Dover Three

by Joyce Porter

  At the County Police Headquarters they had had a very curt and frigid interview with the Chief Constable. Without actually putting it into words he had made his attitude quite clear. He tossed a bulky police file across the desk in the general direction of MacGregor, told them that if they didn’t hurry they’d miss the last bus to Thornwich, and wished them a firm goodbye. Dover and MacGregor shuffled unhappily out. The Chief Inspector hadn’t even had time to work up steam and blow his top. He usually managed to have a blazing row with every chief constable he’d ever been sent to assist, and he felt unfulfilled as he and MacGregor huddled together in the pouring rain waiting for their bus. However, there is no point in keeping a sergeant if you can’t bark at him, so Dover relieved the tedium by bawling MacGregor out.

  ‘Well,’ said the bus conductor suddenly in a voice of complete indifference, ‘this is Thornwich. Are you getting off or not?’

  The two detectives got off. The bus departed in a flurry of black smoke.

  ‘Where,’ demanded Dover with suppressed fury, ‘the hell are we?’

  He did well to ask. Not many people will have heard of Thornwich. It was a nasty little village clinging, without apparent rhyme or reason, to the lee side of a hill and separated from civilization by seven miles of bleak moors on one side and nine on the other. Why anybody should have ever settled in Thornwich in the first place is a puzzle lost in the mists of time. Why anybody should live there now is an even greater enigma. It was one of Thornwich’s numerous misfortunes to have a busy main road running slap bang through the middle of it. Heavy traffic roared through the village day and night in both directions, belching diesel fumes and shedding dirty oily rags in its wake. There was some respite in the depths of winter when the snows came and the moors were impassable. In these grim periods the villagers sought some compensation for the deathly quiet which descended in fleecing the unfortunate truck-drivers who could proceed no farther. Prices in Thornwich showed a distressing tendency to fluctuate with the depth of snow.

  Dover and MacGregor were, of course, unaware of these minor points of rural economy as they stumbled around in the dark of a Saturday night looking for The Jolly Sailor, the village’s only hostelry, where they were destined to stay during the course of their investigations. It was still raining and bitterly cold. Thornwich was on the lee side of its formidable hill only when the wind blew from the west. When it blew from the east, and it always did during the winter, the village caught it full blast. There seemed to be nobody about – apart from the lorries grinding their way uphill from the direction of Bearle or hurtling downhill on dubious brakes from the direction of Cumberly.

  After being thoroughly cursed by Dover for his inefficiency in not immediately locating their lodging, MacGregor found a front door and knocked on it, This was no mean achievement. a? the alternation of pitch-darkness and glaring headlights made seeing anything at all extremely difficult.

  The Jolly Sailor, it appeared, was right opposite on the other side of the road. The large man in shirt-sleeves who had responded to MacGregor’s inquiry leaned speculatively in his open doorway, not only wondering who the tall dark handsome stranger was, but whether he’d make it safely across the road or not. It was damned cold away from the fire, but it’d be a pity to miss anything. Some of them blighters came down the hill on nothing but their sidelights.

  MacGregor picked up the suitcases, waited his opportunity and made a dash for it. Dover, encumbered only by his own weight, charged across in his wake.

  Saturday night it might be, but one would never have guessed it from the interior of The Jolly Sailor. Things were very quiet. Dead, you might say. There were only two men in the public, one with a whippet dog on a piece of string. The saloon bar didn’t even have a light on.

  The two men and the whippet stared with interest as Dover and MacGregor, cold and breathless, came crashing in.

  ‘Bert!’ shouted the man with the whippet. ‘They’re here!’ He grinned a toothless welcome at the detectives. ‘Come on in out of the cold, lads, and make yourselves at home. Bert’s just coming.’

  Not even the warmth of his smile could cheer up the public bar of The Jolly Sailor. It was dingy, dirty and flyblown. The only source of heat, a one-bar electric fire, was safely tucked away behind the counter where its efforts were restricted to bringing comfort and solace to the legs of the landlord.

  Bert Quince, when he appeared (and he wasn’t the man to hurry himself for anybody), assumed a strategic position behind the bar and let the warmth of his fire play on the back of his calves. He regarded his new customers with an equanimity bordering on total indifference.

  ‘You’ll be the policemen from London,’ he observed.

  ‘That’s right, landlord,’ said MacGregor with a winning smile. ‘I believe you’ve got a couple of rooms for us.’

  Bert Quince’s eyebrows rose slightly at the ‘landlord’ bit but he made no comment. If this young fellow-me-lad thought he was going to patronize the inhabitants of Thornwich with his lah-di-dah ways and his lah-di-dah voice, he’d got another think coming. He’d soon learn, probably with somebody’s boot up his backside. They were a ruggedly independent lot in Thornwich.

  ‘I hope they told you,’ said Bert Quince, still warmly ensconced behind his bar counter, ‘that we’re only putting you up to oblige. We don’t let rooms in winter. Only in summer. To cyclists and suchlike. Still, you’re welcome to what we’ve got’ – his voice didn’t ring with anything approaching sincerity – ‘just as long as you bear it in mind that we’re only doing it to oblige. I reckon’ – this came out with grim relish – ‘I reckon you’ll find us a sight more rough than you’re used to up in London.’ He pushed two keys across the counter. ‘Up them stairs and you’ll find your rooms just at the top. Numbers one and two. You can’t miss ’em.’

  ‘We would like some supper,’ said MacGregor, producing another friendly smile.

  ‘Supper?’ Bert Quince scratched his head. ‘I dunno about that. The old woman’s out playing bingo. She always plays bingo on a Saturday night.’

  ‘But we’ve had nothing to eat,’ protested MacGregor, and Dover’s stomach rumbled loudly in support.

  ‘Charlie!’ Bert Quince turned ponderously to address the old man with the whippet. ‘How about popping across to Freda’s and bringing back a couple of plates of dinner? I reckon these gentlemen’ll think it’s worth the price of a pint.’

  Charlie shot to his feet with that frantic spryness which, when it suits them, only the elderly and fragile can achieve. ‘Hot pie, chips and beans, do you?’ he asked, and was gone in the twinkling of an eye.

  ‘Well, that’s very kind,’ said MacGregor helplessly as the door banged to behind Charlie.

  ‘It’s across the road,’ explained Mr Quince. ‘It’s less dangerous for him. He’s used to it.’

  ‘Oh,’ said MacGregor. ‘Well, perhaps we should go up to our rooms and save a wash – shall we, sir?’

  Dover, who had not so far opened his mouth in the confines of The Jolly Sailor, gave a disparaging and ominous sniff and headed for the stairs. Meekly MacGregor toted up the suitcases and followed him. He already had an uncomfortable premonition that this was going to be a typical Dover case. The signs were all pointing implacably in that direction.

  Chapter Two

  WHEN DOVER and MacGregor came back into the bar twenty minutes later their dinner was congealing on the counter. Bert Quince obliged by opening up the musty saloon bar and finding some cutlery. In solemn state the two detectives settled down to their pie, beans and chips followed by a couple of apple tarts in little cardboard boxes.

  ‘We can’t stay here!’ snarled Dover, spraying beans and chips in several directions.

  Unhappily, MacGregor nodded his agreement. It wasn’t often he and the Chief Inspector saw eye to eye on anything but on this occasion there was no dissension in either mind. The Jolly Sailor just didn’t come up to scratch. Visiting detectives had every right to expect the taxpayer to provide t
hem with something several stars better than this. The beds were hard, narrow and damp. Each miserable room was furnished with a bowl and ewer the like of which MacGregor had never seen outside a junk shop, and it looked highly unlikely that anybody would ever oblige with hot water for shaving. Both rooms faced the front and got the full benefit of the morning sun and the endless heavy traffic tearing past on the main road. With commendable selfishness the Quinces had commandeered the back rooms for themselves. And the toilet! In spite of the fact that the electric light bulb had expired, enough could be seen to make the strongest stomach heave. There was a wad of newspaper hanging on a nail, and MacGregor didn’t see how the piece of hairy string which served as a chain could long withstand the tugs of a man like Dover.

  ‘I don’t think there is anywhere else, sir,’ said MacGregor, examining the inside of his meat pie with some distress. ‘There’s nowhere nearer than Bearle and that’s seven miles off. And I don’t suppose those buses run more than once in a blue moon.’

  Dover glared at him. Wet-blanket MacGregor sounding off again! ‘Well, you’ll just have to find somewhere, won’t you, laddie?’

  ‘But where, sir?’

  ‘Don’t ask me!’ snapped Dover crossly. ‘Use your initiative!’ He unwrapped his apple pie.

  ‘’Strewth! It’s got whiskers on it. They damned well want prosecuting, selling muck like this.’

  Things, however, took an unexpected turn for the better. After supper MacGregor announced that, with the Chief Inspector’s permission, he would retire to his room and study the file on the case. Dover, not at his brightest and best, gave a ready consent – he was always glad to see the back of his sergeant – but no sooner had MacGregor gone than he realized that he had been left all alone in a public house with nobody to buy him a drink. He was just about to haul MacGregor downstairs again at the double, when one of the men who’d been patiently sitting in the public bar since the detectives first arrived nobly stepped into the breach.

  ‘I wonder if you would permit me to buy you a drink, Chief Inspector? Just to welcome you to Thornwich and wish you every success.’

  No sooner asked than accepted, and Dover found himself clutching a glass of whisky and beaming quite happily at the donor as he joined him and the old man who had fetched the suppers. Introductions were soon made. The old man was called Charlie Ghettle and Dover’s new-found friend was called Arthur Tompkins. The whippet answered to the name of Jack. It was not quite the sort of company with which Dover would mix from choice but, as the jolly sailors say, any port in a storm.

  ‘Enjoy your supper? asked Charlie Chettle, who was still waiting for his pint.

  Dover grunted.

  ‘She does a good pie, Freda does. I’d have put you some tomato ketchup on it, if I’d thought. Always tastier with a bit of tomato ketchup, if you ask me.’

  Dover grunted again:

  ‘You’ll be all right tomorrow,’ said Mr Tompkins reassuringly. ‘They can say what they like about Elsie Quince, but she can cook. Her steak and kidney puddings are out of this world, you’ll see.’

  ‘She were trained up at the big house,’ said Charlie Chettle. ‘That’s where they learned her. Up at the big house.’

  ‘Really?’ said Dover with massive indifference.

  Charlie Chettle didn’t mind. At his age he was happy to have any kind of audience. It didn’t have to be a listening one.’

  ‘Course, it’s gone now,’ he went on. ‘They pulled it down years ago. They’re going to build one of these housing estates on it, you know. I’ll bet the old squire’s spinning round in his grave. He wouldn’t let ’em chop down not a single one of his trees while he was alive, never mind build a lot of blooming houses on his land. Mind you, all this was before the war. I used to know the bailiff in the old days. And he was a queer old cuss, too. He used to . . .’

  ‘Well, I don’t think the Chief Inspector’s interested in that sort of thing, Charlie,’ said Mr Tompkins with an indulgent smile. ‘It’s modem Thornwich you’ll be dissecting, isn’t it?’

  Dover indicated that this was so, managing to embrace his empty glass in his nod. Reinforcements were ordered immediately.

  ‘Well, I reckon you’ll have a pretty tight job on your hands,’ said Charlie Chettle, affectionately screwing up his dog’s ears. ‘The local police didn’t get very far and it wasn’t for want of trying. They came and asked me if they could look around me cottage. “Typewriter?” I says, “You won’t find more than a nine-penny ballpoint pen that I use for me pools, but you’re welcome to come and look.”’

  ‘They searched every house in the village,’ Mr Tompkins explained eagerly. ‘They were looking for the typewriter and the notepaper. You didn’t have to let them look through your house, of course, but nobody refused.’

  ‘They’d have been putting the noose round their necks if they had,’ said Charlie Chettle with a chuckle. ‘Some of them women are in such a state, they wouldn’t think twice about a lynching party.’

  ‘That’s very true,’ Mr Tompkins assured Dover earnestly. ‘Feelings are running very high, very high indeed. Mrs Tompkins has always been what I call a very nervous woman – very sensitive, you know – but you should see her now. Trembles like a leaf every time she hears letters drop through the box. Shocking, it is, the way this business has pulled her right down. It wasn’t so bad at the beginning when it was only one or two, but it’s been going on and on for weeks now. Do you know she’s had sixteen of the dratted things? I don’t know how much longer she’ll be able to stand it.’

  ‘It’s a crying shame,’ agreed Charlie Chettle.

  ‘And it’s not knowing who’s writing them that makes it ten times worse,’ said Mr Tompkins, waxing indignant.

  ‘They do say a couple of women came to blows at the Christian Fellowship t’other night,’ said Charlie Chettle, smacking his lips.

  Dover felt it was time he got in on the act. After all it was his case, even if he did know considerably less about it than his two companions. ‘Who’s the favourite candidate?’ he asked.

  Charlie Chettle gave a bitter laugh. ‘You name him,’ he said, ‘we’ve got him. Do you know’ – he leaned across the table and tapped Dover’s arm in a friendly way – ‘some of them old bosoms even suggested that my daughter was at the back of it! Ruddy sauce! I soon gave ’em a piece of my mind, I can tell you. Just because she was about the only lass in the whole perishing village who hadn’t had one of them letters.’

  ‘Go on!’ said Dover with some surprise. ‘I thought everybody’d had at least one.’

  ‘Well, my Doris hadn’t. That’s why they picked on her, see? Because she hadn’t had one.’

  Dover leaned back in his chair and, encouraged by the whisky, prepared to pontificate. ‘In my experience,’ he announced, ‘these poison-pen cases are all much of a muchness. ’Frinstance, the person who writes them always writes some to herself. She thinks’ – Dover gave a pitying laugh – ‘she thinks it’ll put us off the scent. So you see, Mr Chettle, if your daughter hasn’t had any letters that automatically crosses her off the list.’

  ‘Oh, but nobody really thought it was Doris,’ protested Mr Tompkins. ‘She’s much too nice a person. But, Mr Dover, you can’t seriously be suggesting that it’s a woman writing these letters?’

  ‘Thousand to one it is,’ said Dover grandly.

  ‘Oh, no! Surely not? I mean – the language! Well, I’ve knocked around a bit in my time and I flatter myself I’m pretty broadminded, but some of the filth in those letters to my wife – well, they made my hair curl, I can tell you!’

  ‘It’ll be a woman.’ Dover’s speech lacked its usual clarity of diction but he made his point firmly enough. ‘It always is. Whoever heard of a man writing poison-pen letters? No, if a man goes off the rails in that sort of way, he starts flashing. Men don’t write anonymous letters.’

  ‘Flashing?’ Charlie Chettle asked. ‘And what’s that when it’s at home?’

  ‘Indecent exposure of the
person with intent to insult,’ explained Dover, ‘in a public place.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Charlie Chettle. ‘Well, you live and learn, don’t you?’

  ‘But, surely, Mr Dover’ – Arthur Tompkins shook his head in bewilderment – ‘a woman – well, not one who lives in Thornwich – a woman just wouldn’t know the words, would she? Some of them were pretty strong, you know. I’d never seen one or two of them written down before myself.’

  ‘Any your wife didn’t understand?’ asked Dover dryly. ‘Of course there weren’t! Same with every other woman in the village. They all look as though butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths and Lord knows where they pick it all up, but pick it up ‘ they do. Talk about fishwives – you ought to hear what some of these well-born, posh young ladies can come out with when they’ve had a few. Filth? You wouldn’t believe it!’

  ‘But, we know all the women in Thornwich,’ wailed Mr Tompkins. ‘They’re not like that!’

  ‘They are, sonnie!’ Dover was very patronizing. ‘You can take my word for it. Besides, who says it’s a Thornwich woman, anyhow?’

  ‘Oh, there’s no doubt about that, seemingly.’ Charlie Chettle resumed the conversation after a short break for reordering. Dover’s shrewd eye noted that Mr Tompkins was doing all the treating. Charlie Chettle had made a half-hearted offer at one point to stand his round but Mr Tompkins had said kindly that he’d never taken a drink from an old age pensioner in his life and he’d no intention of starting now. Dover, in a very relaxed and benign mood, thought this was a charming sentiment though not, as it happens, one to which he subscribed.