The Secret of Annexe 3

When Helen Smith came to court (inevitably so, as Lewis saw things) it seemed wholly probable that this darkly attractive, innocent-looking defendant would plead guilty to the charges brought against her, and would pretty certainly ask, too, for one-hundred-and-one other offences to be taken into consideration. But she hardly looked or sounded like a criminal, and her account of the time she had spent at the Haworth Hotel appeared honest and clear. Four (yes!) bottles of champagne had been ordered - they both liked the lovely stuff! - two on New Year's Eve and two on New Year's Day, with the last of the four still in the larder if Lewis wanted to see it. (Lewis did.) Yes, she remembered a few things about the Ballards, and about the Palmers; but her recollections of specific times and specific details were even hazier than Philippa Palmer's had been the previous evening. Like Philippa, though, she thought that the evening had been well organized - and great fun; and that the food and drink had been very good indeed. The Smiths, both of them, enjoyed fancy-dress parties; and that New Year's Eve they had appeared - an oddly uncomplementary pair! - as a seductive Cleopatra and as a swordless Samurai. Would Lewis like to see the costumes? (Lewis would.) Whether Ballard had eaten much or drunk much that evening, she couldn't remember with any certainty. But she did remember, most clearly, Ballard walking back with her through the snow (Oh yes! it had been snowing heavily then) to the hotel annexe, and ruining the right shoulder-lapel of her mackintosh, where his right hand had left a dirty dark-brown stain - which of course Lewis could see if he so desired. (As Lewis did.)

During the last part of this interview Morse had seemed only minimally interested in Lewis's interrogation, and had been leafing through an outsize volume entitled The Landscape of Thomas Hardy. But now, suddenly, he asked a question.

'Would you recognize Mrs Ballard if you saw her again?'

'I -I don't really know. She was in fancy dress and —'

'In a yashmak, wasn't she?'

Helen nodded, somewhat abashed by the brusqueness of his questions. 'Didn't she eat anything?' 'Of course, yes.'

'But you can't eat anything in a yashmak!' ‘No.'

'You must have seen her face, then?'

Helen knew that he was right; and suddenly, out of the blue, she did remember something. 'Yes,' she began slowly. 'Yes, I did see her face. Her top lip was a bit red, and there were red sort of pin-pricks - you know, sort of little red spots

But even as Helen spoke these words, her own upper lip was trembling uncontrollably, and it was clear that the hour of questioning had left her spirits very low indeed. The tears were suddenly springing copiously and she turned her head sharply away from the two policemen in total discomfiture.

In the car, Lewis ventured to ask whether it might not have been wiser to take Helen Smith back to Oxford there and then for further questioning. But Morse appeared unenthusiastic about any such immediate move, asserting that, compared with the likes of Marcinkus & Co. in the Vatican Bank, John and Helen Smith were sainted folk in white array.

It was just after they had turned on to the A34 that Morse mentioned the strange affair of the yashmak'd lady's upper lip.

'How did you guess, Lewis?' he asked.

'It's being married, sir - so I don't suppose you ought to blame yourself too much for missing it. You see, most women like to look their best when they go away, let's say for a holiday or a trip abroad or something similar; and the missus has a bit of trouble like that - you know, a few unsightly hairs growing just under the chin or a little fringe of hairs on the top lip. A lot of women have the same trouble especially if they've got darkish sort of hair—'

'But your missus has got fair hair!'

'All right; but it happens to everybody a bit as they get older. You get rather self-conscious and embarrassed about it if you're a woman, so you often go to one of the hair clinics like the Tao or something and they give you electrolysis and they put a needle sort of thing into the roots of the hairs and - well, sort of get rid of them. Costs a bit though, sir!'

'But being a rich man you can just about afford to let the missus go along to one of these beauty parlours?'

'Just about!'

Lewis suddenly put down his foot with a joyous thrust, turned on his right-hand flasher, took the police car up to 95 m.p.h., veered in a great swoop across the outside lane, and netted a dozen lorries and cars which had thoughtfully decelerated to the

statutory speed limit as they'd noticed the white car looming up

in their rear mirrors.

'The treatment they give you’ continued Lewis, 'makes the skin go a bit pinkish all over and they say if it's on the top lip it's very sensitive and you often get a histamine reaction - and a sort of tingling sensation ...'