Recap / Inspector Morse S 1 E 02 The Silent World Of Nicholas Quinn

The trouble with my method, Lewis is that it is inspirational and as a result I sometimes, sometimes, get things arse about face.

The lip-reading episode, based on the 1977 novel of the same name. First broadcast 13 January 1987.

Morse and Lewis investigate the death of Nicholas Quinn, a hard-of-hearing Oxford examiner who had recently complained to his superior that others in the examination syndicate were selling secrets. Quinn died of cyanide poisoning; some think he committed suicide but Morse is convinced that this is a case of murder. When a second prominent member of the syndicate is killed, Morse looks to the other members for the murderer. What he finds is a maze of deceit and office adultery.

This episode contains examples of:

• The Alibi: Roope's alibi for the murder of Quinn is that he was in London on the day in question, and met the Dean of Lonsdale College when getting off the train on his return to Oxford. But then, he's merely an accessory to murder, not the murderer.
• Always Murder: Two bodies in this episode, both murdered by the same person but with different methods (Quinn by poison, Ogleby by a blow to the head). Some of the characters initially assume that Quinn committed suicide; Morse, being Morse, is not one of them.
• Bitter Almonds: Morse and Max can both identify cyanide by the smell.
• The Cavalry: Lewis arrives at Donald Martin's house in the nick of time.
  Lewis: [calmly] Need a hand, sir?
  Morse: [shouting, while being attacked by Donald Martin] Get that bastard off me!
• The Con: Two employees of the Foreign Examinations Syndicate — Donald Martin and Roope — have been illicitly passing the contents of the exams to the education department in Al-Jamara for thousands of pounds via their former colleague George Bland, who now works in said Arabian country. Quinn was killed because he found out about it through lip-reading a conversation at a party — although unfortunately for him, this led him to suspect the wrong man. Nevertheless, Martin had to kill him to prevent the authorities learning of his scheme, and subsequently had to kill Ogleby to prevent him from divulging what he knew.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Alluded to when Morse and Lewis discuss the case towards the end.
  Lewis: We should have arrested Donald Martin straightaway.
  Morse: Why?
  Lewis: Morse's Law. You said there's a fifty-fifty chance that whoever finds the body did the deed.
  Morse: That isn't Morse's Law. Morse's Law is: "There's always time for one more pint".
• Creator Cameo: Colin Dexter plays a guest in the pre-credit opening scene at the social get-together. The man seen talking to him is Julian Mitchell, the man who wrote this episode.
• Crossword Puzzle: Ogleby sets crosswords using the pen-name "Daedalus". Morse, who's struggled with his puzzles for years, is delighted when he finds this out.
• Drinking on Duty: Morse gladly accepts a large scotch from Ogleby when he goes to interview him. He also insists on getting Lewis to pour them both a sherry, then watches as Lewis drinks his and tells him that he's killed him — thus demonstrating how Quinn was killed (by pouring himself a glass of poisoned sherry at the request of his murderer, who had his own glass but did not drink from it).
• Everyone Is a Suspect: Everyone who works for the Foreign Examinations Syndicate, especially once Morse cottons on to the notion of a fraud being committed in connection with the Al-Jamara Education Department. He expects them all to be lying when he questions them about what they were doing on Friday, the last day when Quinn was seen at work. As it happens, two of them, Martin and Roope, were responsible for the murder; Martin did the deed, while Roope (probably) suggested using poison and later moved the body from the Syndicate offices to Quinn's home. Martin did the second murder, that of Ogleby, on his own.
• Exact Words: When Roope is arrested for the second time, Morse says that he's been "arrested in connection with the murder" of Quinn, not for murder which is what Dr. Bartlett immediately assumes.
• First-Person Perspective: The episode begins with an audio example, showing the party from Nicholas Quinn's perspective; the volume of the conversation changes as he adjusts his hearing aid. We also get some close-ups of people speaking, establishing that he can lip-read.
• The Ghost: George Bland, the man on the Al-Jamara end of the exam fraud.
• Guilty Pleasures: More than one character is embarrassed to have been caught having attended a screening of Last Tango in Paris, treating it as if they'd gone to see a pornographic film. In the original novel, it was a pornographic film.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: Morse's Grammar Nazi tendencies come back to bite him when he himself slips up just after correcting Lewis.
  Lewis: Chap named Quinn, sir. He works for Foreign Examinations Syndicate.
  Morse: Worked.
  Lewis: Sir?
  Morse: Worked, Lewis — he's dead, isn't he? [Looks admiringly at the deceased's property] These academics do alright for themselves, don't they?
  Lewis: Did.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: At the end, Morse, who's been looking forward to going to the cinema to see Last Tango in Paris, is disappointed to see that the cinema is now showing 101 Dalmatians. He goes to the pub next door to the cinema instead.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": A downplayed example — when he goes to interview Ogleby, Morse is delighted to learn that he is "Daedalus", one of his favourite cryptic crossword compliers. After Ogleby is killed, Morse thinks he did not kill Quinn because "he set the best crosswords in England".
• Last-Name Basis: Once again, insisted on by Morse.
  Monica Height: If you're going to call me Monica, what should I call you?
  Morse: Morse. Everyone just calls me Morse.
• Reading Lips: Nicholas Quinn could do this. It's what leads to his murder, as he thinks he's lip-read a conversation which implicates Dr. Bartlett in the divulging of the contents of exam papers, and reports it to his colleague Philip Ogleby — which ends badly for both of them, even though they suspected the wrong colleague; the fact that they knew of the fraud was enough to put their lives in danger. Morse later attends a lip-reading class (in which he is surprised to learn that the teacher is herself deaf and was able to conduct a conversation with him purely by lip-reading), and later realises that, to a lip-reader, the names "Bartlett" and "Martin" involve very similar movements of the mouth.
• Red Herring: Dr. Bartlett, who Quinn assumed to have been the man implicated in the Al-Jamara exam fraud. Roope later manages to further implicate Bartlett by arranging a seemingly urgent meeting at a time when he knows he's being followed by Lewis.
  • There's also the case of Quinn's shopping which was purchased on the Friday afternoon; Quinn's cleaner notes that it contains salted butter, which Quinn never bought, leading Morse to realise that the shopping was purchased by the murderer (or, to be more accurate, the murderer's accomplice) to push back the estimate for the time of Quinn's death.
• Running Gag: Once again, Lewis pays for the beer when he and Morse go to the pub.
• Scenery Porn: Plenty of lingering shots of Oxford landmarks; standard for this show. Brasenose and Exeter Colleges are used as stand-ins for Lonsdale.
• Shout-Out: While Morse hasn't seen Last Tango in Paris, he does seem to know what's used as a lubricant in the infamous rape scene (said food item later becomes a plot point; see below under Too Clever by Half for more).
  Morse: [standing in front of the movie poster outside the cinema] You ever seen this?
  Lewis: No!
  Morse: Me neither. [beat] My doctor says I should lose some weight, stop eating butter, start eating, err, polyunsaturates, whatever they are. Not quite the same though, is it, Lewis?
• Skewed Priorities: Dr. Bartlett is more worried about his wife finding out that he went to see Last Tango in Paris (and walked out after about half an hour) than he is about being falsely arrested for murder.
• Summation Gathering: Morse insists that Dr. Bartlett arrange one of these with the Foreign Examinations Syndicate's oversight board, at which he tells everyone how Quinn was murdered and how the waters were subseqeuently muddied.
• Too Clever by Half: Roope, who takes Quinn's body to his (Quinn's) house to make it look like he died there, re-arranges Quinn's furniture and buys some food to mess with the estimate for the man's death — only to move the armchair to a position where Quinn would never have put it (due to the draught), in addition to which he buys a food item (salted butter) that Quinn never ate. Later, he tries to fool the police by ensuring that Lewis follows him to a clandestine meeting with Bartlett, thus implicating the latter.
  Morse: Too clever by half, Lewis. Too clever by two or three and a half.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: The title character is killed within the first couple of minutes. In the novel, he got more time thanks to a lengthy opening sequence.
• Wrong Assumption: Morse admits to being occasionally guilty of this when talking to Monica Height. He subsequently lives up to his own description by arresting the wrong man.
  Morse: I like all sorts of puzzles. Brain-teasers, anything where you have to use your logic. My weakness is guesswork. I leap to conclusions, sometimes. Usually wrong.
• Your Days Are Numbered: A visit to Ogleby's doctor after his death confirms that he was terminally ill with a brain tumour, and was well aware of it.