by Joyce Porter
Well, it was obviously unlikely that the ransom letter was going to give him any direct physical clues as to the identity of the writer, but there were quite a number of indirect clues which were worth examining. The absence of direct clues was the first one. Somebody with a pretty high level of intelligence had written that note, somebody who was well aware of the obvious pitfalls. Did this mean there was an experienced criminal behind the whole thing, or just somebody who had read widely in detective-story fiction? At any rate he could rub out one vague idea that had nudged at his mind – well endowed with low cunning as she obviously was, Juliet Rugg was hardly likely to have written the note herself. It didn’t read like her probable style, and there were no spelling or grammatical mistakes. He could also remove Mrs Rugg from his list of suspects, and possibly the foreigner, Boris Bogolepov, as well.
The next thing to consider, thought Dover, rather pleased with the neat logical way he was dealing with this, was the method of delivery via Sir John Counter’s bank. How many people knew the address of Sir John’s bank in London? Well, his daughter certainly would, for one, and so would Mrs Chubb-Smith, because Sir John presumably paid his rent by cheque and the cheque would have the bank’s address on it. But why bother to send the letter to Sir John’s bank at all? Did it mean that the kidnapper didn’t know Sir John’s address at Irlam Old Hall? No, Dover shook his head firmly, that was quite out of the question. He couldn’t believe that anybody, no matter how remotely connected with the case, would not know Sir John’s home address. He put this point aside for the moment and moved on to the really vital bit of evidence that the envelope provided – the postmarks.
The letter had been posted in the first instance in the West End of London at midday on Saturday, That meant that the person who posted it was in London at midday on Saturday. Well, Dover sighed hopelessly and scratched his stomach, this either widened the field to something in the neighbourhood of ten million people or narrowed it to one person in Juliet’s circle of acquaintances who was away from home all day on Saturday. Say four or five hours’ journey up to London in the morning and four or five hours back again – anybody who’d been away that length of time should be easy enough to trace.
With a bit of an effort Dover identified Saturday in his mind. That was the day his stomach was upset, wasn’t it? Yes, he’d spent Friday night hopping backwards and forwards to the bathroom and his guts were still queasy the next morning. Now then, who had he interviewed on the Saturday? There was Eulalia Hoppold and Boris Bogolepov for a start – he’d seen them twice, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Then he’d questioned young Michael Chubb-Smith and his wife, and the caretaker, Bondy, up at the Old Hall itself. And who else? Oh yes, Basil Freel and his sister, Amy. Well, that was seven people straight off who couldn’t possibly have posted that letter in London. Right, as soon as tomorrow’s little caper in the ladies’ convenience was over, providing the whole case wasn’t solved – which he very much doubted – young Master MacGregor could get off his elegant backside and do a bit of routine checking on all the rest of the characters. He could find out who was away all day Saturday and who knew the address of Sir John’s bank. That might turn up something really useful!
Of course, the thought depressed him, there was more than one way of getting a letter posted in London than physically putting it in the letter-box yourself. Somebody down here might have an accomplice in London who could post the letter, or you could just send it to a friend and say, please post this for me. But that was a bit risky, wasn’t it? Friends being what they were might wonder why you couldn’t post the letter yourself, might even open the damned thing. After all, Juliet’s disappearance had been mentioned pretty widely in the press by Saturday and the friend might recognize the Irlam Old Hall address and . . . Hello now, was that why the letter was addressed to Sir John’s bank in London? So that somebody wouldn’t recognize the Irlam Old Hall address and start wondering? Dover felt a bit more cheerful-he was sure he’d solved one bit of the puzzle, not that it helped all that much.
With a sigh he lit another cigarette and reached for the photostat of the ransom note which MacGregor had got for him. He read it through again, carefully, and frowned. Now that he had time to look at the blasted thing closely, well, he had to admit that it did seem a bit odd. Take the money, for example. Demanding money with menaces was a felony, and anybody found guilty of it was likely to cop a good long stretch of imprisonment from the judge. For a lousy five hundred pounds it didn’t really seem worth it, not when you considered all the trouble and expense of kidnapping a grown girl and keeping her in hiding until the ransom was paid. For five thousand pounds, say, the game might be worth the candle, but for five hundred pounds? Of course, perhaps that was all the market would stand. Dover didn’t think for one moment that anybody would cough up five thousand pounds just to get Juliet Rugg back safe and well. But, in that case, why kidnap Juliet Rugg? Why not go for someone with a higher price on her head?
Then there was the business of the usual warning, ‘Don’t try any tricks and don’t tell the police.’ That was a pretty routine sort of threat but, if the police were not to be informed, why was the main evidence that the kidnapper had really got Juliet one of her finger-prints – the sort of proof that the police, and only the police, could check? It really didn’t make sense.
Dover sighed again over the ‘don’t tell the police’ bit. If the kidnapper was one of the Irlam Old Hall lot – or had an accomplice there – they’d probably gathered by now that the police had been informed. They wouldn’t know exactly which post would bring the letter, but his and Sergeant MacGregor’s early-morning arrivals at Sir John’s house would surely appear significant to anybody watching – if anybody was watching.
The kidnapper had certainly worked out a pretty foolproof scheme for collecting the money (incidentally, there was obviously a woman involved somewhere, and one who knew the layout of the underground convenience, too), and perhaps he counted on getting away with it, police or no police. And he was probably right at that, thought Dover grimly as he recalled the ludicrously inadequate arrangements which were all he had been able to make.
Dover put the photostat back on his bedside table, stubbed out his cigarette and switched off the light. His thoughts were still chasing erratically round his head like white mice on a miniature treadmill. Why only five hundred pounds? Why the finger-print? Was it somebody at Irlam Old Hall? How was the letter posted in London? What was going to happen tomorrow? Would the money be collected? Would anybody ever see Juliet Rugg again?
Dover turned on to his other side and found himself churning through the older questions which had been bothering him all through the case. How did they get Juliet away from Irlam Old Hall? Where was she now? Why had nobody seen her?
Sleep eventually came but it was shallow and troubled, and Dover awoke on the fateful Wednesday morning very annoyed that his subconscious hadn’t come up with any bright suggestions which would have solved everything in one awe-inspiring, Sergeant-MacGregor-rocking explosion of brilliance.
When Miss Mathilda, if that’s who it was, opened the door of her Tea Shoppe at half-past nine on market-day, she was surprised to find that she had two customers already waiting on the doorstep. They pushed, somewhat unceremoniously, inside.
‘Two coffees,’ said the fat one, who was wearing a bowler hat.
‘I’m afraid we don’t start serving coffee until ten o’clock,’ said Miss Mathilda.
‘In that case,’ retorted Dover, barging his way through a tightly-packed jungle of chairs and little tables, ‘we’ll wait!’
‘Oh, Pm afraid you can’t sit in the window! That table’s reserved.’
‘Hard luck,’ said Dover, sitting firmly down and drawing back the lace curtain. ‘We’re from the police, madam – show the old trout your card, Sergeant! -and we shall probably be here all day. Just treat us like a couple of ordinary customers and don’t tell anybody else who we are. We shan’t get in your way.’<
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‘But Lady Williams always sits at that table on Wednesdays,’ protested Miss Mathilda feebly.
Dover peered callously through the window. ‘Well, she’ll just have to sit somewhere else today. It won’t kill her, will it? And don’t forget to bring us a couple of coffees when you get round to it.’
Outside it was, much to Dover’s satisfaction, pouring with rain. He and Sergeant MacGregor sat snug and dry at their table with its excellent view of the entire Market Square, including both the ladies’ and the gentlemen’s conveniences.
At ten o’clock two cups of weak, pale coffee arrived just as Eve Counter descended the steps of the ladies’ to deposit the money. It had been put, in accordance with the instructions, in an empty tin of Vim, and Eve also had an old dish-cloth to place on top. It was not the sort of thing that any casual patron, however lightfingered, would be likely to pick up and take away. One of the snags of checking whether or not the money had gone lay in the fact that the cylindrical tin had to be opened every time, because there was no guarantee that the kidnapper or his accomplice would make off with both the canister and the money.
Just before Eve Counter emerged into the upper air the two policewomen arrived to take up their stations.
‘Oh my God!’ howled Sergeant MacGregor, his composure for once deserting him. ‘Just look at them!’
Dover’s comment was unprintable.
Sergeant Kempton and Woman Police Constable Smith had, of course, been instructed to wear plain clothes, an unhappy phrase when applied to what Sergeant Kempton at least had put on her back. The most striking feature of her ensemble was a huge hairy coat in a scarlet so glowing that you could almost have warmed your hands on it. It was unlikely that anyone who had once seen Sergeant Kempton in her finery would not recognize her again five years, never mind five minutes, later.
Til kill her!’ snarled Dover. ‘I’ll kill her with my own bare hands! So help me, I will! What the hell does she think this is? The bloody Chelsea Arts Ball?’
Sergeant MacGregor, dabbing his eyes in a near hysterical condition, could find no words of cheer or consolation.
‘Well,’ he gasped, choking with irrepressible joy, ‘the other one, she. . . Oh, God, I haven’t laughed so much for years!-she’s dressed quietly enough, isn’t she, sir?’ He took another look at W.P.C. Smith and once again dissolved into bubbles of surging mirth.
W.P.C- Smith was indeed quietly, even soberly, dressed. She had wrapped her enormous broad shoulders in a short off-white riding mac, and below the mac, long, strong, sinewy legs were unconvincingly shrouded in nylon and ended up in a pair of massive regulation shoes. The final macabre touch was a pair of large, white-rimmed sun-glasses worn, with no little pride, on a day which was so gloomy and overcast that all the shops had their lights on. The girl had already been attracting some very peculiar glances as she strode athletically through the market stalls in the Square.
‘Dear God,’ yelped Sergeant MacGregor, who just couldn’t help himself, ‘what does she look like?’
‘She looks like a bloody female impersonator, that’s what she looks like!’ growled Dover. ‘If I didn’t know, I’d run her in soon as look at her!’
The two policewomen, unconscious of the interest they were arousing, disappeared into the underground lavatory. W.P.C. Smith stumbled down blindly and Sergeant Kempton made a great show of taking a deep breath before she too plunged down the grey stone steps.
Dover and MacGregor settled themselves as best they could on their hard upright chairs and began to wait.
At about a quarter past ten they spotted Boris Bogolepov coming out of the chemist’s. It was the first time they had seen him not wearing pyjamas and for a moment they didn’t recognize him. He turned up his raincoat collar and stuffed a small package in his pocket.
‘Been to collect his dope,’ said Sergeant MacGregor sourly. ‘Makes you wonder what the Health Service is coming to, doesn’t it?’
They watched Boris thread his way across the Market Square to join Eulalia Hoppold at one of the vegetable stalls. Two tall, red-faced young men with thick necks and large feet hovered awkwardly near by, pretending to examine a selection of plastic aprons which were selling at the bargain price of 3s. 91/2d. each, or two for 6s. 6 d.
‘That,’ Dover pointed out sarcastically, ‘is the local police doing a bit of shadowing! The fat stupid oafs !’
Half an hour later the waiting detectives were rewarded by the sight of Kitty Chubb-Smith and her daughter-in-law loaded down with shopping. For one breathless moment it looked as though they were actually approaching the ladies’ convenience, but they turned aside into the George Hotel which, on market- days, served morning coffee at suitably exorbitant prices and stood slightly higher in the social scale than Miss Mathilda’s Tea Shoppe.
Dover looked round. ‘I can’t see the men who’re supposed to be following them,’ he grumbled.
‘They most likely came in by car, sir,’ suggested MacGregor; ‘your chaps are probably still waiting at the bus station.’
Dover sighed. What could you do?
Time passed slowly. It was all very boring. The number of women visiting the ladies’ convenience steadily increased as the market livened up, and more and more people flowed into the town for their weekly shopping, but, in the absence of any indication to the contrary from the two policewomen, it had to be assumed that no one had yet collected the money.
Dover and MacGregor sat on, drinking cup after cup of Miss Mathilda’s dreadful coffee. They were naturally a source of considerable interest to the Tea Shoppe’s regular clientele. For one thing, they were the only representatives of the stronger sex in the place. For another, they sat over their coffee for such a long time, outlasting even the most persistent of Miss Mathilda’s customers. And for a third, they were so obviously the object of Lady Williams’s tantrums when she came in and found that her table, at which, as she proclaimed in a piercing voice, she had sat for coffee every Wednesday morning for the last eleven years, had been invaded by strangers, and men at that. Lady Williams, resplendent in a transparent plastic mackintosh and matching pixie hood, had brushed aside Miss Mathilda’s mumbled excuses.
She forged her way across the cafe and seized hold of a vacant chair at the coveted window table.
‘Do you mind,’ she said in a voice of frigid politeness which rang round the delighted and expectant room, ‘do you mind if I join you?’
Dover eyed her slowly up and down as if considering the matter. ‘Yes,’ he said at last in a loud voice, ‘as a matter of fact, I do.’
Lady Williams retreated in shocked disorder and Miss Mathilda lost for ever what had undoubtedly been the Tea Shoppe’s most distinguished customer.
Of course, not all the people who came into the caf€ were puzzled as to what two strange men were doing peering through the window. Colonel Bing and Miss McLintock, after a preliminary start of surprised recognition, discussed the matter in loud whispers which even Dover could hear clearly twenty feet away. The ladies were so absorbed in their speculations that Peregrine, the white poodle, was able to spend a penny on the table leg before he was cut off in mid-stream by a hefty belt on the ear from Colonel Bing.
After a few moments Miss Freel joined them and the two detectives were discreetly pointed out to her. Amy Freel, the acknowledged expert after all in this field, summed up the situation immediately.
‘Be careful!’ she hissed in rebuke as Miss McLintock waved shyly with her library book. ‘They’re obviously On The Job. We mustn’t compromise them. Georgie, for goodness’ sake stop staring at them! You’ll ruin the whole thing!’
‘What whole thing?’ demanded Colonel Bing with her usual military bluntness.
‘Oh,’ Amy Freel laughed airily, ‘I’m afraid I’m not in a position to reveal that to outsiders, you know.’ Which was as good an example of lying without actually telling an untruth as anyone is likely to achieve with no warning to speak of.
Miss Freel grabbed Georgie’s libr
ary book, opened it and peered cautiously over the top at Dover and Sergeant MacGregor.
‘Oh,’ she whispered excitedly, ‘they’re watching the ladies’ lavatory in the Square! How very odd!’
‘Odd?’ snorted Colonel Bing. ‘It’s damned disgusting, if you ask me! Somebody ought to tell the police about ’em and get ’em stopped!’
Miss McLintock retrieved her library book and began quietly to hunt through the pages. ‘Don’t be silly, Bingo dear,’ she said mildly.
Sergeant MacGregor looked hopelessly at his chief inspector. ‘Well, sir,’ he said, ‘I reckon that’s let the cat out of the bag all right!’
Dover blew crossly down his nose. ‘If,’ he said bitterly, ‘it was ever in.’
At twelve thirty they partook of Miss Mathilda’s snack luncheons-baked beans on toast and yet another cup of coffee. Both Dover and MacGregor were feeling increasing uncomfortable and looked wistfully at the sign marked ‘Gendemen’ which they could see tantalizingly less than a hundred yards away, but neither wanted to be the first to acknowledge defeat and they hung on with dogged determination.
At one o’clock Sergeant Kempton emerged and propped herself up weakly against the railings. Her face had acquired an unpleasant greenish tinge and she gulped in deep lungfuls of comparatively fresh air. Rather surprisingly she was now dressed in a large hairy green and yellow check coat. It wasn’t any less noticeable than her original scarlet, but it was different.
‘Hello,’ said Dover, ‘perhaps something’s happened. You stay here, Sergeant!’
Once outside he glanced furtively around him before approaching Sergeant Kempton. He walked past her without a word or look and then stopped, raised his foot on to a convenient wooden box of tomatoes and began fiddling with his bootlace,
‘Well?’ he growled, being careful to speak out of the side of his mouth.
‘Well what?’ answered Sergeant Kempton with unconcealed dislike.
‘What’s happened? Has the money gone?’ hissed Dover. ‘What the hell have you come up for?’