Dover Three

by Joyce Porter

  Then the proper authorities had to be informed and an ambulance summoned to convey Mrs Tompkins’s remains to the mortuary. There would have to be an autopsy, thanks to the unnecessary confusion Dr Hawnt had introduced into the cause of death, and MacGregor spent a long time on the telephone fixing everything up. The telephone was in the sitting-room with Mrs Tompkins’s gradually stiffening body and it was, thought MacGregor, typical that nobody had even thought of using it. Everybody, not forgetting Dr Hawnt and Charlie Ghettle, would have been saved a lot of trouble if they had.

  It must have been well after nine o’clock when MacGregor at last had the shop and the living quarters to himself. After striking endless matches over a gas stove that wouldn’t work, he finally thought of the meter and turned the main tap on again and made himself a cup of tea. Alone in the bleak kitchen he smoked a cigarette, drank his tea and thought. When he’d finished thinking he made a tour of all the rooms, opening drawers, poking into cupboards, pulling letters out of old envelopes and reading them. By a nice bit of luck the key ring which Mr Tompkins had accidentally left behind on the counter held all his keys, not only those for the car. MacGregor was able to open all the locks which otherwise might have restricted his search. Not that he was looking for anything in particular. It was just a vague idea that he had in the back of his mind and he thought he might as well indulge his natural curiosity while he had the chance. In any case it was preferable to going back to The Jolly Sailor and spending what remained of the evening in Dover’s company.

  When Dover heard the discreet tap on his bedroom door at midnight, he’d a pretty good idea who it was and feigned sleep, even adding a few snores to prove it. MacGregor was not fooled. Dover’s light was still on and shone, like a good deed in a naughty world, through the cracks of the ill-fitting door.

  ‘What the hell do you want?’ asked Dover crossly. ‘Waking me up at this time of night! I’d just dropped off. Well, come on, you damned fool, don’t just stand there. Tell me what it is and then push off!’

  MacGregor told him and sat down resolutely on the chair by the bed. Dover’s eyes popped and MacGregor waited with resignation for the storm to break.

  ‘You must be out of your tiny mind!’ said Dover, staring at his assistant with loathing. ‘I can’t start doing anything like that! Damn it all, man, Mr Tompkins is a friend of mine. I can’t start going around asking him questions about where he was and what he was doing. What on earth’s he going to think? Besides, it’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure it is, sir, but we can’t just accept everything at its face value, can we? There’ll be plenty said if we don’t make a normal investigation. It’d look as though we were trying to hush things up.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ said Dover, looking very cross and sulky. ‘You don’t think anybody else is cracked enough to think Tompkins murdered his wife, do you?’

  ‘There’s bound to be talk, sir, especially in this village. Besides, it’s not necessarily a question of Mr Tompkins having killed her. Somebody else might have done.’

  ‘Who, for example?’ asked Dover with a sneer.

  ‘I don’t know, sir,’ explained MacGregor patiently. ‘That’s what we’ve got to do a routine investigation for. But two days ago she did draw three hundred pounds in cash out of the bank, and there’s no sign of the money anywhere in the house or in the shop.’

  ‘I expect there’s a perfectly simple explanation,’ said Dover, glaring furiously at his sergeant.

  ‘There probably is, sir, if you ask Mr Tompkins about it.’

  ‘Besides,’ said Dover, switching quickly, ‘Tompkins can’t have anything to do with it. Damn it, MacGregor, I was there when he found her.’

  ‘He might have set the whole thing up earlier, sir. You know that.’

  Dover snorted despairingly. ‘What for?’ he demanded. ‘God damn it, the man’s got a hundred and seventy thousand quid! What in hell’s name should he want to kill his wife for?’

  ‘I think you should ask him to account for his movements this afternoon, sir, that’s all,’ said MacGregor, stubbornly determined that, however long it took, he was going to get his own way.

  ‘Can’t we wait until after the post-mortem?’ asked Dover.

  MacGregor shook his head. ‘Even if the p.m. confirms suicide, sir, it still doesn’t mean anything. We shall still be expected to make purely routine inquiries.’

  Dover clutched at a last straw. ‘I don’t reckon it’s our job at all. It’s up to the local police.’

  ‘They won’t touch it, sir. I had a chat with them earlier on. They say this business is tied up with the poison-pen. letters and the poison-pen letters are our pigeon.’

  ‘What bloody nonsense!’ snorted Dover. ‘How the hell do they know what it’s tied up with? That note Mrs Tompkins left might mean anything.’

  ‘Well, that’s why we must do a routine investigation, sir, isn’t it? Just to determine if Mrs Tompkins did commit suicide and, if she did, why she did it.’

  Put like that MacGregor’s proposals sounded eminently reasonable, but that wasn’t, from Chief Inspector Dover’s point of view, any reason for accepting them. The trouble was, he thought petulantly after the sergeant had at last gone and left him in peace, that you just couldn’t talk to a fellow like MacGregor. He was too rigid, too much bound by rules and regulations, didn’t realize that a policeman had to use a bit of judgement and discretion. Any fool could see that Mrs Tompkins’s suicide was an open and shut business. There was just no point in trampling around and upsetting her poor bereaved husband. Just because you were a copper it didn’t mean that you hadn’t got a heart. And where Mr Tompkins was concerned Dover certainly had got a heart, or something.

  He had spent the evening with the newly created widower and had chatted about a variety of subjects, just to take the poor chap’s mind off things. They had discussed some of Dover’s more successful cases, of which Mr Tompkins had received a skilfully edited account, and then, somehow, the conversation had drifted on to capital punishment. At this point Dover had got rather starry-eyed and spoke at length and with nostalgia of the good old days when you could wave the threat of the gallows before a suspect.

  ‘It’s hot the same now,’ he complained. ‘You can’t scare the living daylights out of a chap with life imprisonment. He knows as well as you do that he’ll be out in twelve years or so, as long as he keeps his nose clean and doesn’t spit in the governor’s eye.’

  ‘Really?’ said Mr Tompkins with a very faint, polite smile.

  ‘Ah,’ said Dover smacking his lips. ‘It was different in the old days. The pinions, the white cap, the knot under the left ear. They didn’t strangle you, you know. The drop broke your neck. Or,’ – Dover chuckled lugubriously – ‘it was supposed to! There was many a slip.’

  Mr Tompkins gulped but it simply didn’t enter Dover’s head that anybody would object to his homely ‘shop’ talk about miscalculated drops, ropes incorrectly adjusted, novice hangmen and nervous performers in the main role.

  Mr Tompkins did. He changed the conversation. He asked Dover’s advice about his future. He was going to sell the shop and clear out of Thornwich. Now that Mrs Tompkins had gone there was no point in staying on. Maybe he should go abroad? Dover, who’d once gone on a day-trip to Calais, didn’t think this was a very good idea. Too many bloody foreigners jabbering away like a parcel of monkeys. Maybe, said Mr Tompkins, he could use his pools money to invest in another sort of business, something a bit more exciting than the grocery trade. He knew Mr Dover would think him silly, but – now, he was quite serious, really – he’d always wanted to be a private detective. Well, of course, he knew it wasn’t anything like what you read about in books, but even so . . . What did Mr Dover think?

  Mr Dover, his brain working with the speed of a computer, didn’t think it was such a silly idea as all that. ‘There’s a lot of money to be made out of a private detective agency,’ he said. ‘Of course,’ he pointed out slowly, ‘you’d need an experien
ced chap to go into partnership with you.’

  Mr Tompkins grinned shyly. ‘I’ve heard that a lot of senior detectives retire from the Yard and go into business on their own account.’

  Dover took it even more slowly. ‘You need quite a bit of capital for that sort of thing.’

  ‘I’ve got quite a bit of capital,’ said Mr Tompkins.

  And there, for the time being, the matter rested. While Dover fully realized that nothing definite had been said he did go to sleep that night, when he’d got rid of MacGregor, musing gently about a nice, comfortably furnished office with ex-Chief Inspector Dover sitting there. He dropped off before he got much beyond the ‘sitting there’ stage but, obviously, there would be a staff of hardworking operatives to do the actual labouring. Dover smiled in his sleep. He’d been dreaming about the joys of retirement ever since the first day he started work.

  So, although it was all a bit castles-in-Spain and counting unhatched chickens, Dover’s attitude to Mr Tompkins on the morning following Mrs Tompkins’s tragic death was benevolently neutral. Connoisseurs of the Dover interrogation technique (‘don’t hit ’em where the marks will show’) would have been surprised if they could have seen how delicately, how gently and how considerately the Chief Inspector handled a rather offended Mr Tompkins.

  The interview took place in Dover’s bedroom. It was the only room both private enough and large enough to hold two policemen and Mr Tompkins at the same time. Mr Tompkins had the easy chair, Dover the hard upright one, and MacGregor perched himself on the bed.

  ‘I’m sure you understand,’ Dover began with a scowl for MacGregor and a reassuring beam for Mr Tompkins, ‘that in all cases of sudden death we have to ask a few questions, just to get the record straight. The coroner rather expects us to, you know. It’s just a question of routine, pure formality.’

  Mr Tompkins nodded his head.

  ‘Now,’ said Dover, continuing to beam away like a Cheshire cat on full purrs, ‘just tell us in your own words what happened yesterday morning. Let’s start with breakfast. Did your wife seem all right then, her usual self, you know?’

  ‘Well, yes, I think so,’ said Mr Tompkins looking worriedly at MacGregor’s pencil poised over his notebook. ‘I took her breakfast . up to her as usual just on eight o’clock.’

  ‘She was ill then, was she?’ asked Dover, pouncing like a hawk on any detail that would strengthen the simple suicide theory.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Mr Tompkins, ‘she always had her breakfast in bed.’

  Dover looked at Mr Tompkins with some amazement. ‘Go on,’ he said with a sigh. ‘What time did she get up?’

  ‘About a quarter past nine, just before Mrs Poltensky, our daily help, arrived. I went out into the shop and I was in there till about eleven when Winifred – that is, Mrs Tompkins – brought me a cup of coffee. She said she wasn’t feeling too good and I said, “Shall I call the doctor?” and she said, “No,” and I said, “Well, why not go upstairs and have a hot bath and then have your lunch and have a nice lie-down on the sofa in the afternoon?” Well, she sort of seemed to think this was a good idea – about the bath, I mean. She said something about “Oh, yes, I’d like to feel clean,” but I wasn’t taking much notice because a customer had just come in and was rattling all the packets of biscuits she could lay her hands on to see if they were broken. The cheek of some people, you just wouldn’t believe it!’

  ‘So your wife went off to have her bath?’ prompted Dover who could see this going on all morning.

  ‘That’s right. She came down again about twelve, I suppose, and we had a bite of lunch – Mrs Tompkins didn’t eat much, I remember, but, then, she had never much of an appetite. After lunch she went to lie down in the sitting-room. Mrs Poltensky went with her to light the gas fire’ – Mr Tompkins swallowed hard – ‘and get her settled on the sofa. I was still in the kitchen. Then Mrs Poltensky came back and said Mrs Tompkins had a touch of indigestion and she wanted a glass of brandy and hot water. My wife is – was – strict T.T. – never touched a drop except for medicinal purposes. Well, I got the brandy and hot water ready and Mrs Poltensky took it in to her. Then Mrs Poltensky got on with her work and I went upstairs and wrote a couple of letters and got myself changed because, of course, it was early-closing day and I was going out.

  ‘I came downstairs and asked Mrs Poltensky how Mrs Tompkins was and she looked into the sitting-room and said she was nicely off in front of the fire. I went into the kitchen to get some stamps and check the back door was locked while Mrs Poltensky was putting her coat on. Then we both just left the shop together. And that’s all I know, Mr Dover. I didn’t go near the place again all afternoon until I met you and we went back together.’

  ‘Well,’ said Dover, rubbing his hands happily together, ‘that seems very satisfactory. That’s given us a nice clear picture of what happened, hasn’t it, Sergeant? I don’t think we need distress Mr Tompkins any longer.’

  ‘There are just a couple of questions, sir,’ said MacGregor tentatively.

  ‘Oh, are there?’ Dover glared sourly at his sergeant. ‘Well, get on with it! We don’t want to be sitting here all day.’

  ‘Mr Tompkins,’ – after Dover’s fawning tones, MacGregor’s voice rang out hard and crisp – ‘I understand your wife received another poison-pen letter yesterday. When did she actually open it?’

  ‘I took it up to her on her breakfast tray. It came in the morning post and naturally I knew what it was. I’ve seen enough of the dratted things not to make any mistake. I think reading it was what upset her. I used to tell her to chuck the damned things in the fire without opening them, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it, somehow. Curiosity, I suppose. I used to say to her, “You know what curiosity did,” I’d say, “it killed the . . . ”’

  Mr Tompkins’s voice trailed off as the unfortunate phrasing of his words sunk in.

  Unperturbed MacGregor consulted his notes and calmly put his next question. Only when he was half-way through it did he realize that he had unwittingly revealed rather more of police methods than he had intended. Luckily for him, Mr Tompkins didn’t seem to think it strange that a comparative stranger should be so intimately informed about the contents of his joint bank account.

  ‘Winifred drew three hundred pounds out in cash?’ repeated Mr Tompkins in bewilderment. ‘No, I didn’t know anything about it. She didn’t tell me. What on earth did she want all that money for?’

  ‘Well, we don’t quite know at the moment, sir. It may have no bearing at all on Mrs Tompkins’s death. Now then, sir, to get back to the events of yesterday morning. After your wife went into the sitting-room to lie down after lunch, you yourself didn’t actually go into the room, did you?’

  ‘Er – no,’ said Mr Tompkins uncomfortably. ‘I thought it better not to disturb her.’

  ‘Very right and proper, too!’ snapped Dover, who was getting thoroughly fed up with MacGregor. ‘Anything else, Sergeant?’

  ‘Just one more question, sir. Mr Tompkins, you left the shop at what time?’

  ‘About half past two.’

  ‘Did you . . .?’

  ‘That’s two questions already!’ exploded Dover. ‘What do you think this is, a bloody inquisition? I’m not having any of this third degree carry-on here, you know!’

  ‘It’s all right, Mr Dover,’ said Mr Tompkins, hastening to pour oil on waters that looked as though they’d be very troubled in a couple of minutes. ‘I don’t mind in the least. I’ve absolutely nothing to hide and I’m only too pleased to be of any help I can.’ He drew his puny frame up proudly. ‘I hope I know my duty as a responsible citizen.’

  ‘Oh well, get on with it, MacGregor!’ growled Dover and stalked over to the window. He stood stubbornly glaring down at the lorries rumbling past. Petulantly he prepared to dissociate himself from the whole unsavoury proceedings.

  ‘Mr Tompkins,’ – MacGregor got the little man’s attention back from its concentration on Dover’s sulky rear elevation – ‘after
you left the house at half past two with Mrs Poltensky, did you return again before you returned in the company of Chief Inspector Dover and discovered the body?’

  In spite of himself Dover swung round from his station by the window. ‘I’ll say one thing for you, MacGregor,’ he snarled, ‘you’re the most long-winded so and so I’ve ever come across in my entire bloody career!’

  ‘Mr Tompkins?’ MacGregor was having some difficulty in keeping his temper. One day, he promised himself, he’d belt the old fool round the ears. But not before witnesses.

  ‘No,’ said Mr Tompkins, commendably keeping his head when all around were losing theirs.

  ‘Then,’ pursued MacGregor, at last achieving his snide supplementary, ‘where were you?’

  Mr Tompkins went quite white. He swallowed hard and looked in Dover’s direction. Dover turned round with a frown.

  ‘Come on, man,’ he said impatiently, ‘it’s not a state secret, for God’s sake! Tell him where you were and we’ll go and have a drink.’

  ‘I can’t,’ gasped Mr Tompkins from a dry throat.

  Dover’s eyes popped. ‘Can’t or won’t?’ he demanded, forgetting that the recalcitrant witness was his newest and best friend.

  ‘I won’t,’ said Mr Tompkins stoutly.

  And an hour and a quarter later Dover and MacGregor had to admit, to their great chagrin, that he wouldn’t.

  Chief Inspector Dover did his nut. Far from speechless with fury he turned in a majesty of wrath on MacGregor, whose fault it all was anyhow. While the two policemen discussed their differences in increasingly lurid language and mounting decibels, Mr Tompkins slipped diffidently away to the peace and quiet of his own room. Nobody noticed his departure.

  Dover was cross, very cross, with Mr Tompkins but he hadn’t abandoned him.

  ‘There’s some quite simple explanation,’ he bellowed at MacGregor who bowed his head to the storm and mentally composed yet another pithy note tendering his resignation to the Assistant Commissioner for Crime. ‘Blast your eyes, MacGregor, why can’t you leave well alone? Mountains out of bloody mole-hills, that’s what it is! Come on, we’ll have to go and interview this charwoman. Maybe she’ll be able to clear up your storm in a teacup.’