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'Yes you have, Charles! You've been lying all your life. You've lied to me for years about everything-we both know it. The odd thing is that now you're lying to try to save me! But it's no good, is it?' The woman who had been seated behind the table in the office outside now walked into the room and sat on the edge of the desk. She turned to Morse: 'I'm Celia Richards, the wife of that so-called "husband" behind the desk there. He told me-but he'd no option really-that you were coming here today, and he didn't want Josephine, his normal secretary-and for all I know yet another of his conquests,' she added bitterly, 'he didn't want her to know about the police, and so he got me to sit out there. You needn't worry: it was all perfectly amicable. We had it all worked out. He'd told me you'd be asking about Jericho, and we decided that he'd try to bluff his way through. But if he didn't quite manage it-you did pretty well, you know, Charles!-then I agreed to come in. You see, Inspector, he left the intercom on all the time you've been speaking, and I've listened to every word that's been said. But it's no good any longer-is it, Charles?'
Richards said nothing: he looked an utterly defeated man.
'Have you got a cigarette, Inspector?' asked Celia as she unfolded her elegant legs and walked over to stand behind the desk. 'My turn, I think, Charles.' Richards got up and stood rather awkwardly beside her as she took her seat on the executive chair, and drew deeply on one of Morse's cigarettes.
'I don't want to dwell on the point unduly, Inspector, but poor Charles here isn't the only accomplished liar in the room, is he? I think, if I may say so, that it was a pretty cheap and underhand little trick of yours to go on about those coats like you did. Mackintoshes and duffle coats, my foot! You see, Inspector, it was me who went to see A
Chapter Twenty-Four
Some falsehood mingles with all truth.
– Longfellow, The Golden Legend
As he drove back to Oxford that lunchtime, Morse thought about Celia Richards. She had told her tale with a courageous honesty and Morse had no doubt whatsoever that it was true. During her husband's earlier liaisons with A
Throughout Celia's story, Richards himself had sat silently; and after she had finished, Celia herself lapsed into a similar, almost abject, silence. How the pair would react-how they did react-after his departure, Morse could only guess. They had refused his offer of a drink at the White Swan, and Morse himself stoically decided that he would wait for a pint until he got back to Kidlington. For a couple of minutes he was held up along Oxford Avenue by temporary traffic lights along a short stretch of road repairs, and by chance he found himself noticing the number of the house on the gate-post to his left: 204. He remembered that it must be very close indeed to the Richards' residence, and as he passed he looked carefully at number 216-set back some thirty yards, with a gravelled path leading up to the garage. Not all that palatial? Certainly there were other properties aplenty near by that could more appropriately have housed a successful businessman and his wife; and it suddenly occurred to Morse that perhaps Charles Richards was not quite so affluent as he might wish others to believe. It was a thought, certainly, but Morse could see little point in pursuing it. In fact, however, it would have repaid him handsomely at that point to have turned the Lancia round immediately and visited the Abingdon Branch of Lloyds Bank to try to seek some confidential insight into the accounts of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Richards, although not (it must be said) for the reason he had just considered. For the moment a mystery had been cleared up, and that, for a morning's work, seemed fair enough. He drove steadily on, passing a turning on his right which was sign-posted 'Radley'. Wasn't that where Je