Morse stood beside him, waiting for the prescription; and when the dentist got to his feet Morse became surprisingly aware of how small a man the dentist was. Had it been the white coat that had given him the semblance of being taller? Had it been the fact that the last thing Morse had earlier been interested in was whether the kindly man who’d readily agreed to see one of his most irregular clients was a dwarf or a giant? Yet there was something else, wasn’t there?

Morse’s mind suddenly grasped it as he stood waiting at the Summertown chemist’s. It had been when the dentist had been sitting at his desk-yes. Because the length of his back was that of a man of normal height; and so it must have been the legs…

‘Are you a pensioner, sir?’ asked the young assistant as she took his prescription. (My God! Could he really look as old as that?)

After an exhortation to stick religiously to the stated dosage, and also to be sure to complete the course, Morse was soon on his way to Kidlington, quite convinced now of the perfectly obvious fact that whoever had dismembered the corpse had been at desperate pains to conceal its identity.

Teeth? The murderer would have left a means of certain identification – ‘unique’, as his little torturer had said. Hands? If they had been deformed in any way, or one of them had? It was difficult for fellow humans to forget deformity. Legs? What if that exciting idea that had occurred to him at the chemist’s…

But he was at HQ now, and the need for instant action was at hand. He swallowed twice the specified dosage of tablets, told himself that the marvellous stuff was already engaged in furious conflict with the ‘little infection’, and finally greeted Lewis at 9.30 a.m.

‘You said you’d be here by eight, sir.’

‘Your lucky to see me at all!’ Morse snapped, as he unwrapped his scarf and bared his bulging jaw.

‘Bad tooth, sir?’

‘Not just bad, Lewis. It’s the worst bloody tooth in England!’

The missus always swears by-’

Forget what your missus says! She’s not a dentist, is she?’

So Lewis forgot it, and sat down silently.

Soon Morse was feeling better, and for an hour he discussed with Lewis both the letter and the curious thoughts that had been occurring to him.

‘Someone certainly seems to be making it difficult for us,’ said Lewis; and the sentence did little more than state in simple English the even simpler thought that had gradually dawned on Morse’s mind. But for Lewis life was full of surprises, since he now heard Morse ask him to repeat exactly that same sentence. And as he did so, Lewis saw the familiar sight of his chief looking out over the concreted yard, or wherever it was those eyes, unblinking, stared with more than a hint of deeper understanding.

‘Or it could be just the opposite,’ Lewis heard him mumble enigmatically.

‘Pardon, sir?’

‘Do you reckon a cup of coffee would upset this tooth of mine?’

‘Be all right, unless it’s too hot.’

‘Nip and get a couple of cups.”

After Lewis had gone, Morse unfolded The Times and looked at the crossword. 1 across: “He lived perched up, mostly in sites around East, shivering (6,8).” Anagram, obviously: “mostly in sites” round “e”. Yes! He quickly wrote in “Simon Stylites” -only to find himself one letter short. Of course! It was Simeon Stylites, and he was about to correct the letters, when he stopped.

It couldn’t be, surely!

He wrote a circle of letters in the bottom margin of the newspaper, crossed off a few letters, then a few more-and stopped again. Not only could it be, it was! What an extraordinary-

‘I told her to stick some extra cold milk in, sir.’

‘Did you sugar it?’

‘You do take sugar, don’t you?’

‘Bad for the teeth – surely you know that?’

‘Shall I go and-’

‘No-siddown. I’ve got something to show you. Oh God! This coffee’s cold!’

‘You haven’t done much of the crossword.’

‘Haven’t I?’ Morse was smiling serenely, and he thrust the paper across to Lewis who looked down uncomprehendingly at the almost illegible alterations in the top row of squares. But Lewis was happy. The chief was on to something- the chief was always on to something, and that was good. That’s why he enjoyed working with Morse. Being on the receiving end of all the unpredictability, all the irascibility, all the unfairness-it was a cheap price to pay for working with him. And now he whistled softly to himself as Morse explained the riddle of the circle of letters he had printed.

‘Do you want me to get on to it, sir?’

‘No, I’d rather you got on with those telephone numbers.’

‘Straight away, you mean?’

Morse gestured gently towards the phone on his desk, a smile spreading lopsidedly across his swollen mouth. ‘You said it was Dickson on the desk yesterday when we got the call from Thrupp?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, you get on with things here, Lewis. I’m just going to have a little chat with Dickson.’

If Lewis’s weakness in life was the smell of freshly-fried chips (and fast driving!), with Dickson it was the sight of amply-jammed doughnuts, and he sought to swallow his latest mouthful hastily as he saw Morse bearing down on him.

‘Fingers a bit sticky this morning, Dickson?’

‘Sorry, sir.’

‘Sugar is bad for the teeth, didn’t you know that?’

‘Do you eat a lot yourself, sir?’

For the next few minutes Morse questioned Dickson patiently about the informant who had telephoned HQ about the corpse in the water by Aubrey’s Bridge. The facts were clear. The man had not only given his name, he’d spelt it out; he hadn’t been absolutely sure that what he had seen was a human body, but it most decidedly looked like one; the call had been made from a phone-box, and after the second lot of ‘pip-pips’ the line had gone dead.

‘Is there a phone-box in Thrupp?’

‘On the corner, by the pub, sir.’

Morse nodded. ‘Did it not occur to you, my lad, that after getting this fellow’s name you ought to have got his address? In the book of rules, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir, but-’

‘Why didn’t he want to keep talking, tell me that.’

‘Probably ran out of 10p’s.’

‘He could have rung you again later.’

“Probably thought he’d-he’d already done his duty,’

‘More than you did, eh?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Why didn’t he stay there at Thrupp?’

‘Not everybody likes seeing-sort of drowned people.’

Morse conceded the point, and moved on. ‘What do they fish for there?’

‘They say there’s afew biggish pike up by the bridge.’

‘Really? Who the hell’s “they”?’

“Well, one of my lads, sir. He’s been fishing for pike up there a few times.’

‘Keen fisherman, is he?’

Dickson was feeling more at ease now. ‘Yes, sir, he’s joined the Oxford Pike Anglers’ Association.’

‘I see. Is the fellow who rang you up a member, too?’

Dickson swallowed hard. ‘I don’t know, sir.’

‘Well, bloody well find out, will you!’

Morse walked away a few steps from the flustered Dickson; then he walked back. ‘And I’ll tell you something else, lad. If your man Rowbotham is a member of whatever it’s called, I’ll buy you every bloody doughnut in the canteen. And that’s a promise!’

Morse walked over to the canteen, ordered another cap of coffee with plenty of milk, smoked a cigarette, assessed the virulence of his gnathic bacteria, noted the pile of approximately thirty-five doughnuts on the counter, and returned to his office.

It was Lewis who was beaming with pleasure now. ‘Got it, I reckon sir!’ He showed Morse the list he made. ‘Only four digits and so there are only the ten numbers. What do you think?’

Morse read the list:

8080-J. Pettiford, Tobacconist, Piccadilly

8081-Comprehensive Assurance Co., Shaftesbury Avenue