The Secret of Annexe 3

At eight forty-five, Superintendent Bell rang through from St Aldates to ask if Morse required any further men to help him. But Morse declined the offer; for the moment he could think of nothing he could profitably effect with a posse of policemen, except perhaps to conduct some inevitably futile house-to-house inquiries in and around Chipping Norton to ascertain whether anyone had knowledge of a man of indeterminate age, partner to a pseudonymous Ann Ballard, with neither a club-foot, nor a withered arm, nor a swastika tattooed on his forehead to assist any possible identification. Further, it became quite clear from the guests interviewed later that morning that none of them would with any certitude be able to recognize Mr Ballard again. Such diffidence (as Morse saw things) was hardly surprising: the only time the other guests had met Ballard was during that one evening; up until then he had been a complete stranger to them; and he had spent most of the evening closely shielded and chaperoned by what others had taken to be a jealously possessive wife. Indeed the only reason that many could recall him at all was the extremely obvious one: he had won first prize in the men's fancy-dress competition, dressed in the consummately skilful disguise of a West Indian reggae musician. The only new fact of any substance to emerge was that he had, certainly in the later part of the evening, drunk more than one glass of whisky - Bell's, according to Mandy, the stand-in barmaid. But there was also general agreement, fully corroborating Sarah Jonstone's earlier evidence,- that Ballard had eaten very little indeed. Several witnesses had a clear recollection of him dancing with his yashmak'd companion (lover? mistress? wife?), and only with her, for most of the evening;but Mr Dods (‘With t'one d"') was almost prepared to swear on Geoffrey Boycott's batting average that Ballard had also danced, towards midnight, with an animated youngish woman named Mrs Palmer – ‘Philippa' or 'Pippa' Palmer, as he recalled - as well as with the hotel receptionist ('A little tipsy, Inspector, if ah mair sair sor!'). And that was about that. And towards the end of the morning it was becoming increasingly obvious to both Morse and Lewis that the only firm and valuable testimony they were going to get was that given the previous evening by Sarah (tipsy or not!) Jonstone, who had claimed in her statement to Lewis that she had peeped out of her window at about 1 a.m. and seen at that late, flake-falling, whitely covered hour, the prize-winning Rastafarian walking back across to the annexe with an arm around each of the women on either side of him. It seemed good to Morse, therefore, to summon the fair Miss Jonstone once again.

* * *

She sat there, her legs crossed, looking tired, every few moments pushing her spectacles up to the top of her nose with the middle finger of her ringless left hand - and thereby irritating Morse to a quite disproportionate extent - as he himself hooked his half-lenses behind his ears and trusted that he projected an appropriate degree of investigative acumen.

'After the annexe lot left the party, the others finished too - is that right?'

'I think so.'

'You don't know so?'

'No.'

'You say Ballard had his arms round these two women?' 'No, he had one arm round one woman and one —' 'Which two women?'

'Mrs Palmer was one - I'm fairly sure of that.'

'And the other one?'

‘I think it was... Mrs Smith.'

'You'd had quite a lot to drink, hadn't you!'

Sarah Jonstone's pale face coloured deeply; and yet perhaps it was, that morning, more from anger than from shame. 'Oh yes!' she said, in a firm, quiet voice, ‘I don't think you'll find a single person in the hotel who would disagree with that.'

'But you saw the women fairly clearly?' (Morse was beginning to appreciate Miss Jonstone more and more.)

'I saw them clearly from the back, yes.'

'It was snowing, wasn't it?'

'Yes.'

'So they had their coats on?'

'Yes. Both of them had light-coloured winter macs on.'

'And you say' - Morse referred to her statement - 'that the other three members of the annexe sextet were just behind them?'

Sarah nodded.

'So, if you're right about the first three, that leaves us with Mrs Ballard, Mr Palmer and Mr... Smith - yes?' Sarah hesitated - and then said 'Yes!' - then pushed her spectacles up once more towards her luminous eyes.

'And behind them all came Mr Binyon?'

'Yes -1 think he was going to make sure that the side door to the annexe was locked up after them.'

'That's what he says, too.'

'So it might be true, Inspector.'

But Morse appeared not to have heard her. 'After Mr Binyon had locked up the annexe, no one else could have got in there?' 'Not unless he had a key.' 'Or she had a key!' 'Or she had a key, yes.'

'But anyone could have got out of the annexe later on?'

Again Sarah hesitated before answering. 'Yes, I suppose so. I hadn't really thought of it, but - yes. The lock's an ordinary Yale one, and any of the guests could have got out, if they'd wanted to.’