'Anything interesting?'
'Do you call stomach contents interesting?'
'No.'
'Looks as if they've got some vague prints all righ though--on the knife. I'll keep my fingers crossed for yo We're all hoping, you know that.'
'Thank you.' Morse hesitated. 'It may sound a bit fa fetched I know, but...'
'Yes?'
'The knife--I'm doing a little bit of hoping myself-knife used to murder Mc Clure was very similar to'--Mors nodded towards the main lab---'to the knife that was stole from the Pitt Rivers.'
'Yes, I knew that.'
'What I was wondering is this. Is there any possibility-any possibility at all--that Brooks was murdered with a other knife---one of the same type, one with the same so of blade--then for the knife you've got in there--the on Cotin Ixtr with the possible prints on it--to be stuck in him.., after-wards?' Laura Hobson looked at him curiously.
'Have two knives, you mean? Stick one in him, take it out, then stick the other in?'
Morse looked uneasy, yet there was still some flicker of hope in his face. 'When I said 'afterwards,' I meant, well, a few hours later---a day even.`?'
With a sad smile, she shook her head. 'No chance. Un-less your murderer's got the luck of the devil and the skill of a brain-surgeon--'
'Or a boy with a model-aeroplane kit.'?'
'---you'd have some clear external evidence of the two incisions--and don't forget he was stabbed through his clothes.'
'And there aren't...?'
'No. No signs at all. Besides that, though, you'd have all the internal evidence: the two separate termini of the knife points; two distinct sets of lacerations on either side of '
'I see, yes,' mumbled Morse.
'I don't know whether you do, though. Look! Let me ex-plain. Whenever you have a knife-wound--'
'Please, not!' said Morse. 'I believe all you say. It's just that I've never been able to follow all these physiological labellings. They didn't teach us any of that stuff at school.'
'I know,' said Laura quietly. 'You did Greek instead.
You told me once, remember, in our.., in our earlier days, Chief Inspector.`?'
Feeling more than a little embarrassed, Morse avoided her eyes.
'How would it have helped, anyway.`?' continued Laura, in a more business-like tone.
'Well, I've been assuming all along that the theft of the knife from the Pitt Rivers was a blind: a blind to establish an alibi, or alibis; to try to establish the fact that Brooks wasn't murdered until after the knife was stolen.'
She nodded, appreciating the point immediately. 'You mean, if he'd been murdered on a particular day with one knife, and then, the day after, a second knife was stolen; and if the f Lrst knife was subsequently removed from the body, and the second knife inserted into the wound--pet like the police like you, could well have been misled al the time of death.'
'That's a splendidly constructed sentence,' said 'Waste of breath, though, really. I wouldn't have misled.'
'You're sure?'
'Ninety4nine per cent sure.'
'Could you just rule out the other one per cent--for Please?'
'Waste of time. But I will, yes, if that's what you 'I'm very grateful.'
'Don't you want to see the contents of his pockets? clothes?'
'I suppose I ought to, yes.'
Again she looked at him curiously. 'It's as if yot been putting your.., well, your faith in something, isn'
And I feel I've let you down.'
'I lost all my faith a long time ago, I'm afraid.'
'Much better to have evidence, in our job.'
Morse nodded; and followed Laura Hobson's sba[ legs into a side-room, where she gestured to a table by window.
'Tll leave you to it, Chief Inspector.'
Morse sat down and first looked through the official Possession Property' form, listing the items found Brooks's person.
The wallet which had been removed at the river-sid establish identity (and which Morse had already 1oo through, anyway) was among the items, and he quickly amined its few (now dry) contents once more: one: note; one 5 pounds note; a Lloyds Bank plastic card; an ID c for the Pitt Rivers Museum; a card showing official mc bership of the East Oxford Conservative Club. Noth else. No photographs; no letters.
