The Jewel That Was Ours (8 page)

'They told me I'd find you here. Not that I needed much direction. Any pathologist worth his meagre remuneration tends to develop a fairly keen sense of smell.'

‘Well?'

'Heart attack. Massive coronary.'
(Swain's
words.) Morse nodded slowly.

'God knows why you ask me along here to confirm the obvious. Where's the booze, by the way?' Reluctantly, Morse pointed to the drinks-cabinet. 'You're not paying for it, are you?' 'What do you fancy?’ 'Nothing for me, Morse. I'm on duty.' 'All right.'

'Is, er, is it drinkable - the Scotch?'

Morse got to his feet, poured a miniature into a plastic cup, and handed it over. For a few minutes the two old enemies sat sipping in friendly silence.

'You
quite
sure, Max . . . ?'

'Not so bad, is it, this stuff?'

'. . . about the time of death?'

'Between four-thirty and five-fifteen.'

'Really?’
Never before had Morse heard anything remotely approaching such a definitive statement from the lips of the hump-backed police-surgeon. 'How on earth—?'

'Girl at Reception, Morse. Said the poor old dear had gone up to her room at four-thirty, on her own two tootsies, too. Then your people told me she was found by her ever-loving husband at five-fifteen.' Max took a large swallow of the Glenfiddich. 'We professionals in the Force, Morse, we have to interpret all the available clues, you know.' He drained his cup with deep appreciation.

'Another?'

'Certainly not! I'm on duty . . . And anyway I'm just off to a very nice little dinner.'

A distant temple-bell was tinkling in Morse's mind: 'Not the same nosh-up as whatshisname?' 'The very same, Morse.' 'He's the house-doctor here.' 'Try telling me something I
don't
know.' 'It's just that he looked at Mrs Stratton, that's all.' 'And you didn't have much faith in him.' 'Not much.'

'He's considered quite a competent quack, they tell me.' 'To be honest, I thought he was a bit of a . . .' 'Bit of a
membrum virile?
You're not
always
wrong, you know . . . Er,
small
top-up, perhaps, Morse?' 'You know him?'

'Oh yes. And you're
quite
wrong, in this case. He's not just a— No, let's put it the other way: he's the
biggest
one in Oxford.'

'She still died of a heart attack, though?'

'Oh yes! So don't go looking for any silly bloody nonsense here. And it's not Swain who's telling you, Morse -it's
me.'

When, some ten minutes later, Max had departed for his BMA dinner, Morse had already performed what in political parlance would be termed a compromising U-turn. And when Lewis came in, with Dr Theodore Kemp immediately in tow, Morse knew that he had erred in his earlier thinking. The coincidence of a theft and a death (in whichever order) might often be shown to be causally connected.

But not in this case.

Lewis would have to interview them all, of course; or most of them. But that would be up to Lewis. For himself, Morse wished for nothing more fervently than to get back to his bachelor flat in North Oxford, and to listen once again to the Second Movement of the Bruckner No. 7.

But he'd better see one or two of them.

History,
n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools

(Ambrose Bierce,
The Devil's Dictionary)

Almost immediately Kemp slotted into Morse's preconceptions of the we-are-an-Oxford-man, although he was aware that he could well be guilty of yet another instant inaccuracy. The bearded, clever-looking, ugly-attractive man (late thirties - Sheila's age?) who sat down only after lightly dusting the seat with a hyper-handkerchief, had clearly either been told (by Sheila?) or heard (gossip inevitable) something of what had occurred. Other persons might have been irritated only temporarily by the man's affected lisp. Not so Morse.

'Abtholutely pritheless, Inthpector!'

'Perhaps you could tell us a little more about the Wolvercote Tongue, sir.'

Kemp was well prepared. He opened his black brief-case, took out a pile of pale-blue leaflets, and handed one across the desk to Morse, one to Lewis.

The Wolvercote Jewel

During the last century or so archaeologists and historians have become increasingly conscious of the splendid workmanship of the late Saxon period, and the discovery in 1931 of a gold 'buckle' at Wolvercote had been extremely exciting. Particularly so since this buckle linked up with a corresponding 'tongue', fully documented and authenticated, known to be in the collection of one Cyrus C. Palmer Jnr, a citizen of Pasadena, California. The
cloisonné
enamel of the pear-shaped tongue, set in a solid gold frame, decorated in a distinctive type of delicate filigree, and set (originally) with three large ruby-stones, appeared to match the Ashmolean buckle with exact precision. And if further proof were sought, the tongue's lettering

-[AE]LFRED MEC HE[HT GEWYR] CAN - was identical in figuration and engravure to that of the gold buckle - into which (as all experts now concur) the tongue had once fitted.

That the tongue will shortly fit into its buckle once more is due to the philanthropy of Mr Palmer and to the gracious co-operation and interest of his wife, (now) Mrs Laura M. Stratton. The only major problem remaining to be resolved (according to Dr Theodore Kemp of the Ashmolean Museum) is the exact purpose of this most beautifully wrought artefact, henceforth to be known, in its entirety, as 'The Wolvercote Jewel'. Whether it was the clasp of some royal garment, or whether it served some symbolic or ceremonial purpose, is a matter of fascinating speculation. What is certain is that The Wolvercote Jewel - tongue and buckle at last most happily conjoined will now be numbered amongst the finest treasures of the Ashmolean Museum.

1
Alfred the Great,
AD
871-901.
For a full discussion, see
Pre-Conquest Craftsmanship in Southern Britain,
Theodore S. Kemp, Babbington Press, June
1991.

'You write this, sir?' asked Morse.

Kemp nodded bitterly: the whole bloody thing now cancelled (Morse learned) - the ceremony that was all fixed up - the presentation - the press - TV. God!

'We learnt the dates of the kings and queens of England at school,' said Morse. Trouble is we started at William the First.'

'You ought to have gone back earlier, Inspector - much earlier.'

'Oh, I'm always doing that, sir.' Morse fixed his eyes on the pallid face across the table. 'What were you doing earlier this evening between four-thirty and five-fifteen, Dr Kemp?’

'What? What wath I doing?’ He shook his head like a man most grievously distraught. 'You don't - you can't understand, can you! I wath probably buggering around in . . .'he pointed vaguely over Morse's head in the direction of the Ashmolean. 'I don't know. And I don't care!' He picked up the pile of leaflets and, with a viciousness of which Morse would not have thought the effeminate fingers capable, tore them across the middle, and threw them down on the desk. Morse let him go.

Kemp was the second witness that evening who had been less than forthcoming in answering the only pertinent question that had been put to him.

'You didn't like him much, did you, sir?' ‘What's that got to do with anything?' 'Well, somebody must have stolen this Wolvercote thing.'
'Nobody
pinched it, Lewis! They pinched the
handbag.'
'I don't see it. The handbag's worth virtually nothing - but the, you know, it's priceless, he says.' 'Abtholutely pritheless!' mimicked Morse. Lewis grinned. 'You don't think
he
stole it?'

'I'd rather not
think
at all about that inflated bladder of wind and piss. What I
know
is that he'd be the last person in Oxford to steal it. He's got everything lined up - he's got this literature all ready - he'll get his name in the papers and his face on the telly - he'll write a monograph for some learned journal - the University will give him a DLitt or something . . . No, he didn't pinch it. You see you can't
sell
something like that, Lewis. It's only "priceless" in the sense of its being unique, irreplaceable, crucial for historical and archaeological interpretation . . . You couldn't sell the
Mona Lisa,
could you?'

'You knew all about it, did you, sir? This Wolvercote thing?'

'Didn't
you?
People come from far and wide to view the Wolvercote Tongue—'

' "Buckle", isn't it, sir? Isn't it just the
buckle
that's there?'

'I've never heard of the bloody thing,' growled Morse. 'I've never even been
inside
the Ashmolean, sir.' 'Really?'

'The only thing we learned about King Alfred was about him burning the cakes.'