Dover Strikes Again

by Joyce Porter

  MacGregor fell for it. ‘Those houses, sir? Well, I think they were a row of farm labourers’ cottages.’ He began hunting through his pockets for his large-scale plan of the village. ‘I can tell you who lived there, sir, if I can just find . . . They were pretty badly damaged, as you can see, and several of the occupants were injured.’

  Dover let MacGregor get his plan out and spread it out on the ground before saying calmly, ‘Not the cottages.’

  MacGregor, already down on his knees, looked up. ‘Not the cottages, sir?’

  Dover inclined his head towards a curved piece of kerbing stone which was still in place. ‘Was there a road there, between Pile’s house and your precious cottages?’

  ‘Er – yes, sir.’ MacGregor flattened out his map again. ‘It was a sort of continuation of East Street.’ He peered at the plan. ‘Yes, here we are – cutting North Street at right angles. Sidle Alley. Yes, I remember, sir. Superintendent Underbarrow mentioned it. It was just a sort of glorified cart track, really, running down by the side of Wing Commander Pile’s house and curving left down the hill to where it joined the main road. I don’t think it’s of much interest to us, sir. There were no houses along it, only sheds and garages and things like that and, as you can see, it bore the brunt of the earthquake. The whole stretch must have virtually disappeared within seconds of the first tremor.’

  ‘Sidle Alley?’ muttered Dover, wrinkling his nose. ‘Damn silly name.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said MacGregor.

  A workman emerged from a temporary hut which had been erected a few yards away. He looked at Dover and MacGregor, decided they weren’t snoopers from County Hall and went back inside again.

  ‘We going to hang about here all day?’ asked Dover.

  ‘You’ve not thought of anything, sir?’

  ‘No,’ said Dover who held world ranking as a bare-faced liar.

  MacGregor sighed and the pair of them began to wend their way back to the Blenheim Towers. The van was still standing outside the Studio but there was now no sign of any of the artists. Across the road, poor Millie Hooper mistimed it again. After waiting timidly in the kitchen for a good ten minutes, she had opted for the back door only to find that those horrid policemen were still there, spying on her. She fled back to the sanctuary of her kitchen and had hysterics.

  MacGregor watched this performance with hopeful interest but Dover had too much on his mind to bother about the neurotic behaviour of pregnant women. Having solved the mystery of the murder of Walter Chantry (and, in consequence, that of Mrs Boyle as well) his thoughts were now fully occupied with the mechanics of pulling a fast one on MacGregor. Dover didn’t often solve his cases but, when he did, he liked to get the exclusive credit for it. In this particular instance, however, he had another axe to grind. MacGregor needed taking down a peg' or two. Dover hadn’t forgotten the disgraceful bullying to which he had recently been subjected and he was determined to get his own back. He didn’t underestimate the magnitude of the task before him, it not being easy for a detective to arrest a murderer without his closest colleague knowing anything about it. Still, he comforted himself, where there’s a will, there’s a way.

  He began laying the first bricks of a false trail. ‘There’s a through train back to London in the morning, isn’t there?’ he asked and enjoyed the look of horror that crossed MacGregor’s face.

  ‘We’re not leaving, are we, sir?’

  ‘Can’t see much point in hanging on here,’ said Dover. ‘We aren’t getting anywhere. Why go on flogging a dead duck?’

  ‘But, sir, we haven’t been here more than a couple of days. Mrs Boyle was only killed twelve hours ago. What’s the chief constable going to say? What are they going to say at the Yard? Good heavens, sir – this is the sort of think they ask questions about in Parliament!’

  ‘Pshaw!’ sniffed Dover. ‘My responsibility, isn’t it? I’m in charge of the case and in my opinion we’ve gone as far as we can. We can always reopen the investigation if anything new turns up. I’ve got to look at this from the wider aspect.’

  ‘The wider aspect, sir?’

  ‘The taxpayers’ money, laddie,’ exclaimed Dover with a sweet reasonableness calculated to try the patience of a saint. ‘It doesn’t grow on trees, you know. Now, as soon as we get back, you get hold of old Wheelbarrow and tell him I’ll want some transport laid on.’

  MacGregor didn’t go down without a fight. He spent the remainder of their journey back to the hotel pleading with Dover not to throw in the towel at such a ridiculously early stage. There were dozens of promising avenues still to be explored and scores of stones it might be profitable to turn. Why, they’d hardly scratched the surface of the investigation yet!

  Dover, loving every minute of it, turned a pair of large and deaf ears to every argument and then, just in case MacGregor thought such foolhardiness suspicious, grudgingly agreed not to make up his mind finally until the following morning. This was a concession that would keep MacGregor on tenterhooks very nicely.

  MacGregor’s face showed clearly how worried he was. As Dover’s assistant, however unwilling, he knew how liable he was to be judged bungling by association. The top brass at Scotland Yard were going to go clean through the roof when they found out about this little episode. ‘Well, you’ve no objection to me carrying on with things this afternoon, have you, sir?’

  ‘Not once you’ve checked the time of that train,’ said Dover generously. ‘First things first, eh? Mind you, I shan’t be taking the afternoon off myself.’

  ‘No, sir?’

  Dover shook his head. ‘Certainly not! I’ll be working right up to the bitter end, like I always do.’

  ‘In your room, sir?’

  ‘In my room,’ agreed Dover cheerfully. ‘I’m just going to spend a couple of hours sort of going over the case in my mind and having a quiet think. Let’s face it, that blighter didn’t try to kill me for fun, did he? Oh, I’ve got the answer somewhere, don’t you make any mistake about that! What I’ve got to do now is let my mind go a complete blank and hope that the clue’ll float to the top. Like the cream on the milk,’ he added, rather pleased with this picturesque touch.

  Or the scum on a duckpond, thought MacGregor bitterly. He glanced at his watch. Eighteen hours, say, before they had to leave. Could he solve the case single-handed in that time? He straightened his back. Why not? With two murders it shouldn’t be as difficult as all that. There were shoals of leads they hadn’t even begun to check. He’d see if Inspector Stokes had got anywhere with that wire and the screw and then he’d question everybody all over again about their movements at the relevant times and . . .

  ‘I think I’d better have a word with old Wheelbarrow myself,’ said Dover whose plans for outwitting MacGregor were now beginning to take shape. ‘Just to put him in the picture. Scout round and see if you can find him.’

  ‘You’ll see him in your room, sir?’

  ‘Where else, laddie?’ Dover knew only too well what unkind thoughts were passing through his sergeant’s mind. ‘And I don’t want you barging in and out every five minutes, either.’

  MacGregor could promise that he wouldn’t be doing that.

  ‘I shan’t disturb you sir.’

  Dover gave a warning jerk on the reins. ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.

  MacGregor was vague. ‘Oh, just tidy up a few loose ends, sir. I thought I might go and have a word with those artists. I think you were probably right, sir, and we ought to find out a bit more about their activities. I’d like to know how well they know the interior of the hotel, for instance. Even with a verbal description from Mrs Lickes, I can’t see a complete stranger being able to fix that wire up just like that. I mean – how would he know there’d be a crack in the woodwork to stick that screw in? How would he know it was wood there at all? It might have been solid brick and he’d have had to drill a hole and plug it to hold that screw. If I can prove that any of the artists, or the Hoopers for that matter, have never been upstairs in th
e Blenheim Towers – well, it would whittle the lists of suspects down quite a bit.’

  Dover decided he’d nothing to worry about. ‘Good idea, laddie!’ he said with a smile as false as his teeth. ‘You go ahead! Do you good, having to stand on your own feet. I always say that a fellow who doesn’t make mistakes doesn’t make anything.’

  MacGregor innocently attributed this astonishing good nature to the fact that Dover was looking forward to spending the rest of the day in bed. It was a prospect that usually mellowed the old fool. ‘I’ll ask Mrs Lickes to bring your afternoon tea up, shall I, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ beamed Dover. ‘I’ll have it at four o’clock. But find Wheelbarrow first. I want to see him right away.’

  Twelve

  Superintendent Underbarrow proved unexpectedly uncooperative or – as Dover preferred to put it – bloody-minded and chicken-hearted to boot.

  ‘But you can’t do it!’ spluttered the superintendent, going distinctly pallid round the gills. ‘Suppose there’s a complaint? You’d be for the high jump. And so,’ he added, realizing it was more to the point, ‘would I. A good lawyer’d crucify you in court and your bosses’d jump on the little pieces afterwards. No – be sensible – it’s just not on.’

  ‘I can see why you never made CID,’ said Dover nastily. ‘I don’t know what it’s like collecting car numbers in your little book all day long but, in the plain-clothes branch, you’ve got to be flexible.’

  ‘Flexible?’ exploded Superintendent Underbarrow. ‘Bent’s the word I’d use. What you’re proposing breaks every rule that’s ever been written and, in my opinion, it’s downright unethical as well.’

  Dover raised his eyes in supplication to the heavens. ‘’Strewth!’ he groaned. ‘This is murder, mate, not a bloody game of cricket. We’ve got two stiffs laid out on marble slabs and all you can do is yack on about ethics. Just don’t forget’ – he gave Superintendent Underbarrow a sharp poke in the chest to see that he didn’t – ‘one of those bodies might have been mine.’

  ‘But why involve me?’

  ‘That’s what I’m beginning to ask myself,' said Dover sulkily. ‘I thought you’d jump at the chance to earn yourself a bit of glory.’

  ‘If this scheme of yours misfires, the only thing either of us will earn is the order of the boot. Look, if you must have a witness – and God only knows why you should – what’s wrong with your own sergeant? I should have thought he was the obvious choice.’

  Dover slumped down crossly on the bed. Up till now, out of courtesy to Superintendent Underbarrow’s superior rank, he had remained standing – and a fat lot of good it had done him. ‘All I’m trying to do,’ he explained impatiently, ‘is catch a multiple murderer before he goes round slaughtering other innocent people. You know what they’re like – once they start they never stop. I don’t know about you, of course, but I happen to have a very highly developed sense of duty. I don’t want it on my conscience if somebody else goes and get themselves bumped off.’

  ‘It’s not your purpose I’m objecting to,’ protested Superintendent Underbarrow unhappily, ‘it’s your methods.’

  Dover flapped an irritated hand. ‘Pitch sticks, doesn’t it?’ he asked. ‘Look, without a bit of improvisation, this joker’s going to get clean away with it. What choice have I got but to adjust the odds a bit? Don’t tell me you’ve never fiddled anything!’

  ‘Not like this I haven’t!’ retorted Superintendent Underbarrow, running a finger round his shirt collar and wondering why it always had to happen to him.

  Dover leaned forward persuasively. ‘That’s why I can’t use MacGregor, see? He’s young and inexperienced. If it isn’t all written down in black and white, he doesn’t want to know about it.’

  ‘I don’t think I do, either,’ muttered the superintendent.

  ‘And he’s not loyal, you know,’ said Dover bitterly. ‘He’d shop me as soon as look at me. Look, all I’m asking for is a fair crack of the whip. Nothing can go wrong. We get ’em in here, I go through my routine and from then on we play it by ear.’ The superintendent shuddered. ‘It makes the blood run cold even to think about it. I can kiss my pension goodbye if this ever comes out.’

  ‘But it won’t come out!’ insisted Dover desperately. ‘That’s why I want you here instead of MacGregor. You know how to keep your mouth shut.’

  ‘That’s very reassuring!’

  ‘It’s fireproof, I tell you! If everything goes according to plan and we get a confession, there’s two of us to swear on oath that it was obtained all legal and above board.’

  ‘But that would be perjury!’

  Dover scowled bleakly at Superintendent Underbarrow. ‘It’s only perjury when you get found out, you oaf! As long as we both spin the same yam in the witness box, they can’t touch us.’

  ‘But, suppose you don’t get a confession. You make your accusation and your threats and everything and the snivelling victim just turns round and spits straight in your eye? What about that, eh? You and me’d find ourselves at the wrong end of an official complaint quicker than you could say knife.’ Dover shook his head gently. Really, it made you wonder what some people had been doing all their lives. Talk about being as pig-ignorant as a new-born babe! ‘Then we just cut our losses and just flatly deny that the interview ever took place. Two against one again – see?’

  Superintendent Underbarrow did see, only too clearly. The trouble was, though, that he was still tempted. He’d had a pretty dull sort of time in the police, all things considered. Transport and traffic administration were all very well but a man did sometimes yearn for a touch of glamour. Mrs Underbarrow would be thrilled to bits, and so would the kids. And a sensational murder case would liven that old scrapbook up no end, by jingo it would! When this broke it would make the national press for sure, to say nothing of the telly. And him outranking this Scodand Yard chap wouldn’t do any harm. If he played his cards properly he ought to be able to collar the lion’s share of the kudos and . . . Superintendent Underbarrow drew up a chair. ‘What exactly is it I’m supposed to do?’ Dover’s ungainly form deflated with relief. At bloody last!

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I’ll do all the work. I just want you here as a perfectly honest, unbiased, independent witness. We’ll cook our story up afterwards when we’ve seen how things have gone. By the way, I hope you know how to handle yourself if there’s any rough stuff? Got a truncheon?’

  ‘I’ll borrow one from one of the lads downstairs.’

  ‘You won’t, you know!’ snorted Dover. ‘Use your brains, man! That’d be a dead give-away that we were expecting trouble. No,’ – he looked round the room – ‘grab that candlestick if there’s any sign of a punch-up. And be careful where you use it. Above the hair line or in the kidneys is best, then the marks don’t show.’ He got up and arranged a couple of chairs in the middle of the room. ‘You stay standing by the door. And keep your cap on. It makes it look more official.’

  ‘I think I’ll keep my gloves on, too,’ said Superintendent Underbarrow, beginning to get into the swing of things, ‘so that there won’t be any fingerprints if I have to use the candlestick.’

  ‘Good idea!’ approved Dover. ‘Right! Well, I think we’re ready. Wheel ’em up!’

  Superintendent Underbarrow didn’t care for the sound of this. ‘Me?’

  ‘Well, one of us has got to and I can’t, can I?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They’d smell a rat.’

  ‘I don’t see why. Look, the last thing I want to do is start pulling my rank but I am the senior officer. If I go running around like a blooming messenger . . .’

  For once in his life Dover actually opened a door for somebody else. It seemed the easiest way of putting an end to a very unprofitable discussion. ‘Get your skates on!’ he urged. ‘They might be going out for a walk or something and you’ll miss ’em.’

  Superintendent Underbarrow shrugged his shoulders. Why try to prolong the agony? One might as well take a deep breath, hold on
e’s nose and go in at the deep end. The sooner they started, the sooner this extremely dubious business would be over. Even so, he couldn’t resist giving vent to one last feeble protest. ‘I still think we ought to find some other way.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so bloody wet!’ snapped Dover and gave his colleague such a hearty farewell shove in the back that the Fatal Flight nearly claimed its second victim.

  As the superintendent clattered miserably down the stairs Dover had yet another bright idea. Even he realized that the coming interview was going to be somewhat nerve-racking. What he really needed was a good stiff whisky but, in the circumstances, a few fags would be better than nothing. With surprising agility he nipped into MacGregor’s room and turned it over with a speed and skill that wouldn’t have disgraced a professional burglar. An extensive previous experience and a wide knowledge of human nature didn’t go unrewarded. In a matter of minutes he found a fifty tin of very expensive cigarettes which had been cunningly hidden under a spare pair of underpants. They were not the brand, Dover noted sourly, that young MacGregor kept for handing round to his friends. Still, there was no time now for crying over other people’s petty meannesses. Pausing only to help himself to a spare box of matches, Dover scuttled back like a thief in the night to his own room.

  He’d barely finished coughing over his first mouthful of smoke when he heard the sound of voices and footsteps on the stairs.

  This was it.

  The door burst open.

  ‘Ah, there you are!’ Dover’s fat face broke into an unconvincing smile of welcome. ‘Come along in! I hope this isn’t putting you out at all but I reckoned it was about time you and me had another little chat.’ He peered over the newcomer’s shoulder. ‘Where’s your daughter?’

  Wing Commander Pile’s jaw was set grim and hard. ‘I think I informed you before concerning the position with regard to my daughter. It has not changed. Furthermore, I myself do not intend to submit to any further questioning in these highly irregular circumstances. If you wish to interview me, you will do so at a police station and in the presence of my solicitor.’