by Joyce Porter
The two ladies sank on their knees by Dover’s feet and yanked his trouser legs up. Dover kicked out feebly.
‘Who the hell are they?’ he demanded in a voice hoarse with panic. ‘Burke and Hare?’
The fatter one shook her head when she saw Dover’s stout black boots. ‘It’s no good, Bella,’ she told her friend, ‘ we’ll never be able to cut those off with your penknife.’
‘Maybe this young man has got a stronger one, dear?’
Obligingly MacGregor began fishing in his pockets.
Dover stopped him. ‘Sergeant!’ he roared. ‘I’m warning you! If you let these two harpies lay another finger on me, I’ll fix you good and proper, by God, I will! Tell ’em to shove off and mind their own blasted business!’
But it was the fatter one who resolved the situation. ‘We need an expert on this,’ she announced firmly as she got to her feet. ‘Good thing Hazel’s just next door. She’ll be able to fix him up.’
‘Will she be in now, dear?’ asked Bella, gratefully accepting MacGregor’s’s assistance as she too stood up.
‘Oh, yes, she has a surgery every morning. Well,’ – the fatter, one slung her handbag cheerfully on her arm – ‘brace yourself, Bella! Chair lift!’
It was no easy task but once Bella and her friend had made up their minds to aid and assist suffering humanity, aid and assist they did. There were protests and groans and squeals of pain from Dover as he was hoisted to his feet and his arms draped round the plump shoulders of the two ladies. There were grunts from the ladies as, their hands clasped under the Chief Inspector’s posterior, they took the strain.
MacGregor, feebly hovering around and making halfhearted offers of assistance, picked up Dover’s bowler hat and followed behind as the unwieldy trio lurched and staggered down the steps. Dover clutched his two supporters tightly round the neck and only stopped groaning to scream whenever danger appeared to approach his injured foot.
Perspiring profusely the two ladies manoeuvred their burden out of the front gate and carried it a short distance along the pavement. Interested spectators were still watching from their windows and doorways.
‘Right wheel, Bella!’ gasped the fatter one.
They turned into the next gateway and boggled slightly at the new flight of steps which loomed before them like another Everest.
Dover turned his head and addressed his sergeant. ‘What the blazes are they up to now? My God, you’re going to pay for this laddie!’
MacGregor, who was after all a detective, had been putting two and two together and had moreover spotted the brass plate on the door. ‘It’s all right, sir,’ he said. ‘They’re taking you to a doctor.’
Bella, groping blindly for the bottom step, missed it.
‘Oh, help!’ moaned Dover, tightening his stranglehold on the necks. He turned again to MacGregor. ‘For God’s sake, tell ’em to get a move on! My foot’s killing me!’
The ladies were flagging but they were made of stern stuff. They reached the top of the steps and almost fell in through the open doorway.
MacGregor, stepping over the threshold in their wake, glanced at the brass plate. He stopped horrified, refused to believe his eyes and read it again. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He hurried into the hallway in a vain attempt to ward off the disaster which was sure to come, but he was too late.
Dover was already being carried through two ranks of interested spectators towards a door marked surgery. There were two men, six women, three children, five cats, one boxer dog, two budgerigars and a snake in a box with holes in it.
Chapter Six
‘Are you sure it’s this foot?’ asked Miss Hazel ffiske sceptically.
‘Of course I’m sure!’ snapped Dover with a great deal of irritation. ‘Look at that bruise!’
Miss ffiske, sniffing contemptuously, dabbed at the indicated spot with a piece of damp cotton wool. ‘Dirt,’ she said, and held up the cotton wool in eloquent silence as proof.
Dover scowled sullenly at her. ‘Are you sure it’s not broken?’ he demanded.
‘Of course I’m sure. There’s no damage at all. She’d have needed a steam hammer to get through those boots.’
Miss ffiske shoved Dover’s foot into a bowl of warm water, yanked it out again, wiped it and had another look. Sighing deeply she got to her feet and went over to a cupboard. She took out a large bottle, uncorked it and poured a sour green liquid over Dover’s toes.
‘What’s that?’ asked Dover, anxious and suspicious.
‘Horse liniment,’ said Miss ffiske.
The uproar which had been caused by Dover’s dramatic entry into the surgery had long since died down. His stormy outrage at finding he had been brought to a female veterinary surgeon for treatment had been comparatively short-lived. In his state of health any expert attention was, he conceded grudgingly, better than nothing. He had had, he said unkindly, his belly full of amateurs.
After this remark there was little difficulty in persuading Bella and her friend to take their departure.
While Dover died a thousand noisy deaths MacGregor had made the introductions and explanations and Miss ffiske had got down, with more than a hint of unwillingness, to the business of ministering to the sick.
‘I don’t know what you wanted to go bothering poor Mrs Hamilton for in the first place,’ observed Miss ffiske, as they waited for the horse liniment to dry. ‘ She’s been as mad as a hatter for years and she’s gone clean round the bend since that business about her husband.’
‘But that’s what we wanted to see her about,’ said MacGregor. ‘We’re sort of re-opening the case.’
‘I can’t think why,’ was Miss ffiske’s tart rejoinder. ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish, if you ask me. He should have dropped down dead years ago.’
‘Oh, you knew him, did you?’
‘I could hardly live next door to him for ten years without knowing him, could I? He was a dreadful man. He had the morals of a tom cat and when he’d been drinking – ugh!’ She shuddered.
‘But, surely he didn’t try to force his attentions on you, did he?’ asked Dover spitefully. Miss ffiske was in her early fifties and looked more like a retired bantam-weight boxer than anything else. She was small and wiry with a scrubbed pugnacious face and short stiff hair chopped into an uncompromising bob. She was not the type that any man, however lecherous and however drunk, would have accosted light-heartedly.
Miss ffiske seized Dover’s toes and bent them vigorously up and down. She ignored the howls this brief sample of manipulation produced. ‘ There, I told you there was nothing broken.’
‘If there wasn’t before, I should damned well think there is now,’ growled Dover. ‘Where did they train you? In the elephant house?’
‘No, unfortunately,’ Miss ffiske snapped back at him, ‘otherwise I should have been better qualified to handle you!’
MacGregor stepped in quickly before the situation could degenerate any further. ‘ You were telling us about Mr Hamilton, Miss ffiske?’
‘Oh, was I? Oh well, I haven’t really had much trouble with him personally for some years now. He was a nuisance at one time, always making suggestive remarks – you know the sort of thing – but I soon put a stop to that. He didn’t get any encouragement from me! But then he started going to this disgusting club they have and coming back blind to the world at all hours of the night. A couple of times he’s come hammering on my door at well past midnight and shouting that he couldn’t get in. I warned him if it happened again I’d send for the police, and I would have done, too. A man like that ought to be kept behind bars permanently. Of course, he said he’d mistaken the house. They do all look alike, I know, and you can’t see these dratted numbers in the day time, never mind late at night but, knowing him, I wasn’t prepared to accept any excuses.’
‘I said,’ said MacGregor. ‘ But on the night of the murder, or rather – well – the night he died, you didn’t hear anything at all, I understand?’
‘Not a squeak,
’ said Miss ffiske. ‘ When I go to bed, I go there to sleep – unlike some people. And, anyhow, our rooms are at the back of the house.’
‘Our rooms?’
‘My receptionist. Miss Gourlay, lives here, too,’ explained Miss ffiske curtly. ‘Well, if you’ve no more questions I’d like to be getting on with my work. You can put your sock on now, Mr Dover.’
‘You couldn’t just have a look at that corn on my little toe while you’re about it, could you?’ asked Dover.
‘No.’ said Missffiske, ‘I couldn’t. And now, if you don’t mind, I’ve a room full of patients waiting out there and, not being part of the National Health, my time is money. That’ll be seven and sixpence and you can pay my receptionist on the way out.’
‘Perhaps I’d better ring for a taxi, sir?’ asked MacGregor.
‘Nonsense!’ said Miss ffiske sharply. ‘Plenty of exercise, that’s what he needs. The worst thing he can do is let that foot stiffen up. Keep him on the move, sergeant. A good brisk walk four times a day will do him a world of good. He’s grossly overweight, anyhow.’
Before Dover had time to think up some appropriate and cutting rejoinder, the surgery door opened and a young woman with a weak but pretty face came in. Like Miss ffiske she wore a white overall with the blue bow of the Ladies’ League pinned on the left breast. She seemed confused to find the two detectives still there and blushed deeply.
‘Oh, do excuse me,’ she stammered. ‘I didn’t realize … I’m so sorry …’
‘What is it, Janie?’ demanded Miss ffiske.
‘Oh, er, nothing. It doesn’t matter.’
‘You must have come in here to tell me something. What is it?’
‘It’s just Mrs Widgery-Smith, dear, but I can come back.’
‘What about Mrs Widgery-Smith?’ Miss ffiske sounded a trifle impatient.
Miss Gourlay blushed deeper and flung a reproachful glance at her employer. ‘It’s about her little pussy cat, dear.’
‘Well?’
‘She wants to know when she can bring it in for its operation.’ Miss Gourlay’s voice sank to an embarrassed whisper.
‘What operation?’
Miss Gourlay’s eyes flicked nervously at Dover and MacGregor. ‘Oh, you know, dear.’
‘No, I don’t know!’ retorted Miss ffiske stubbornly. ‘And I do wish you’d stop being so blasted namby-pamby, Janie! If she wants the damned cat neutered, why don’t you say so instead of beating about the bush like something out of a Victorian novel?’
‘I’m sorry, dear,’ murmured Miss Gourlay.
‘When does she want to bring it?’
‘Friday morning, if that’s all right with you, dear.’
‘It’ll do. Tell her ten o’clock. And just see you don’t forget to get the operating theatre ready this time.’
‘No, dear,’ said Miss Gourlay and thankfully withdrew.
‘Women!’ snorted Miss ffiske. She slammed a few drawers in her desk to relieve her feelings. ‘I sometimes wonder why I bother!’
MacGregor, on his knees fastening Dover’s bootlace, looked up politely.
‘You spend thousands of pounds on the best equipped operating theatre for a hundred miles and what happens?’ Miss ffiske addressed her question to the room at large and stayed not for an answer.
‘Some fool of a girl doesn’t even remember to take the blasted dust sheets off!’
‘It must be very annoying,’ sympathized MacGregor, rather forcefully assisting Dover to his feet. The Chief Inspector looked like sitting there all day.
Miss ffiske looked at the pair of them in some surprise, as though she had forgotten they were there. ‘Eh? Oh, well, yes,’ she said gruffly. ‘Still, she’s got some very good qualities. Devotion. Loyalty. And she doesn’t usually forget things. Well, you’re off, are you? Good. And, remember, plenty of walking. Just tell that kid with the over-fed pekinese to come in, will you?’
‘Quite an exciting morning, sir,’ observed MacGregor with a merry laugh as he helped Dover down the steps.
‘That’s one way of putting it,’ said Dover grimly. ‘I noticed you were playing your usual role of interested spectator. It’s coming to something when a Chief Inspector gets beaten up while his blooming sergeant stands by watching.’
‘It’s getting on for twelve o’clock, sir. I expect you’ll be feeling like some lunch. It’ll only take us a couple of minutes to get back to the hotel.’
The same thought had already crossed Dover’s mind but the Chief Inspector was nothing if not pig-headed. ‘I couldn’t eat a thing,’ he grumbled. ‘Not after what I’ve been through. Fair turned me over, it has.’
‘Oh,’ said MacGregor, rather at a loss. ‘Well, perhaps you’d like to go and have a lie-down in your room, sir?’
Dover eyed his sergeant suspiciously. ‘You seem damned keen on getting back to the hotel, don’t you? What’s the matter? Developed an allergy to work now – on top of everything else?’
MacGregor gritted his teeth. With Dover in this mood whatever you said was wrong.
Meanwhile Dover made a genuine effort to be as awkward as possible. ‘ Wasn’t there some woman witness or other in this street?’
‘Well, yes, sir. There was a Miss Doughty, I think the name was. She was the one who is supposed to have seen the green van and the two men on the night Hamilton died.’
‘We’ll go and see her,’ said Dover. ‘Which way is it?’
With considerable difficulty, since Dover was hanging on to his arm like grim death, MacGregor hunted through his pockets for his notebook. He had taken the precaution of making a few notes in case Dover tried to stump him. He found Miss Doughty’s address and carefully orientated himself. This was not the occasion to walk the Chief Inspector in the wrong direction.
At last he made up his mind and announced his decision to the impatiently waiting Dover. ‘This way, sir. But I think I should warn you that Miss Doughty apparently lives in a flat on the top floor.’ He looked up pointedly at the tall houses lining the street. ‘I don’t suppose there’ll be a lift, sir.’
Dover snorted contemptuously and started off with a gallant limp. ‘ I can manage it all right, laddie,’ he said with withering sarcasm. ‘ More to the point is, can you?’
This remark effectively stopped MacGregor making any complaint as he laboured up to Miss Doughty’s flat bearing the greater part of Dover’s weight in addition to his own. When they reached the top MacGregor was panting and sweating. Dover, cool as a cucumber, regarded him with a malicious grin.
‘Ring the bell, laddie! If you’ve got the strength left, that is.’
MacGregor jabbed viciously at the bell push. While he waited for the door to be opened he occupied his time by composing yet another letter to the Assistant Commissioner requesting a transfer to some other – any other – senior detective at Scotland Yard. He was fully absorbed in steering a course between a brutal exposé of the truth and rank insubordination when the door in front of him opened noiselessly.
‘Ho, ho!’ throbbed a rich fruity voice, quivering with timbre. ‘Ho, ho! Will you come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly!’
MacGregor blinked. In front of him loomed a tall matronly figure bundled up in a faded kimono.
‘Miss Doughty?’
‘The same, darling boy, the same. Come in, come in, whoever you are!’ Large dark eyes, liberally bedaubed with mascara, eye shadow and false eyelashes, rolled invitingly.
MacGregor nervously took a step backwards.
‘Don’t be shy, darling boy!’ A hand, beautifully manicured but none too clean, shot out from the folds of the kimono and fastened on MacGregor’s arm. With surprising strength Miss Doughty began to draw him into her flat.
‘Chief Inspector!’ MacGregor’s voice was panicky.
There was a non-committal grunt from Dover. He had found a chair on the landing and had thankfully sat down on it. Now his eyes were closed and his mouth was beginning to sag open.
‘Chief Inspector Dov
er, sir!’ The second call was more penetrating.
Dover opened his eyes reluctantly.
Miss Doughty released her hold on MacGregor’s arm. ‘ Oh, there are two of you, are there?’ She leered roguishly. ‘Is he as pretty as you, darling boy?’ She stepped out on to the landing and had a look. ‘Oh, no, he’s not! Where on earth did you find him, darling boy? In a dustbin?’
Miss Doughty wouldn’t see sixty again. It is just possible that she wouldn’t see seventy either. However, she was fighting off old age with all the weapons at her command. She swayed her hips provocatively as she led the way into her sitting-room and sat down with conscious elegance, her back to the window.
‘Scotland Yard?’ she questioned in vibrant tones. ‘ How divinely thrilling! And what can I do for you?’
MacGregor looked at Dover. Dover was staring absent-mindedly at a mantelpiece packed with photographs, mostly framed and all signed.
‘Aha!’ Miss Doughty waggled a playfully reproving finger. ‘ You’re looking at my photographs, you naughty man! I know what the next move is – you’ll be asking for my autograph! Well, if you’re a good boy I might just give you one!’
Dover scowled and retreated deeper in to his chair.
‘You were an actress, were you, Miss Doughty?’ asked MacGregor politely. It was a reasonable deduction as most of the photographs were of people in theatrical costumes and poses.
Miss Doughty looked annoyed. ‘Of course, darling boy! And still am! Ah, well,’ she forgave him with a gracious smile, ‘you’re probably too young to remember me in my hey-day.’ She swept a hand in Dover’s direction. ‘But you’re not, darling! You haven’t forgotten Doris Doughty and her Troupe of Four. My public were always wonderfully loyal to me.’ Dover’s eyes had acquired a blank, vacant look so, very sensibly. Miss Doughty switched back to MacGregor. ‘Of course, I never gave them any rubbish, darling boy. Nothing but the best from Doris Doughty. And none of your West End commercial muck, either. The Bard, that’s what I gave them. And I took him to the people. Schools, village halls, army camps during the war. Oh, how those dear soldier boys loved me! That’s where the real people are, darling, not sitting in five guinea boxes and covered with diamonds. This,’ she selected a photograph from a small table by her elbow, ‘this is me in Lear. What a triumph that was! We played to packed houses from one end of the country to the other.’
