‘But let me tell you a very strange thing, Lewis. In fact, you do need to be a genius to understand it! Not so much now, of course – but certainly at any earlier point in the case. Let’s recap. The first man who went to London was confronted with a ghost from his past – the ghost of cowardice in war. But it was the wrong ghost that the Gilbert brothers conjured up that day, because Browne-Smith had nothing whatsoever to do with the death of their younger brother. Then a second man went to London, and you know what I’m going to say, don’t you, Lewis? He, too was confronted with the wrong ghost from his own past. Westerby had not voted against Browne-Smith-he’d abstained. And, in turn, Westerby learned that Browne-Smith had not cast the solitary vote against his own election: he, too, had abstained. Yet someone had voted against each of them; and as they spoke together that night in London the blindingly obvious fact must have occurred to them – that it could well have been the same man in each case! And if it was, then they knew beyond any reasonable doubt exactly who that man must be!

‘So we find a third man going to London to face his own particular ghost-this time the right ghost. And soon a man is found in the canal here: a man minus a very distinguished-looking head that was framed with a luxuriant crop of grey hair; a man minus the hands-particularly minus the little finger of his left hand on which he wore the large, onyx dress-ring that he never took off, and which his murderers couldn’t remove from his fleshy finger; a man minus one of those flamboyant suits of his that were famed throughout the University; a man, Lewis, who had voted against two of his colleagues in the last election for the Mastership; a man – the man – who by his own machinations had finally been adopted as a compromise, third-choice candidate, and duly elected nem. con.; the man whose own ambition was even greater than that of his other colleagues, and his practical cunning infinitely more so; the same man who at the beginning of the case invited me to try to find out what had happened to Browne-Smith- not because he was worried, but because it was his duty - as Head of House! Yes, Lewis! The man we found in the water here was the Master of Lonsdale.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

At the end of the Michaelmas term that followed the events recorded in these chapters, it was no great surprise for Morse (or ‘ indeed for anyone) to hear that the man whom Dr Browne-Smith had once described as ‘quite a good young man’ had been elected to the Mastership of Lonsdale. More of a surprise for Morse was subsequently to receive an invitation to a buffet supper in Lonsdale to celebrate Andrews’ election. And, without enthusiasm, he went.

Little was said that night about the tragic past, and Morse mingled amiably enough with the college members and then-guests. The food was excellent, the wine plentiful; and Morse was just on his way out, feeling that after all it hadn’t been so bad, when an extraordinarily attractive woman came up to him -a woman with vivacious eyes and blonde hair piled up on her head.

‘You’re Chief Inspector Morse, I think.’

He nodded, and she smiled.

‘You don’t know me, but we spoke on the phone once -only once! I, well, I just thought I’d like to say “hello”, that’s all. I’m the college secretary here.’ Her left hand went up to her hair to re-align a straying strand-a hand that wore no ring.

‘I’m awfully sorry about that! I sometimes get a bit cross, I’m afraid.’

‘I did notice, yes.’

‘You’ve forgiven me?’

‘Of course! You’re a bit of a genius, aren’t you? Your sergeant thinks so, anyway. And some geniuses are a bit-well, sort of unusual, so they tell me.”

‘I wish I’d spoken to you nicely.’

She smiled once again – a little sadly: ‘I’m glad I’ve seen you.’ Then, brightly: ‘You enjoying yourself?’

‘I am now.’

For a few seconds their eyes met, and Morse was reminded of some of the great lost days and a face that shone beyond all other faces.

‘Would you like some coffee, Inspector?’

‘Er, no. No thanks.’

A tall, gangling, bespectacled man in his mid-thirties had joined them.

‘Ah, Anthony! Let me introduce you to Chief Inspector Morse!’

Morse shook the man’s limp hand, and looked upon him briefly with distaste.

‘Anthony’s one of the Research Fellows here, and – and we’re going to be married next term, aren’t we, darling?’

Morse mumbled his congratulations, and after a few minutes announced that he must go. It was still only ten o’clock, and he could spend half an hour with himself in the Mitre. Red wine always made him a little sentimental-and more than a little thirsty.

CHAPTER FORTY

The head of Gerardus Mercator (as indeed the whole of Westerby’s estate) was bequeathed to the Fellows of Lonsdale, and that fine head is still to be seen in an arched recess on the east side of High Table.

And what of that other fine head? It was finally found in the early March of the following year by two twelve-year-old boys playing on a Gravesend rubbish-tip. How the head ever reached such a distant and unlikely site remains a minor mystery; but it posed no other problems. The notes of the pathologist who first examined the skull recorded signs of a massive haemorrhage in the chambers of the upper brain, doubtless caused by the bullet still embedded there. Later forensic tests were to show that this bullet had been fired from a.38 Webley pistol-the make of pistol issued to officers of the Royal Wiltshire Regiment serving in the desert in 1942.

Colin Dexter

Colin Dexter lives in Oxford. He has won many awards for his novels and in 1997 was presented with the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for outstanding services to crime literature.