by Joyce Porter
‘Very clever!’ sneered Dover. ‘Well, let’s see if you can guess a bit more. This girl, Eleanor Smith, says you were going to buy her baby off her. Now, I think we can assume that you didn’t want to adopt it yourself . . .’
‘You certainly can!’ said Mrs Comersall.
‘Right, well all I want to know is, who were you buying it for?’
Mrs Comersall looked Dover straight in the eye. ‘Drop dead!’ she said. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.’
‘It’s a criminal offence,’ blustered Dover. ‘You could go to prison for it.’
‘Could I?’ said Mrs Comersall. ‘You’d have to prove it first, wouldn’t you?’
‘We’ve got Eleanor Smith’s evidence.’
‘Her word against mine. Besides, what’s criminal about it? No law against it as far as I know, is there?’
Dover, suspecting – and quite rightly – that Mrs Comersall might know a good deal more about the law than he did, reverted hastily to an earlier question. ‘Who were you acting for?’
‘I’ve told you,’ repeated Mrs Comersall patiently, ‘I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about. Honest, I haven’t. Gross my heart and hope to die.’ Her eyes glittered amongst the creases of fat.
‘Oh well, if you’d sooner we carted you off to the nick and asked you the questions there . . .’ sighed Dover in the voice of one who’d done his best to be decent, and failed.
‘Look, love, you can ask me your questions where you like and how you like, but if I can’t answer them, I can’t, can I?’
‘It was Mrs Tompkins you were buying the baby for, wasn’t it?’ This was MacGregor putting his oar in where it wasn’t wanted. Dover was furious. Young Charles Edward was getting a damned sight too cocky by half.
If Dover’s reaction to MacGregor’s interference was predictable, Mrs Comersall’s wasn’t. For the first time in the entire fencing-match she was taken completely off her guard. Her eyes opened wide and her mouth dropped in sheer astonishment, doubling the number of her chins as it did so.
‘Mrs Tompkins?’ she repeated hoarsely. ‘Do you mean Winifred Tompkins at the grocer’s? Winifred Tompkins – the one who’s just killed herself?’
‘That’s right,’ said Dover, glaring fiercely at MacGregor and daring him to open his mouth again.
‘Well, I never!’ said Mrs Comersall, who still hadn’t got her breath back.
‘She was a friend of yours, was she?’ asked Dover.
Mrs Comersall looked at him in some astonishment. ‘Who, Winifred Tompkins? Oh yes, bosom friends we were, I don’t think! She’s lived practically next door but one to me for five years and not so much as a “good morning” have I ever had out of her. Of course I don’t go out much these days, but there’s nothing to stop her coming in here once in a while and having a bit of a chat, is there? After all, I could put quite a bit of trade their way if I had a mind to but, as I said to George, I’m not going crawling on my knees to a stuck-up piece like her and she needn’t expect me to. I can’t see that running a café’s any worse than keeping a mucky little grocer’s shop, either, if it comes to that.’
‘So you didn’t know she wanted to adopt a baby?’
‘Well, come to think of it there was a bit of talk, but that was ages ago. I did hear he wasn’t so keen on the idea and I couldn’t see her coping with a baby, I can tell you. I didn’t pay any attention to it. There’s always so much blooming gossip in this place – turn you dizzy if you tried to keep track of it all.’
MacGregor looked crestfallen. Even he could see that Mrs Comersall had been genuinely surprised at the mention of Winifred Tompkins’s name. He was so disappointed that he forgot about the wrath further intervention would certainly bring down on his head.
‘Are you sure you weren’t buying that baby for Mrs Tompkins?’ he asked.
Mrs Comersall recovered her poise immediately. ‘If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times,’ she said irately, ‘I wasn’t buying no baby for nobody!’
‘We know that Eleanor Smith was going to sell her baby if it hadn’t died,’ MacGregor pressed on, stubbornly flogging a horse that Dover knew had been dead for some time, ‘and we know that Mrs Tompkins was involved in some kind of negotiations to get a baby on the black-market. She drew three hundred pounds in cash out of the bank only a day or so before she died and . . .’
All the colour drained from Mrs Comersall’s face and she clutched at her heart. Even Dover was a bit worried at the startling change in her appearance. With lips trembling and chest heaving, she struggled to get the words out.
‘Three hundred pounds?’ she moaned pathetically. ‘Three hundred pounds?’
‘That’s right,’ said MacGregor, exchanging an anxious glance with Dover.
A little colour returned to Mrs Comersall’s face. ‘Three hundred pounds,’ she repeated as though fascinated. ‘The bitch! The cold, scheming, snivelling bitch!’
‘Who?’ asked MacGregor. ‘Mrs Tompkins?’
Mrs Comersall didn’t seem to have heard him. Panting slightly she got up from the table. ‘We’ll see about that!’ she muttered viciously to herself. She looked at Dover. ‘I haven’t time to be bothered with you any more. I’ve answered all your questions. I know nothing about it, see? Nothing! And if you go on from now till Domesday you won’t get anything out of me.’
Not that a statement like this stopped Dover trying, but it soon became evident that Mrs Comersall wasn’t entering into the spirit of the thing. She seemed to have something else on her mind. Finally Dover gave it up as a bad job. He jerked his head at MacGregor, and the two of them hurried out of the café, leaving the proprietress gazing blankly at her glass of cabbage water and mouthing silently the words, ‘three hundred pounds’.
Chapter Twelve
‘QUICK!’ barked Dover as the door swung to behind them, ‘the post office!’ With his blood well and truly up he raced across the lorry park, clutching his bowler hat to his head. After a moment’s hesitation MacGregor raced after him.
Overcoat tails flying Dover reached the edge of the pavement. He didn’t bother about any of that look left, look right, look left again nonsense. He plunged straight in. A white-faced driver with a couple of tons of bricks behind him stood on his brakes. A petrol tanker coming at a fair belt down the hill swerved as Dover cleared the gutter in a wild, heart-stopping leap for safety on the other side.
Windows opened hopefully two hundred yards up the road. There’d been some nasty accidents on that stretch at the bottom of the hill and the villagers didn’t want to miss anything. Even Dr Hawnt heard the squeal of brakes and the shouting. He tottered off and locked himself in the lavatory. It took his housekeeper three hours to get him out again.
Dover was impervious to the anguish and turmoil in his wake. Without pausing he flung himself at the door of the sub post office and dived in. MacGregor, who’d got across the road before the lorry drivers had recovered their wits and remembered their schedules, pounded along on his master’s heels.
Inside the shop Miss Tilley was sorting wool. She had a confused impression of a red-faced man charging towards her with outstretched hands. Miss Tilley gave a delighted squeak of terror and then gracefully pretended to faint across a display of frilly aprons. She had decided long ago that, should the occasion arise, she would sell her honour cheaply.
A bell in the little switchboard at the back of the post office counter rang loudly and one of the numbers clicked tremblingly down.
‘Blast the woman!’ thundered Dover and clutched Miss Tilley by the hair in an attempt to restore her to her senses.
‘The telephone!’ bawled Dover, advancing his lips close to Miss Tilley’s ear. ‘The telephone!’
Miss Tilley shivered with excitement. ‘To hell with the telephone!’ she breathed and, somewhat hampered by the intervening stretch of counter, made a determined effort to scramble into Dover’s arms.
Dover pushed her off. He was a trifle more
panic-stricken than he realized, and even he was distressed to see Miss Tilley skid across the polished wood and collapse in a heap on the floor.
‘Pick her up!’ he shouted at MacGregor who was hovering uncertainly on the edge. ‘Pick her up and get her over to that switchboard! Hurry up, man, or we shall miss it!’
When Miss Tilley found strong masculine hands half dragging, half lifting her to her feet, she nearly did swoon from ecstasy, but she was a woman who had had many disappointments in her life, and she realized that this was not the moment she had been longing for.
‘I am quite all right, thank you,’ she said tartly as MacGregor hauled her into an upright position. ‘And I should be obliged,’ she addressed Dover who was still hopping around and trumpeting like an elephant on hot bricks, ‘if you would keep your voice down. My mother is lying bed-ridden in the next room and I don’t want her to get upset. And now,’ – she tidied her hair and smoothed her dress down, ‘if you will explain quietly what it is you want.’
‘We’re police officers,’ began Dover.
‘I am well aware of that,’ Miss Tilley reproved him. ‘Though from the way you came barging in here, I think I could have been forgiven for imagining you were drunken hooligans.’
Dover swallowed hard and waved a hand feebly at the switchboard. The bell was still ringing and the fallen number still fluttered impatiently. ‘Is that a call from Freda’s Cafe?’
Miss Tilley, with great dignity, walked over and picked up her head-set. ‘It is,’ she said having looked at the board.
‘I want to listen in to the conversation.’
With magnificent aplomb, Miss Tilley handed him a spare head-set and plugged it in for him. Then she sat down calmly and accepted the call. It was common knowledge that she listened in to all the calls herself, but to extend this privilege to others, even the police, was an innovation for her. However, Miss Tilley prided herself on being game.
‘Number, please?’ she trilled.
‘Thornwich 21.’ It was Mrs Comersall.
‘Thornwich 21,’ repeated Miss Tilley. ‘Can’t even be bothered to say please,’ she pointed out scathingly to Dover as she fiddled with the appropriate plugs and switches. ‘I’m ringing it now, Mrs Comersall.’
‘Whose number is it?’ hissed Dover.
Miss Tilley gave him a straight look. ‘It’s Friday Lodge. Dame Alice’s.’
‘ ’Strewth!’ said Dover, a broad grin spreading across his sweaty face.
After a second or two Friday Lodge answered. The line was not a good one, but Dover and Miss Tilley had no difficulty in catching every word.
‘Hello? Thornwich 21,’ said a voice from the house up the hill.
‘Go ahead, caller! You’re through,’ chanted Miss Tilley and gave one of her switches a loud click. She winked at Dover. ‘It makes them think you’ve cut out,’ she whispered conspiratorily.
Dover didn’t answer. He was too busy listening to the telephone conversation which began, on Mrs Comersall’s part, without any of the conventional civilities.
‘You double-crossing, lying bitch!’
The voice from Friday Lodge was polite and distant. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You’ll be begging for mercy when I get my hands on you, you smelly old cow! Three hundred quid! You two-faced slimy snake! And how much was poor old Freda going to get for doing all the work and making all the arrangements and taking all the risks? A lousy hundred and fifty!’
‘Mrs Comersall . . .’
‘Don’t you Mrs Comersall me, you treacherous toad! I paid out nearly forty quid to that blasted girl. Forty quid out of my own money!’ Mrs Comersall’s voice squealed in anguish. ‘ “How very sad” you said when the kid died. “An occupational hazard,” you said. “Just one of the risks we’ve got to take,” you said. We’ve got to take? I like that! And what did you say when I asked you, as one lady to another, to split the loss half way?’
‘I . . .’
‘You said you hadn’t any money!’ screamed Mrs Comersall. ‘You strung me a story as long as your arm about how hard up you were. You even had the bloody nerve’ – Mrs Comersall struggled for breath – ‘you even had the bloody nerve to try and touch me for a fiver! You despicable rat, you! Well, you’re going to meet your Waterloo, you are, because I’m coming to get you and your three hundred nicker!’
‘But. . .’
‘Don’t try and kid me you haven’t got it! I know you have. Turned out nice for you that Winifred Tompkins died, didn’t it? All you had to do was keep your trap shut and hang on to the lolly, wasn’t it? If you’d played decent with me,’ – Mrs Comersall’s voice dropped sadly – ‘I’d have played decent with you. But you didn’t, did you, you rotten pig?’
‘Now, listen . . .’
‘I’ve listened to you long enough!’ roared Mrs Comersall at full pitch. ‘Now I’m coming to collect. Percy’s just come in with his lorry and he’s going to run me up to that stinking hovel you live in. And if that money, all three hundred pounds of it, isn’t ready and waiting for me when I get there, you’re going to be in trouble, my sneaky friend, big trouble!’
Mrs Comersall crashed the phone down at her end.
Miss Tilley turned large brown inquiring eyes on Dover. What excitement! Why, it was even better than when Mother fell downstairs and everybody thought she’d broken her neck. What with poison-pen letters, suicides and now this, one wondered what had come over Thornwich these days, one really did.
Dover was disentangling his bowler hat and his ears from the head-set. He brushed aside Miss Tilley’s questions.
‘Come on, MacGregor!’ he yelled, charging for the door like a superannuated war-horse at the sound of the bugle. ‘If we don’t get there first, there’ll be murder done!’
‘Oooh!’ moaned Miss Tilley, pressing a pile of blank telegram forms to her bosom. ‘Murder!’
MacGregor, who was far from clear as to what was going on, set off once again after his lord and master. It was a comparatively easy task to catch up with him. Dover’s progress, although accompanied by enough puffing and panting to satisfy a complete field of marathon runners, was not impressive. Thornwich’s hill was taking a terrible toll, but the Chief Inspector, heart pounding, legs trembling, laboured on.
Not unnaturally, MacGregor couldn’t get much sense out of him. What little breath Dover had to spare from the vital task of breathing he used for cursing. He soon became an object of great interest as the sweat poured in rivers down his crimson cheeks. People on the pavement stopped to stare. Lorry drivers leaned from their cabs and, addressing him as grandpa, asked jocularly where the fire was.
Dover struggled on. At last the gates of Friday Lodge were in sight. Dover, now supporting himself with an arm round MacGregor’s neck, made the supreme effort. His legs had gone, his lungs were near bursting-point. In an ungainly shamble they turned into the drive just as a car came screeching away from the front door. It swooped towards them.
‘Help!’ said Dover. ‘Oh God!’
He dived one way, MacGregor the other. The car swung out into the road, heading at a rate of knots down the hill. From somewhere there came the sound of confused shouting and screaming. A deep car-horn blazed away.
Dover, panting and dishevelled, dragged himself to his feet. Almost without knowing what he was doing, he took a tentative totter forward. A large double-decker van packed with baaing sheep turned into the drive from the main road. Gravel spurted from under its wheels and one of Dame Alice’s gate-posts took a severe battering. A tense-eyed young maniac dragged at the steering-wheel as Dover plunged, for the second time in as many minutes, for safety.
Mrs Comersall was leaning out of the cab window, yelling encouragement and imprecations as her Jehu swung his unwieldy vehicle round Dame Alice’s semi-circular drive. The wheels cut great gashes in flower-beds and immaculate patches of lawn. The sheep bleated louder than ever. Cries of ‘After her! After her!’ came from Mrs Comersall as she battered the side of the cab with a pale
plump hand. The van went roaring through the second set of gates leaving no more than a scrape of paint on one of the posts, turned back down the hill and disappeared in a clash of gears and a cloud of exhaust.
Like a punch-drunk boxer who doesn’t know when he’s taken enough, Dover got himself up on his hands and knees. There was a yelp of innocent canine joy. Dame Alice’s dog, which had been cowering terrified at the back of the house, emerged, saw Dover and hurled himself on his adversary with teeth snapping and paws scrabbling.
‘ ’Strewth!’ groaned Dover as the dog landed on him, square in the small of the back.
It was MacGregor who sorted things out.
Dover sensibly refused to acknowledge anybody or anything until he found himself reclining with his feet up on a settee. There was a clink of glasses. He opened his eyes and closed them again in horror as he found Dame Alice standing over him, proffering a tumbler of brandy.
‘Where am I?’ he asked feebly, thinking it better to stick to the conventional script until he found out what the hell was going on. ‘What’s happened?’
‘You might well ask,’ said Dame Alice grimly and rammed the glass of brandy between Dover’s teeth. ‘My companion has absconded, my drive has been ruined and my dog is having hysterics.’
‘Mrs Comersall?’ choked Dover as the brandy seared his throat.
‘Oh, she’s gone chasing after Miss Thickett,’ said MacGregor, moving into Dover’s view. ‘I don’t think she’ll catch her, though, not in that old van.’
‘Miss Thickett?’ said Dover with a nasty feeling that his dearest hopes were going to be dashed.
‘Miss Thickett!’ repeated Dame Alice with withering scorn. ‘A viper I have nursed in my bosom! After she had received this very peculiar telephone-call about which your sergeant has given me a most incoherent account, she rushed upstairs, packed a suitcase, and left, without so much as by-your-leave or a word of explanation. From what the sergeant here has been telling me, it seems unlikely that she will return. What has been going on, Chief Inspector? I demand an explanation.’