Inspector Morse 11 The Daughters of Cain

I've always kept in touch with Auntie Beryl, its been a secret but she's always let me know how you are and she wrote a fortnight ago and told me how he's been treating you munv--you must have let her know. Your mad to stick it, your a matyr that's what you are. I've just read through all this and I know one thing I said you can do but you can't--not yet--and that's get in touch with me, but its better that way though don't be surprised if you see me.

Not just yet though, its been such a long long time and I can't quite face it, not yet. I love you mum, I shail always love you better than anybody.

One last thing and its odd really but I read in the Oxford-- Julia turned over the page but that was the finish: the last part of the letter was missing.

Chapter Twenty-two

We all wish to be of importance in one way or another (RALPH WALDO EMERSON, Journals)

Lewis, on his way for an appointment with the House Ma-tron of Wolsey, had dropped Morse in the Broad, where the Chief Inspector had swilled down a double dosage of pen-icillin pills with a pint of Hook Norton in the White Horse, before making his way to the Pitt Rivers Museum of Eth-nology and Pre-History--for his own appointment.

Sooner or later, inevitably, a golden afternoon will capti-vate the visitor to Oxford; and as he walked leisurely up Parks Road, past the front of Wadham on his right, past the blue wrought-iron gates at the back of Trinity on his left, Morse felt deeply grateful that he had been privileged to spend so much of his lifetime there.

And one of those captivated visitors might have noticed a smile of quiet satisfaction around Morse's lips that early afternoon as he turned right, just opposite Keble, into the grounds of the Oxford University Museum---that monument to the nineteenth-century Gothic Revival, and the home of the Dodo and the Dinosaur. Some clouds there were in the pale blue sky that September day: some white, some grey; but not many.

No, not many, Morse.

Oddly, he'd enjoyed the short walk, although he believed that the delights of walking were oien ludicrously exagger-ated. Solvitur ambulando, though, as the Romans used t> say; and even if the "ambulando' was meant to be a figur-. ative rather than a physical bit of "walking"--well, so much the better. Not that there was anything intrinsically wrong with the occasional bit of physical walking; after all, Housman hacl composed some of his loveliest lyrics while walking around the Backs at Cambridge, after a couple of lunchtime beers.

Solvitur ambulando, yes.

Walk along then, Morse, since perhaps you are now walking towards the solution.

On the stone steps leading up to the entrance porch, he read the notice: THIS MUSEUM IS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC 12 ^.M.'4:30 P.M. Mon-Sat.

It was already past noon, and on the grass a large party of visiting schoolchildren were unhamessing rock-sacks and extracting packed lunches as Morse walked hurriedly by. It wasn't that he positively disliked schoolchildren; just that he didn't want to meet any of them.

Inside the glass-roofed, galleried building, Morse contin-ued on his course, quickly past a huge reconstruction of a dinosaur ("Bipedal, but capable of quadripedal locomotion'

'); quickly past some assembled skeletons of African and Asian elephants. Nor was he long (if at all) detained by the tall show-cases displaying their specimens of the birds and insects of Australasia. Finally, after making his way be-tween a statue of the Prince Consort and a well-stuffed os-trich, Morse emerged from the University Museum into the Pitt Rivers Museum; where he turned right, and knocked on the door of the Administrator.

Capital "A."

"Coffee?" she invited.

"No thanks. I've just had some."

"Some beer, you mean."

"Is it that obvious?"

'sas a tall, slim woman in her mid-foie?,, with p ilmaturely white hair, and an attractively diffiaent sm /ab, o, ut her lips.,,,, Some women, began Morse,; have an extraordinaril l: Welldeveloped sense of smell--But then he stopped. F( ' ond or two he'd anticipated a little mild flirtation wil T' an Seffe Cotterell. Clearly it was not to be, though, for he fe! her clear, intelligent eyes upon hm, and the tone of he voice was unambiguously no-nonsense: "How can I help you?"

For the next ten minutes she answered his questions.

Brooks had joined the eight-strong team of attendants the Pitt Rivers Museum--quite separate from the Universit Museum--almost exactly a year ago. He worked a fairl regular thirty-five-hour week, 8:30 ^.M. to 4:30 i,.., wi an hour off for lunch. The attendants had the job of clean ing and maintaining the premises; of keeping a watchf[ eye on all visitors, in particular on the many school-pattie regularly arriving by coach from near and far; sometimes c performing specific tasks, like manning the museum shop of being helpful and courteous to the public at all times "more friendly than fierce"; and above all, of course, c safeguarding the unrivalled collection of anthropologic and ethnographic items housed in the museum....