The Jewel That Was Ours

The major statement (the statement to which Morse awarded the literary prize) was made by Mrs. Janet Roscoe, who properly insisted on vetting the transcription of her lengthy evidence typed out by WPC Wright. Except at one point, this agreed with the parallel statement made by Mr. Phil Aldrich, with each, in turn, substantially corroborated by Mr. Edward Stratton's testimony about his own collusion with the Aldriches. The one colossal discrepancy arose from the two wholly contradictory accounts of Kemp's death. Neither Mr. or Mrs. Aldrich was willing to give any detail whatsoever about what, as Morse imagined, must have been a savagely bitter altercation between Kemp and themselves before the fateful (though maybe not immediately fatal?) blow struck with the stick that originally had rested across Marion Kemp's knees as she sat in her wheel-chair, her eyes (in Janet's splendid phrase) 'glowing with a sort of glorious revenge'. So much was agreed. Kemp had stumbled blindly against a chair and then fallen heavily, the back of his head striking the corner of the fireplace with 'a noise reminiscent of a large egg trodden under foot — deliberately'. So much was agreed. Then there was all that blood. Such a surprising amount of it! And the carpet where most of it had dripped; and his clothes 'sticky and messy with the stuff'. So much was agreed. But which of the two it was who had lashed out ferociously at Kemp with that stick ('Please return to the Radcliffe Infirmary' branded upon it) — ah! that was proving so difficult to decide. It had been Phil, of course — Janet confessed: 'He must have gone quite berserk, Inspector!' But no! It had been Janet all the time, as Phil had so sadly admitted to Morse: a frenetic Janet who had been the happy instrument of eternal Justice. But when Morse had told Janet of the wild discrepancy, she'd merely smiled. And when Morse had told Phil of the same ridiculous discrepancy, he too had merely smiled — and lovingly.

There had been one or two minor surprises in the statements, but for the most part things had happened almost exactly as Morse had supposed. What finally, it appeared, had transmuted an intolerable grief into an implacable hatred, and a lust for some sort of retribution, was the fact that in all the reports the parents had received of the coroner's proceedings and the magistrate's hearing, Philippa's name had never once occurred. A curious catalyst, perhaps, and yet what a devastating one! But the name of Dr. Theodore Kemp had been mentioned many, many times; and when they had read of the Historic Cities of England Tour, they had seen that name again. Their plans were made (for what they were) and they duly took their places on the tour — almost enjoying the distanced yet sometimes friendly roles they had assumed. And it was on the coach that Janet had learned of the deceit that the Strattons were plotting. And after Janet had taken Laura Stratton's handbag, and put it immediately into her own, far more capacious one, she had gone to her own room, on the same floor, and happily discovered that the Wolvercote Tongue fitted almost perfectly into the small case she'd brought with her containing her portable iron.

Then it was the telephone call.

Janet had heard everything, clearly, And a plan was immediately formulated. Eddie Stratton was despatched somewhere — anywhere! — so long as he could establish a firm alibi for himself; and Phil sent off to a nearby car-hire firm, whilst she, Janet, remained seated by the extension-phone in her bedroom to deal with the necessary reference for the car firm. The confusion caused by Kemp's delay that day was a godsend; and Phil, after picking up Janet from Gloucester Green, had met Kemp at the railway station (his train two minutes early) informing him that his wife had been taken ill, that his duties were fully taken care of, and that he (Aldrich) was there to drive him directly up to his North Oxford home.

After the deed was done, Janet had found herself waiting anxiously for the return of Eddie Stratton; and as soon as she — and no one else! — had spotted him, she steered him away from The Randolph, handed him the Wolvercote Tongue and acquainted him with the second of his duties in the criminal conspiracy in which he was now a wholly committed accessory: the disposal of the body.

Marion Kemp (this from Stratton's evidence now) had admitted him at Water Eaton Road, where he had divested the corpse of its clothes — how else shift the body without staining his own? And. well, the rest was now known. It had not been an unduly gruesome task to a man for whom such post-mortem grotesqueries had been little more than a perfunctory performance. He had wrapped the carpet round the clothes of the murdered man, depositing the bundle behind the boiler in the airing-cupboard. And what of Marion Kemp? Throughout she had sat, Stratton claimed, in the hallway. In silence.

'And greatly disturbed,' opined Morse.

'Oh no, Inspector!' Stratton had replied.

After leaving Water Eaton Road, Stratton had walked via First Turn and Goose Green to the Trout Inn at Wolvercote where he had thrown the Tongue into the river — and then caught a Nipper Bus back to St. Giles', where he'd met Mrs. Williams.

Sheila's evidence tallied with Stratton's account. She had invited Stratton back to her house in North Oxford, and he had accepted. Anxious as he was to drink himself silly, and with a co-operative partner to boot, Stratton had consumed considerable quantities of Glenfiddich — and had finally staggered into a summoned taxi at around midnight.

Such was the picture of the case that had finally emerged; such the picture that Morse painted on the Friday morning of that same week when Chief Superintendent Strange had come into his office, seating himself gruntingly into the nearest chair.

'None of your bullshit, Morse! Just the broad brush, my boy! I'm off to lunch with the C.C. in half an hour.'

'Give him my very best wishes, sir.'

'Get on with it!'

Strange sat back (and looked at his watch) when Morse had finished. 'She must have been an amazing woman.'

'She was, sir. I think Janet Roscoe is possibly the—'

'I'm not talking about her, I'm talking about the Kemp woman — Marion, wasn't it? Didn't the Aldrich pair take a huge gamble though? You know, assuming she would play along with 'em, and so on?'

'Oh, yes. But they were gambling all along — with the very highest stakes, sir.'

'And you just think, Morse! Staying in that house — with that bloody corpse — in her bedroom — in the hall — wherever — I don't know. I couldn't do it. Could you? It'd send me crackers.'

'She could never forgive him—'

'It'd still send me crackers.'

'She did commit suicide, sir,' said Morse slowly, beginning only now, perhaps, to see into the abyss of Marion's despair.