The Riddle Of The Third Mile

that we’ve got to sort out. Why did someone chop his head off-just tell me that, for a start.’

‘Because we’d have identified him, surely. His teeth would have been there and-’

‘Come off it! Helluva job that’d be, hawking some dental chart round a few million dentists-’

‘Thousands, you mean.’

‘ – and perhaps he didn’t have any teeth, like sometimes I wish I hadn’t.’

‘It says here that this chap might have been killed somewhere else and taken out to the canal later.’

‘So?’

‘What do people usually get carried around in?’ asked Lewis.

‘Cars?’ (Morse hardly enjoyed being catechized himself.)

‘Exactly! So if the body was too big to get into the boot of the car____________________’

‘You cut him down to size.’

‘That’s it. It’s like one of those ghost things, sir. You sort of tuck the head underneath the arm.”

‘Where’s the head now, then?’

‘Somewhere in the canal.’

‘The frogmen haven’t found it.’

‘Heads are pretty heavy, though. It’s probably stuck way down in the mud.’

‘What about the hands, Lewis? You reckon we’re going to find them neatly folded next to the head? Or is some poor little beggar going to find them in his fishing-net?’

‘You don’t seem to think we’re going to find them, sir.’

Morse was showing signs of semi-exasperation. ‘You’re missing the bloody point, Lewis! I’m not asking where they are. I’m asking why someone chopped them off.’

‘Same as before. Must be because someone could have identified them. He may have had a tattoo on the back of his wrist or something.’

Morse sat quite still. He knew even then that Lewis had made a point of quite extraordinary significance, and his mind, like some downhill skier, had suddenly leaped into the air across a ridge and landed neatly upon a track of virgin snow…

Lewis’s voice seemed to reach his ears as if through a wadge of tightly packed cotton wool. ‘And what about the legs, sir. Why do you think they were chopped off?’

‘You mean you know?’ Morse heard himself saying.

‘Hardly that, sir. But it’s child’s play these days’ for the forensic boys to find a hundred-and-one things on clothes, isn’t it? Hairs and threads and all that sort of thing-’

‘Even if it’s been in water for a few days?’

‘Well, it might be more difficult then, I agree. But all I’m saying is that if we knew whose the body was-’

‘We do, Lewis. You can be sure of that- surer than ever. It’s Browne-Smith’s.’

‘All right. If it’s Browne-Smith’s body, then we shan’t have much trouble in finding out if it’s Browne-Smith’s suit, shall we?’

Morse was frowning in genuine puzzlement. ‘You’re losing me, Lewis.’

‘All I’m trying to say, sir, is that if someone carefully chopped off this fellow’s head and his hands to stop us finding out who he was-’

‘Yes?’

‘ – well, I don’t reckon he would have left the fellow dressed in his own suit.’

‘So someone dressed the corpse in someone else’s suit, is that it?’

‘Yes. You see, a lot of people could wear each other’s jackets. I mean, I could wear yours-you’re a bit fatter than I am round the middle, but it’d fit in a way. And with a jacket in the water a few days, it’d probably shrink a bit anyway, so no one’s going to notice too much. But-’ and here Lewis paused dramatically ‘-if people start wearing each other’s trousers, sir-well, you could find a few problems, couldn’t you? They might be too long, or too short; and it wouldn’t be difficult for anyone to see almost immediately that the suit was someone else’s. Do you see what I mean? I think the dead man must have been several inches shorter, or several inches taller, than the fellow whose suit he was dressed in! And that’s why the legs were chopped off. So as I see it, sir, if we can find out whose suit it is, we shall know one thing for certain: the owner of the suit isn’t the corpse-he’s probably the murderer!’

Morse sat where he was, looking duly impressed and appreciative. As a result of his visit to the dentist he had himself arrived at a very similar conclusion (although by a completely different route), but he felt it proper to congratulate his sergeant.

‘You know, they say your eyes begin to deteriorate about the age of seven or eight, and that your brain follows suit about twenty years later. But your brain, Lewis. It sharper every day.’

Lewis leaned back happily. ‘Must be working with you. Sir’

But Morse appeared not to hear him, staring out (as Lewis had so often seen him) across the concreted yard that lay outside bis window. And thus he stared for many, many minutes; and Lewis had almost read the medical report through a second time before Morse spoke again.

‘It’s very sad about life, really, you know. There’s only one thing certain about it, and that’s death. We all die, sooner or later. Even old Max, with all his laudable caution, would probably accept that. “The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power…”.’

‘Pardon, sir?’

‘We shall all die, Lewis – even you and me – just like that poor fellow we fished out of the pond. There are no exceptions.’

‘Wasn’t there just the one?’ asked Lewis, quietly.

‘You believe that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mm.’

‘Why do you mention all this, sir-you know, about dying and so on?’

‘I was just thinking about Browne-Smith, that’s all. I was just thinking that a man we all thought was dead is probably alive again-that’s all.’

That’s all. For a little while Lewis had almost convinced himself that he might be a move or two ahead of Morse, Yet now, as he shook his head in customary bewilderment, he knew that Morse’s mind was half a dozen moves ahead of all the world So he sat where he was, like a disciple in the Scriptures at the feet of the Master, wondering why he ever bothered to think about anything himself at all.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Friday, 25th July

Morse decides to enjoy the hospitality of yet another member of Lonsdale’s top brass, whilst Lewis devotes himself to the donkey work.

It was high time something was done, Morse knew that. There was the dead man’s suit to start with, for surely Lewis had been right in maintaining that the minutest detritus of living would still be lingering somewhere in the most improbable crannies of pockets and sleeves. Then there was the mysterious man Gilbert, who had been given free (and official) access to the room in which the two letters had probably been typed: Gilbert the furniture-man, who might at that very minute be shifting the last of the crates and the crockery… Yes, it was high time the pair of them actually did something. Necesse erat digitos extrahere.

Morse was (as almost always when in a car) a morose and uncommunicative passenger as Lewis drove down to Lonsdale via St Giles’ and the Cornmarket, then left at Carfax and into the High. At the Lodge, it was the same young porter on duty. But this tune he refused to hand over the keys to any room before consulting higher authority;