by Joyce Porter
MacGregor shuddered. ‘Really, sir?’
‘Yes,’ said Dover nodding his head sagely. ‘Came to me in a flash, it did. We … you’ve been on the wrong track, my lad. You’ll have to watch yourself. I’ve warned you before about jumping to conclusions before you’ve hardly got your teeth into a case. Just let this be a lesson to you. Now, where does Violet Slatcher work?’
‘She won’t be there now, sir,’ MacGregor pointed out officiously. ‘She’s not going back to work until after the funeral.’
‘I don’t want to see her!’ snapped Dover. ‘ I want to see where she works – and if you don’t know where that is, find out! And get the car round. We’re going there right away. Come en, man, move!’
Ten minutes later the two detectives stood outside the Snowite Launderette.
Dover wrinkled his nose as he surveyed the scene. ‘How far is it to the hospital?’ he demanded.
MacGregor dragged out his street plan and calculated rapidly. ‘Three or four minutes’ walk, sir,’ he said, frowning as he tried to work out what his superior officer was up to. Dover was indulging himself in a bit of master minding and had no intention of divulging his Great Idea to a mere sergeant before he had to. If MacGregor was such a clever devil he could work it out for himself.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go inside.’
Ten pairs of feminine eyes which had been intent on the circumvolutions of their own and other people’s washing switched in astonishment to the two men who came barging in.
A female battle-axe, standing on guard by the cash desk, examined them suspiciously, noting with displeasure (she worked on commission) that they hadn’t brought any dirty washing with them.
‘Well?’ she said. ‘What do you two want?’
‘We just want to ask you a couple of questions,’ began Dover, hopefully raising his bowler hat one-eighth of an inch from his head in a conciliatory gesture.
The battle-axe picked up the telephone. ‘Get me the police,’ she said.
‘For God’s sake!’ snapped Dover. ‘We are the police. Show her your pass thing, MacGregor.’
The battle-axe perused MacGregor’s identity card with scrupulous care, reading every word of it. ‘All right,’ she admitted grudgingly, ‘you’re a policeman. What about him?’
‘I’m a policeman, too,’ protested Dover. ‘I’m a detective chief inspector!’
The battle-axe silently held out her hand.
Dover hunted furiously through every pocket he possessed. He was almost certain that someone at some time had duly provided him with proper authorization, but since never before in his entire career had he been called upon to produce it, it wasn’t surprising that his knowledge of its present whereabouts was, to say the least, hazy.
At last, to the surprise of everybody, he found it. It was crumpled and stained with what looked like tea, but it satisfied the battle-axe, who directed on it the same scrutiny that she had afforded MacGregor’s.
Once assured of her visitors’ bona fides the battle-axe unbent a little. She took them into a small side room where they could talk in private, and informed them that her name was Mrs Kyle. She and the elder Miss Slatcher ran the launderette between them.
‘Wasn’t it dreadful about poor Isobel?’ said Mrs Kyle, her eyes popping with excitement. ‘First her getting shot like that and then dying on Friday. I did hear’ – she shot a sly glance at the two detectives – ‘I did hear that was murder, too.’
‘Then you heard aright, madam,’ said Dover, firmly sitting down on the only available chair.
‘Really?’ Mrs Kyle’s eyes grew even rounder. ‘What do you know about that, eh? Somebody must have had it in for her all right, mustn’t they? ‘ Course Violet used to think the sun shone out of that girl, though I could never see it myself. Still, there’s no smoke without a fire, is there? She couldn’t have been such a little angel as all that, could she? Otherwise all this wouldn’t have happened, would it? I mean, respectable, decent people just don’t go around getting murdered, do they?’
Privately Dover thoroughly agreed with these sentiments, but he was in no mood to waste precious time on them at the moment. He had had an idea and he wanted to pursue it with as much dispatch as possible.
‘Did you know Isobel Slatcher well, Mrs Kyle?’ he asked.
She shook her head, regretfully. ‘No, as a matter of fact I’ve only spoken to her once or twice. She never came in here, you know. Wasn’t posh enough for her ladyship, I suppose.’
‘But her sister works here?’
‘Violet’s the manageress, Inspector – not quite the same thing as working here, you know. Anyhow, she always used to pretend that she only did it for pin money and just to help pass the time. Always gave you to understand that she didn’t need to work for her living. Lucky for some, I always say.’
‘Are you and she always here together?’
‘Well, not quite. We’re open six days a week, you know, so I usually take all day Tuesday off and Violet usually takes Monday afternoon and Wednesday morning. We’re always busier towards the end of the week, so we’re both in together then. ‘Course, now I’m having to manage on my own. I don’t suppose Violet’ll be back for a bit yet. I reckon this business has clean bowled her over.’
‘How often did she visit her sister in the hospital?’
‘Oh, twice a day, at least. She used to pop out sometimes for half an hour or so when we weren’t too busy. They were very good to her at the hospital – they didn’t bother about visiting hours or anything like that. They just used to letting Violet pop in for a few minutes more or less whenever she felt like it. I mean, it didn’t do any harm, did it? She could only just go and look at her lying there.’ She shuddered a little. ‘ Oh, fair gives you the creeps, doesn’t it, even to think of it? Her just going on and on and never waking up. What you might call a living death. Mind you, Violet keeping popping out like that, it made a lot more work for me and, of course, I never expected it would drag on for all these months or I wouldn ‘t have been quite so obliging. But in a case like that there’s not much you can do, is there?’
‘What about last Friday morning? Were you both in here together then?’
Mrs Kyle’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Last Friday morning,’ she repeated. ‘You mean when Isobel was killed in the Emily Gorner?’
‘That’s right.’ Dover glanced at MacGregor’s puzzled frown with satisfaction. Thought himself such a young clever devil, did he? Well, let him sort out this one for himself.
‘Oooh!’ said Mrs Kyle doubtfully. ‘ You don’t think Violet had anything to do with it, do you?’
‘Never you mind what I think!’ said Dover shortly. ‘ Were you both here together?’
‘Well, yes, we were.’
‘Did Violet leave the place at all during the morning?’
‘Well, yes,’ admitted Mrs Kyle, not sure she liked the way things were developing, ‘as a matter of fact she did, but only for about ten minutes or so.’
Dover’s nose twitched ecstatically. ‘Where did she go, eh? To the hospital?’
‘Oh no.’ Mrs Kyle’s head shook firmly. ‘She went to the bank. She always goes round as soon as they’re open on Friday morning. She likes to be the first customer for some cock-eyed reason. Still, you know what some of these old maids are like, sort of pernickety. And she’d always got to go herself. Even when she was half dead with a bad cold or something, she’d never let me go for her. Didn’t trust me, I suppose.’
‘And which bank do you use?’ asked Dover.
‘The District.’
‘And where is it?’
Mrs Kyle gulped and went a bit pale. ‘It’s nearly opposite the Emily Gorner,’ she said faintly. ‘ On the other side of the road.’
‘I see,’ said Dover.
MacGregor’s jaw was hanging slightly open. Surely he didn’t seriously think that Violet Slatcher, of all people…
‘Just one last question, Mrs Kyle,’ said Dover comfortably. ‘I see you’re we
aring a white overall. Did Violet Slatcher wear one, too?’
‘Oh yes, definitely. We’ve got to look hygienic, you know.’
Dover nodded his head wisely. ‘Quite,’ he said. ‘And when Miss Slatcher goes out to the bank, does she take her overall off?’
‘Oh no, it wouldn’t be worth it just for a few minutes, would it? She just pops her coat on top.’
‘Thank you,’ said Dover and, for once in his life, really meant it.
On the way to the bank Dover refused to answer any of MacGregor’s questions. ‘I haven’t got time to spell it all out for you in words of one syllable,’ he snapped. ‘Good God, you’re supposed to be a detective, aren’t you? You bloody well work it out for yourself. Be good practice for you!’ He laughed unpleasantly.
The bank was closed but Dover kicked impatiently at the huge, impressive double doors until they were opened. There was some unfortunate confusion at first as the bank staff mistook Dover’s brusque intrusion for a raid and one dear old wizened bank clerk made a valiant attempt to sell his life dearly. Two of the girls tried to have hysterics, but Dover soon put a stop to that.
At last he got his hands, figuratively speaking, on the man he wanted, the teller with whom Violet Slatcher habitually conducted her business on a Friday morning.
He smiled wryly when Dover mentioned her name. ‘Oh Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ve been dealing with her for years. Very pleasant sort of woman, but she likes things just so, always checks everything very carefully. You’d be surprised,’ he added with a rather superior air, ‘how many people are like that where money’s concerned. Last Friday? Oh, much the same as usual. She wasn’t actually waiting on the doorstep when I unlocked the door, like she usually is, but she was just coming across the road so I knew the world hadn’t actually come to an end. I pulled her leg about it a bit, you know, said something about having her put on jankers if she was late again. She just gave me one of those tight, we-are-not-amused, little smiles, so I didn’t pursue the matter. Come to think of it, she probably didn’t know what the hell I was talking about, anyway.’
Outside the bank Dover paused, reverently removed his bowler and mopped his brow. ‘Well,’ he said, screwing his hat firmly back on his head, ‘I reckon that’s that. I think we’d better go and get a warrant.’
‘A warrant?’ gasped MacGregor. ‘ For Violet Slatcher? You must be out of your mind, sir!’
‘Who the hell d’you think you’re talking to, Sergeant?’ demanded Dover, who expected his subordinates to show a proper respect.
‘I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t really think Violet Slatcher murdered her own sister?’
‘Daughter,’ corrected Dover.
‘Well, that only makes it worse. Do you mean to say that she shot Isobel outside St Benedict’s Church, let her linger on like that for eight months and then suffocated her last Friday morning with her own pillow?’
‘Of course not!’ said Dover crossly. ‘She’d nothing to do with the shooting part of it at all. She thought the world of her sister – daughter. Everybody says that. What on earth should she want to kill her for?’
MacGregor took a deep, deep breath. ‘I’m afraid, sir,’ he said carefully, ‘ I’m not quite with you on this. If Violet Slatcher didn’t kill Isobel, what do you want the warrant for?’
‘Oh, wake up, for God’s sake, MacGregor!’ Dover’s patience was wearing thin. ‘I said she didn’t shoot Isobel. Somebody else did that. But Violet did finish her off, that’s perfectly obvious. Look at the timing and everything. Friday morning she puts her coat on over her white overall and goes out to the bank – same as usual. I expect she left a minute or two earlier, but Mrs Kyle wouldn’t notice anything like that. She gets to the hospital, let’s say about five to ten. She knows Rex Purseglove won’t arrive till ten and he’ll probably hang about a bit waiting for the newspaper photographers to come and take some snaps of him in his brand-new officer’s uniform. Violet slips her coat off, and there she is in a white overall. You know what hospitals are like – look at “ Emergency Ward 10” – they’re all wearing white coats. She’d be practically invisible. And don’t forget she’s been popping in and out of that hospital any old time for the past eight months. She’d know her way around perfectly. If anybody spotted her on her way to Isobel’s room they wouldn’t have thought twice about it. And if she thought she’d been noticed, well, she could always call the whole thing off. She goes into Isobel’s room, pulls the pillow from under her head and smothers her. Then she puts the pillow neatly back in place again – very feminine touch, that. What would it take – a couple of minutes? Then she goes out again, puts on her coat and leaves the hospital. Straight across the road to the bank only a few seconds later than she’d been every Friday morning for years. Remember what the bank clerk said? He saw her coming across the road. If she’d come straight from the launderette she’d have been on the same side of the road as the bank all the way, wouldn’t she?’
‘Yes,’ admitted MacGregor unhappily. ‘But I thought we were working on the hypothesis, sir, that one person was responsible both for the shooting and the actual murder in the hospital?’
‘Ah,’ said Dover with a lordly wave of his hand, ‘that’s where you went wrong, isn’t it, my lad? I’ve warned you before about jumping to conclusions before you’ve got all the facts. It’s a bad failing of yours.’
‘But, this changes everything, doesn’t it, sir? I mean, if you’re right’ – Dover scowled blackly at this – ‘if you’re right, sir, and Isobel was killed in the hospital by Violet, then all this business of eliminating people because they couldn’t have made both attacks – well, we were just wasting our time, weren’t we, sir?’
‘Well,’ said Dover sourly, ‘I wouldn’t have put it quite like that myself, but I see what you’re trying to get at. Anyhow, now we – I’ve solved the second attack we shouldn’t have much difficulty in pinning down the joker who actually started the whole business off by shooting Isobel Slatcher in Church Lane. Now, come on, we can’t hang about here all day. We’d better go and get this bit over with.’
‘There’s just one thing I’m still not clear about, sir.’
Dover gave a sceptical snort. ‘Well?’
‘Well, why did Violet Slatcher kill Isobel? I mean, I just can’t see any reason for it. Was it one of these mercy killings?’
‘No, rather the opposite, in fact.’ Dover decided to be all enigmatic and irritating. ‘I’ll give you a clue, MacGregor.’ He chuckled. ‘Try “The Owl and the Pussy Cat”, my lad, try “The Owl and the Pussy Cat”!’
Chapter Ten
Macgregor’s Foot itched to kick his chief inspector where it would do most good. He didn’t consider it very good form for a senior police officer to be facetious about murder cases. Naturally he restrained himself from physical assault – Dover wasn’t worth sacrificing his career for – but he did try to point out that while the case against Violet Slatcher did, of course, sir, look very convincing, there wasn’t what you might call over much in the way of proof.
This implied criticism enraged Dover, as any form of criticism always did. ‘I don’t need proof,’ he blustered. ‘She’ll confess, you’ll see. Once she knows we’ve got the facts she’ll collapse like a pricked balloon. Good grief, if you wait for proof every time, nobody’d ever get arrested!’
When Dover and MacGregor finally arrived at Miss Slatcher’s house neither of them was actually looking forward to the encounter. They were both somewhat relieved when, once again, Mr Bonnington opened the front door in answer to MacGregor’s ring. He seemed very surprised to see them.
‘Is Miss Slatcher in?’ asked Dover brusquely.
‘Well, yes, Inspector, she is, as a matter of fact. Er, naturally.’ He smiled rather nervously. ‘I’ve just called round to see if there is anything I can do for her, poor woman. It’s a very trying time, you know, what with the inquest and the funeral and everything. Did you want to see her? Couldn’t it be left until a bit later? She’s really not
herself, you know.’
‘I’m sorry, sir, but I must insist on seeing her now,’ said Dover, and stepped resolutely across the threshold.
Violet Slatcher evinced neither surprise nor pleasure when she saw who had arrived. She was sitting bolt upright in a chair by the fire, her hands folded placidly in her lap.
‘Well,’ she demanded sharply, ‘have you arrested him yet?’
‘We’re still pursuing our investigations, madam,’ said Dover smoothly, nodding to MacGregor to get his notebook out.
Violet Slatcher sniffed contemptuously and turned her head away to stare into the fire.
‘We would like to ask you a few more questions, madam,’ Dover went on, taking the seat opposite her.
Mr Bonnington was still hovering uncertainly in the doorway.
‘Perhaps you would like me to go?’ he asked without much enthusiasm.
‘No,’ said Dover quickly, ‘I think you’d better stay.’
‘Whichever you do,’ snapped Miss Slatcher with tart indifference, ‘I wish you’d close that door. You’re letting all the cold air in.’
There was a pause while Mr Bonnington settled himself unobtrusively at the back of the room and Dover wondered where to begin. Violet Slatcher seemed to have more selfcontrol and toughness than he had expected, and he was not so sure now that she was going to break down and confess all at the first rattle of the handcuffs. He sighed deeply.
Violet Slatcher glanced impatiently at him. ‘Well, get on with it! I haven’t all day to waste, if you have.’
‘All right, madam. Well, first of all I’d like to clear up a few points about the exact nature of your relationship to Isobel.’
This time Violet Slatcher’s eyes didn’t return to the heart of the fire. She watched Dover with a bitter, mocking smile on her pale lips.
‘Perhaps, after all,’ said Dover, ‘you’d prefer Mr Bonnington to go?’
Violet shrugged her shoulders. ‘ What does it matter now.’
‘So Isobel really was your illegitimate child, and not your sister?’
