The silent world of Nicholas Quinn (11 page)

the only object of even minimal interest he had so far unearthed. But Quinn had

obviously shown no inclination to emulate an Evelyn or a Pepys, and little more than

the dates and times of various meetings had been entered. 'Birthday' (under 23rd

October), and 'I owe Donald £1' seemed to form the only concession to an otherwise

autobiographical blank. And since he could think of nothing more purposeful to

pursue, Morse idly counted the meetings: ten of them, almost all for the revisions of

various question papers, within twelve weeks or so. Not bad going. And one or two

other meetings: one with the English Committee on 30th September and one, a two-

day meeting, with AED—whatever that was—on the 4th and 5th November.

'What's AED stand for, Lewis?'

'Dunno, sir.'

'Have a guess.'

'Association of Eccentric Dentists.'

Morse grinned and shut the diary. 'You nearly finished?'

'Two more drawers.'

'Think it's worth it?'

'Might as well go through with it now, sir.'

'OK.' Morse leaned back in the chair, his hands behind his head, and looked across

the room once more. Not a particularly memorable start to a case, perhaps; but it was

early days yet. He decided to put a call through to HQ. The grey telephone seemed

the one used for outside calls, and Morse pulled it towards him. But as soon as he had

picked up the receiver he put it down again. Underneath the orange code book he saw

a letter which had escaped his notice hitherto. It was written on the official notepaper

of the Frederic Delius School, Bradford, and was dated Monday, 17th November:

Dear Nick,

Don't forget me when you sort out your examining teams for next year. I

trust you've had the form back by now. Gryce wasn't all that cooperative

about the testimonial at first, but you'll have noticed that I'm 'a man of

sound scholarship, with considerable experience of O- and A-level work.'

What more can you ask for? Martha sends her love, and we all hope you'll

be up here on your old stamping ground this Christmas. We've decided we

can't please both lots of parents, and so we are going to please neither—

and stay at home. By the way, old sour-guts has applied for the headship

of the new Comprehensive!

O tempora! O mores!

As ever,

Brian.

The letter was ticked through in black biro, and Morse considered it carefully for a

moment. Had Quinn rung up his friend? A former colleague, possibly? If so, when? It

might be worth while finding out.

But it was Lewis who, quite accidentally, was to stumble through the trip-wire and set

off the explosive that blew the case wide open, although he himself was quite

unaware at the time of his moment1ous achievement. As he was about to jam the

latest batch of files back into its cabinet he caught sight of an envelope, squashed and

crumpled, which had become wedged beneath the moveable slide designed to keep

the file cases upright. He worked it out and took the single sheet of paper from the

envelope. 'I can tell you what AED stands for, sir.' Morse looked up without

enthusiasm and took the letter from him. It was an amateurishly-typed note, written on

the official, headed notepaper of the Al-jamara Education Department, and dated 3rd

March.

Dear George,

Greetings to all at Oxford. Many thanks for your

letter and for the Summer examination package.

All Entry Forms and Fees Forms should be ready

for final dispatch to the Syndicate by Friday

20th or at the very latest, I'm told, by the 21st.

Admin has improved here, though there's room

for improvement still; just give us all two or three

more years and we'll really show you! Please

don't let these wretched 16+ proposals destroy

your basic O and A pattern. Certainly this

sort of change, if implemented immediately,

would bring chaos.

Sincerely yours,

Apart from the illegibly scrawled signature, that was all.

Morse frowned slightly as he looked at the envelope, which was addressed to G.

Bland, Esq, MA, and marked 'STRICTLY PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL' in bold red

capitals. But his face quickly cleared, and he handed the letter back to Lewis without a

word. It really was time they went.

Idly he opened the Letts diary again and his eyes fell upon the calendar inside the

front page. And suddenly the blood began to freeze in his arms, and from the quiet,

urgent tone of his voice Lewis immediately realized that the Inspector was strangely

excited.

'What's the date of the postmark on that envelope, Lewis?'

'Third of March.'

'This year?'

Lewis looked again. 'Yes, sir.'

'Well, well, well!'

'What is it?'

'Funny, wouldn't you say, Lewis? Friday the 20th, it says in the letter. But
which
Friday the 20th?' He looked down at the calendar again. 'Not March. Not April. Not May. Not

June. Not July. And it must refer to entry forms for last summer's examinations.'

'Somebody could have made a mistake over the date, sir. Could have been using last

year's—'

But Morse wasn't listening. He picked up the letter again and studied it for several

minutes with a fierce intensity. Then he nodded slowly to himself and a quiet smile

spread ov1er his face. 'Lewis, my boy, you've done it again!'

'I have, sir?'

'I'm not saying we're much nearer to finding out the identity of the person who

murdered Nicholas Quinn, mind you. But I'll tell you one thing: I'm beginning to think

we've got a pretty good idea
why
he was murdered! Unless it's a cruel coincidence—'

'Hadn't you better explain, sir?'

'Look at the letter again, Lewis, and ask yourself why such a seemingly trivial piece of

correspondence was marked "Strictly Private and Confidential". Well?'

Lewis shook his head. 'I agree, sir, that it doesn't seem very important but—'

'But it
is
important, Lewis. That's just the point! We start reading from the left and then go across, agreed? But they tell me that some of these cockeyed foreigners start from

the right and read down!'

Lewis studied the letter once more and his eyes gradually widened. 'You're a clever

old bugger, sir.'

'Sometimes, perhaps,' conceded Morse.

At 7.35 p.m. the caretaker knocked deferentially and put his head round the door. 'I

don't want to interrupt, sir, if—'

'Don't, then,' snapped Morse, and the door was quietly reclosed. The two policemen

looked across the table at each other—and grinned happily.

WHEN?

MORSE HAD NEVER been in the slightest degree interested in the technicalities of the

science of pathology, and on Wednesday morning he read the reports before him with

the selectivity of a dedicated pornophilist seeking out the juciest crudities. The

smallest dose which has proved fatal is a ½ drachm of the pharmacopoeial acid, or 0.6

gram of anhydrous hydrocyanic acid . . . rapidly altered in the body after death, uniting with sulphur . . .' Ah, here we are: '. . . and such in this instance were the post-mortem with sulphur . . .' Ah, here we are: '. . . and such in this instance were the post-mortem appearances that there is reason to believe that death must have occurred almost

immediately . . . fruitless, in the absence of scratches or abrasions, to speculate on the possibility of the body having been moved after death . . .' Interesting. Morse skipped

his way along. '. . . would suggest a period of between 72-120 hours before the body

was discovered. Any greater precision about these time limits is precluded in this case

. . .' As in
all
cases you ever have, muttered Morse. He had never ceased to wonder why, with the staggering advances in medical science, all pronouncements

concerning times of death remained so disconcertingly vague. For that was the real

question:
when
had Quinn died? If Aristotle could be believed (why not?) the truth would probably lie somewhere in the middle 94 hours, say. That meant Friday

lunchtime or thereabouts. Was that possible? Morse put the report aside, and

reconsidered the little he as yet knew of Quinn's whereabouts on the previous Friday.

Yes. Perhaps he should have asked Quinn's colleagues where
they
were on Friday,

not when they had last seen Quinn. But there was plenty of time; he would have to see

them all again soon, anyway. At least one thing was clear. W1hoever had tinkered

with Quinn's sherry bottle had known something about poison—known a great deal

about poison, in fact. Now who . . .? Morse went to his shelves, took down Glaister and

Rentoul's bulky and definitive tome on
Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology
, and

looked up 'Hydrocyanic Acid' (page 566); and as he skimmed over the headings he

smiled to himself. The compiler of the medical report he had just read had beaten him

to it: some of the sentences were lifted almost verbatim. Why not, though? Cyanide

wasn't going to change much over the years . . . He recalled Hitler and his clique in the Berlin bunker. That was cyanide, wasn't it? Cyanide. Suicide! Huh! The obvious was

usually the very last thing that occurred to Morse's mind; but he suddenly realized that

the most obvious answer to his problem was this: that Quinn had committed suicide.

Yet, come to think of it, that was no real answer either. For if he had, why on earth . . .?

Lewis was surprised when half an hour later Morse took him to his home in North

Oxford. It was two years since he had been there, and he was pleasurably surprised to

find how comparatively neat and clean it was. Morse disappeared for a while, but put

his head round the door and told Lewis to help himself to a drink.

'I'm all right, sir. Shall I pour one for you?'

'Yes. Pour me a sherry. And pour one for yourself.'

'I'd rather—'

'Do as you're told for a change, man!'

It wasn't unusual for Morse suddenly to turn sour, and Lewis resigned himself to the

whims of his superior officer. The cabinet was well-stocked with booze, and Lewis

took two small glasses and filled them from a bottle of medium sherry, sat back in an

armchair, and wondered what was in store for him now.

He was sipping his sherry effeminately when Morse reappeared, picked up his own,

lifted it to his lips and then put it down. 'Do you realize, Lewis, that if that sherry had been poisoned, you'd be a goner by now?'

'So would you, sir.'

'Ah, no. I've not touched mine.'

Lewis slowly put down his own glass, half-empty now, and began to understand the

purpose of the little charade. 'And there'd be my prints on the bottle and on the glass . .

.'

'And if I'd carefully wiped them both before we started, I've just got to pour my own

sherry down the sink, wash the glass—and Bob's your uncle.'

'Somebody still had to get into Quinn's place to poison the sherry.'

'Not necessarily. Someone could have given Quinn the bottle as a present.'

'But you don't give someone a bottle that's been opened! You'd have a hell of a job

trying to reseal a sherry bottle. In fact, you couldn't do it.'

'Perhaps there wasn't any need for that,' said Morse slowly; but he enlightened Lewis

no further. For a moment he stood quite still, his eyes staring into the hazy past where

a distant memory lingered on the threshold of his consciousness but refused the

invitation to come in. It was something to do with a lovely young girl; but she merged

into other lovely young girls. There had been so many of them, once . . . Think of