4. The Game's Afoot

Gideon Buckland vanished sometime after one of the Mystery Pub Crawls on the 24th October 1998. He had been the Setter for the month. The Gathering Pub on the night that he vanished was the Butcher’s Arms in New Headington. Nobody can remember why that particular pub was picked. It was just one of the pubs they particularly liked. I’ve been there – it’s not too far from where I live. Backstreet pub with a comfortable atmosphere and several real ales – I can imagine both the Ale-ementals and Morse would have fitted in well. I popped in last Sunday when I started reading through these case files. There’s been several changes of management since so no-one remembers Gideon or his cycling crawlers. There’s nothing there, I think, that can help with the enquiry, so you don’t have to go there to help me solve the case, unless you happen to be in the area and fancy a pint.

Anyway, all four of the others gave statements about the evening there. As setter, it wasn’t surprising that Gideon was already there and somewhat half-cut by the time the others arrived. Unless all are lying, he was definitely there. Incidentally, his bike was found outside the pub, chained up, on the Monday morning when the investigation began. It seems he’d clearly been at several other pubs, apparently planning the crawl for next week. In fact, he’d been so organised that when the others arrived he handed them sealed envelopes – the clues for next week, not to be opened until 6.30pm next Saturday 31^st, on word of honour.

All four report that Gid was somewhat withdrawn and morose when they arrived. Two of the four had failed to get the mystery pub connection and James had failed to work out what all the others thought was an obvious clue for the Somerset in New Marston (now since closed). He was forced to neck a particularly horrible concoction of Pernod and cider as a forfeit. When Gideon didn’t seem to be entering into the spirits of things, over the course of the evening they individually asked him if anything was up. He didn’t really make any comment except Andy thinks that he said something about being “worthy to take the book “, or something like that. He drank at a pace with the others, buying his round but with the minimum of talking.

Andy, as was usual, left the earliest and the most sober (probably still not very sober though…). Phil and Jim left at the same time a pint later, leaving Gid and James on their own. James was probably then the last person to see Gideon before his disappearance, so I’m making him prime suspect. While I’m sifting through the rest of the evidence though, Morse doesn’t seem to have made much of this fact. Anyway, they were the best of friends – each other’s Best Man respectively, so if Gideon was behaving a bit odd then perhaps it’s natural that James should stick around to see if he could help. Maybe I’m reading too much into things. Maybe not.

Anyway, we’ll get onto the rest of the file as soon as I’ve deciphered some of Morse’s writing.