The Riddle Of The Third Mile

‘Forget it! For the minute anyway. Now let me tell you a few interesting facts.’

So Morse, in turn, recounted his own morning’s work, and finished up by handing over to Lewis the sheet of paper on which he had typed his two sentences.

‘See that second one, Lewis?’

Lewis nodded as he looked down at the version beginning ‘The laxy brown fox 13aped…’

‘Well, that’s the same typewriter as the one used for the letter we found on the body!’

Lewis whistled in genuine amazement. ‘You’re sure you’re not mistaken, sir?’

‘Lew-is!’ (The eyes were almost frighteningly unblinking once more.) ‘And there’s something else.’ He pushed across the desk the note that the Master of Lonsdale had given him earlier-the note supposedly left in the Porters’ Lodge by Browne-Smith.

‘That was done on the same typewriter, too!’

‘Whew!’

‘So your next job-’

‘Just a minute, sir. You’re quite certain, are you, which typewriter it was?’

‘Oh yes, Lev/is. It was Westerby’s.’

He was very happy now, and looked across at Lewis with the satisfaction of a man leaning over the parapet of infallibility.

So it was that Lewis was forthwith dispatched to impound the two typewriters, whilst Morse took two more penicillin tablets and waited for the arrival of Mr Andrews, Ancient History Tutor of Lonsdale.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Thursday, 24th July

From two sources, Morse gains valuable insight into the workings of the human mind, and specifically into the mind of Dr Browne-Smith of Lonsdale.

Andrews (‘a good young man’, as Browne-Smith had earlier described him) turned out to be about Morse’s age-a slim, bespectacled, shrewd-looking man of medium height who gave the immediate impression of not suffering fools at all gladly. For the time being he was (as he told Morse) the senior resident fellow at Lonsdale, in which capacity he was far from happy about the way the college secretary had been telephonically assaulted. But, yes: on Friday, 11th July, the college had breakfasted on kippers. That had been the question-and that was the answer.

So Morse began to like the man, and was soon telling him about the Master’s mild anxiety over Browne-Smith, as well as about his own involvement in the matter.

‘Let me come clean, Inspector. I know more about this than you think. Before he left, the Master told me he was worried about Browne-Smith.’

‘If he’s got any sense, he’s still worried.’

‘But we had a note from him.’

‘Which he didn’t write.’

‘Can you prove that?’ Andrews asked, as if prodding some semi-informed student into producing a piece of textual evidence.

‘Browne-Smith’s dead, I’m afraid, sir.’

For a few moments Andrews sat silently, his eyes betraying no sense of shock or surprise.

‘Was he a blood donor?’ asked Morse suddenly.

‘I don’t know. Not the sort of thing one broadcasts, would you say?’

‘Some people have those “Give Blood” suckers on the car windows.’

‘I don’t remember seeing-’

‘Did he have a car?’

‘Big, black, thirsty Daimler.’

‘Where’s that now?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘What was his favourite tipple in the Common Room?’

‘He liked a drop of Scotch, as most of us do, but he wasn’t a big drinker. He was an Aristotelian, Inspector; with him it was always the half-way house between the too much and the too little -if you- er- follow what I’m saying.”

‘Yes, I think I do.’

‘You remember the Cambridge story that Trinity once saw Wordsworth drunk and once saw Person sober? Well, I can tell you one thing: Lonsdale never once saw Browne-Smith drunk.’

‘He was a bore, you mean?’

‘I mean nothing of the sort. It’s just that he couldn’t abide woolly-mindedness, shoddiness, carelessness-’

‘He wouldn’t have made too many mistakes in English grammar?’

‘Over his dead body!”

‘Which is precisely where we stand, sir,’ said Morse sombrely.

Andrews waited a moment or two. ‘You really are quite sure of that?’

‘He’s dead,’ repeated Morse flatly. ‘His body was fished out of the canal up at Thrupp yesterday.’

Morse was conscious of the steady, scholarly eyes upon him as Andrews spoke: ‘But I only read about that in the Oxford Mail this lunch time. It said the body couldn’t be identified.’

‘Really?’ Morse appeared genuinely surprised. ‘Surely you don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers, sir?’

‘No, but I believe most of it,’ replied Andrews simply and tellingly; and Morse abruptly switched his questioning.

‘Dr Browne-Smith, sir. Was he a fit man-considering his age, I mean?’

For the first time Andrews appeared less than completely at ease. ‘You know something about that?’

‘Well, not officially, but

Andrews stared down at the threadbare carpet. ‘Look, Inspector, the only reason the Master mentioned anything to me…’

‘Go on!’

‘… well, it’s because I shall be taking over his duties in the College, you see.’

‘After he retires?’

‘Or before, I’m afraid. You-er-you knew, didn’t you, that he’d only a few months to live?’

Morse nodded, quite convincingly.

‘Tragic thing, Inspector – cancer of the brain.’

Morse shook his head. ‘You’re as bad as the Master, sir. “Cancer”? Forget the word! “Tumour”, if you like-or “neoplasm”. They’re the generic terms we use these days for all those nasty things we used to call “cancer”.’ (He congratulated himself on remembering the gist of what the surgeon had told him earlier that afternoon.)

‘I’m not a medical man myself, Inspector.’

‘Nor me, really. But, you know, in this job you have to pick up a few things, sometimes. By the way, are you likely yourself to be much better off-financially, I mean-with Dr Browne-Smith out of the way?’

‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means we’re dealing with murder, that’s all,’ said Morse, looking across the table with guileless eyes. ‘And that’s what they pay me for, sir-trying to find out who murdered people.’

‘All right. If you must know, I shall be just over two thousand a year better off.”

‘You’re gradually shinning up the tree, sir.’

‘Not so gradually, either!’ Andrews’ eyes glinted momentarily with the future prospects of further academic preferment, and momentarily Morse was taken aback by the honesty of his answer.