by Joyce Porter
‘I don’t suppose anybody’s bothered to check, have they?’ said Dover, yawning again.
‘No, sir.’ MacGregor was getting very alert and efficient. They were really getting somewhere now. It wasn’t often the Chief Inspector had any bright ideas. It made them all the more welcome when he did.
‘Well, in that case,’ said Dover, happy to be able to drop it right in Smart-Alec MacGregor’s lap, ‘you’d better get cracking and do it yourself, hadn’t you? Check all the typewriters in that school and find out if any members of the staff own typewriters. It’s just possible that our Miss Gullimore borrowed a typewriter from one of her colleagues. She may even have written those letters in the school itself. It’d be a damned sight safer than doing it in her lodgings. This landlady woman might have heard her or seen her. You know what nosy old devils most of ’em are.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said MacGregor. ‘I’ll get on to it first thing in the morning.’
‘You’ll get on to it tonight, laddie,’ said Dover heavily. ‘You can catch the next bus back into Bearle.’
‘But it’s nearly four o’clock now, sir,’ protested MacGregor, his spirits understandably flagging at the thought of yet another tedious, chilly bus ride. ‘The school’ll be closed by the time I get back and . . .’
‘There’ll be a caretaker, laddie,’ said Dover unsympathetically. Unfortunately for MacGregor there was a bus due in the return direction just ten minutes after he and Dover were deposited at The Jolly Sailor.
‘Hardly worth your bothering to come in,’ said Dover. ‘I’ll tell ’em to keep your dinner for you if you’re back late.’ He walked happily into the pub and left MacGregor shivering at the bus stop.
Mrs Quince provided a substantial afternoon tea and Dover consumed it in solitary state, congratulating himself with every mouthful – not, of course, on having solved the identity of Thornwich’s poison-pen writer, but on having got young MacGregor out of his hair and from under his feet for a few hours. Dover didn’t think for one minute that Poppy Gullimore was the woman he was after, but she and the school typewriters were as good an excuse as any for achieving a bit of peace and quiet. As a matter of fact Dover had already selected his candidate for the anonymous letter stakes, but it was far too early yet to start solving the case. His sister-in-law never visited for less than a week and could be relied on to stay longer given half a chance. The unmasking of the scourge of Thornwich was going to be a very delicate matter of timing, not too soon and not too late. The trouble with MacGregor was that he always wanted to rush things. Usually Dover did, too, but on this occasion he was in no hurry. The Jolly Sailor might not exactly be the Ritz, but at the moment it was a damned sight better than Dover’s semi-detached in Benbow Close.
Dover finished off his last cup of tea and ambled out into the kitchen to find Mrs Quince.
‘I’ll have my dinner at half-past seven,’ he informed her. ‘Sergeant MacGregor probably won’t be back by then so you can shove his in the oven and he can get it when he comes in.’
‘It’ll be all dried up,’ said Mrs Quince.
‘Well, that’ll be his funeral,’ said Dover who couldn’t have cared less if it had been shrivelled to a cinder. ‘I’m going up to my room now, just to have a quiet think and sort the case out in my mind.’ He looked Mrs Quince straight in the eye as he said this. Mrs Quince nodded sceptically. ‘And I don’t want to be disturbed on any account until dinner-time.’
‘What about Dame Alice?’ asked Mrs Quince. ‘She’s likely to phone, isn’t she?’
‘Dame Alice can . . . ’ Dover put the brakes on in time. There was no point in getting Dame Alice’s back up more than he had to. Things might not work out the way he was hoping and Dame Alice had a bit too much influence in certain quarters for Dover’s peace of mind. Better to be diplomatic at this stage. ‘You’d better tell Dame Alice I’m engaged.’
‘She’ll not believe me,’ said Mrs Quince unhelpfully.
‘Well, tell her I’m out!’ snapped Dover, beginning to find Mrs Quince somewhat obstructive in her attitude.
‘That,’ said Mrs Quince flatly, ‘would be a lie.’
‘Look,’ – Dover was turning nasty – ‘I don’t care how you do it but, if I’m disturbed before half-past seven, there’ll be trouble. I should have thought that somebody in your position would have been only too pleased to keep on the right side of the police. Considering some of the things I’ve seen in this establishment,’ he added meaningly.
‘Dame Alice is on the Licensing Committee,’ said Mrs Quince. ‘I can’t afford to put her back up.’
‘You can’t afford to put my back up either!’ stormed Dover. ‘Just tell the old faggot I’m out.’
Mrs Quince shrugged her shoulders and said unconvincingly that she would do her best. Dover snorted and went upstairs to his own room. Within five minutes he was giving his subconscious full rein to solve the problem of who was writing Thornwich’s poison- pen letters.
Just after seven o’clock, his meditations were rudely interrupted by a violent hammering on his door. Only half awake he groped for the bedside light as the eiderdown slid to the floor.
‘What is it?’ he bawled. Then he remembered there was no bedside light in this cyclist’s haven of rest. He clambered out of bed to get to the switch by the door. Mrs Quince beat him to it.
Dover charged back to the bed for his eiderdown.
‘You shouldn’t come barging into people’s rooms without knocking,’ he protested, draping the eiderdown modestly over his long underpants.
‘I did knock,’ retorted Mrs Quince.
‘If it’s Dame Alice I’m not in. I told you that before.’
‘It’s not Dame Alice,’ said Mrs Quince with a certain amount of malicious satisfaction. ‘It’s Poppy Gullimore, that young schoolteacher girl. She’s just killed herself!’
Chapter Four
THE NEXT fifteen minutes passed quickly as Dover behaved as he usually did when confronted with any kind of crisis. His first reaction was one of blinding fury at the inconsiderateness of fate and other people. His second was to shout for MacGregor. On this occasion the thwarting of the second reaction merely added fuel to the first, and Dover vented his surging ill-temper on Mrs Quince.
Mrs Quince retreated to the other side of the bedroom door while Dover dragged on those articles of his clothing which he had removed to assist his meditative powers.
‘How do you know she’s croaked herself?’ yelled Dover.
‘Miss Tilley rang me!’ shouted Mrs Quince.
‘And who the hell’s Miss Tilley?’
‘She runs the sub post office.’
‘Well, what the devil’s it got to do with her?’
‘She heard them phoning for the ambulance.’
‘Who was phoning for the ambulance?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Quince crossly, ‘but whoever it was she heard them. She always listens in to the telephone calls. It’s the only excitement she gets, poor thing, what with her mother and everything.’
Dover emerged from his room, his bowler hat crowning a black and scowling face. ‘Where is it?’ he roared.
‘Where’s what?’ asked Mrs Quince, very sensibly retreating as Dover advanced.
‘The house!’
‘What house?’ Mrs Quince had now been forced into descending the stairs backwards. It was awkward, but preferable to taking her eyes off the menacing figure of Dover.
‘The house where this blasted girl’s killed herself!’ screamed Dover.
‘It’s half-way up the hill on the other side of the road. Mrs Leatherbarrow’s place. They’ve got gardens at the front. Hers is one from the top just before you get to the Parish Rooms.’
‘Hasn’t it got a confounded number?’
‘I think it’s called “The Ferns”,’ said Mrs Quince, making a sudden dash for her kitchen and locking the door behind her.
Dover set off up the hill in pouring rain. Thornwich appeared to possess only two street lam
ps, neither of which was any help at all. Every now and again a lorry went swishing past, spraying passers-by with water and dazzling them with its headlights. Dover wasn’t much of a one for physical exercise and by the time he’d groped and fumbled his way to ‘The Ferns’ he fervently hoped that Miss Gullimore was being made to suffer for it all, wherever she was.
The front door of ‘The Ferns’ stood open. Dover, panting with temper and his exertions, staggered up the crippling flight of steps and entered the narrow hall. He leaned against a mahogany hall-stand while he got his breath back.
Somebody was coming slowly down the stairs. Dover gulped air into his deprived lungs and raised his head. Gradually the figure came into view. First a pair of carefully moving feet in brown carpet slippers, then a pair of shaky legs. The final vision was of a very old gentleman with a tartan travelling rug wrapped round his shoulders. He gave a nervous little start when he caught sight of Dover.
‘All right!’ said Dover in a tone that indicated he wasn’t going to stand any nonsense from anybody. ‘Where’s the body?’
The old man regarded him doubtfully and then gingerly negotiated the last two stairs to reach the hall.
‘They’ve taken her away,’ he said in a thin, wavering voice. ‘Only a couple of minutes ago,’ he added helpfully. ‘You’ve only just missed her.’
Dover took a deep, deep breath.
‘I’m Dr Hawnt,’ said the old man, pulling his rug tighter round his shoulders. ‘They sent for me. As usual. I keep telling them but you might as well talk to a brick wall. They don’t take any notice.’
‘Why did you move the body?’ demanded Dover in a roar that bounced menacingly off the walls and nearly blasted Dr Hawnt back to the foot of the stairs.
‘I’m eighty-four,’ said Dr Hawnt, ‘and don’t tell me I don’t look it. I do, every day of it and more. Do you realize’ – he peered at Dover through his glasses – ‘I qualified as a doctor in 1904? And I can assure you without fear of contradiction I’ve hardly opened a textbook since.’ He paused and frowned. ‘What body?’
‘Miss Gullimore’s, you old fool!’ rasped Dover, who didn’t have much patience for the elderly and decrepit.
‘Oh, yes, that’s her name, isn’t it? Oh, I sent her off to hospital. I may not be much of a doctor but I flatter myself I’ve got some sense of responsibility. It’s what I always do. They keep calling me in and I keep coming and the first thing I say is “Send for the ambulance!” Well,’ he appealed to Dover, ‘what would you do?’ He came nearer to Dover and clutched at him. ‘Suppose you were lying out in a field with a broken leg and they brought me along, would you so much as let me touch you? Because, by all that’s holy, I wouldn’t! Look at these hands!’ He held up a pair of nobbled claws in front of Dover’s nose. ‘See that tremble? How’d you like an emergency appendix operation done with a pair of wobblers like that? And on a kitchen table with no anaesthetic. Makes the blood run cold, doesn’t it, just to think about it?’ He paused for breath but, before Dover could get a word in edgeways, old Dr Hawnt was off again. ‘She’s not dead, you know.’
‘Who isn’t?’ Dover had taken about as much as he could stand.
Dr Hawnt jerked his head in the direction of the stairs. ‘Her. The one upstairs. You know. She’s not dead.’ He scratched his head. ‘At least, I don’t think she is. That’s why I sent for the ambulance. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be. Don’t hear so well, either. I’m cracking up, you know. Senile, that’s what I am. They ought to put me in a Home, that’s what they ought to do.’ He sat down suddenly on the chair next to the mahogany hall-stand.
Dover shook himself, stalked down the hall and slammed the front door shut. Then he came back and plonked himself squarely in front of Dr Hawnt. The old man’s eyes were closed.
Dover spoke loudly. ‘I am a police officer.’
Dr Hawnt’s eyes crawled open. ‘Oh yes,’ he said politely. ‘How very interesting.’
‘I want to know,’ enunciated Dover through clenched teeth, ‘what the hell’s going on here.’
‘Well, nothing, really,’ said Dr Hawnt, taking a pill box out of his pocket and dosing himself thoughtfully. ‘Mrs What’s-her-name who lives here came in and found Miss What’s-her-name unconscious on the floor of her room. Naturally she came rushing round to me. They always do. One of these days’ – he cocked a rheumy eye at Dover – I’ll be had up for murder. Of course, they’ll cover it up by calling it professional incompetence and strike me off, but if I’ve killed somebody, I’ve killed somebody – haven’t I?’
‘Miss Gullimore!’ shouted Dover.
‘Eh? Oh, that’s her name, is it? The memory’s going, too. I’ll be forgetting my own name one of these days.’
‘What had she done?’ screamed Dover.
‘Who?’
‘Miss Gullimore!’
‘Oh, yes. Well, when I got here she was unconscious. In a coma, we call it – at least, I think we do. There was a bottle of aspirins on the rug beside her. Oh, and there was a glass as well.’
‘She’d taken an overdose of aspirins?’ Dover tried a short cut.
‘How should I know?’ Dr Hawnt blinked reproachfully at Dover. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. Better, probably. It looked to me as though that’s what happened but I’m not one to force my opinions down anybody else’s throat. Silly girl! She was a school-teacher, wasn’t she? You’d have thought she’d have known better. Aspirins! Good heavens, even I know you can’t commit suicide with aspirins. Well,’ – he glared belligerently at Dover who hadn’t said a word – ‘have you ever heard of anybody really killing themselves with aspirins? No, I thought not. And why not? Because it can’t be done, that’s why not.’
‘Oh?’ said Dover.
‘I can’t remember who it was who told me,’ mused Dr Hawnt, ‘but he was a very good chap, a fine specialist in his line, whatever it was. I did think he’d offer me a partnership at one time, but he said he’d got his patients to consider. I could quite see his point, mind you. I was never much good, even in my prime. There was something about me, don’t you know, that seemed to frighten people who probably weren’t feeling too chirpy in the first place.’
‘The aspirins!’ bellowed Dover, nobly restraining a powerful desire to grab Dr Hawnt by his tartan rug and shake him till he rattled.
‘Eh? Oh, yes. Well, you’ve got to take a terrific number of ’em before they get anywhere near killing you. I forget how many exactly but let’s say a couple of hundred for the sake of argument. Now, apart from the fact that you’d be gagging long before you got a quarter of that lot down your gullet, you’d be unconscious, too, wouldn’t you? You’d pass out before you’d time to finish ’em.’
‘Are you sure of this?’ asked Dover.
‘Of course I’m sure,’ said Dr Hawnt, somewhat offended. ‘Well, something like that, anyhow. Typical of the younger generation. No sticking powers. Slip-shod. If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly, that’s what I always say. Anyhow,’ he added with a sudden spitefulness, ‘that Miss What’s-her-name’s not succeeded in taking the easy way out. She’ll be as right as rain in the morning if I’m any judge. Which I’m not, but the ambulance-man said the same thing and they all have certificates for first-aid, don’t you know. I sometimes wish I did. Oh, yes, she’ll have to answer for all the trouble she’s caused, she will! And I don’t just mean getting me away from a warm fire on a night like this. I suppose they told you about the letter she left?’
Dover shook his head wearily.
‘Oh,’ said Dr Hawnt, ‘they ought to have told you about that. Yes, they certainly ought to have told you about that.’
‘What did the letter say?’ asked Dover automatically. He’d long got past the stage of caring.
‘She’s the one who’s been writing all these sexy letters, you know,’ said Dr Hawnt, smacking his dry lips. ‘It was a long letter addressed to the coroner but it wasn’t stuck down so I had a look at it. I thought it might help me with my diagn
osis,’ he added primly.
‘She confessed to writing the anonymous letters?’ said Dover, feeling that things were getting too much for him.
Dr Hawnt pulled his pocket watch out. ‘Dear me, I’ve wasted enough time here. I’ll be toddling along now. Good night to you, my dear fellow, and do try to stop ’em calling me in. There’s a perfectly good doctor over at Bearle.’ Dr Hawnt got to his feet with some difficulty. He looked round vacantly. ‘Now, which way’s the front door, eh?’
Dover pushed his bowler hat to the back of his head and watched Dr Hawnt let himself out of the house. They ought to shoot ’em when they get like that, he thought to himself, it’d be a kindness, really.
He went upstairs and located Miss Gullimore’s room. It was not too difficult a feat for a trained and experienced detective because only one door had her name on it. Inside he found a fat, comfortable-looking woman seated on the edge of the bed. She was just finishing off the last page of what could only be Poppy Gullimore’s suicide note.
‘Well,’ she said as Dover poked his head round the door, ‘you took your time about getting here, I must say! I was going to phone you half an hour ago, but Miss Tilley said Mrs Quince told Dame Alice you’d already left. What happened? Couldn’t you find the house?’
‘I’ve been talking to Dr Hawnt downstairs!’ snapped Dover. ‘And, if that’s the note she left, you can hand it over! You’ve no right to be reading it, anyhow.’
‘Don’t you speak to me like that!’ said Mrs Leatherbarrow. ‘If I haven’t got the right to read her last words, I don’t know who has. I’ve been like a mother to that girl. Two pounds ten a week inclusive, a front-door key and keep her own room tidy.’
‘Do you call this tidy?’ scoffed Dover, looking with distaste at the litter in which Miss Gullimore had wallowed. There were at least half a dozen table lamps made out of old chianti bottles, interspersed with mis-shapen woolly toys and the left-overs of innumerable hobbies. Miss Gullimore had been (and probably still was) a person of wide interests : hand weaving, book binding, painting by numbers – she’d tried the lot.