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Authors: Colin Dexter
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something; or learn something . . . Then there was Ashenden. He'd said he would be going around at some point to all the rooms to check up on the sachets, shampoos, soaps, switches. Opportunity? Yes! But hardly much of a motive, surely? What about the three guest speakers? Out of the question, wasn't it? They hadn't been called to the colours at that point - weren't even in The Randolph. Forget them! Well, no - not altogether, perhaps; not until Lewis had checked their statements.
So that was that, really. That set the 'parameters' (the buzz-word at HQ recently) for the crime. No other portraits in the gallery.
Not really.
No!
Or were there?
What about the husband? Morse had always entertained a healthy suspicion of anyone found first on the scene of a crime; and Eddie Stratton had been a double-first: the first to report both the death of his wife, and the theft of the jewel. But any man who finds his wife dead - dead! - surely he's not going to . . . Nobody could suspect that.
Except Morse.
And what about - what about the most unlikely, improbable, unthinkable . . . Unthinkable? Well, think about it, Morse! What about the wife herself: Mrs Laura Stratton? Could she have been responsible for the disappearance of the jewel? But why? Was it insured? Surely so! And doubdess for a hefty sum. All right, the thing was unsellable, unbuyable; the thing was useless - except, that is, as a link in a cultural continuum in a University Museum. Or else - yes! - or else as an insurance item which in terms of cash was worth far more lost than found; and if the Strattons were getting a bit hard up it might not have been so much if it were lost as when. And what - it was always going to hit Morse's brain sooner or later - what if the thing had never been there to get lost in the first place? Yes, the possibility had to be faced: what if the Wolvercote Tongue had never been inside the handbag at all? (Keep going, Morse!) Never even left America?
Morse already found himself in the Summertown shopping centre; and it was some five minutes later, as he came to his bachelor flat just south of the A40 Ring Road, that the oddest possibility finally struck him: what if the Wolvercote Tongue didn't exist at all? But surely there would have been all sorts of descriptive and photographic pieces of evidence, and so on? Surely such an authority as Dr Theodore Kemp could never have been so duped in such a matter? No! And he'd almost certainly flown over to see it, anyway. No! Forget it! So Morse almost forgot it, and let himself into his flat, where he played the first two movements of the Bruckner No. 7 before going to bed.
He woke up at 2.50 a.m., his mouth very dry. He got out of bed and went to the bathroom, where he drank a glass of water; and another glass of water. In truth, water -a liquid which figured little during Morse's waking life - was his constant companion during the early hours of almost every morning.
14
It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible
(Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray)
The bachelor Morse had only the wraith-like, gin-ridden spectre of a lush divorcee to share his pillow that night, unlike the male speakers scheduled for the following day's Historic Cities of England programme, both of whom, when Morse had made his first visit to the bathroom, were dutifully asleep beside their respective spouses and in their own homes - homes in North Oxford, separated by only about a quarter of a mile.
The traveller who heads north from the centre of Oxford may take, at St Giles' Church, either the fork which leads up the Woodstock Road, or the right-hand fork, the Banbury Road, which leads after a mile or so to Summertown. Here, just past the shopping area, he will come to the new, yellow-bricked premises of Radio Oxford on his left; and then, almost immediately on his right, the first of the four roads - Lonsdale, Portland, Hamilton,
So that was that, really. That set the 'parameters' (the buzz-word at HQ recently) for the crime. No other portraits in the gallery.
Not really.
No!
Or were there?
What about the husband? Morse had always entertained a healthy suspicion of anyone found first on the scene of a crime; and Eddie Stratton had been a double-first: the first to report both the death of his wife, and the theft of the jewel. But any man who finds his wife dead - dead! - surely he's not going to . . . Nobody could suspect that.
Except Morse.
And what about - what about the most unlikely, improbable, unthinkable . . . Unthinkable? Well, think about it, Morse! What about the wife herself: Mrs Laura Stratton? Could she have been responsible for the disappearance of the jewel? But why? Was it insured? Surely so! And doubdess for a hefty sum. All right, the thing was unsellable, unbuyable; the thing was useless - except, that is, as a link in a cultural continuum in a University Museum. Or else - yes! - or else as an insurance item which in terms of cash was worth far more lost than found; and if the Strattons were getting a bit hard up it might not have been so much if it were lost as when. And what - it was always going to hit Morse's brain sooner or later - what if the thing had never been there to get lost in the first place? Yes, the possibility had to be faced: what if the Wolvercote Tongue had never been inside the handbag at all? (Keep going, Morse!) Never even left America?
Morse already found himself in the Summertown shopping centre; and it was some five minutes later, as he came to his bachelor flat just south of the A40 Ring Road, that the oddest possibility finally struck him: what if the Wolvercote Tongue didn't exist at all? But surely there would have been all sorts of descriptive and photographic pieces of evidence, and so on? Surely such an authority as Dr Theodore Kemp could never have been so duped in such a matter? No! And he'd almost certainly flown over to see it, anyway. No! Forget it! So Morse almost forgot it, and let himself into his flat, where he played the first two movements of the Bruckner No. 7 before going to bed.
He woke up at 2.50 a.m., his mouth very dry. He got out of bed and went to the bathroom, where he drank a glass of water; and another glass of water. In truth, water -a liquid which figured little during Morse's waking life - was his constant companion during the early hours of almost every morning.
14
It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible
(Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray)
The bachelor Morse had only the wraith-like, gin-ridden spectre of a lush divorcee to share his pillow that night, unlike the male speakers scheduled for the following day's Historic Cities of England programme, both of whom, when Morse had made his first visit to the bathroom, were dutifully asleep beside their respective spouses and in their own homes - homes in North Oxford, separated by only about a quarter of a mile.
The traveller who heads north from the centre of Oxford may take, at St Giles' Church, either the fork which leads up the Woodstock Road, or the right-hand fork, the Banbury Road, which leads after a mile or so to Summertown. Here, just past the shopping area, he will come to the new, yellow-bricked premises of Radio Oxford on his left; and then, almost immediately on his right, the first of the four roads - Lonsdale, Portland, Hamilton,
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