Morse's Greatest Mystery and Other Stories (6 page)

After listening a while to the landlord’s unilluminating testimony, Morse asked him why it had taken him so long
to conduct his business at the Cash and Carry; and although the explanation given seemed perfectly adequate, Morse’s dismissal of this first witness had seemed almost offensively abrupt. And no man could have been more quickly or more effectively antagonized than the temporary barman (on duty the previous morning) who refused to answer Morse’s brusque enquiry about the present state of his overdraft. What then of the attractive, auburn-haired Mrs. Michaels? After a rather lop-sided smile had introduced Morse to her regular if slightly nicotine-stained teeth, that distressed lady had been unable to fight back her tears as she sought to explain to Morse why she’d insisted on some genuine notes for the publicity photographer instead of a phonily magnified cheque.

But wait! Something dramatic had just happened to Morse, Lewis could see that: as if the light had suddenly shined upon a man that hitherto had sat in darkness. He (Morse) now asked—amazingly!—whether by any chance the good lady possessed a pair of bright green, high-heeled leather shoes; and when she replied that, yes, she did, Morse smiled serenely, as though he had solved the secret of the universe, and promptly summoned into the lounge bar not only the three he’d just interviewed but all those now in the George who had been drinking there the previous morning.

As they waited, Morse asked for the serial numbers of the stolen notes, and Lewis passed over a scrap of paper on which some figures had been hastily scribbled in blotchy Biro. “For Christ’s sake, man!” hissed Morse. “Didn’t they teach you to write at school?”

Lewis breathed heavily, counted to five, and then painstakingly rewrote the numbers on a virginal piece of paper: 773741–773780. At which numbers Morse glanced
cursorily before sticking the paper in his pocket, and proceeding to address the George’s regulars.

He was
virtually
certain (he said) of who had stolen the money. What he was
absolutely
sure about was exactly where that money was
at that very moment
. He had the serial numbers of the notes—but that was of no importance whatsoever now. The thief might well have been tempted to spend the money earlier—but not any more! And why not? Because at this Christmas time that person
no longer had the power to resist his better self
.

In that bar, stilled now and silent as the grave itself, the faces of Morse’s audience seemed mesmerized—and remained so as Morse gave his instructions that the notes should be replaced in their original envelope and returned (he cared not by what means) to Sergeant Lewis’s office at Thames Valley Police HQ
within the next twenty-four hours
.

As they drove back, Lewis could restrain his curiosity no longer. “You really
are
confident that—?”

“Of course!”

“I never seem to be able to put the clues together myself, sir.”

“Clues? What clues, Lewis? I didn’t know we had any.”

“Well, those shoes, for example. How do they fit in?”

“Who said they fitted in anywhere? It’s just that I used to know an auburn-haired beauty who had six—
six
, Lewis!—pairs of bright green shoes. They suited her, she said.”

“So … they’ve got nothing to do with the case at all?”

“Not so far as I know,” muttered Morse.

The next morning a white envelope was delivered to Lewis’s office, though no one at reception could recall
when or whence it had arrived. Lewis immediately rang Morse to congratulate him on the happy outcome of the case.

“There’s just one thing, sir. I’d kept that scrappy bit of paper with the serial numbers on it, and these are brand-new notes all right—but they’re not the same ones!”

“Really?” Morse sounded supremely unconcerned.

“You’re not worried about it?”

“Good Lord, no! You just get that money back to ginger-knob at the George, and tell her to settle for a jumbo-cheque next time! Oh, and one other thing, Lewis. I’m on
leave
. So no interruptions from anybody—understand?”

“Yes, sir. And, er … Happy Christmas, sir!”

“And to you, old friend!” replied Morse quietly.

The bank manager rang just before lunch that same day. “It’s about the four hundred pounds you withdrew yesterday, Inspector. I did promise to ring about any further bank charges—”

“I explained to the girl,” protested Morse. “I needed the money quickly.”

“Oh, it’s perfectly all right. But you did say you’d call in this morning to transfer—”

“Tomorrow! I’m up a ladder with a paint brush at the moment.”

Morse put down the receiver and again sank back in the armchair with the crossword. But his mind was far away, and some of the words he himself had spoken kept echoing around his brain: something about one’s better self …And he smiled, for he knew that this would be a Christmas he might enjoy almost as much as
the children up at Littlemore, perhaps. He had solved so many mysteries in his life. Was he now, he wondered, beginning to glimpse the solution to the greatest mystery of them all?

It was in early March when the Secretary of the Examinations Board received the call from Oxford Prison.

“It’s a slightly unusual request, Governor, but I don’t see why we shouldn’t try to help. Just the one fellow, you say?”

“That’s it. Chap called Evans. Started night classes in O-level German last September. Says he’s dead keen to get some sort of academic qualification.”

“Is he any good?”

“He was the only one in the class, so you can say he’s had individual tuition all the time, really. Would have cost him a packet if he’d been outside.”

“We-ell, let’s give him a chance, shall we?”

“That’s jolly kind of you. What exactly’s the procedure now?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll be sending you all the forms and stuff. What’s his name, you say? Evans?”

“James Roderick Evans.” It sounded rather grand.

“Just one thing, Governor. He’s not a violent: sort of
fellow, is he? I don’t want to know his criminal record or anything like that, but—”

“No. There’s no record of violence. Quite a pleasant sort of chap, they tell me. Bit of a card, really. One of the stars at the Christmas concert. Imitations, you know the sort of thing: Mike Yarwood stuff. No, he’s just a congenital kleptomaniac, that’s all.” The Governor was tempted to add something else, but he thought better of it. He’d look after
that
particular side of things himself.

“Presumably,” said the Secretary, “you can arrange a room where—”

“No problem. He’s in a cell on his own. If you’ve no objections, he can sit the exam in there.”

“That’s fine.”

“And we could easily get one of the parsons from St. Mary Mags to invigilate, if that’s—”

“Fine, yes. They seem to have a helluva lot of parsons there, don’t they?” The two men chuckled good-naturedly, and the Secretary had a final thought. “At least there’s one thing. You shouldn’t have much trouble keeping him
incommunicado
, should you?”

The Governor chuckled politely once more, reiterated his thanks, and slowly cradled the phone.

Evans!

“Evans the Break” as the prison officers called him. Three times he’d escaped from prison, and but for the recent wave of unrest in the maximum-security establishments up north, he wouldn’t now be gracing the Governor’s premises in Oxford; and the Governor was going to make absolutely certain that he wouldn’t be
dis
gracing them. Not that Evans was a
real
burden: just a persistent, nagging presence. He’d be all right in Oxford, though: the Governor would see to that—would see to it person
ally. And besides, there was just a possibility that Evans was genuinely interested in O-level German. Just a slight possibility. Just a very slight possibility.

At 8:30
P.M.
on Monday 7 June, Evans’s German teacher shook him by the hand in the heavily guarded Recreational Block, just across from D Wing.

“Guten Glück
, Herr Evans.”

“Pardon?”

“I said, ‘Good luck.’ Good luck for tomorrow.”

“Oh. Thanks, er, I mean, er,
Danke schön.”

“You haven’t a cat in hell’s chance of getting through, of course, but—”

“I may surprise everybody,” said Evans.

At 8:30 the following morning, Evans had a visitor. Two visitors, in fact. He tucked his grubby string-vest into his equally grubby trousers, and stood up from his bunk, smiling cheerfully. “Mornin’, Mr. Jackson. This is indeed an honour.”

Jackson was the senior prison officer on D Wing, and he and Evans had already become warm enemies. At Jackson’s side stood Officer Stephens, a burly, surly-looking man, only recently recruited to the profession.

Jackson nodded curtly. “And how’s our little Einstein this morning, then?”

“Wasn’t ’e a mathematician, Mr. Jackson?”

“He was a bloody Kraut,” snapped Jackson. Evans’s quiet voice always riled him, and Evans’s present insight into his own vast ignorance riled him even more.

“I think ’e was a Jew, Mr. Jackson.”

“I don’t give a monkey’s fuck what he was, you scruffy sod.”

“Scruffy” was, perhaps, the right word. Evans’s face was unshaven, and he wore a filthy-looking red-and-white bobble hat upon his head. “Give me a
chance
, Mr. Jackson. I was just goin’ to shave when you bust in.”

“Which reminds me.” Jackson turned his eyes on Stephens. “Make sure you take his razor out of the cell when he’s finished scraping that ugly mug of his. Clear? One of these days he’ll do us all a favour and cut his bloody throat.”

For a few seconds Evans looked thoughtfully at the man standing ramrod straight in front of him, a string of Second World War medals proudly paraded over his left breast-pocket. “Mr. Jackson? Was it
you
who took me nail-scissors away?” Evans had always worried about his hands.

“And
your nail-file, you poney twit.”

“Look!” For a moment Evans’s eyes smouldered dangerously, but Jackson was ready for him.

“Orders of the Governor, Evans.” He leaned forward and leered, his voice dropping to a harsh, contemptuous whisper. “You want to
complain
?”

Evans shrugged his shoulders lightly. The crisis was over.

“You’ve got half an hour to smarten yourself up, Evans—and take that bloody hat off!”

“Me ’at? Huh!” Evans put his right hand lovingly on top of the filthy woollen, and smiled sadly. “D’you know, Mr. Jackson, it’s the only thing that’s ever brought me any sort o’ luck in life. Kind o’ lucky charm, if you know what I mean. And today I thought—well, with me exam and all that …”

Buried somewhere in Jackson, beneath all the bluster
and the bull-shit, was a tiny core of compassion; and Evans knew it.

“Just this once, then, Shirley Temple.” (If there was one thing that Jackson genuinely loathed about Evans it was his long, wavy hair.) “And get bloody shaving!”

At 8:45 the same morning the Reverend Stuart McLeery left his bachelor flat in Broad Street and stepped out briskly towards Carfax. The weatherman reported temperatures considerably below the normal for early June, and a long black overcoat and a shallow-crowned clerical hat provided welcome protection from the steady drizzle which had set in half an hour earlier and which now spattered the thick lenses of his spectacles. In his right hand he was carrying a small brown suitcase, which contained all that he would need for his morning duties, including a sealed question-paper envelope, a yellow invigilation form, a special “authentication” card from the Examinations Board, a paper-knife, a Bible (he was to speak to the Women’s Guild that afternoon on the book of Ruth), and a current copy of
The Church Times
.

The two-hour examination was scheduled to start at 9:15
A.M.

Evans was lathering his face vigorously when Stephens brought in two small square tables, and set them opposite each other in the narrow space between the bunk on the one side and on the other the distempered stone; wall, plastered at eye-level with a proud row of naked women, vast-breasted and voluptuous. Next, Stephens brought in two hard chairs, the slightly less battered of which he placed in front of the table which stood nearer the ceil door.

Jackson put in a brief final appearance. “Behave yourself, laddy!”

Evans turned and nodded.

“And these” (Jackson pointed to the pin-ups) “off!”

Evans turned and nodded again. “I was goin’ to take ’em down anyway. A minister, isn’t ’e? The chap comin’ to sit in, I mean.”

“And how did you know that?” asked Jackson quietly.

“Well, I ’ad to sign some forms, didn’t I? And I couldn’t ’elp—”