Last Bus To Woodstock

murderer. I put him — I am diffident, and you will accuse me of formulating sub-hypotheses — between 35 and 50. Yes, there are reasons. .' But Morse decided to skip them. They weren't all that convincing, perhaps, but he had reasons, and he wished to sustain the impetus of his hypothesis. 'We may then further subdivide our number x by two. That seems most reasonable, does it not? Let us continue. What else can we reasonably hypothesize? I believe — for reasons which I realize may not be fully acceptable to you all — that our suspect is a married man.' Morse was feeling his way with an increasing lack of confidence. But the road ahead was already clearing; the fog was lifting and dissipating in the sun, and he resumed with his earlier briskness. 'Now this means yet a further diminution in the power of x. Our x is becoming a manageable unit, is it not? But not yet is the focus of our camera hypothetica fixed with any clear delineation upon our unsuspecting quarry. But wait! Our man is a regular drinker, is he not? It is surely one of our more reasonable claims, and gives to our procedure not only the merits of hypothetical plausibility, but also of extreme probability. Our case is centred upon The Black Prince, and one does not visit The Black Prince in order to consult the tax inspector.' Morse was wilting again. His foot was throbbing again with rhythmic pain, and his mind wandered off for a few minutes. Must be those Disprin. He closed his eyes and continued his forensic monologue within his brain.

He must, too, surely he must, figure in at least the top 5 % of the IQ range? Jennifer wouldn't fall for an ignorant buffoon, would she? That letter. Clever chap, well schooled. If he wrote it. If, if, if. Carry on. Where's our x now? Go on. He must be attractive to women. Yet who can say what attracts those lovely creatures? But yes. Say yes. Subdivide. Cars! God, he'd forgotten cars. Not everyone has a car. About what proportion? Never mind, subdivide. Just a minute— red car. He felt slightly delirious. Just a fraction longer. . That really would be a significant subdivision. The x was floating slowly away, and now was gone. The pain was less vicious. Comfortable. . almost. . comfortable. .

He was woken at 4.00 p.m. by Lewis's inability to manage the front door without a disturbing clatter. And when Lewis anxiously put his head round the bedroom door, he saw Morse scribbling as furiously as Coleridge must have scribbled when he woke up to find, full grown within his mind, the whole of Kubla Khan.

'Sit down, Lewis. Glad to see you.' He continued to write with furious rapidity for two or three minutes. Finally he looked up. 'Lewis, I'm going to ask you some questions. Think carefully — don't rush! — and give me some intelligent answers. You'll have to guess, I know, but do your best.'

Oh hell, thought Lewis.

'How many people live in North Oxford?'

'What do you call 'North Oxford', sir?'

'I'm asking the questions, you're answering 'em. Just think generally what you think North Oxford is; let's say Summertown and above. Now come on!'

'I could find out, sir.'

'Have a bloody guess, man, can't you?'

Lewis felt uncomfortable. At least he could see that only three of the beer cans were empty. He decided to plunge in. 'Ten thousand.' He said it with the assurance and unequivocal finality of a man asked to find the sum of two and two.

Morse took another sheet of paper and wrote down the number 10,000. 'What proportion of them are men?'

Lewis leaned back and eyed the ceiling with the confidence of a statistical consultant. 'About a quarter.'

Morse wrote down his second entry neatly and carefully beneath the first: 2,500. 'How many of those men are between 35 and 50?'

Quite a lot of retired people in North Oxford, thought Lewis, and quite a lot of young men on the estates. 'About half, no more.'

The third figure was entered: 1,250. 'How many of them are married, would you say?'

Lewis considered. Most of them, surely? 'Four out of five, sir.'

Morse formed the figures of his latest calculation with great precision: 1,000.

'How many of them regularly go out for a drink — you know what I mean — pubs, clubs, that sort of thing?'

Lewis thought of his own street. Not so many as some people thought. The neighbours on either side of him didn't — mean lot! He thought of the street as a whole. Tricky this one. 'About half.'

Morse revised his figure and went on to his next question. 'You remember the letter we had, Lewis. The letter Jennifer Coleby said she knew nothing about?' Lewis nodded. 'If we were right in thinking what we did, or what I did, would you say we were dealing with a man of high intelligence?'

'That's a big if, isn't it, sir?'

'Look, Lewis. That letter was written by our man — just get that into your head. It was the big mistake he made. It's the best clue we've got. What the hell do they pay us for. We've got to follow the clues, haven't we?' Morse didn't sound very convinced, but Lewis assured him that they had to follow the clues. 'Well?'

'Well what, sir?'

'Was he an intelligent man?'

'Very much so, I should think.'

'Would you think of writing a letter like that?',

'Me? No, sir.'

'And you're pretty bright, aren't you Sergeant?'

Lewis squared his shoulders, took a deep breath and decided not to minimize his intellectual capacity. 'I'd say I was in the top 15 %, sir.'

'Good for you! And our unknown friend? You remember he not only knows how to spell all the tricky words, he knows how to misspell them, too!'