Inspector Morse 12 Death is Now My Neighbour

'You noticed the stickers?'

'I notice most things. It's just that some of them don't register - not immediately.'

'What'll you have, sir?'

'Lew-is! We've known each other long enough, surely.'

As Morse tasted the hostelry's Best Bitter, he passed over a photograph of Rachel James.

'Best one of her I could find.'

Lewis looked down at the young woman.

'Real good-looker,' he said softly.

Morse nodded. 'I bet she'd have set a few hearts all a-flutter.'

'Including yours, sir?'

Morse drank deeply on his beer before replying. 'She'd probably have a good few boyfriends, that's all I'm suggesting. As for my own potential susceptibility, that's beside the point.'

'Of course.' Lewis smiled good-naturedly. 'What else have we got?'

68

DEATH IS NOW MY NEIGHBOUR

'What do you make of this? One of the few interesting things there, as far as I could see.'

Lewis now considered the postcard handed to him. First, the picture on the front: a photograph of a woodland ride, with a sunlit path on the left, and a pool of azured bluebells to the right. Then turning over the card, he read the cramped lines amateurishly typed on the left-hand side:

Ten Times I beg, dear Heart, let's Wed!

(Thereafter long may Cupid reigne) Let's tread the Aisle, where thou hast led

The fifteen Bridesmaides in thy Traine. Then spend our honeyed Moon a-bed,

With Springs that creake againe - againe! (John Wilmot, 1672)

That was all.

No salutation.

No valediction.

And on the right-hand side of the postcard - nothing: no address, with the four dotted, parallel lines devoid of any writing, the top right-hand rectangle devoid of any stamp.

Lewis, a man not familiar with seventeenth-century love-lyrics, read the lines, then read them again, with only semi-comprehension.

'Pity she didn't get round to filling in the address, sir. Looks as if she might be proposing to somebody.'

'Aren't you making an assumption?'

'Pardon?'

COLIN DEXTER

'Did you see a typewriter in the house?'

'She could have typed it at work.'

'Yes. You must get along there soon.'

You're the boss.'

'Nice drop o' beer, this. In good nick.' Morse drained the glass and set it down in the middle of the slighdy rickety table, whilst Lewis took a gende sip of his orange juice; and continued to sit firmly fixed to his seat.

Morse continued:

'No! You're making a fake assumption - I think you are. You're assuming she'd just written this to somebody and dien forgotten die fellow's address, right? Pretty unlikely, isn't it? If she was proposing to him.'

'Perhaps she couldn't find a stamp.'

'Perhaps...'

Reluctandy Morse got to his feet and pushed his glass across die bar. *You don't want anything more yourself, do you, Lewis?'

'No thanks.'

'You've nodiing less?' asked die landlady, as Morse tendered a twenty-pound note. 'You're die first ones in today and I'm a bit short of change.'

Morse turned round. 'Any change on you, by any chance, Lewis?'

'You see,' continued Morse, 'you're still assuming she wrote it, aren't you?'

'And she didn't?'