The Jewel That Was Ours

The last few words sank into the noiselessness of the stifling room. And then Morse suddenly smiled a little, and spoke quietly:

'Can you hear me all right at the back, Mr. Aldrich?'

'Pardon, sir?'

'Don't you think it would be far better if you. ' Morse held out the palm of his right hand and seemed to usher some invisible spirit towards the front row of the seats.

Aldrich, looking much perplexed, rose from his seat and walked forward hesitantly down the central aisle; and, turning towards him, Janet Roscoe smiled expectantly and pointed her hand to the empty seat beside her. But Aldrich ignored the gesture, and slipped instead into one of the empty seats immediately behind her.

'As I say,' resumed Morse, 'the person Stratton claimed to have seen was never on the train at all. That person told me he'd been to London to see his daughter; but he'd only ever had the one daughter. and she was dead.'

Morse's audience was hanging on his every word, yet few seemed able to grasp the extraordinary implications of what he was saying.

'Names, you know' (Morse's tone was suddenly lighter) 'are very important things. Some people don't like their own names. but others are extremely anxious to perpetuate them — both Christian names and surnames. Let's say, for example, that Mr. and Mrs. Brown here — Howard and Shirley, isn't it — wanted to christen their house, they might think of sucking half of their two names together. What about 'W-a-r-d' from his name and 'l-e- y' from hers? Make a reasonable house-name, wouldn't it? 'Wardley'?'

'Gee, that's exactiy—' began Shirley; but Howard laid a hand on her arm, and the embarrassed lady held her peace.

'Not much good trying to perpetuate a surname, though — not if your daughter gets married. She can keep her maiden name, of course. Can't she? Can't she.? But it's easier with Christian names, especially sometimes. A father whose name is 'George', say, can call his daughter 'Georgie', 'Georgina', 'Georgette'.' (Lewis glanced up at Morse.) 'And the woman who was killed in the road accident was called Mrs. Philippa J. Mayo, remember? Her father couldn't give her his own name exactly, but he could give her the female equivalent of 'Philip'. And Philippa Mayo was the daughter of the only man here who has that name.

'Wasn't she, Mr. Aldrich?' asked Morse in a terrifying whisper.

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

. that fair field

Of Enna, where Proserpin gathring flowrs

Her self a fairer Flowre by gloomie Dis

Was gathered, which cost Ceres all that pain

To seek her through the world.

(John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV)

'YOU'RE SERIOUS ABOUT all this, sir?' Phil Aldrich cocked his head to one side and his sad features seemed incredulous, and pained.

'Oh, yes,' said Morse, with a quiet simplicity — perhaps also with some pain. 'You've no daughter in London — or anywhere else now, I'm afraid. You've lost your' alibi, too — the very clever alibi provided by Eddie Stratton as the first of his services for you. before he performed his second service, later that same day, by disposing of Kemp's body in the River Cherwell.'

Momentarily, it seemed, Aldrich was on the point of protesting, but Morse shook his head wearily:

'No point — no point at all in your saying anything to the contrary, Mr. Aldrich. We've been in touch with the police department in Sacramento, with your neighbours, with the local institution there, including the High School your daughter attended. We've got your passport, and we've checked your home address, and it's perfectly correct. You carried through all your details accurately on to the t.h.f. Guest Registration Card at The Randolph, and doubtless here too, in Bath. But your wife? She was a little 'economical with the truth', wasn't she? Your wife—your accomplice, Mr. Aldrich — she made just a few little changes here and there to her details, didn't she? It was all right for it to be seen that you both lived in the same district, the same street, even—but not in the same apartment. Yet you do, don't you, live in the same apartment as your wife? You've been married together, happily married together, for almost forty-two years, if my information is correct. And apart from your daughter, there has only ever been one woman in life you have loved with passion and tenderness — the woman you married. She was a gifted actress, I learned. She was well known on the West Coast of America in many productions in the fifties and sixties — mostly in musicals in the earlier years, and then in a series of Arthur Miller plays. And being an actress, a successful actress, it was sensible for her to keep her stage name — which was in fact her maiden name. But she gave her Christian name to her daughter, just as you did. Philippa J. Aldrich — Philippa Janet Aldrich — that was her name.' Morse nodded sadly to himself, and to the two people who sat so near to one another now.

Then a most poignant and exceedingly moving thing occurred. Only a few minutes since, Phil Aldrich had rejected (as it seemed) the blandishments of a diminutive, loud-mouthed, insufferable termagant. But now he accepted her invitation. He rose, and moved forward, just the one row, to sit beside the woman in the front, and to take her small hand gently into his — the tears now spilling down his cheeks. And as he did so, the woman turned towards him with eyes that were pale and desolate, yet eyes which still lit up with the glow of deep and happy love as she looked unashamedly, unrepentantly, into her husband's face; the eyes of a mother who had grieved so long and so desperately for her only daughter, a mother whose grief could never be comforted, and who had journeyed to England to avenge what she saw as an insufferable wrong — the loss of the jewel that was hers.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

Je ne regrette rien

(French song)

AFTER THE ARRESTS, after the statements from the two Aldriches and from a repentant Stratton, after a second search of the Kemps' residence, the case — at least from Morse's point of view — was finished.