by Joyce Porter
‘Were any of them called Victor?’
‘Two, sir. One was a little boy of about seven and the other was a sailor. He’s been at sea for the last eighteen months according to his mother. South Pacific or somewhere. I’m having his exact whereabouts checked with the shipping line he works for, but I don’t think he’s our man.’
‘Hm,’ said Dover.
‘I’m afraid we’ve come to a bit of a dead end, sir.’
‘Hm!’ said Dover again. ‘What about the other Boys? The ones who weren’t called Victor? Did any of them look a likely candidate? Vic might just have been a nickname, you know, though I must admit it doesn’t sound a very likely one.’
‘There wasn’t anybody who seemed to fit the bill, sir.’
Dover frowned. ‘I wonder,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘if Bigamous Bertie changed his name at any stage.’
‘Well, he used a lot of aliases, sir. He got married under half a dozen different names, if I remember correctly. But he was tried as Cuthbert Boys so I presume that was his real name. I don’t know how far they check on these things.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of him just assuming another alias,’ said Dover, ‘I was wondering if he’d changed his name properly, by deed poll. He seemed to have had a fairly decent background, didn’t he? And he was quite concerned about keeping his family out of the limelight. It’s just possible that early on in his career of crime he changed his name to keep his family out of the newspapers. See what I mean? We’re looking for Cuthbert Boys’s brother up here, but he may not be called Boys.’
MacGregor nodded his head. ‘Yes, I see what you mean, sir. I’ll go and phone the Yard and see if I can check it.’
‘Yes, you do that.’ Dover slid heavily off his stool. ‘I’ll go on in and have my dinner. You can join me when you’ve got through.’
MacGregor phoned the Yard and was promised an answer as soon as possible. By half past eight he got it. It was pretty definite that Cuthbert Boys had not changed his surname. Further checks would be made in the morning but Boys’s name had been carefully checked when the police finally got their hands on him and it was not thought that something so obvious as a legal change of name had been overlooked.
Dover grunted crossly and looked as though he was on the point of blaming MacGregor for this setback. Gloomily the two men got on with their meal.
‘Perhaps,’ said MacGregor after a bit, ‘instead of Cuthbert Boys changing his name, it was the family that did it. That’d be more logical, wouldn’t it, sir? I mean, Bertie started going off the straight and narrow pretty early on in life. The family might well have wanted to dissociate themselves from him and so they were the ones to do the name changing.’
Dover scowled. ‘I’d already thought of that!’ he snapped. This was a barefaced lie but the chief inspector was getting a bit fed up with MacGregor. It was all right for him to come up with one bright idea, but Dover didn’t want the thing to start becoming a habit. It was, after all, his case and he’d solve it or not in his own sweet way. MacGregor could flaming well keep his nose out of things which didn’t concern him. Young Charles Edward was in danger of getting too big for his boots, but Dover was just the man to cut him down to a more amenable size.
‘It’s perfectly obvious,’ he went on, wiping the strawberry ice-cream off his moustache, ‘that if Bertie didn’t change his name, the rest of the family might have changed theirs. Any fool could see that! But where does it leave us? We’d have to check every blessed man in Curdley and see whether at any time he’d ever changed his name from Boys. And it needn’t necessarily be a local man, come to that. Might just have been somebody staying temporarily in the town round about January and February this year. ’Strewth! It’d be an impossible task!’
‘Couldn’t we check at Somerset House, sir, and try it from that end? We could find out if anybody had ever changed their name from Boys. There shouldn’t be all that many of ’em.’
‘But we don’t know that the change-over was a legal one. It’s no crime just to call yourself by another name, is it? You don’t have to go through all that legal fuss and palaver if you don’t want to.’
Dover helped himself to a large piece of cheese.
‘Anyhow,’ he went on, anxious to get it in before MacGregor thought of it, ‘we’ve still got a bit of a lead to follow up. If our chap’s changed his surname it’s quite possible that he’s kept the same Christian name. People often do.’
MacGregor’s heart sank. Was Dover going to expect him to check all the men in Curdley called Victor? It would take years! He opened his mouth to suggest, deferentially of course, that this was going to be rather a big job but once again Dover forestalled him. There was a splutter of crumbs as the chief inspector spoke through a mouthful of water biscuit.
‘Luckily,’ he said indistinctly, ‘we’ve already come across a fellow called Victor.’ He squinted at MacGregor to see if Scotland Yard’s white hope had thought of that one. Most satisfactory. Judging by the puzzled look on his face, he hadn’t. Mentally Dover chalked up a small victory to himself.
‘Really, sir?’ said MacGregor, frowning in an effort to remember. ‘Who was that?’
There was a small snag here because Dover, whose memory was by no means phenomenally good, was blowed if he could remember. He had a vague idea that the name Victor had cropped up somewhere but where, precisely, still eluded him.
‘My God, MacGregor,’ he sniffed pompously, ‘you’ll really have to pull your socks up, you know, if you want to get on in this game. A good detective should take note of everything, every tiny detail no matter how insignificant it may seem at the time. He’s got to store it all away in his brain, just in case it may come in useful later on. I’ve warned you about this before. You’re still learning the job, you know. You’ve got a wonderful chance, working with me on these cases. You ought to be studying how I tackle a case and then when you get one of your own, if you ever do, you’ll know how to set about it. I’m doing the best I can to give you a good training and show you how to deal with an important investigation, but you’ve got to show a bit of initiative and know-how yourself, haven’t you? I shan’t always be here to hold your hand and spell everything out for you, shall I?’
‘I see what you mean, sir,’ said MacGregor politely, ‘ But which one of the people we’ve seen is Victor?’
‘You get your notebook out,’ snarled Dover, ‘ and bloody well find out for yourself! You got all the statements signed, didn’t you?’
‘The statements?’ MacGregor laughed ruefully. ‘ Of course, sir, I remember now! His middle name was Victor, wasn’t it? Fancy you spotting that, sir. Funny, isn’t it? Once you’ve got it, you can’t imagine how you ever overlooked it in the first place.’
Dover’s face took on a more petulant look than usual. This was a fine state of affairs. Now MacGregor knew who Victor was and he didn’t. Luckily Dover was spared the humiliation of actually having to ask as MacGregor supplied the answer.
‘Antony Victor Ofield, F. L.A.! Signed with a flourish in jet-black ink!’
‘Precisely!’ agreed Dover, just as though he’d known all along. ‘I was wondering how long it would take you to spot him.’
‘Do you think he’s a likely candidate, sir?’
‘Why not? He and Isobel were working together in that library. She might well have been in a position to get her hands on his private correspondence. If she’d just found that letter in a returned library book, she might not have known who it belonged to. But if it was Ofield’s, well, she’d be sitting pretty, wouldn’t she?’
‘And she may not have been blackmailing him for money, either, sir,’ contributed MacGregor, who was beginning to get quite excited about the possibilities. ‘We know she was dead keen on getting married and she’d been on pretty friendly terms with Ofield. He meets this Austrian girl and starts cooling off, so Isobel says, either you lead me to the altar, Antony Victor, or I’ll tell the world that your brother is the notorious Cuthbert Boys, that well-kn
own bigamist and multiple murderer!’
‘But in that case,’ objected Dover, ‘why was she trying to ruin him if she’d got hopes of marrying him herself?’
‘Ah, but we don’t know for certain that it was Isobel who was stirring up all the trouble, do we, sir? That was only Ofield’s guess. Or maybe it was just her way of letting him know she wasn’t kidding. You know – just giving him a foretaste of what she was prepared to do if he didn’t come across.’
‘Yes,’ said Dover, ‘you may have got something there. Anyhow, it’s not all that important. What does matter is that we can tie up Ofield with that gun. He was at the Men’s Bible Class when Freddie Gash and the Pie Gang raided the church hall. Ofield could have found that gun and kept it, just as well as anybody else. Then, the night Isobel was shot, he was right there on the spot. He’d know all about her visiting the vicarage every Saturday night, and how long she stayed, and which way she’d be likely to go home. He could have slipped out of the church, waited for her and shot her, and then popped back to his organ playing. My God, it’s as easy as falling off a chair. He’s an intelligent chap, too. He’d probably realize right from the start that Isobel was never going to recover, so he goes ahead and marries this foreign bit of fluff. He waits a bit, hanging on here in Curdley, until he thinks things have quietened down, and then he calmly applies for a job somewhere else. That’s quite smart, you know. It might have looked suspicious if he cleared out right after Isobel was shot – but this way it looks all innocent and natural like.’
‘He’s quite a possibility, isn’t he, sir?’
‘Possibility!’ snorted Dover. ‘He’s a dead bloody cert! I didn’t like the look of him the first time I clapped eyes on him, but he didn’t seem to have all that much in the way of a motive, but now, well, now it’s a horse of a different colour! What time is it?’
There was a clock right opposite him on the dining room wall but Dover didn’t believe in keeping a dog and barking himself.
‘Just gone nine, sir.’
‘Right! Well, we’ll just have our coffee and a cigarette and then we’ll go and see our friend, Mr Ofield. With a bit of luck we can get him under lock and key tonight.’
MacGregor was uncomfortably aware that all this had happened before. He tried to preach a bit of caution. ‘Don’t you think we’d do better to wait until morning, sir? After all, the Yard’s still looking into this Cuthbert Boys side of things. They may turn up something by morning which will change the whole picture.’ He looked unhappily at the chief inspector. ‘We’ve really not much to go on, sir, have we? It looks pretty certain that the letter in Isobel Slatcher’s Bible was written by Bigamous Bertie, but it’s only speculation that she was using it to blackmail anybody. She may never have made any use of it at all. And we’re only guessing, really, aren’t we, sir? We don’t know that Bertie’s brother is actually here in Curdley. And we’re guessing still more, on very slim evidence, that if Bertie’s brother is in Curdley, he’s actually Mr Ofield.’
MacGregor shot a wary glance at Dover and was not reassured by that lowering brow and pouting bottom lip. He pressed on, however. Somebody had to stop the blundering old idiot from making a bigger fool of himself, and the police, than usual.
‘And even if we’re right all along the line, sir, and Ofield is Bertie’s brother and the letter was written to him, we can’t really jump straight from that to arresting Ofield for the attempted murder of Isobel Slatcher’ – there was one final, hopeless appeal – ‘can we, sir?’
It was the voice of reason. Dover unhesitatingly turned a deaf ear to it.
‘What the hell’s the matter with you, MacGregor?’ he demanded pugnaciously. ‘You’re the biggest bloody wet blanket it’s ever been my misfortune to meet! I can’t for the life of me see what the devil you’re jibbing about. If Ofield didn’t shoot Isobel Slatcher, I’d like to know who the hell you think did! I know that, so far, the evidence is all based on deduction but, damn it all, it’s logical deduction! Once we face Ofield with the facts he’ll crack like one of those eggs with little lions on it. He’ll give himself away somehow, you’ll see.’ Dover flapped a negligent hand. ‘Anyhow, I’ve got a feeling in my bones that he’s our man. It’s a matter of instinct, and it’s never let me down yet!’
‘Are you going to get a warrant for him, sir?’
Dover thought for a moment. ‘No,’ he said warily, ‘I don’t think there’s any need for a warrant at this stage. We’ll just go along and question him – see what happens. Play it off the cuff, you know. He looks a bit of a cissy to me. I reckon if we push him around a bit, we’ll get the truth out of him.’
‘He’s no fool, sir,’ warned MacGregor, looking with a shudder at Dover’s massive fists. ‘He’s probably got a pretty good idea of his rights as a citizen, and of yours as a police officer.’
‘Oh, I shan’t hurt him,’ retorted Dover blithely. ‘I know how far I can go, don’t you worry. And we’ve got to do something, haven’t we? If we don’t get cracking we’ll be up here for the bloody winter! I don’t know about you, my lad, but I want to get back to London and my own bed as soon as possible. I’ve had enough of this dump!’
Chapter Twelve
It was nearly ten o’clock when Dover rammed a fat index finger into Mr Ofield’s front-door bell and held it there. He was bitterly indignant that the only result was the strangled tinkling of some blasted chimes, instead of the long, menacing buzz that he had every right to expect. He had just raised his fist to beat on the door panel when the door opened and Mr Ofield peered out into the darkness.
Mr Ofield was not overjoyed to see his visitors and seemed reluctant to let them into his home at such a late hour, but Dover had a specially trained right boot to deal with such contingencies. Almost before he knew what was happening Mr Ofield had two large, broad-shouldered detectives overcrowding his hall. From behind a closed door came the strains of a very erudite piece of chamber music. Dover sneered gently. He liked something with a bit of tune to it himself.
‘Perhaps we’d better go in here,’ suggested Mr Ofield, opening another door and switching the light on, ‘ I don’t want to disturb my wife.’
The room was chilly and uninviting. The walls and paintwork were a bleak, dead white, relieved only by a striking example of modern art which appeared to portray a nude woman in what Dover could only call a compromising situation. Had it not been for the rather sophisticated subject matter, comparisons with the work of backward four-year-old children would inevitably have arisen in Dover’s somewhat traditional mind.
Dover and MacGregor were just trying to work out how you were supposed to sit in a couple of ultra-modern chairs while Mr Ofield moved across to draw the curtains over the black, blank slabs of window, when the door opened again and a woman came in.
MacGregor stared and repressed an incipient wolf whistle as being unworthy of a Scotland Yard detective on duty, though the object of his admiration certainly merited a tribute of some sort. Even Dover, not particularly susceptible to feminine charm, blinked. Trudi Ofield was what he classified as a hot bit of stuff, and no mistake. He couldn’t help shooting a somewhat bewildered glance at her husband. There must be more about Curdley’s head librarian than he had given him credit for. No wonder Isobel Slatcher had been tossed aside like an old glove. If this was the competition, she just wasn’t in the same class, not by a long chalk.
Mrs Ofield smiled shyly, but with devastating charm at her husband’s guests. ‘Tony, darling,’ she said with a delightful Austrian accent which made the most trivial comment tingle with an almost sad, romantic undertone, ‘why don’t you bring these gentlemen into the other room? It is so much warmer there and more comfortable.’
‘They’re only staying for a couple of minutes, Liebchen,’ said Ofield, ‘it’s not worth disturbing you.’
Dover, however, was already on his way to the door. ‘Thank you very much, madam,’ he said. ‘I think we may be here rather longer than your husband anticipates, so we might
as well make ourselves at home, mightn’t we?’
A few moments later Dover was snugly installed in Mr Ofield’s armchair next to a roaring fire. The record-player had been switched off and Dover had been offered – a rather unexpected touch of hospitality in Curdley – a glass of wine and, since this was apparently all he was likely to get, had accepted it. This room, too, was extremely modern in its furnishings, but Dover’s attention was caught not by the examples of peasant pottery carefully placed here and there, nor by the futuristic lamp standard peering aggressively over his left shoulder, nor by the broad green leaves of some twenty potted plants which were banked up against one scarlet papered wall. He stared expressionlessly at a row of silver cups and plaques which filled two long shelves.
Trudi Ofield who had curled up, kitten-like, on the settee saw the direction of his eyes.
‘Those are Tony’s,’ she said, revealing small, even white teeth as she smiled. ‘He won them, but I have to clean them.’
MacGregor grinned besottedly. Mrs Ofield really was a honey. What a voice, what a face, what a figure! Wow!
Dover, however, was long past the stage when a pretty woman could absorb the whole of his attention. He turned, unsmiling, to Mr Ofield.
‘So they’re your trophies, are they, sir? May I ask what you won them for?’
Mr Ofield turned a bright red. ‘Pistol shooting,’ he muttered unwillingly.
Dover’s eyebrows rose. ‘ Pistol shooting?’ he repeated thoughtfully, and looked at the cups again. ‘You must be quite a crack shot.’
‘I’ve given it up now,’ said Mr Ofield hastily. ‘I don’t seem to have the time to spare any more.’ He smiled intimately into his wife’s large brown eyes. MacGregor felt like kicking him. What a bloody waste!
Dover said nothing. He just sat, a mean-looking mass of a man, slumped in his chair. He wasn’t quite sure how to begin.
Mr Ofield was no fooL He saw that Dover was trying to get him to open the interview and he was determined not to oblige. The silence grew longer and longer. Mrs Ofield seemed rather bewildered, but since she was far from certain exactly what was going on she didn’t want to make a faux pas by breaking the ice herself with some conventional remark about the weather. MacGregor was quite content to sit gawping at Mrs Ofield, and in any case he knew better than to open his mouth when his chief inspector was interrogating a prime suspect. Dover himself was quite happy. The chair was comfortable, the room warm, and this wine stuff didn’t taste at all bad once you got used to it. He closed his eyes gently just for a moment, to rest them.