'No, no. I'm sure she didn't.' Morse spoke with the bo-gus confidence of a man who was beginning to wonder if she had.
'I only wanted to help. And I'm not at all sure if I would recognise her. Perhaps if she dolled herself up in some decent outfit and...'
Took that bull-ring out of her nose, thought Morse.
'... and took that ring out of her nose.'
Phew!
But some of the bounce had gone out of the old girl, Morse could see that. It was time to wind things up.
'Do you think they went to bed when she came?'
'I expect so, don't you?'
'Things must have changed a good deal since your day, Miss Wynne-Wilson.'
'Don't be silly, Inspector! I could teach some of these young flibbertigibbets a few things about going to bed with men. After all, I spent most of my life looking after men in bed, now didn't I? And, by the way, it's Mrs. Wynne Wilson.
I don't wear a wedding ring any longer....'
Phew!
Morse got to his feet. He had only one more question: 'Were you looking out of the window on Sunday morning--you know, about the time perhaps when Dr. Mc Clure was murdered?'
'No. On Sunday mornings I always hear the omnibus edition of The Archers on the wireless, that's from ten to eleven. Lovely. I have a really good long soak and hear everything again.'
Dangerous thing that having a radio in the bathroom, thought Lewis.
'It's dangerous they tell me--having a wireless propped up on the bath-rail. But I do so enjoy doing silly things, . now that I'm so old.'
Phew!
It had not been much of a contest, Lewis appreciated that; but from his scorecard he had little hesitation in de-claring Mrs. W-W the winner, way ahead of Morse on points.
Quite mistakenly, of course.
Chapter Seven
For 'tis in vain to think or guess At women by appearances (SAMUEL BUTLER, Hudibras)
'What did you make of that, then?' asked Lewis, when the two detectives had returned to Mc Clure's apartment.
Morse appeared disappointed. 'I'd begun to think he was a civilised sort of fellow--you know 'Morse gestured vaguely around the bookshelves.
'But he wasn't?'
'We-ell.'
'You mean... this woman he was seeing.9'
Morse's features reflected disapproval. 'Rings in her nose, Lewis? Pretty tasteless, isn't it? Like drinking lager with roast beef.'
'For all you know she may be a lovely girl, sir. You shouldn't really judge people just by appearances.'
'Oh?'
Morse's eyes shot up swiftly. 'And why the hell not?'
'Well ...' But Lewis wasn't sure why. He did have a point, though; he knew he did. Morse was always making snap judgements. All fight, one or two would occasionally mm out to be accurate; but most of them were woefully wide of the mark--as, to be fair, Morse himself readily ac-knowledged.
Lewis thought of events earlier in the day; thought of Phillotson's withdrawal from the present case; thought of Morse's almost contemptuous dismissal of the man's ex-38 cuses. Almost automatically, it seemed, Morse had assumed him to be parading a few phoney pretexts about his wife's hospitalisation in order to avoid the humiliation of failure in a murder case. Agreed, Phillotson wasn't exactly Sherlock Holmes, Lewis knew that. Yet Morse could be needlessly creel about some of his colleagues. And why did he have to be so sharp? As he had been just now?
Still, Lewis knew exactly what to do about his own tem-porary irritation. Count to ten!--that's what Morse had once told him--fore getting on to any high horse; and then, if necessary, count to twenty. Not that there was much sign that Morse ever heeded his own advice. He usually only counted to two or three. If that.
Deciding, therefore, the time to be as yet inopportune for any consideration of the old lady's testimony, Lewis re-verted to his earlier task. There was still a great deal of ma-terial to look through, and he was glad to get down to something whose purpose he could readily grasp. The pa-pers there, all the papers in the drawers and those stacked along the shelves, had already been examined---clearly that was the case. Not radically disturbed, though; not taken away to be documented in some dubious filing-system until sooner or later, as with almost everything in life, being duly labelled 'OBE.'
Overtaken By Events.
Glancing across at Morse, Lewis saw the chief abstracting another book from a set of volumes beautifully bound in golden leather; a slim volume this time; a volume of verse by the look of it. And even as he watched, he saw Morse turning the book through ninety degrees and appar-ently reading some marginalia beside one of the poems there. For the present, however, the Do Not Disturb sign was prominently displayed, and with his usual competence
