Inspector Morse 11 The Daughters of Cain

Whilst in the hospital, Lewis had called in to see Morse (his second visit), but had refused to be drawn into any dis-cussion of new developments in the enquiry. This for two reasons: first, that there were no new developments; and, second, that Superintendent Strange had strongly urged against such a course of action--"Start talking about it, and he'll start thinking about it. And once he starts thinking, he'll start thinking about drinking, whatever the state of his innards.... "So Lewis stayed only a few minutes that afternoon, taking a "Get Well" card from Mrs. Lewis, and a small bunch of seedless white grapes from himself, the latter immediately confiscated by the hawk-eyed ward-sister.

From the JR2, Lewis had gone on to interview the Brooks family GR Dr. Philip Gregson, at the Cowley Road Health Centre.

The brief medical report on Edward Brooks which Lewis read there was quite optimistic: "Mild heart attack---condition now stable--surprisingly swift recovery. GP appt.

1 wk; JR2 out/p appt .2 wk."

About Brenda Brooks, however, Gregson was more circumspect. She had, yes, suffered a very nasty little in-jury to her right hand; and, yes, he had referred her to a specialist. But he couldn't comment in any way upon his colleague's findings. If further information were consid-ered necessary...

In such fashion was it that Lewis's queries were con-cluded late that Tuesday afternoon--with the telephone number of an orthopaedic surgeon, and with the knowledge that he was getting nowhere fairly slowly.

Yet only twenty-four hours were to elapse before the first major breakthrough in the case was destined to occur.

Chapter Thirty-six

Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle towards my hand? (SHArd SPEAm, Macbeth)

It took a long time, an inordinately long time, for the penny to drop.

Dr. Richard Rayson had been wholly unaware of the great excitement which had been witnessed by the residents of Daventry Avenue over the previous week. Yet his inabil ity to establish any connection between the discovery of a knife and the death of a neighbour is readily explicable. In the first place, the physical police presence around Daventry Court had been withdrawn on the day prior to his return from abroad. Then, too, Rayson had not as yet re-instated his standing-order with the Summertown news-agent for the daily delivery of the Oxford Mail; he had therefore missed the brief item tucked away at the bottom of page 3 on Monday (would probably have missed it any-way).

And finally, and most significantly, his communications with his neighbours, on either side, had been almost completely severed of late this breakdown occasioned by a series of increasingly bitter differences of view over the maintenance of boundary fences, the planting of inter-property trees, an application for planning permission, and (most recently) the dangerous precedent of a teenage party.

Thus, after spending the whole of the Monday and Tues-day with his wife in regrooming their garden, it was only at lunchtime on Wednesday, September 7, that Rayson was re-introduced into the mainstream of Oxford life and gossipat a cocktail reception in Trinity College to meet a group of librarians from Oklahoma.

"Fine drop of claret, what, Richard.9'

' one of his col-leagues had affirmed.

"Beautifully balanced little wine, George."

"By the way, you must have known old Mc Clure, I sup-pose? Lives only a few doors from you, what? Lived, rather."

Rayson had frowned. "Mc Clure?"

"You know, the poor sod who got himself knifed?" Mc Clure. Felix Mc Clure. Knifed. The knife.

Just after five o'clock that afternoon, Detective Sergeant Lewis stood looking down at the prime exhibit, laid out on the Formica-topped surface of the kitchen in Rayson's ele-gant detached house in Daventry Avenue--seven properties distant, on the Woodstock Road side, from the scene of Mc Clure's murder. As Rayson had explained over the phone, the knife had been found just inside the front fence, had been picked up, washed, dried, put away, picked up again, used to cut a roll of boiled ham, re-washed, re-dried, put away again--and picked up yet again when Rayson had returned from Trinity in the late afternoon, and examined it with a sort of ghoulish fascination.