The Jewel That Was Ours

'You mean you wonder who Ashenden saw, sir?'

'Exactly.'

'He sounded as if he was telling the truth.'

'They all do! But somebody isn't telling the truth, Lewis. Somebody stole the Wolvercote Tongue, and somebody murdered Kemp! If only I could find the connection!'

'Perhaps there isn't a connection,' said Lewis.

But he might just as well have been talking to himself.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Sic, ne perdiderit, non cessat perdere lusor

(To recoup his losses, the gambler keeps on backing the losers)

(Ovid, Ars Amatoria)

ASHENDEN, BUTTONHOLED as he was once again in the coffee-lounge by the diminutive dynamo from Sacramento, appeared only too glad to be given the opportunity of escaping, albeit to an interview with Chief Inspector Morse.

'Do you always get one like that?' sympathised Lewis.

'Well, she'd probably take the prize,' conceded Ashenden with a weary grin. 'But Janet's not such a bad old stick sometimes — not when you get to know her.'

'Makes you wonder how anyone ever married her, though.'

Ashenden nodded as he walked through into the Bar-Annexe: 'Poor chap!'

With this next hand (Ashenden), Morse took no finesses at all. Just played off his aces and sat back. Question: Why had Ashenden lied about his visit to Magdalen? Answer: It wasn't a lie really. He had gone up to Magdalen College, asked at the Porters' Lodge, discovered the grounds were closed; then just carried on walking over the bridge, around the Plain, and back again down the High. Silly to lie, really. But it was only to avoid any tedious and wholly inconsequential explanation. Question: What about the previous afternoon, at about 2 p.m.? (Morse admitted his willingness to listen to a little more 'tedious and wholly inconsequential explanation'.)

'No secret, Inspector. In fact I'd told a couple of the group — Mr. and Mrs. Rronquist, I think it was — that I was going up to Summertown.'

'Why bother? Why explain? You're a free agent, aren't you, sir?'

Ashenden pondered the question awhile. 'I did realise, yesterday, that you perhaps weren't completely satisfied with the account of my whereabouts when, er—'

'The Wolvercote Tongue was stolen,' supplied Morse.

'Yes. That's why it seemed no bad idea for somebody to know where I was yesterday afternoon.'

'And where was that?'

Ashenden, looking decidedly uncomfortable, drew a deep breath: 'I spent the afternoon in the betting-shop in Summertown.'

Lewis looked up: 'Not a crime, that, is it?'

Morse seemed to appreciate the interjection: 'Surely Sergeant Lewis is right, sir? Certainly it's not a criminal offence to line a bookie's pockets.'

Ashenden suddenly seemed more relaxed: 'I had a tip. I met this fellow from Newmarket when we were at The University Arms in Cambridge. He said be sure to back this horse — over the sticks at Fontwell Park.'

'Go on.'

'Well, that's it, really. I picked another horse, in the race before — I'd got to the bookie's at about half-past two, I suppose. I put three pounds to win on a horse in the two-fifty, and then five pounds to win on the 'dead cert' this fellow had told me about in the three-fifteen or three-twenty — something like that.'

'How much did you win?'

Ashenden shook his head sadly: 'I don't think you can be a racing man, Inspector.'

'Would they have records at the bookie's to show you'd been there, sir?'

It was Lewis who had asked the question, and Ashenden turned in his chair to face him: 'Are you suggesting I wasn't there?'

'No, sir. Certainly not. But it was the key sort of time, wasn't it? Three o'clock time? Just the time when Dr. Kemp was getting back to Oxford.'

'Yes,' replied Ashenden slowly. 'I take the point.'

'Would anyone recognise you,' continued Lewis, 'if you went there again?'

'I don't know. There were quite a few there during the afternoon — eight, ten — more, perhaps, for some of the time, some of the races. But whether anyone would recognise me. '

'They'd have your betting-slips, surely?' suggested Morse.

'Oh yes — they'd keep those — if the horses had won.'

'Bit of bad luck you didn't pick a winner, then. You could have collected your winnings and proved your alibi both at the same time.'