The Riddle Of The Third Mile (8 page)

‘Did you get his name-this fisherman’s?’ Morse’s question was sharp, and to Lewis his eyes seemed to glint with a frightening authority.

‘I wasn’t there myself, sir. I got the message from Constable Dickson.’

‘He took down the name and address, of course?’

‘Not quite, sir,’ gulped Lewis. ‘He got the name all right, but-’

‘ – the fellow rang off before giving his address!’

‘You can’t really blame-’

‘Who’s blaming
anybody,
Lewis? What
was
his name, by the way?’ ‘Rowbotham. Simon Rowbotham.’

‘Christ! That’s an unlikely sounding name.’ ‘But Dickson got it down all right, sir. He asked the fellow to spell it for him-he told me that.’

‘I see I shall have to congratulate Constable Dickson the next time I have the misfortune to meet him.’

‘We’re only talking about a name, sir.’ Lewis was feeling that” incipient surge of frustrated anger he’d so often experienced with Morse.

‘Only?
What are you talking about?
“Simon”?
With a surname like
“Rowbotham”?
Lew-is! Now
George
Rowbotnam -that’s fine, that squares with your actual proletarian parentage. Or Simon
Comakers,
or something-that’s what you’d expect from some aristocrat from Saffron Waldon. But
Simon Rowbotham’?
Come off it, Lewis. The fellow who rang was making it up as he went along.’

The surgeon, who had remained sipping placidly during this oddly intemperate exchange, now decided it was time to rescue the hapless Lewis. ‘You do talk a load of nonsense, Morse. I’ve never known your first name, and I don’t give a sod what it is. For all I know, it’s “Eric” or “Ernie” or something. But so} bloody
what?’

Morse, who had ever sought to surround his Christian name in the decent mists of anonymity, made no reply. Instead, he poured himself another measure of the pale yellow spirit, thereafter lapsing into silent thought.

It was Max who picked up the thread of the earlier discussion. ‘At least you’re not likely to get bogged down in any doubts about accident or suicide – unless you find some boat-propeller’s sliced his head off-and his hands-and his legs.’

‘No chance of that?’

‘I haven’t examined the body yet, have I?’ f

Morse grunted with frustration. ‘I asked you, and I ask you again. How long’s he been in the water?’

‘I just told you. I haven’t-’

‘Can’t you try a feeble bloody guess?’

‘Not all that long-in the water, that is. But he may have been dead a few days before then.’

‘Have a guess, for Christ’s sake!’

‘That’s tricky.’

‘It’s always “tricky” for you, isn’t it? You do actually think the fellow’s
dead, I
suppose?’

The surgeon finished his whisky, and poured himself more, his lined face creasing into something approaching geniality. ‘Time of death? That’s always going to play a prominent part in your business, Morse. But it’s never been my view that an experienced pathologist-such as myself-can ever really put too much faith in the accuracy of his observations. So many variables, you see -’

‘Forget it!’

‘Ah! But if someone actually
saw
this fellow being chucked in-well, we’d have a much better ideas of things, um?’

Morse nodded slowly and turned his eyes to Lewis; and Lewis, in turn, nodded his own understanding.

‘It shouldn’t take long, sir. There’s only a dozen or so houses along the towpath.’

He prepared to go. Before leaving, however, he asked one question of the surgeon. ‘Have you got the slightest idea, sir, when the body might have been put in the canal?’

‘Two, three days ago, sergeant.’

‘How the hell do you know that?’ growled Morse after Lewis had gone.

‘I
don’t
really. But he’s a polite fellow, your Lewis, isn’t he? Deserves a bit of help, as I see it.’

‘About two or three days, then…’

‘Not much more-and probably been dead about a day longer. His skin’s gone past the “washerwoman” effect, and that suggests he’s certainly been in the water more than twenty-four hours. And I’d guess
-guess,
mind! -that we’re past the “sodden” stage and almost up to the time when the skin gets blanched. Let’s say about two, two-and-a-half days.’

‘And nobody would be fool enough to dump him in during the hours of daylight, so-’

‘Yep. Sunday night- that’s about the time I’d
suggest,
Morse. But if I find a few live fleas on him, it’ll mean I’m talking a load of balls; they’d usually be dead after twenty-four hours in the water.’

‘He doesn’t look much like a fellow who had fleas, does he?’

‘Depends where he was before they pushed him in. For all we know, he could have been lying in the boot of a car next to a
dead
dog.’ He looked across and saw the Chief Inspector looking less than happily into his glass.

‘I can understand somebody chopping his head off, Max -even his hands. But why in the name of Sweeney Todd should anyone want to slice his
legs?’

‘Same thing. Identification.’

‘You mean… there was something
below
his knees -couple of wooden legs, or something?’

‘ “Artificial prostheses”, that’s what they call ‘em now.’

‘Or he might have had no toes?’

‘Not many of that sort around…’

But Morse’s mind was far away
_r
the image of the gruesome corpse producing a further spasm in some section of his gut.

‘You’re right, you know, Morse!’ The surgeon happily poured himself another drink. ‘He probably wouldn’t have
recognized
a flea! Good cut of cloth, that suit. Pretty classy shirt, too. Sort of chap who had a very-nice-job-thank-you: good salary, pleasant conditions of work, carpet all round the office, decent pension…’ Suddenly the surgeon broke off, and seemed to arrive at one of his few firm conclusions. ‘You know what, Morse? I reckon he was probably a bank manager!’

‘Or an Oxford don,’ added Morse quietly.

In spite of his unorthodox, intuitive, and seemingly lazy approach to the solving of crime, Morse was an extremely competent administrator; and when he sat down again at his office desk that same evening, all the procedures called for in a case of murder (and this
was
murder) had been, or were about to be, put into effect. Superintendent Strange, to whom Morse had reported on his return to HQ, knew his chief inspector only too well.

‘You’ll want Lewis, of course?’

‘Thank you, sir. Couple of frogmen, too.’

‘How many extra men?’

‘Well-er-none; not for the minute, anyway.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘I wouldn’t quite know what to ask them to do, sir,’ had been Morse’s simple and honest explanation.

And, indeed, as he looked at his wrist-watch (7.30 p.m.-’Blast, missed
The Archers),
he was not at all sure what to ask himself, either. On his desk lay the soddenly promising letter found on the corpse; but his immediate preoccupation was a throbbing toothache which had been getting worse all day. He decided he would do something about it in the morning.

As he sat there, he was conscious that there was a deeper reason for his refusal of the Superintendent’s offer of extra personnel. By temperament he was a loner, if only because, although never wholly content in the solitary state, he was almost invariably even more miserable in the company of others. There were a few exceptions, of course, and Lewis was one of them. Exactly why he enjoyed Lewis’s company so much, Morse had never really stopped to analyse; but perhaps it was because Lewis was so totally unlike himself. Lewis was placid, good-natured, methodical, honest, unassuming, faithful, and (yes, he might as well come clean about it!) a bit
stolid,
too. Even that afternoon, the good Lewis had been insistently anxious to stay on until whatever hour, if by any chance Morse should consider his availability of any potential value. But Morse had not. As he had pointed out to his sergeant, they
might’pretty
soon have a bit of luck and find out who the dead man was; the frogmen
might
just find a few oddments of identifiable limbs in the sludge of the canal waters by Aubrey’s Bridge. But Morse doubted it. For, even at this very early stage of the case, he sensed that his major problem would not so much be who the murderer was,
but who exactly had been murdered.
It was Morse’s job, though, to find the answer to both these questions; and so he started on his task, alternately stroking his slightly swollen left jaw and prodding down viciously on the offending double-fang. He took the letter lying on the desk in front of him, pressed it very carefully between sheets of blotting-paper, and then removed it. The paper was not so sopped and sodden as he had feared, and with a pair of tweezers he was soon able to unfold a strip about two inches wide and eight inches long. It was immediately apparent that this formed the left-hand side of a typewritten letter; and, furthermore, except for some minor blurring of letters at the torn edge, the message was gladdeningly legible:

Dear Sir,

This is a most unusua

realize. But please re

because what I am pro

both you and me. My wa 5

College has just take

final examinations in G

in about ten or twelve

an old man and I am de

how she has got on ah 10

The reason for my r

ridiculously impatient

to America in a few

able to be contacte

want to know how J 15

this. I have spent a

education, and she is

I realize that this

only that you should g

to such an impropriet 20

publication of the cl

July.

If you can possibly se

shall be in a positi

unconventionally. You s 25

most select clubs, sa

give you a completely

delights which are as

Please do give me a r

may be, at 01-417 808 30

you feel able to do

result, I shall give

able to enjoy, at no c

the most discreet er

ever imagined. 35

You

Morse sat back and studied the words with great joy. He’d been a lifelong addict of puzzles and of cryptograms, and this was exactly the sort of work his mind could cope with confidently. First he enumerated the lines in 5’s (as shown above); then he set his mind to work. It took him ten minutes, and another ten minutes to copy out his first draft. The general drift of the letter required no Aristotelian intellect to decipher-primarily because of the give-away clue in line 7. But it had been none too easy to concoct some continuum over a few of the individual word-breaks, especially “wa – “ in line 5; “ah – “ in line 10; “cl-”in line 21; and “sa-” in line 26. This is the first draft that Morse wrote out:

Dear Sir,

This is a most unusua l letter as I know you’ll

realize. But please re ad it with great care

because what I am pro posing can benefit

both you and me. My wa strel daughter at _

College has just take n (without much hope) her

final examination in G eography, and will get the result

in about ten or twelve days time. Now I am

an old man and I’m de speratly anxious to know

how she has got on ah ead of the official lists.

The reason for my r equest is that I am

ridiculously impatient, and in fact I am off

to America in a few dfays time where I may not be

able to be contacte d for some while. All I

want to know is how J -got on, if you can tell me

this. I have spent a great deal of money on her

education, and she is the only child I have.

I realize that this is a improper request. I ask

only that you should g ive a thought to stooping

to such an impropriet y. I think the official date for

publication of the cl ass list is-

July.

If you can possibly se e your way to this favour

I shall be in a positi t to pay you very well if

ununconventionally. You s ee I manage some of the

most select clubs, sa unas and parlours and I will

give you a completely free access to the sexual

delights which are as sociated with such places

Please do give me a r ing whatever your decision

May be at 01-417-808 -. If it so happens that

You fell able to do what I ask about J

Result I shall give you details about how you’ll be

Able to enjoy at no c ost at all to yourself,

The most discreet er otic thrills you can have

Ever imagined

You rs sincerely

Morse was reasonably pleased with the draft. It lacked polish here and there, but it wasn’t bad at all, really. Three specific problems, of course: the name of the college, the name of the girl, and the last bit of the telephone number. The college would be a bit more difficult now that almost all of them accepted women, but…

Suddenly Morse sat at his desk quite motionless, the blood tingling across his shoulders. Could it be that “G- “? It needn’t be Geography or Geology or Geophysics or whatever. And it wasn’t. It was
Greatsl
And that “J-”? That wasn’t Judith or Joanna or Jezebel. It was Jane-the girl the Master had indiscreetly mentioned to him! And that would solve the college automatically: it was
Lonsdalel

Phew!

The telephone number wouldn’t be much of a problem, either, since Lewis could soon sort that out. If it was a four-digit group, that would only mean ten possibilities; and if it was five digits, that was only a hundred; and Lewis was a very patient man…