The Silent World Of Nicholas Quinn

'Oh yes, sir. All our tickets are traceable. Buff, you say? Rear circle? Oh yes. We should be able to help you. You see all the blocks of tickets are numbered and a record is kept at the start of each matinee, and then at six o'clock, and then at tea o'clock. Have you got the number?'

Morse read out the number and felt curiously excited.

'Just one minute, sir.' It turned into three or four, and Morse fiddled nervously with the directory. 'Are you there, sir? Yes; that's right. Last Friday. It's one of the first tickets issued. The doors opened at 1.15 and the programme started at 1.30. The first rear lounge number is 93543, so it must have been issued in the first five or ten minutes, I should think. There's usually half a dozen or so waiting for the doors to open.'

'You quite sure about this?'

'Quite sure, sir. You could come down and check if you wanted to.' She sounded young and pretty.

'Perhaps I will. What film have you got on?' He thought it sounded innocent enough.

'Not quite your cup of tea, I don't think, Inspector.'

'I wouldn't be too sure about that, miss.'

'Mrs.. But if you do come, ask for me and I'll see you get a free seat.'

Morse wondered sadly how many, more gift horses he'd be looking in the mouth. But it wasn't that at all really. He was just frightened of being seen. Now if she'd said. .

But she said something else, and Morse jolted upright in his chair. 'I think I ought to mention, Inspector, that someone else asked me the very same sort of thing last week and. .'

'What?' He almost screamed down the phone, but then his voice became very quiet. 'Say that again, will you, please?'

'I said someone else had—'

'When was this, do you remember?'

'I'm not quite sure; sometime — let's see, now. I ought to remember. It's not very often—'

'Was it Friday?' Morse was excited and impatient.

'I don't know. I'm trying to remember. It was in the afternoon, I remember that, because I was doing a stint in the ticket office when the phone rang, and I answered it myself.'

'Beginning of the afternoon?'

'No, it was much later than that. Just a minute. I think it was. . Just a minute.' Morse heard some chattering in the background, and then the manageress's voice spoke in his ear once more. Inspector, I think it was in the late afternoon, sometime. About five, perhaps. I'm sorry I can't—'

'Could have been Friday, you think?'

'Ye-es. Or Saturday, perhaps. I just—'

'A man, was it?'

'Yes. He had a nice sort of voice. Educated — you know what I mean.'

'What did he ask you?'

'Well, it was funny really. He said he was a detective-story writer and he wanted to check up on some details.'

'What details?'

'Well, I remember he said he'd got to put some numbers on a ticket his detective had found, and he wanted to know how many figures there were — that sort of thing.'

'And you told him?'

'No, I didn't. I told him he could come round to see me, if he liked: but I felt a bit — well, you know, you can't be too careful these days.'

Morse breathed heavily down the phone. 'I see. Well, thank you very much. You've been extremely kind. I think, as I say, I shall probably have to bother you again—'

'No bother, Inspector.'

Morse put down the phone, and whistled softly to himself. Whew! Had someone else found Quinn's body and the cinema ticket before Tuesday morning? Long before? Saturday; the manageress had said it might have been Saturday. And it couldn't have been Friday, could it? About five, she'd said. Morse looked quickly again at the Oxford Mail and saw the times: The Nymphomaniac. 1.30 to 3.20 pm. Until twenty past three on Friday Quinn had been feasting his eyes on Inga Nielsson's mighty bosom and few things, surely, would have dragged him out of Studio 2 before the film had finished. Unless, of course. . At long last it struck him: the pretty strong probability that Quinn had not been sitting alone in Studio 2 that Friday afternoon.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

AS MORSE STOOD with Lewis in Pinewood Close at 2 p.m. on the following afternoon, awaiting the arrival of Mrs. Jardine, he tried with little success to draw a veil over the harrowing events of the morning. Mr. and Mrs. Quinn had trained down from Huddersfield, and somewhere amid the wreckage of their lives, somewhere amid the tears and the heartbreak, they had managed to find reserves of quiet dignity and courage. Morse had accompanied Mr. Quinn senior to the mortuary for the formal identification of his son, and then spent over an hour with them both in his office, unable to tell them much, unable to offer anything except the usual futile words of sympathy. And as Morse had watched the tragic couple climb into the police car for Oxford, he felt great admiration — and even greater relief. The whole interview had upset him, and apart from a few brief minutes with a reporter from the Oxford Mail, he had not been in the mood to grapple with the perpetually multiplying clues to the last hours lived by Nicholas Quinn.