Last Seen Wearing

'From my study, yes.'

'I wonder if you've got a phone number for Mr. Acum there?'

'Just a minute, Inspector.'

Morse kept the receiver to his ear and read through the rest of Lewis's notes. Nothing from Peters yet about that second letter; nothing much from anybody. .

To anyone with less than extremely acute hearing it would have been quite imperceptible. But Morse heard it, and knew once again that someone had been eavesdropping on the headmaster's telephone conversations. Someone in the office outside the head's study; and Morse's brain slid easily along the shining grooves.

'Are you there, Inspector? We've got two numbers for Acum — one at school, one at home.'

'I'll take 'em both,' said Morse.

After cradling the receiver, he sat and thought for a moment. If Phillipson wanted to use the phone in his study, he would first dial 9, get an outside line automatically, and then ring the code and the number he wanted. Morse had noticed the set-up when he had visited the school. But if he, Morse, wanted to ring Phillipson, he wouldn't be able to get him unless someone were sitting by the switchboard in the outer office; and he doubted that the faithful Mrs. Webb would be required that evening for the Parents' Evening.

He waited a couple of minutes and rang.

Brr. brr. It was answered almost immediately.

'Roger Bacon School.'

'That the headmaster?' enquired Morse innocently.

'No. Baines here. Second master. Can I help you?'

'Ah, Mr. Baines. Good evening, sir. As a matter of fact it was you I was hoping to get hold of. I, er, wonder if we might be able to meet again fairly soon. It's this Taylor girl business again. There are one or two points I think you could help me with.'

Baines would be free about a quarter to ten, and he could be in the White Horse soon after that. No time like the present.

Morse felt pleased with himself. He would have been even more pleased had he been able to see the deeply worried look on Baines's face as he shrugged into his gown and walked down into the Great Hall to meet the parents.

There was little point in going home now and he walked over to the canteen and found a copy of the Telegraph. He ordered sausages and mash, wrote the precise time in the right-hand margin of the back page and turned to 1 across. Has been known to split under a grilling (7). He smiled to himself. It was too many letters for BAINES, so he wrote SAUSAGE.

Back in the office he felt he was in good form. Crossword finished in only seven and a half minutes. Still, it was a bit easier than The Times. Perhaps this case would be easy if only he could look at it in the right way, and as Baines had said there was no time like the present. A long, quiet, cool, detached look at the case. But it never worked quite like that. He sat back and closed his eyes and for more than an hour his brain seethed in ceaseless turmoil. Ideas, ideas galore, but still the firm outline of the pattern eluded him. One or two of the pieces fitted firmly into place, but so many wouldn't fit at all. It was like doing the light-blue sky at the top of a jigsaw, with no clouds, not even a solitary sea-gull to break the boundless monochrome.

By nine o'clock he had a headache. Leave it. Give it a rest and go back later. Like crosswords. It would come; it would come.

He consulted the STD codes and found that he would have to get Caernarfon through the operator. It was Acum who answered.

As succinctly as he could Morse explained the reason for his call, and Acum politely interjected the proper noises of understanding and approval. Yes, of course. Yes, of course he remembered Valerie and the day she had disappeared. Yes, he remembered it all well.

'Did you realize that you were one of the very last people to see Valerie before she, er, before she disappeared?'

'I must have been, yes.'

'In fact, you taught her the very last school lesson she ever had, I think?'

'Yes.'

'I mention this, sir, because I have reason to believe that you asked Valerie to see you after the lesson.'

'Ye-es. I think I did.'

'Remember why, sir?' Acum took his time and Morse wished that he could see the schoolmaster's face.

'If I remember rightly, Inspector, she was due to sit her O-level French the next week, and her work was, well, pretty dreadful, and I was going to have a word with her about it. Not that she had much chance in the exam, I'm afraid.'

'You said, sir, you were going to see her.'

'Yes, that's right. As it happened I didn't get a chance. She had to rush off, she said.'

'Did she say why?'

The answer was ready this time, and it took the wind out of Morse's sails. 'She said she'd got to see the head.'

'Oh, I see.' Another piece that didn't fit. 'Well, thank you, Mr. Acum. You've been most helpful. I hope I've not interrupted anything important.'

'No. No. Just marking a few books, that's all.'