The Jewel That Was Ours

Janet Roscoe had finished re-reading A Midsummer Night's Dream, and felt just a little less certain now about her long-held view (she had earlier been an actress) that Mr. Shakespeare was sometimes way below his best when it came to the writing of comedy. And she had just turned on the TV, hoping for a late news-programme, when she heard the light knock on her bedroom door. It was Shirley Brown. She had been stung by something, and could Janet help? But of course she knew Janet could help! Invited in, Shirley watched the little woman delving into her capacious handbag (a gentle little joke with the rest of the group) from whose depths had already emerged, in addition to the usual accessories, a scout-knife, an apostle spoon, and a miniature iron. And something else now: two tubes of ointment. A little bit of each (Janet maintained) could do no possible harm, unsure as Shirley was whether the offending insect had been wasp, bee, gnat, flea, or mosquito.

For five minutes after the medication, the two women sat on the bed and talked. Had Janet noticed how quiet Mr. Ashenden had seemed all day? Not his usual self at all, one way or another. Janet had noticed that, yes: and he was the courier, wasn't he? Got paid for it. And Janet added something more. She thought she knew what might have been on his mind, because he'd been writing a letter in the Lounge. And when he'd put the envelope down to put a stamp on it— 'Face upwards, Shurley!'—why, she couldn't help noticing who it was addressed to, now could she?

Suddenly, and perhaps for the first time, Shirley Brown felt a twinge of affection for the lonely little woman who seemed far more aware of what was going on than any of them.

'You seem to notice everything, Janet,' she said, in a not unkindly way.

'I notice most things,' replied Mrs. Roscoe, with a quiet little smile of self-congratulation.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Some circumstantial evidence is very strong — as when you find a trout in the milk

(Henry Thoreau, unpublished manuscript)

'ARE YOU GOING to save us an awful lot of time and trouble, sir, or are you determined to burden the taxpayer further?'

Downes licked his dry lips. 'I don't know what this is all about — except that I'm going mad.'

'Oh, no! You're very sane—' began Morse. But Downes, at least for the moment, had taken the initiative.

'And if you're worried about the taxpayer, shouldn't you perhaps be attending to the urgent little matter your sergeant told you about?'

'You heard that?' asked Morse sharply.

'He speaks more clearly than you do.'

'Even when he whispers?' For a few seconds a bemused-looking Morse appeared slightly more concerned with the criticism of his diction than with the prosecution of his case, and it was Downes who continued:

'You were commenting on the degree of my sanity, Inspector.'

WPC Wright glanced at Morse, seated to her left. She had never worked with him before, but the man's name was something of a legend in the Oxfordshire Constabulary, and she was experiencing a sense of some disappointment. Morse was talking again now, though — getting into his swing again, it seemed, and she took down his words in her swift and deftly stroked outlines.

'Yes. Very sane. Sane enough to cover up a murder! Sane enough to arrange for your wife to cart off the incriminating evidence to King's Cross Station and stick it in a left-luggage locker—'

'I can't be hearing you right—'

'No! Not again, sir — please! It's getting threadbare, you know, that particular excuse. You used it when Kemp rang up—rang up from your own house. You used it again when you'd just got off the train from Paddington tonight, when you pretended you were waiting for Mrs. Downes—'

In her shorthand book, WPC Wright had ample time to write the word that Downes now shrieked; write it in in long-hand, and in capitals. In fact she would have had plenty of time to shade in the circles in the last two letters.

She wrote 'STOP!'

And Morse stopped, as instructed — for about thirty seconds. No rush. Then he repeated his accusation.

'You got your wife to take Kemp's clothes to London—'

'Got my wife — got Lucy? What? What do you mean?'

'It's all right, sir.' Morse's tone now (thought WPC Wright) was rather more impressive. Quiet, cultured, confident — gentle almost, and understanding. 'We've got the key your wife gave you after she'd deposited the clothes and the blood-stained sheets—'

'I've been here all day — here in Oxford!' The voice had veered from exasperation to incredulity. 'I've got a marvellous alibi — did you know that? I had a tutorial this afternoon from—'

But Morse had taken over completely, and he held up his right hand with a confident, magisterial authority. 'I promise you, sir, that we shall interview everyone you saw this afternoon. You have nothing — nothing! — to fear if you're telling me the truth. But listen to me, Mr. Downes! Just for a little while listen to me! When my sergeant came in to see me — when you yourself heard him — he'd just learned that on my instructions the locker had been opened in London. And that inside the locker was a case, the case your wife took with her to London today; a case which she told me — told me and Sergeant Lewis — contained some curtains. Curtains! We both saw her take it, in a taxi. And shall I tell you again what it really contained?'

Downes thumped the table with both fists with such ferocity that WPC Wright transferred her shorthand-book to her black-stockinged knee, and failed completely to register the next three words that Downes had thundered.