‘What is it?’ asked Morse weakly.

‘You want me to-?’ There was annoyance in Gilbert’s face.

Morse nodded.

If it had taken ten minutes to put this particular valuable finally to rest, it took less than ten seconds to resurrect it. And it was a head, a marble head of Gerardus Mercator, the Flemish geographer- a head chopped off at the neck, like the head of the man who had been dragged from the canal out at Thrupp.

A somewhat foolish-looking Morse now hastened to take his leave, but before doing so he sought briefly to mitigate the awkward little episode. He addressed himself to Gilbert: “You’re a fellow sufferer, I see.’

For a second or two Gilbert’s eyes looked puzzled – suspicious almost. ‘Ah-the scarf-yes! Abscess. But the dentist won’ttouch it. What about you, sir?’

So Morse told him, and the two men chatted amiably enough for a couple of minutes. Then Morse departed.

From the window, Gilbert watched Morse as he walked towards the Lodge.

‘How the hell did he get in?’

‘I must have left the door open.’

‘Well, you’re going to have to learn to keep doorsshutin this business – understand? One of the first rules of the trade, that is. Still, you’ve not been with us long, have you?’

‘Month.’ The youth looked surly, and Gilbert’s tone was deliberately softer as he continued.

‘Never mind -no harm done. You don’t know who he is, do you?’

‘No. But I saw him go into the room opposite, then I heard him come out again.’

‘Opposite, eh?’ Gilbert opened the door, and looked out. ‘Mm. That must be Dr Browne-Smith, then.’

‘He said he was a friend o’ this fella here.’

‘Well, you believed him, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah – course.’

‘As I say, though, we can’t be too careful in this job, Charlie. Lots of valuables around. It’s always the same.’

‘He didn’t take anything.’

‘No, I’m sure he didn’t. He-er-just sort of looked round, you say?’

‘Yeah, looked around a bit- said he wanted to leave a message for this fella, that’s all.’

‘Where’s the message?’ Gilbert’s voice was suddenly sharp.

‘I dunno. He just typed-’

‘He what?’

The unhappy Charlie pointed vaguely to the portable. ‘He just typed a little note on that thing, that’s all.’

‘Ah, I see. Well, if that’s all-’ Gilbert’s face seemed to relax, and his tone was kindly again. ‘But look, my lad. If you’re going to make a success of this business, you’ve got to be a bit cagey, like me. When you’re moving people, see, it’s easy as wink for someone to nip in the property and pretend he’s a relative or something. Then he nicks all the silver- and then where are we? Understand?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So. Let’s start being cagey right away, OK? You be a good lad, and just nip down to the Lodge, and see if they know who that fellow was in here. It’ll be a bit of good experience for you.’

Without enthusiasm, Charlie went out, and for a secondGilbert walked over to the window, and waited until the young apprentice was out of sight. Then he put on a pair of working gloves, picked up the portable typewriter and crossed the landing. He knew that the door opposite was unlocked (since he had already tried it on his way up), and very swiftly he entered the room and exchanged the typewriter he carried for the one on Dr Browne-Smith’s desk.

Gilbert was kneeling by one of the crates, carefully repacking the head of Gerardus Mercator, when a rather worried-looking Charlie returned.

‘It was the police.’

‘Really?’ Gilbert kept his eyes on his work. ‘Well, that’s good news. Somebody must have seen you here and thought the college had a burglar or something. Yes-that explains it. You see, lad, there aren’t many people in the colleges this time of year. They’ve nearly all gone, so it’s a good time for burglars, understand?’

Charlie nodded, and was soon attaching an address label to the recently lidded crate: G. D. Westerby, Esq., Flat 6, 29 Cambridge Way, London, WC1.

Preliminary investigations are now in full swing, and Morse appears unconcerned about the contradictory evidence that emerges.

It might perhaps appear to the reader that Morse had come off slightly the worse in the exchanges recorded in the previous chapter. But the truth is that after a late pub lunch Morse returned to his office exceedingly, satisfied with his morning’s work, since fresh ideas were breeding in profusion now.

He was still seated there, deep in thought, when three quarters of an hour later the phone rang. It was the police surgeon.

‘Look, I’ll cut out the technicalities. You can read ‘em in my report-and anyway you wouldn’t be able to follow ‘em. Adult, male, Caucasian; sixtyish or slightly more; well nourished; no signs of any physical abnormality; pretty healthy except for the lungs, but there’s no tumour there-in fact there’s no tumour or neoplasm anywhere-we don’t call it cancer these days, you know. By the way, you still smoking, Morse?’

‘Get on with it!’

‘Dead before immersion-’

‘You do surprise me.’

‘-and probably curled up a bit after death.’

‘He was carried there, you mean?’

‘I said “probably”.’

‘In the boot of a car?’

‘How the hell do I know!’

‘Anything else?’

‘Dismembered after death-pretty certain of that.’

‘Brilliant,’ mumbled Morse.

‘And that’s almost it, old man.’

Morse was secretly delighted with these findings, but for the moment he feigned a tone of disappointment. ‘But aren’t you going to tell me how he died? That’s what they pay you for, isn’t it?’

As ever, the surgeon sounded unperturbed. Tricky question, that. No obvious wounds -or unobvious ones for that matter. Somebody could have clobbered him about the head -a common enough cause of death, as well you know. But we haven’t got a head, remember?’

‘Not poisoned?’ asked Morse more quietly.

‘Don’t think so. It’s never all that easy to tell when you’ve got your giblets soaked in water.’

‘Ah, yes. Drop of Scotch there, Morse. But, after all, there’s a drop of Scotch in most – by the way, Morse, you still boozing?’

‘I’ve not quite managed to cut it out.’

‘And some kippers. You interested in kippers?’

‘For breakfast?’

‘He’d had some, yes. But whether he’d had ‘em for breakfast-’

‘You mean he might have had the Scotch for breakfast and the kippers for lunch?’

‘We live in a strange world.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘As I said, that’s almost the lot.’

With huge self-gratification, Morse now prepared to launch his Exocet. ‘Well, thanks very much, Max. But if I may say so I reckon somebody at your end – I’m sure it isn’t you! – deserves a hefty kick up the arse. As you know, I don’t pretend to be a pathologist myself but- ‘

‘I said it was “almost” the lot, Morse, and I know what you’regoing to say. I just thought I’d leave it to the end -you know, just to humour an old friend and all that.’

‘It’s that bloody arm I’m talking about!’

‘Yes, yes! I know that. You just hold your horses a minute! I noticed you looking down at that arm, of course, almost as if you thought you’d made some wonderful discovery. Discovery? What? With that bloody great bruise there? You don’t honestly think even a part-time hospital porter could have missed that, do you?’

Morse growled his discomfiture down the phone, and the surgeon proceeded placidly.

‘Funny thing, Morse. You just happened to be right in what you thought-not for the right reasons, though. That contusion on the left arm, it was nothing to do with giving blood. He must have just knocked himself somewhere-or somebody else knocked him. But you were right, he was a blood donor. Difficult to be certain, but I examined his arms very carefully and I reckon he’d probably had the needle about twenty to twenty-five times in his left arm; about twelve to fifteen in his right.’