Dover and the Unkindest Cut of All
Page 21
‘Cor!’ rasped one of the policeman throatily, and forgot himself so far as to dig Dover companionably in the ribs. ‘Get a load of that, mate!’
Dover did. The picture on the screen was faint but unmistakable. A young lady of improbable dimensions and no clothes was saucily cavorting with a gentleman in a similar state of undress on an enormous double bed.
‘Cor!’ breathed the policeman again and wiped the back of his hand across his brow. ‘They’re not going to …? By God, they are! Cor!’
But, much to his and Dover’s disappointment, one lady at least had kept her head when all around were losing theirs. With a final gobbling whine of seductive music and a loud click, the screen went blank.
‘Hubert! What, may I ask, is the meaning of this disgraceful intrusion into a strictly private meeting?’
The ladies were rallying, led by the Chief Constable’s own formidable spouse. The unfortunate man cringed as, supported by some very militant-looking members of the sorority, she bore down on him.
His miserable and confused explanations were quite unacceptable. More and more ladies pulled themselves together, switched on the offensive and crowded round demanding enlightenment. It looked as though a very nasty situation was about to develop. One Amazon, who bore a marked resemblance to the winner of the 1962 Grand National, picked up a chair leg which had got broken off in the initial panic and weighed it thoughtfully in her hand. Unobtrusively, the male constables began to retreat from the room. Only the few policewomen moved amongst the members of the Ladies League, soothing and explaining, and they looked as though they would need very little inducement to change sides.
A hand grasped Dover’s coat collar and shook him. It belonged to an enraged Miss ffiske. She was shouting something at him. Dover turned away to find Mrs Jolliott, arms akimbo, on the other side of him. Out in the middle of the hall Doris Doughty had been hoisted up on to a chair and was already launching fervently into Henry the Fifth’s battle speech before Agincourt. As several well-permed heads turned to listen to her rousing declamation, Dover managed to catch the Chief Constable’s bloodshot eye.
‘Come on!’ gasped Dover, struggling to free himself from the clutching hands. ‘Weve got to get out of here!’
‘Where to?’ demanded the Chief Constable, fighting his way ruthlessly to Dover’s side.
‘There’s only one place we’ll be safe. Follow me!’
They made it to the gentlemen’s cloakroom by the skin of their teeth. The Ladies’ League, excited and intent on vengeance as they were, remembered that they were ladies and hesitated. Even the most dauntless was forced to think twice before she breeched this last bulwark of masculine privacy.
Inside the cloakroom Sukey was cowering in a corner. She snarled automatically but, seeing the expression on Dover’s face, wisely lowered her gums over her teeth and accepted the intrusion. Dover leaned his forehead against the cool white tiles.
‘That was a bloody near squeak!’ he groaned shakily. ‘What’s got in to ’em, for God’s sake? Another couple of seconds and they’d have lynched us.’ He dragged himself over to one of the two available seats and sat down, exhausted.
‘It was those films,’ explained the Chief Constable, whose better half had managed to insert a few explanatory facts into the torrent of abuse she had let fly at him. ‘I say, do you really think they’ll not dare to follow us in here? I wish we could lock that door.’
With an effort Dover hoisted himself to his feet. ‘Maybe we ought to take up action stations,’ he sighed. ‘Just in case.’
He faced the appropriate wall. It took a moment for the penny to drop. Then the Chief Constable got the idea and with a sigh of his own took up his position beside Dover.
‘What about the films?’ asked Dover wearily.
Wild shouts could be heard from the corridors outside. Shrill voices were calling for tar and feathers.
The Chief Constable glanced nervously over his shoulder. ‘God, listen to ’em! The films? Oh, it was a batch they’d got hold of from some scruffy agency in London. You know, the sort they show in the more disreputable strip clubs, and worse. The Ladies’ League were sort of going to review them and then write up to members of Parliament and what have you complaining about the degradation of womanhood.’
‘If that bit I saw was anything to go by, they must have had quite a night of it.’
‘Not half,’ agreed the Chief Constable. ‘They’ve been watching ’em for hours. Of course, that was what all the secrecy was about. No wonder they kept the doors locked. Naturally they didn’t want people to know what they were doing. Well, you can understand it, can’t you? The Ladies’ League having an evening of dirty films? They’d never live it down. You can’t blame ’em for going berserk when we broke in, can you?’ He looked anxiously at Dover. ‘Do you reckon they’ll calm down, given time?’
‘We could swear a solemn oath never to reveal what we saw to a living soul,’ suggested Dover gloomily. ‘Maybe that’d satisfy ’em.’
‘And maybe it wouldn’t,’ the Chief Constable rejoined miserably. ‘Damn it, Dover, this is all your bloody fault! If it hadn’t been for you and your crack-brained theory about’em castrating MacGregor, we wouldn’t be in this mess!’
‘It wasn’t a crack-brained theory!’ snapped Dover crossly. ‘My God, you’ve seen what they’re like. They’re capable of anything! We’ll be damned lucky if they don’t castrate us before we get out of here.’
‘Rubbish,’ said the Chief Constable, blenching.
‘And where’s MacGregor, eh?’ Dover pressed home his defence. ‘You tell me that! Lured away by one of those old bags and kidnapped, that’s where he is. Poor devil, they’ll have cooked his goose for him good and proper by now. I don’t envy you having to face him when he turns up again. You won’t be able to look him in the eye after what you’ve let them do to him.’
‘Me?’ squeaked the Chief Constable. ‘It wasn’t my fault! You were the one who buggered everything up. If you’d told me properly what your plans were I’d have …’
‘Told your wife!’ said Dover nastily. ‘That’s why I’d got to keep it all under my hat. I couldn’t trust any of you! I …’
‘Now, look here, you!’
The argument waxed loud and furious. Even Sukey opened her eyes as the two poliecmen shouted and raged at each other. They were just on the point of resorting to an exchange of physical violence when the cloakroom door opened. Two hearts stopped beating as one.
‘It’s only me, sir,’ said MacGregor with a most inappropriate smile.
Dover sagged with relief and then stiffened with fury. ‘ Where the hell have you been?’
The Chief Constable was a kindlier man. ‘Are you all right, sergeant? I mean, are you …? Have they …? You are all right, aren’t you?’
MacGregor stared at him in some amazement. Such concern for his welfare on the part of a senior officer was unexpected. ‘ Yes, I’m fine, thank you, sir. Er, how are you?’
‘Where’ve you been all evening?’ snarled Dover.
MacGregor turned to him eagerly. ‘That’s what I wanted to tell you, sir. I’ve got a real lead at last. You see, just after you’d gone, this girl rang me up …’
‘What girl?’
‘Sibyl, sir. You remember, one of the Chicks at the Country Club. We’ve got quite pally what with me being there every night and I think, in her own way, she’s taken quite a fancy to me.’
There was a sceptical snort from Dover.
‘Well, sir, tonight she phoned me up and said she’d got some information about the Hamilton set up and how much was it worth. Well, I still don’t know how you knew she was going to ring me, sir, but I remembered what you said and so naturally I arranged to meet her. We went off to some pub or other out in the country to talk things over. We had a bit of an argey-bargey about the money side of things but in the end we settled on a mutually acceptable figure and then she started talking.’ MacGregor’s eyes glistened with excitement. ‘She told
me, sir, the name of the man who’s taken over Hamilton’s racket – subbing any likely villains with a big job on hand. You’ll never guess who it is, sir! You could have knocked me down with a feather, sir, when I heard. It’s …’
‘Now, just hold your horses a minute, sergeant!’ The Chief Constable’s voice and face were grim. ‘Are you standing there and calmly telling us that you’ve just been out with a girl all evening?’
‘Well, not just out with a girl, sir,’ protested MacGregor, disappointed at the lukewarmness with which his wonderful news was being received. ‘I know the identity of the man who’s taken over where Hamilton left off. Well, you can see what that means, can’t you, sir? He must be the man who fixed Hamilton, mustn’t…’
The Chief Constable wasn’t listening. ‘Do you mean you haven’t been kidnapped? That nobody’s even tried to castrate you? That you’ve got all your faculties intact?’
Macgregor drew back slightly. He glanced at Dover for enlightenment, but the Chief Inspector had retreated back into his cubicle to rest his feet. ‘Er, yes, sir.’
‘Yes, what, you damned fool?’ roared the Chief Constable.
‘Yes, I’m perfectly all right, sir. And no, nobody’s tried to, er, castrate me.’ MacGregor smiled cheerfully and tried not to look as though he thought the Chief Constable had gone stark staring bonkers.
The Chief Constable clutched his head. ‘Ruined!’ he yelled. ‘I’m ruined, that’s what I am! Of all the blasted gibbering idiots it’s ever been my misfortune to meet! What am I going to tell my Standing Joint Committee? What am I going to tell my wife? What am I going to say to that screaming horde of women outside? What am I …’
‘I’m afraid I don’t quite understand what’s going on, sir. I called in at the police station and they said …’
‘Oh, shut up!’ snarled the Chief Constable. ‘Where’s the blundering fool who started all this?’
‘He’s in there, sir.’ MacGregor nodded at Dover’s cubicle, the door of which had now been quietly closed.
‘Well, get him out! I want to have the pleasure of tearing him limb from limb with my own bare hands.’
It was some time before Dover could be induced to emerge from a refuge which, if not savoury, was at least comparatively safe.
The Chief Constable had gone well past the stage at which he would listen to reason. Such arguments and explanations as Dover still had the strength and interest to put forward were brushed aside or shouted down. The Chief Constable had now only one aim in life: to rid his county of this stupid fat slob at the earliest possible moment.
‘You, too!’ he bellowed at MacGregor. ‘I want the pair of you out of here, double quick. And God help you if you ever set foot in Wallerton again!’ His voice dropped menacingly. ‘And if you ever so much as breathe one word about what’s been going on here tonight I’ll personally make you sorry you were ever born – both of you. Just forget it, see? Hamilton, my nephew, maniac lady vets, sinister conspiracies, the lot! Not one word, if you value your lives!’ He controlled himself with an effort. ‘Now you, sergeant, get outside and see if those women are still hanging around. It sounds as though the coast might be clear now and, if it is, you’re to get my car stationed outside the main door with the engine running. Understand? Tell my driver that once you and this great oaf are inside he’s to drive precisely one hundred miles due north and dump you there – wherever it is. By my calculations that should land you in the middle of Sabat Moors and how you get back to civilization from there is your business. It won’t break my heart if you never make it.’
‘But, sir,’ protested MacGregor.
‘Don’t argue!’ stormed the Chief Constable. ‘Move!’
MacGregor moved. In a remarkably short space of time he was back again. The ladies had withdrawn, retreat was possible, the car was waiting.
There were no prolonged farewells. The Chief Constable contented himself with breathing heavily down his nose. Only Sukey felt called upon to make some gesture. As Dover was leaving she waddled over to him and offered a paw. It was an unexpected token of sympathy from one idle lay-about to another.
It was nearly a month later when the Chief Constable suddenly disappeared. He was missing for nearly a week. Amnesia, they said, brought on by overwork. He resumed his duties after a short rest as though nothing had happened but, somehow, he never seemed quite the same again.
Copyright
First published in 1967 by Cape
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