Lewis remained silent, deciding not to raise the subject of the corpse’s socks.
‘Back to Browne-Smith. His actions that next week are even stranger in some ways. Abyssus humanae conscientiael’
Again, even more praiseworthily, Lewis remained silent.
‘On the Monday his conscience was crucifying him, and he writes me-me-a long letter. I just don’t know why we had the devious delivery through the bank… unless he thought he’d be giving himself a few days’ grace in which he could cancel his confession. Because that’s what it was. But it was something else, too. If you read the letter carefully, it contains a much more subtle message: in spite of vilifying Westerby throughout, it completely and deliberately exonerates him! And make no mistake; it was certainly Browne-Smith himself who wrote that letter. I knew him, and no one else could have caught that dry, exact, pernickity style. It’s almost as though with one half of his fevered brain he wanted us – wanted me, one of his old pupils – to find out the whole truth; and yet at the same time the other half of his brain was trying to stop us all the time with those messages and cards… I dunno, Lewis.’
‘I think the psychologists have a word for that sort of thing,’ ventured Lewis.
‘Well we won’t bother about that, will we!’
The phone rang in the ensuing silence.
‘That’s good… Well done!’ said Morse.
‘Can you describe them a bit?’ asked Morse.
‘Yes, I thought so,’ said Morse.
‘No. Not the nicest job in the world, I agree. It’ll be all right if I send my sergeant?’ asked Morse.
‘Fine. Tomorrow, then. And I’m grateful to you for ringing. It’ll put a sort of finishing touch to things,’ said Morse.
‘Who was that, sir?’
‘Do you know, there’ve been some thousands of occasions in my life when I’ve looked forward to a third pint of beer, but I can’t ever recollect looking forward to a third cup of coffee before!’
He held out the plastic cup, and once more Lewis walked away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Morse almost completes his narrative of the main events – with a little help from his imaginative faculties.
Only recently had Morse encountered the use of the word; “faction” in the sense of a combination of fact and fiction. Yet such a combination was all he could claim in any convincing reconstruction of the final events of the present case. While Lewis was away, therefore, he reminded himself of the few awkward facts remaining that had to be fitted somehow into the puzzle: the fact that he had been forcibly (significantly?) detained for an extra half-hour after his interrogation of the manager of the topless bar; that the door of Number 29, Cambridge Way had (for what reason?) been finally opened to him; that the head of Gerardus Mercator had been prominently (accusingly?) displayed on the mantelpiece of Westerby’s living-room; that an affluent Arab, doubtless a resident in the property, had looked round at him with such puzzlement (and suspicion?); and that somehow (via Browne-Smith?) Bert Gilbert had discovered Westerby’s address in London, and (via the fire-escape?) managed to enter Westerby’s room. Thus it was that when Lewis returned Morse was ready with his eschatology.
‘The manager of the Flamenco, Lewis, has a wife, called “Racquet”. When I got there, he tipped her the wink that something was seriously askew, and she made an urgent phone-call to’ ‘Mr Sullivan” – alias Alfred Gilbert – who in turn told her that whatever happened they’d got to keep me in the place for a while. Why? Clearly because there was something that had to be done quickly, something that could be done quickly, before I turned up in Cambridge Way. The Gilberts, you see, were already collecting their pickings from Browne-Smith, but not as yet from Westerby. And so to remind Westerby that he was still up to his neck in hot water, too, they’d decided on a most appropriate niche for a corpse’s head-that space in one of Westerby’s crates where another head had originally nestled. It was imperative, therefore, that one of the Gilberts – Alfred, as it turned out-should go and clear away the damning evidence waiting in Westerby’s flat. But late that same morning Westerby himself decided that it was reasonably safe now for him to return to his flat, and the first thing he saw there was the head of Mercator on the mantelpiece, and he suspected the grim truth immediately. Which is more than I did, Lewis! When Alfred
Gilbert let himself in, Westerby was probably just opening the fateful crate; and somehow Westerby killed him-’
‘Sir! That’s not good enough. How did he do it? And why should he need to do it? They were both accomplices, surely?’
Morse nodded. ‘Yes, they were. But just think a minute, Lewis, and try to picture things. Alfred Gilbert is in a frenetic rush to reach Cambridge Way. He doesn’t know why the police have got on to Cambridge Way, but he does know what they’ll find if they visit Westerby’s flat. They’ll find what he himself and his brother have left there, almost certainly with the intention of some future blackmail. And, as I say, that evidence has got to be removed with the utmost urgency. So he lets himself into the flat, never expecting to find Westerby there, and never, I suspect, actually seeing him anyway. Westerby’s got his hearing-aid plugged in, although, as your own notes say, Lewis, he’s only slightly deaf; and when he hears the scrape of the key in the lock, he beats a panic-stricken retreat into the bathroom, where he watches the intruder through the hinged gap of the partially open door.
‘Now Westerby himself hasn’t the faintest idea that the police are on their way, has he? What he suspects-what he’s been strongly suspecting even before opening the crate-is that it’s been Gilbert – who else? – who’s misled him so wickedly. Instead of Gilbert getting rid of the murdered man’s head, that same head is resting even now in one of his own crates! He’s just found it! I think he sees in a flash how crude, how indescribably callous, his so-called accomplice has been. He sees something else, too, Lewis. He sees Gilbert walking straight over to the crate, and at that point he knows who it is who’s been plotting to implicate him further-doubtless for even more money-in this tragic and increasingly hopeless mess. He feels in his soul a savage compulsion to rid himself of that fiend who’s kneeling over the crate, and he creeps back into the room and with all the force he can muster he stabs his screwdriver between those shoulder-blades.
‘Then? Well, I can only guess that Westerby must have dragged him into the bathroom straightway: because while there were no blood-stains on the carpet, the bathroom floor had only just been cleaned. Yes, I saw that, Lewis!
‘Next, using the bunch of keys he found in Gilbert’s pocket, Westerby took the body up in the lift to the top-floor flat – a flat be knew was still vacant-a flat he’d probably looked over himself when he was deciding on his future home. He locked away the body in a cupboard there, then went down again, cleaned up his own flat in his apron, and heard – at last!-someone ringing the main doorbell-me!-and answered it. Why, Lewis? Surely that’s utter folly for him! Unless-unless he’d previously arranged to meet someone in Cambridge Way. And the only man he’d have been anxious to meet at that point is the one man he’s been avoiding like the plague for the last five years of his life-Browne-Smith! But instead-he finds me! And he now gives the performance of his life-impersonating a concierge called “Hoskins”. You knew, Lewis, he was a Londoner? Yes. It’s in your admirable notes on the man. I ought to have seen through the deception earlier, though; certainly I ought to have read the signs more intelligently when one of the tenants turned round and stared so curiously at me. But it wasn’t just me: he was staring at two strangers!