by Joyce Porter
‘I suppose,’ Miss Freel whispered on, putting a restraining hand on Dover’s arm, ‘I suppose you know he was once a clergyman?’
‘Yes,’ said Dover, ‘he told us. Said he’d lost his faith or something.’
‘You didn’t believe that cock-and-bull story, did you?’
‘Why?’ asked Dover with slightly more interest. ‘Isn’t it true?’ Miss Freel sniffed scornfully. ‘Loss of faith, my eye! Choirboys ! That’s what his trouble was! Disgusting beast! Lucky not to finish up in prison. If Juliet Rugg had been a choirboy, now, you wouldn’t have had far to look for the guilty party, I can tell you.’ Miss Freel shook her head regretfully at this lost opportunity and reluctantly let her visitors out of the house.
Outside Dover took a long, deep breath. He was beginning to wonder how much more of this he could stand before qualifying for a strait-jacket himself. But, with Miss Freel’s fortifying tea resting peacefully inside him, he felt strong enough to tackle one more interview before calling it a day. Just one more, he promised himself, and then he was heading straight back to the hotel for a ‘quiet think’ before dinner.
He set off once more up the drive, every stone and weed of which he felt he now knew intimately. He’d have a word with the caretaker at the Hall and that was his lot for the day.
William Bondy was a refreshing change from some of the other people who lived at Irlam Old Hall. He was a well-made man, getting on for sixty but still bearing himself with the upright, alert carriage of the professional soldier. He’d spent nearly forty years in the army, progressing from boy’s service to regimental sergeant-major of a crack infantry regiment, and naturally such an experience had left its mark on him. He was a man of comparatively few words and he answered Dover’s questions clearly and intelligently.
He dismissed Juliet Rugg flatly as ‘white trash’.
‘She should never have been allowed to set foot inside the gates,’ he stated. ‘I told Mrs Chubb-Smith so on several occasions but, of course, I’ve given up expecting anything from her. She tried giving me the glad eye once or twice – Miss Rugg, I mean, not Mrs Chubb-Smith – but I told her I’d seen better specimens crawling out of the cracks in a Cairo whorehouse, and she seemed to take offence at the remark. Anyhow, she gave me a wide berth after that.
‘Tuesday night, sir? I was in here watching telly till about eleven and then I went to bed.’
‘What about closing the gates?’
‘I went out and closed them at about half-past nine – same as I always do this time of year. Then I came back here, locked the front door of the Hall and switched all the lights out, except the emergency ones on the stairs.’
‘So that any of the flat tenants who came in after that would have to knock you up?’
‘That’s right, sir, except they were all in anyhow. Most of ’em are pretty old and rickety and I don’t encourage ’em to go gadding about late at night.’
‘What about one of them leaving the Hall, say at eleven o’clock – would you have seen them?’
Sergeant-Major Bondy permitted himself a rich chuckle.
‘If you’re thinking that one of my tenants had a rendezvous with Juliet Rugg at any time, never mind in the middle of the night, you can put it straight out of your head right away, sir. In the first place, there’s not one of ’em that isn’t well past it, if you see what I mean, and in the second place, not only were all the doors locked and bolted, but I keep the keys.’ He nodded at a large bunch hanging on a nail. ‘If any of ’em had wanted to get out after say twenty-one forty-five hours on Tuesday evening, they’d have had to find me to let ’em out, and I should have wanted to know where the hell they thought they was going.’
‘I see,’ said Dover thoughtfully, ‘What about climbing out of a window?’
‘Not a hope, sir! All the ground-floor windows have got bars on ’em and I check ’em every week when I’m doing my inspection. Nobody could get out that way. I don’t think you need bother about my little squad in here, sir. I’m prepared to bet that not one of ’em as much as opened their flat door after I’d locked up on Tuesday night. They used to trip around for hours, visiting each other, when I first came here, but I soon put a stop to that. I didn’t issue an order or anything – you can’t do that with civilians, can you? – but all the floors are laid with lino, ’cept the hall and that’s parquet. I soon got the cleaners to put a good shine on it – come up a real treat it has. Well, naturally, the old dears don’t like it. Scared of slipping and breaking their poor old necks. They’re hardly likely to go wandering around after I’ve put all the main lights out, are they? It’d be suicide! Beside, I keep my own door ajar so I can hear if any of ’em are creeping about. I always go up and ask ’em what they’re doing if I catch one of ’em. They don’t try it on often these days and nobody as much as moved a muscle on Tuesday night.’
‘I see.’ Dover contemplated Bondy with no little respect. ‘Have you been here long, Mr Bondy?’
‘Oh, getting on for five years now, sir. I came here straight after I left the army. It took me a bit to get things licked into shape, but everything’s running very smoothly now. Lots of people told me I’d never settle to civilian life after all that time in the army, but I can’t say I’ve had much difficulty. The job’s much the same whether you do it in uniform or in civvies in my experience. A recruit training school or a houseful of retired gentry-it’s all human nature, isn’t it, sir? I use the same technique and I get the same results.’
‘I’m sure you do,’ murmured Dover.
‘’Course, I’ve had my little difficulties,’ said Bondy, anxious to be fair. ‘Mrs Chubb-Smith’s a very nice woman, I’m sure, but no backbone, you know. You’ve got to keep prodding her to get anything done. D’you know it took me six months to get her to see sense about dogs and children?’
‘Dogs and children?’ repeated Dover.
‘Yes, sir. She used to let the flats to anybody, anybody at all. Place was swarming with kids and animals.’ Bondy pursed his lips in a self-satisfied smile. ‘But we’ve put a stop to that now. I let ’em keep a tank of tropical fish if they want a pet Dogs and cats is out! So’s kids! I’ve got a very nice class of tenants here now, quiet and well behaved. But that’s only because I put my foot down with Mrs Chubb-Smith. You can see what she does when she’s left on her own.’
‘You mean the people living in the houses?’
‘I do indeed, sir. They’re as fine a collection of layabouts as you’ll find anywhere, most of ’em. There’s that Bogolepov chap – bloody pansy if you ask me! My word, I’d like to have him as a recruit for a couple of months. Not that young Michael Chubb- Smith’s all that much better, but he does shave regular, I’ll say that for him. And then there’s that writer woman, Miss Hoppold. Have you read any of her books? Enough to make your hair stand on end. I saw a few dicey things when I was seconded to the Commandos during the war, but it was nothing to some of the things she describes. Not nice, that sort of thing, in a woman.’
‘What about Colonel Bing?’ asked Dover maliciously.
‘Barmy,’ said Bondy shortly. ‘Makes you wonder what the army’s coming to, doesn’t it? But I like her, mind, always calls me “Sergeant-Major” and speaks respectful like. And come to think of it, she’s no barmier than plenty of men I’ve known with red tabs on their lapels.’
‘And Sir John Counter?’
‘Oh, he’s an old devil, he is! But he’s a gentleman and that makes a difference somehow, doesn’t it? He’d have made a good officer, he would. Absolute swine but a professional, if you know what I mean. I do quite a lot of odd jobs for him and to hear him going on, it takes me back twenty years or more. I served under a major just like him. He was a real pig, he was. First time his mob saw action in the war, he got it! In the back and I’ll stake my pension it wasn’t a German bullet.’
Dover blinked slighdy at this jovial reminiscence but pressed on. ‘What about the Freels, do you know them?’
‘Not really, sir. Hard
ly ever see him. You know they never speak to each other, I suppose? Write each other little notes, so I’ve heard. But they always partner each other at bridge. Gawd only knows how they manage then. Still, it takes all sorts, doesn’t it, sir?’
And on this happy note of soldierly tolerance the interview came to an end.
Dover and Sergeant MacGregor got back into their car.
‘That’s a relief, sir, isn’t it?’ asked Sergeant MacGregor. ‘Looks as though we needn’t bother about all those people in the flats.’
‘Hm,’ said Dover, who had just been thanking his lucky stars for the same thing. ‘Of course,’ he pointed out grumpily, ‘we don’t know that Bondy was telling the truth.’
‘But surely those old crocks can’t have had anything to do with it?’
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Dover grudgingly, ‘but what about Bondy himself? We’ve only his word for it that he was in his room all night As I see it, he was the one person inside the Hall who could have got out without being spotted.’
‘Well, yes.’ Sergeant MacGregor pondered this over doubtfully. ‘But do you think a chap with his record . . . ?’
‘It’s his record that set me wondering,’ said Dover crossly. ‘My God, doesn’t anything ever penetrate that thick skull of yours? You were there, you heard what he said! He served in the Commandos! You know what they were trained to do, don’t you? They were trained to kill, silently!’
Chapter Nine
WHEN Dover arrived back at The Two Fiddlers he found a message asking him to ring police headquarters in Creedon. He left Sergeant MacGregor to deal with it and headed resolutely upstairs to his room. He had just removed his boots, dropping them one by one in grateful relief on the floor, and was loosening the waistband of his trousers when MacGregor came bursting in to report.
‘They’ve traced the owner of that car, sir!’ he announced excitedly. ‘You know, the one Colonel Bing saw Juliet get out of on Tuesday night.’
Dover wiggled his toes and removed his collar and tie, revealing a thin red mark round his beefy, policeman’s neck. He grunted interrogatively. MacGregor took “his as meaning he could continue.
‘It belongs to a fellow called Pilley, sir, Gordon Pilley. He lives in a place called Coleton Garden City. It’s about forty miles from here. The inspector says he’s a commercial traveller and do you want to go over and see him or shall they cope with it?’
‘Not bloody likely!’ snorted Dover, ‘Tell him to keep his paws off my case! You can drive me over there tomorrow morning.’
‘O.K., sir,’ said Sergeant MacGregor brightly, ‘I’ll ring him back.’ He looked pointedly at the chief inspector who was now flat on his back on the bed and happily pulling the eiderdown up to his chin. ‘Will you want me for a bit, sir?’
‘No,’ said Dover, settling his head more comfortably into the pillows. ‘You can go off and get the reports written. And make ’em nice and long. That way nobody’ll ever bother to read ’em. People always read short reports and then they start bothering you. Put down everything every blithering idiot we’ve seen so far has said.’ Dover closed his eyes. ‘You never know, it might prove useful, though I doubt it. Give me a knock when it’s time for dinner.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Sergeant MacGregor with evident disapproval.
Dover opened one eye. ‘I’m just going to have a quiet little think,’ he explained huffily. ‘I want to clarify my ideas about the case.’
Whether or not the chief inspector succeeded in clarifying his ideas, the world will never know. Certainly he made no effort to share his enlightenment, if any, with Sergeant MacGregor on the following morning as they proceeded with the dispatch of a hearse along the roads to Coleton Garden City. Dover was his usual glum, early-morning self and he gazed sullenly out of the window, only occasionally glancing at the speedometer to check that the needle had not insidiously crept above thirty. He noted with sulky satisfaction that the little lambs in the fields on either side of the road were now sufficiently grown up to pass their sunny days bashing each other violently on the head. Somehow, it confirmed Dover’s views on human nature.
Coleton Garden City consisted of acres upon acres of small semi-detached houses set in scruffy unkempt gardens. Everywhere had a raw, unfinished look about it. Reddish-brown soil showed clearly through the wispy green of nascent lawns, and small, leafless hedges marked lines of demarcation but as yet offered no privacy or protection. By dint of much asking of the way they eventually reached the address they had been given-a small semi-detached house in a scruffy unkempt garden.
Dover walked moodily up the path and gave the little brass gnome affixed to the door a good belting. He was rewarded by a sound of scuffling and whispering from inside and somebody peeped round the curtains of the front room to have a look at him.
Eventually the front door was opened by a youngish woman wearing a grubby pink housecoat and a pair of bedraggled mules on her bare feet. Under a crumpled silk head-scarf it was evident that her hair was still imprisoned in a ferocious-looking cluster of curlers.
‘Good morning.’ She spoke with a cautious gentility which was painful to hear. ‘Ken ay help yew?’
‘We’d like to speak to Mr Gordon Pilley, madam,’ said Dover, wrinkling his nose in a disconcerting manner- ‘Is he in?’
‘Well,’ said the woman doubtfully, ‘ay reelly don’t know. Ay’ll just see.’ She turned back into the house, pulling the door to behind her.
Dover stuck a timely, heavy-shod boot forward. ‘Just get him,’ he said briefly, ‘we’re from the police!’ Followed by Sergeant MacGregor, he pushed his way into the hall.
Mr Gordon Pilley hadn’t quite time to duck out of sight. The presence of a small child clinging to his left leg no doubt impeded him.
‘Mr Pilley?’ demanded Dover in one of his voices of doom. ‘We’d like a few words with you, sir. We’re from Scodand Yard.’
There was a moment’s confusion while Mr Pilley picked up the child, which immediately started bawling, handed it to his wife and then squeezed past her in the narrow hall-way. With many ‘excuse mes’ and ‘pardons’ and much to-ing and fro-ing the two policemen eventually found themselves ushered into what Mr Pilley referred to as the ‘lounge’. Whatever else may have taken place in this room, the door of which was kept locked against possible depredations by young Pilley, lounging almost certainly didn’t. This was a room in which you sat, careful not to crease either your best trousers or your hostess’s loose covers, and sipped tea out of the best teacups while everybody tried to outdo everybody else in good manners and delicate breeding.
Dover flopped exhausted into an armchair and let his head drop back on a garishly embroidered antimacassar. His feet, in their dirty great boots, were planted firmly on Mrs Pille’s pink flowered hearth-rug. Mr Pilley averted his eyes and sat nervously on one comer of the settee, wondering fretfully whether or not he ought to switch on the electric fire with the imitation logs which gave the room, according to his wife, such a cheery look. Sergeant MacGregor, without so much as a by-your-leave, had removed the hideous black statuette of a nude woman from a small occasional table and calmly planked his notebook on the polished surface. Mrs Pilley, thought Mr Pilley, would throw a fit if she knew. Mrs Pilley, thought Mr Pilley feeling slightly sick, would throw fifty fits if she ever got a whiff of what these policemen had come about.
With a desperation shown only by the timid, Mr Pilley took the plunge.
‘I suppose you’ve come about Juliet?’ he began, grinning stupidly through sheer nervousness.
‘Oh, what makes you think that?’ demanded Dover aggressively, employing the policeman’s favourite trick of answering one question with another.
Mr Pilley licked his lips and fingered his unshaven chin. He wasn’t looking his best, no collar and an old pair of carpet slippers on his feet.
‘Well, I read about her being missing in the papers . . . ’ he ventured gingerly.
Dover pounced, metaphorically speaking. ‘Oh,
so you admit that you knew Juliet Rugg?’
Mr Pilley gulped and glanced anxiously at Sergeant MacGregor. Sergeant MacGregor stared impassively back, waiting to write down his reply. Mr Pilley, not knowing what else to do, decided to tell the truth.
‘Well, yes, I knew her all right, have done for about six months. We were friends, like.’
‘Friends?’ repeated Dover with a sneer which nearly twisted the moustache off his face.
‘Well, you know . . . ’ Mr Pilley wriggled uncomfortably.
‘Oh yes,’ said Dover, laughing shortly, ‘I know all right! Now, my lad, I want the whole story of your association with this girl – right from the beginning! And don’t try any fancy business. I want the truth and if I don’t get it things may be very unpleasant for you!’
Mr Pilley leaned forward and spoke in a hoarse whisper. ‘Listen, I’ll tell you the truth, honest. I’ve nothing to do with Jule’s disappearance, nothing at all, but it’s my wife, you see. She’s a bit-well, you know what women are like, and my old woman’s the same only more so. If we could keep our little talk confidential, like . . . ?’
Dover pondered dramatically, just to keep Mr Pilley on edge. ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘we shan’t go out of our way to give Mrs Pilley any information about what you tell us, but, of course, when the case comes to trial all relevant evidence will naturally have to be disclosed. Still’-he leered encouragingly -‘if your neck’s in danger of being stretched, I don’t suppose you’ll worry over much about your wife finding out one or two things you’d rather she didn’t, will you?’
‘No,’ agreed Mr Pilley unhappily, ‘but I told you, I didn’t . . . ’
‘Just answer my questions!’ Dover broke impatiently through the protestations of innocence. ‘And speak slowly so the sergeant here can get it all down.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Mr Pilley miserably.
‘How long have you known Juliet Rugg?’
‘About six months. We met quite casual like when I was in Creedon. I’m a commercial traveller, you see, and I travel in ladies’ underwear.’ Mr Pilley laughed ingratiatingly, ‘Er – that’s a little joke I always make, see?’