Inspector Lewis

Ladies and gentlemen, let us say grace.

Benedic nobis deus omnipotens,

Et his donis,

Quae ex liberalitate tua sumpturi sumus,

Amen.

Good night, gentlemen. Thank you very much for coming.

Mr Linn, you don't know me.

My name is Fury.

I'm a freelance journalist and I've been

talking to a son Of The Twice Born.

If you'd like to know what he had to say about that little group,

call when you've returned from High Table.

Say, nine this evening.

The number's 993-817.

Hello?

This is Sefton. What's this all about?

He's dying? What do you mean, he's dying?

To be honest, it's not where you want to be on a Tuesday.

Bloody kids!

Come on, you little scumbags.

Oof!

There's a stack of courses to choose from.

I know.

- Human geography? - Nah. I've looked at that.

Understanding the physical and human environment, and means of improving it.

And?

I'm a copper. I'm already doing all that.

Well, there's no great mystery.

Clubbed to death with a blunt instrument.

Any idea why?

Normal body temperature minus measured body temperature divided by 1.5 says,

some time between ten and 12.

It was certainly after dark.

How do you know?

There was a flash torch lying beneath the body.

Who am I looking for?

Definitely somebody with blood on their clothes or their person.

Thanks, Doctor.

One contact book. One wallet containing pawn ticket dated the day before yesterday.

One London to Oxford rail ticket return.

One pair of glasses and that's it.

Well, he won't be needing one now.

Nothing like a bit of gallows humour to kick-start the day, eh, sir?

Know anything about painting?

A bit.

Enough to tell good from bad.

And?

And I refuse to speak ill of the dead.

Thank God for that.

I thought maybe I was missing something.

What are all these little marks?

That's never a signature, surely?

Well, it's in the right place.

I recognise some of those characters. It's Ancient Greek.

What's the betting he's an Oxford man?

Engine oil, sir. Pretty fresh.

There can't be many cars pass through here.

Or buses for that matter.

So how did he get here, then?

As far as we know, he didn't drive

and I doubt very much whether he walked all the way from the railwaystation.

Hitched a lift?

Or ordered a taxi?

If he did that, maybe the cabby can remember him.

I called the pawnbroker in London.

The dead man's name was Dean Greely. He lived in Bayswater.

What did he pawn?

Interesting, that. A gent's ring, solid gold.

He'd hocked it a few times before, but always redeemed it.

Then two days ago, they gave him a couple of hundred on it. By today, he had nothing.

And we think his watch is missing as well.

Killed for a watch and a few hundred pounds? Let's hope not.

Do we have a murder weapon?

Not yet.

The driver from City Cabs definitely remembers dropping Greely at the narrow boat.

And when she gets back to the station, her next fare's a woman.

The woman wants to know where Greely had been dropped.

Well, where was she dropped - this woman?

Cheap B&B, but when I phone there, they say she's left.

- Moved here. - Big step up from a B&B.

Must have come into some money.

Do you have an Ingrid Nielson here?

I asked where the previous fare had been dropped

because the previous fare was Dean Greely,

my partner in life for the last 20 years and more.

Your husband.

Well, we never got round to the marriage thing.

Miss Nielson...

..Dean Greely was murdered last night.

What?

How?

He was attacked.

We won't have the details until the postmortem's completed.

I thought you might be here about...

..the money and the watch.

- What about the money and the watch? - Well, I went out there last night.

He wasn't there.

The door was open, but nobody, you know...

And what then?

His watch was lying on the table.

Anyway, I picked it up and took what money I found in his wallet and left.

When you showed up, I thought...

.."The damn fool thinks he's been robbed."

Maybe we should go and talk some more down at the police station.

A suspect! That's what I like to hear.

Not a suspect?

I want to hold her until we check her clothes for blood, but I don't think she's the one.

If she killed Greely, why hang around in Oxford?

# Und Macheath der hat ein Messer...

Miss Nielson was just telling me that she's a tribute artist.

I also act.

Strictly avant-garde.

Experimental.

Why did you ask the taxi driver where Mr Greely had been dropped?

I wanted to make sure that's where he'd be.

Why would he lie about where he was going?

A woman phoned.

Wouldn't give her name. Said she wanted to speak to Dean.

I told her she should call back.

- And did she? - I don't know.

But the next thing is, Deano's off to Oxford.

Said it was at the behest of an old student pal.

So you followed him to Oxford,

made sure that he was on the boat,

booked yourself in a B&B, with what intention?

Of going back out there and catching them in flagrante.

He seems to have used Ancient Greek to sign his pictures. Why was that?

A hangover from his Oxford days.

We met at Oxford, you know.

Constable, Miss Nielson's clothes, please.

- I can go? - For the moment.

We've got nothing to hold you on.

This old student pal who might have phoned and got Greely up here - any joy?

Well, I called every number in Greely's contact book,

but none of them went to Oxford with him.

There is still this entry, however.

But he's using Ancient Greek again.

- Why did he do that? - I don't know.

I did some Greek as part of the theology course.

If I'm right, then this heading reads, "The Sons Of The Twice Born."

Which would be a reference to the Greek god Dionysus.

Twice Born?

Yeah. The gods had a falling out

and the expectant mother of Dionysus perished.

Zeus took the foetus, sewed it into his thigh,

and then some time later Dionysus was born for the second time.

Right. Course he was.

What about these three lines here?

I don't know.

Just random letters.

It could be a code maybe.

I know someone that can help.

Professor Gold.

Detective Inspector Lewis, Sergeant Hathaway.

- May we have a word? - Please.

I'm sure we've met, haven't we?

Or in another life perhaps.

No, this one, but it was a long time ago.

It's your lovely accent.

We were wondering if you could translate something for us.

I've managed to translate some of it,

but these three lines, well, they're all Greek to me.

- You're a scholar. Yes.

Cambridge?

- What makes you ask that? - It would explain your limitations.

Ah, let me see.

Oh, of course. Three sets of alphabetic numbers.

Quite common in the Hellenistic period,

having displaced the acrophonic system.

Numbers?

Telephone numbers, actually.

How do you know that?

Because they all start with the Oxford area dialling code.

Telephone numbers. How didn't YOU see that?

Cambridge, eh?

What do they teach them there?

Well, thanks for your time, Professor.

You were with Morse when we last met.

That's right, ma'am.

Shame about that - Morse.

Had his querulous side, of course.

But we're none of us perfect.

No. No, we're not.

Drop me back at the station and get down to the telephone exchange.

I want names to go with all these numbers.

If one of them did get Greely up here, I want to know which one and why.

Well? - Got 'em all.

I checked out all three names to see if we had them on file.

First up is Harry Bundrick. The number I was given

was for Bundrick's Bicycle Shop in town.

And?

In 1984, Mr Bundrick was cautioned for kerb-crawling.

On one of his bikes? Go on.

Next up, Dr Sefton Linn.

College Principal, heavily tipped to be a future Vice-Chancellor.

Dr Linn is not on file.

Lastly, Theodore Platt.

Last surviving member of a very wealthy Oxford family.

Disparate group. What about Platt? Got anything on him?

This is awkward, bearing in mind what happened to your wife.