by Joyce Porter
Dover had his hand actually on the doorknob (hand-painted porcelain) when he stopped. Mrs Chubb-Smith stopped too and Sergeant MacGregor hovered uncertainly. Dover swung round.
‘How much money did Juliet Rugg get out of you before the baby was born?’ he asked with the air of a genuine inquirer.
The effect was dramatic, just like the films. Dover felt rather pleased with himself. Mrs Chubb-Smith had started to smile politely when Dover began speaking, then her jaw had dropped with a jerk which almost dislocated her false teeth when the import of his words sank in. Her face went quite white beneath her pancake make-up, her eyes bulged out in horror, her hand flew to her throat and she took an involuntary step backwards.
‘I don’t know what you mean!’ she floundered, unconsciously playing her part in the melodrama.
‘I think you do, madam,’ said Dover ponderously. ‘Suppose we sit down again and get thk little matter straightened out? Get your notebook out, Sergeant, I think we’ll get the truth thk time. Won’t we, Mrs Smith?’
Mrs Chubb-Smith was too shocked even to bridle at Dover’s spiteful little abbreviation of her name. She groped behind her for a chair and collapsed into it, still staring at Dover like a person anxious not to miss whatever’s going to happen next on TV.
‘Now, don’t let’s waste any more of my time!’ Dover scowled unpleasantly. ‘We have evidence that you paid a considerable sum of money to Juliet Rugg before the birth of her baby. Why?’
‘Who told you?’ asked Mrs Chubb-Smith faintly.
‘Never mind who told me!’ snarled Dover viciously. ‘You’re here to answer questions, not to ask ’em! And I’ll remind you, there are very heavy penalties for lying to the police. Now, get on with it!’
Mrs Chubb-Smith resorted to her only defence. She burst into tears. Dover, completely unmoved, watched sourly as she carefully dabbed at her eyes with a tiny lace-edged handkerchief. He hadn’t been a policeman for over twenty years to be put off his stroke by a snivelling woman. She could scream and chew the carpet for all he cared.
Mrs Chubb-Smith shot him an oblique look, and sighed.
‘Oh well, I suppose I’d better tell you the whole thing,’ she snapped crossly, ‘though it’s nothing at all to do with this wretched girl’s disappearance.
‘The thing is, Inspector, that I had every reason to believe that the baby was Michael’s – my son’s. She came to see me one day, it must have been almost as soon as she knew she was pregnant, and told me that she was “in trouble” as she put it. She said my son was responsible.’
‘And you believed her?’ asked Dover.
‘It was not beyond the realms of possibility,’ replied Mrs Chubb-Smith grimly. ‘Michael has been rather naughty where some of the local girls have been concerned, and this dreadful Rugg girl has quite a reputation in the district for, well, for being rather loose in her ways. Michael is, I’m afraid, rather highly sexed – like his dear father – though, of course, he’s never got a girl into trouble before. In any case, these modern girls are just as much to blame as the men are. More, really. After all, it is up to them to set the standards.’
‘Anyhow, you accepted her statement that your son was the putative father?’
‘After I’d had a little talk with Michael, yes, I did.’
‘Then what?’
‘She wanted money, naturally.’
‘Blackmail?’
‘I suppose you could call it that. But what could I do? I had to keep her quiet. It was just about the time that Michael was getting engaged to Maxine and, of course, neither she nor her father would have tolerated a scandal like that! I just couldn’t afford to take the risk.’
‘So you paid up?’
‘Yes.’
Dover scratched his stomach pensively. ‘Why didn’t she go to your son?’
‘Oh, she knew he’d no money!’ Mrs Chubb-Smith gave a short, scathing laugh.
‘And when the baby was born ?’
‘Well, it was obvious it wasn’t Michael’s, and she couldn’t even pretend for a moment it was. You can imagine how relieved I was when I heard!’
‘And you stopped the payments?’
‘Naturally. The whole thing was over. There was no point in continuing them, was there?’
‘Did Juliet Rugg start the same little game again, just recently?’ asked Dover.
Mrs Chubb-Smith tossed him a look of loathing and started to shake her head.
‘I wouldn’t bother lying if I were you,’ advised Dover, ‘we’ve other sources of information.’
Mrs Chubb-Smith uttered a short, rude word not usually found in the vocabulary of gentlewomen, however decayed.
‘I met her about a week ago,’ she snapped. ‘She said something about some letters she had, from Michael. She kept simpering like a great fat cow and saying she wondered what his wife would think about them. She didn’t actually ask me for money, but I gathered that was what the filthy little bitch was leading up to.’
‘Has she approached you since?’
‘No. I’ve been expecting her every day. I don’t mind telling you that I’ve been nearly at my wits’ end. I can’t go on paying money out for ever!’
‘Did you discuss what Juliet had said to you with your son?’
‘Oh yes!’ Mrs Chubb-Smith laughed bitterly. ‘You can imagine what a tower of strength he was! He admitted that he’d written some letters to Juliet, the damned fool, and they certainly weren’t the sort he wanted Maxine to see. All he could suggest was that I should go on paying through the nose to keep Juliet Rugg’s mouth shut.’
‘You didn’t consider calling her bluff? After all, this business took place before your daughter-in-law was married, didn’t it? Perhaps she wouldn’t be quite so upset as you seem to fear.’
‘In the first place,’ said Mrs Chubb-Smith, ‘I’m not absolutely sure that Michael hasn’t been seeing this Rugg girl since his marriage. He won’t admit it, but I’m not quite so stupid as you may think, Inspector. Maxine is a rather, well, shall we say she’s not a submissive wife. At times Michael may have turned elsewhere for — er — consolation.
‘And in the second place, Maxine is not the kind of girl to forgive and forget. I’m very fond of her, naturally, but she’s been very spoilt and she’s rather used to having her own way. Modern girls, Inspector, especially those with rich fathers, have one eye on the divorce courts when they’re walking up the aisle. In my day a woman accepted a little infidelity on the part of her husband as regrettable, even painful perhaps, but not disastrous. But a girl like Maxine doesn’t marry for a home and children and security. She marries for her own pleasure. And I can assure you that, devoted as she is to Michael, Maxine would break that marriage up without a qualm if she thought Michael has as much as looked twice at a girl like Juliet. Young people, I find, are very selfish and self-centred these days.’
‘Hm,’ said Dover with a deep grunt of agreement. He was second to none in his disapproval of the younger generation. ‘So, Juliet’s disappearance must have come as quite a relief to you?’
‘When I heard she was missing, it was one of the happiest days of my life!’ Mrs Chubb-Smith spoke with weary frankness. ‘I suppose it’s a dreadful thing to say, but if she’s dead . . . ’
She couldn’t finish the phrase and shrugged her shoulders helplessly.
Chapter Six
CHIEF INSPECTOR DOVER was never, as his wife well knew, at his brightest and best first thing in the morning. But when he appeared in the dining-room of The Two Fiddlers on the Saturday, even the landlord’s wife, a woman of considerable experience, was a bit taken aback at the air of gloom, despondency and sheer bad temper which shrouded him. His face had acquired a most repulsive grey tinge, his eyes were sunken and bloodshot and his efforts at shaving had been far from successful.
He joined Sergeant MacGregor at the breakfast table, casting a jaundiced eye at that, as ever, immaculate young man and at the enormous greasy plateful of bacon and eggs which he was demolishing wit
h the unthinking abandon of youth. Dover’s stomach heaved, wamingly.
‘Coffee and toast!’ he growled sourly.
Sergeant MacGregor looked up in surprise because Dover, given half a chance, normally munched his way through everything on the menu.
‘Did you sleep well?’ The question was flung at MacGregor in a sulky growl.
‘Well, yes – thank you, sir.’ Sergeant MacGregor was astonished at being asked. After a pause he returned the courtesy. ‘Did you, sir?’
‘No, I did not!’ Dover’s heavy jowl sagged miserably. ‘I spent more time in the bathroom last night than I did in bed. Must have been something I ate. My stomach feels as though all the policemen in the Metropolitan area have been trampling on it with hobnail boots.’ He took a tentative mouthful of dry toast. ‘God only knows what effect this’ll have on it !’
Friday night had been pretty disastrous all round, apart from the fact that it had upset Dover’s stomach. When the two detectives had left the still sniffing Mrs Chubb-Smith, Sergeant MacGregor was all for going on and tackling her son, Michael, right away, Dover however, had had enough of interviews for one day and, anyhow, he wanted his dinner. He’d been looking forward for some time to a bit of peace and quiet and, in his opinion, Michael Chubb-Smith could well wait till the morning.
Dinner at The Two Fiddlers was no better than lunch. Indeed it was almost identical. The tomato soup, the ice-cream and the cheese appeared once again, but instead of the New Zealand lamb they were presented with an unappetizing, painfully thin slice of Argentinian beef, submerged in a thick grey gravy. They retired to the bar.
It is generally believed that strangers invading the privacy of some remote rural pub are treated by the locals with frigid indifference and even antagonism. This was not the case with the regular clientele of The Two Fiddlers. Fortified by their knowledge of police procedure, culled from detective stories and imported television serials, they flung themselves with gusto at the chance of contact with the real thing. Dover and MacGregor soon found themselves hemmed in by a crowd of sweating, grinning faces whose owners insistently plied them with questions and pint tankards of the locally brewed beer. This thick, fruity beverage, a deep mahogany red in colour, was known as Long Herbert and was guaranteed by one revolting old boozer as being strong enough to rot the socks off you.
The ringleader of this bucolic gang was an elderly man who had clearly drawn his own deductions about the perennial popularity of ‘The Archers’. He gave such a well-studied and accurate impersonation of Walter Gabriel that strangers, on meeting him for the first time, were inclined to consult their watches to see if it wasn’t really a quarter to seven.
In spite of some pretty stout opposition, the Walter Gabriel character succeeded in hogging the show. He treated Dover to a long-winded, village-eye view of Irlam Old Hall which contained so many mock dialect words and deliberate mispronunciations as to be wellnigh unintelligible.
‘Lot of glormy parishites they be up there,’ he concluded. ‘Bain’t one of ’em what’s done an honest day’s work in their life, Coming down here and boppiting around as though they was lords of the manority or something! You mark my words, mister, if anything’s happened to poor Juliet Rugg, it’s one of them bloody capitalists up there what’s done it! Me old dear, me old beauty!’
‘Really?’ said Dover.
‘Yah’ – the old man nodded emphatically – ‘nobody down here’d have touched a ginger hair of that poor girl’s noddle! Right popular lass she was down here. General favourite, you might say.’
‘‘Cept with t’other women, p’raps!’ came a slow sardonic comment from the back.
The old man ignored it.
‘She used to work here, you know, me old dear, me old beauty, here in this very bar. Fine figure of a girl she was, too. I dunno whether the constipation of beer went up but, by Gordy, my bloody-pressure did! I alius used to say’ – he nearly choked with anticipatory mirth – ‘I alius used to say she ought to go on the stage!’ Sniggers from those who’d heard this many times before. ‘She ought to go in the theater, I alius used to say. ’Cause why? ‘Cause she’d be the only Juliet with her own balcony !’
There was a flattering roar of laughter and the old man turned dangerously red in the face as tears of senile joy streamed from his eyes. Dover didn’t move a muscle. He made a point of never laughing at other people’s jokes. He tried, not with much hope, to turn the conversation to more useful channels.
‘I understand Juliet Rugg had a number of boy-friends?’
Old ‘Walter Gabriel’ nodded happily. ‘Aye, that she did! She were a lusty-busty wench, she were.’
T)o you know the names of any of them?’
The problem bain’t naming ’em, it be remembering ’em. Fact is, I’d be hard put to name a chap for twenty miles around, what was in full possession of his facilities, what hadn’t taken a walk with her up to the churchyard.’
That’s the local spot for courting, is it?’
‘Ah, nice and quiet up there, it be. Nobody don’t go up there ’cept to be laid under the ground, or on it, if you follow me, me old dear, me old beauty.’
Dover blew down his nose. He was getting fed up with this.
‘Do any of the people from Irlam Old Hall come down here at all?’
‘No, not so’s you’d notice.’ The Walter Gabriel type pursed his lips in thought ‘That cansy lad, Chubb-Smith, used to come down sometimes afore he bedded that rich, moppity young wife of his. But that was when Juliet were behind the bar. And he didn’t come for the beer, neither! That writer woman comes in sometimes, what’s her name – Hoppit or som’at.’
‘Eulalia Hoppold?’ suggested Sergeant MacGregor.
‘That be her! Drinks neat gin, she does. Doubles too.’
A youth, incongruously sporting both a cowlick and Elvis Presley side whiskers, leaned towards Dover across the old man’s shoulder.
‘I read one of her books once,’ he announced, not without pride. ‘It weren’t half hot stuff! Some of the things them blacks got up to out there-cor!’
‘Walter Gabriel’ elbowed the village intellectual back out of the limelight ‘Well, we know what some of them blacks round here get up to, don’t we? I’d have given two loads of horse manure to see our Juliet’s face when she saw that babby for the first time!’
Dover broke through the laughter which greeted this witticism.
‘Do you know who the father was, by the way?’
‘No, no more than she does, I reckon. They say all cats looks grey in the dark, don’t they? We had some of these ’ere West Indians working on the motor-way t’other side of Creedon round about that time. Must’ve been one of they heathens.’
Dover had endured another hour of this sort of thing and then thankfully retired to bed at closing time, his head buzzingwith the local accent and his stomach awash with the local beer. His night had not been a peaceful one, and thanks no doubt to the peculiar qualities of Long Herbert, he greeted the start of a new day with a lacklustre eye and flaming bad temper. The thought of spending another stretch of dismal hours asking endless questions about this dratted girl almost made him groan aloud. If only they’d some idea whether she was dead or alive there might be a bit more point to all this, though Dover doubted if he could work up much enthusiasm either way.
When they got back to Irlam Old Hall after breakfast, for no reason at all, except perhaps to annoy and confuse Sergeant MacGregor, Dover decided to call on Eulalia Hoppold first, instead of tackling Michael Chubb-Smith.
Miss Hoppold showed her visitors into her study, or perhaps ‘den’ would be a better word for it. It was certainly full of wild animals. They were there, stuffed, skinned or in photographs, wherever the eye was turned. In the odd spaces unoccupied by the animals or bits of them were other trophies of Miss Hoppold’s apparently fruitful travels. There were bunches of wicked-looking spears, there were primitive bows and arrows with nasty brown marks on their tips, there were native drums and tomahawk
s, samples of African beadwork and a collection of nose bones from fourteen different tribes. There were iron cooking-pots and gaudily painted clay bowls. There was even, in a little glass case all of their own, a couple of doll-sized, shrunken human heads, the piece de resistance of the collection.
Dover moved an elephant-hide whip and a boomerang to one side and sat down. He gazed slowly round the packed room, not so much fascinated as stupefied. He noted the four shelves devoted to copies of Miss Hoppold’s literary endeavours (translated into eight languages). He read some of the titles: Lone White Woman, Initiation Rites in the Dark Continent, My Hosts were Cannibals, The Silent Killers of the Upper Amazon, Zulu Bride. He vaguely remembered having read somewhere that Eulalia Hoppold’s books were certainly exciting and sold like the proverbial hot cakes but, in some quarters, her scholarship as an anthropologist was, not to put too fine a point on it, suspect.
He had a look at the photographs which crowded in on him. They had been taken in innumerable foreign climes but they all had one thing in common, the central figure was invariably Miss Eulalia Hoppold, dressed in a khaki shirt and slacks and grinning broadly into the camera. She was everywhere, towering over sheepish-looking pygmies or being dwarfed by gigantic, satinskinned Zulu warriors. She was portrayed draped in boa constrictors, nursing tiger cubs and cuddling chimpanzees. The photographs also revealed her as a huntress of no mean achievement, and she appeared time and again standing in dramatic poses over the dead bodies of every kind of rare and exotic animal. Were there tigers, Miss Hoppold had shot one. Were there gazelle, Miss Hoppold could be seen skinning one with her own strong, brown hands. Were there elephants, Miss Hoppold had just hit this poor tusked brute plumb between the eyes, or wherever it is that the real experts shoot elephants.
Dover turned from his inspection to stare poutingly at Eulalia Hoppold herself, in the flesh. He was a little disconcerted to find that she was already gazing avidly at him, as though she were mentally drawing a bead on an interesting specimen of a hitherto unknown species. Dover’s stomach rumbled loudly, and Miss Hoppold, with a slight shake of her head, relaxed behind her desk.
