by Joyce Porter
He took the letter which MacGregor had already enclosed between two pieces of transparent plastic so as to preserve any fingerprints. Dover gazed at it resentfully.
‘But it’s not the same!’ he protested, as though it was MacGregor’s fault.
‘No, sir,’ agreed MacGregor, ‘but I think if you’ll examine it, sir, you’ll find it’s been written by the same person. She’s just had to change the format, that’s all. Of course, if you’re right about the original typewriter having been thrown away, it would explain why she’s had to resort to this.’
Dover scowled miserably at the letter. It was on blue paper this time. The letter was not handwritten. Type-like characters in purple ink were arranged in smudgy and uneven lines. Dover read the contents. MacGregor was right. It was the same unrestrained outpouring of grammatical, well-spelt filth which had characterized the dozens of earlier letters, now reposing in Dover’s file.
‘Don’t you agree, sir?’ asked MacGregor.
‘Looks as though it’s by the same woman,’ admitted Dover grudgingly. ‘What about fingerprints? Have you traced the note-paper? What’s she using this time, another typewriter?’
‘I only got the letter a couple of minutes ago,’ MacGregor pointed out. ‘I haven’t had time to do more than read it and stick it between these sheets of talc.?
Dover, in spite of the severe shock he had just suffered, seized his opportunity with gratitude and both hands. ‘Well, laddie,’ he said more cheerfully, ‘it’s no good bringing it to me unless you’ve got the spade-work done, is it? You’d better get off to the County Headquarters and get the lab boys on to it, hadn’t you? Once we’ve got the data we can get cracking, can’t we? Here you are, laddie, and don’t lose it.’ He handed the letter back to MacGregor. ‘You’d better get a move on. And do a thorough job, mind. There’s no point in spoiling the ship for a ha’porth of tar.’
The Chief Inspector’s subtle plans for a quiet day didn’t quite work out. Almost as soon as MacGregor had departed on yet another bus, there was a knock on Dover’s door. He opened it and found Mrs Quince, arms akimbo, standing outside.
‘Oh,’ said Dover with an ingratiating smile, ‘I didn’t know it was time for coffee.’
‘It isn’t!’ said Mrs Quince in a manner which was definitely unfriendly. ‘And if you want coffee they tell me you can get a perfectly good cup over at Freda Comersall’s for sixpence. I’ve told you before, I only took you two in to oblige and I’m much too busy to come traipsing up here with trays every five minutes. And too upset,’ she added significantly.
‘Oh,’ said Dover.
‘I thought you said we’d seen the last of these letters,’ said Mrs Quince accusingly.
‘Well . . . ’ said Dover.
‘Well, nothing!’ snapped Mrs Quince. ‘You’re like all the rest of ’em, say the first thing that comes into your head.’ She folded her arms. ‘There’s four ladies downstairs waiting to see you. They wanted to come up here but I told ’em I wasn’t having any goings on, not in The Jolly Sailor. Shall I tell ’em you’ll be down?’
‘What do they want?’ asked Dover.
‘Your guts for garters, I shouldn’t wonder! They want to show you what they found in their letter boxes this morning, Mr Dover. And Dame Alice phoned. She’s had one, too, and she wants you to collect it as soon as possible.’
By the time Dover had got rid of Mrs Leatherbarrow, Miss Tilley and two other ladies whom he’d not had the pleasure of meeting before, the greater part of the morning had gone. After the second post which was delivered round about twelve o’clock he had three more callers. All of them were angry and two of them in tears. Dover’s rash statement in The Jolly Sailor had received a wide circulation and the women were doubly annoyed that the poison-pen letter nuisance had started up again.
Dover rang through to the Headquarters of the County Police and, having traced MacGregor, told him what had happened.
‘Oh Lord!’ said MacGregor. ‘Well, I’m not surprised. I didn’t think Mrs Quince’s would be the only one. I’d better come back and pick the others up then, sir, hadn’t I?’
Dover weighed the pros and cons. ‘No, don’t bother,’ he said, having reached his painful decision. ‘I’ll bring ’em in myself.’
‘Really, sir?’ MacGregor was surprised. He hadn’t realized that the going in Thornwich was as tough as all that. ‘Well, O.K., sir. I’ll be in the laboratory. Anybody’ll tell you where it is when you get to the main building.’
Dover had his lunch – and a very scrappy affair it was, too – at The Jolly Sailor and eventually set out in pursuit of MacGregor. He’d plenty of time to think about things as the bus trundled slowly over the moors. It was a mess. Even for one of Dover’s investigations, it was a mess. This was about as far as his meditations had got when the bus deposited him at the bus station in Castleham and he ambled over to a young constable to ask him the way to the County Police Headquarters.
MacGregor, happy as a sandboy, was installed in the laboratory helping with the detailed analysis of the letter which Mrs Quince had received. He took charge of the other letters which Dover had brought.
‘Oh?’ he said as he looked through them, handling them carefully because of possible fingerprints. ‘Mrs Jones – that’s Charlie Chettle’s daughter, isn’t it?’
‘It is,’ said Dover sourly. ‘A poor widow woman, or so she told me. One who pays her rates and taxes regularly and thinks she’s entitled to police protection in return. Fair make you sick, some of these people! You’d think we’d nothing else to do except run around looking after them.’ He stared around with some distaste at the long benches packed with odd-looking machines and equipment. ‘How are you getting on?’
‘Well, we’re still eliminating at this stage, sir,’ explained MacGregor, ‘but it’s going quite well. We shan’t have anything definite for three or four hours yet.’
‘Oh,’ said Dover.
‘Are you going back to Thornwich, sir? Because, if not, you can use Inspector Tedlow’s office. He’s going to be out for the rest of the day.’
Dover wasn’t one to hang around where he wasn’t wanted. Besides, the laboratory had a funny smell which made him feel quite queasy. He’d no intention of going back to Thornwich until he had MacGregor to protect him and, somehow, he didn’t fancy sitting all by himself in Inspector Tedlow’s office with nothing to do. He decided to go to the pictures and eventually passed quite an enjoyable afternoon, sleeping fitfully through a double feature horror programme.
‘Oh, here you are, sir!’ said MacGregor brightly when he at last ran Dover to earth in the police canteen. ‘I think I’ll have a bite to eat, too. I didn’t get any lunch, and we can’t get a bus back to Thornwich for nearly a couple of hours. Can I get you another cup of tea, sir?’
‘Well, have you got the answers?’ asked Dover when MacGregor returned to the table with a tray full of food. ‘Ugh! You’ve spilt my tea in the saucer!’
‘Sorry, sir,’ said MacGregor. ‘Here, take mine! Yes, I think we know where we are now, sir. Not that what we do know looks as though it’s going to be any more helpful than it was with the last lot. The letters were all posted in Thornwich again, some time yesterday. It looks as though Madam X posted them in two or three batches, but we’ll have to do a thorough check with the Post Office to get anything more definite. Of course, these letters don’t look like the last lot, so the postmen who were doing the collections won’t have been on the look-out for them. And, once again, sir, it looks as though we’re going to draw a complete blank on the fingerprints. They’re still working on them but I don’t think for a minute she’s been careless at this stage in the game. Incidentally, sir, it’s just struck me that the woman who’s writing them must be wearing gloves when she posts them. I don’t know whether this might help us spot her.’
‘Everybody wears gloves at this time of year,’ grunted Dover, helping himself to a piece of MacGregor’s bread and butter. ‘Got a cigarette, laddie? I seem to ha
ve left mine behind somewhere.’
‘Well, sir,’ MacGregor went on, dutifully wielding the cigarette-case and lighter, ‘the writing paper is Tendy Bond again, but blue this time. I’ve got the local boys asking questions in the towns nearest to Thornwich, but I don’t suppose that’ll get us anywhere. The shops sell far too much of it to remember anybody who buys the odd packet.’
‘What about the way the letters were written?’
‘Oh yes, I was just coming to that, sir. Really, it’s the most interesting part. Highly original. And clever. Do you know what she used, sir?’
‘I wouldn’t bloody well be asking if I did!’ snarled Dover. Two thick-necked policemen at the next table exchanged knowing winks and grinned at each other. ‘Glad I don’t work for that old baa-lamb!’ muttered one of them.
MacGregor hastily resumed his narrative in an attempt to avert a punch-up as an ugly red flush spread over Dover’s features.
‘The letters were printed with one of those children’s printing sets, sir. You know, the ones they sell in little cardboard boxes.’
Dover’s face remained blank.
‘Like this, sir.’ MacGregor fished around in his brief-case and produced a small cardboard box. ‘You can get them in different sizes but we think this is the one she used. You see, sir,’ – MacGregor took the lid off – ‘you get all these little rubber letters and you insert them in the order you want in this little wooden holder.’ With some difficulty MacGregor composed his surname. ‘You’ll see, sir,’ he said, fumbling enthusiastically away, ‘it’s a fiddly sort of job and I doubt if you could do it with a pair of rubber gloves on. With a bit of luck – oh, thank you very much, constable! There’s another one under that chair, if you wouldn’t mind – she may get careless and give us the present of a nice fat fingerprint. There you are, sir! I’ve got it set up now. All you have to do now is get this little inking pad, press the line of type on it – so – and then’ – MacGregor hunted in his brief-case for a sheet of paper – ‘you stamp it – so!’
Solemnly the two men stared at the result. There was MacGregor’s name, smudgy but quite legible, in purple ink on the paper.
‘Hm,’ said Dover with interest. ‘Here, do one with my name now’.
‘The only trouble is, sir,’ said MacGregor, fastidiously dismantling his own name and setting up the Chief Inspector’s, ‘that it’s very slow, as you can see. But it serves its purpose. There’s no question of us being able to identify the author by any handwriting tests. In the bigger boxes you get more of the rubber letters and a bigger stick thing to hold them in but, judging by the way our poison-pen letters have been done, this is probably the box she used.’
‘Where do you buy them?’ asked Dover, happily stamping his name in purple ink all over the paper.
‘Practically any toy shop, sir. This model only costs a few bob. I’m having the local boys check around. It’s a better lead than the writing paper at any rate. If our Madam X bought one of these in the last few days, I think we’ve a good chance that the shopkeeper might remember.’
‘She’s been pretty far-seeing so far. She might have bought it months ago, maybe in London or somewhere like that.’
‘Well, in that case, sir, we haven’t a hope of tracing it. Still,’ said MacGregor, who was a great one for looking on the bright side, ‘we’ve got a few advantages in our favour this time.’
‘Such as?’ said Dover.
‘Well, sir, it looks pretty obvious that this second batch of letters is a sort of challenge, don’t you think? You said in The Jolly Sailor on Tuesday night that she was more or less too scared to write any more letters.’
‘So?’ said Dover cautiously.
‘So here she is proving you wrong! It’s an act of defiance, sir, don’t you think? But, and here’s the point, she didn’t expect that she would have to send this second lot, otherwise she would have done them on the typewriter. Obviously this kids’ printing-set method is a matter of improvisation. If you’re right, sir – and clearly you are – the first lot of letters were written well in advance, and the typewriter was disposed of long before any letters were sent. Obviously she couldn’t use it again. Hence the printing-set, but it’s very slow and clearly second-best. The point is, sir, she must actually be writing these letters now. Don’t you agree? She must have this lot of writing paper and her printing-set in her possession now.’
‘As a matter of fact,’ said Dover, idly trying to lick some purple ink off the tips of his fingers, ‘that’s why I said what I did in The Jolly Sailor. I was just trying to goad her into action. Seems as though I’ve succeeded.’
Several months and a few unsolved cases earlier MacGregor’s jaw would have dropped, and other signs of frank incredulity would have passed over his handsomely chiselled features, but not now. Now he was too accustomed to the Chief Inspector’s awe-inspiringly accurate rear vision, and just ignored it.
‘If we could organize another house-to-house search in Thornwich, sir, we might catch her purple-handed.’ MacGregor laughed at his little joke.
Dover didn’t. He looked at the little cardboard box as it lay on the table. ‘Not very difficult to hide,’ he commented, always happy to pour cold water on other people’s ideas. ‘As soon as she got wind of the search she could chuck it on the fire. And, knowing Thornwich, she’d probably know about it before we did.’
‘The rubber would smell,’ said MacGregor hopefully.
‘Pshaw,’ said Dover.
And that, for some considerable time, was that. For the next few days, as the obscene letters continued to arrive in Thornwich’s letter boxes, the local police, goaded by MacGregor, pursued their investigations. They didn’t succeed in tracing the purchase of the blue Tendy Bond writing paper or of the child’s printing-set. Inquiries were made to see if any one had bought suspiciously large supplies of postage stamps but, not unexpectedly, this too proved a complete waste of police time and led to yet another dead end. MacGregor tried to organize a discreet watch on Thornwich’s two post boxes, but the Chief Constable regretted that he just couldn’t spare the surprisingly large number of men required, and Dover said that, if MacGregor thought he was going to stand out in the cold and rain for twenty-four hours at a stretch, he’d got another think coming. MacGregor tried a few hours of guard duty on his own but soon gave it up as a bad job.
Dover virtually retired from the case. After long hours spent having a quiet think in his room, he would emerge from time to time with some cock-eyed suggestion which involved other people in a great deal of work and achieved absolutely nothing. Had it not been for the continued presence of his sister-in-law under his roof he would have packed the whole case in long ago. The atmosphere in Thornwich was unfriendly and Mrs Quince, under the new onslaught of poison-pen letters, became less and less obliging. Her cooking deteriorated, and her fondness for bingo became a positive addiction. Day after day Charlie Ghettle made the perilous double crossing over the main road to bring pie and chips for Dover and MacGregor. Dover’s digestion suffered and he hinted darkly that Freda Comersall was trying to poison him.
Negative reports on every new line of investigation continued to pour in. Madam X wasn’t making any mistakes. In spite of the considerable handling that the use of the printing-set involved, the letters remained unsullied by any fingerprint which couldn’t be accounted for. Depressed and thoroughly bored, Dover hung doggedly on. After all, he consoled himself, it was better than going home.
The idea of a house-to-house search was abandoned for the time being. As Dover told MacGregor, he knew where to start looking all right but, if nothing was found, there would be a great deal of unpleasantness and – give the woman credit for some intelligence – nothing would be found. There was no point in antagonizing the local population more than they had been antagonized already. Indeed, much of the fury which had been directed at the poison-pen letter writer in the past was now being unleashed in Dover’s direction. Even the loyal Mr Tompkins seemed to be avoiding him th
ese days, and spent a great deal of time over in his grocer’s shop, getting it ready for what he hoped would be an immediate sale.
It was Monday morning, well over a fortnight since Dover had first burst upon the Thornwich scene, when two things happened which spurred on the Chief Inspector to a most uncharacteristic burst of energy.
He received a particularly disgusting poison-pen letter addressed to himself, and his wife telephoned to say that, at long last, the coast was clear.
Chapter Fifteen
DOVER WAS reduced to jowl-quivering fury by the poison-pen letter. Mrs Quince brought it in to him as he and MacGregor were sitting waiting for their breakfast. Dover had started coming downstairs for breakfast again in an unsuccessful attempt to mollify Mrs Quince’s displeasure. When she got upset it seemed to go straight to her cooking and Dover’s stomach couldn’t stand much more of her culinary onslaughts.
‘There you are!’ said Mrs Quince as she slapped down the blue envelope with Dover’s name and address printed on it in purple ink. ‘You’ve got one all to yourself now. Let’s see how you like it!’
Dover picked up his knife and with considerable reluctance slit the envelope open. ‘Perhaps it’s a confession,’ he said.
‘And perhaps it isn’t!’ snorted Mrs Quince as she plonked Dover’s breakfast on the table. It consisted of one small, cold, parboiled egg which Mrs Quince had been saving for several weeks for just such an occasion. ‘Well?’ she demanded triumphantly, seeing the answer already in Dover’s expression as he read the letter. ‘Is it?’
‘Is it what?’ said Dover.
‘Is it a confession?’
‘No, it isn’t.’
‘No,’ said Mrs Quince sardonically. ‘I didn’t think it would be. Well, come on!’ she said as Dover hastily stuffed the letter back in the envelope. ‘Aren’t you going to hand it round? You were pretty keen to have a good snigger over those everybody else was getting. Strikes me it’s only fair to give us a chance now you’ve got one.’