shambles. So. Let us assume that Mrs. Taylor dresses up as her daughter and makes her way towards school. Chief Inspector Morse suggested early on that the person seen by Godberry was perhaps carrying a basket or some such receptacle. [Lewis had made a sorry mess of the spelling.] Now, if she had been carrying clothes [heavily scored by Lewis] the situation is becoming very interesting. Once Mrs. Taylor has created the impression that Valerie has left for school, it is equally important that she should not create the further impression that Valerie has returned home some five or ten minutes later. Because if someone sees Valerie, or someone who looks like Valerie, returning to the Taylors' house, the careful plan is ruined. When Valerie is reported missing, the inquiries will naturally centre on the house, not on the area around the school. But she can deal with this without too much trouble. In the basket Mrs. Taylor has put her own clothes. She goes into the ladies', just past the shopping area, and changes back into them, and then walks back, as unobtrusively as she can, probably by a roundabout route, to her own house. The real question now is this. Why all this palaver? Why should Mrs. Taylor have to go to all this trouble and risk? There can only be one answer. To create the firm impression that Valerie is alive when in fact she is dead. If Valerie had arrived home for lunch, and if Valerie did not leave the house again, we must assume that she was killed at some time during the lunch hour in her own home. And there was, it seems, only one other person in the Taylor household during that time: Valerie's own mother. It is difficult to believe, but the facts seem to point to the appalling probability that Valerie was murdered by her own mother. Why? We can only guess. There is some evidence that Valerie was pregnant. Perhaps her mother flew at her in a wild rage and struck her much harder than she intended to. We may learn the truth from Mrs. Taylor herself. The next thing is — what to do? And here we have the recorded evidence of the police files. The fact is that the police were not called in until the next morning. Why so much delay? Again an answer readily presents itself. [Morse had admired his sergeant's style at this point, and the nod had signified a recognition of a literary nicety rather than any necessary concurrence with the argument.] Mrs. Taylor had to get rid of the body. She waited, I think, obviously in great distress, until her husband arrived home about six; and then she told him what had happened. He has little option. He can't leave his poor wife to face the consequences of the terrible mess she's got herself into, and the two of them plan what to do. Somehow they get rid of the body, and I suspect the reservoir behind the house is the first place that occurs to them. I know that this was dragged at the time, but it's terribly easy to miss anything in so large a stretch of water. I can only suggest that it is thoroughly dragged again.
Lewis put the document back on the bedside table and Morse tapped him in congratulatory fashion upon the shoulder.
'I think it's time they made you up to inspector, my old friend.'
'You think I may be right then, sir?'
'Yes,' said Morse slowly, 'I do.'
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Incest is only relatively boring.
(Inscription on the lavatory wall of an Oxford pub)
LEWIS LEANED BACK into his pillows, and felt content. He would never make an inspector, he knew that, didn't even want to try. But to beat old Morse at his own game — my goodness, that was something!
'Got a drop of booze in the house?' asked Morse.
Ten minutes later he was sipping a liberal helping of whisky as Lewis dunked a chunk of bread into his Bovril.
'There are one or two things you could add to your admirable statement, you know, Lewis.' A slightly pained expression appeared on Lewis's face, but Morse quickly reassured him. 'Oh, that's pretty certainly how it happened, I'm sure of that. But there are just one or two points where we can be even more specific, I think, and one or two where we shall need a clearer picture not so much of what happened as of why it happened. Let's just go over a few of the things you say. Mrs. Taylor dresses up as Valerie. I agree. You mention the school uniform and you rightly stress how distinctive this uniform is. But there's surely another small point. Mrs. Taylor would not only wish in a positive way to be mistaken for her daughter, but in a negative sort of way not to be recognized facially as who she was — Valerie's mother. After all it's the face that most of us look at — not the clothes. And here I think her hair would be all-important. Their hair was the same colour, and Mrs. Taylor is still too young to have more than a few odd streaks of grey. When we saw her she wore her hair on the top of her head, but I'd like to bet that when she lets it down it gives her much the same sort of look that Valerie had; and with long shoulder-length hair, doubtless brushed forward over her face, I think the disguise would be more than adequate.'
Lewis nodded; but as the inspector said, it was only a small point.
'Now,' continued Morse, 'we surely come to the central point, and one that you gloss over rather too lightly, if I may say so.' Lewis looked stolidly at the counterpane, but made no interruption. 'It's this. What could possibly have been the motive that led Mrs. Taylor to murder Valerie? Valerie! Her only daughter! You say that Valerie was pregnant, and although it isn't firmly established, I think the overwhelming probability is that she was pregnant; perhaps she had told her mother about it. But there's another possibility, and one that makes the whole situation far more sinister and disturbing. It isn't easy, I should imagine, for a daughter to hide a pregnancy from her mother for too long, and I think on balance it may well have been Mrs. Taylor who accused Valerie of being pregnant — rather than Valerie who told her mother. But whichever way round it was, it surely can't add up to a sufficient motive for murdering the girl. It would be bad enough, I agree. The neighbours would gossip and everyone at school would have to know, and then there'd be the uncles and aunts and all the rest of 'em. But it's hardly a rare thing these days to have an unmarried mother in the family, is it? It could have happened as you say it did, but I get the feeling that Valerie's pregnancy had been known to Mrs. Taylor for several weeks before the day she was murdered. And I think that on that Tuesday lunchtime Mrs. Taylor tackled her daughter — she may have tackled her several times before — on a question which was infinitely more important to her than whether her daughter was pregnant or not. A question which was beginning to send her out of her mind; for she had her own dark and terrifying suspicions which would give her no rest, which poisoned her mind day and night, and which she had to settle one way or the other. And that question was this: who was the father of Valerie's baby? To begin with I automatically assumed that Valerie was a girl of pretty loose morals who would jump into bed at the slightest provocation with some of her randy boyfriends. But I think I was wrong. I ought to have seen through Maguire's sexual boastings straight away. He may have put his dirty fingers up her skirt once or twice, but I doubt that he or any of the other boys did much more. No. I should think that Valerie got an itch in her knickers as often — more often perhaps — than most young girls. But the indications all along the line were that her own particular weakness was for older men. Men about your age, Lewis.'
'And yours,' said Lewis. But the mood in the quiet bedroom was sombre, and neither man seemed much amused. Morse drained his whisky and smacked his lips.
'Well, Lewis? What do you think?'
'You mean Phillipson, I suppose, sir?'
