The silent world of Nicholas Quinn (33 page)

knows where else. And this isn't for
free
, remember. It must have cost Bartlett

thousands of pounds, and I don't think he'd got that sort of money. His salary's more

than adequate, but— Well, Roope must have known all about this and, however it

came about, the two of them struck a pact. Originally it had been Bland and Roope, I

should think. But Bland decided to go for even richer pickings, and Roope had to have

someone
inside
the Syndicate if the goose was still to lay the golden eggs. I don't know exactly how they worked it between them, but—'

'Do you know exactly how Bartlett murdered Quinn, sir?'

'Well, not exactly. But I've a pretty good idea, because it was the
only
way the

deception could have been worked. Just think a minute. You get your dose, a pretty

hefty dose, of cyanide. Roope sees to that side of things. Now, from an indecently

large dose of cyanide death follows almost immediately, so there's little problem about

actually
killing
Quinn. I should think that Bartlett called him into his office and suggested a drink together. He knew that Quinn was very fond of sherry and told him

to pour himself one—and probably one for Bartlett at the same time. He must have

wiped the sherry bottle and the glasses beforehand so that—'

'But wouldn't Quinn have smelled the cyanide?'

"He might have done, in normal circumstances; but Bartlett had timed his actions

almost to the second. Everything that morning had been geared with devilish ingenuity

to the next few minutes.'

The fire drill you mean.'

'Yes. Noakes had been instructed to set off the alarm at twelve noon precisely and

he'd been told to wait for the word from the boss. So? What happens? As soon as

Quinn is pouring the sherries, Bartlett picks up the phone, probably turning his back on

Quinn, and says "OK Noakes". And a second or two later the alarm goes. But this is the point, Lewis.
Quinn can't hear the alarm
. The bell is just inside the entrance hall, and although everybody else can hear it perfectly clearly, Quinn can't; and it gives

Bartlett just the little leeway he needs. As soon as Quinn has poured the sherries, and

only when the time is
exactly
ripe, does he say something like: 'The fire alarm! I'd forgotten about that. Toss that back quickly; we can talk afterwards." Quinn must have drained at least half the small glass at a gulp, and almost immediately he must have

known that something was desperately wrong. His respiration becomes jerky and he

suffers from violently convulsive seizures. In a minute, or at the outside a couple of

minutes, he's dead.'

'Why didn't he shout for help, though. Surely—?'

'Ah! I see you still don't appreciate the infinite subtlety of Bartlett's plan. What's

happening outside? A fire drill! As you yourself found out, Noakes had been instructed

to let the alarm ring for two minutes. Two minutes! That's a long, long time, Lewis, and

during it everybody is chattering and clattering down the stairs and along the corridors.

Perhaps Bartlett made quite sure that Quinn didn't shout for help; but even if he had

managed to shout, I doubt if anyone would have heard him. And remember!
No one is

going into Bartlett's office
. The red light has been1 turned on outside, and none of the staff is going to disobey the golden rule. And even if
everything
had gone wrong, Lewis, even if someone had come in—though I expect Bartlett had locked the door

anyway—Quinn's prints are on the bottle and on the glasses, and police inquiries are

going to centre on the fundamental question of who had poisoned Bartlett's sherry —

presumably with the intention of poisoning
Bartlett
, not Quinn. Anyway, Quinn is dead and
the building is now completely deserted
. Bartlett puts on a pair of gloves, pours his own sherry and whatever is left of Quinn's down the sink in his private little

cloakroom—remember it, Lewis?—and locks away the sherry bottle and Quinn's glass

in a briefcase. So far so good. Quinn was a fairly slight man and Bartlett may have

carried him over his shoulder, or put him into one of the large plastic containers they

use there for rubbish, and then dragged him along the polished floor. Probably he

carried him, since no scratches or abrasions were found on Quinn's body. But

whatever he did, it was only a few yards to the rear entrance, and Quinn's parking

place was immediately outside the door. Bartlett, who has already taken Quinn's car

key and house key from his pocket—or from his anorak—dumps the body and the

briefcase in the boot, locks it, and the deed is done.'

'We should have examined the boot, I suppose, sir.'

'But I did. There were no traces of Quinn at all. That's why I think Bartlett may have

used a container of some sort.'

Then he goes out to join the rest of the staff—'

Morse nodded 'Standing meekly outside in the cold, yes. He takes over the list, which

by this time has been handed round the thirty or so permanent staff, ticks in himself

and Quinn as present, and finally decides that all are accounted for.'

'And it was Bartlett who rang the school in Bradford?'

'Certainly. Doubtless he'd been looking out for anything that could be used to help

mislead the inevitable investigation, and he must have seen that particular letter in

Quinn's tray in the registry earlier that week. If you remember, it was postmarked

Monday, 17th November.'

'Then he went home and had a hearty lunch.'

'I doubt it,' said Morse. 'Bartlett's a very clever man, but basically he's not as ruthless as someone like Roope. Anyway, he's still got a lot on his mind. Certainly the trickier

half of the plan is over, but he hasn't finished yet. He must have left home at about ten past one, telling his wife—perfectly correctly—that he had to call in at the office before going off to his meeting in Banbury. But before he did that—'

'He called in at Studio 2.'

'Yes. Bartlett bought a ticket, had it torn through, asked the usherette where the

"Gents" was, waited there a few minutes, and then nipped out when the girl in the ticket office was busy with one or two more clients. But after that things began to go

awry. Not that Bartlett saw Monica Height—I'm pretty sure of that. But she saw him,

coming
out
of Studio 2. Monica and Donald Martin, remember want to spend the

afternoon together. They can't go to her place, because her daughter's home from

school; they can't go to his, because his wife's there all the time; they can go

somewhere in the car, but that's hardly a romantic proposition on a rainy November

afternoon. So they decide to go to the pictures. But they mustn't be seen going in

together; so Martin gets there fairly early, soon after the doors open, and buys a ticket for the rear lounge and sits there waiting. Monica'1s due to come a few minutes later,

and he's straining his eyes and watching
everybody
who comes in. Now get this clear in your mind, Lewis. If Quinn had gone into Studio 2 that afternoon, Martin would

certainly have seen him. He'd have seen Bartlett, too. And if he'd seen either of them,

he wouldn't have stayed
. He'd have left immediately, waited discreetly outside for Monica, and told her the bad news. But he did no such thing! Now, put yourself in

Monica's shoes. When we questioned her—and Martin—one thing became quite

clear:
they'd seen the film
; and they certainly wouldn't have done that if any other member of the Syndicate had come
in
. There was only one explanation: Monica had

seen something that, in the light of what she learned later, troubled her sorely. Yet

whatever it was, it had not prevented her from joining Martin inside the cinema, all

right? We can only draw one conclusion: she saw someone coming
out
. And that

someone was Bartlett! He goes back to the Syndicate and he's got a ticket. But where

is he to leave it? He could leave it in Quinn's room, because he's got to go in there

anyway to leave the note for Margaret Freeman, and to open the cabinets. Bit careless

of Bartlett that, when you come to think of it . . .' Morse shook his head as if a fly had alighted on his balding patch. But whatever was troubling him, he let it go. 'Just

remember that all this had to be planned meticulously in advance, and from this point

onwards things had to be arranged to meet Roope's convenience, not Bartlett's.

Roope has dutifully fixed himself up with a water-tight alibi until late afternoon, but

now he needs some plausible reason for visiting the Syndicate. He couldn't know—

nor could Bartlett—that not one of the graduate staff would be there; so it's arranged

that he will leave some papers in Bartlett's office. You see, if anyone else is around,

he hasn't got much excuse poking around in
Quinn's
office. He'll have to go there later, of course, to get the anorak; but by then he'll have been able to see the lie of the land and he can play things by ear. So they've decided between them that the cinema ticket

and Quinn's keys are to be left somewhere carefully concealed on Bartlett's desk or in

one of his drawers. Well? What happened then? Roope knocks on Bartlett's door, gets

no answer, goes in quickly, leaves his papers, and picks up the ticket and the keys.

Easy. Originally the plan must have been for him to hang around somewhere,

probably by the trees at the back, until the rest of the graduate staff went home. Then

he would only have to nip in the back entrance, pick up the anorak from Quinn's office,

and drive off in Quinn's car. But in fact it was easier than he could have hoped.

Noakes, it's true, was an unforeseen problem, but as things turned out this helped him

enormously. Noakes was able to confirm that
none of the graduate staff was in his

office that afternoon
. And when he told Roope that he was off upstairs for a cup of tea, the coast was clear—half an hour or so earlier than he'd expected it to be.'

'And from then onwards it must have gone very much as you said before.'

'Except for one thing. I suggested to Roope when we first brought him in that he'd

pocketed the note from Quinn's desk; but I don't think he could have done. Otherwise I

can think of no earthly reason why he had to phone Bartlett when he discovered the

shattering information that Mrs. Evans was going to return. It was the worst moment of

the lot, I should think, and Roope almost panicked. The rain was sluicing down

outside, and he couldn't just dump the body and run for it Mrs. Greenaway—he must

have seen her—was sitting in full view in the room upstairs with the curtains open, and

there was only one way for Quinn's body to be carted out, and that was by the front

door of the garage. There was nothing to do but to wait; but he couldn't wait
there
. He must have been fe1eling desperate when he rang up Bartlett; but Bartlett came up with

the masterstroke—the note on Quinn's desk! It was a wonderful piece of luck but, my

God!, they needed some luck at that stage. Bartlett had only just got back from

Banbury, but he drove off again almost immediately, called in at the Syndicate for the

note, and met Roope as arranged at the shopping area behind Pinewood Close,

where Roope had already bought the groceries. I suppose it must have taken Bartlett

at least twenty minutes, but time was still on their side—just. Roope got back to

Quinn's, took off his muddy boots, left the note—and went out again. He must have got

wet through; but imagine his immense relief, as he watched and waited, first to see

Mrs. Evans come and go, and then, almost miraculously, an ambulance draw up and

take. Mrs. Greenaway off to the maternity hospital. The house was in darkness then;

no one was about; the street lamp was broken; the curtain could go up on the last act.

He carries Quinn's body to the back door and into the house, puts it on the carpet by

the chair in the living-room, arranges the sherry bottle and the glass on the coffee

table, lights the fire—and Bob's your uncle. He walks over the back field again, and

catches a bus down to Oxford.'

Lewis reflected. Yes, that's how it must have happened all right, but one thing still

puzzled him mightily: 'What about Ogleby? Where does he fit in?'

'As I've told you, Lewis, a good deal of what Ogleby told us was true, and I think he

was virtually certain that Bartlett had killed Quinn long before I ever—'

'Why did he keep it all to himself, though?'

'I dunno. I suppose he must have been trying to prove something to himself before—'

'It doesn't sound very convincing, sir.'

'No, perhaps not.' Morse stared out onto the yard and once again wondered why on

earth Ogleby . . . Mm. There were still one or two loose ends that wouldn't quite tie in.

Nothing vital, though—and Lewis interrupted his thoughts.

'Ogleby must have been a clever fellow, sir.'

'Oh, I don't know. Remember he had a couple of leagues' start on me.'

'How do you mean, sir?'

'How many times do I have to tell you?
He was in the office that afternoon
.'

'Must have been upstairs, then, because—'

'No. That's where you're wrong. He must have been
downstairs
. And what's more we

know exactly where he was and when he was there. He must have realized when he

finally got back from lunch that he was the only one of the graduates in the office, and