Read Online Inspector Morse 4 - Service Of All The Dead by Colin Dexter - Free Book Online Page B

Morse found the key words again: 'looking down, his head leaning over the parapet . . .' How high were those parapets? No more than three feet or so, surely. And why bring Lawson's head into it? Why not just 'leaning over the parapet'? And why 'looking down'? Was a man about to leap to his death likely to be all that worried about the place he was going to land? A minister, surely—more than most of his fellow-mortals—might be expected to seek a little consolation from more ethereal realms, whatever the depths of his despair. But if . . . if Lawson had been dead already; if someone had—
    The melodrama was under way at last, and in Morse's view a more crudely amateurish production could seldom have merited a public presentation. The play appeared to have been chosen to embrace the largest possible cast, and to allow to all of it's participants the briefest possible exposure on the boards, in order to minimise their breathtaking incompetences. The bearded one-armed hero, who at least had learned his lines and spoke them audibly, clumped around in a pair of squeaky army boots, and at one point conducted a crucial telephone conversation by speaking into the ear-piece—of an incongruously modern-looking instrument at that; whilst one of the numerous housemaids was every other line reduced to referring to a copy of her part pasted on the underside of her dustpan. The only feature which prevented the whole thing from degenerating into a farcical shambles was the performance of the heroine herself, a young blonde who acted with a charm and sophistication hopelessly at variance with the pathetically inadequate crew around her. She appeared to know everyone else's part, and covered their lapses and stumbles with impressive aplomb. She even managed, at one stage, to prevent one of the butlers (blind fool! thought Morse) from tripping over an intervening chair as he carried in her ladyship's tea. Mercifully many of the lines (as originally written) must have been extremely amusing, and even voiced by these clowns could elicit a little polite laughter; and when the final curtain drew its veil over the proceedings there seemed to Morse not the slightest sign of embarrassed relief amongst the audience. Perhaps all church concerts were the same.
    The Vicar had earlier announced that tea would be served at the end of the entertainment, and Morse felt certain that Mrs. W.-A. would not be leaving without a cup. All he had to do was find out which one she was. He looked around in vain for Miss Rawlinson, but it seemed clear that she'd given the evening a miss—enough of a penance, no doubt, her scrubbing the pews. But he felt a certain disappointment . . . People were leaving the hall fairly quickly now, but Morse decided to wait a minute or two. He took out his programme and looked at it vaguely, but with no real purpose other than that of seeming not to be lonely.
    'I hope you'll have a cup of tea with us?' Even at this late stage Meiklejohn was not neglecting his pastoral duties.
    Tea? It had never occurred to Morse that he might be drinking tea at 9 p.m. 'Yes; thank you. I wonder if you happen to know a Mrs. Walsh-Atkins. I want—'
    'Yes, yes. This way. Wonderful concert, wasn't it?'
    Morse mumbled inaudibly and followed his guide into the crowded vestibule where a stout lady was coaxing a dark-brown liquid from a formidable urn. Morse took his place in the queue and listened to the conversation of the two women in front of him.
    'You know, it's the fourth time now he's been in one of them. His dad would have been ever so proud of him.'
    'No one would ever suspect he was blind, would they? Coming on the way he does and all that.'
    'It's lots of rehearsal that does it, you know. You have to sort of picture where everything is—'
    'Yes. You really must be proud of him, Mrs. Kinder.'
    'They've asked him to be in the next one, anyway, so he must be all right, mustn't he?'
    So the poor devil had been blind after all. And learning a part