by Joyce Porter
‘I didn’t want to warn him, sir. Forewarned is forearmed, you know.’
‘You reckon this joker’s a wrong ’un?’ Dover was ever on the look-out for a speedy and spectacular conclusion.
‘I don’t know anything about him at all, sir. He may even have no connection with the case. It’s simply that I’d sooner not give him the chance to cook up some story or other before we can get at him.’
‘Cook up some story?’ parroted Dover, who knew what he was talking about. ‘You want to watch it, laddie. They call that sort of talk “police harrassment’’ these days.’
‘I’m only going to ask a few perfectly straightforward questions, sir.’
‘ Then why,’ demanded Dover in a squawk of vulgar triumph as MacGregor neatly entered the trap and closed the door behind him, ‘didn’t you warn him we were coming? Take it from me, laddie, if I’ve been dragged all the way out to Kempton Park on a bloody wild goose chase, you’ll not live long enough to regret it!’
MacGregor sighed and got his cigarettes out. They were in a non-smoking compartment but what the hell if it put a gag in Dover’s mouth for a bit.
If Hither Green can be said to have a Caribbean Quarter, Mr Pettitt lived slap-bang in the middle of it. He occupied a largish, three-storied house – the only one in the entire terrace which, if the absence of a bank of doorbells was anything to go by, hadn’t been turned into flats. This apparent anomaly was explained by the fact that Mr Pettitt used part of his house for his business.
‘A chiropodist?’ said Dover when he’d limped his way from the taxi across the pavement. Mr Pettitt’s profession was proclaimed only very modestly on a small brass plate, but Dover’s failing eyesight rarely missed anything which might be turned to his advantage. He fancied that he could improve this shining hour and snatched MacGregor’s hand away from the bell.
‘Hang on a minute! We haven’t worked out how we’re going to play this one.’
MacGregor bit his lip. Dear God, it was like running in double harness with a reject from the Boy’s Own Paper! ‘Oh, I think we “play it” perfectly straight, sir. I’ll just tell him who we are and . . .’
Dover was still hanging onto MacGregor’s arm. Well, it was marginally better than taking the whole weight on his own aching feet. ‘I’ve had a better idea,’ he hissed. ‘Let’s pretend I’m a patient. Then, while he’s having a dekko at this corn of mine, we can sort of manoeuvre the conversation round to holiday camps and then’ – even Dover’s imagination occasionally had its limits – ‘play it by ear.’
MacGregor shook his head and, detaching Dover’s fingers, rang the bell. ‘I don’t think so, sir,’ he said. ‘That kind of duplicity tends to give the police a bad name. After all, we aren’t undercover agents, are we? We’re simply going to ask for information and assistance from a respectable, law-abiding citizen.’
‘Says who?’ demanded Dover who believed everybody guilty until proved innocent, and sometimes even afterwards. He was infuriated that his plan had been rejected and, was determined that somebody should pay for it. It could be MacGregor or it could be this blooming toe-doctor – at the moment he didn’t care much which.
A woman in a white coat answered the door and conducted the two detectives into an empty waiting room. After the statutory delay of three or four minutes, another door opened and Mr Pettitt himself invited them into his surgery.
In spite of the chiropodist’s efforts to direct him elsewhere Dover made a bee-line for the treatment chair and heaved himself into it. MacGregor found a seat at a table and cleared a space for his notebook amongst the jumble of sharp-bladed instruments, packets of lamb’s wool and reels of sticking plaster.
This left Mr Pettitt standing forlornly in the middle of his own surgery but eventually he pulled himself together and sat down on a small white stool. Since this was where he habitually sat when he was working, it was near the treatment chair. Dover rattled a heavy boot like a mendicant friar shaking his begging bowl.
Mr Pettitt wiped the palms of his hands down the front of his white coat and peered up at Dover through pebble-thick glasses.
‘No point in sitting there doing nothing,’ said Dover with every appearance of reasonableness. ‘Left foot, little toe.’
Mr Pettitt, two of whom would hardly have furnished even a Continental breakfast for Dover, failed to tell the great man exactly where he could stick his left foot. He contented himself with a discontented pout and, bending down, began to fiddle with the laces on Dover’s boot.
MacGregor opened the interrogation. ‘I believe you are the secretary of the Dockwra Society, sir?’
The little chiropodist paused in his struggle with the knots in Dover’s laces. ‘Honorary secretary,’ he corrected in a light, precise voice.
‘I wonder if you could tell us, sir, what precisely this Dockwra Society is.’
Mr Pettitt took his time. He got the laces untied and, removing Dover’s boot, placed it neatly on the floor before replying. ‘Why do you wish to know?’
‘We think it might help us with our enquiries, sir.’
Unperturbed by the large holes and the acrid pong, Mr Pettitt slowly removed Dover’s sock and tucked it into the boot for safe-keeping. ‘What enquiries are those, sergeant?’
MacGregor frowned. Like most policemen, he equated uncooperativeness with guilt, and there was no doubt that this four-eyed, bald-headed little squirt was definitely being uncooperative. ‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to reveal details at this moment, sir, but we are currently engaged on a matter of some importance.’ MacGregor paused before issuing the threat that generally brought them to heel. ‘Of course, if you’d rather continue the conversation down at the police station, sir . . .’
Mr Pettitt removed his glasses, huffed on them and polished them on his handkerchief before replacing them on his nose.
‘The Dockwra Society is a small group of stamp collectors. It is named after a very early pioneer of the penny post.’
Dover waved his bare foot in the air. ‘On the little toe!’
Mr Pettitt leaned forward to make a closer examination and then started to rummage amongst the surgical-looking instruments which MacGregor had displaced on the table.
Dover eyed the scalpel with some anxiety. ‘Hey, watch it!’ he advised. ‘It’s as tender as hell.’
‘It’s only a corn,’ said Mr Pettitt mildly. ‘It looks as though somebody’s been hacking at it with a razor blade.’
‘That was the wife,’ said Dover, one of nature’s rats. ‘I told her not to.’
‘It’s a highly inadvisable proceeding, whoever is responsible.’
‘Somebody had to do something,’ retorted Dover. ‘It was throbbing lit to bust. They don’t give you sick leave in the police for a bad toe, you know.’
Mr Pettitt didn’t appear to be listening. He was no stranger to the results of DIY chiropody. When he got round to opening his mouth again, his remarks were addressed to MacGregor. ‘We began the Dockwra Society a couple of years ago. It’s very small and informal. We specialise in pre-war European issues.’ ,
‘EEEEEyouch!’ howled Dover, lashing out with the foot that wasn’t clamped between Mr Pettitt’s knees. ‘That bloody hurt, you sadist!’
‘You’ve really only yourself to blame,’ murmured Mr Pettitt, pushing his spectacles back up his nose. ‘If you had consulted a qualified practitioner and . . .’
‘Would you mind telling me how many members you’ve got,
sir?’
‘About twenty. We’re hoping to attract more in time.’
‘You had a meeting of some sort at the Rankin’s Holiday Ranch at Bowerville-by-the-sea, I believe.’
‘That is correct. It was our annual general meeting. We picked a location which was as central as possible.’
‘Bloody hell!’ screamed Dover. ‘Mind what you’re doing!’
Mr Pettitt reached for the cotton wool. ‘We’ll have to leave it for a few days for the inflammation to go down. Come back nex
t week.’
‘You’ve a hope!’ snarled-Dover, who didn’t suffer sadists gladly. ‘What the hell’s that?’
‘Just a piece of sticking plaster to keep the wound clean.’ Dover’s eyes narrowed. ‘When I came in here, mate,’ he snarled, ‘I didn’t have a wound!’ He watched Mr Pettitt pick his boot and sock up. ‘You got a list of the morons who were at this crummy meeting of yours?’
Mr Pettitt blinked. ‘Yes.’
‘Let’s be having it, then!’
‘What do you want it for?’
Dover was blowed if he could remember. He fell back on MacGregor again. ‘Got a fag, laddie?’
Mr Pettitt courageously scotched that idea. ‘I’m afraid I don’t permit smoking anywhere on the premises. I’m allergic to tobacco smoke.’
‘I’ll bet you’re a bloody tee-totaller, too!’ said Dover, really stripping the kid gloves off.
Mr Pettitt turned back to MacGregor. ‘You were asking about our meeting at Bowerville-by-the-sea?’
‘We’re looking for a middle-aged man, sir,’ said MacGregor, feeling that the least he could do was put his cards on the table. ‘About five-foot eight. False teeth. Dark hair. Plumpish. Would that description fit one of your members, sir?
‘It might,’ said Mr Pettitt cautiously. ‘What’s he done?’ McGregor took out the photograph which had been taken in situ on the Muncaster rubbish tip and passed it across. ‘Not very nice, I’m afraid, sir, but can you recognise him?’
Mr Pettitt shook his head.
‘But the description would fit one of your members?’
Mr Pettitt gestured at the photograph with his free hand. ‘You’re not suggesting that this . . .’
‘It’s a strong possibility, sir. Now, there were seven of you all told at the Holiday Ranch, I believe? If we could just go through them and if you could let me have their names and addresses at the same time . . .’
Mr Pettitt had to fetch the relevant papers from his private quarters but he was back in the surgery before Dover had found anything worth pocketing. ‘Well, let’s get the people who definitely can’t be the person in your snapshot out of the way first, shall we, sergeant? There’s me, of couse.’ Mr Pettitt’s lips parted in a death’s head grin. ‘I am obviously not the dead man. Nor, I imagine, is Mrs Hall. Mrs Norah Hall.’
‘You have lady members, then?’ asked MacGregor as he took down the address.
‘Only the one,’ said Mr Pettitt. ‘But she’s most keen and very knowledgeable, especially about French colonials.’
‘And the next, sir?’
‘I don’t think it can be young Keith Osmond,’ Mr Pettitt went on thoughfully. ‘He’s a tall, big-boned chap in his late twenties so he doesn’t fit at all. Nor, I fancy, does Mr Michael Ruscoe. He’s middle-aged, I suppose, but he’s rather small and
wiry.’
‘Could I have the addresses, sir?’
Mr Pettitt read out the information at dictation speed and obligingly spelt out any proper names he thought might cause
difficulty.
MacGregor did his mental arithmetic. ‘That leaves three
more.’
‘Mr Braithwaite would be too old, I imagine. He must be nearly sixty. He has a beard, too.’
‘We’re pretty certain our chap was clean shaven, sir.’
‘Then there’s Gordon Valentine, but I had a letter from him only this morning.’
‘That would seem to eliminate him, sir,’ agreed MacGregor, ‘but I’ll still need to take down his particulars, if you don’t
mind.’
Mr Pettitt remained silent for several moments after MacGregor’s pen stopped moving over the page. ‘That leaves us with Mr Knapper, sergeant,’ he said at last. ‘Mr George Arthur Knapper. He, 1 am very much afraid, might well fit your
bill.’
Seven
‘He was a bloody cold fish,’ grumbled Dover in whom the milk of human kindness had curdled beyond recall. ‘Callous.’
‘He did explain that he’d never actually met any of them before, sir.’ MacGregor was not unaware that the tendency to contradict everything Dover said was becoming a reflex action. ‘They weren’t personal friends and he claims to have hardly exchanged more than half-a-dozen words with Knapper.’
‘Shifty-looking devil, too,’ muttered Dover. ‘Got a touch of the Crippen about him. Sadistic.’ He contemplated his left foot which was propped up on a convenient chair. ‘I’ll lay you odds he did it.’
It was not unusual for Dover to make these premature judgements about people to whom he had taken a dislike. Most of his cases were littered with suspects upon whom he had pinned guilt or innocence in much the same spirit as blindfolded children pin the tail on the donkey. MacGregor wasn’t, therefore, unduly worried when Dover pointed the grubby finger of accusation at Mr Pettitt. If previous experience was anything to go by he would only be the first of a dozen before the chief inspector lost all interest and threw in the towel.
Our two heroes had retired to a nearby hostelry to discuss these latest developments. Since they were in London, it might have been expected that they would have repaired to their office in Scotland Yard but, at that particular moment in time, Dover was somewhat persona non grata with his colleagues. One would have thought that, after all these years, they’d have got used to having him hanging around – dandruff, constipation, dyspepsia, foot rot and all – but they hadn’t. Some hot-tempered spirits had been so carried away by their professional pride that they’d even threatened to boot Dover from one end of Victoria Street to the other if he showed his face round the Murder Squad again. It would all blow over in time, of course. Old Bailey judges are always making scathing remarks about the criminal incompetence of the police.
‘Actually, sir,’ said MacGregor, steeling himself to look on the bright side, ‘I think we’re beginning to make a little progress.’
Dover sank his face into his beer. ‘Ugh.’
‘Our next move is obviously to investigate this Knapper
man.’
‘Ugh, ugh.’
‘It’s a pity, though,’ MacGregor continued grimly in the face of considerable discouragement, ‘that Mr Pettitt couldn’t provide us with a bit more information. Still’ we’ve got enough to make a start.’
‘Lying in his teeth!’ proclaimed Dover, emerging from his tankard with a gratified belch. ‘I wouldn’t believe a word that butcher said even if it was true. ’Strewth, did you see the way he drove that spike thing into me? And enjoyed doing it!’
MacGregor was checking assiduously through his notes. This was partly because he was a conscientious detective and partly because it was getting to the end of the month and he didn’t want to have to notice that Dover’s glass was empty. ‘Mr Pettitt says he saw Knapper alive and well on the Sunday morning, sir. The Dockwra Society finished off their meeting before lunch on Sunday and most people, including Pettitt himself and Knapper, left almost immediately. Pettitt had a car but he thinks Knapper was travelling by train.’ MacGregor frowned and glanced up. Occasionally it was convenient to take advantage of the fact that Dover was as thick as two planks to bounce a few ideas off him. ‘That’s rather odd, isn’t it, sir?’
Dover chose to be facetious. ‘Millions of people travel by train, laddie! Every day.’
‘I mean, odd that Mr Pettitt didn’t offer Knapper a lift, sir. They both live in London.’
‘Return ticket,’ grunted Dover.
‘You can easily get a refund, sir.’
‘Maybe Pettitt couldn’t stand the sight of him.’
‘I still think it’s rather odd, sir.’
Dover was now intent on scraping noisy figures-of-eight on the table with his tankard. ‘He could have offered,’ he pointed out impatiently, ‘and it was Knapper who said no.’
‘Meaning that he wasn’t returning home directly to London after the weekend at Bowerville, sir?’ MacGregor seized eagerly on the idea. ‘Yes, that’s a very interesting speculation. I must get onto the Holi
day Ranch and see if they can remember if they provided Knapper with transport to the station.’
Dover could see that the subtle approach wasn’t getting him anywhere. ‘Got a fag, laddie?’ he asked. He waited until MacGregor had got his cigarettes and lighter out before delivering the coup de grace. ‘And I’ll have a refill, too, while you’re at it.’
There was something of a hiatus before they got Dover back in the rhythm of dragging cigarette smoke into his lungs and pouring best bitter down his gullet. When all was sweetness and light once more, MacGregor broached a new topic of conversation: matrimony.
‘I suppose Mr Knapper must be a bachelor, sir. Or, at least, not living with his wife.’
‘Why?’
‘A wife would surely have reported her husband’s disappearance to the authorities by now, wouldn’t she, sir?!
The beer must be having a mellowing effect. ‘Like a shot!’ agreed Dover. ‘Any threat to their meal ticket and you can’t see ’em for dust. Like leeches,’ he added with the grim resignation of one who was required to hand over his pay cheque intact every month. He made an effort and switched his mind to happier themes. ‘Did that foot chap say anything about any rows or punch-ups on this blooming weekend?’
MacGregor could only assume that it had been anxiety about his corn that had stopped Dover from listening to what Mr Pettitt had said. ‘No, it all seems to have been very amicable, sir. Actually, there hardly seems to have been time for any violent passions to develop, especially as nobody had ever met anybody before. They didn’t arrive at the Holiday Ranch until the Friday evening and, by the time they’d got settled in, had a meal and a drink or two, it was time for bed. They started having their meeting or whatever it was at ten o’clock on the Saturday, broke off for the venison lunch, and then carried on till six. They had a cold supper, another drink or so and off to bed again. On Sunday morning they had a brief meeting after breakfast just to tie up a few loose ends, and that was that. They cleared off home as and when it suited them.’
‘’Strewth!’ said Dover whose own life, while hardly exciting, was more fun-packed than that.
