by Joyce Porter
MacGregor’s jaw dropped fractionally at this majestic understatement of the extent of their difficulties. ‘But, sir,’ he said, ‘you don’t really think Amy Freel had anything to do with murdering Juliet Rugg, do you? Why, she’s no motive and, good heavens, physically it’s surely quite beyond her.’
‘She’s as likely a suspect as your Eulalia Hoppold anyhow!’ snapped Dover, losing patience with the whole thing. ‘And if you’re going to give the Hoppold woman an accomplice, well – how about Amy in conjunction with her brother, Basil? He looks capable of anything! Or what about three of ’em – Amy Freel, Colonel Bing and Miss McLintock, banding together to rid Irlam Old Hall of one who has brought shame and disgrace on her sex?’ Dover chuckled richly at this thought. ‘It’s not a bad idea, you know! Working together, I reckon that trio could manage anything they set their minds on!’
‘Yes, sir,’ said MacGregor, who disapproved of this sort of frivolity – after all, it was a murder case. ‘Well, I’ll be getting off to Irlam Old Hall now, shall I, sir?’
Dover’s lower lip stuck out sulkily. ‘Yes, you do that,’ he growled.
As MacGregor strode out of the room, the chief inspector pulled another chair up, put his feet on it and let his head drop back comfortably. Then he gently closed his eyes.
‘Toffee-nosed young bugger!’ he murmured softly to himself.
Chapter Thirteen
IT was nearly twelve o’clock when Sergeant MacGregor got back to The Two Fiddlers. He found Dover wide awake and ensconced in the bar, tucking into the Long Herbert again. The landlord had offered him a drink on the house and Dover, not surprisingly, had accepted it. Sergeant MacGregor arrived just in time to pay for the next round.
‘Get anything?’ asked Dover, toying idly with a tin ash-tray. MacGregor grimly took the hint and pulled out his cigarette- case. ‘Not a damned thing,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been such a long time but I thought it was worth counterchecking to be absolutely sure. There’s nobody up at Irlam Old Hall who could possibly have been in London on Saturday. You can take my word for that! Mrs Rugg wasn’t there either. Nor was Gordon Pilley nor was his wife. I’ve just checked with the local police.’
‘Hm,’ said Dover, and turned for consolation to his fresh pint. ‘What about this celluloid stencil thing?’
‘Most of ’em had never even heard of one and none of ’em could remember seeing one.’
‘Hm.’ Dover thoughtfully took a long drink and belched gently. ‘What about the green nail varnish? Did you ask your girlfriend about it?’
‘She wasn’t there!’ snapped MacGregor. ‘I’d forgotten she was going into Creedon to collect the ransom money. But I did ask Sir John. He was pretty certain she’d never worn green nail varnish, but I think we’ll want something a bit stronger than that. Incidentally, he was asking when we were going to get some results. Said the Lord Lieutenant of the county was an old friend of his. Sort of hinted he might mention we didn’t seem to be getting on very quickly.’
‘Oh,’ said Dover with a sneer, ‘and what’s the Lord Lieutenant of the county going to do about it, for God’s sake?’
‘He’s an old friend of the Assistant Commissioner.’
‘Oh,’ said Dover, ‘well, we’ll try this green nail-varnish theory and see if that gets us anywhere. We’ll have lunch here first and then go into Creedon. Oh, they rang through about the oil on the wheel chair. Apparently it’s some stuff called “Lubrykate”. Just ordinary household oil, as you might say. Anybody might have it’
‘They probably all have,’ agreed MacGregor glumly. This, he thought, with not unjustified pessimism, was going to be another typical ‘Dover’ case. Magnificent inaction and no results. He didn’t give a damn about the chief inspector, but it just didn’t do a young, enthusiastic and rising detective sergeant any good at all to be associated with a seemingly unending stream of failures. Perhaps if he put another request in to the Assistant Commissioner, tactful but a bit stronger than the last time . . .
At half-past two the police car ambled carefully into Creedon and stopped right outside the chemist’s shop. There was no trouble about parking. The Market Square was empty.
Dover gazed around him at the vacant scene.
‘You bloody fool!’ he snarled at Sergeant MacGregor in disgust. ‘It’s early closing day!’
The chemist’s shop was shut.
‘Perhaps he lives in the flat over the shop,’ suggested MacGregor sheepishly – he’d forgotten it was Thursday. ‘Shall I try?’
‘You can do what you bloody well like!’ Dover’s tone was heavy with implied menace.
Sergeant MacGregor was lucky. The chemist was in and Dover, still sulkily fuming, stumped upstairs to interview him.
‘We really wanted to speak to your girl assistants,’ he began, with his usual charm of manner, ‘but I suppose you’ll do.’
‘Oh dear,’ said the chemist anxiously, ‘I do hope they haven’t done anything silly again. They’re very nice girls, you know, good-natured, willing, generous to a fault, but they are a little bit casual at times.’
‘Indeed?’ sniffed Dover with raised eyebrows. ‘I should have thought that was very dangerous where poisons and drugs are concerned.’
‘Good heavens!’ The chemist threw up his hands in mild horror. ‘I don’t let them get near the dispensing side of the business! I wouldn’t have a customer left alive by the end of the week, if I did. They’re only supposed to deal with the cosmetic trade and a few harmless things like hot-water bottles and rolls of sticking plaster. Even so, you wouldn’t believe the mess-ups they get into.’
‘Wouldn’t I?’ said Dover.
‘Do you know what one of them did? Dawn it was – just about a month ago – and she’s the reliable one of the pair. It lost me a very good customer, I don’t mind telling you. It was very careless of her, very careless, but I don’t think it was anything more than that because as far as I know she’d never even seen Lady Williams before. And after all, when you come to think of it, it was as much her fault as anyone else’s. She’s one of these people who doesn’t think medicine does you any good unless it’s got a nasty taste. You see, what happened was this. Lady W. came in and asked Dawn for some throat pastilles. Well, Dawn got the boxes mixed up and instead of throat pastilles she gave her . . . ’
‘Now just a minute, Mr What’s-your-name!’ Dover broke in impatiently.
‘Simkins, Walter William Simkins.’
‘Well, Mr Simkins, we’re really in rather a hurry so if you wouldn’t mind just answering a few straight questions as briefly and directly as you can . . . Now then, green nail varnish! I understand your shop-girls sold a bottle of green nail varnish to Juliet Rugg last Tuesday week, on the afternoon of the day she disappeared.’
‘Well, I believe they did but, of course, I didn’t come back into the shop until just before Miss Rugg left, so I don’t know myself exactly what she bought.’
‘What we really want to find out,’ the chief inspector went on, ‘is whether or not it was the first time she’d bought green nail varnish. Do you know if she purchased any from you before?’
Mr Simkins thought for a moment. ‘Well, I’m pretty certain she hadn’t bought any from me because, if I remember correctly, that order had only come in that morning, A traveller had called on – yes, that’s right – on Monday, the day before, and the girls made me order a dozen bottles. I wasn’t too keen because I couldn’t think who was going to buy green nail varnish in Creedon, but Dawn and Shirley said it was the latest teenager rage and, well, business is business. We got the dozen bottles first post the next morning and I can’t say I was surprised to hear that Juliet Rugg had bought one.’
‘Did you know Miss Rugg then?’
‘Oh lord, yes! And her mother, too. I’ve known ’em both as customers for years-and some very revealing things they’ve bought in my shop, too, I can tell you. And Juliet often used to pop in to get things for old Sir John as well as herself.’
; ‘You didn’t by any chance speak to her, did you?’ asked Dover, who felt that any straw was worth clutching at at this stage.
‘Well, of course I did,’ said Mr Simkins in surprise. ‘I asked her to give a message to Mr Bogolepov when she got back to Irlam Old Hall.’
Dover and MacGregor exchanged glances. Dover swallowed hard. ‘You asked her to give a message to Mr Bogolepov?’ he repeated tensely. ‘What about?’
Mr Simkins looked a bit embarrassed. ‘Well, I make up a weekly prescription for Mr Bogolepov – it’s all above board and properly authorized, you know – and he usually comes in and collects it on Wednesday mornings. Well, now, last week the stuff hadn’t arrived from my suppliers and I didn’t want to give Mr Bogolepov the trouble of coming in all this way for nothing. He’s rather an awkward sort of chap and of course he’s a bit anxious to have the stuff on time . . . ’
‘It’s all right,’ said Dover, ‘we know he’s a drug addict. He got his supplies from you, did he?’
‘Yes, but only those he was entitled to on prescription,’ Mr Simkins hastened to point out. ‘He was properly registered and all that. Well, I was wondering how to get a message to him – he’s not on the phone – when I saw Miss Rugg. I asked her if she’d pop in and tell him to come in on Friday instead of Wednesday as his prescription wouldn’t be ready until then. Of course I didn’t tell her what it was.’
‘And what did she say?’
‘Well, she just said, all right, she would.’
There was a pause while Dover summoned up enough courage to ask the vital question. He cleared his throat nervously.
‘And did Mr Bogolepov come in on Friday?’ he croaked casually.
Mr Simkins thought for a minute again. ‘Well, yes, now you mention it, he did. I remember handing the packet over to him. I always have it made up ready and I always serve him myself. It was Friday morning all right. No doubt about it. The supplier didn’t deliver it until quite late on Thursday afternoon anyhow, and I was beginning to wonder if it was ever coming.’
‘Did you say anything to him?’
‘Oh, I just apologized for the hold-up and he was quite nice about it, said he had to come into Creedon that day to post a parcel or something anyhow. He was quite pleasant about the whole thing.’
‘But why on earth,’ asked Sergeant MacGregor, ‘didn’t you tell us about this before?’
Mr Simkins looked surprised and even hurt. He produced the classic answer. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you never asked me.’
Dover and MacGregor climbed thoughtfully back into the waiting police car. Both were a little dazed.
‘We’ve got him, sir, haven’t we?’ asked MacGregor in breathless excitement. ‘I felt all along he was mixed up in it somewhere.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Dover with a deep sigh, ‘it certainly looks as though we’re on to something, at last. But, just sit tight a minute while we sort out what we have got.’
‘Well, first of all,’ MacGregor pointed out, ‘we’ve cleared up the green nail varnish. Eulalia Hoppold described Juliet as wearing green nail varnish. Now we know for certain she could only have seen the green nail varnish if she saw Juliet after her return to Irlam Old Hall on Tuesday night.’
‘Always remembering that even the fact that she did see her doesn’t make Eulalia guilty of murder,’ grumbled Dover.
‘No,’ agreed MacGregor, ‘but it’s significant that in spite of having been found out in one lie-about where she was that night – she is still persisting in another.’
Dover nodded his head. ‘Let’s have another cigarette, my lad,’ he said, and waited patiently while MacGregor dug out his case and lighter. ‘Now then,’ he went on, not going to be outdone in constructive analysis by a blooming sergeant, ‘if Eulalia Hoppold is concerned in any way in Juliet Rugg’s disappearance and death, then Boris Bogolepov is involved too, because they provide an alibi for each other. ’Strewth!’ said Dover crossly. ‘I wonder if they let us drag that alibi out of ’em deliberately? It made it seem much more effective than if they’d nearly broken their necks trying to tell us about it.’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ agreed MacGregor. ‘In any case, it was a nice little ace to keep tucked up their sleeves.’
‘Mind you, Boris Bogolepov mucked things up a bit. He was so keen to impress us that his vices were dope and drink not women, so that we wouldn’t connect him up with Juliet, that it looked a bit odd when he had to claim he was Eulalia’s lover. Now, he’s lost out both ways. If Eulalia’s his girl-friend, so might Juliet have been, and there may be a motive there. And if he’s not interested in women, what the hell were he and Eulalia doing together all night?’
‘And, thanks to Mr Simkins, we can now tie Boris in with Juliet independently of his connection with Eulalia.’
‘We can, indeed,’ said Dover, ‘let’s try and reconstruct what happened. Simkins asks Juliet to call and give a message to Bogolepov when she gets back to Irlam Old Hall. She’s to tell him not to come into Creedon on the following, Wednesday, morning-his usual day-but to call on Friday because his dope is going to arrive late from the wholesalers or whoever’s supposed to send it to Simkins.’
‘And we know from Simkins that Bogolepov got the message because that week, instead of coming in on the Wednesday, he came, as requested, on the Friday!’ Sergeant MacGregor was getting quite excited.
‘Yes,’ said Dover sourly, ‘and we don’t only know it from Simkins either. Damn and blast it! We knew it right from the beginning if only’ – he sighed moodily – ‘we’d recognized its significance.’
‘I don’t follow you, sir,’ said MacGregor.
‘Well, get your blasted notebook out!’ snapped Dover. ‘It’s all in there! I should have thought you’d have picked it up when you were supposed to be studying all hours of the night. Remember when I interviewed Bogolepov the first time and we had to listen to all that drivel about what a rotten life he’d had ? Well, he told us then he was a dope addict and that he collected the stuff under the National Health once a week from Creedon. And, if my memory serves me correctly, he actually said he went in on Wednesday mornings.’
‘Yes, that’s right, sir,’ said MacGregor, hunting through the pages like fury. ‘Yes, I’ve got it here. We saw him on the Saturday morning, but we didn’t know that he’d collected the stuff on Friday that particular week.’
‘Oh yes, we did,’ said Dover flady, ‘Miss McLintock told us.’
‘Miss McLintock?’
‘Yes. When we were talking to Colonel Bing in her sitting-room on Friday morning, the day we arrived down here, Miss McLintock came in. Remember where she’d been?’
‘Oh, yes! She’d just got back from Creedon. All that rigmarole about library books and posting a parcel.’
‘That’s it,’ said Dover, ‘and you remember who she’d seen in the post office?’
‘Boris Bogolepov!’ MacGregor’s excitement grew. ‘He was posting a parcel, too. That must be the one he mentioned to Mr Simkins. Miss McLintock read the address, didn’t she? He was sending it to some refugee organization.’
‘My God!’ exclaimed Dover, his jaw dropping in astonishment. ‘I’ve had an idea!’
There didn’t seem any appropriate or tactful rejoinder to this statement, so MacGregor observed a respectful silence.
‘My God!’ said Dover again in a voice of awe. ‘I believe I’ve got it!’
‘Got what, sir?’
‘The ransom note, you fool! How they could have got it posted in London without ever leaving Irlam Old Hall! That silly old cow, Miss McLintock, and the parcel! It’s so simple and with that address to Sir John’s bank on it, it’s nearly a hundred per cent safe!’
‘Miss McLintock and the parcel, sir? You don’t mean she’s involved in it, too?’
‘Oh, wake up, MacGregor!’ barked Dover irritably. ‘Of course, she’s not involved in it. It was just thinking of her that gave me the idea. You remember all that drivel she talked about her hobby? Saving the damned fool
things she found in her blasted library books?’
‘Yes, she had a little “museum”, didn’t she?’
‘That’s right. Now, MacGregor, use your brains for once! Suppose you found a stamped and addressed envelope in a library book —what would you do with it?’
‘Well, I’d post it, sir. Anybody would, wouldn’t they? But Miss McLintock wasn’t in London on Saturday, so how could she have posted the ransom note?’
‘She didn’t!’ yelped Dover. ‘The letter was in the bloody parcel, don’t you see?’
‘Er, no, sir!’ admitted MacGregor, privately thinking that this was not entirely his fault.
‘Look,’ said Dover, trying to be patient about it, ‘let’s suppose Boris Bogolepov croaked Juliet Rugg. How and why, we don’t know, but he’s killed her. Now, just to put everybody off the scent, he thinks up this kidnapping idea. Right? He writes out the ransom letter and sticks the dead girl’s finger-print on it Then he addresses the envelope to Sir John Counter, care of his bank. Then he bundles up a parcel of old clothes. . . ’Strewth! They probably were Juliet’s! It’d be a much safer way of getting rid of them than trying to bum them, besides, he hadn’t got a boiler in that bungalow, had he? I’m pretty certain it was all electric central heating-probably hadn’t even got a fireplace. Well, that doesn’t matter now. He bundles up a parcel of old clothes and sticks the letter inside. When he goes into Creedon on the Friday morning, he posts the parcel to this refugee organization – in London. Now, with a bit of luck the parcel would arrive in London on Saturday morning. Somebody opens it, finds the letter, thinks it’s been packed by accident and, like any decent citizen, when they go off to lunch they slip it in the nearest pillarbox. There’s no Irlam Old Hall address on it to catch their eye – just Sir John Counter’s name – and the odds are they’d never link that up with some fat girl who was missing from home a couple of hundred miles away. The bank would get the letter Monday morning, readdress it and send it on Monday afternoon.’ Dover paused and mopped his brow. ‘How about that for a piece of reconstruction, my lad?’