The silent world of Nicholas Quinn (29 page)

IN THE SYNDICATE building on Wednesday morning, Morse told Bartlett frankly about

the virtual certainty of some criminal malpractice in the administration of the

examinations. He mentioned specifically his suspicions about the leakage of question

papers to Al-jamara, and passed exhibit No 1 across the table.

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 despatch 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,

Bartlett frowned deeply as he read the letter, then opened his desk diary and

consulted a few entries. 'This is, er, a load of nonsense—you realize that, don't you?

All entry forms had to be in by the first of March this year. We've installed a

minicomputer and anything arriving after—'

Morse interrupted him. 'You mean the entry forms from Al-jamara were already in

when that letter was written?'

'Oh yes. Otherwise we couldn't have examined their candidates.'

'And you did examine them?'

'Certainly. Then there's this business of the Summer examination package. They

couldn't possibly have received that before early April. Half the question papers

weren't printed until then. And there's something else wrong, isn't there, Inspector?

The 20th March isn't a Friday. Not in my diary, anyway. No, no. I don't think I'd build

too much on this letter. I'm sure it can't be from one of our—'

'You don't recognize the signature?'

'Would anybody? It looks more like a coil of barbed wire—'

'Just read down the right-hand side of the letter, sir. The last word on each line, if you see what I mean.'

In a flat voice the Secretary read the words aloud: 'your—package—ready—Friday—

21st—room—three—Please—destroy—this—immediately.' He nodded slowly to

himself. 'I see what you mean, Inspector, though I must say I'd never have spotted it

myself . . . You mean you think that Geo1rge Bland was—'

'—was on the fiddle, yes. I'm convinced that this letter told him exactly where and

when he could collect the latest instalment of his money.'

Bartlett took a deep breath and consulted his diary once more. 'You may just be onto

something, I suppose. He wasn't in the office on Friday 21st.'

'Do you know where he was?'

Bartlett shook his head and passed over the diary, where among the dozen or so brief,

neatly-written entries under 21st March Morse read the laconic reminder: 'GB not in

office.'

'Can you get in touch with him, sir?'

'Of course. I sent him a telegram only last Wednesday—about Quinn. They'd met

when—'

'Did he reply?'

'Hasn't done yet.'

Morse took the plunge. 'Naturally I can't tell you everything, sir, but I think you ought to know that in my view the deaths of both Quinn and Ogleby are directly linked with

Bland. I think that Bland was corrupt enough to compromise the integrity of this

Syndicate at every point—if there was money in it for him. But I think there's someone

here
, too, not necessarily on the staff, but someone very closely associated with the work of the Syndicate, who's in collaboration with Bland. And I've little doubt that

Quinn found out who it was, and got himself murdered for his trouble.'

Bartlett had been listening intently to Morse's words, but he evinced little surprise. 'I thought you might be going to say something like that, Inspector, and I suppose you

think that Ogleby found out as well, and was murdered for the same reason.'

'Could be, sir. Though you may be making a false assumption. You see, it may be that

the murderer of Nicholas Quinn has already been punished for his crime.'

The little Secretary was genuinely shocked now. His eyebrows shot up an inch, and

his frameless lenses settled even lower on his nose, as Morse slowly continued.

'I'm afraid you must face the real possibility, sir, that Quinn's murderer worked here

under your very nose; the possibility that he was in fact your own deputy-secretary

—
Philip Ogleby
'

Lewis came in ten minutes later as Morse and Bartlett were arranging the meeting.

Bartlett was to phone or write to all the Syndicate members and ask them to attend an

extraordinary general meeting on Friday morning at 10 a.m.; he was to insist that it

was of the utmost importance that they should cancel all other commitments and

attend; after all, two members of the Syndicate had been murdered, hadn't they?

In the corridor outside Lewis whispered briefly to Morse. 'You were right, sir. It rang for two minutes. Noakes confirms it.'

'Excellent. I think it's time to make a move then, Lewis. Car outside?'

'Yes, sir. Do you want me with you?'

'No. You get to the car; we'll be along in a minute.' He walked along the corridor,

knocked quietly on the door, and entered. She was sitting at her desk signing letters,

but promptly took off her reading glasses, stood up, and smiled sweetly. 'Bit early to

take me for a drink, isn't it?'

'No chance, I'm afraid. The car's outside—I think you'd better get your coat.'

The man inside does not go out this same Wednesday morning. The paper boy

lingers for a few seconds as he puts
The Times
through the letter box, but no lucrative errand is commissioned this morning; the milkman delivers one pint of milk; the

postman brings no letters; there are no visitors. The phone has gone several times

earlier, and at twelve o'clock it goes again. Four rings; then, almost immediately it

resumes, and mechanically the man counts the number of rings again—twenty-eight,

twenty-nine, thirty. The phone stops, and the man smiles to himself. It is a clever

system. They have used it several times before.

The man outside is still waiting; but expectantly now, for he thinks that the time of

reckoning may be drawing near. At 4.20 pm. he is conscious of some activity at the

back of the house, and a minute later the man inside emerges with a bicycle, rides

quickly away up a side turning, and in less than five seconds has completely

disappeared. It has been too quick, too unexpected. Constable Dickson swears softly

to himself and calls up HQ, where Sergeant Lewis is distinctly unamused.

The car park is again very full today, and Morse is standing by the window in the buffet

bar. He wonders what would happen if a heavy snowshower were to smother each of

the cars in a thick white blanket; then each of the baffled motorists would need to

remember exactly where he had left his car, and go straight to that spot—and find it.

Just as Morse finds the spot again through his binoculars. But he can see nothing, and

half an hour later, at 5.15 pm., he can still see nothing. He gives it up, talks to the ticket collector, and learns beyond all reasonable doubt that Roope was not lying when he

said he'd passed through the ticket barrier, as if from the 3.05 train from Paddington,

on Friday, 21st November.

As he steps out of his front door at 9.30 a.m. the next day, Thursday, 4th December,

the man who has been inside is arrested by Sergeant Lewis and Constable Dickson

of the Thames Valley Constabulary, CID Branch. He is charged with complicity in the

murders of Nicholas Quinn and Philip Ogleby.

THE CASE WAS over now, or virtually so, and Morse had his feet up on his desk, feeling

slightly over-beered and more than slightly self-satisfied, when Lewis came in at 2.30

on Thursday afternoon. 'I found him, sir. Had to drag him out of a class at Cherwell

School—but I found him. It was just what you said.'

'Well that's the final nail in the coffin and—' He suddenly broke off. 'You don't look too happy, Lewis. What's the trouble?'

'I still don't understand what's happening.'

'Lewis! You don't want to ruin my little party-piece in the morning, do you?'

Lewis shrugged a reluctant consent, but he felt like an examinee who has just

emerged from the examination room, conscious that he should have done very much

better. 'I suppose you think I'm not very bright, sir.'

'Nothing of the sort! It was a very clever crime, Lewis. I was just a bit lucky here and

there, that's all.'

'I suppose I missed the obvious clues—as usual.'

'But they
weren't1
obvious, my dear old friend. Well, perhaps . . .' He put his feet down and lit a cigarette. 'Let me tell you what put me on to the track, shall I? Let's see now.

First of all, I think, the single most important fact in the whole case was Quinn's

deafness. You see Quinn was not only hard of hearing; he was very very deaf. But we

learned that he was quite exceptionally proficient in the art of lip-reading; and I'm quite sure that because he could lip-read so brilliantly Quinn discovered the staggering fact

that one of his colleagues was crooked. You see the real sin against the Holy Ghost

for anyone in charge of public examinations is to divulge the contents of question

papers beforehand; and Quinn discovered that one of his colleagues was doing

precisely that.
But
, Lewis, I failed to take into account a much more obvious and a much more important implication of Quinn's being deaf. It sounds almost childishly

simple when you think of it—in fact an idiot would have spotted it before I did. It's this.

Quinn was a marvel at reading from the lips of others—agreed? He might just as well

have had ears, really. But he could only, let's say,
hear
what others were saying when he could
see
them. Lip-reading's absolutely useless when you can't see the person who's talking; when someone stands behind you, say, or when someone in the

corridor outside shouts that there's a bomb in the building. Do you see what I mean,

Lewis? If someone knocked on Quinn's office door, he couldn't hear anything. But as

soon as someone opened the door and
said
something—he was fine. All right?

Remember this, then:
Quinn couldn't hear what he didn't see
.'

'Am I supposed to see why all that's important, sir?'

'Oh yes. And you
will
do, Lewis, if only you think back to the Friday when Quinn was murdered.'

'He was definitely murdered on the Friday, then?'

'I think if you pushed me I could tell you to within sixty seconds!' He looked very smug

about the whole thing, and Lewis felt torn between the wish to satisfy his own curiosity

and a reluctance to gratify the chiefs inflated ego even further. Yet he thought he

caught a glimpse of the truth at last . . . Yes, of course. Noakes had said . . . He

nodded several times, and his curiosity won.

'What about all this business at the cinema, though? Was that all a red herring?'

'Certainly not. It was
meant
to be a red herring, but as things turned out—not too luckily from the murderer's point of view—it presented a series of vital clues. Just think a minute. Everything we began to learn about Quinn's death seemed to take it further

and further forward in time: he rang up a school in Bradford at about 12.20; he went to

Studio 2 at about half past one, after leaving a note in his office for his secretary; he came back to the office about a quarter to five, and drove home; he left a note for his