The Riddle Of The Third Mile

‘Please don’t forget, will you, that I-er-I shouldn’t have said anything about all this. I’m normally very discreet.’

‘Must be the drink,’ said Morse, looking down into his empty glass.

‘Same again? Mixture about right?’

‘Fraction more gin, perhaps?’ Morse reached for another cigarette as the Master refilled the glasses. ‘I suppose she could take her pick of all the undergrads?’

‘And the dons!’

‘You never married, did you, Master.’

‘Nor did you.’

For some minutes the two of them sat silently sipping. Then Morse asked: ‘Has she got a mother?’

‘Jane Summers, you mean?’

‘You didn’t mention her surname before.’

‘Odd question! I don’t know. I expect so. She’s only, what, twenty-two, twenty-three. Why do you ask?’

But Morse was hardly listening. In the quad outside it had been comparatively easy to pull the curtain across the painful memories. But now? Not so! His eyes seemed on the point of shedding a gin-soaked tear as he thought again of his own sad days at Oxford…

‘You listening?’

‘Pardon?’ said Morse.

‘You don’t seem to be paying much attention to what I’m saying.’

‘Sorry! Must be the booze.’ His glass was empty again and the Master needed no prompting.

‘Will you keep a gentle eye on things for me, then? You see, I’m probably off myself this weekend for a few days.’

‘Few weeks, do you mean?’

‘I’m not sure yet. But if you could just, as I say, keep an eye on things – you’d put my mind at rest.’

‘Keep an eye on what’

‘Well, it’s just-so unlike Browne-Smith, that’s all. He’s the most pedantic and pernickity fellow in the University. It’s-it’s odd. No arrangements, none. Just this note left at the lodge. No apology for absence from the college meeting; nothing to the couple of students he’d arranged to see.’

‘You’ve got the note?’

The Master took a folded sheet from his dove-grey jacket and handed it over:

Please keep any mail for me here. I shall be away for several days. Sudden irresistable offer-quite out of the blue. Tell my scout to look after my effects,,i.e. to keep the rooms well dusted, put the laundry through and cancel all meals until further notice.

B-S

Morse felt a tingle in his veins as he read through the brief, typewritten message. But he said nothing.

‘You see,’ said the Master, ‘I just don’t think he wrote that.’

‘No?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘When did the Lodge get this?’

‘Monday morning-two days ago.’

‘And when was he last seen here?’

‘Last Friday. In the morning, it was. He left college at about quarter-past eight, to catch the London train. One of the fellows here saw him on the station.’

‘Did this note come through the post?’

‘No. The porter says it was just left there.’

‘Why are you so sure he didn’t write it?’

‘He just couldn’t have written it. Look, Morse, I’ve known him for twenty-odd years, and there was never a man, apart from Housman, who was so contemptuous about any solecism in English usage. He was almost paranoiac about things like that. You see, he always used to draft the minutes of the college meetings, and even a comma out of place in the final version would bring down the wrath of the gods on the college secretary. He even used to type a draft before he’d put a bloody notice on the board!’

Morse looked at the letter again. ‘You mean he’d have put commas after “sudden”-and “through”?’

‘By Jove, yes! He’d always use commas there. But there’s something else. Browne- Smith was the only man in England, I should think, who invariably argued for a comma after “i.e.”.’

‘Mm.’

‘You don’t sound very impressed.’

‘Ah! But I am. I think you may be right.’

‘Really?’

‘You think he’s got a bird somewhere?’

‘He’s never had a “bird”, as you put it.’

‘Is Jane Summers still in residence?’

The Master laughed aloud with genuine amusement. ‘I saw her this morning, Morse, if you must know.’

‘Did you tell her she’d got a first?’ A smile was playing slowly around Morse’s mouth, and the” Master’s shrewd eyes were again upon him.

‘Not much point pretending with you, is there? But no! No, I didn’t tell her that. But I did tell her that perhaps she had every reason to be-er, let’s say, optimistic about her-ah, future. Anyway, it’s time we went down for lunch. You ready to eat?’

‘Can I keep this?’ Morse held up the single sheet, and the Master nodded.

‘Seriously, I’m just a fraction worried. And you just said, didn’t you, that I might be right?’

‘You are right. At least, you’re almost certainly right in suggesting that he didn’t type it. He could have dictated it, of course.’

‘Why are you so sure?’

‘Well,’ said Morse, as the Master locked the door behind them, ‘he was a literary pedant for a good many years before you met him. He was one of my “Mods” tutors, you see; and even then he’d bark away at the most trivial sort of spelling mistake as if it were the sin against the Holy Ghost. At the time, of course, it didn't seem to matter two farts in the universe; but in an odd sort of way I came to respect his views- and I still do. I'd never let a spelling mistake go through my secretary-not if I could help it.'

‘Never?’

‘Never!’ said Morse, his grey-blue eyes sober and serious as the two men lingered on the landing outside the Master's rooms. ‘And you can be absolutely sure of one thing, Master. Browne-Smith would have died sooner than misspelt “irresistible”.'

‘You don't think-you don't think he is dead?’

‘Course he's not!’ said Morse, as the two old friends walked down the stairs.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Week beginning Wednesday, 16th July

In which those readers impatiently waiting to encounter the first corpse will not be disappointed, and in which interesting light is thrown on the character of the detective, Morse.

It had been 2.30 p.m. when Morse finally left Lonsdale; and after stocking himself up from a tobacconist's shop just along the High, he was back in his Kidlington office just before three o'clock, where nothing much appeared to have happened during his absence.

On leaving Lonsdale, he had promised the Master to ‘keep an eye on things’ (a quite meaningless phrase, as