Last Seen Wearing

The school bell rang at 4.00 p.m., and the last lesson of the day was over. Streams of children emerged from classrooms and, like a nest of ants uncovered, bewilderingly crossed and re-crossed to cloakrooms, to bicycle sheds, to societies, to games practices and to sundry other pursuits. More leisurely, the teachers threaded their way back through the milling throngs to the staff room; some to smoke, some to talk, some to mark. And very soon most of them, teachers and pupils alike, would be making their way home. Another day was done.

Baines returned from teaching a fourth-year mathematics set and dropped a pile of thirty exercise books on to his table. Twenty seconds each — no more; only ten minutes the lot. He might as well get them marked straight away. Thank the Lord it wasn't like marking English or History, with all that reading to do. His practised eye had learned to pounce upon the pages in a flash. Yes, he would dash them off now.

'Mr. Phillipson would like a word with you,' said Mrs. Webb.

'Oh. Now?'

'As soon as you came in, he said.'

Baines knocked perfunctorily and entered the study.

'Have a seat a minute, Baines.'

Warily the second master took a seat. There was a serious edge to Phillipson's voice — like a doctor's about to inform you that you've only a few months more to live.

'Inspector Morse will be in again tomorrow afternoon. You know that, don't you?' Baines nodded. 'He wants to talk to us both — together.'

'He didn't mention that to me.'

'Well, that's what he's going to do.' Baines said nothing. 'You know what this probably means, don't you?'

'He's a clever man.'

'No doubt. But he won't be getting any further, will he?' The tone of Phillipson's voice was hard, almost the tone of a master to his pupil. 'You realize what I'm saying, don't you, Baines? Keep your mouth shut!'

'Yes, you'd like me to do that, wouldn't you?'

'I'm warning you!' The latent hatred suddenly blazed in Phillipson's eyes. No pretence now; only an ugly, naked hatred between them.

Baines got up, savouring supremely the moment of his power. 'Don't push me too far, Phillipson! And just remember who you're talking to.'

'Get out!' hissed Phillipson. The blood was pounding in his ears, and although a non-smoker he longed to light a cigarette. He sat motionless at his desk for many minutes and wondered how much longer the nightmare could go on. What a relief it would be to end it all — one way or another. .

Gradually he grew calmer, and his mind wandered back again. How long ago was it now? Over three and a half years! And still the memory of that night came back to haunt him like a ghost unexorcized. That night. . He could picture it all so vividly still. .

He felt quite pleased with himself. Difficult to tell for certain, of course; but yes, quite pleased with himself really. As accurately as it could his mind retraced the stages of the day's events; the questions of the interviewing committee — wise and foolish; and his own answers — carefully considered. .

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

In philological works. . a dagger † signifies an obsolete word. The. . sign, placed before a person's name, signifies deceased.

(Rules for Compositors and Readers, OUP)

THIS SAME MONDAY night or, to be accurate, Tuesday morning, Morse was not in bed until 2.00 a.m., overtired and underbeered. The euphoria of the earlier part of the day had now completely passed, partly as a result of Lewis's sceptical disparagement, but more significantly because of his own inability ever to fool himself for very long. He still believed that some of the pieces had clicked into place, but knew that many didn't fit at all; and a few didn't even look like pieces of the same jigsaw. He recollected how in the army he had been given a test for colour-blindness. A sheet of paper on which a chaotically confused conglomeration of colour blocks were printed had been magically metamorphosed when looked at through differently-coloured filter slides; a red filter, and there appeared an elephant; a blue filter, and a lion leaped out at the eyes; a green filter, and behold the donkey! Donkey. . He'd been reading something about a donkey only a few days ago. Where had he read it? Morse was not a systematic reader, he was a dipper-in. He looked at the small pile of books on his bedside table underneath the alarm clock. The Road to Xanadu, A Selection of Kipling's Short Stones, The Life of Richard Wagner and Selected Prose of A. E. Housman. It was in Housman, surely, that bit about the donkey who couldn't make up its asinine mind which bundle of hay to start on first. Hadn't the stupid animal finally died of starvation? He soon found the passage:

An editor of no judgement, perpetually confronted with a couple of MSS to choose from, cannot but feel in every fibre of his being that he is a donkey between two bundles of hay.

Two MSS, and no judgement! That summed it up perfectly. One MS told him that Valerie Taylor was alive, and the other told him she was dead. And he still didn't know which MS a man of judgement should settle for. Oh Lord! Which of the wretched MSS had the correct reading? Had either?

He knew that at this rate he would never go to sleep, and he told himself to forget it all and think of something else. He picked up Kipling and began rereading his favourite short story, Love O' Women. He firmly believed that Kipling knew more about women than Kinsey ever had, and he came back to a passage marked with vertical lines in the margin:

. . as you say, sorr, he was a man with an educashin, an' he used ut for his schames; an' the same educashin an' talkin' an' all that made him able to do fwhat he had a mind to wid a woman, that same wud turn back again in the longgrun an' tear him alive.

Phew!

He thought back on what he'd learned about Valerie's sex life. Nothing much, really. He thought of Maguire,