Part 23 (1/2)

The steps on the narrow flight of stairs creaked loudly as Lewis mounted aloft, and Morse stood below and watched him, his heart pounding against his ribs.

There were only two bedrooms, each of them opening almost directly off the tiny landing: one to the right, the other immediately in front. First Lewis tried the one to his right, and peered round the door. The junk room, obviously. A single bed, unmade, stood against the far wall; and the bed itself and the rest of the limited s.p.a.ce available were strewn with the necessary and the unnecessary oddments that had yet to find for themselves a permanent place in the disposition of the Ac.u.m household: several bell-jars of home-made wine, bubbling intermittently; a vacuum cleaner, with its box of varied fitments; dusty lampshades; old curtain rails, the mounted head of an old, moth-eaten deer; and a large a.s.sortment of other semi-treasured bric-a-brac that cluttered up the little room. But nothing else. Nothing.

Lewis left the room and tried the other door. It would be the bedroom, he knew dial. Tentatively he pushed open the door slightly further and became aware of something scarlet lying there upon the bed, bright scarlet - the colour of new-spilt blood. He opened the door fully now and went inside. And there, draped across the pure white coverlet, the arms ready folded across the bodice, the waist tight-belted and slim, lay a long, red-velvet evening dress.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX.

No one does anything from a single motive. S. T. Coleridge, Biographia Literaria.

THEY SAT DOWNSTAIRS in the small kitchen.

'It looks as if our little bird has flown.'

'Mm.' Morse leaned his head upon his left elbow and stared blankly through the window.

'When did you first suspect all this, sir?'

'Sometime last night, it must have been. About half-past three, I should think.'

”This morning, then.'

Morse seemed mildly surprised. It seemed a long, long time ago.

'What put you on to it, though?'

Morse sat up and leaned his back against the rickety kitchen chair. 'Once we learned that Valerie was probably still alive, it altered everything, didn't it? You see, from the start I'd a.s.sumed she was dead.'

'You must have had some reason.'

'I suppose it was the photograph more than anything,' replied Morse. ”The one of the genuine Mrs Ac.u.m that Mrs Phillipson showed me. It was a clear-cut, glossy photograph - not like the indistinct and out-of-date ones we've got of Valerie. Come to think of it, I doubt if either of us will recognize Valerie when we do see her. Anyway, I met who I thought was Mrs Ac.u.m when I first came up here to Caernarvon, and although she had a towel round her head I couldn't help noticing that she wasn't a natural blonde at all. The roots of her hair were dark, and for some reason' (he left it at that) 'the detail, well, just stuck with me. She'd dyed her hair, anyone could see that.'

'But we don't know that the real Mrs Ac.u.m is a natural blonde.'

'No. That's true,' admitted Morse.

'Not much to go on then, is it?'

There was something else, Lewis.'

'What was that?'

Morse paused before replying. 'In the photograph I saw of Mrs Ac.u.m, she had a sort of, er, sort of a boyish figure, if you know what I mean.'

'Bit flat-chested you mean, sir?'

Yes.'

'So?'

'The woman I saw here - well, she wasn't flat-chested, that's all.'

'She could have been wearing a padded bra. You just can't tell for certain, can you?'

'Can't you?' A gentle, wistful smile played momentarily about the inspector's mouth, and he enlightened the innocent Lewis no further. 'I ought to have guessed much earlier. Of course I should. They just don't have anything in common at all: Mrs Ac.u.m - and Valerie Taylor. Huh! I don't think you'd ever find anyone less like a blue-stocking than Valerie. And I've spoken to her twice over the phone, Lewis! More than that, I've actually seen her!' He shook his head in self-reproach. ”Yes. I really should have guessed the truth a long, long time ago.'

'From what you said, though, sir, you didn't see much of her, did you? You said she had this beauty-pack-'

'No, not much of her, Lewis. Not much ...' His thoughts were very far away.

'What's all this got to do with the car-hire firms you're trying to check?' asked Lewis suddenly.

'Well, I've got to try to get some hard evidence against her, haven't I? I thought, funnily enough, of letting her give me the evidence herself, but...”

Lewis was completely lost. 'I don't quite follow you.'

'Well, I thought of ringing her up this morning first thing and tricking her into giving herself away.

It would have been very easy, really.'

'It would?'

”Yes. All I had to do was to speak to her in French. You see, the real Mrs Ac.u.m is a graduate from Exeter, remember? But from what we know about poor Valerie's French, I doubt she can get very much further than bonjour.'

'But you can't speak French either can you, sir?'

'I have many hidden talents of which as yet you are quite unaware,' said Morse a trifle pompously.

'Oh.' But Lewis had a strong suspicion that Morse knew about as much (or as little) French as he did. And what's more, he'd had no answer to his question. 'Aren't you going to tell me why you'll be checking on the car-hire firms?'

”You've had enough shocks for one day.'

'I don't think one more'll make much difference,” replied Lewis.

'All right, I'll tell you. You see, we've not only found Valerie; we've also found the murderer of Baines.' Lewis opened and closed his mouth like a stranded goldfish, but no identifiable vocable emerged.

'You'll understand soon enough,' continued Morse. 'It's fairly obvious if you think about it. She has to get from Caernarfon to Oxford, right? Her husband's got the car. So, what does she do?

Train? Bus? There aren't any services. And anyway, she's got to get there quickly, and there's only one thing she can do and that's to hire a car.'

'But we don't know yet dial she did hire a car,' protested Lewis. 'We don't even know she can drive.'

'We shall know soon enough.'

The 'ifs' were forgotten now, and Morse spoke like a minor prophet enunciating necessary trudis.

And with gradually diminis.h.i.+ng reluctance, Lewis was beginning to sense the inevitability of the course of events that Morse was sketching out for him, and the inexorable logic working through the inquiry they'd begun together. A young schoolgirl missing, and more than two years later a middle-aged schoolmaster murdered; and no satisfactory solution to either mystery. Just two insoluble problems. And suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, there were no longer two problems - no longer even one problem; for somehow each had magically solved the other.