The Riddle Of The Third Mile

‘When exactly was it?’

‘I can’t-’

‘Friday? Friday 11th July?’

‘Could have been.’

‘Did you get your projector and stuff back all right?’

‘Course I did.’

‘The next day?’

‘Yes-er-I think it was the next day.’

For the first time Morse felt convinced that the man was lying. But why (Morse asked himself) should the man have lied to him on that particular point?

‘About that address. Was it a number in Cambridge Way by any chance?’

Morse noted the dart of recognition in the manager’s eyes, and was about to repeat his question when the telephone rang. The manager pounced on the receiver, clamping it closely to his right ear.

‘Yes’ (Morse could hear nothing of the caller’s voice) ‘yes’ (a quick, involuntary look across at Morse) ‘yes’ (unease, quite certainly, in the manager’s eyes) ‘all right’ (sudden relief in the manager’s face?).

Morse’s hand flashed across the table and snatched the receiver, but he heard only the dull, quiet purr of the dialling tone.

‘Only the wife, Inspector. She wants me to take five pounds of potatoes home. Run out, she says. You know how these women are.’

Something had happened, Morse knew that. The young manager had got a shot of confidence from somewhere, and Morse began to wonder whether his patrons, Michael, Raphael and Gabriel, might not, after all, be called upon to fight his cause. He heard the door open quietly behind him-but not to admit the roundly bosomed Racquel with a further double Scotch. In the doorway stood a diminutive Chinaman of about thirty years of age, his brown arms under the white, short-sleeved shirt as sleek and sinewy as the limbs of a Derby favourite in the Epsom paddock. It seemed to Morse a little humiliating to be cowed into instant submission by such a hominid; but Morse was. He rose to his feet, averted his gaze – the twin slits of horizontal hostility in the Chinaman’s face, thanked the manager civilly for his co-operation, rueing the fact that he was himself now far too decrepit even to enlist in the kung-fu classes advertised weekly in the Oxford Times. But the Chinaman guided him gently back to his chair; and it was more than half an hour (a period, however, of unmolested confinement before Morse was allowed to leave the Topless Bar, whence he emerged into the upper world just after 1 p.m., deeply and gratefully inhaling the foul fumes of the cars that circled Piccadilly Circus, and crossing carefully to its west side, where he had a wait of only two minutes outside the Cafe” Royal before a taxi pulled up in front of him.

‘Where to, guv?’

Morse told him, infinitely preferring “guv” to “mate”.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Tuesday, 29th July, p.m.

In which Morse views a luxury block of flats in central London, catching an enigmatic glimpse of one of its tenants and looking longer upon our second corpse.

Morse had been sitting for over half an hour, pondering these and other things, when the extraordinary thought crossed his mind that he was in the middle of a park in the middle of opening hours with a pub only fifty yards away on the corner of the square. Yet somehow he sensed that events were gathering pace, and he walked past the Duke of Cambridge, went up the steps of Number 29, and rang the bell once more. This tune he was in luck, for after a couple of minutes the great black door was opened.

‘Yis, guv?”

He was a mournful-looking man in his mid-sixties, sweating slightly, wearing a beige-coloured working overall, carrying a caretakker’s long-handled floor-mop, and fiddling with the controls of a stringed, National Health hearing-aid.

Morse explained who he was and, upon producing his identification, was reluctantly admitted across the threshold, man (announcing himself as Hoskins- pronounced ‘oskins) informed Morse that he had been the porter in the flats for over a year now: 8.45 a.m. to 4.30 p.m., Tuesdays to Fridays, his job consisting mainly of keeping an eye on the porperties and doing a bit of general cleaning during working hours. ‘Nice little job, guv.’

‘Still some flats for sale, I see?’

‘No-not nah. Both of ‘em sold. Should ‘a’ taken the notice darn, really-still, it’s good for business, I s’pose.’

‘Both of them sold?’

‘Yis, guv. One of ‘em’s a gent from Oxford-bought it a coupla months back, ‘e did.’

‘And the other one?’

‘Few days ago. Some foreign gent, I think it is.’

‘The one from Oxford-that’s Mr Westerby, isn’t it?’

‘You know ‘im, then?’

‘Is he in?’

‘No. I ‘aven’t seen ‘im since ‘e came to look rarnd, like.’ The man hesitsted. ‘Nuffin wrong, is there?’

‘Everything’s wrong, Mr Hoskins, I’m afraid. You’d better show me round his flat, if you will.’

Rather laboriously the man led the way up the stairs to the first floor, produced a key from his overall pocket, and opened the door across from the landing with the apprehension of a man who expects to cast his eye upon a carpet swimming with carnage. But the pale-grey carpeting in the small (and otherwise completely unfurnished) ante-room provided evidence only of a recent, immaculate hoovering.

‘Main room’s through there, guv.’

Inside this second room, half a dozen pieces of heavy, mahogany furniture stood at their temporary sites around the walls, whilst the floor space was more than half covered by oblong wooden crates, several piled on top of others-crates each labelled neatly with the name and new address of a G. O. Westerby, Esq., MA; crates which Morse had recognized immediately, especially the one, already opened, which had contained the head of Gerardus Mercator (now standing on the | mantelpiece).

‘Mr Westerby already been here?’

‘Not seen ‘im guv. But o’ course, ‘e might “a” come later – after I was off. Looks like it, don’t it?’

Morse nodded, looking aimlessly around the room, and then trying the two fitted wardrobes, both of which were unlocked, empty, dusty. And Morse frowned, knowing that somewhere something was wrong. He pointed back to the ante-room. ‘Did you hoover the carpet in there?’

The man’s face (Morse could have sworn it) had paled a few degrees. ‘No-I just, as I said, look after the general cleaning, like-stairs and that sort o’ thing.’

But Morse sensed that the man was lying, and found no difficulty in guessing why: a caretaker in a block of flats like this… half a dozen wealthy and undomesticated men… a few nice little backhanders now and again just to dust and to clean… Yes, Morse could imagine the picture all right; and it might well be that a caretaker in such a block of fiats would know rather more about one or two things than he was prepared to admit. Yet Morse was singularly unsuccessful in eliciting even the slightest piece of information, and he changed the course of his questioning.

‘Did you show Mr Westerby round here?’

‘No, chap from the agents, it was-young fellow.’

‘Always the same young fellow, is it?’

‘Pardon, sir?’

‘You say they’ve just sold the other flat?’

‘Ah I see. No, I wasn’t ‘ere then.’

‘It’s not Mr Gilbert himself, is it-this young fellow you mention?’

‘I wouldn’t know-1 never met ‘im personally, like.’

‘I see.’ Again Morse sensed that the man was holding something back, and again he aimed blindly in the dark.