The Wench Is Dead

So many questions.

But if sex was at the bottom of things, why were the rape charges dropped at the first trial? Agreed, there was no biological fingerprinting in the 1850s; no genetic code that could be read into some desperate fellow's swift dilations. But even in that era, the charge of rape could be made to stick without too much difficulty; and Confucius's old pleasantry about the comparative immobility of a man with his trousers round his ankles must of sounded just as hollow then as now. Certainly to the ears of Joa

The footnote referring to the Court Registers had been surprise, and it would be of interest, certainly to the sociologist, to read something of contemporary attitudes rape in 1859. Pretty certainly it would be a few leagues less sympathetic than that reflected in Morse's morning of The Times: 'Legal Precedent in Civil Action -£35.000 damages for Rape Victim'. Where were those Registers, though – if they still existed? They might (Morse supposed) have explained the Colonel's bracketed caveat about discrepancies. But what discrepancies? There must been something in old Deniston's mind, something that bothered him just that tiny bit. The Greeks had a word for it – parakrousis – the striking of a slightly wrong note in an othrrwise tuneful harmony.

Was that 'wrong note' struck by Mrs Laurenson, perhaps? Whatever the situation had been with Joa

Boots… shoes…

What was all that about those shoes? Why were figuring so repeatedly in the story? There would have been more intimate items of Joa

Morse, telling himself not to be so stupid, looked again, at the last couple of pages of the text. A bit over-written all that stuff about the sentinel-like old lock-house, look out over the dark waters. Not bad, though: and at least: made Morse resolve to drive out and see it for himself, once he was well again. Unless the pla

Like they'd pulled down St Ebbe's…

Such were some of Morse's thoughts after reading second instalment. It was quite natural that he should wish to eke out the pleasures afforded by the Colonel's text. Yet it: must be admitted that, once again, Morse had almost totally failed to conceive the real problems raised by this narrative. Usually, Morse was a league and a league in front of any competitive intellects; and even now his thought processes were clear and unorthodox. But for the time being, he far below his best. Too near the picture. He was standing where the coloured paints on the narrow-boat's sides had little chance of imposing any pattern on his eye. What he really needed was to stand that bit further back from the picture to get a more synoptic view of things. 'Synoptic' had always been one of Morse's favourite words. Quickly he re-read Part Two. But he seemed to see little more general terms than he had done earlier, although there e a few extra points of detail which had evaded him on first reading, and he stored them away, haphazardly, in his brain, there was that capital 'J', for example, that the Colonel favoured whenever he wished to emphasize the enormity of humnan iniquity and the infallibility of Jury and Judicature like the capital 'G' the Christian Churches always used for God.

Then there were those journeys through the two tu

And those last complex, confusing paragraphs! She had been desperately anxious to get off the boat and away from her tipsy persecutors – so much seemed beyond any reasonable doubt. But, if so, why, according to that selfsame evidence, had she always been so anxious to get back on again?

Airy-fairy speculation, all this; but there were at least two things that could be factually checked. 'Nothing was convenient', it had said, and any researcher worth his salt could easily verify that. What was available, at the time Joa

Interesting…

As, come to think of it, were those double quotation marks in the text – presumably the actual words, direct transcribed, and reported verbatim, and therefore primary source material for the crewmen's trial. Morse looked: through the interspersed quotations again, and one in particular caused his mind to linger: "coaches to London -and coaches from Oxford to Banbury". Now, if those were the exact words Joa

Again, it all seemed most interesting – at least to Morse What, finally, was he to make of that drink business? Had Joa

Or, rather, would have been, to most men.

The thought of drink had begun to concentrate Morse's mind powerfully, and with great circumspection and care. Morse poured a finger of Scotch into his bedside glass, with the same amount of plain water. Wonderful! Pity that no one would ever believe his protestations that Scotch was a necessary stimulant to his brain cells! For after a few minutes his mind was flooding with ideas – exciting ideas! – and furthermore he realized that he could begin to test one or two of his hypotheses that very evening.

That is, if Walter Greenaway's daughter came to visit.