Inspector Morse 4 - Service Of All The Dead by Colin Dexter Read Free Book Online

a dozen or so people had attended the evening service, and the offertory could have amounted at most only to about two or three pounds.
Several members of the congregation had heard sounds of some disturbance at the back of the church, but no one suspected that anything was seriously wrong until Mr. Josephs had shouted for help. The vicar, the Reverend L. Lawson, immediately suspended the service and summoned the police and the ambulance, but Mr. Josephs died before either could arrive.
The knife used by the murderer was of a dull, golden colour, cast in the shape of a crucifix, with the blade honed to a razor sharpness. Police are anxious to hear from anyone who has knowledge of such a knife.
Mr. Josephs, aged 50, was married and lived in Port Meadow Drive, Wolvercote. He came to Oxford after 

serving as a regular officer in the Royal Marine Commandos and saw active service in Malaya. Until two years ago he worked for the Inland Revenue Department. There are no children. The inquest is to be held next Monday.
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    Morse quickly read through the article again, for there were a couple of things, quite apart from the extraordinary typography of the last paragraph, that puzzled him slightly.
    'Did you know him very well?'
    'Pardon?' The woman stopped her scrubbing and looked across at him.
    'I said did you know Josephs well.'
    A flicker of unease in those brown eyes? Had she heard him the first time?
    'Yes, I knew him quite well. He was a churchwarden here. It says so, doesn't it?'
    Morse let it go and turned his attention to the second cutting, dated Tuesday, 4 October:
     
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INQUEST RIDDLE
     
T he inquest on Mr. H.A. Josephs, who was stabbed to death last week at St. Frideswide's Church, was adjourned yesterday after a twenty-minute hearing, but not before the court had heard some startling new evidence. The post-mortem report on Mr. Josephs showed that a lethal quantity of morphine was present in the stomach, but it seemed clear that it was the stab-wound which had been the immediate cause of death.
Earlier, Mr. Paul Morris, of 3 Home Close, Kidlington, had given evidence of formal identification. He had been the organist during the service and was in fact playing the last hymn when Mr. Josephs was murdered.
Another witness. Miss Ruth Rawlinson, of 14 Manning Terrace, Summertown, said that she heard noises coming from the vestry during the singing of the last hymn, and had turned to see Mr. Josephs call out and slump beside the vestry curtains.
Chief Inspector Bell, of the Oxford City Police, informed the Coroner that he was as yet unable to report on any firm developments in the case but that enquiries were proceeding. The Coroner extended his deepest sympathy to Mrs. Brenda Josephs, the deceased's wife.
The funeral service will be held at St. Frideswide's on Thursday at 2.30 p.m.
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    The narrative was bald, but interesting enough, wasn't it? What was morphine doing in the poor beggar's innards? Somebody must have wanted him out of the way pretty badly, and that somebody had so far got away with it and was still walking around—probably walking around the streets of Oxford—a free man. Or a free woman perhaps, he reminded himself, as he glanced across the aisle.
    Morse looked about him with renewed interest. He was actually sitting a few yards from the scene of the crime, and he tried to imagine it all: the organ playing, the few members of the congregation standing, heads bowed over their hymn-books—one minute, though! Where was the organ? He got to his feet and walked up the broad, shallow steps of the chancel. Yes. There it was, on the left-hand side behind two rows of choir-stalls, with a blue curtain stretched across in front of it to hide the body of the organist; and a mirror, too, fixed just above the high top manual, so that, however much he was concealed from the view of all others, the organist himself could keep an observant eye on the minister and the choir—and on the congregation as well,