he was ready to step into line, and do what-ever Mc Clure wanted. And he arranged a meeting with Mc Clure--at Mc Clure's place in Daventry Court, a week ago today. That's the way I see it.'
'So you don't believe a word of his alibi?'
'No. And it isn't his alibi at all--it's hers. Mrs. Brooks's alibi for him.'
'And you think he biked up to see Mc Clure T'
'He biked, yes. Whether he'd already decided to murder Mc Clure then, I don't know. But he took a murder weapon with him, a knife from his wife's kitchen drawer; and I've not the slightest doubt he took as many precautions as he could to keep himself from being recognised--probably wrapped a scarf round his face as if he'd got the toothache.
And with his cycling helmet '
'You're making it all up, sir.'
Morse wiped his brow once more. 'Of course I am! In a case like this you've got to put up some... some scaf folding.
You've got to sort of take a few leaps in the dark, Lewis. You've got to hypothesise '
'Hypothesise about the knife then, sir.'
'He threw it in the canal.'
'So we're not going to fred it?'
'Tm sure we're not. We'd have found it by now.'
'Unless, as I say, he took it home with him--and Washed it up and wiped it dry and then put it back in the kitchen drawer.'
'Yees.'
'Probably he did mean to throw it in the canal, or some-where.
But something could have stopped him, couldn't it?'
'Such as T'
'Such as a heart attack,' suggested Lewis gently.
Morse nodded. 'If he suddenly realised he hadn't got any time to... if he suddenly felt a terrible pain...'
''T'rific,' that's what he said.'
'Mm.'
'What about the bike, though? He must have ridden it up to Daventry Court, mustn't he? So if he'd felt the pain starting, you'd have thought he'd get back home as fast as he could.'
Morse shook his head. 'It doesn't add up, does it? He must have ditched his bike somewhere on the way back.'
'Where, though?'
Morse pondered the problem awhile. Then, remembering Brooks's contempt for anyone taking the trouble to report a bicycle-theft in Oxford, he suddenly saw that it had ceased to be a problem at all.
'Do you know a poem called 'Five Ways to Kill a Man'?'
'No.'
Wearily Morse rose to his feet, fetched an anthology of modem verse from his shelves, looked up Brock in the in-dex, turned to the poem--and read the last stanza aloud.
But Lewis, though not unaccustomed to heating Morse make some apposite quotation from the poets between draughts of real ale, could see no possible connexion in logic here.
'I'm not with you.'
Morse looked down at the stanza again; then slowly re-cited his own parody of the lines: 'There are several cumbersome ways of losing a bike---like pushing it in the canal. Neater and simpler, though, is to take it somewhere like Commarket in Oxford--and just leave it them.'
'You ought to have a been a poet, sir.'
'I am a poet, Lewis.'
Morse now coughed violently, expectorating into a tissue a disgusting gobbet of yellowish-green phlegm streaked with bright blood.
Lewis, although he saw it, said nothing.
And Morse continued: 'First thing is to get Brooks in, and go through Susan Ewers's statement with him. She's a good witness, that one--and he'll have to come up with something better than he gave us this afternoon.'
'When shall we bring him in, though? He's got a point, hasn't he? We don't want to give him another heart attack.'
'Don't we T' 'Day or two?'
'Day or three.'
Morse finished his beer. It had taken that swift drinker an inordinately long time to do so; and if Morse had experi-enced a premonition earlier, Lewis himself now sensed that his chief was seriously ill.
