by Joyce Porter
At this timely moment the coffee and sandwiches arrived. As Dover munched away, he gave the Chief Constable a brief account of what they had found out at the hospital.
‘Oh?’ said Colonel Muckle with great interest. ‘ So this boy friend was on the scene again, was he?’
‘Why?’ asked Dover. ‘Was he around when the first attack took place?’
‘Yes, he was!’ The Chief Constable looked at his watch and frowned again. Drat it! By the time he’d gone home and got his clubs … ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I’ll just give you a short outline of this first attack last February and then I’ll have to rush off. I’ve got rather an important engagement on this afternoon – don’t want to miss it. I’ve got the file here all ready for you so you can go through the reports at your leisure.
‘Well, briefly, the story’s this. Isobel Slatcher went round on the seventeenth of February – it was a Saturday, by the way – to St Benedict’s vicarage. Apparently she went every week. Well, she left the vicarage a few minutes after eight o‘clock. Somebody must have been waiting for her, because as she walked round the side of the vicarage garden somebody grabbed her – well, we think they did – and shot her twice in the back of the head. Then the attacker dropped the gun beside the body and beat it. There were no fingerprints on the gun – it was a German Luger – and we haven’t been able to trace the owner. It wasn’t registered, of course.
‘Now the Vicar – what’s-his-name? – Bonnington, heard the shots in his study. He rushed outside, found the girl and thought she was dead. Not surprising, really, there was blood and brains all over the pavement. He ran back inside to phone the police and then returned to the girl. By this time the girl’s fiancé, this RAF chap called Purseglove, had arrived on the scene and was kneeling beside her body. He heard the shots, too, and rushed up to see what had happened.
‘Well, that’s all there is to it. My CID chaps took the case on, and we got nowhere. I may tell you that as all the people concerned were Protestants they didn’t exactly break their necks to co-operate with my inspector! However, we’d really nothing to go on. The gun was a dead end and it was the only blooming clue we’d got. We couldn’t find any motive which looked half-way strong enough, but most of the people we questioned were only too pleased to suggest that it was all part of some fiendish Popish plot. However’ – Colonel Muckle spoke drily – ‘I think you can discount that theory.’
He rose to his feet and started to put his raincoat on. ‘ So, you see, the fiancé, Purseglove, was, to put it mildly, in the area at the time of the first attack. No doubt you’ll be following that line up?’
‘No doubt,’ said Dover glumly.
‘By the way’ – the Chief Constable already had his hand on the door-knob – ‘I suppose you’re not by any chance a Catholic?’
‘Methodist,’ said Dover shortly.
‘Oh, yes. Wesley didn’t have much success in this town. Everybody’d already taken up their sides here long before he arrived on the scene. Well, now, anything else you want?’ He opened the door.
‘Can you let us have a car, sir?’ asked Dover, suddenly mindful of his aching feet.
‘A car?’ repeated Colonel Muckle as though he’d been asked for a gallon of his life’s blood. ‘Well, I’m afraid that’s going to be very difficult. We’re having a big inspection week after next and I’ve got all the cars off the road. Want to get ’ em on the top line, y’know. If I let you have one, you’ll probably get it all dirty and messed up. Tell you what,’ he suggested insinuatingly, ‘ it’s only a small town, no distance at all really. You can walk to most of the places in a couple of minutes or so, and if you’ve got to go a long way you can always take a taxi, eh?’
Dover accepted defeat ungraciously. ‘Oh, all right,’ he said in a grudging voice, ‘but you’ll have to give me a chit to say that there weren’t any police cars available – otherwise Sergeant MacGregor here’ll never get his money back.’
‘Well, we can cross that bridge when we come to it.’ Colonel Muckle opened the door and then turned back once again. ‘By the way, how’s the famous Superintendent Roderick keeping these days? On top of the world, eh?’
‘Yes,’ grunted Dover sourly.
‘My word, I should think he’s on the way up all right! Lucky devil! Still, that Bigamous Bertie do was a smart piece of work – you’ve got to hand it to him!’
‘Yes,’ said Dover.
‘I did wonder,’ the Chief Constable went happily on, unmindful of Dover’s finer feelings, ‘I did wonder if they’d send him up here. Would have been very interesting to see how he tackled a case. Oh well, no good crying over spilt milk, eh? I’ll be seeing you chaps later. Must rush off now.’
‘Strewth!’ said Dover in deep disgust when the door was safely closed. ‘ He’s going to be a joy to work with, he is!’
He got up with a sigh from his chair and went over to sit in the one behind the desk. He chewed away thoughtfully at the two sandwiches which the Chief Constable had left, and examined the contents of such drawers in the desk as Colonel Muckle had been foolish enough to leave unlocked. Sergeant MacGregor watched him with a pained expression. Really, this was going a bit too far, even for Dover!
Dover found one or two private letters, which were hardly worth reading, and helped himself to one of the colonel’s cigars.
‘He’ll never miss it,’ he observed to MacGregor. ‘And if he does, he’ll never think that I took it.’
‘No, sir,’ said MacGregor coldly, ‘ but he might think that I did!’
Dover snorted unpleasantly down his nose. Stuck-up young pup! ‘Here,’ he said, grabbing the Slatcher file from the desk, ‘read through this lot and see if there’s anything that matters!’
MacGregor took the file, quite a bulky one, and Dover with a groan of relief, removed his boots, propped his feet up on the radiator and went to sleep almost immediately.
Half an hour later MacGregor had finished reading the file and Dover had woken up.
‘All right,’ said the chief inspector, yawning widely and rubbing the back of his fat, policeman’s neck, ‘where do we go from here?’
‘I think …’ began MacGregor.
‘We’ll go and see the sister,’ said Dover flatly.
‘I was just going to suggest that, sir.’ MacGregor began to gather up his things with a smug smile.
‘Oh,’ said Dover, ‘well, in that case, we’ll go and see this fiancé fellow.’
The Pursegloves’ house had all the blinds in the front windows respectfully lowered.
Dover dug Sergeant MacGregor sharply in the ribs as they walked up to the front door. ‘Don’t forget we’re going to pretend this Slatcher girl died a natural death,’ he hissed. ‘If he did croak her, he might let something slip, see?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said MacGregor, and hoped that Dover would remember to keep up the pretence himself.
The Pursegloves had apparently decided to confront Scotland Yard en famille. Mr Purseglove Senior opened the door. He was a wispy little man, uncomfortably dressed in his best suit and with his hair pasted in stripes across his bald patch. He smiled nervously at the sight of the two policemen.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘ We were expecting you. Miss Slatcher said they’d called Scotland Yard in and that you’d be sure to want to have a word with our Rex. Will you come in here?’
He ushered Dover and MacGregor into the front room.
‘Mother’ – he treated a tight-lipped woman to another nervous smile – ‘these are the detectives. Er, this is Mrs Purseglove, my, er, wife.’
Mrs Purseglove was sitting bolt upright in a chair by the fireplace. She acknowledged the introductions with a watchful nod. Dover recognized, with a sigh, that here was the boss of the household. She looked, unfortunately, the kind of woman who prided herself on not being ‘put upon’ by anybody.
‘And this,’ said Mr Purseglove proudly, ‘is my son, Pilot Officer Purseglove.’
Dover looked with interest at his Number O
ne suspect. He was a young man in his early twenties, very carefully dressed in an RAF tie and blazer, well-cut cavalry twill trousers and elegant fawn suede shoes – all brand new and all, no doubt, purchased on tick from some expensive military tailor. At first glance he didn’t look very much like either of his parents but, on closer examination, one could see sure signs of his inheritance. His rather weak mouth came from his father but it was his mother who had given him his sharp pointed nose and his eyes, which like hers were shrewd rather than intelligent.
He would, Dover judged, always have more resolution and backbone than his father, but on the other hand he would never be half the man his mother was. Dover wondered how much she had pushed and sacrificed to see her precious son wearing an officer’s uniform.
The chief inspector sighed again and he and MacGregor sat down side by side on the sofa.
‘Well, sir,’ said Dover, addressing Purseglove Junior, ‘no doubt you understand that the death of Isobel Slatcher has turned this into a murder case? I should be very glad if you’d answer a few questions which might help us in our investigations.’
‘Our Rex had nothing to do with it,’ announced Mrs Purseglove.
‘I never said he had, madam,’ was Dover’s bored rejoinder. ‘And if he hasn’t – well, then – there can’t be any harm in answering a few simple questions, can there?’
Mrs Purseglove closed her mouth like a trap, silent but unconvinced.
‘Now, sir,’ Dover went on blandly, ‘I understand that you and the late Miss Isobel Slatcher were engaged to be married?’
Rex Purseglove frowned. ‘Well, not really, Inspector.’ He spoke very carefully and precisely. ‘There wasn’t actually any formal engagement.’
‘They was just good friends, as you might say,’ continued Mr Purseglove helpfully.
‘Harold!’ Mrs Purseglove gave her husband a warning look. She turned to Dover. ‘There was a sort of understanding between them, that’s all,’ she said. ‘ Our Rex isn’t in any position to start thinking about marriage yet. He’s got his way to make in the world, you know.’
Rex took up the cudgels on his own behalf. ‘ You see, it was like this, Inspector. Just before Isobel was shot I’d heard that my CO was going to put me up for a commission. Well, obviously I couldn’t start thinking about getting married at that stage. Everything was too uncertain, you see.’
‘He’s had a rotten time with all this business himself, poor lad,’ said Mrs Purseglove aggressively. ‘What with the shooting and all the questions and Isobel never getting right and him having all these interviews and tests to do – it’s a miracle he ever got through them as well as he did, with all that hanging over him. And now, just when he’s got through his OCTU and everything, that girl’s got to go and die and start the whole thing up again. Why, the poor lad only got home late on Wednesday night. There he was, all set for a few days’ leave – and heaven only knows he needs it, three months he’s been at that OCTO, you know, and you’ve got to work hard if you don’t want to fait Quite a lot of them did, they don’t let them all get through, you know. Only come home on Wednesday night, he did, and Friday she has to go and die. Oh, I’m sorry for her, naturally, but you’ve got to think of them that’s left behind, haven’t you?’
‘Oh?’ said Dover. ‘So you only arrived here in Curdley on Wednesday, did you. Did you read Thursday’s edition of the Custodian, by any chance?’
‘That story about Isobel? Yes, Mum showed it to me.’
‘Did you believe it?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so. I was a bit surprised because I thought, you know, she was never going to get better, but I just supposed they’d found some new treatment or something. Of course,’ he added quickly, ‘ I was very pleased as well.’
‘Hm,’ said Dover thoughtfully. ‘I understand that you went round to the hospital to see Miss Slatcher on Friday morning?’
Mrs Purseglove rose to this one, too. ‘ Well?’ she demanded. ‘And what of it? Nothing wrong with that, is there? Anyhow, it was her sister what asked him to go, didn’t she, Rex? It was her idea that he should go round there in his uniform and everything. She said the photographers’d be there and p’raps he’d get his picture in the papers – what with him being an officer and in his uniform and everything. Oh, she’d got the whole thing organized, she had.’
‘What time did you arrive at the hospital?’ asked Dover after both he and Rex had shot annoyed glances at Mrs Purseglove.
‘He got there like she asked him to at …’ Mrs Purseglove was at it again.
‘For goodness’ sake, Mum!’ said her son irritably. ‘It’s me the inspector’s asking. I got round there just on ten o’clock, Inspector.’
‘And what time did you leave?’
‘About a quarter to eleven, I think.’
Dover stared pensively at Rex Purseglove and unconsciously licked his lips.
‘And what did you do while you were at the hospital?’
‘Do? What do you mean?’
‘Well, dammit, man!’ snapped Dover. ‘Isobel Slatcher was unconscious. You could hardly have had a hand of gin rummy with her, could you?’
‘Well, I just sat there. What else was there to do?’
‘You just sat there for three-quarters of an hour?’
‘I hadn’t much choice, had I?’ retorted Rex Purseglove crossly. ‘I knew if I only stopped a few minutes Violet’d find out and get all worked up about it and there’d be more rows. So I thought I’d give her a run for her money.’
Dover paused for a moment, his eyes never leaving Rex Purseglove’s face. The tension in the room was building up nicely. Dover felt very pleased with the way things were going. He put his next question in a quiet, chatty voice.
‘What time was it when you noticed she was dead?’
Rex Purseglove’s jaw dropped, almost audibly. Both his mother and father started to say something. Dover cut off their protests.
‘Shut up!’ he snarled viciously. He turned back to Rex. ‘Well?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he stammered. ‘I never noticed she was dead.’
‘Did you notice she was alive?’
Rex gulped unhappily. ‘No,’ he admitted.
‘Did you touch her or kiss her, or anything?’
Rex shook his head miserably. ‘No, I just sat down on a chair by the door. I … I never went near the bed.’
‘He wouldn’t.’ Mrs Purseglove broke in confidently. ‘Never could stand illness and things like that. Even when he was a child he wouldn’t go near his old grannie when she was sick. He’s just like his father, isn’t he, Harold?’
‘That’s right,’ agreed Mr Purseglove with an inappropriate chuckle. ‘Fair turns me up, anything like that does.’
‘All right!’ thundered Dover before the interruptions got out of hand. ‘All right! So, as far as you know, Isobel Slatcher could have been dead when you arrived at ten o’clock, or she could have died before you left at a quarter to eleven – is that what you’re saying?’
‘I suppose so.’ Rex Purseglove was looking very worried now. ‘I never thought of her dying, specially not after all that stuff in the paper about her getting better. I just never thought to go and look. I mean, why should I?’
Dover glanced significantly at Sergeant MacGregor, who had carefully been recording all this in his notebook. The sergeant glanced significantly back again. The Purseglove family looked anxiously on.
‘Well now’ – Dover resumed his interrogation – ‘ let’s go back to last February, the Saturday night that Isobel Slatcher was shot. Would you mind telling me what your movements were at that time?’
‘Here!’ protested Mrs Purseglove, rushing to the defence of her chick. ‘What the hell are you getting at? Our Rex had nothing to do with that, had you, love? Harold! Are you just going to sit there and let them insinerate things about your own son?’
‘Madam!’ bellowed Dover furiously, ‘if you don’t keep your trap shut and allow me to get on with my invest
igations, I shall take your precious son down to the police station and question him there! Now, I’m warning you, one more squeak out of you and that’ll be the end of it!’
‘Do keep quiet, Mum!’ pleaded Rex. ‘They’ve got to ask these questions. They don’t mean anything.’
‘Well, that remains to be seen, sir, doesn’t it?’ said Dover affably. ‘Now then – the evening Miss Slatcher was attacked?’
‘Well, this was before I was commissioned, you see, and I was stationed quite near here and I used to come home most week-ends. Well, on this Saturday night I wanted to have a word with Isobel and I went round to her place about, oh, a quarter past seven, I suppose. Well, of course, she wasn’t in. I’d forgotten she always went round to see the Vicar for about an hour every Saturday night. I stopped and talked to Violet – that’s her sister – for a bit, and then I decided I’d go and have a cup of coffee and go and meet Isobel when she came out of the vicarage. Violet said she always left about eight. Well, I went and had a cup of coffee …’
‘Where?’ asked Dover.
‘Los Toros – it’s a snack-bar place in Corporation Road, just round the corner from St Benedict’s. Well, when I’d had the coffee I went outside and I waited around a bit on the corner of Corporation Road and Church Lane because I knew that’d be the way Isobel would be coming and I wouldn’t miss her. Well, it was dark and cold and I was just hanging about, waiting, see, when I heard these shots. Two of ’em, there were. For a bit I couldn’t think what they were, really, or where they’d come from. Anyhow, after a minute or two I thought I’d better go and look and I set off down Church Lane towards the vicarage. Well, just on the comer, where the road sort of bends round, I saw somebody lying on the floor and, when I looked, it was Isobel. All the back of her head was covered in blood and there was blood everywhere. It was awful – made me feel right queasy. I was just going to go and get some help when Mr Bonnington – he’s the Vicar – arrived and he said he’d already phoned for the police. And we just waited there until they came. We didn’t touch her or anything. Well; we thought she was dead.’
