‘I’m not sure yet. But if you could just, as I say, keep an eye on things – you’d put my mind at rest.’

‘Keep an eye on what’

‘Well, it’s just-so unlike Browne-Smith, that’s all. He’s the most pedantic and pernickity fellow in the University. It’s-it’s odd. No arrangements, none. Just this note left at the lodge. No apology for absence from the college meeting; nothing to the couple of students he’d arranged to see.’

‘You’ve got the note?’

The Master took a folded sheet from his dove-grey jacket and handed it over:

Please keep any mail for me here. I shall be away for several days. Sudden irresistable offer-quite out of the blue. Tell my scout to look after my effects,,i.e. to keep the rooms well dusted, put the laundry through and cancel all meals until further notice.

B-S

Morse felt a tingle in his veins as he read through the brief, typewritten message. But he said nothing.

‘You see,’ said the Master, ‘I just don’t think he wrote that.’

‘No?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘When did the Lodge get this?’

‘Monday morning-two days ago.’

‘And when was he last seen here?’

‘Last Friday. In the morning, it was. He left college at about quarter-past eight, to catch the London train. One of the fellows here saw him on the station.’

‘Did this note come through the post?’

‘No. The porter says it was just left there.’

‘Why are you so sure he didn’t write it?’

‘He just couldn’t have written it. Look, Morse, I’ve known him for twenty-odd years, and there was never a man, apart from Housman, who was so contemptuous about any solecism in English usage. He was almost paranoiac about things like that. You see, he always used to draft the minutes of the college meetings, and even a comma out of place in the final version would bring down the wrath of the gods on the college secretary. He even used to type a draft before he’d put a bloody notice on the board!’

Morse looked at the letter again. ‘You mean he’d have put commas after “sudden”-and “through”?’

‘By Jove, yes! He’d always use commas there. But there’s something else. Browne-Smith was the only man in England, I should think, who invariably argued for a comma after “i.e.”.’

‘Mm.’

‘You don’t sound very impressed.’

‘Ah! But I am. I think you may be right.’

‘Really?’

‘You think he’s got a bird somewhere?’

‘He’s never had a “bird”, as you put it.’

‘Is Jane Summers still in residence?’

The Master laughed aloud with genuine amusement. ‘I saw her this morning, Morse, if you must know.’

‘Did you tell her she’d got a first?’ A smile was playing slowly around Morse’s mouth, and the” Master’s shrewd eyes were again upon him.

‘Not much point pretending with you, is there? But no! No, I didn’t tell her that. But I did tell her that perhaps she had every reason to be-er, let’s say, optimistic about her-ah, future. Anyway, it’s time we went down for lunch. You ready to eat?’

‘Can I keep this?’ Morse held up the single sheet, and the Master nodded.

‘Seriously, I’m just a fraction worried. And you just said, didn’t you, that I might be right?’

‘You are right. At least, you’re almost certainly right in suggesting that he didn’t type it. He could have dictated it, of course.’

‘Why are you so sure?’

‘Well,’ said Morse, as the Master locked the door behind them, ‘he was a literary pedant for a good many years before you met him. He was one of my “Mods” tutors, you see; and even then he’d bark away at the most trivial sort of spelling mistake as if it were the sin against the Holy Ghost. At the time, of course, it didn't seem to matter two farts in the universe; but in an odd sort of way I came to respect his views- and I still do. I'd never let a spelling mistake go through my secretary-not if I could help it.'

‘Never?’

‘Never!’ said Morse, his grey-blue eyes sober and serious as the two men lingered on the landing outside the Master's rooms. ‘And you can be absolutely sure of one thing, Master. Browne-Smith would have died sooner than misspelt “irresistible”.'

‘You don't think-you don't think he is dead?’

‘Course he's not!’ said Morse, as the two old friends walked down the stairs.

In which those readers impatiently waiting to encounter the first corpse will not be disappointed, and in which interesting light is thrown on the character of the detective, Morse.

It had been 2.30 p.m. when Morse finally left Lonsdale; and after stocking himself up from a tobacconist's shop just along the High, he was back in his Kidlington office just before three o'clock, where nothing much appeared to have happened during his absence.

On leaving Lonsdale, he had promised the Master to ‘keep an eye on things’ (a quite meaningless phrase, as Morse saw it) should any aspect of Browne-Smith's sudden departure take on a slightly more sinister connotation.

To an observer, Morse's eyes would have appeared slightly ‘set’, as Shakespeare has it, and his mood was mellowly maudlin. And as he sat there, his freely-winged imagination glided easily back to the fateful days of his time at Oxford…

After eighteen months as a National Serviceman in the Royal Signals Regiment, Morse had come up to St John's College, where his first two years were the happiest and most purposeful of his life. He had worked hard at his texts, attended lectures regularly, been prompt with unseens and compositions; and it had been no surprise to his tutors when such an informed and intelligent young man had duly gained a first in Classical Moderations. With two years ahead of him- two years in which to study for Greats-the future seemed to loom as sure as the sun-bright day that would follow the rosy-fingered dawn -particularly so, since the slant of Morse’s mind was ideally suited to the work ahead of him in History, Logic, and Philosophy. But in the middle of his third year he had met the girl who matched the joy of all his wildest dreams.

She was already a graduate of Leicester University, whence a series of glowing testimonials had proved sufficiently impressive for her application to take a D.Phil. at Oxford to be accepted by St Hilda’s. For her first term, she had been alloted digs way out in the distances of Cowley Road. But amidst the horsehair sofas and the sombre, dark-brown furnishings, she had been unhappy and had jumped at the opportunity of a smaller flat in Number 22 St John Street (just off St Giles’) at the start of the Hilary Term. It was so much brighter, so much nearer the heart of things, and only a short walk from the Bodleian Library, where she spent so much of her time. She felt happy in her new room. Life was good.

At this same time it was customary for the Dean of St John’s to farm out most of his third-year undergraduates to some of the nearby College property and, from the start of the Michaelmas term, Morse had moved into St John’s Road: Number 24.

They first met one night in late February, during the interval of the OUDS’ production of Doctor Faustus at the New Theatre, only some fifty yards or so away, in Beaumont Street. Morse had finally managed to order a pint of beer at the crowded bar when he felt a lightly laid hand upon his shoulder -and turned round to find a pale face, the blonde hair high upswept, the hazel eyes looking into his with an air of pleading diffidence.

‘Have you just ordered?’

‘Yes-I’ll soon be out of your way.’

‘You wouldn’t mind, would you, ordering a drink for me as well?’

‘Pleasure!’

Two gins and tonics, please.’ She pushed a pound note into his hand-and was gone.