Colin Dexter - Morses Greatest Mystery and Other Stories (Inspector Morse 14)

Morses Greatest Mystery.

By: Colin Dexter.

"Hallo!" growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice as near as he could feign it.

"What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?"

(Dickens, A Christmas Carol} He had knocked diffidently at Morse's North Oxford flat.

Few had been invited into those book-lined, Wagner-haunted rooms: and even he Sergeant Lewis had never felt himself an over-welcome guest.

Even at Christmas time. Not that it sounded much like the season of good-will as Morse waved Lewis inside and concluded his ill-tempered conversation with the bank manager.

"Look! If I keep a couple of hundred in my current account, that's my look-out. I'm not even asking for any interest on it.

All I am asking is that you don't stick these bloody bank charges on when I go what? once, twice a year? into the red. It's not that I'm mean with money' Lewis's eyebrows ascended a centimetre, 'but if you charge me again I want you to ring and tell me why. Morse banged down the receiver and sat silent.

"You don't sound as if you've caught much of the Christmas spirit,"

ventured Lewis.

"I don't like Christmas never have."

"You staying in Oxford, sir?"

"I'm going to decorate."

"What decorate the Christmas cake?"

"Decorate the kitchen. I don't like Christmas cake never did."

"You sound more like Scrooge every minute, sir."

"And I shall read a Dickens novel. I always do over Christmas, to-read, rather."

"If I were just starting on Dickens, which one ?"

"I'd put Bleak House first, Little Dorrit second ' The phone rang and Morse's secretary at HQ informed him that he'd won a 50 gift-token in the Police Charity Raffle, and this time Morse cradled the receiver with considerably better grace.

'"Scrooge", did you say, Lewis? I'll have you know I bought five tickets a quid apiece! in that Charity Raffle."

"I bought five tickets myself, sir."

Morse smiled complacently.

"Let's be more charitable, Lewis! It's supporting these causes that's important, not winning."

"I'll be in the car, sir," said Lewis quietly. In truth, he was beginning to feel irritated. Morse's irascibility he could stomach; but he couldn't stick hearing much more about Morse's selfless generosity!

Morse's old Jaguar was in dock again ("Too mean to buy a new one!" his colleagues claimed) and it was Lewis's job that day to ferry the chief inspector around; doubtless, too (if things went to form) to treat him to the odd pint or two.

Which indeed appeared a fair probability, since Morse had so managed things on that Tuesday morning that their arrival at the George would coincide with opening time. As they drove out past the railway station, Lewis told Morse what he'd managed to discover about the previous day's events ...

The patrons of the George had amassed 400 in aid of the Littlemore Charity for Mentally Handicapped Children, and this splendid total was to be presented to the Charity's Secretary at the end of the week, with a photographer promised from The Oxford Times to record the grand occasion.

Mrs. Michaels, the landlady, had been dropped off at the bank in Carfax by her husband at about 10.30 a.m." and had there exchanged a motley assemblage of coins and notes for forty brand-new tenners. After this she had bought several items (including grapes for a daughter just admitted to hospital) before catching a minibus back home, where she had arrived just after midday. The money, in a long white envelope, was in her shopping bag, together with her morning's purchases. Her husband had not yet returned from the Cash and Carry Stores, and on re-entering the George via the saloon bar, Mrs. Michaels had heard the telephone ringing. Thinking that it was probably the hospital (it was) she had dumped her bag on the bar counter and rushed to answer it. On her return, the envelope was gone.

At the time of the theft, there had been about thirty people in the saloon bar, including the regular OAPs, the usual cohort of pool-playing unemployables, and a pre-Christmas party from a local firm. And yes! from the very beginning Lewis had known that the chances of recovering the money were virtually nil. Even so, the three perfunctory interviews that Morse conducted appeared to Lewis to be sadly unsatisfactory.

After listening a while to the landlord's un illuminating 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.