Dover Three

by Joyce Porter

  ‘Well, she thought you were going to arrest her for writing those poison-pen letters,’ said Mr Tompkins. ‘I suppose she couldn’t stand the idea of all the disgrace and shame of it.’

  ‘Aha!’ trumpeted Dover. ‘But Poppy Gullimore didn’t write the poison-pen letters!’

  Sensation! A couple of men slipped unobtrusively out of the bar to get this startling revelation on the village grapevine without delay. Bert Quince popped into the kitchen and told his wife she’d better leave the washing-up and come and listen.

  Mr Tompkins opened and shut his mouth several times. ‘You’re having us on!’ he croaked, but his protest lacked conviction. Chief Inspector Dover didn’t look the type to indulge in merry practical jokes. ‘But, I thought she confessed to everything in that letter you’re holding? Look, Mr Dover, I know I’m not very bright but really, you’ve got me all confused.’ A few heads nodded in sympathy and agreement. ‘You say Poppy Gullimore hasn’t tried to commit suicide and that she didn’t write the poison-pen letters, although she wrote a letter before she tried to kill herself saying she did. That’s right – er – isn’t it?’

  ‘Search me!’ said Dover. ‘I don’t know what the blazes you’re talking about. Look, it’s dead simple. The Gullimore girl is just trying to get in on the act. She no more wrote those poison-pen letters than I did. I’ve searched her room. No Tendy Bond notepaper, no typewriter. My sergeant’s been checking at the school. He won’t have found anything there either, or I’m a Dutchman. No, there’s no doubt about it. She couldn’t possibly have written them.’ Mr Tompkins looked as though he was about to pick several very relevant holes in this bit of argument so Dover, flushed with best bitter and success, hurried on to get his trump card down on the table. ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘there’s the spelling.’

  ‘The spelling?’ repeated Mr Tompkins, still dutifully playing Watson to Dover’s Holmes.

  ‘The spelling!’ said Dover and took a long pull at his beer to let the excitement build up. When he finally came up for air, he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, belched slightly and prepared to carry on. ‘Whoever is writing these poison-pen letters is a good speller. Miss Gullimore isn’t. It’s as simple as that.’

  ‘But she’s a school-teacher!’ protested a voice from the back of the crowd. Mr Tompkins was justifiably annoyed. That was his line.

  ‘I don’t care if she’s a blinking astronaut,’ retorted Dover, ‘she can’t spell for toffee. You’ve only got to read this so-called suicide note.’ Several hands reached forward in answer to the implied invitation, but Dover crossly pushed the letter back in his pocket. The cheek of some people! Fancy thinking he was going to hand round an official document as though it was a bag of chips or something!

  Chips! Now that was an idea. ‘Any chance of getting a bite to eat?’ he asked Mr Tompkins. ‘All this talking’s making me a bit peckish. And a bit dry too, too,’ he added quickly with a deprecating laugh. You might as well kill two birds with one stone while you were at it.

  Charlie Chettle, who must have suffered from a subconscious death wish, was dispatched across the road to Freda’s Cafe and another pint of beer was transferred from hand to willing hand.

  ‘Well now,’ said Mr Tompkins when things had settled down again, ‘I must say, speaking on behalf of all of us, what a great privilege it’s been, Mr Dover, and how interesting to hear all about this – er – unfortunate business straight from what you might call the horse’s mouth.’ There was a shy spatter of applause. Mr Tompkins cleared his throat. ‘There’s just one last question I would like to ask – if you don’t mind.’ Dover inclined his head graciously. ‘Why did Poppy Gullimore do all this? I mean, why did she confess to writing the poison-pen letters and why did she pretend to commit suicide?’

  ‘Ah, Mr Tompkins,’ said Dover blandly, ‘I’m afraid you’re asking me to delve into the mysteries of the human mind. Of course, I could expound on all the psychological ramifications of Miss Gullimore’s motives and her general mental state, but I hardly think this is either the time or the place for discussions of such profundities. On the other hand, I could perhaps express it more simply in terms that a layman could understand. To put it briefly, she’s a nut-case.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Mr Tompkins as though one of his own more adventurous theories had been confirmed.

  ‘As nutty as a fruit cake,’ said Dover, expanding his theme with typical originality of phrase. ‘We see millions of ’em up at the Yard. They come along in their hundreds and confess to any old crime we have on our books – the more sordid the better. Exhibitionists, that’s what we call ’em. They just want somebody to pay a bit of attention to them. They’ll do anything to get in the limelight. Your Miss Gullimore’s typical. I thought so as soon as I first clapped eyes on her. “You’ll have to watch out for this one, Wilf,” I told myself. “She’ll be rushing up to make her free and voluntary before you can say Jack Robinson, if I know anything about it.” And, of course,’ said Dover, modestly casting his eyes down, ‘I was right.’

  Mr Quince passed a message from behind the counter. The Chief Inspector was wanted on the telephone. Dover made his way to the back of the bar, turning this simple movement into a triumphant procession. Everybody fell silent and listened hard, but they could only catch a high-pitched squawking coming from the other end. Thornwich had to wait until the following morning to get from the ever vigilant Miss Tilley a verbatim account of what Sergeant MacGregor said. Dover restricted his part in the conversation to a series of knowing grunts.

  He put the receiver down and returned to his table, revelling in the knowledge that all eyes were focused upon him.

  ‘Just a final bit of confirmation from my sergeant,’ he announced. ‘I sent him to the hospital to make some inquiries. Your Miss Gullimore had only swallowed about thirty aspirins – hardly what you might call trying. And,’ tantalizingly Dover saved his titbit till the last – ‘her underwear was grubby, distinctly grubby! Well, you see what that means, don’t you?’

  ‘Well, no, Mr Dover,’ confessed Mr Tompkins unhappily, ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Genuine suicides,’ said Dover, a trifle impatiently, ‘realize that somebody’s going to examine their bodies when they’re dead and they’re usually most particular about being clean and tidy underneath. Phony suicides never think about things like that because they know damned well they’re not going to be laid out on a marble slab.’ He was getting fed up with Miss Gullimore, in spite of the fact that she’d provided him with an excellent excuse for showing off in front of the yokels. ‘It’s one of the ways in which we policemen tell the difference between a real attempt and a fake one.’

  The timely arrival of Charlie Chettle with a selection of Freda’s hot meat-pies allowed Dover to drop the now tedious subject of Miss Poppy Gullimore’s suicide, and for the rest of the evening he regaled the company with stories of his past detective exploits. He went into great detail about a surprising number of cases which would have remained for ever unsolved in the files of Scotland Yard had it not been for Dover’s keen eye and agile brain. These stories were highly effective and mostly culled from the memoirs of senior officers who had retired from the Yard in a blaze of popular glory. Dover, a masochist if there ever was one, assiduously read all the books they wrote. He had ideas of writing a book himself one day, if he could find enough material to hold the hard covers apart.

  Mr Quince called time promptly at 10.30 in deference to the forces of law and order which were sheltering under his roof but although even Dover got to bed at a reasonable hour, nobody in Thornwich was surprised to learn that the Chief Inspector was taking it easy on the following day. It was generally agreed that, in view of his expert handling of the Gullimore business, he’d earned it. It was a view which Dover whole-heartedly shared. He was surprised and annoyed to find that MacGregor was still bouncing around like an excited sheep dog, eager for action.

  ‘What’s your sweat?’ asked Dover, peevishly putting the final touches to his appe
arance before venturing out. He scraped his cut-throat razor slowly down one jowl, cutting a broad swathe through the soap.

  ‘Well, we’ve been here two full days now, sir, and we haven’t got anywhere really, have we?’

  ‘Haven’t got anywhere?’ squeaked Dover, nearly slicing off half his moustache. ‘Wadderyemean, not got anywhere? I solved this Gullimore business, didn’t I? I spotted straight away that it was just a try on. Plenty of people’d have spent weeks chasing a red herring like that. ’Swelp me,’ he said bitterly, wielding his razor with increasing abandon, ‘what do you want, jam on it?’

  With a great deal of tact, MacGregor pointed out that brilliant though the Chief Inspector’s handling of Poppy Gullimore’s suicide had been, it had not advanced by one whit the case which had been assigned to them.

  Dover peered disconsolately at his face in the mirror. ‘I don’t see what we can do,’ he grumbled. ‘Nobody’s been able to find the flipping typewriter, and we haven’t a snowball’s chance in hell of tracing the notepaper. You know that as well as I do. Where are we supposed to go from here? Our one hope is that this poison- pen joker will slip up and leave a fingerprint somewhere.’

  ‘We could perhaps keep a watch on the post boxes, sir,’ suggested MacGregor diffidently. The Chief Inspector did not as a rule take kindly to reasonable suggestions from subordinates, particularly when they looked as though they might involve him in some work.

  ‘Oh, very original!’ sneered Dover, and wiped his razor on one of The Jolly Sailor’s towels. ‘I can see that producing a lot of results. Two policemen sat on folding chairs by the post boxes for the next two or three weeks! For God’s sake, MacGregor, we aren’t dealing with a cretin! If we were we’d have caught her before now. Whoever’s writing these letters is smart – a damned sight smarter than you by the sound of it. She’s worked out a pretty watertight little scheme, and she’s not going to be nabbed red-handed posting a batch of letters by a great lumbering copper breathing down her neck. No,’ – Dover sat down wearily on the edge of the bed – ‘if you ask me, I don’t think we’re ever going to catch her. Not unless she does something absolutely bloody silly. As I see it, we shall just have to hang on here and go through the motions for a bit and then tell ’em we aren’t getting anywhere and chuck the whole thing up.’

  MacGregor looked shocked.

  ‘Well, it’s not as though it’s what you might call a serious crime, now, is it?’ asked Dover. ‘Frankly I wouldn’t have touched it with a barge-pole if it hadn’t been for the wife’s sister. I’m not one to stand on my rank but I don’t mind telling you, I think they’ve got a bit of a cheek sending a man of my experience and seniority on a job like this.’

  ‘Actually, sir, I’m inclined to agree with you,’ said MacGregor, deciding to play it subtle. ‘It doesn’t look as though we’re ever going to solve this case unless we get a real bit of luck.’ And you can say that again, he thought. ‘But I do think, in view of the rather peculiar circumstances surrounding this business, that we ought to – well, you expressed it so aptly yourself, sir – I think we ought to go through the motions a bit more realistically, shall we say? After all, sir’ – MacGregor introduced the subject carefully – ‘Dame Alice Stote-Weedon has got the ear of the Assistant Commissioner and she is very anxious that this whole business should be cleared up as soon as possible.’ Dover’s brow blackened ominously. ‘I think it would be diplomatic, sir,’ concluded MacGregor lamely, ‘if we could give the impression of trying to solve the case.’

  Dover sniffed unpleasantly and twitched his nose. There was a lot in what MacGregor said, though the Chief Inspector would fight tooth and nail before he admitted it. He sighed. It was all go. From morning till night. Drive, drive, drive! Outsiders – they just didn’t understand the strain of the job. The long hours, the endless questionings, the danger. Do some of ’em good, it would, to try it themselves for a few days. They’d soon be laughing on the other side of their silly faces.

  ‘As a matter of fact, Dame Alice phoned again this morning, sir,’ said MacGregor, breaking into what was proving to be a lengthy silence.

  Dover sighed again. He got slowly to his feet, heaved his stomach in, and with an effort fastened the top button of his trousers. MacGregor recognized the signs of impending action and hastened to help the old fool on with his jacket and overcoat. Dover, with every indication that he considered he was being put upon, accepted his bowler hat from MacGregor’s outstretched hand.

  ‘She said she’d like to see us this morning, sir,’ said the sergeant, feeling he’d handled things rather well. ‘Might be a good idea just to pop in and keep the old dear happy, eh, sir?’

  Dover glared sourly at him.

  Popping in to see Dame Alice had been a slight, but understandable, understatement on MacGregor’s part. Dover, in tacitly agreeing to call on the lady, had not realized exactly where she lived.

  ‘Here,’ he protested indignantly to MacGregor when they had passed a row of slate-grey cottages and reached the Baptist Chapel, ‘how much farther is it?’

  ‘Just at the top of the hill, sir,’ explained MacGregor brightly. ‘Opposite the church.’

  ‘ ’Strewth!’ grumbled Dover. ‘If I’d known it was going to be a blooming marathon I damned well wouldn’t have come. My feet are killing me! Why the hell didn’t you order a taxi?’

  ‘It can’t be more than half a mile, sir.’

  ‘Oh, can’t it?’ snapped Dover, gingerly placing one boot down after the other. ‘I’d have you remember, young fellow my lad, that I’m still supposed to be on light duties. Being out in all this cold’s not doing my stomach one bit of good. Here,’ – Dover stopped abruptly in his tracks – ‘you walk next to the kerb for a change. These damned lorries keep splashing water all over me.’

  After ten minutes’ laborious uphill progress, Dover and MacGregor turned into the drive of Friday Lodge. The house was a pleasant, late Victorian building, set in its own grounds and much the most impressive residence in the village. Opinions differed as to why Dame Alice, whose interests and commitments ranged so wide, continued to live in a cultural backwater like Thornwich. It was true, of course, that a small village gave her genius for officiousness full play, and what she didn’t know about the private and public lives of the villagers was just not worth knowing. Then again, her marriage to a Stote-Weedon gave her an unassailable social position which might not, elsewhere, have been yielded to her with such passive resignation.

  In the old days the Stote-Weedons were Thornwich. They had owned the big house and, like previous brides, Dame Alice had been initiated into the rites of rigorous social service by her mother-in-law, whose soup had been known and feared by every poor cottager for a radius of five miles. Comparatively early widowhood had left Dame Alice free to develop her humanitarian instincts, and her D.B.E. had been won for welfare work on a county and, at times, even on a national scale. The villagers had for years expected, and hoped, that she would move to some more congenial part of the country, but she appeared to like Thornwich. It wasn’t what it had been in her young days, of course, but she was comfortable there and saw no good reason for moving. The villagers shrugged their shoulders and accepted the fact that she would be with them for ever: either bossing them from the crumbling splendours of Friday Lodge, or reproaching them for their past lack of co-operation from the family vault in the parish church. The village would miss her when she was gone and almost everybody was eagerly looking forward to the deprivation.

  MacGregor mounted the steps to the front door and rang the bell as Dover lumbered up behind him. The peals had hardly died away, when an enormous dog, black, hairy and of uncertain breeding, came bounding out from round the back of the house. It leapt about at the foot of the steps, barking and revealing its teeth aggressively. Dover, in spite of his bad feet and ailing stomach, sprinted so as to position MacGregor between himself and the ravaging animal. When the door was opened the Chief Inspector was across the threshold in a flash, and sl
ammed the door so quickly behind him that MacGregor was nearly shut outside.

  A tall woman with straight, iron-grey hair regarded this undignified manoeuvring with undisguised disdain.

  ‘There’s no need to be afraid,’ she announced calmly. ‘Bonzo is quite harmless. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

  ‘When I start worrying about flies,’ snarled Dover, ‘I’ll tell you. You ought to keep that brute chained up. Or have him destroyed.’

  ‘Good heavens,’ – the woman laughed unpleasantly – ‘I never realized that policemen were afraid of poor little dogs! No wonder the number of crimes with violence is rising steadily every year.’

  Dover snorted and changed the conversation. ‘You’re Dame Alice, I suppose,’ he said in a voice which implied that his worst suspicions had been realized.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ said the woman, smugly pleased at being able to contradict him. ‘I am Dame Alice’s companion and secretary. My name is Thickett, Mary Thickett. Miss Mary Thickett.’

  ‘Ah, an unplucked rose!’ countered Dover smoothly. ‘Well, where is Dame Alice?’

  ‘She is waiting for you in the sitting-room,’ said Miss Thickett frigidly. ‘If you will kindly let me have your coats and hats, I will take you in to her. I suppose,’ – she smiled sweetly and stared pointedly at Dover’s bowler – ‘you do remove your hat when you are in a private residence?’

  ‘Only,’ rejoined Dover with a wittiness which made MacGregor cringe, ‘when I’m in the presence of a lady!’

  Miss Thickett took the hats and coats and tossed them contemptuously over a chair.

  ‘By the way,’ said Dover, who sometimes just didn’t know when to stop, ‘speaking of poison, I suppose you’ve had some of these anonymous letters, too, have you?’

  ‘No,’ said Miss Thickett, looking down her nose, ‘as a matter of fact, I have not. I have been spared that particular humiliation.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Dover. ‘That’s a bit funny, isn’t it?’