Dead Easy for Dover

by Joyce Porter

  Dover got bored with all this gruff, soldierly talk. ‘Where were you when it happened?’ he demanded, injecting a real edge of malice into the question.

  The Brigadier failed to fall into so obvious a trap. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know when the murder was committed,’ he said with every show of innocence.

  Dover’s scowl grew blacker. If there was one thing he couldn’t stand it was people trying to be clever with him. He was just about to get really nasty when the door opened and Mrs Esmond Gough made her entrance.

  She hadn’t, as it happens, been on the telephone to Sweden or anywhere else. That was just a pious fiction. What she had been doing in the intervening moments was working away in front of the mirror, achieving her usual expert job on her face. Some of her more besotted followers might attribute that flawless skin, those sparkling eyes and that well-moulded figure to holiness and clean living, but Mrs Esmond Gough knew that it took a good deal more than that.

  She swept into the room in a swirl of diaphanous purple – a colour which suited Mrs Esmond Gough’s rather regal personality, and the prelatical connotations of which had probably not escaped her notice. In the last few years, when her campaign for women priests had really taken off and she had started making appearances on colour telly almost every week, she had begun to dress almost exclusively in purple. It had become her trade mark.

  ‘Oh, please,’ she said in that wonderfully musical voice of hers, ‘do please sit down!’

  The two gentlemen who had risen to their feet at her entry duly complied with the request, while Detective Chief Inspector Dover remained slumped in his chair like a sack of potatoes. He was busy trying to get his tongue round a piece of Miss Henty-Harris’s buttered scone which was lurking somewhere behind his upper set. It was no good, though. In the end he was obliged to take his teeth right out and remove the offending crumb with his finger.

  Mrs Esmond Gough didn’t bat an eyelid. She was not the woman to be put out by a gratuitous display of male rudeness. After all, she’d been engaged for a number of years in storming one of the last masculine bastions – and clerks in holy orders can play it remarkably rough when they put their minds to it. She seated herself with deliberate grace in a chair which only the really petty-minded would have found at all like a bishop’s throne. ‘We won’t offer you any coffee,’ she announced with a winning smile, ‘as I’m sure Miss Henty-Harris has already given you some. My husband’ – the word was pronounced with a special affection – ‘saw you coming out of her drive.’

  The Brigadier made the formal introductions. ‘They want to know what we were doing at the time of the murder, m’dear.’

  ‘That would probably be about ten days ago,’ explained MacGregor in an attempt to save time. ‘A week last Wednesday, to be precise.’

  Mrs Esmond Gough glanced enquiringly at her husband. ‘Good heavens,’ she murmured, ‘we shall have to think about that. It’s not easy to remember off hand. Perhaps if you were to get my engagements book, dear . . .’

  ‘It’s the night Sir Perceval Henty-Harris died, I believe,’ said MacGregor.

  Mrs Esmond Gough’s face cleared. ‘Ah, that helps!’

  The Brigadier blinked. ‘Does it, m’dear?’

  ‘Is it the evening you are interested in, sergeant, or earlier in the day?’

  ‘We would like to know about the evening,’ said MacGregor.

  ‘Say from about six o’clock.’

  ‘Wednesday was the twelfth, wasn’t it?’ Mrs Gough had got the problem well under control – and it showed. ‘Well, I think my husband and I can provide ourselves with a perfectly satisfactory alibi, if that is in effect what you are looking for. Now, are you ready, sergeant?’ She waited calmly until MacGregor, pencil and notebook at the ready, indicated that he was all ears. ‘Do stop me if I go too fast for you. Now, on Wednesday the twelfth we had our evening meal rather early. Say about six o’clock. It was actually more of a snack as we occasionally find it more convenient to have our main meal in the middle of the day. When we’d finished eating, my husband came in here to watch the television. He does that every evening, unless we are entertaining guests, so that’s no problem.’

  The Brigadier grinned sheepishly.

  Mrs Esmond Gough went confidently on. ‘And I remained in the kitchen.’

  ‘Washing up?’ MacGregor recalled that Mrs Esmond Gough liked to represent herself as a highly domesticated woman who loved doing her household chores in spite of the numerous commitments which one might have imagined took up the greater part of her time.

  If MacGregor’s question had been something in the nature of a little joke, Mrs Esmond Gough didn’t see it. ‘For a few minutes, yes. Then I got down to painting the posters.’

  MacGregor’s racing pencil faltered. ‘Painting the posters?’

  Mrs Esmond Gough nodded. ‘On Thursday the thirteenth, as you may remember, we had our Monster Rally and Demonstration in Westminster. We picketed the Abbey and Westminster Cathedral for an unbroken stretch of twelve hours. My organization is strictly non-denominational, of course.’

  ‘Your organization?’ MacGregor was asking the question more for Dover’s benefit than his own.

  ‘The Sorority for Sacerdotal Sex Equality.’ Mrs Esmond Gough rattled off the title with every appearance of pride and satisfaction. ‘Known as the S.S.S.E. for short, of course. We are having a Bumper Pray-In at St Paul’s next week,’ she added, anxious not to waste any chance of proselytizing. ‘Everyone is welcome. Gender is no bar. And you may be interested to know that I have plans in the near future for tackling the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is not an institution which impinges upon me personally, of course, but I feel I have a duty to attack and expose all forms of religious sexual discrimination wherever I may find it. The Orthodox Church . . .’

  MacGregor put the brakes on. If Dover, sitting there with his eyes closed and his mouth gaping revoltingly open, were not yet actually asleep, he’d be beginning to find Mrs Esmond Gough very tedious. Besides, MacGregor still hadn’t cleared up this question of the posters. ‘You, yourself, Mrs Esmond Gough, were painting the posters?’

  Mrs Esmond Gough shrugged as handsome a pair of shoulders as MacGregor was likely to see in the course of that particular murder investigation. ‘My Action Committee let me down at the eleventh hour – as usual. Some fool of a woman broke her arm, I understand. Really, some people have absolutely no consideration.’

  ‘You don’t have your posters done professionally?’ ‘No, no! Oh, believe me, sergeant, an amateurish-looking job is much more effective. It looks as though it’s a cry from the heart, you see, and it gets the media people talking about “ordinary folk” and “grass roots” and all that kind of thing. I haven’t used professionally prepared posters for years. I stick the odd spelling mistake in, too.’ Mrs Esmond Gough chuckled ruefully. ‘That’s usually guaranteed to catch the eye of some world-weary cameraman.’

  Dover stirred restlessly. It might have been impatience, indigestion or just a bad dream, but MacGregor took the hint and dragged the interview back to the nitty-gritty again. He addressed his question to both the Esmond Goughs. ‘Did the murdered girl call here on the night of Wednesday the twelfth?’

  Two heads shook as one.

  ‘Did anybody at all call here that night?’

  Again the answer was firmly in the negative.

  ‘Have either of you ever seen the girl before?’

  The Brigadier and his lady stared at one of the photographs which Inspector Walters had given MacGregor. The heads shook for a third time.

  ‘Poor girl!’ murmured Mrs Esmond Gough with rather slick compassion. ‘Poor, poor girl!’

  The Brigadier, too, felt the pathos of that wan little face. ‘Damned shame!’ he growled and blew his nose loudly.

  The powerful rumble of Dover’s stomach successfully ruined the tribute of a moment’s respectful silence which the Esmond Goughs were endeavouring to offer to the dear departed. It probably woke Dover up as well because
his eyes suddenly opened and he began smacking his lips as though he’d got a very unpleasant taste in his mouth. Looking round for a bit of innocent sport, he naturally picked on the frailer spouse. ‘So you were all alone in this room, were you?’

  The Brigadier agreed warily that that was so.

  ‘And the missus was shut away at the back of the house in the kitchen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Dover sniffed contemptuously. ‘Some bloody alibi!’ he commented before turning his attention to Mrs Esmond Gough. ‘What time did you clap eyes on him again?’

  Mrs Esmond Gough, who had been stoking up for an explosion of righteous indignation, postponed it and concentrated on answering Dover’s question. ‘It would be ten o’clock,’ she said with a glance at her husband for confirmation. ‘Yes, I arrived just in time to watch the News.’

  ‘With our Ovaltine,’ added the Brigadier helpfully. ‘We have a cup every night and I would certainly have remembered if Moo had forgotten to bring it in.’

  ‘I have the evening quite clear in my mind,’ said Mrs Esmond Gough, her natural superiority reasserting itself. ‘I finished all the posters and cleared everything away in the kitchen while they were drying. Then I got our hot drinks ready.’

  ‘What were you working in the kitchen for?’ asked Dover in a half-hearted attempt to catch Mrs Esmond Gough napping.

  ‘In case I spilt any paint, of course!’ Mrs Esmond Gough laughed in a rather mocking way as though surprised that even a stupid male slob like Dover should need to be told that. ‘The kitchen floor is tiled and all the working surfaces are washable. One would hardly undertake such a potentially messy job on one’s best drawing room carpet, would one?’

  Dover, harkening at last to the voice of his inner man who had been talking about lunch for some time, hoisted himself to his feet. ‘Gome on, laddie!’ he said.

  Mrs Esmond Gough caught onto the situation with unflattering delight and alacrity. ‘Oh, are you going? Well, I’ll see you out.’ The Brigadier made as if to rise but his wife stopped him. ‘No, you just stay there, my dear!’ she ordered firmly. ‘I’d like you to get on with the envelopes, if you don’t mind. We really ought to get them in the box tonight so that they’ll catch the first post on Monday morning.’

  Once through the front door, Dover was all set for a quick dash to the waiting police car and back to The Laughing Dog, but he found himself being momentarily detained by Mrs Esmond Gough. She was a great believer in last impressions and was quite prepared to cast her bread on even the most unpromising looking of waters. She thought that Dover’s heart might be reached by a show of warm, feminine sympathy and touched his sleeve shyly. ‘That poor girl!’ she murmured again, her eyes moist with unshed tears. ‘Have you found out yet who she is?’

  ‘Not yet, I’m afraid,’ said MacGregor, hoping against hope that Dover wouldn’t resort to physical violence in an attempt to make his escape. ‘However, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.’

  ‘And her family!’ moaned Mrs Esmond Gough. ‘Her poor, poor mother! She’s the one my heart bleeds for!’

  ‘Yes,’ said MacGregor, feeling inadequate.

  ‘How she must be suffering!’ Mrs Esmond Gough gave a little shudder and adroitly brought the conversation back to herself. ‘I know how she feels, poor woman, although I haven’t of course been blessed with children myself. We had such high hopes, the Brigadier and I, when we married but, alas, they were not to be.’ She dabbed pathetically at her eyes with a very pretty lace handkerchief.

  MacGregor squirmed and Dover gawped.

  ‘The Brigadier,’ continued Mrs Esmond Gough, looking noble, ‘has never reproached me, although at times he must have felt that I have let him down badly. A lesser man might have been tempted to set his barren wife aside as, indeed, the law permits him to do but. . . Oh, well’ – she pulled herself together bravely and changed the subject — ‘I shall pray for your success.’

  Dover could only stand so little. To MacGregor’s embarrassment, he shouldered Mrs Esmond Gough unceremoniously out of the way and went lumbering off down the front steps and along the drive. MacGregor was left to make what amends he could for this boorishness. He seized Mrs Esmond Gough’s hand and squeezed it sympathetically. Then, with a mumbled word of thanks and apology, he too was away.

  5

  ‘Look,’ said Dover in one of those exasperated voices that showed he was making every effort to be reasonable, ‘why mess about? Let’s get a warrant and run the bastard in!’

  From time to time Dover could be pretty pungent, even in the open air. In the close confines of the police car, MacGregor was finding him well nigh unbearable. Still, he had to stick it out. He simply couldn’t let Brigadier Gough be arrested for murder just because Dover happened to have taken a violent and irrational dislike to the poor fellow and because – more important – the Chief Inspector wanted a quick scalp to wave before the astonished eyes of Pomeroy Chemicals. MacGregor got his handkerchief out and took a long time over blowing his nose. ‘But, sir,’ he said, ‘there is absolutely no evidence. We’d never get a warrant for his arrest, and as for securing a conviction in court . . .’

  ‘Who cares about convictions in court?’ demanded Dover incredulously. ‘’Strewth, I’ll be sitting pretty at Pomeroy Chemicals Limited long before it ever comes to trial. By then it won’t matter a damn what the bloody verdict is.’

  MacGregor got his cigarettes out. It was the equivalent of diverting the attention of a fractious baby by means of a sweetie. ‘How about a smoke, sir, while we talk things over?’

  Dover accepted the cigarette, of course, but he was not the man to be bribed. Well, certainly not by one lousy, filter-tipped, low tar fag. ‘I don’t know what you mean – no evidence,’ he grumbled. ‘For a start, he hasn’t got an alibi.’

  MacGregor gently pointed out that not everybody unable to furnish a cast-iron alibi is necessarily guilty of murder.

  Dover wasn’t listening. ‘I’ll tell you precisely what happened, laddie. Brigadier What’s-his-name gets this dead girl into trouble, right?’

  ‘There is absolutely no indication that he even knew her, sir!’ wailed MacGregor.

  Dover looked surprised. ‘But he’s got “lady-killer” written all over him! He’s bound to be up to something on the side with a wife like that.’Strewth, it can’t be much bloody fun being married to a woman who wants to be a bishop. Now, where was I?’

  ‘You’d got the dead girl pregnant by Brigadier Gough, sir,’ said MacGregor, chucking in the sponge.

  ‘So she comes charging all the way out here to ask him what he’s going to do about it. Maybe she’s blackmailing him or threatening to tell his missus or demanding marriage or wants money for an abortion – I don’t know. We can fill in the details later – when we’ve got His Nibs alone in a cell with no witnesses. I know his sort. All wind and water. It’ll not take me five minutes to bash a few particulars out of him.’ Dover’s lower lip trembled at the prospect of such delights and a lump of ash dropped unheeded off his dangling cigarette to disappear without trace into the antique patina of his waistcoat. ‘And the rest of the story’s as clear as bloody daylight! Our gallant soldier boy’s in that front room watching the telly while her ladyship’s in the kitchen painting her silly posters. There’s a ring at the front door. She doesn’t hear it, but he damned well does. He goes and answers the door – and there’s his illicit lady love, spelling BIG TROUBLE in capital letters. Being a man of action, he picks up the nearest blunt instrument, clouts her one on the nut with it and tips the body over the garden wall of the house next door. You’ve got to admit, laddie,’ said Dover, seizing hold of the one hard fact in his whole hypothesis, ‘that she was found in the garden of the house next door. Convenient, eh?’

  ‘You could make that sort of case out about absolutely anybody, sir,’ said MacGregor wearily. Why not just let the old fool go forging ahead and cut his own stupid throat once and for all? Well, one reason was that MacGregor bitterly resented
being tarred by the same brush as Scotland Yard’s most unwanted detective. And another was that MacGregor had an awful suspicion that, in the event of any fiasco, he would find that he was the one left holding the baby. It had, he reminded himself, happened before.

  Meanwhile Dover was proudly producing his clincher. ‘But not “absolutely anybody” would give themselves away like the Brigadier did, would they, laddie? Here’ – Dover’s air of triumph was quite sickening – ‘you did notice that, didn’t you?’

  MacGregor frowned. He hadn’t really missed something so obvious that even Dover could spot it, had he?

  ‘It was when they were talking about not having had any blooming kids.’

  MacGregor’s frown deepened. ‘Oh?’

  ‘You bloody don’t remember!’ Dover’s yelp of delight and one-up-manship would have earned a lesser man a punch up the nose. ‘He said, before she came in, that they hadn’t any children and that it was his fault.’

  MacGregor nodded cautiously. ‘Yes, I remember that, sir. He said it was owing to some bug or other he’d picked up during his overseas service.’

  ‘I thought at the time it was a damned funny topic of conversation,’ boasted Dover. ‘It was only later when Mrs Who’s-your-father was seeing us off at the front door that the penny dropped.’

  ‘Mrs Esmond Gough, sir?’ MacGregor’s frown of puzzlement was replaced by a gasp of annoyance. Of course! ‘I remember, sir,’ he began eagerly.

  But Dover wasn’t going to have his thunder stolen. ‘She said,’ he interrupted loudly, ‘that their marriage hadn’t been blessed by any brats and that it was her fault. Now, that’s what I call a bloody discrepancy.’

  In his own, much more refined way, MacGregor could be almost as bloody-minded as Dover. He would go to almost any lengths to prove that the Chief Inspector, as usual, had got it wrong. ‘Maybe they were both being self-sacrificing, sir,’ he suggested quickly, ‘and both trying to take the blame so as to spare their partner’s feelings.’