The Secret of Annexe 3

'But going back a minute, don't you think that in Bowman's original plan — Plan One, as you call it — it would have been far more sensible to have committed the murder — murder Wilkins, that is — and then to get out of the place double quick? With any luck, no one's going to suspect a married couple from Chipping Norton — even if the body's found very soon afterwards.'

Morse nodded, but with obvious frustration.

'I agree with you. But somehow or other we've got to explain how it came about that Bowman was found dressed up in identically the same sort of outfit as Wilkins was wearing at the party. Don't you see that, Lewis? We've got to explain the facts! And I refuse to believe that anyone could have dressed up Bowman in all that stuff after he'd been murdered.'

'There's one other thing, sir. You know from Max's report it says that Bowman could have been eating some of the things they had at the party?'

'What about it?'

'Well — was it just coincidence he'd been eating the same sort of meal?'

'No. Margaret Bowman must have known — she must have found out — what the menu was and then cooked her husband some of it. Then all Wilkins had to do was just eat a bit of the same stuff—'

'But how did Margaret Bowman know?'

'How the hell do I know, Lewis? But it happened, didn't it? I'm not making up this bloody corpse you know! I'm not making up all these people in their fancy dress! You do realize that, don't you?'

'No need to get cross, sir!'

'I'm not bloody cross! If somebody decides to make some elaborate plan to rub out one side of the semi-eternal triangle — we've got to have some equally elaborate explanation! Surely you can see that?'

Lewis nodded, 'I agree. But just let me make my main point once again, sir — and then we'll forget it. It's this business of staying on after the murder that worries me: it must have been a dreadfully nerve-racking time for the two of them; it was very complicated; and it was a bit chancy. And all I say is that I can't really see the whole point of it. It just keeps the pair of them on the hotel premises the whole of the evening, and whatever time the murder was committed they haven't got any chance of an alibi—'

'There you go again, Lewis! For Christ's sake, come off it! Nobody's got a bloody alibi.'

The two men were silent for several minutes.

'Cup more coffee, sir?' asked Lewis.

'Augh! I'm sorry, Lewis. You just take the wind out of my sails, that's all.'

'We've got him, sir. That's the only thing that matters.'

Morse nodded.

'And you're absolutely sure that we've got the right man?'

'It's a big word—'absolutely' — isn't it?' said Morse.

CHAPTER FORTY

Tuesday, January 7th: P.M.

Alibi (n.) — the plea in a criminal charge of having been elsewhere at the material time.

(Chambers 20th Century Dictionary)

IT WAS, IN ALL, to be an hour or so before the interrogation of Wilkins was resumed. Morse had telephoned Max, but had learned only that if he, Morse, continued to supply the lab with corpses about twenty-four hours old, he, Max, was not going to make too many fanciful speculations: he was a forensic scientist, not a fortune teller. Lewis had contacted the Haworth Hotel to discover that one local call had in fact been made — untraceable, though — from Annexe 3 on New Year's Eve. Phillips, who had returned from Diamond Close with the not unexpected news that Margaret Bowman (if she had been there) had flown, now resumed his duties in the interview room, standing by the door, his feet aching a good deal, his eyes idly scanning the bare room once again: the wooden trestle-table, on which stood two white polystyrene cups (empty now) and an ashtray (rapidly filling); and behind the table, the fairish-haired, fresh-complexioned man accused of a terrible murder, who seemed to Phillips to look perhaps rather less dramatically perturbed than should have been expected.

'What time did you get to the Haworth Hotel on New Year's Eve?'

'Say that again?'

'What time did you get to the hotel?'

'I didn't go to any hotel that night—'

'You were at the Haworth Hotel and you got there at—'

'I've never played there.'

'Never played what?'

'Never played there!'

'I'm not quite with you, Mr. Wilkins.'

'We go round the pubs — the group — we don't often go to hotels.'