The silent world of Nicholas Quinn (27 page)

according to plan.

The coroner formally adjourned the inquest for two weeks and the court stood as the

august personage reluctantly departed. Now there was a hush over the assembly; no

one seemed to breathe or to blink as Morse slowly stepped down from the witness-

box, and stood momentarily before Richard Bartlett, and then walked on; past Mrs.

Evans; past Mrs. Jardine; past Martin; past Bartlett; past Monica Height; and then

stood in front of Roope. And stayed there.

'Christopher Algernon Roope, I have here 1a warrant for your arrest in connection with

the murder of Nicholas Quinn.' The words echoed vaguely around the hushed court,

and still nobody seemed to breath. 'It is my duty to tell you—'

Roope stared at Morse in disbelief. 'What the
hell
are you talking about?' His eyes darted first to the left and then to the right, as if calculating his chances of making a quick dash for it. But to his right stood the bulky figure of Constable Dickson; and

immediately to his left Lewis laid a heavy hand upon his shoulder.

'I hope you'll be sensible and come quietly, sir.'

Roope spoke in a harsh whisper. 'I hope you realize what a dreadful mistake you're

making. I just don't know—'

'Leave it for later,' snapped Morse.

All eyes were on Roope as he walked out, Dickson on his right and Lewis on his left;

but still no one said a word. It was if they had all been struck dumb, or just witnessed a miracle, or stared into the face of the Gorgon.

Bartlett was the first to move. He looked utterly dumbfounded and walked like an

automaton towards his son. Monica's eyes crossed the gap that Bartlett had left, and

found Donald Martin's looking directly into her own. It was the merest imperceptibility,

perhaps; but it was there. The slightest shaking of her head; the profound, dead

stillness of her eyes: 'Shut up, you fool!' they seemed to say. 'Shut up, you stupid fool!'

'YOU HAD MIXED luck in this wicked business, Roope. You had a bit of good luck, I

know; and you made the most of it. But you also had some bad luck: things happened

that no one, not even you, could have foreseen. And although you tried to cope as

best you could—in fact, you almost succeeded in turning it to your own advantage—

you had to be just that little bit too clever. I realized that I was up against an

exceptionally cunning and resourceful murderer, but in the end it was your very

cleverness that gave you away.'

The three of them, Morse, Lewis, Roope, sat together in Interview Room No 1. Lewis

(who had been firmly cautioned by Morse to keep his mouth shut, whatever the

provocation) was seated by the door, whilst Morse and Roope sat opposite each other

at the small table. Morse, the hunter, seemed supremely confident as he sat back on

the wooden chair, his voice calm, almost pleasant. 'Shall I go on?'

'If you must. I've already told you what a fool you're making of yourself, but you seem

determined to listen to no one.'

Morse nodded. 'All right. We'll start in the middle, I think. We'll start at the point where you walked into the Syndicate building at about 4.25 p.m. a week last Friday. The first

person you saw was the caretaker, Noakes, mending a broken light-tube in the

corridor. But it was soon clear to you that there was no one else in the downstairs

offices at all. No one! You concocted some appropriate tale about having to leave

some papers with Dr. Bartlett, and since he was out you had the best reason in the

world for trying to find one of the others and for looking into their offices. You looked into Quinn's, of course, and everything was just as you'd known it would be—as you'd

planned
it would be. Everything was cleverly arranged to give the cl1ear impression to anyone going into his room that Quinn was
there
—in the office; or, at least, would be there again very soon. It was raining heavily all day Friday—a piece of good luck!—

and there, on the back of Quinn's chair, was his green anorak. Who would leave the

office on a day like that without taking his coat? And the cabinets were left
open
. Now cabinets contain question papers, and the Secretary would have been down like a

hawk on any of his colleagues who showed the slightest carelessness over security.

But what are we asked to believe in Quinn's case? Quinn? Recently appointed;

briefed, doubtless
ad nauseam
, about the need for the strictest security at every second of every day. And what does he do, Roope? He goes out and leaves his

cabinets open! Yet, at the very same time, we find evidence of Quinn's punctilious

adherence to the Secretary's instructions. Since he took up his job a few months

previously, he has been told, very pointedly told, that it doesn't matter in the slightest if he takes time off during the day.
But
—if he does go out, he's to leave a note informing anyone who might want him exactly where he is or what he's doing. In other words,

what Bartlett says is all the law and the commandments. Now, I find the combination of

these two sets of circumstances extremely suggestive, Roope. Some of us are idle

and careless, and some of us are fussy and conscientious. But very few of us manage

to be both at the same time. Wouldn't you agree?'

Roope was staring through the window on to the concrete yard. He was watchful and

tensed, but he said nothing.

The caretaker told you that he was going off for tea, and before long you were alone

—
or so you thought
—on the ground floor of the Syndicate building. It was still only about half past four, and although I suspect you'd originally planned to wait until the

whole office was empty, this was too good a chance to miss. Noakes, quite

unwittingly, had given you some very interesting information, though you could very

easily have found it out for yourself. The only car left in the rear car park was
Quinn's
.

Well, what happened then was this, or something very like it. You went into Quinn's

room once more. You took his anorak, and you put it on. You kept your gloves on, of

course, and you folded up the plastic mac you'd been wearing. Then you saw that

note once more, and you decided that you might as well pocket it. Certainly Quinn

wouldn't have left it on the desk if he'd returned, and from this point on you had to think and act exactly as Quinn would have done. You walked out of the back door and

found—as you knew you would—that Quinn's car keys were in his anorak pocket. No

one was around, of course: the weather was still foul—though ideal for you. You got

into the car and you drove away from the building. Noakes in fact saw you leave as he

sat upstairs having a cup of tea. But he thought—why shouldn't he?—that it was

Quinn. After all, he could only see the top of the car. So? That was that. The luck was

on your side at this stage, and you made the most of it. The first part of the great

deception was over, and you'd come through it with flying colours!'

Roope shuffled uneasily on his hard wooden chair, and his eyes looked dangerous;

but again he said nothing.

'You drove the car to Kidlington and you parked it safely in Quinn's own garage in

Pinewood Close, and here again you had a curious combination of good and bad

luck. First the good luck. The rain was still pouring down and no one was likely to look

too carefully at the man who got out of Quinn's car to unlock his own garage doors. It

was dark, too, and the corner of Pinewood Close was even darker than usual because

someone—
someone
, Roope, had seen to it that the street lamp outside the house had been recently and convenie1ntly smashed. I make no specific charges on that point,

but you must allow me to harbour my little suspicions. So, even if anyone
did
see you, hunched up in Quinn's green anorak, head down in the rain, I doubt whether any

suspicions would have been aroused. You were very much the same build as Quinn,

and like him you had a beard. But in another way the luck was very much against you.

It so happened, and you couldn't help noticing the fact, that a woman was standing at

the upstairs front window. She'd been waiting a long time, frightened that her baby

was going to be born prematurely; she had rung her husband at Cowley several times,

and she was impatiently expecting him at any minute. Now, as I say, this was not in

itself a fatal occurrence. She'd seen you, of course, but it never occurred to her for a

second that the person she saw was anyone but Quinn; and you yourself must have

totted up the odds and worked on exactly that assumption. Nevertheless, she'd seen

you go
into the house
, where you immediately discovered that Mrs. Evans—you must

have had a complete dossier on all the domestic arrangements—as I say, Mrs. Evans,

by a sheer fluke, had not finished the cleaning. What's more, she'd left a note to say

she would be coming back! That was bad luck, all right, and yet you suddenly saw the

chance of turning the tables completely. You read the note from Mrs. Evans, and you

screwed it up and threw it into the wastepaper basket. You lit the gas fire, putting the

match you used carefully back into your matchbox. You shouldn't have done that,

Roope! But we all make mistakes, don't we? And then—the masterstroke! You had a

note in your pocket—a note written by Quinn himself, a note which not only looked

genuine; it
was
genuine. Any handwriting expert was going to confirm, almost at a glance, that the writing was Quinn's. Of course he'd confirm it. The writing
was

Quinn's. You were hellishly lucky, though, weren't you? The note was addressed to

Margaret Freeman, Quinn's confidential secretary. But not by name. By initials. MF.

You found a black thin-point biro in Quinn's anorak, and very carefully you changed

the initials. Not too difficult, was it? A bit of a squiggle for "rs" after the M, and an additional bar at the bottom of the F, converting it into an E. The message was good

enough—vague enough, anyway—to cover the deception. How you must have smiled

as you placed the note carefully on the top of the cupboard. Yes, indeed! And then you

went out again. You didn't want to take any risks, though; so you went via the back

door, out into the back garden, through the gap in the fence and over the path across

the field to the Quality supermarket. You had to get out of the house anyway, so why

not carry through with the bluff? You bought some provisions, and even as you walked

round the shelves your brain was working nonstop. Buy something that made it look

as though Quinn was having someone in for a meal that evening! Why not? Another

clever touch. Two steaks and all the rest of it. But you shouldn't have bought the butter, Roope! You got the wrong brand, and he had plenty in the fridge, anyway. As I say, it

was clever. But you were getting a bit
too
clever.'

'Like you are, Inspector.' Roope bestirred himself at last. He took out a cigarette and lit it, putting the match carefully into the ashtray. 'I can't honestly think that you expect me to believe such convoluted nonsense.' He spoke carefully and rationally, and

appeared much more at ease with himself. 'If you've nothing better to talk about than

such boy-scout fancy-dress twaddle, I suggest you release me immediately. But if you

want to persist with it, I shall have to call in my lawyer. I refused to do this when you told me of my rights earlier—I knew my rights, anyway, Inspector—but I thought I'd

rather have my own innocence at my side than any pettifogging lawyer. But you're