Inspector Morse 11 The Daughters of Cain

It was Lewis himself who took the call from the fingerprint bureau half an hour later. No match. No match anywhere. Whoever it was who had left some fingerprints on the Rho-desian knife, it had not been Mrs. Brenda Brooks or Mrs. Julia Stevens; nor, as they'd already learned, Ms. Eleanor Smith. One other piece of information. Classifying and identifying fingerprints was an immensely complicated job and they couldn't be absolutely sure yet; but it was looking almost certain now that the fingerprints on the knife-handle didn't match those of any known criminals either--well over two million of them in the Scotland Yard library.

"So you see what it means, Sarge? Whoever murdered your fellow doesn't look as if he had any previous conviction.'

"Or she," added Lewis, after putting down the phone.

Them was no need to relay the message, since a glum looking Morse had heard it all anyway.

In silence.

A silence that persisted.

The report that Lewis had written on the visit to Matthew Rodway's mother was on the top of Morse's pile.

"Hope I didn't make too many spelling mistakes, sir?" ventured Lewis finally.

"What? No, no. You're improving. Slowly."

"I don't suppose she gives tuppence really--Mrs. Rod-way, I mean about who killed Brooks. So long as some-body did."

Morse granted inarticulately. His thoughts drifted back to their meeting with Mrs. Rodway. It seemed an age ago now; but as his eyes skimmed through the report once again he could clearly visualise that interview, and the room, and the slim and still embittered Mrs. Rodway....

"I know it's probably nonsense, sir, but you don't think that she could have murdered Brooks, do you?"

"She had as good a motive as anybody," admitted Morse.

"Perhaps we ought to have another little ride ou there and take her fingerprints."

"Not today, Lewis. I'm out for a meal, if you remember."

"I'll see you there, sir, if you don't mind. About six, is that all right?

"What are you going to do?"

"Lots of little things. Make a bit more progress with the keys, for a start. I'm expected at the Pitt Rivers in twenty minutes."

After Lewis had left, Morse lit yet another cigarette and leaned back in the black leather chair, looking purposelessly around his off'me. He noticed the thin patina of nicotine on the emulsioned walls. Yes, the place could do with a good wash-down and redecoration: the comers of the ceiling es-pecially were deeply stained....

Suddenly, he felt a brief frisson of excitement as if there were something of vital importance in what he'd just read, or what he'd just thought, or what he'd just seen. But try as he might, he was unable to isolate the elusive clue; and soon he knew it was of no use trying any more.

It had gone.

Chapter Sixty-three

Fingerprints do get left at crime scenes. Even the craftiest of perpetrators sometimes forget to wipe up everywhere (Murder Ink, Incriminating Evidence)

Her first sentence, spoken with an attractive Welsh lilt, was a perfect anapaestic pentameter: "We shall have to eat here in the kitchen, Inspector, all right?"

"Wherever, Mrs. Lewis. Have no fears."

"We've got the decorators in, see? But just go and sit down in the lounge---where I've put out some beer and a glass." (Anapaestic hexameter.)

As he passed the dining-room, Morse stopped to look in-side.

The decorators had finished for the day; almost fin-ished altogether, it seemed, for only around the main window were some paint-stained white sheets still lying across the salmon-pink carpet, with all of the fumiture now pushed back into place except for a bookcase, which stood awkwardly in mid-room, a wooden stepladder propped up against it. Clearly, though, there would be no problem about its own relocation, either, for the site of its former habitation was marked by an oblong of strawberry-red carpet to the left of the window.

Mrs. Lewis was suddenly behind him.

"You like the colour?"

"Very professionally painted," said Morse, a man with no knowledge whatsoever of professionalism in painting and decorating.

"You were looking at the carpet, though, weren't you now?" she said shrewdly. "Only had it five years--and they told us the colours in all of their carpets would last till emity." (Anapaests everywhere.)

"I suppose everything fades," said Morse. It hardly seemed a profound observation--not at the time.

"It's the sun really, see. That's why you get most of your discolouration. In the cupboards--on the lining for the cupboards--you hardly get fading at all."

Morse moved on into the lounge where he opened a can of Cask Flow Beamish, sat contentedly back in an arm-chair, and was watching the Six O'clock News when Lewis came in.

"You look pleased with yourself," said Morse.