by Joyce Porter
‘That’s entirely different,’ said Dover, getting very puce round the ears.
‘Oh yes,’ – Mrs Quince nodded her head – ‘yes, it would be, wouldn’t it? Well, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, that’s what I always say.’
‘Do you?’ inquired Dover unpleasantly. He put the letter in his inside pocket and buttoned his jacket firmly over it. The letter had accused him not only of advanced satyriasis in connection with some of the less attractive women in Thornwich, but also of running an affair with MacGregor as well. As far as Dover was concerned, nobody, but nobody, was ever going to clap eyes on that letter.
Mrs Quince recognized defeat and retired with a flounce to her kitchen where she evolved a really nasty idea for Dover’s lunch.
‘I’ll tell you one thing, laddie,’ said Dover, gazing with dismay into the depths of his egg, ‘I’m getting sick to death of women! The world, in my opinion, would be a happier place without them.’
‘Oh, I don’t know, sir,’ said MacGregor, inevitably, ‘they do have their uses.’
Dover snorted.
‘Er – what about your letter, sir?’ asked MacGregor, who was dying to read it. ‘It is a genuine poison-pen one, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Dover shortly. ‘Cheeky bitch! I’ll get her for this if it’s the last thing I do!’
‘I suppose I’d better have it for the usual tests, sir, just in case,’ said MacGregor hopefully.
‘She’s gone too far this time,’ muttered Dover sourly. ‘I’ve been trying to handle things diplomatically, trying to avoid a scandal, you know. I could have barged in days ago and thrown my weight around and bust the whole thing sky high, but I didn’t. I thought it would be very embarrassing for a woman in her position, a Justice of the Peace and chairman of this and president of that. I thought I’d give her every chance to just drop the whole matter quietly. But that’s not good enough for her. She’s got to reduce the whole thing to a personal level.’
‘Do you think I could have a look at your letter, sir?’ asked MacGregor, realizing that subtlety was going to get him nowhere.
‘She’s got to be stopped,’ said Dover, manfully finishing off Mrs Quince’s egg and reaching for the burnt toast. ‘The general public’s got to be protected from people like her. Here!’ – he licked the end of the butter knife suspiciously – ‘I think that old cow’s given us margarine!’
‘I don’t think we can make a case against Dame Alice, sir,’ ventured MacGregor, fairly confident that he had interrupted the Chief Inspector’s ramblings aright.
‘No,’ said Dover glumly. ‘She’s been very clever. Of course,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘we could, maybe, break her down a bit and get a confession out of her. All women are cowards when it comes to the push.’
MacGregor could feel the blood drain from his cheeks. Dover’s tendency to resort to his fists when more orthodox methods of investigation had failed was one which MacGregor had had to contend with before. Sooner or later, in practically every case he was concerned with, the point came when the Chief Inspector deemed it advisable to thump or rattle the truth out of some unfortunate individual who had not taken his fancy. MacGregor shuddered at the thought of what would happen if these strong arm, fist-in-the-ear tactics were employed on Dame Alice.
‘I don’t think that would be very advisable, sir, really I don’t.’ he said feverishly. ‘She is a woman, you know.’
‘Worse than the men,’ grumbled Dover, ‘and tougher, most of ’em.’
‘She’s a magistrate, too, sir, and Chairman of the Standing Joint Committee.’
‘I don’t care if she’s the Queen of Sheba,’ replied Dover haughtily. ‘It’s my job to crack down on criminals whoever they are and I pride myself, I don’t mind telling you, that I carry out my duties without fear or favour.’
‘She’s a friend of the Assistant Commissioner, sir!’ MacGregor was getting frantic. ‘If you start leaning on her and you don’t make the poison-pen business stick good and proper, she’ll crucify you!’
‘Garn!’ scoffed Dover. ‘I know what I’m doing, laddie.’
‘But you’ve absolutely no proof, sir, none at all! You haven’t got one single thing to connect Dame Alice with those poison-pen letters.’
Dover frowned. ‘Well,’ he admitted, ‘nothing that we could actually produce in court.’
‘You haven’t anything that you couldn’t produce in court either, have you, sir?’
Dover’s frown deepened. His mean little eyes regarded MacGregor sulkily. ‘All the more reason to push her around a bit until she confesses,’ he said without much conviction. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and pushed his chair away from the table.
‘You’re not thinking of going up to see her now, are you, sir?’ asked a horrified MacGregor.
‘As a matter of fact,’ said Dover with great dignity, ‘I was just going to the toilet.’
‘Oh,’ said MacGregor, sweating gently with relief.
‘When I come back we’ll have to talk over what we’re going to do.’ Dover scratched his chin. ‘I wonder if we could infiltrate Mrs Poltensky? If we could get her installed in Friday Lodge as a charwoman or something, she’d be sure to ferret out the evidence for us. She might,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘even plant it there for us.’
MacGregor looked shocked.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, laddie,’ said Dover crossly, ‘it’s been done before and it’ll be done again. It’s not as though we were framing an innocent woman. It’s just a matter of helping things on a bit and making it a bit clearer for the judge and jury.’
MacGregor was totally unconvinced. ‘I think it would be very dangerous, sir, apart from being highly unethical. You’d be putting yourself and your career right in Mrs Poltensky’s hands. Suppose she decided to talk? You’d never be able to trust her.’
‘No,’ said Dover with a sigh. ‘Maybe you’re right. Well, the only other thing I can think of is an intensive, round-the-clock watch on Dame Alice. If we could just catch her posting one of those letters we’d have her cold. Of course it’d mean a lot of work for you, laddie. We’ll not get any help from the local police, that’s for sure. Well, you just kick it around and think about it.’ Dover got to his feet. ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’
He was half-way up the stairs when the phone rang. It was his wife.
‘She’s going home this afternoon, Wilf,’ said Mrs Dover.
‘And about time, too! I was beginning to think she’d taken up residence for life.’
‘She’s been very good, Wilf, I don’t know how I would have managed without her.’
There was a snort from Dover.
‘How have you been keeping, Wilf?’ asked his wife hastily.
‘Rotten,’ said Dover. ‘My stomach’s still not right, you know. I think I’ll have to see a specialist. These ordinary doctors just don’t seem able to get to the root of the trouble. I have this sort of dull ache all the time, you see, and as soon as I’ve had anything to eat – not that I’ve got any appetite, but I force myself – I’ve got to keep my strength up, haven’t I? Well, when I do, I get the most terrible shooting pains. Agonizing, they are, and they needn’t tell me it’s wind. I’ve had wind and . . . ’ Dover talked with enthusiasm until the pips reminded him that the call would be appearing in due course on his telephone bill.
‘Oh dear,’ said Mrs Dover when, at last, she could get a word in, ‘I am sorry you’re having such a rotten time, Wilf. I’ve been feeling a lot better these last couple of days but . . .’
‘Some people have all the luck,’ said Dover. ‘When’s she going exactly?’
‘She’s catching the afternoon train.’
‘Right,’ said Dover. ‘I’ll be home tomorrow morning.’
He replaced the receiver and turned to MacGregor who was still sitting at the breakfast table. ‘I was going to do something when the phone rang,’ he said. ‘What was it?’
‘You were going upstairs, sir.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Dover. ‘Well, we’ve no time for that now. I want this case wrapped up today, one way or the other. We’re going to catch the night train back to London. I’ve had enough of this crummy dump. Well, for God’s sake, what are you sitting there for? Lost the use of your legs or something? Nip upstairs and get my hat and coat. We’ve no time to lose!’
‘Are we going to see Dame Alice, sir?’ asked MacGregor. It was a rhetorical question but Dover answered it.
‘’Strewth! Don’t you ever listen to anything that’s said to you? Of course we’re going to see Dame Alice! We agreed on it not five minutes ago, didn’t we?’
By the time MacGregor came downstairs clutching Dover’s bowler hat and long black overcoat, the Chief Inspector had got things humming in the bar of The Jolly Sailor. Mr and Mrs Quince had been pressed, without too much difficulty, into organizing Dover’s return home. It was a complicated business and Dover had no intention of tackling Dame Alice until he’d got his lines of retreat secured. MacGregor surveyed the – to him – premature hustle and bustle with dismay. There was no doubt about it. Dover intended to leave Thornwich and The Jolly Sailor that night, and in the lurch, if needs be. Mrs Quince was giving him sterling support. It took half an hour of acrimonious argument before it was finally established that the two detectives would have to catch the six o’clock bus into Cumberley, change there with a thirty minute wait on to another bus to Grailton and then wait two hours before catching the through train to London at a quarter to one in the morning.
‘You’d do much better to wait and catch the ten o’clock bus to Bearle in the morning,’ said Mr Quince. ‘Then you could get a local train to Wellchester and from there you could get another bus to . . .’
‘No!’ said Dover and Mrs Quince in unison.
‘I’ve got to get back to London urgently,’ said Dover. ‘They need me. We’ll have a high tea at five o’clock, Mrs Quince, and catch that six o’clock bus.’
Mrs Quince had intended to go to bingo that afternoon but, under the circumstances, she was prepared to forgo the pleasure. Anything to get rid of this fat lazy old devil.
MacGregor helped Dover on with his overcoat and handed him his hat.
‘Where are you off to now?’ asked Mrs Quince curiously.
‘Never you mind,’ Dover snubbed her. ‘You’ll hear all about it soon enough.’
‘Are you going to make an arrest, Mr Dover?’ asked Mr Quince.
‘Well, now,’ said Dover, smiling enigmatically, ‘that’d be telling, wouldn’t it?’
The pull up the hill, from The Jolly Sailor at the bottom to Friday Lodge at the top, didn’t get any easier or shorter. Dover was all for getting at Dame Alice as soon as possible but it wasn’t long before he was reduced to his usual panting crawl. When they were half-way there the rain, which had been threatening all morning, began to fall. -
‘Maybe we should have phoned first to see whether she was in, sir?’ said MacGregor, who was praying quite hard that the good Lord, in His infinite mercy, would ensure that she was out.
‘What? And tip her off that we were after her? Not on your nelly!’ The rain-water dripped off the brim of Dover’s bowler. ‘Surprise, that’s what we want. Catch her unawares. Chuck the accusation at her before she’s had time to think up some cock-and-bull story. Let her have it straight between the eyes, right out of the blue.’
It’ll be right out of the blue all right, thought MacGregor and wondered despondently what occupations or professions were open to an ex-detective sergeant who had been discharged with ignominy. Dame Alice would have their heads on a charger if Dover did one half of the things he was threatening to do. She wasn’t some old lag you could push around as the fancy took you. She was an experienced, well-educated woman of the world with friends in some very high places, and she’d go off like a rocket the minute Dover plonked one of his flat feet out of line. It wasn’t even, MacGregor told himself miserably, as though there was a chance in a thousand of her being guilty. All the evidence they had so far was that Dover didn’t like her face, and hadn’t since he had first laid eyes on it.
‘Thank the Lord!’ said Dover with genuine fervour. ‘We’re here at last. ’Strewth, my feet are killing me!’
They turned into the drive. Dame Alice’s car was standing outside the front door.
‘Oh well, it looks as though she’s in,’ said Dover, hobbling painfully across the gravel.
MacGregor silently cursed his luck. ‘Perhaps, sir,’ he said, grasping at a pretty soggy straw, ‘you’d sooner tackle her by yourself, without a witness, I mean? I could wait out here. I don’t mind at all.’
‘No,’ said Dover generously. ‘You come along and see the fun. Besides, if there are any repercussions it’ll be much better two against one. With you and me telling the same story, they’ll just put it down to another malicious attempt to blacken the good name of the police.’
As they approached the steps leading to the front door Dame Alice’s dog came bounding round the house with its usual jubilance. Dover bent down and grabbed a lump of stone from a nearby rockery. The dog stopped dead in its tracks as though unable to believe its eyes. Dover took careful aim. The dog didn’t wait. With an outraged yelp and its tail tucked well between its legs, it shot round the corner and disappeared from sight.
‘Pity,’ said Dover as he dropped his stone back in a flower-bed. ‘Right! Ring the bell, laddie, and let’s get cracking.’
MacGregor rang the bell and they stood waiting.
Dover rang the bell.
Dover hammered on the door panels with his fists.
Dover kicked the door.
‘I think she must be out, sir,’ said MacGregor, grateful for an answer, however belated, to his prayers.
‘Fiddlesticks!’ said Dover and peered through the coloured glass panels. ‘She must be in.’ He stepped back. ‘Here, try the door and see if it’s open.’
Reflecting, and not for the first time, that the Chief Inspector had a positive genius for unloading the dirty work on to younger and less canny shoulders, MacGregor tried the door handle. The door was not locked.
‘Well, don’t hang about, man!’ hissed Dover. ‘Get inside!’
MacGregor, hesitating naturally at entering private premises, got a good thump in the small of the back for his scruples, and the two detectives tip-toed cautiously into Dame Alice’s hall. Everything seemed very quiet and perfectly normal.
‘Hello!’ called Dover, feeling a bit of a fool. ‘Is there anybody about?’
There was no answer.
‘Just have a look around, laddie,’ suggested Dover casually. What are subordinates for if not to take risks?
There wasn’t a sign of any occupant on the ground floor.
‘She might be upstairs, sir,’ said MacGregor with muted urgency as he saw Dover heading like a homing pigeon towards the alluring haven of Dame Alice’s desk.
‘Well, keep a look-out, you great fool!’ snapped Dover, his fat paws already rummaging in the desk drawers.
Working quickly and ignoring MacGregor’s ever more pathetic protests, Dover gave the whole of the downstairs part of Friday Lodge a good going over. He knew what he was looking for and stout-heartedly ignored side issues such as a detailed study of Dame Alice’s bank statement and a bundle of letters tied up with ribbon at the back of one of the drawers. But nowhere, not in the kitchen, nor the dining-room, nor the drawing-room, nor the downstairs lavatory, nor the hall, did he find a little cardboard box containing a well-used child’s printing-set. He didn’t find any Tendy Bond writing paper either.
‘Sir!’ MacGregor came creeping back from his post at the bottom of the stairs. ‘I think there’s somebody up there. 1 can hear the bath water running.’
‘Bath water?’ said Dover, a most unpleasant suspicion crossing his mind. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I think so, sir,’ replied MacGregor, beginning to get worried in his turn.
‘But, nobody takes a bath at this time of the
day,’ whispered Dover, his brow furrowed with anxiety.
MacGregor swallowed hard, ‘Mrs Tompkins did, sir.’
Dover crinkled his nose. ‘ ’Strewth,’ he said, ‘you’re a cheerful Charlie!’
‘They do say things go in threes, sir,’ MacGregor pointed out unhappily. ‘Poppy Gullimore, Mrs Tompkins, and now, this.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the stairs.
‘She must know we’re on to her,’ agreed Dover slowly. ‘I wouldn’t put it past her to try and take the easy way out.’ He scratched his head thoughtfully, pushing his bowler hat farther back. ‘I wonder if we ought to hang on a bit and give her time to make a proper job of it?’
‘Oh, sir,’ whispered MacGregor in deep reproach, ‘we can’t do that!’
‘I don’t know what you’re in such a flaming hurry for, laddie,’ grumbled Dover. ‘It won’t be a pretty sight, I can tell you. She’ll have got into a hot bath and slit her wrists. They always reckon it’s a very comfortable way to go, but I can’t say as how I’ve ever fancied it. Just slowly bleeding to death and all that pink water! Ugh!’ he shivered. ‘It’s a horrible mess for them that’s got to fish ’em out!’
‘We haven’t any choice, sir,’ said MacGregor stoutly. ‘I mean, her life may be ebbing away now, while we just stand here talking about it.’
‘Oh, all right,’ said Dover grudgingly. ‘Come on! And I just hope you’ve remembered something of your first aid. If we’ve got to wait for old Hawnt to get here we might as well save ourselves the trouble of going upstairs.’
Still whispering and walking on tip-toe, MacGregor and Dover, each trying to let the other go first, made their way unenthusiastically up to the first floor. It didn’t take them long to identify the bathroom. They could hear the bath water gurgling away inside, and periodically there was a shattering series of heavy thumps from the antique water system.