by Joyce Porter
Sergeant MacGregor cleared his throat. ‘I think the name is Rugg, sir,’ he proffered, ‘Juliet Rugg with a “g”.’
The local man looked surprised. ‘Juliet Rugg with a “g”?’ he asked doubtfully. ‘Are you sure?’
Dover couldn’t stand it any longer. With a snort of seething impatience he strode to the desk, pushed aside three library books and a packet of sandwiches, picked up a file, glanced at the heading and slapped it down without a word in front of the inspector.
‘Oh?’ said the inspector. ‘Oh, yes. Thank you! Well now, Juliet Rugg, that’s the one you’ve come about, isn’t it? Yes, well then, there’s not much I can tell you about her case, I’m afraid.’ He peered at the file. ‘Oh, yes, she was reported missing by Miss Eve Counter of Irlam Old Hall on Wednesday afternoon – that’s the day before yesterday, of course. Missing girl is called Juliet Rugg, age eighteen, working as a maid in the employ of Sir John Counter, also of Irlam Old Hall.’ He glanced up at his visitors. ‘Perhaps I should explain about Irlam Old Hall,’ he suggested unenthusiastically. ‘It’s a bit involved. It’s one of these old houses about a couple of miles outside the village of Earlam. Some time ago, before the war, I think, the family couldn’t keep the place up any longer so they converted the house into flats. They sold off most of the land and they built half a dozen houses on the bit that was left – three on either side of the drive, actually. Then they did up the two small lodges by the main gates. So Irlam Old Hall these days is a kind of little housing estate, if you see what I mean. Of course, it’s quite an expensive set-up, even the flats are about four or five pounds a week – unfurnished, of course, but they don’t use numbers or names. Everybody puts “Irlam Old Hall” on their notepaper and the postman just has to sort out which house or flat to deliver it to by the name of the occupier. The present owner, Mrs Chubb-Smith, she is – she lives in one of the lodges now-she’s had several rows with the Post Office about it but so far she’s had her own way. So this gendeman who employs Juliet Rugg, Sir John Counter, he and his daughter live in one of the houses built in the grounds.’
‘I see,’ said Dover, and sniffed.
‘Well now, where was I ? Oh yes, Juliet Rugg left the Counters’ house after lunch on Tuesday afternoon. It was her afternoon off and they expected her back as usual about eleven o’clock that night Well, she didn’t turn up, of course. Well, the village constable went along to see the girl’s mother-she lives in the village – and – er – ascertained that the girl had called in to see her mother for about an hour on Tuesday afternoon. She didn’t say anything about going away and she left to catch the three-fifteen bus into Creedon here to have a look round the shops and what have you. This was quite normal and she did it every week. The local chap – er-ascertained that she caught the bus all right. Well, at this stage in the inquiry, our chap heard that Mr Bartlett was going to call the Yard in, so he-er-didn’t pursue his inquiries any further. And that’s really just about all there is.
‘We’ve booked a couple of rooms for you in the pub at Earlam. It’s not much of a place but we thought you’d like to be on the spot. Oh, and we’ve got a car for you. You won’t want a driver, will you? The file’s got all the addresses in it, and there’s a sketch plan of Irlam Old Hall with the names of the people living there. I don’t think there’s anything else you’ll want at the moment, is there?’ The inspector glanced anxiously at his football pools.
‘No!’ said Dover, and rammed his bowler hat on his head. ‘Come on, Sergeant, we’d better get moving. We’ll obviously have to start from the beginning again so we’ll go and see this Counter woman first.’
Sergeant MacGregor accepted the file from the limp hand of the inspector, thanked him for his help, and dashed off after his superior officer. He had a feeling that this case was going to be even worse than their first one was.
Chapter Two
THEY found Irlam Old Hall quite easily and Sergeant MacGregor braked gently from the cautious thirty miles an hour which was all Dover would permit, glanced in his rear mirror, changed down to third, flicked out his right trafficator, poked out his right arm to its full extent, glanced in his mirror again and with bated breath carefully turned the car across a completely deserted, dead straight country road and eased his way sedately through the entrance gates.
The two men gazed thoughtfully through the windscreen. Before them lay a wide, gravelled drive which had long ago lost its struggle with the encroaching grass and weeds. The drive ran in a series of sweeping curves, which seemed to have no functional value as the ground was perfectly flat, up to the front of a large, eighteenth-century building whose architecture was pleasing rather than distinguished. On either side of the main drive were the new houses of which the local C.I.D. inspector had spoken. They stood well back and each was separated from its neighbours by a reasonably large garden and thick clusters of trees. Four smaller paths led off from the main sweep of the drive.
On either side of the main gate were two tiny, ivy-encrusted lodges. Mrs Chubb-Smith, the present owner of the property, lived, according to the sketch plan, in the one on the left.
Sergeant MacGregor guided the shiny black police car up the drive at a docile fifteen miles an hour.
‘Which is the Counters’ house?’ asked Dover.
‘It’s the top one on the left, sir. Must be that big one over there.’
‘Hm,’ said Dover, frowning crossly at the well-kept flower beds and trim lawns. ‘Sir John or whatever-his-name-is doesn’t look short of the ready, anyhow.’
The door was opened by a dark-haired, sullen-faced woman in her middle thirties. She looked anxiously at her visitors. Dover flicked the brim of his bowler hat with the index finger of his right hand.
‘Good morning! Is Miss Eve Counter in? We’d like to have a word with her.’
‘I’m Eve Counter.’ The voice was low and pleasant but lacking in assurance. ‘Are you the detectives?’
‘Yes, miss. I’m Chief Inspector Dover and this is Detective Sergeant MacGregor. We’ve come down from Scotland Yard.’
‘Well, I think you’d better come inside then.’
She led them into a large airy drawing-room decorated in a restful pastel green. Dover and MacGregor sank into the depths of a couple of huge armchairs while Miss Counter perched herself on an upright chair placed in front of a writing-desk. Just as Dover was about to begin, she shot off her seat and grabbed a cigarette box from a small table.
‘Will you have a cigarette?’ she asked, thrusting the box at them.
Dover accepted, as he always did, but Sergeant MacGregor refused. There was an embarrassing little moment when the table-lighter wouldn’t work and MacGregor produced his, an elegant gold one, to the accompaniment of a shower of thanks and apologies from Miss Counter, who blushed slightly as she accepted a light from the tall, handsome sergeant.
Everything settled down again and Dover opened his mouth for the second time, when Miss Counter realized with another nervous start that there were no ash-trays. Once again she rushed round the room, apologizing for her forgetfulness.
Dover sighed. ‘Well, now, Miss Counter,’ he said at long last, ‘I understand that you reported the disappearance of Miss Rugg to the police?’
‘Yes, that’s right! I did. My father said I was making a lot of unnecessary fuss and that she’d turn up again, but when she hadn’t come back at lunch-time on Wednesday, I thought I’d better ring the police. It couldn’t do any harm, could it?’
‘When did you last see her?’
‘Just after lunch on Tuesday. It was her afternoon off and she usually used to get back about eleven. I’d gone to bed earlier and when I came down in the morning I found that the front door was still unlocked. Then I went into the kitchen and I saw that Juliet hadn’t made herself a hot drink when she came in, as she usually did. I thought it was a bit odd, but I got breakfast and took it in to my father. I asked him if Juliet had looked in last night to say good night to him and he said, no, she hadn’t.
Well, I got on with my work but at about eleven o’clock I thought I’d just pop up and see if she was all right I went up to her room but she wasn’t there and the bed hadn’t been slept in.’
‘Was anything missing from her room – a suitcase, a change of clothing?’
‘No, not as far as I could see. Everything seemed to be there.’
‘I understood, Mis Counter,’ said Dover, ‘that Miss Rugg was employed here as a maid. Wasn’t she supposed to get up and get the breakfast and do the housework?’
Miss Counter stubbed her cigarette out in the ash-tray and automatically took another out of the box. Sergeant MacGregor proffered his lighter once again and Miss Counter inhaled a deep pull of smoke into her lungs. She murmured her thanks and Dover waited patiently for an answer to his question.
‘Juliet wasn’t exactly employed here as a housemaid, Inspector,’ she said, speaking rather quickly. ‘She’s really a kind of, er, companion to my father. He’s more or less confined to the house now, although he’s not bedridden by any means. He likes to have somebody to chat to and to fetch things for him and so on. He likes somebody fresh and young around him, and that was Juliet’s job – generally just to keep him amused. Usually we have a cook and a housemaid as well, but you know what it’s like trying to get servants these days, even foreign ones. At the moment we haven’t got anybody except a char who comes in to do the rough work a couple of days a week.’ She gave a wry little laugh. ‘While Juliet looks after my father, I have to turn to and look after the house.’
‘What time did you expect to see Miss Rugg, then, on the Wednesday morning?’
‘Well, she usually spent every morning in bed, so not much before midday, really. You see, my father stops in bed until lunchtime so there’s nothing much for Juliet to do. He doesn’t normally get to bed until round about midnight-he always watches the television until it closes down-so she’s kept up pretty late at night. If it hadn’t been for the unlocked door and no dirty cups and things in the kitchen, I shouldn’t have even thought of looking for her till about half-past twelve the next day.’
‘Do you know what she usually did on her afternoon off?’
‘No. I never asked her and she never told me.’
Dover gazed moodily at Miss Counter as though he were trying to picture her with a hempen rope round her neck.
‘How much was Miss Rugg paid as a companion to your father?’
Eve Counter frowned. ‘Ten pounds a week,’ she said shortly.
‘All found?’
‘All found.’
There was a pause while the chief inspector pondered over this interesting bit of information. He slumped back even deeper in his chair, his beady little eyes fixed unblinkingly on his hostess’s face.
‘Do you like Miss Rugg, madam?’ he asked in a mild conversational voice.
Eve Counter jumped slightly, then her chin went up.
‘No, Chief Inspector, I don’t! Not much, anyhow.’
Dover accepted the implied challenge in her answer.
‘Care to tell me why, madam?’
‘Well, we had absolutely nothing in common. I’m very much older than she is and, well, I come from a different class of society, I have a completely different background. I don’t want you to think I’m a snob, but her manners and her behaviour, well, I found them quite intolerable! For me, she just symbolized all that is so dreadful about young people today – phoney American accents, layers of make-up which are never washed off, cheap scent, nails thick with grime and looking as though they’ve been dipped in blood! Ugh! I thought she was quite revolting!’ Eve Counter seemed to be getting quite excited. ‘Of course, she looked quite awful, too! She was so fat that it was frankly unbelievable. And that terrible frizzy ginger hair, when it wasn’t blonde, that is! To see her mincing along in those high-heeled shoes, well, really! And, of course, she thought she was quite the femme fatale. She was always boasting about all the boy-friends she had and hinting at the number of affairs she’d had with men! And at eighteen, too!’
‘Anything else?’ asked Dover.
Miss Counter shook her head as though annoyed with herself. ‘She was always poking into things that didn’t concern her,’ she said gruffly, ‘reading other people’s letters and things like that Of course, it wasn’t anything serious. It was just irritating to have a girl like that in the house.’
‘Then why did you, Miss Counter ?’
Miss Counter looked bewildered. ‘Why did I what, Inspector?’
‘Why did you employ Miss Rugg?’
She took a deep breath. ‘I didn’t, Inspector. I told you, she’s employed by my father.’
Dover eased his weight pensively from one buttock to the other. ‘In that case, I think we’d better have a word with Sir John,’ he said heavily.
‘Oh, well, could you leave it till after lunch, Inspector?’ Like most women when they are asking a favour, however small, from a man, Eve Counter smiled. The effect was devastating. Sergeant MacGregor’s eyes opened wide in astonishment and even Dover, not hypersensitive to feminine charm, blinked. In repose, Eve Counter’s thin face had a faintly petulant, disappointed look about it. Her mouth drooped at the comers and her forehead seemed permanently creased in a cross little frown. But when she smiled, her whole face was transformed. Her lips seemed full and red and parted delightfully over smaU white teeth, and her eyes, now suddenly dark and handsome, sparkled in a most bewitching manner. The lank, unkempt dark hair, the dowdy ‘useful’ frock she wore with such careless inelegance, the too-thin body which it covered, all this was forgotten when she smiled. Then, she suddenly became a woman of quite exceptional charm and attraction, a woman with whom a man might easily fall in love.
She seemed totally unaware of the effect she was having on the two policemen.
‘You see, he’s rather an old man now and he’s got to harbour his strength. It’s very tiring for him if his routine gets broken. I’d really rather not wake him up now, if you don’t mind,’
‘No, that’s all right, madam,’ said Dover, still rather disconcerted by the sheer beauty which had broken so unexpectedly through the habitually discontented set of Eve Counter’s face. ‘We’ve got to go and see the girl’s mother in the village so it’ll be quite convenient for us to come back here after lunch. Perhaps we could have a look at Miss Rugg’s room at the same time?’
‘Of course, Inspector.’ The smile glowed briefly into life again. ‘As I’ve told you, I don’t really like Juliet, but I don’t wish her any harm, naturally. I suppose you haven’t found out anything yet?’
‘We’ve only just come on the case, Miss Counter,’ said Dover, ‘it’s a bit early in the day yet for jumping to conclusions. My own personal guess is that the girl’s hiding out somewhere with some man or other. That’s usually what happens in these cases. I don’t doubt she’ll turn up safe and sound in a day or two. However’ – Dover realized that he was perhaps being a bit too off-hand about the whole thing-‘we shall pursue our inquiries, in the usual way. We’ve very grateful to you for your help. Good morning, madam.’
‘Well,’ said MacGregor as he switched on the ignition, ‘that girl ought to smile more often! You’d never have thought it, would you? I wouldn’t have given her a second look but, hell, when she smiled, she’d really got something! Mind you,’ he added judicially, ‘her legs weren’t bad, either.’
‘I’m sure your expert knowledge of the female sex is going to be invaluable, Sergeant,’ said Dover with heavy sarcasm, ‘but, perhaps, just for now, you could concentrate on your driving.’
Dover looked around as they proceeded slowly down the drive.
‘Who lives in the other lodge?’ he demanded.
Sergeant MacGregor thought rapidly. ‘Er, Colonel Bing and a Miss McLintock.’ He dug the names triumphantly out of his excellent memory. ‘I suppose she’s his housekeeper.’
Dover blew disapprovingly down his nose. ‘Well, we all know what that means!’ he commented unfairly. ‘Anyhow, there’
s a woman standing at the front door with a dog in her arms. Must be Miss What’s-her-name. Hey! Hold on a minute, Sergeant She’s waving us to stop.’
As the police car dribbled to a halt, the woman, still clutching the dog, a small white poodle, to her bosom, came up to the window on Dover’s side. The chief inspector wound the glass down. The woman and the dog peered in.
‘Are you the chaps from Scotland Yard?’ she asked in a deep, excited voice.
‘We are, madam,’ responded Dover, ‘and you, I take it, are Miss. . . ’ he nudged Sergeant MacGregor violently for his cue, ‘Miss McLintock?’
The woman grinned broadly. ‘Oh no, I’m not!’ she chuckled, obviously enjoying her little triumph. ‘I’m Colonel Bing!’
‘Oh,’ said Dover. There didn’t seem anything else to say. He blazed a look of fury at poor Sergeant MacGregor.
‘Look,’ Colonel Bing went on, ‘if you chaps can spare a couple of shakes, I’ve got a bit of information which I think you ought to have. I haven’t said anything to the cops up to now because, frankly, I didn’t take this absence-without-leave caper very seriously. Georgie always tells me I’m for ever poking my nose in, so this time I said to myself, Bingo, this time you’re just going to mind your own bloody business! But, when we heard last night that they were bringing the big guns up, Georgie agreed with me that I ought to tell you about it and not leave you to go scratching around on your own and getting nowhere.’
‘And who,’ demanded Dover as he heaved himself resignedly out of the car, ‘who is Georgie?’
Colonel Bing’s shout of delighted laughter echoed loudly round the country-side. ‘You’re a witty old devil!’ she bellowed. ‘Why, Georgie’s Miss McLintock!’
‘ ’Strewth!’ muttered Dover sourly, and clumped heavily after her into the little lodge.
Inside the house, which really was remarkably small and unbelievably cluttered up with bits and pieces of furniture, Colonel Bing seemed to grow in stature. Her voice, which had been loud outdoors, now battered unpleasantly on the ear-drums. In reality she was only of medium height and had a no more than well-covered matronly figure, befitting her maturing years. Her hair was iron grey and cropped quite short. She was wearing a drab green woolly twinset and a pleated tartan skirt. On her legs she had a pair of sensible, ribbed lisle stockings and her feet were shod in a pair of highly-polished brogues which looked stout enough to kick the heart out of a highlander.
