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

'
    'He left his post at the school and, well, he just went.'
    'But he must have—'
    She picked up the bucket and prepared to leave. 'Nobody knows where he went.'
    But Morse sensed she was lying. 'It's your duty to tell me, you know, if you've any idea at all where he went.' He spoke now with a quiet authority, and a flush arose in the woman's cheeks.
    'It's nothing really. Just that he—he left at the same time as someone else. That's all.'
    'And it was fairly easy to put two and two together?'
    She nodded. 'Yes. You see, he left Oxford the same week as Mrs. Josephs.'
     

CHAPTER EIGHT

    M ORSE LEFT THE church and strolled over to the snack bar.
    'One coffee, please,' he said to the girl lounging by the pay-desk.
    'If you go an' si' down, one of the girls'll come.'
    'Oh.' It all seemed a roundabout business.
    He sat and stared abstractedly through the large window, flecked now with drizzle, and watched the people walking to and fro along Cornmarket. Immediately opposite him, fencing in the church and the churchyard, were the sharply pointed, black-painted railings of St. Frideswide's, against which a bearded, damp-looking tramp was leaning uncertainly, a bottle of something hanging loosely in his left hand.
    'Order, please?' It was the same waitress.
    'You just had it,' snapped Morse.
    'Im sorry, sir, bu—'
    'Forget it, luv.'
    He left and walked back across the street.
    'How goes it, brother?'
    The tramp looked at Morse warily through an incongruous pair of dark sun-glasses: unsolicited interest in his well-being was quite clearly no everyday occurrence. 'Could do wiv a cup o' tea, guv.'
    Morse pushed a couple of ten-pence pieces into a surprisingly clean hand. 'Do you usually stand here?'
    'Nah. Usually be'ind Brasenose College. Makes a change, though, don't it?'
    'Some nice kind people come out of the church, do they?'
    'Sometimes.'
    'You know the minister here?'
    'Nah. Tell yer to push off, like as not, this one. Knew the other one, though. Real gent he was, guv. Sometimes 'e'd take yer down to the vicarage an' give yer a real square meal, 'e would.'
    'Is he the one who died?'
    The tramp looked at Morse with what could have been a glint of suspicion behind the dark lenses, and took a swig on the bottle. 'Christ, you can say that again, mister.' He shuffled along the railings towards Carfax, and was gone.
    Morse crossed the road yet again, and walked past the snack bar, past a well-stocked bicycle-shop, past the cinema, and then turned left into the curving sweep of Beaumont Street. Momentarily he debated between the Ashmolean, just opposite on his right, and the Randolph, immediately on his left. It wasn't a fair contest.
    The cocktail-bar was already quite full as Morse waited rather impatiently for a group of Americans to sort out their gins and tarnics. The barmaid wore a low-cut dress and Morse watched with what he told himself was a fascinated indifference as she finally leaned forward over the beer-pump to pull his order. She was too young, though—no more than twenty-odd—and Morse was beginning to formulate the philosophy that men were attracted to women of roughly their own age—well, give or take ten years or so either way.
    He sat down, savoured his beer, and took out cutting number three from his pocket. It was dated Wednesday, 19 October.
     
----
TRAGIC FALL FROM CHURCH TOWER
     
Y esterday morning the Reverend Lionel Lawson fell to his death from the tower of St. Frideswide's Church in Cornmarket. Only ten minutes earlier he had conducted the regular 7.30 a.m. Communion Service, and two members of the congregation were among the first to discover the tragedy.
The church tower, formerly a favourite viewing-point for tourists, has been closed to the public for the last two years as signs of crumbling have become evident in the stone fabric on the north side. But the tower was not considered unsafe, and only a week ago workmen had been up to check the leads.
Mr. Lawson, a bachelor, aged 41, had been vicar