by Joyce Porter
Josh clutched at a partition in passing. ‘Bother that old pig again?’ he gasped. ‘ You must be joking!’ His grasping fingers were inevitably dragged away and from then on things began to happen rather quickly. MacGregor, skilfully avoiding all Josh’s attempts to put the boot in where it matters, got the saloon bar door open and the poor little man had barely time to bestow a few more pieces of his vulgar mind on Dover before he found himself sprawling on the cold, hard ground outside.
‘Drunk as a lord,’ said Dover as MacGregor came back, fastidiously brushing himself down. ‘As if I was going to hand over twenty quid to a cheap little rat like him.’
MacGregor loudly said nothing, letting the disapproval on his face speak for him. Detectives may not like informers, but they are under a moral obligation to keep faith with them. Dover, as usual, had let the side down and had let it down – MacGregor became conscious of the watching eyes – in full view of the general public. Oh, it was so absolutely mortifying!
Dover was quick to notice that his sergeant was standing there doing nothing. ‘I’ll have a pint of bitter!’ he said.
MacGregor marched off stiffly to get the drinks.
‘Well, sir,’ he said, when Dover’s unsavoury face eventually emerged with a large white moustache obliterating his small black one, ‘did you get any information out of him?’
Dover set his glass down, his good humour evaporating with the speed of light. He liked MacGregor’s cheek, by God he did! Whatever scraps of miserable information had been obtained from that drink-sodden midget had been purchased – by Dover – at a high price. It was typical of MacGregor to come strolling along when it was all over and expect to reap the fruits of another man’s work for free! The way he was going on you’d think bloody double whiskies grew on trees.
Dover sank resentfully beneath the froth again. ‘Gurgle-sloshlurp!’ he said.
‘Sir?’
‘I said, nothing much!’ snapped Dover.
‘Oh, well, I’m not surprised,’ said MacGregor with that faintly knowing air that made Dover see red.
The chief inspector was stung to hasty retaliation. ‘Did you know that Marsh was up to his ears in debt to a bookie?’ he demanded.
‘No, sir. But, surely,’ – MacGregor smiled a superior little smile – ‘surely you don’t think that this is some sort of Chicago style, mobster killing, do you, sir?’
‘It’s as good a theory as any that you’ve come up with!’ snarled Dover. ‘ In any case, you’d better get up off your backside and do some investigating.’
MacGregor’s gentle scepticism was quite unruffled. ‘Do you by any chance remember the bookie’s name, sir?’
‘Taffy O’Sullivan!’ said Dover, astounding them both by the sharpness of his memory. He watched with contempt as MacGregor duly got his notebook out and then, losing interest, let his eyes wander round the bar. Over in one corner he noticed for the first time that there were a couple of brightly glowing fruit machines. Dover’s face brightened to match. ‘Got any change, laddie?’
‘I think so, sir.’ MacGregor snapped his notebook shut and wondered what old bird-brain was up to now.
Dover got to his feet and began to lumber across the room. ‘You can get some more at the bar,’ he said.
It eventually cost MacGregor the best part of three pounds to learn that Dover had managed to acquire no less than two new murder suspects. There was Taffy O’Sullivan and little Josh himself. That he should have achieved this in a mere half hour probably, thought MacGregor wiltingly, constituted a record.
Bored well nigh to tears, MacGregor watched his ten-penny pieces disappearing down the greedy slot of the one-armed bandit and listened while Dover, in between dragging the lever down and kicking the machine when it failed to disgorge, expounded his theories.
‘That undersized little twerp,’ Dover began.
‘Josh, sir,’ prompted MacGregor.
‘So he said.’ Dover paused while he waited for the spinning symbols to stop. A plum, a bell and a cherry slotted into the windows. He consulted the table of winning combinations. Just his bloody luck! ‘Anyhow, he’s got a motive for murder. Taffy O’Sullivan was threatening to duff him up if he didn’t collect that money from Marsh, but Josh’ – Dover broke off to feed another coin into the fruit machine – ‘Josh knew that O’Sullivan cancelled all debts if one of his punters died on him.’
MacGregor witheld comment until Dover had recovered from the exertion of working the lever. ‘So Josh was let off the hook? Well, I suppose it’s a possibility, sir.’ MacGregor prided himself on his tact. ‘Er – did you think to ask Josh to account for his whereabouts at the time of the murder, by any chance?’
‘’Strewth,’ grunted Dover, thumping the machine in the hope of inducing it to play the game, ‘I can’t be expected to do all the flaming work, laddie! You’ll have to follow it up. Sometime.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said MacGregor, telling himself that chance would be a fine thing. ‘And you think this Taffy O’Sullivan might be involved, too?’
‘Could be.’ Dover was re-reading the instructions. Damn it all, it looked simple enough! ‘Marsh owed him money and wouldn’t pay. No bookie worth his salt can afford to let people get away with that sort of thing. He sent Josh to collect and got damn all for his pains. Not surprising if he turns to something a bit rougher. They probably only meant to beat What’s-his-name up but they went too far and he got killed by mistake.’
‘Yes, sir.’ MacGregor sometimes had bad dreams in which Dover solved his case by sticking a pin in the telephone directory and applying for a warrant. ‘Well, I suppose that’s a possibility, too.’
The want of enthusiasm did not go unmarked. ‘Oh, don’t rupture yourself!’ growled Dover, exploiting a rich vein of heavy sarcasm.
‘Well, sir, we do seem to be collecting rather a lot of suspects but very little evidence. I mean, you’ve already got your eye on Miss Marsh and Lord Crouch, the whole Tiffin family, the landlord of The Bull Reborn and – oh – and Lady Priscilla.’ MacGregor was staring mesmerized at the spinning symbols. ‘Now we’ve got this Josh character and Taffy O’Sullivan, the bookie. It does seem rather a lot, doesn’t it, sir?’
‘I’ve run out of change,’ said Dover.
MacGregor pulled himself together, went back to the bar and handed over another pound note.
Dover accepted the handful of coins sullenly. ‘I reckon this machine’s crooked,’ he said as he cast his next piece of bread on the ungrateful waters.
MacGregor sat himself on the edge of a table. They were obviously going to spend the rest of the evening stuck in The White Feathers so he might as well make himself comfortable. ‘What’s our next move, sir?’
Dover didn’t have time to voice his resentment at this continual harassment because, miracle of miracles, a couple of coins unexpectedly tinkled down into the cup. ‘Whacko!’ he said and was just about to pocket his winnings when he noticed that they were not legal tender. ‘ Here,’ he roared furiously, ‘I’ve been done!’
Patiently MacGregor abandoned the murder of Gary Marsh and explained to Dover that the coins were tokens which could only be used for purchases across the bar.
‘It’s a bloody swindle!’ objected Dover. ‘Oh, well, you’d better buy ’em off me. They’re no damned good to me. You can use ’em for the next round of drinks.’
Success, even to the modest tune of five new pence, didn’t strike again and Dover was not a good loser. By about half past eight the pleasures of chucking MacGregor’s good money down the drain were beginning to pall. Dover tugged down the handle on positively his last attempt to win fame and fortune, examined the line of two plums and a lemon and directed his mind to higher things.
He turned to MacGregor. ‘ We’ll go and have a bit to eat somewhere,’ he announced. ‘ I’m bloody starving.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘And then’ – Dover flexed his shoulders. ’ Strewth, it took it out of you, yanking that lever thing. – ‘ we m
ight go and tackle old Crouch.’
MacGregor registered surprise and not a little apprehension. ‘Sir?’
‘Suppose,’ said Dover, leaning on the one-armed bandit and trying to ease the weight on his feet, ‘there was something between him and Marsh?’
MacGregor gave the suggestion more consideration than it merited. ‘ What sort of a something, sir?’
‘Couple of pansies!’ explained Dover with a snigger. ‘The idea came to me just now, seeing you standing there like a drooping arum lily. It would explain everything, wouldn’t it? Like old Crouch giving him that posh job.’
‘Managing the motel, sir?’
‘Marsh was the wettest thing since nappies,’ said Dover. ‘Even old Crouch’d never think of employing him if he wasn’t besotted with the lad.’
‘There is the theory that Marsh was Lord Crouch’s illegitimate son – or nephew,’ MacGregor pointed out unhappily. ‘And then, again, for all we know, Marsh may have been extremely competent at his job.’
Dover, having buttoned up his overcoat, now appeared totally engrossed in trying to scrape off one of the more disgusting stains on the lapel. ‘You don’t reckon old Crouch is one of the nancy boys?’ he asked slyly.
MacGregor achieved a thin smile. ‘Hardly, sir.’
Dover took the demolition of his latest crack-pot theory with remarkable equanimity. ‘Oh, well,’ he said, ‘I reckon I’ll have to take your word for it, shan’t I? After all, they do say it takes one to spot one, don’t they?’
Chapter Fourteen
Luckily, by the time our hero got back to Beltour and had crawled on his hands and knees up to the Crouch’s eyrie, all thoughts of tackling anything but bed had long since seeped out of his mind.
The following morning it dawned so gorgeous and spring-like that even Dover got round to feeling that it might be a shame to remain indoors. This enthusiasm for the open air life was reinforced by the departure, before he could be stopped, of Lord Crouch to some business meeting in London and by the determination of Lady Priscilla to make a start on her spring cleaning. Dover, the weeniest bit hung-over after his excesses of the night before, found the monotonous drone of the vacuum cleaner more than his head could stand and so, all in all, the rural delights of Donkey Bridge and Bluebell Wood proved irresistible.
MacGregor naturally didn’t choose to point out to Dover that he had left it a little late in the day to start viewing the scene of the crime. Heaven only knows, there had not been much to see in the first place but, since then, everything had been determinedly trampled flat for yards and yards around. However, physical effort on Dover’s part was such a rare plant that MacGregor considered himself under a moral obligation to foster it whenever he could. He drove Dover as near as possible and then encouragingly made light of the few hundred yards which would have to be covered on foot.
Dover rolled along the fatal path almost happily. The sun was warm, but not oppressively so, the trees were bursting into bud and a few birds were singing. ‘ You should have brought a picnic basket!’ he told MacGregor, just so that young gentleman should remember that there is a rift in every lute.
They penetrated deeper into the wood. The going became harder. The path grew muddier and tree roots poked up awkwardly to catch at unwary feet. The occasional oath started to explode in the balmy air. MacGregor offered his arm and Dover grabbed it without gratitude, holding on like a nervous limpet until they reached the Donkey Bridge itself.
The bridge was an unpretentious, plank construction, erected for the sole purpose of crossing a small stream which sparkled and bubbled along a shallow, rock strewn bed.
‘Very picturesque,’ sniffed Dover, lowering his weight gratefully on to one of the uneven stone slabs which formed the steps up to the bridge. ‘Where was the body?’
MacGregor indicated a confused and trampled depression by the side of the stream. ‘ Just there, sir!’ Being MacGregor, of course, he couldn’t leave it there. He had brought his brief case with him and now conscientiously produced a whole series of starkly factual police photographs for Dover’s delight and edification.
Dover eyed the pictures of the rain-sodden, mud splashed and battered body queasily. Dead bodies – even photographs of dead bodies – always played hell with his sensitive stomach. MacGregor, however, was still waiting optimistically for some pearl of wisdom to fall from the master’s lips. Dover did not disappoint him. ‘Got a fag, laddie?’ he asked.
MacGregor all but snatched his precious photographs back and got his cigarettes out. ‘Judging by the injuries, sir,’ he went on doggedly in the face of Dover’s massive indifference, ‘ the murderer must have been standing up there on the edge of the bridge when he struck the blows that killed Marsh.’ Almost in spite of himself Dover half turned to gawp at the spot which MacGregor was indicating with a beautifully manicured index finger. It was a little above where the chief inspector was sitting. ‘That’s right, sir, about there. If you could just move a second, sir, I could show you exactly …’
‘Don’t bother!’ growled Dover. ‘I’ve got the bloody picture.’ He looked round stupidly. ‘What about the murder weapon?’
MacGregor managed a wintry little smile. Another minute and the old fool would be asking him who the victim was. ‘ I believe I did tell you about that earlier, sir, didn’t I?’
Dover scowled one of his blackest scowls. ‘Refresh my memory!’ he invited.
‘It was, we think, a piece of railing torn off the bridge. You can see that it’s all rotten and broken. It would be easy enough to pull a sizeable chunk off.’
Dover sighed and let his podgy body sag despondently. The stone step upon which he was sitting was hard, and damp. Much more of this and he’d be adding piles to his already lengthy list of sociably unacceptable ailments. It was time to call it a day. He was just about to demand MacGregor’s assistance in helping him to his feet when his attention was distracted by the clatter of tiny hooves approaching down the path. Another second and one of the zebras came skittering to a startled halt. Dover, no animal lover at the best of times, didn’t even attempt to resist this heaven sent temptation. With a speed he would have thought well-nigh suicidal in any other circumstances, he snatched up a handy-sized stone. The zebra, no fool, tried to make a run for it but failed to get its striped bottom out of range in time. Bellowing indignantly, it shot back down the path from whence it had come.
Dover dusted off his hands. ‘That’ll learn it!’ he sniggered, delighted at the look of dismay on MacGregor’s face. ‘Well, anything else, laddie?’
MacGregor, beyond words, shook his head and helped Dover to his feet. ‘We’re going back to the car now, are we, sir?’
But Dover was nothing if not perverse. He had fully intended returning to the car until MacGregor mentioned it. Now he had to think of something else. ‘Which way did the murderer come?’
‘Well, of course, that’s what we really don’t know, sir. You can see what the ground’s like round here and with all that rain.… As I said before, sir, it is possible that Marsh was followed, or even accompanied, from Beltour House, but my theory is that the killer approached from the opposite direction.’ Here Dover blew out his lips in what might have been a lethargic raspberry but MacGregor refused to rise to the implied comment on his powers of deduction. ‘I feel that he must have got here ahead of Marsh and the obvious thing is that he came towards him from the direction of the railway station. That does imply a certain degree of premeditation, I suppose, but I can’t see any objection to that. In any case, whether it was a murder of impulse or something that had been planned well in advance, it still remains as big a mystery as ever, doesn’t it, sir?’
Dover fancied he detected a note of criticism in his sergeant’s voice and jumped to quash it. ‘It’s no bloody mystery to me!’ he snorted. ‘Lord Crouch is our man.’ Nobody could fault Dover when it came to pig-headedness.
‘Well, not if my theory is correct, sir. I mean, according to all the evidence we have at the moment
, the only way Lord Crouch and Marsh could have been here at the Donkey Bridge together on Sunday evening was if they’d walked here together from the house.’
Dover had twisted round and was staring across the bridge. ‘Where does this path go, anyhow?’ he asked.
MacGregor repressed the urge to let lightning strike twice in the same place by smashing Dover’s stupid head in with a piece of railing but he wasn’t yet quite prepared to serve a life sentence for the infuriating old fool. He unclenched his teeth sufficiently to say. ‘To the railway station, sir!’
‘Oh, yes.’ Dover vaguely remembered somebody mentioning something about a railway station. Uninteresting sort of place. Still, beggars can’t be choosers. ‘Come on!’ he said. ‘We’ll go and see.’
The Donkey Bridge buckled dangerously as Dover’s weight trundled across it but the ancient timbers stood up to the strain. Across the bridge, the path rose gently and Dover, assisted by some timely shoving from his sergeant, puffed slowly up it. Halfway he paused for breath and reflection. ‘ Somebody,’ he panted, ‘must have hated What’s-his-name’s guts to tackle this lot. And in the dark. It’s like a bloody assault course.’
They plodded on and, when the going became easier, Dover began to look around. The wood, always small and never really dense, was thinning out and the village of Beltour could be clearly seen through the straggling branches. It was surprisingly near. The church steeple and the roofs of the taller houses rose rather charmingly into the blue sky.
A little further along the path forked and Dover took the opportunity to stop and have another little rest. ‘You didn’t,’ he pointed out accusingly, ‘tell me there was two paths.’
MacGregor simply hadn’t wanted to make things too complicated. He blushed, however, and hastened to rectify his omission. ‘The right hand fork is the one that goes to the railway station, sir. This one on the left goes to the village.’