Inspector Morse 12 Death is Now My Neighbour

Nor did they.

Ten minutes later the detectives returned to find the Drive virtually deserted.

'How many houses are diere here, Lewis?'

'Not sure.' From Number 17 Lewis looked along to the end of the row. Two other houses - presumably Numbers 19 and 21, although the figures from the front gate of the latter had been removed. Then he looked across to the other side of the street where the last even-numbered house was 20. The answer, therefore, appeared to be reasonably obvious.

'Twenty-one.'

'That's an odd number, isn't it?'

Lewis frowned. 'Did you think I thought it was an even number?'

Morse smiled. 'I didn't mean 'odd' as opposed to 'even'; I meant 'odd' as opposed to 'normal'.'

'Oh!'

'Lew-is! You don't build a street of terraced houses with one side having ten and the other side having eleven, now do you? You get a bit of symmetry into things; a bit of regularity.'

'If you say so.'

'And I do say so!' snapped Morse, with the conviction of a fundamentalist preacher asserting the divine authority of Holy Writ

'No need to be so sharp, sir.'

'I should have spotted it from day one! From those political stickers, Lewis! Let's count, OK?'

The two men walked along the odd-numbered side of Bloxham Drive. And Lewis nodded: six Labour; two Tory; two don't-knows.

Ten.

'You see, Lewis, we've perhaps been a little misled by these minor acts of vandalism here. We've got several houses minus the numbers originally screwed into their front gates - and their back gates. So we were understandably confused.'

Lewis agreed. 'I still am, sir.'

'How many odd numbers are there between one and twenty-one - inclusive?'

'I reckon it's ten, sir. So I suppose there must be -eleven.'

Morse grinned. 'Write 'em down!'

So Lewis did, in his notebook: i, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21. Then counted them.

'I was right, sir. Eleven.'

'But only ten houses, Lewis.'

'I don't quite follow.'

'Of course you do. It happens quite often in hotel floors and hotel room numbers ... and street numbers. They miss one of diem out'

Enlightenment dawned on Lewis's honest features.

'Number thirteen!'

'Exactly! Do you know there used to be people in France called 'fourteeners' who made a living by going along to dinner parties where the number of guests was thirteen?'

'Where do you find all these bits and pieces?'

'Do you know, I think I saw that on the back of a matchbox in a pub in Grimsby. I've learned quite a lot in life from the back of matchboxes.'

'What's it all got to do with the case, though?'

Morse reached for Lewis's notebook, and put brackets round the seventh number. Then, underneath the first few numbers, he wrote in an arrow, -», pointing from left to right

'Lewis! If you were walking along the back of the houses, starting from Number i - she must be feeling a bit sore about the election, by the way ... Well, let's just go along there.'

The two men walked to the rear of the terrace, where (as we have seen) several of the back gates had been sadly, if not too seriously, vandalized.

'Get your list, Lewis, and as we go along, just put a ring round those gates where we haven't got a number, all right?'

At the end of the row, Lewis's original list, with its successive emendations, appeared as follows:

1, 3, 5, (7 ) 9, 11, (13), (15)(17) 19, (21]

'You see,' said Morse, 'the vandalism gets worse the further you get into the Close, doesn't it? As it gets further from the main road.'

/Yes.'

'So just picture things. You've got a revolver and you walk along the back here in the half-light. You know the number you want. You know the morning routine, too: breakfast at about seven. All you've