‘Bit slower now,’ interposed Morse.
“Many brain tumours are local in their malignancy; for example, the spongioblostoma multiforme and the diffuse astro-cytoma. All tumours inside the skull are potentially fatal, even if they are quite benign-as this term has already been defined in-”
‘Thanks. That’s fine. From what you’re saying, then, it’s possible that a brain-tumour might not spread to somewhere else in the body?’
‘That’s what this fellow says.’
‘Good. Now, one more thing. Would one of these brain-tumours perhaps result in some sort of irrationality? You know, doing things quite out of character?’
‘Ah! That’s in chapter seven. Just let me-’
‘No, no. Just tell me vaguely, that’ll be fine.’
‘Well, judging from the case-histories, the answer’s a pretty definite “yes”. Very strange things, some of them did.’
‘You see, I’m just wondering whether a man who’d got a brain-tumour, a man who’d been sober and meticulous all his life, might suddenly snap and-’
‘By Jove, yes! Let me just quote that case of Olive Mainwearing from Manchester. Now, just let me-’
‘No! Please don’t bother. You’ve been wonderfully helpful, and I’m most grateful. The beer’s on me next time we’re together in the King’s Arms.’
Morse sat back in his black leather chair, happily ignorant of the aforementioned Olive’s extraordinary behaviour, and happily confident that at last he was beginning to see, through the mists, the outline of those further horizons.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Lewis again finds himself the unsuspecting catalyst as Morse considers the course of the case so far.
When Lewis came in half an hour later, he found Morse sitting motionless at his desk, staring down fixedly at his blotting-pad, the orange-and-brown-striped scarf still round his jaw, and the signature ‘On-no-account-disturb-me’ written overall.
Yet Lewis shattered the peace enthusiastically. ‘It was Browne-Smith’s typewriter, sir! Portable job, like you said. No doubt about it.’
Morse looked up slowly. ‘It was Westerby’s typewriter-I thought I told you that.’
‘No, sir. It was Browne-Smith’s. You must have made a mistake. Believe me-you can’t get two identical typewriters.’
‘I told you it was Westerby’s,’ repeated Morse calmly. ‘Perhaps you didn’t hear me properly.”
Lewis felt the anger rising within him: why couldn’t Morse-just for once -allow a fraction of credit for what, so conscientiously, he tried to do? ‘I did hear what you said. You told me to find the typewriter-’
‘I told you no such thing!’ snapped Morse. I told you to get Westerby’s typewriter. You deafi’
Lewis breathed deeply, and very slowly shook his head.
‘Well? Did you get Westerby’s typewriter?1
‘It wasn’t there,’ growled Lewis. ‘The removal must have taken it. And don’t blame me for that! As I just said, sir, it would do me good just once in a while to get a bit of thanks for-’
‘Lew-is!’ beamed Morse. ‘When-when will you begin to understand the value of virtually everything you do for me? Why do you misjudge me all the time? Listen! I remember perfectly well that the first sentence I typed out was done on Browne-Smith’s typewriter, and the second on Westerby’s. Now, just think! Since it was the second, as we know, that matched the letter we found in the dead man’s pocket, it was on Westerby’s typewriter that someone wrote our letter. Agreed? And now you come and tell me it was typed on Browne-Smith’s? Well… you see what it all means, don’t you?’
Over the years, Lewis had become skilled in situations such as this, knowing that Morse, like some inexperienced schoolmaster, was far more anxious to parade his own cleverness than to elicit any halting answer from his dimmer pupils. So it was that Lewis, with a knowing nod, sat back to listen.
‘Of course you do! Someone changed those typewriters. And that, Lewis – does it not? – throws a completely new perspective on the whole case. And you know who’s given me that new perspective? You!’
Sergeant Lewis sat back helplessly in his chair, feeling like a man just presented with the Wimbledon Challenge Cup after losing the last point of the tennis match. So he bowed towards the royal box, and waited. Not for long either, since Morse seemed excited.
‘Tell me how you see this case, Lewis. You know-just in general.’
‘Well, I reckon Browne-Smith gets a letter from somebody who’s terribly anxious to know how someone’s got on in this examination, and he says if you’ll scratch my back I’ll scratch yours: just tell me that little bit early and I’ll see you get your little reward.’
‘And then?’
‘Well-like you, sir-this fellow Browne-Smith’s a bachelor: he’s quite tempted with the proposition put to him, and goes along with it.’
‘So?’
‘Well, then he finds out that the people who run these sex-places in Soho are pretty hard boys.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t start off every sentence with “With”’
‘You don’t sound very convinced, sir?’
‘Well, it all sounds a bit feeble, doesn’t it? I mean, going to all that trouble just to get a girl’s results a week or so early?’
‘But you wouldn’t understand these things. You’ve never had any children yourself, so you can’t begin to imagine what it’s like. I remember when my girls were expecting their eleven-plus results – then their O-Levels- waiting for the letter-box to rattle and then being scared to open the envelope; just hoping and praying there’d be some good news inside. It sort of gets you, sir-all that waiting. It’s always at the back of your mind, and sometimes you’d give anything just to know. You realize somebody knows-somebody typing out the results and putting them into envelopes and all the rest of it. And I tell you one thing, sir: I’d have given a few quid myself to save me all that waiting and all that worrying.”
Morse appeared temporarily touched by his sergeant’s eloquence. ‘Look, Lewis. If that’s all there is to it, why don’t we just ring up this girl’s father? You don’t honestly think he wrote that letter, do you?’
‘Jane Summers’s dad, you mean?’ Lewis shook his head. “Quite impossible, sir.’
Morse sat upright in his chair. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘Both her parents were killed in a car-crash six years ago-I rang up the college secretary. Very helpful, she was.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Morse unwound his scarf and looked a little lost. “Do you know, Lewis, I think you’re a bit ahead of me in this case.’
‘No! I’m miles behind, sir-as well you know. But in my opinion we shouldn’t rule out the parent angle altogether. She could only have been in her late teens when her parents died, and somebody must have had legal responsibility for her-an uncle or a guardian or something.’
Morse’s eyes were suddenly shining; and taking the torn letter from a drawer in his desk, he concentrated his brain upon it once more, his perusal punctuated by ‘Yes!’, ‘Of course!’, and finally ‘My son, you’re a genius!’; whilst Lewis himself sank back in his chair and dropped back a further furlong in the case