Dover and the Unkindest Cut of All

by Joyce Porter

  ‘What sort of things?’ asked MacGregor, feeling it was about time that he took some part in the conversation.

  Mrs Armstrong’s face took on an even rosier hue. ‘Oh, you know, things,’ she said, and began to give the draining board a good scrub.

  ‘Girls!’ explained Arthur cheerfully.

  ‘He began bringing home all sorts of those sexy books,’ Mrs Armstrong’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘And then he took to hanging around outside late at night. He used to go up to the nurses’ Home.’

  ‘They never drew their curtains,’ said Arthur with a chuckle.

  ‘Well, one night some man – one of their boy-friends, I shouldn’t wonder – caught him at it and gave him a right good thrashing. Blooming nerve, I thought, knocking our Arthur about like that.’

  ‘Near bashed the living daylights out of me,’ commented Arthur mournfully.

  ‘No more than you deserved, my lad!’ said his mother, wielding her scrubbing brush with increased energy. ‘Another cup of tea for you, sir? Well, it cured him, I will say that. He gave up his Peeping Tom tricks, but, of course, that wasn’t the end of it.’ She sighed. ‘The next thing I knew about it was a great big policeman coming round and hammering on my door. They’d had complaints, you see, and, of course, it was our Arthur.’ She gave a deeper sigh and wiped her hands on her apron. ‘A warning he got, that first time, and they told him to go and see a doctor. That didn’t do him much good. Told me he’d grow out of it. He didn’t say when, though. Next time they put him on probation and said he’d have to go to one of these physiatrists. Once a week he went, regular as clockwork. I saw to that. It didn’t cure him, though. Then our Arthur went and did it in this doctor’s waiting room in front of all his other patients, so that was that. Well, I didn’t know where to turn. They were beginning to talk about prison and I don’t know what. I mean, prison for a lad like our Arthur! It wasn’t as though he was really bad or anything. It’s just that he would keep on doing it, didn’t seem as though he could stop, somehow.’

  MacGregor cleared his throat. He had been hoping that Dover would ask the obvious question but the mastermind appeared too occupied with swilling tea. ‘What was it, exactly, Mrs Armstrong, that your son was doing?’

  Mrs Armstrong looked embarrassed. It was not her nature to call a spade a spade, especially when it was such a nasty spade as this one. And, besides, you’d expect an educated young gentleman like this to know, wouldn’t you? ‘Well, he used to sort of – well – show himself,’ she said faintly. ‘ Middle-aged ladies he used to pick. Don’t ask me why. This physiatrist had the nerve to say it was something to do with me. Blooming cheek! I’ve worked my fingers to the bone bringing that lad up decent. Nobody could have done more for him. I’ve devoted my whole life to him, especially with him being a bit on the simple side. Wherever he got it from he didn’t get it from me, that I do know.’ Mrs Armstrong folded her arms and glared with exasperation at her son.

  The tap of Mrs Armstrong’s eloquence seemed to have been turned off. Dover was just enjoying the blessed silence which filled the room when MacGregor, as usual, had to go sticking his oar in.

  ‘What happened then, Mrs Armstrong?’

  ‘Well, it was like a miracle, really. You wouldn’t hardly credit it. You see, it was Arthur picking these middle-aged ladies that did it, really. Nearly all of ’em belonged to the Ladies’ League and, of course, they were up in arms about it and no mistake. They kept writing to the police and the council and goodness knows what. Well, when it looked like nothing was going to stop him, one of them came to see me. She was very nice about it, really. She said they quite understood that Arthur probably couldn’t help himself but, in a respectable town like Wallerton, with visitors and everything, they just couldn’t let him go on and do nothing about it. Well, I said I could quite see that because it was a nasty business all round and I shouldn’t have liked it myself, but what could we do about it. Well, she said that the Ladies’ League was there to help people, whatever some folks might say about it, and they thought they could get him cured if I’d let him go away for a bit. They had to have my consent, you see, because he’s not twenty-one yet. Well, to cut a long story short, eventually I said yes and off his lordship went and since then we’ve had no trouble. Thank God!’

  Dover moved his chair back from the fire. One side of him was sizzling. ‘How long was he away?’ he asked, blinking his eyes and stretching himself.

  ‘Oh, I forget now. A week or ten days.’

  ‘But what has all this got to do with your son being a taxi-driver?’ Smugly MacGregor congratulated himself on probably being the only person there who remembered the source of this long-winded rigmarole.

  ‘Well, he had to get a job, didn’t he?’ queried Mrs Armstrong reasonably. ‘I couldn’t afford to keep him at home for evermore eating his head off, and his unemployment had run out and we weren’t going on the National Assistance, that I can tell you. We never have and, as far as I can help it, we never will. But he couldn’t get a job, you see. There’s not much work in Wallerton for lads of his age, specially in the winter, and, of course, what there was they wouldn’t give him. Everybody knew, you see. So this Mrs Liversedge – she was the lady that came to see me – she said she’d see what she could do. Well, her husband runs this taxi firm so eventually they decided they’d teach him to drive and make a taxi-driver out of him.’

  ‘But how on earth did he ever pass his test?’ asked MacGregor, staring in bewilderment at the grinning and myoptic Arthur.

  ‘Oh, Mrs Liversedge was a magistrate,’ Mrs Armstrong explained proudly. ‘She had a word with the examiner.’

  ‘But he must be an absolute menace on the road,’ protested. MacGregor, horrified at the mere thought of Arthur behind a steering wheel.

  ‘He certainly isn’t!’ Mrs Armstrong was offended. ‘He only drives between midnight and eight o’clock in the morning and there’s no traffic in Wallerton at that time.’

  ‘But even so …’

  ‘Mrs Liversedge said that anybody that wants a taxi after midnight deserves all they get,’ announced Arthur righteously. ‘She said they’re only drunks and suchlike from the Country Club.’

  ‘But suppose it’s an emergency,’ said MacGregor. ‘Suppose somebody’s got to go to the hospital or something?’

  ‘Then,’ responded Arthur simply, ‘they ring up the other firm. Anybody in Wallerton knows that and the visitors don’t matter. I hardly ever get a call when I’m on duty. I spend most of my time washing the cars.’

  Chapter Ten

  On that encouraging note the police intrusion of Mrs Armstrong’s cottage virtually came to an end.

  Dover, somewhat half-heartedly because MacGregor had announced the time in a meaningful voice, had bestirred himself to ask Arthur where he had gone for his miraculous treatment. Arthur took an unbelievable time to indicate that he didn’t rightly know. He rambled on about car rides and clean white sheets and the sweets they had given him, all mixed up with memories of a Sunday school outing to Brighton in 1954. Mrs Armstrong, equally vague, was unable to help. She had been so grateful to Mrs Liversedge that she hadn’t felt it incumbent on her to inquire where her son was being taken.

  ‘Oh well,’ Dover grunted as he rose stiffly to his feet, ‘we might have a chat with Mrs Liversedge some time.’

  Mrs Armstrong, now slicing carrots at a rate of knots, shook her head. ‘She passed away a couple of months ago. Very sudden it was. Pneumonia.’

  Dover was not sorry. One less interfering old busybody in the would could only be put on the credit side.

  ‘What do you think, sir?’

  ‘Eh?’ Dover looked up from the menu. ‘Oh, well, I’m going to have the steak and kidney pud.’

  ‘No, sir.’ MacGregor fought to keep his exasperation under control. ‘About the case?’

  ‘Oh, that,’ said Dover, and went back to his menu. ‘What’s pot au feu?’

  ‘Beef stew, sir.’

  ‘Well, why
the blazes can’t they say so,’ grumbled Dover.

  But MacGregor was not to be denied. ‘I may be wrong, sir,’ he went on when the business of ontering lunch had been completed, ‘but I’ve had the impression once or twice that you were on to something.’

  ‘Who, me?’ said Dover, trying to look innocent.

  ‘Well, I have had that impression, sir. I thought perhaps you’d seen a chink of light somewhere.’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned, Cochran’s dratted suicide is almost as big a blooming mystery as it was when we started.’

  ‘Almost?’ MacGregor pounced like a tiger.

  Dover leered maliciously. ‘I reckon anybody who’s forced to live in a dump like this has got motive enough for sticking his head in a gas oven every now and again.’

  ‘Oh,’ said MacGregor, thwarted. ‘ So you haven’t got a theory?’

  Dover shook his head.

  ‘Nor about the Hamilton business, sir? I thought from the way you were questioning young Arthur Armstrong that, maybe …?’

  ‘You heard the questions, laddie,’ said Dover with aggravating smugness, ‘and you heard the answers. You should know as much about it as I do.’

  ‘But I don’t know anything, sir,’ complained MacGregor.

  ‘Hard luck,’ said Dover.

  MacGregor glared at him. This sort of thing had happened before. Dover had kept on protesting, right up to the last minute, that he was completely at a loss’ and then had suddenly produced a rabbit out of his hat. It wasn’t always the right rabbit, but that was beside the point.

  On the other hand, MacGregor ruminated, as he watched the unedifying spectacle of his Chief Inspector with both feet in the trough, there had been other investigations when Dover had claimed to be equally at a loss. And had been. MacGregor shuddered at the very thought of those cases. They were enough to bring a blush of shame to the cheeks of the most barefaced parasite on the police vote. Dover hadn’t lost any sleep over them of course. ‘You can’t win ’em all,’ he used to say as he shrugged off yet another disaster.

  The point was, then, was the old guzzler telling the truth this time or not? MacGregor eyed his lord and master dubiously. It was difficult to tell. He was such a blatant liar. On the other hand, his great fat head was usually devoid of ideas of any sort, especially where his detective duties were concerned, so the odds were that he was completely at sea on this particular occasion, too.

  ‘I’ve got a few tentative “ideas of my own, actually, sir.’

  Dover didn’t even bother to raise his head from his plate. ‘Have you? Congratulations.’

  ‘I was wondering if I might – well – sort of follow them up, sir.’

  Dover turned a suspicious eye on his subordinate. ‘What are they?’

  ‘Well, sir,’ said MacGregor, as cagey as the Chief Inspector about sharing any of his bright ideas, ‘it’s a bit difficult to say.’

  ‘Try,’ Dover suggested unhelpfully. ‘What’s crème brûlée?’

  ‘Burnt cream, sir.’

  Dover turned to the waiter. ‘I’ll have plum duff, savvy?’

  The waiter looked superciliously down his nose at this podgy peasant with the disgusting table manners. ‘ Oui, monsieur,’ he said with as much of a sneer as he dared, ‘je sais. Plum duff!’

  ‘Well, come on, laddie!’ said Dover impatiently, as MacGregor was longing for the floor to open under his feet. ‘What’s on your mind?’

  ‘It’s the Hamilton affair, sir.’

  ‘Well, I hope you don’t think that stupid nit Armstrong had anything to do with it. More fool you, if you do.’

  ‘He has a police record, sir,’ MacGregor pointed out primly.

  ‘It wasn’t for grievous bodily harm or carrying a concealed weapon or anything like that, was it, you damned fool?’

  ‘His mother said he’d been keeping bad company, sir,’ MacGregor insisted.

  ‘God help us!’ groaned Dover and rolled his eyes alarmingly.

  Macgregor was beginning to get a bit annoyed at these antics. ‘You yourself caught him out in a downright lie, sir.’

  ‘Did I?’ said Dover.

  ‘He said that he could see the number of Hamilton’s house with no trouble at all. Well, that’s ridiculous, sir! You saw those house numbers right down the entire street. I’ve got perfect vision and I could hardly make them out in broad daylight. How could Armstrong, with his eyesight, possibly see them on a dark night? He was obviously lying.’

  ‘Who says it was a dark night?’ asked Dover, showing an unfortunate tendency to quibble over non-essentials.

  ‘It says so in the police file, sir. A fine dark night with no moon.’

  Dover, of course, was in no position to argue about what was or was not said in the police file since the pressure of events and his own lethargy had so far prevented him from even looking at it. ‘It still doesn’t mean Armstrong is lying,’ he said.

  MacGregor permitted himself a rather superior laugh. ‘I’m afraid I can’t see any other explanation, sir.’

  ‘No,’ said Dover broodily, ‘you wouldn’t.’

  ‘And if he’s lying, sir, that means he’s got something to hide.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Well, my theory is this, sir, that Hamilton was bumped off by some of his underworld associates – only, of course, he dropped down dead on them first.’

  ‘So they made mincemeat out of him just for the fun of it?’

  ‘More or less. I don’t see anything incongruous in that. You know what some of these gangs are like, sir. They’re always carving people up with their knives.’

  ‘And where does Cochran come into all this?’

  MacGregor frowned. ‘Well, I’m not quite dear about that, sir. I’ve got one or two ideas, though. For instance, he may have been in some sort of partnership with Hamilton, in spite of what Joey the. Jock says. We know they were both hanging around that Country Club and an association like that looks more than suspicious to me. So, when Hamilton cashes in his chips, Cochran takes it as a dreadful warning and realizes that the same fate awaits him. Scared out of his wits, he commits suicide off Cully Point.’

  Dover elaborately made no comment. He just gazed up at the ceiling, blew his cheeks out and whistled tunelessly.

  ‘On the other hand,’ said MacGregor, uncomfortably aware that his theories seemed much more convincing before they had been put into words, ‘ it’s quite possible that Cochran wasn’t hand in glove with Hamilton. Maybe he was hanging around Hamilton because he was suspicious of him. Playing detective, you might call it. Somehow he found out who was responsible for Hamilton’s death and they found out that he’d found out and so, once again, Cochran gets the wind up and kills himself. That would explain why he spent his week’s leave in bed. He was hiding.’

  Dover looked at his sergeant as though he couldn’t believe his ears.

  ‘Something along those lines, sir,’ added MacGregor lamely.

  ‘And the taxi-driver, Armstrong, is a member of the gang?’

  ‘Well, yes. Or just a helpless tool, perhaps.’ MacGregor could feel the sweat breaking out on his forehead.

  Dover slowly and wonderingly shook his head from side to side and tut-tutted softly to himself. ‘And what line of investigation was it you were thinking of following up?’

  Unobtrusively MacGregor got his handkerchief out and, under cover of blowing his nose, dabbed his brow. ‘ Well, I thought I could dig around a bit, sir,’ MacGregor cleared his throat, ‘ and try and find some of the people Hamilton was dealing with. You remember, sir, the Country Club manager mentioned that the night he died, Hamilton was waiting for somebody who didn’t turn up. Now, if we could find out who this interview was with …’

  ‘A lemon,’ said Dover.

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

  ‘A lemon,’ repeated Dover. ‘ That’s what the answer’ll be. Anyhow, if you want to waste your time on it, that’s your funeral.’

  MacGregor could hardly conceal either his del
ight or his surprise. The Chief Inspector was not habitually so sympathetic to youthful aspirations. ‘ Do you mean I can go ahead, sir?’

  ‘That’s what I said, isn’t it?’

  MacGregor pushed his chair back from the table. ‘ Now, sir?’

  Dover chewed his lip moodily. ‘I don’t see why not. I shan’t want you again this afternoon. I’ve got a few ideas of my own I want to think out.’

  MacGregor treated this shoddy old white lie with the contempt it deserved. ‘Well, I’ll be off, sir.’

  ‘Here, hang on a minute,’ said Dover. ‘Leave me that packet of cigarettes. I seem to have run out.

  The prospect of being let off the leash to follow his own bent had gone to MacGregor’s head. ‘They’ve got plenty in the bar, sir!’ he observed cheekily.

  Dover scowled. ‘Oh, have they, laddie? Well, you can just nip in and get me a couple of packets before you go. And I don’t want those damned filter-tips, either.’

  MacGregor’s mini-revolt thus set him back precisely ten shillings and twopence. Regretfully, because even in these days detective sergeants are not rolling in money, he chalked it up to experience.

  When MacGregor had gone Dover ordered himself another coffee and sat brooding over the luncheon table, much to the annoyance of the dining-room staff. Dover was thinking. It was not an occupation he indulged in frequently but, when he did, he was thorough about it. Knives and forks were chucked noisily into drawers, crockery was tossed from one end of the room to the other, table cloths were shaken with a snap like a whip lash. Dover sat on, oblivious. The foreign waiters chatted furiously amongst themselves and, driven to the limit, began piling the chairs on to the tables.

  It would be unfair to accuse Dover of putting himself to the trouble of cudgelling his brains over the Cochran-Hamilton affair merely so as to be able, at a later date, to spit in MacGregor’s eye. This unworthy motive had its place in the scheme of things, but it was by no means the principal one. Nor was it true that the Chief Inspector was spurred on solely by the desire to resume his holiday. An uninterrupted fortnight of Mrs Dover’s company was not the sort of thing likely to inspire her husband to exert himself. No, although no one could accuse him of taking the affair seriously, none the less he was mildly intrigued by it.