewis. And what else do you need, if you're going to arrange a date with a woman?'

Lewis studied the lines yet again. 'Time? Time, yes! I see what you mean, sir. "Ten Times" ... "fifteen Brides-maides" ... Well, well, well! Ten-fifteen!'

Morse nodded. 'With a.m. likelier than p.m. Doesn't say where though, does it?'

Lewis studied the lines for the fifth time.

"Traine", perhaps?'

"Well done! "Meet me at the station to catch the ten-fifteen a.m. Train" - that's what it says. And we know where that Train goes, don't we?'

'Paddington.'

'Exactly.'

'If only we knew who he was ...'

Morse now produced his second photograph - a small pa.s.sport-sized photograph of two people: the woman, Rachel James (no doubt of that), turning partially round and slightly upward in order to kiss the cheek of a considerably older man with a pair of smiling eyes beneath a distinguished head of greying hair.

'Who's he, sir?'

'Dunno. We could find out pretty quickly, though, if we put his photo in the local papers.' 'If 'If he's local.' he's local.'

'Even if he's not local, I should think.' 'Bit dodgy, sir.'

'Too dodgy at this stage, I agree. But we can try another angle, can't we? Tomorrow's Tuesday, and the day after that's Wednesday - Woden's day...'

"You mean he may turn up at the station?'

'If the card's fairly recent, yes.'

'Unless he's heard she's been murdered.'

'Or unless he murdered her himself.'

'Worth a Try, sir. And if he does does turn up, it'll probably mean he didn't murder her...' turn up, it'll probably mean he didn't murder her...'

Morse made no comment.

'Or, come to think of it, it might be a fairly clever thing to do if he did did murder her.' murder her.'

Morse drained his gla.s.s and stood up.

'You know something? I reckon orange juice occasionally germinates your brain cells.' reckon orange juice occasionally germinates your brain cells.'

As he drove his chief down to Kidlington, Lewis returned the conversation to where it had begun.

"You haven't told me what you think about this fellow Owens - the dead woman's next-door neighbour.'

'Death is always the next-door neighbour,' said Morse sombrely. 'But don't let it affect your driving, Lewis!'

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Wednesday, 21 February Orandum est ut sit mens saw in corpore sano (Our aim? Just a brain that's not addled with pox, And a guaranteed clean bill-of-health from the docs) (Juvenal, Satires Satires X) X) THE NEXT MEETING of the Lonsdale Fellows had been convened for 10 a.m. In the Stamper Room. of the Lonsdale Fellows had been convened for 10 a.m. In the Stamper Room.

William Leslie Stamper, b. 1880, had graduated from Oxford University in 1903 with the highest marks (it is said) ever recorded in Cla.s.sical Moderations. The bracketed caveat in the previous sentence would be unnecessary were it not that the claim for such distinction was perpetuated, in later years, by one person only - by W. L. Stamper himself. And it is pointless to dwell upon the matter since no independent verification is available: the relevant records had been removed from Oxford to a safe place, thereafter never to be seen again, during the First World War - a war in which Stamper had not been an active partic.i.p.ant, owing to an illness which was unlikely to prolong his eminently promising career as a don for more than a couple of years or so. Such nonpartic.i.p.ation in the great events of 1914-18 was a major sadness (it is said) to Stamper himself, who was frequently heard to lament his own failure to figure among the casualty lists from the fields of Flanders or Pa.s.schendaele.

Now, the reader may readily be forgiven for a.s.suming from the preceding paragraph that Stamper had been a time-server; a dissembling self-seeker. Yet such an a.s.sumption is highly questionable, though not necessarily untrue. When, for example, in 1925, the Mastership of Lonsdale fell vacant, and nominations were sought amid the groves of Academe, Stamper had refused to let his name go forward, on the grounds that if ten years earlier he had been declared unfit to fight in defence of his country he could hardly be considered fit to undertake the governance of the College; specifically so, since the Statutes stipulated a candidate whose body was no less healthy than his brain.

Thereafter, in his gentle, scholarly, pedantic manner, Stamper had pa.s.sed his years teaching the esoteric skills of Greek Prose and Verse Composition - until retiring at the age of sixty-five, two years before the statutory limit, on the grounds of ill-health. No one, certainly not Stamper himself (it is said), antic.i.p.ated any significant continuation of his life, and the College Fellows unanimously backed a proposal that the dear old boy should have the privilege, during the few remaining years of his life, of living in the finest set of rooms that the College had to offer.

Thus it was that the legendary Stamper had stayed on in Lonsdale as an honorary Emeritus Fellow, with full dining rights, from the year of his retirement, 1945, to 1955; and then to 1965 ... and 1975; and almost indeed until 1985, when he had finally died at the age of 104 -and then not through any dysfunction of the bodily organs, but from a fall beside his rooms in the front quad after a heavy bout of drinking at a Gaudy, his last words (it is said) being a whispered request for the Madeira to be pa.s.sed round once again.

The agenda which lay before Sir Clixby Bream and his colleagues that morning was short and fairly straightforward: (i) To receive apologies for absence To receive apologies for absence (ii) To approve the minutes of the previous meeting To approve the minutes of the previous meeting (already circulated) (iii) To consider the Auditors' statement on College To consider the Auditors' statement on College expenditure, Michaelmas 1995 (iv) To recommend appropriate procedures for the To recommend appropriate procedures for the election of a new Master (v) AOB AOB Items (i)-(iii) took only three minutes, and would have taken only one, had not the Tutor for Admissions sought an explanation of why the 'Stationery etc' bill for the College Office had risen by four times the current rate of inflation. For which increase the Domestic Bursar admitted full responsibility, since instead of ordering 250 Biros he had inadvertently ordered 250 boxes boxes of Biros. of Biros.

This confession put the meeting into good humour, as it pa.s.sed on to item (iv).