by Joyce Porter
Gradually the minutes tick-tocked away and the Blenheim Towers warily settled down for what was left of the night. Under his eiderdown Dover bubbled and snorted as his digestive juices set about tackling the gastronomic problems his all-embracing greed had set them. From time to time the building itself creaked and groaned and sighed as old buildings will. The sounds were eerie and a nervous person might even have imagined that there was somebody creeping about in the inky darkness.
Half past one struck faintly from the grandfather clock down in the hall. MacGregor muttered ‘Gwendoline!’ in his sleep, turned over restlessly and settled down again without waking up. It was a dreadful scream, cutting achingly through the silence like a knife through metal, that got him halfway out of his bed before his eyes opened.
The heavy thud which followed the scream passed almost unrecorded as MacGregor flung himself at his bedroom door. Out on the landing his hand shot automatically to the electric light switch. The staircase flooded into visibility. For a second everything was blurred and he blinked rapidly as he tried to get the still, shapeless mound at the bottom of the flight of stairs into focus.
He’d had more than enough experience to recognize that it was a body, and a dead body at that. He couldn’t see the head but the feet trailed limply up the two bottom stairs. He began to hurry down, unable to stifle an unworthy thrill of pure joy. The old fool had got his come-uppance at last! And no one had more richly deserved it! As MacGregor reached the foot of the stairs he became aware that doors were being opened all over the hotel. He caught the confused babbling of anxious voices and quickly wiped the happy smile off his face. The decencies had to be observed.
The body lay ominously motionless. A broken neck, thought MacGregor cheerfully.
‘What’s happened?’ Wing Commander Pile’s authoritative voice cut querulously through the babble. His bare feet slapped to a brisk one one-two halt as he caught sight of the body. ‘Good God, it’s Mrs Boyle!’
‘Mrs Boyle?’ MacGregor’s euphoria fought a valiant rearguard action. ‘It can’t be!’
Wing Commander Pile mastered his own evident astonishment and glanced sharply at MacGregor. ‘Pull yourself together, man!’ he barked. ‘You’ve gone as white as a sheet. Of course it’s Mrs Boyle. If it isn’t, somebody else is wearing her housecoat and her slippers.’
MacGregor sank to his knees beside the body. ‘Keep everybody else well back, will you, sir?’ he requested in a voice broken with disappointment. Gently he pulled a fold of the flowered housecoat back from the head and his last wild hopes vanished. It was Mrs Boyle all right. He heaved a deep sigh and felt for the heart. One look at the face had been more than enough to confirm his earlier impression but he felt that he had to go through the motions. He was just raising the eyelids when, now neatly arrayed in red leather slippers and a dark blue dressing-gown, Wing Commander Pile returned.
‘I’ve sent the ladies back to their rooms,’ he announced in clipped, controlled tones. ‘Old Mr Revel is still fast asleep in his bed and I don’t see any point in wakening him. Mr Lickes is awaiting my instructions at the top of the stairs. He wants to know if he should telephone for the police and a doctor. He’s not quite sure of his responsibilities with you being present.’
MacGregor got slowly to his feet. ‘Yes, we shall want the police and a doctor.’
The wing commander marched away and relayed the instructions. He came back to find MacGregor gazing thoughtfully up the stairs. ‘She is dead, is she?’ he asked.
MacGregor nodded. ‘I’m afraid so. From the way she’s lying it looks as though she must have fallen down the stairs.’
‘Fallen down the stairs?’ Wing Commander Pile followed the direction of MacGregor’s eyes. ‘But, what would she be doing up there in the middle of the night?’
‘I’ve no idea sir,’ said MacGregor, trying to shake off the uncanny feeling of indifference and lassitude that had crept over him.
‘I suppose we mustn’t move her?’
‘Good heavens, no!’ MacGregor was jerked back to his professional responsibilities. ‘The local police will see to all that. And now, sir, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d be grateful if you would go to your room and stay there until you’re required.’
Wing Commander Pile didn’t look best pleased at this request but, after a moment’s hesitation, he shrugged his shoulders and withdrew. He went into his daughter’s room and, no sooner had the door shut, than MacGregor heard Mr Lickes hurtling up the stairs from the hall. Mindful of possible clues, MacGregor stepped delicately over the body and met the new arrival halfway along the landing.
The police were on their way.
‘What else do you want me to do?’ asked Mr Lickes, excitedly bouncing about from one side to the other as he tried to get a glimpse of the corpse beyond MacGregor’s shielding body.
‘Just go back to the hall, sir, and man the telephone, if you will. And when the police come, if you could send them up here straight away.’
‘All right.’
‘And I’d be obliged, sir, if you would try not to touch or disturb anything as far as you can.’
Mr Lickes stopped bouncing. ‘Golly!’ he said in an awed voice. ‘Here, you don’t think this is another murder, do you?’
MacGregor produced the stock, non-committal answer to that question and sped Mr Lickes on his way. Then, quietly and quickly, he checked the first-floor rooms. Everybody was accounted for. Miss Dewar and Miss Kettering clung together like enamoured chimpanzees and informed MacGregor that nothing would tempt them to venture out until the sun stood high in the heavens. Mr Revel was still placidly asleep and Wing Commander Pile was keeping his daughter company in her room. He sat rigidly beside her bed while she contentedly cut coloured pictures out of a magazine.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ – MacGregor paused in the doorway – ‘but I’ve accounted for everybody except Mrs Lickes. Did you see her by any chance?’
Wing Commander Pile nodded and, crossing over to the door, more or less edged MacGregor back on to the landing. ‘Yes, she was with her husband. If you want to find her now, I should try the kitchen. That woman reacts to every crisis by making a pot of tea.’
‘No, it doesn’t matter, sir, as long as I know she’s knocking around. I shall be seeing everybody later, of course.’
MacGregor returned to his dead body and, rather tardily looked at his watch. Damn – he should have checked that earlier! He’d better nip upstairs and get his notebook. When the local police arrived they would expect to find that everything . . .
MacGregor’s mouth slowly dropped open. He’d had a niggling sort of sensation for some time that something was missing and now he realized what it was. Where was Detective Chief Inspector Dover? He, a loud-mouthed sufferer from insomnia, couldn’t possibly have slept through all . . .
MacGregor leapt over the late Mrs Boyle and raced up the remaining stairs two at a time. Dover’s bedroom door was locked. MacGregor hammered on the panels.
Inside the room a waxen-faced Dover removed his head from the blankets which had been sheltering it ever since Mrs Boyle’s blood-curdling death scream had rent the night air. ‘Who is it?’ he asked in a tremulous voice.
‘It’s me, sir. Sergeant MacGregor. Are you all right, sir?’ Very cautiously Dover got out of bed and pussy-footed over to the door. ‘Are you alone?’ he whispered.
‘Alone, sir? Yes, I’m alone. Why?’
Dover thought about it for a minute or two and then, unlocking the door, grudgingly opened it the merest crack. He squinted suspiciously through at MacGregor, ascertained that the sergeant had been speaking the truth and stood back to let him enter the room. ‘What the hell’s been going on?’ he demanded.
‘Well, sir . . .’ MacGregor swung round to find that the door had been smartly shut and locked behind him and that Dover was hurrying back to bed with the key in his hand. ‘Is anything the matter, sir?’
‘Ho,’ puffed Dover nastily. ‘I was wondering when you were going to ask. If I
had to rely on you. I’d be sitting here with my bleeding throat cut.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t quite understand, sir.’
‘Surprise, surprise! There’s a murderous attempt on my life and you don’t understand.’
‘Your life, sir? But it was Mrs Boyle who . . .’
‘They were after me!’ insisted Dover furiously. ‘And wipe that stupid grin off your face! My life’s in danger and all you can find to do is sit on your backside and snigger!’
MacGregor took a hold on himself. He’d never had to cope with a persecution mania before. ‘I should think it’s more than likely that Mrs Boyle just had a heart attack, sir, and fell. . .’
‘When I’m interested in what you think, laddie, I’ll send you a telegram.’
MacGregor sighed. ‘What is it exactly that you want me to do, sir?’
‘I want you to get back out there and detect, you bloody fool!’ howled Dover. ‘What else?’
‘But won’t you be wanting to direct the investigation yourself, sir?’
‘What? And give ’em another chance to get me? Not likely!’ He stopped as the sound of footsteps and voices came up from the landing below. ‘What’s that?’
‘I imagine it’s the local police arriving, sir. I think I’d better go down and have a word with them.’
Dover relaxed his hold on the edge of his blanket. ‘Don’t bring ’em up here,’ he said. ‘I’m not letting anybody in this room until you’ve got that raving maniac behind bars.’
MacGregor held out his hand. ‘If I could have the key, sir?’ Dover scowled resentfully and began to climb out of bed. ‘I’ll let you out,’ he muttered. ‘And we’d better arrange a code for when you come back. Two knocks, a pause and then two more. Got it? And if the murderer’s got a gun stuck in your back, give six short taps. That way I’ll know not to open up.’
Mindful of the fact that they had not exactly shone over the murder of Walter Chantry, the local CID went quite mad over Mrs Boyle. When MacGregor emerged, with some difficulty, from Dover’s room it was to find the place swarming with plain-clothes men of every description. Flash bulbs were going off like a tropical storm and the air hung thick with fingerprint powder. MacGregor picked his way carefully through a welter of rubber gloves, plastic bags and foot rules to where a familiar face was beaming over the chaos.
‘Good morning, sir.’
‘Ah, sergeant!’ Superintendent Underbarrow was looking very neat and trim in his uniform. ‘Well, you’ll have to admit we’ve done you proud this time, eh? Luckily they’ve got the main road clear now and I delivered the whole team up here in under twenty minutes. We’re setting up the murder headquarters in the hotel lounge and I’ll have a couple of extra phones installed by mid-morning. Meanwhile I’ve got four motor-cyclists standing by outside for despatch duty and a couple of squad cars.’
‘Are you in charge of the operation, sir?’
‘Not likely!’ chuckled Superintendent Underbarrow. ‘That’s Detective Inspector Stokes’s pigeon. I’ve just come along to see to the administrative details. He’s downstairs starting the murder diary so I’ll introduce you to him later. Of course, if we find this case is connected with the Chantry business, we shall place ourselves under your direction. We don’t want to have two teams working at cross purposes, do we?’ MacGregor, somewhat stunned by all this feverish activity, watched a plain-clothes man crawling slowly on his hands and knees down the whole length of the landing. ‘You don’t think you’re going to rather a lot of trouble unnecessarily, do you, sir?’ he asked guardedly. ‘I mean, she was an elderly woman. I should have thought a simple heart attack was probably the most likely explanation.’
Superintendent Underbarrow was having a field day. ‘Oh, there’s no question of a heart attack, sergeant. The doctor’s already given her a preliminary once-over. Subject to confirmation, of course, she broke her neck.’
‘It could still be accidental death, sir,’ said MacGregor, finding himself being gently pushed aside by a photographer.
Superintendent Underbarrow postponed shattering the poor lad’s illusions on this point while he dealt with a more urgent matter. He leant forward and tapped the photographer on the shoulder. ‘How about one for the old family album, eh, Cliff?’
‘Sure,’ agreed the photographer, amiably winding his film on. ‘How do you want it? Arms folded with your foot on her head?’
Superintendent Underbarrow chuckled and excused himself for a minute to MacGregor. ‘The missus likes to keep a record, just for the kids,’ he confided as he assumed a rather dramatic pose beside the mortal remains of Mrs Boyle.
‘Watch the birdie!’ said the photographer and fired off half a dozen shots from various angles. ‘Right you are, Super! Well, we’re finished with the derelict corpse now, if you are. Shall I tell the boys from the meat wagon to come and get it?’
‘He’s a lad, isn’t he?’ said Superintendent Underbarrow admiringly as the photographer hurried away. ‘But first class at his job,’ he added quickly as he caught the look on MacGregor’s face. ‘Now, where were we? Ah, yes, accidental death. Well, not with that hook screwed in the wall, would you say?’
‘Hook, sir?’
‘And the wire.’ The superintendent had every reason to be highly satisfied with the effect he was producing. ‘Didn’t you notice them?’ he asked innocently.
MacGregor felt himself going pink. ‘Well, no, sir,’ he admitted.
‘Oh, I’ll show you, then. I think you’ll find it interesting.’ The superintendent cast an eye over the plain-clothes men who were beginning to pack up their equipment. ‘Who’s got that bit of wire we found? Oh, Fred – give us the loan of it for a few minutes. Ta!’ He turned back to MacGregor. ‘There you are, sergeant, six foot or so of fine, best quality wire, slightly used. Now,’ – he led the way up to the top of the stairs – ‘here’s the hook, see, screwed firmly down at the bottom here in the wall. Look how shiny it is. It’s not been there long, has it? Now, look at this wire. You can see from these bends in it where it’s been fastened through this hook and across the width of the stairs and then round the bottom of this upright on the banister. You can see where the wire’s cut into the wood.’
MacGregor got down on his hands and knees and examined everything very carefully. He would have been delighted to find something to refute Superintendent Underbarrow’s deductions but he couldn’t. The shape and length of the wire, the screw itself, the scratches on the screw and the woodwork of the banister could only add up to one thing.
Superintendent Underbarrow had no inhibitions about putting the inevitable conclusion into words. ‘Premeditated murder,’ he said, and smacked his lips.
Nine
It was several hours later when MacGregor mounted what was now being called the ‘Fatal Flight’ with Dover’s breakfast tray. His passage past the temporary murder headquarters in the lounge had occasioned a few raised eyebrows and a few sniggers but MacGregor prided himself on being big enough to ignore them. One must expect these provincial boys to be a rather crude lot.
He knocked according to the agreed code on Dover’s door and, when he was let in, was surprised to find that the chief inspector was partly dressed.
‘Are you going out, sir?’ he asked as he put the tray down on the dressing table.
Dover carefully locked the door. It was actually the memory of Miss Kettering’s prediction that he would die in his bed that had shifted him out of it. A man in as vulnerable a situation as Dover felt himself to be couldn’t take too many risks. He responded to MacGregor’s damn-fool question with a grunt that might mean anything and dragged a chair up to the dressing table.
MacGregor perched himself on the window-sill and got his notebook out. ‘These local chaps have certainly been getting their skates on, sir,' he began chattily as he rifled through the pages.’ Their technique strikes one as a bit – well – unpolished perhaps, but they’ve certainly got all the basic stuff tied up. I’ll fill you in on the groundwork first, shall
I, sir?’
Dover had poured himself out a cup of tea and was now occupied with, adding sugar by the half pound. He pushed the cup over in MacGregor’s direction. ‘Try that!’ he said.
‘I beg your pardon, sir?’
‘You want to poke that wax out of your ears, laddie! I told you to have a sip out of that cup.’
‘But I’ve already had my breakfast sir.’
‘I don’t give a damn if you’ve had the bloody measles!’ retorted Dover impatiently. ‘I want you to taste that tea. And the bacon and the eggs and the toast and the butter and the marmalade. Can’t you get it into your thick head that somebody’s trying to murder me?’
MacGregor was stupefied. ‘And you want me to . . .?’
‘What else? They could have slipped poison into any of that Jot easy as falling off a log. I’m not touching a thing until I know it’s safe.’
MacGregor didn’t imagine for one moment that Dover’s breakfast had been tampered with but he experienced a rather unpleasant tightness in his throat as he duly humoured the old fool by taking a token mouthful of each item of food. Dover watched the proceedings with a gimlet eye.
‘Taste anything funny?’ he asked.
MacGregor swallowed down a piece of toast. ‘No, sir.’
‘Hm. Well, we’ll wait a couple of minutes and, if you haven’t keeled over by then, I reckon I might risk it.’
‘Shall I carry on with the briefing meanwhile, sir?’
‘You might as well. But, if you start getting any twinges, you let me know right off.’
‘Very good, sir.’ MacGregor returned to his notebook.
‘Well, Mrs Boyle, sir, died just after half past one this morning.’
‘And good riddance!’ muttered Dover, gazing at his breakfast with longing.
‘She died of severe injuries, sir, which included a broken neck and a broken back.’
‘Did she, by golly!’ Dover, recalling the pin he had stuck in Miss Kettering’s dolly, was more than a little impressed. ‘It must be a coincidence,’ he said uneasily.
