Bell looked up slowly from the report he'd been reading. 'Are you suggesting that fellow we found draped over the railings wasn't Lawson?'
'All I'm suggesting, Bell, is that you must have been pretty hard up for witnesses if you had to rely on her. As I say, she's-'
'She's as blind as a bat – almost your own words, Morse; and if I remember rightly, exactly the words of my own Sergeant Davies. But don't be too hard on the old dear for wanting to get into the act – it was the most exciting thing that ever happened to her.'
'But that doesn't mean-
'Hold your horses, Morse! We only needed one identification for the coroner's court, so we only had one. Right? But we had another witness all ready, and I don't think he's as blind as a bat. If he is, he must have one helluva job when he plays the organ in six sharps.'
'Oh, I see.' But Morse didn't see. What was Morris doing at St Frideswide's that morning? Ruth Rawlinson would know, of course. Ruth… Huh! Her birthday today, and she would be all dolled up for a date with some lecherous lout…
'Why was Morris at church that morning?'
'It's a free country, Morse. Perhaps he just wanted to go to church.'
'Did you find out if he was playing the organ?'
'As a matter of fact, I did, yes.' Bell was thoroughly enjoying himself again – something he'd seldom experienced in Morse's company before. 'He was playing the organ.'
After Morse had gone, Bell stared out of his office window for several minutes. Morse was a clever beggar. One or two questions he'd asked had probed a bit deeper than was comfortable; but most cases had a few ragged ends here and there. He tried to switch his mind over to another channel, but he felt hot and sticky; felt he might be sickening for something.
Ruth Rawlinson had lied to Morse – well, not exactly lied. She did have an assignation on the evening of her birthday; but it wouldn't last for long, thank goodness! And then? And then she could meet Morse – if he still wanted to take her out.
At 3 p.m. she nervously flicked through the m s in the blue Oxford Area Telephone Directory, and found only one 'Morse' in north Oxford: Morse, E. She didn't know his Christian name, and she vaguely wondered what the 'E' stood for. Irrationally, as she heard the first few rings, she hoped that he wasn't in; and then, as they continued, she prayed that he was. But there was no answer.
Chapter Fourteen
From the City Police H.Q. Morse walked up past Christ Church to Cornmarket. To his left he noticed that the door of Carfax tower stood open, and beside it a notice inviting tourists to ascend and enjoy a panoramic view of Oxford. At the top of the tower he could see four or five people standing against the sky-line and pointing to some of the local landmarks, and a teenage youth actually sitting on the edge, with one of his boots wedged against the next parapet. Morse, feeling a twinge of panic somewhere in his bowels, lowered his eyes and walked on. He joined the small bus-queue just outside Woolworth, thinking again of what he'd just been reading: the life-histories of Josephs and Lawson, the accounts of their deaths, the subsequent investigations. But for the moment the filters of his brain could separate out no new nugget of precious information, and he turned towards St Giles' and looked up at the tower of St Frideswide 's. No one up there, of course… Just a minute! Had anyone been up there – recently? Suddenly a curious thought came into his mind – but no, it must be wrong. There'd been something in Bell 's file about it: 'Each November a group of volunteers go up to sweep the leaves.' It had just been a thought, that's all.
A Banbury Road bus nudged into the queue, and Morse sat upstairs. As they passed St Frideswide's he looked up again at the tower and made a guess at its height: eighty, ninety feet? The trees ahead of him in St Giles' had that long-distance look of green about them as the leaves began to open; and the bus, as it pulled into the lay-by outside the Taylorian Institute, was scraping against some of their budded branches, when something clicked in Morse's mind. How tall were the trees here? Forty, fifty feet? Not much more, certainly. So how in the name of gravity did the autumnal leaves ever manage to dance their way to the top of St Frideswide's tower? Wasn't there perhaps a simple answer, though. They didn't. The November leaf-sweeping brigade had no need to go up to the main tower at alclass="underline" they just cleared the lower roofs over the aisle and the Lady Chapel. That must be it. And so the curious thought grew curiouser stilclass="underline" since the time of Lawson's death, when doubtless Bell 's minions had sieved every leaf and every fragment of stone, had anyone been up to the roof of the tower?
The bell pinged for the bus to stop at the Summertown shops; and simultaneously another bell rang in Morse's mind, and he joined the exodus. In Bell's notes (it was all 'bells' now) there'd been a few tactful mentions of Josephs' weakness for gambling on the horses, and the intelligent early suggestion (before Bell's visit to Josephs' bank manager) that the £100 or so found in the dead man's wallet might have had a fairly simple provenance – the licensed betting-office in Summertown.
Morse pushed open the door and immediately registered some surprise. It was more like a branch of Lloyds Bank than the traditional picture of a bookmaker's premises. A counter faced him along the far wall, with a low grille running the length of it, behind which two young women were taking money and stamping betting-slips. Round the three other walls the racing pages of the daily newspapers were pinned, and in front of them were placed black plastic chairs where clients could sit and study the form-guides and consider their own fancies or the tipsters' selections. There were about fifteen people there, all men – sitting or standing about, their minds keenly concentrated on the state of the going, the weights and the jockeys, their ears intent on the loudspeaker which every few minutes brought them the latest news of the betting direct from the courses. Morse sat down and stared vacantly at a page of the Sporting Chronicle. To his right, a smartly dressed Chinaman twisted the knob on a small machine affixed to the wall and tore off a betting-slip. And from the corner of his eye Morse could see exactly what he wrote: '3.35 Newmarket – £20 win – The Fiddler'. Phew! Surely most of the punters here had to be satisfied with a modest fifty pence or so each way? He turned his head and watched the Chinaman at the pay-in counter, four crisp fivers fanned out neatly in his right hand; watched the girl behind the grille, as she accepted the latest sacrifice with the bland indifference of a Buddhist deity. Two minutes later the loudspeaker woke up again, and without enthusiasm an impersonal voice announced, the 'off'; announced, after a period of silence, the order of the runners at the four-furlong marker; then the winner, the second the third – The Fiddler not amongst them. To Morse, who as a boy had listened to the frenetically exciting race-commentaries of Raymond Glendenning, the whole thing seemed extraordinarily flat, more like an auctioneer selling a Cézanne at Sotheby's.
The Chinaman resumed his seat beside Morse, and began to tear up his small yellow slip with the exaggerated delicacy of one who practises the art of origami.
'No luck?' ventured Morse.
'No,' said the Chinaman, with a polite oriental inclination of the head.
'You lucky sometimes?'
'Sometime.' Again the half-smile, the gentle inclination of the head.
'Come here often?'
'Often.' And, as if to answer the query on Morse's face, 'Me pretty rich man, you think so?'
Morse took the plunge. 'I used to know a fellow who came in here most days – fellow called Josephs. Used to wear a brown suit. About fifty.'
'Here now?'
'No. He died about six months ago – murdered, poor chap.'