Last Seen Wearing

(W. S. Gilbert, The Mikado)

A SMALL GROUP OF boys was kicking a football around at the side of a large block of classrooms which abutted on to the wide sports field, where sets of rugby and hockey posts demarcated the area of grass into neatly white-lined rectangles. The rest of the school was having lunch. The two men walked three times around the playing fields, hands in pockets, heads slightly forward, eyes downcast. They were about the same build, neither man above medium height; and to the football players they seemed unworthy of note, anonymous almost. Yet one of the two men pacing slowly over the grass was a chief inspector of police, and the other, one of their very own teachers, was a suspect in a murder case.

Morse questioned Acum about himself and his teaching career; about Valerie Taylor and Baines and Phillipson; about the conference in Oxford, times and places and people. And he learned nothing that seemed of particular interest or importance. The schoolmaster appeared pleasant enough — in a nondescript sort of way; he answered the inspector's questions with freedom and with what seemed a fair degree of guarded honesty. And so Morse told him, told him quietly yet quite categorically, that he was a liar; told him that he had indeed left the conference that Monday evening, at about 9.30 p.m., told him that he had walked to Kempis Street to see his former colleague, Mr. Baines, and that he had been seen there; told him that, if he persisted in denying such a plain, incontrovertible statement of the truth, he, Morse, had little option but to take him back to Oxford where he would be held for questioning in connection with the murder of Mr. Reginald Baines. It was as simple as that! And, in fact, it proved a good deal simpler than even Morse had dared to hope; for Acum no longer denied the plain, incontrovertible statement of the truth which the inspector had presented to him. They were on their third and final circuit of the playing fields, far away from the main school buildings, by the side of some neglected allotments, where the ramshackle sheds rusted away sadly in despairing disrepair. Here Acum stopped and nodded slowly.

'Just tell me what you did, sir, that's all.'

'I'd been sitting at the back of the hall — deliberately — and I left early. As you say, it was about half-past nine, or probably a bit earlier.'

'You went to see Baines?' Acum nodded. 'Why did you go to see him?'

'I don't know, really. I was getting a bit bored with the conference, and Baines lived fairly near. I thought I'd go and see if he was in and ask him out for a drink. It's always interesting to talk about old times, you know the sort of thing — what was going on at school, which members of staff were still there, which ones had left, what they were doing. You know what I mean.'

He spoke naturally and easily, and if he were a liar he seemed to Morse a fairly fluent one.

'Well,' continued Acum, 'I walked along there. I was in a bit of a hurry because I knew the pubs would be closed by half-past ten and time was getting on. I had a drink on the way and it must have been getting on for ten by the time I got there. I'd been there before, and thought he must be in because the light was on in the front room.'

'Were the curtains drawn?' For the first time since they had been talking together, Morse's voice grew sharper.

Acum thought for a moment. 'Yes, I'm almost certain they were.'

'Go on.'

'Well, I thought, as I say, that he must be in. So I knocked pretty loudly two or three times on the door. But he didn't answer, or at least he didn't seem to hear me. I thought he might be in the front room perhaps with the TV on, so I went to the window and knocked on it.'

'Could you hear the TV? Or see it?'

Acum shook his head; and to Morse it was all beginning to sound like a record stuck in its groove. He knew for certain what was coming next

'It's a funny thing, Inspector, but I began to feel just a bit frightened — as if I were sort of trespassing and shouldn't really be there at all; as if he knew that I was there but didn't want to see me. . Anyway, I went back to the door and knocked again, and then I put my head round the door and shouted his name.'

Morse stood quite still, and considered his next question with care. If he was to get his piece of information, he wanted it to come from Acum himself without too much prompting.

'You put your head round the door, you say?'

'Yes. I just felt sure he was there.'

'Why did you feel that?'

'Well, there was a light in the front room and. .' He hesitated for a moment, and seemed to be fumbling around in his mind for some fleeting, half-forgotten impression that had given him this feeling.

'Think back carefully, sir,' said Morse. 'Just picture yourself there again, standing at the door. Take your time. Just put yourself back there. You're standing there in Kempis Street. Last Monday night. .'

Acum shook his head slowly and frowned. He said nothing for a minute or two.

'You see, Inspector, I just had this idea that he was somewhere about. I almost knew he was. I thought he might just have slipped out somewhere for a few seconds because. .' It came back to him then, and he went on quickly. 'Yes, that's it. I remember now. I remember why I thought he must be there. It wasn't just the light in the front window. There was a light on in the hall because the front door was open. Not wide open, but standing ajar as if he'd just slipped out and would be back again any second.'

'And then?'

'I left. He wasn't there. I just left, that's all.'

'Why didn't you tell me all this when I rang you, sir?'

'I was frightened, Inspector. I'd been there, hadn't I? And he was probably lying there all the time — murdered. I was frightened, I really was. Wouldn't you have been?'

Morse drove into the centre of Caernarfon, and parked his car alongside the jetty under the great walls of the first Edward's finest castle. He found a Chinese restaurant nearby, and greedily gulped down the oriental fare that