Dead Before Morning

by Geraldine Evans

  ***

  Cautiously, conscious of his chief's strictures, Rafferty continued his digging into Melville- Briggs's alibi. But, to his frustration, it seemed ever more impregnable. Although it wasn't substantiated for the entire night, so far, they had been unable to discover any long period when he wasn't vouched for by someone. He had appeared to stay with the same cronies for most of the evening, punctuated only by very short breaks in order to rid himself of an excess of good wine and after dinner port and brandy. As though to drive the fact of the impenetrable alibi more forcefully home, Sam Dally, their own police surgeon, was a prominent witness—one amongst many unfortunately, all eminently respectable professionals who were prepared to swear on their Hippocratic Oaths that the good doctor hadn't left The George all night.

  Rafferty's prediction that the press coverage of the crime would create more fear in the town than the actual murder was becoming horribly true. As they drove through Elmhurst, he could see the huddled groups of women on street corners and Rafferty, sensitive about his continuing failure, remembered the hostile editorial in the local rag, The Elmhurst Echo. Unhappily, he wondered if the worst aspect of the crime wasn't what it did to the living. What had been a small and – for this part of England at least – a remarkably close-knit community, had been split apart in a matter of days. Where before there had been trust, there was now overt suspicion. Any man who had been absent from home on the night of the crime was the subject of doubt and speculation; husbands, brothers, sons—everyone looked sideways at his neighbour.

  All this made Rafferty more harassed by the hour, and the feeling that he was getting nowhere fast, didn't help. He supposed Simon Smythe must be feeling the strain even more acutely than himself, especially as Melville-Briggs had sacked him, thereby increasing his neighbours' suspicions. No smoke without fire was the generally accepted reaction to his sacking. The stupid police mightn't be able to prove he did it, but the general feeling was that his boss must have good reasons for getting rid of him. Poor Simple Simon. Poor Rafferty, too, he reflected, for the pressure on him to solve the crime, combined with the lack of any conclusive lead, put him in danger of losing his previously sunny disposition. Much more of this, he thought, and there would be little to choose between him and Llewellyn.

  When they reached their headquarters, Rafferty slouched along to his second-floor office and flung himself in his chair. He was barely aware of Llewellyn as he followed him in and sat unobtrusively at his own desk.

  Rafferty gazed through the window disconsolately. It was too much to hope that someone, anyone, had noticed old MB sneak out of The George with a large claw-hammer clutched in his lily-white hand. He'd even begun to dream about arresting the smug bastard. Straightening up, he pulled the pile of doctors' statements towards him. There must be something he'd missed. If he went through them just one more time…

  Rafferty sensed Llewellyn's disapproving eye. However, the Welshman made no comment and Rafferty did his best to ignore him, aware that his sergeant's nose was getting more pinched and his lips more thin and bloodless with each turning page. Finally, he could stand the silent reproach no longer. He slammed the file shut and demanded, 'All right! If you've got something to say, say it. Don't just sit there looking like a slapped arse. You think that I'm out to get the bastard because he's well-heeled, successful and I don't happen to like him, don't you?'

  Llewellyn looked down his nose at this ungrammatical outburst. 'Aren't you perhaps a trifle obsessive about the gentleman, Sir?' he queried. 'There are other suspects.'

  'Yes – no – I don't know!' Glowering, Rafferty slouched in his chair, aware that Llewellyn was right. But only up to a point. It wasn't just for those reasons that he felt an overwhelming desire to follow his mother's advice and slap the cuffs on the doctor. Melville-Briggs was a wrong 'un. Instinctively Rafferty knew it. All right, so far, it seemed, he wasn't into murder. But he had something going; Rafferty's nose told him so, even as he recognised that he wouldn't get the controlled, enigmatic Welshman to take notice of such a thing as intuition.

  To Rafferty's way of thinking, a man who cheated on his wife cheated in other ways. And Dr. Melville-Briggs didn't just cheat on his wife. He cheated on his mistresses as well. Rafferty was prepared to concede that a man in Melville-Briggs's position might require the occasional diversion, but, from what they had discovered so far, the doctor's diversions occupied enough of his time to look more like a second career. They'd traced eight ex-mistresses so far, thanks to the indefatigable Gilbert's appetite for other people's dirty linen and Rafferty, sure there'd be more, was disappointed to discover that Mrs. Galvin, the cool, self-contained and efficient secretary was one of them. Somehow, he'd thought she'd have been more discerning. But, as he'd be the first to admit after his own disastrous marriage, he was no judge of women. According to Gilbert, she'd been making permanent noises and it had only been her husband's accident that had ended it.

  Rafferty wondered if Gilbert had a soft spot for Mary Galvin. He'd been reluctant to dish the dirt on her, and the information had been prised from him only with difficulty. Andrew Galvin had been paralysed from the waist down and she had been driving. Was it only duty and a guilty conscience that had persuaded her to return to her husband? Or the realisation that her lover was too self-centred to ever allow anyone to put his so convenient marriage at risk? Was her love for the doctor of the obsessive variety that would make no bones about murdering a rival?

  Mary Galvin had given an Elmhurst address. She and her husband lived alone. She had had the opportunity to kill the girl and she didn't strike him as the sort of woman who fell in love either quickly or easily. Did that quiet exterior conceal a jealous rage? As mistress succeeded mistress, had that rage finally erupted in an orgy of violence? Had Linda Wilks been the victim of that fury; unlucky in death as she had been in life?

  Rafferty couldn't begin to imagine what appeal the smooth, unctuous Sir Anthony could possibly have for any woman. Yet he seemed to have them eating out of his hands—the accommodating wife; the outwardly unassuming and apparently loyal secretary; the massed ranks of discarded mistresses, as well as the hopeful future ones, like Nurse Wright. For the life of him, Rafferty couldn't see what they got out of it. But then he was a simple man; given to sudden bursts of passion and hot temper that passed as swiftly as they came—how could he ever hope to understand the complicated morals of more sophisticated souls?

  Was the doctor some sort of esoteric gigolo? Did he, rather than flex his muscles, flex his bedside manner instead? And had he flexed it once too often? And if so, how the hell did he prove it? He looked thoughtfully at Llewellyn. 'You're an educated chap, Taff. Tell me—what would happen to a doctor who forgot to keep his bedside manner this side of the sheets?'

  'He'd get struck off, of course,' Llewellyn replied guardedly, apparently not pleased to discover that Rafferty's mind was still on the same tack.

  Rafferty nodded happily. That was what he'd thought. If Melville-Briggs lost his right to practise medicine, he lost everything of value to him.

  Llewellyn sighed softly and looked wearily at his chief. 'You're not still suggesting he's the culprit?'

  Stung by the implied criticism of his professionalism and miffed by Llewellyn's desire to use nothing but logic to solve the case, Rafferty raised eyes innocent of such intent to Llewellyn's. 'Would I?' he queried softly. 'That sweet, kindly, white-haired old man? Shame on you, Taff. The very idea.'

  Rafferty was amused by his own whimsy and Llewellyn's determinedly pursed lips. Who'd have thought the coolly logical Llewellyn would have the knack of restoring his good temper? Perhaps he'd keep him after all. He had his good points, even if they only extended to providing bait for his own barbed wit. Rafferty was an instinctive copper and every one of his instincts told him that he was heading in the right direction—even if the path at present seemed to have as many twists and turns as the way through a maze. A maze had a heart and he was convinced that Dr. Melville-Briggs lurked at
the centre of this particular leafy conundrum.

  It was just a matter of turning up each path till it proved to be a dead-end, eliminating it from the route plan and trying the next. He couldn't expect Llewellyn to be willing to follow him on the often circuitous journey necessary to reach the goal. After all, Rafferty told himself complacently, he lacked the necessary nose and all the degrees in the world wouldn't provide him with one. It was hardly his fault that murderers didn't go by the police book any more than Rafferty did.

  Yet, he was forced to admit to himself, there had been occasions when Llewellyn had come up with a discerning judgement that had left him floundering. For all his annoying traits, from his intellectual superiority to his deflating morality, Rafferty recognised that there was a tantalising depth to his sergeant that was intriguing. Perhaps his judgement had been a bit rash? He'd let his Welsh terrier have another bite at the bone. 'It's worth following up, Taff,' he remarked reasonably. 'Such a scandal could have cost him a lucrative career. Don't you think he'd consider it worth a murder, when, as far as he's concerned the murder of someone like Linda would be a very little murder.'

  Of course, Llewellyn immediately made him regret his generous impulse. 'But Linda Wilks wasn't one of his patients,' he pointed out reasonably. 'She was no threat to him. Besides, he's got that alibi, Sir,' Llewellyn reminded him unkindly. 'I fail to see that it matters with whom he was having an affair. Besides, we've found no evidence that he even knew the victim. I find it extremely unlikely that he did know her. She's hardly his usual type.' He delicately refrained from remarking on the unlikelihood of Melville-Briggs ever having to pay for sex, but his point was clear enough even for Rafferty.

  'Besides,' Llewellyn continued, after a short pause, 'He's not the type to commit murder himself. He's what I call a mean sinner, the kind who may be involved, but who hides behind somebody else. There's an old Czech proverb which goes, "It isn't the thief who is hanged, but the one who was caught stealing".'

  Trust his sergeant to trot out an appropriate quote, fumed Rafferty, comforting himself with the thought that Llewellyn couldn't be so smart after all, if his wisdom consisted solely of borrowing dead men's words.

  In spite, or because of, Llewellyn's proselytising, Rafferty perversely persisted in his argument. 'All those professional men at The George had drunk their fill and more. Why should their evidence under such circumstances be any more reliable than that of any other drunks? All right,' he went on hurriedly, as Llewellyn looked set to interrupt, no doubt with more borrowed philosophy, 'I'll grant you that as she wasn't his patient, any liaison with her wouldn't be enough to get him struck off for misconduct. But surely there are other forms of misconduct which the wise doctor avoids? Consorting with a prostitute, for instance? Linda might have thought he was a suitable subject for blackmail. He was wealthy and successful, unlikely to miss a few grand; the sort of man vulnerable to such smears. And she mightn't have known that Lady Evelyn knew and turned a blind eye to his affairs.'

  If only it wasn't for that seemingly rock-solid alibi! Even his finely honed instincts had so far found no way round that, especially when the other doctors at the dinner seemed determined to minimise their varying states of drunken incompetence in their statements.

  Still, even if none of the doctors present that evening had expressed the slightest doubt that they were telling the truth, it was only the truth as they saw it, not what they actually knew to be the truth. There was a difference.

  'It's by chasing every snippet of information and gossip, however unlikely, that murderers get caught,' he insisted to his sceptical sergeant. 'Many a time I've known a little judicious juice-gathering dissolve the most impressive alibi. It's a matter of first gathering the fruit – the gossip and titbits, then sorting the pips from the pap and what remains is pure juice – the truth, rich, ripe and damning.'

  'What happens when the fruit has already been squeezed dry, Sir?' Llewellyn asked.

  'We go out and gather some more. That's what.'

  Llewellyn sniffed and, looking as if he'd thoroughly got the pip, he replied flatly, 'A second harvest, you mean?'

  'That's exactly what I mean.'

  The Welshman didn't look enthusiastic—but then he never did. But he'd have to lump it, resolved Rafferty. This was his case and he would solve it his way, even if he had to drag a dubious and critical Llewellyn along behind him through the entire labyrinth.