by Joyce Porter
MacGregor did indeed remember, if only because of the acute embarrassment caused when Dover couldn’t find his. In fact, if it hadn’t been for MacGregor deducing (in the best detective fashion) that Dover’s pockets were probably full of holes, they would never have got into the Talbot house at all. Not that that was much compensation for the pure horror MacGregor had experienced as he plunged his hand down into the Stygian depths of the lining of Dover’s overcoat. MacGregor fought down another heave of nausea and resolutely turned his thoughts to happier subjects. Like murder.
‘Could I have the names and addresses of your guests, sir?’
Mr Talbot was not unprepared for the request. He had the list, already written out and to hand. Such, however, was his love of his own voice that, instead of handing the sheet of paper over to MacGregor, he read its contents out aloud in a clear voice at dictation speed, thoughtfully spelling out any proper names which might give trouble.
MacGregor got them all down. Mr and Mrs Arbuthnot Quail, The Old Brew House, Ghapminster. Mr and Mrs Berkley Rawlinson, Corner Cottage, Pebble Lane, Little Alesford. Mrs Natasha Srednaya, 42b Station Road, Swinham, 16.
‘Our usual group, in fact,’ said Mr Talbot when he saw that MacGregor’s pencil had stopped moving. ‘We meet here every other Wednesday, except in August. I contacted everybody by telephone this afternoon and they have all expressed their readiness to provide Mrs Talbot and myself with an alibi, in the unlikely event that the need for one should arise.’
And that, as far as Mr Talbot was concerned, was that. It was only because Dover hadn’t yet finished feeding his fat face that MacGregor felt obliged to prolong the proceedings. He asked Mr Talbot for the telephone numbers of the bridge players, much to that gentleman’s ill-concealed astonishment.
‘You’re not seriously intending to contact these people, are you, sergeant? I am a Bank Manager, after all. My word is my bond. I can assure you there is absolutely no need to go pestering my guests on the telephone – or in any other way, if it comes to that.’
‘Oh, we most likely won’t, sir,’ said MacGregor soothingly. ‘It’s just that, if we do have to, at least we shan’t have to come bothering you again.’
Mr Talbot sniffed, raised his eyebrows at his wife and read out the phone numbers in an ill-natured gabble. ‘Anything else, sergeant?’
‘Er – you played in this room, did you, sir?’
‘We did.’
‘And you would have heard if anybody had come knocking at your front door?’
‘Naturally.’
Dover, having gone through the tea tray like a plague of locusts, leaned back, belched loudly and, bestowing his rosette for a blow-out first-class, unfastened the top button of his trousers.
MacGregor realized that it was time to go.
At least, he pondered, as he supported a now limping Dover down the drive, this was one occasion when the Chief Inspector wouldn’t try to pin the murder on his late host. Throughout the whole interview he hadn’t opened his mouth except to shovel food into it, and MacGregor doubted whether he had taken in anything at all of the proceedings. But, MacGregor was wrong. Dover had been listening.
‘A bloody likely yam!’
‘Sir?’
‘Overweight stuffed shirt!’
‘You mean Mr Talbot, sir?’
‘Who else, for God’s sake?’ Dover paused to admire the Spring flowers. He also contrived to get his breath back and give his poor old feet a rest at the same time. ‘You didn’t swallow all that load of old codswallop he was dishing out, did you?’
MacGregor tried not to sound too patronizing. ‘Mr Talbot has a pretty solid looking alibi, sir. Apart from his wife, there are no less than five other people who can vouch for him. I’m sure they’ll all confirm his story when we get round to seeing them, and there’s absolutely no question here of anybody nipping out in the middle of a storm to mend a garden fence.’
Dover grunted and resumed his funereal progress down the drive. ‘You play bridge, laddie? Or whist, which comes to the same thing?’
‘Er – no, sir. We used to play a lot of canasta at school, of course.’
‘My old woman’s become a bloody whist fiend recently,’ said Dover gloomily. ‘Says it makes a nice change from bingo.’
Privately, MacGregor reckoned that Mrs Dover had probably earned all the extra-marital amusements she could get, but naturally he wasn’t tactless enough to say so. ‘That’s very interesting, sir,’ he commented brightly, carefully interposing his body between Dover and the sight of the police car waiting out in the roadway.
‘Once a bloody month,’ Dover went grumbling on, obviously unburdening himself of a long-standing grievance, ‘they meet at our house. Coffee and bits of sandwiches with all the crusts cut off, and a cold supper left out on a bloody plate for me. And I have to feed the bloody cat! No wonder my stomach’s in the state it’s in. Cold food rots the lining like nobody’s business.’ MacGregor didn’t wish to know that. ‘You were talking about bridge, sir,’ he reminded Dover hopefully.
Dover was growing bored with the conversation and in his impatience failed to notice that MacGregor was leading him towards yet another garden path. ‘You play bridge in fours, laddie,’ he said irritably. ‘Same as bloody whist. Five’s just possible because you can have each person sitting out in turn and it’s not too bad. Seven, on the other hand, is a bloody silly number. That gives you four people actually playing and three more sitting about twiddling their bloody thumbs. You can’t play any sort of cards with only three people, not properly. And certainly not bridge or bloody whist. I know because my missus bitches like hell when the numbers aren’t right.’
MacGregor blinked. Was it possible that even the thought of landing a highly-paid job with Pomeroy Chemicals had sharpened up Dover’s thought processes? Could the old fool, armed with his vicarious experience of four-handed card games, have stumbled on something that his highly intelligent, highly presentable sergeant had missed. MacGregor started on the mental arithmetic. Two Talbots, two Quails, two Rawlinsons and a Mrs Natasha Somebody-or-other. That made seven all right.
‘Perhaps Mrs Talbot doesn’t play, sir.’
‘Nobody said she didn’t,’ objected Dover. ‘And it’s the same difference. Six is a bloody awkward number, too. And so,’ he added, just in case MacGregor was going to pursue the point to its limit, ‘is five. Here’ – Dover ground to a halt outside the wide-open gates of yet another house – ‘where the hell are we supposed to be going now?’
‘It’s the very last house in The Grove, sir,’ said MacGregor as beguilingly as he could. ‘When we’ve done this one, we’ve done the lot.’
Dover puffed his cheeks out and, almost regretfully, shook his head. ‘’Strewth, laddie,’ he confessed, ‘I couldn’t eat another mouthful. Not right away. Not without ruining my supper. Mrs Plum’s doing cod fried in batter and chips, and I just fancy a bit of fish.’
But MacGregor, who’d learnt something during his long years of association with Dover, had foreseen this bolt-hole and blocked it. He indicated his wristwatch. ‘It’s nearly six o’clock, sir. Mr de la Poche won’t be offering us afternoon tea. It’s far too late.’
As usual, MacGregor was right about the social niceties. Clifford de la Poche, owner-occupier of Lilac View, the fifth and final house in The Grove, never so much as mentioned tea.
‘Oh, I’m so pleased!’ he trilled, the diamond rings on his fingers vying in sparkle with the cut glass of his whisky decanter. ‘Naturally one always suspected that this “no drinking on duty” rule was a complete myth, but one couldn’t be sure. Now, would you care to add your own water, Chief Inspector dear, if any?’ Mr de la Poche set down a triple whisky on the little table next to Dover and then turned, in the most touching and appealing way imaginable, to MacGregor. ‘Are you sure I can’t tempt you, sergeant dear?’ he queried, dimpling away like mad. ‘Not even with a teeny-weeny drop of the dryest of dry sherry?’
MacGregor silently indicated t
hat he was above and beyond temptation of any sort whatsoever.
Clifford de la Poche accepted the rebuff with a charming pout. ‘Oh, well,’ he begged, ‘do at least sit down, dear! You make one feel so nervous, towering there. You’re such a big lad, aren’t you?’
MacGregor sat down, advisedly choosing a chair as far away as possible. ‘You probably know, sir, that we’re here making enquiries in connection with the death of the young woman whose body was found yesterday morning.’
‘What a tragedy, dear!’ Clifford de la Poche raised two pale, limp hands in lamentation. ‘Still,’ he added more briskly, ‘it could have been worse.’
‘Could it, sir?’
Clifford de la Poche twinkled at MacGregor. ‘It could have been a young boy, dear!’ He picked up a massive cigarette box in exquisitely tooled leather and offered it to Dover. ‘Do you smoke, Chief Inspector dear? The scented ones are on the left.’
‘I take it that you don’t know the young woman, sir,’ said MacGregor, holding out his copy of the dead girl’s picture.
Clifford de la Poche shook his head. ‘They all look alike to me, I’m afraid, dear,’ he apologized. ‘Has she got a name yet?’
‘We haven’t been able to identify her so far, sir.’
‘It’s just that, where females are concerned, I’m better at names than faces.’
‘I wonder if you could tell me what you were doing in the evening of Wednesday the twelfth, sir? That’s a week last Wednesday.’
‘The day the girl was killed?’ Clifford de la Poche caught MacGregor’s sharp glance. ‘That’s from my charlady, dear. She garners every scrap of gossip and retails it to me at great length over our mid-morning cup of coffee. She’s been issuing extra bulletins since we had this murder, of course.’ Clifford de la Poche pursed his lips to bring out his dimples. ‘Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about it since I heard that we residents of The Grove are the prime suspects. I was at home all day that Wednesday and, after my Mrs Mop had left at mid-day – her name’s Mrs Yarrow, incidentally – after she’d gone I was all on my ownsome. I didn’t see or speak to a living soul all day. So, there are no witnesses at all, I fear, to my complete innocence.’
‘You’re sure about the date, sir?’
‘Quite sure, dear. It was my day for rest and relaxation because I’d had to go up to London the day before. One does need to recharge one’s batteries after a day in Town, doesn’t one? That was Tuesday the eleventh. I belong to the Pedlar’s Club in Capon Lane. I expect you know it – an awful lot of policemen do. I’m on the Steering Committee, you see, and we have our meeting on the second Tuesday of the month. That’s why I’m quite sure about the dates.’
‘And nobody called on you here that Wednesday evening?’
‘Nary a one, dear.’
MacGregor nodded and closed his notebook.
‘Oh, goodie, goodie!’ Clifford de la Poche clapped his hands delightedly. ‘Thank goodness that’s over! Now we can all sit back and have a nice little chat!’ He filled Dover’s glass again, practically to the brim, and crinkled his eyes at MacGregor. ‘Surely you can let your hair down now, sergeant dear, and partake of a wee drop? No? Oh, well, I’ll just indulge in a teeny-weeny cherry brandy, since we’re having a party.’ He draped himself elegantly on the chaise longue. ‘And what do you think of The Grove, dears? I hope you’ve been impressed. We’re popularly supposed to be a rather distinguished crew, though I’m afraid Sir Perceval Henty-Harris’s death has torn a simply enormous hole in our ranks. How was dear Charlotte bearing up? Mind you’ – Clifford de la Poche dropped one eyelid in a roguish wink – ‘I always say if there’s one thing banknotes are really good for, it’s mopping up tears. And what about Peter and Maddie Bones, eh? I’m sure you didn’t find any skeletons in their cupboard! Such a butch boy, Peter. All that muscle and masculine drive. No wonder that dear Maddie has her little suspicions from time to time, though I’m absolutely sure she didn’t really interview twenty-seven au pair girls before engaging the oh-so-unengaging Blanchette. It couldn’t have been more than twenty.
‘And I hope you’re not just looking at us boys in connection with your nasty old murder. I don’t want to be bitchy, but you know what they say – hell hath no fury and the female of the species is more deadly. If Maddie Bones thought for one moment that it was her darling Peter who had impregnated that dead girl of yours, murder wouldn’t have been the word! She’d have massacred her! I do hope that, when you get around to checking dear Peter’s alibi with the Bickertons, you’ll have a good look at dear Maddie’s movements that evening. You might just find that there’s the odd ten minutes or so that she can’t quite account for.’
Dover seemed to be having some slight difficulty in focusing his eyes, but his co-ordination was still good enough for him to hold out his glass for a refill of the stuff that both cheers and inebriates. ‘You seem to know a hell of a lot about what’s going on,’ he said thickly.
‘That’s my Mrs Yarrow, dear!’ explained Clifford de la Poche with a shriek of girlish glee. ‘I told you. And she’s even worse of a rattle than I am when she gets going. Besides, the whole of The Grove has been running up and down like a flock of headless chickens ever since we heard that one of us was the murderer. Everybody’s naturally been very keen to clear themselves by putting the blame on somebody else. There is, by the way, quite a strong party in favour of lynching Mr Plum, our unfriendly neighbourhood publican, on the grounds that he’s the one who put the black on us.’
‘Do you know the Goughs, sir?’ asked MacGregor, thinking that he might as well take advantage of Mr de la Poche’s propensity to gossip.
Clifford de la Poche rose to the question like a trout tempted by a very exotic fly. ‘Who doesn’t, dear? Well, not the Brigadier, of course. He only exists to make Madame more credible as a womanly woman. His being around means that she can prattle on about how simply divine it is being married and slaving away for the wonderful hubbie and all that rot.’ Clifford de la Poche rolled his eyes in mock horror. ‘That spikes her opponent’s guns, you see. They can’t accuse her of only wanting to be a clergy person because she’s unfulfilled in other directions. That’s why the silly cow always uses her married name. Not that the dear Brigadier’s complaining all that much.’ Clifford de la Poche broke off to select a chocolate from the bon-bon dish before offering them to Dover who, absent-mindedly, scoffed the lot. ‘Dear Moo earns quite a lot of money from all her television appearances and lecture tours and what-have-you. I hear she’s even thinking of writing her biography now, God help us. Mind you’ – Clifford de la Poche’s eyes glinted maliciously – ‘it’s not roses, roses all the way. There are some people who’d sooner see Mrs Esmond Gough dead than have her as a fully fledged parson. Did you know that Charlotte Henty-Harris flatly refused to let her conduct Sir Perceval’s funeral service? She claimed that the old boy would have spun round in his coffin at the mere idea. Mrs Esmond Gough was livid V MacGregor looked at Dover and wondered if he was going to be capable of walking when the time came, while Clifford de la Poche risked a glance at his charming little Faberge clock. The minutes were ticking away and Clifford had better things (he hoped!) to do with his Sunday evening than spend it pouring gallons of expensive booze down the throat of this great bull of a copper. Good heavens, church would be out in twenty minutes and he hadn’t even done his nails yet!
Since nobody else looked like making the first move, Clifford de la Poche felt obliged to risk it. ‘Well, I mustn’t monopolize you!’ he said brightly. ‘I expect you’ve got lots to do.’
‘Have you any thoughts on the Talbots?’ asked MacGregor. ‘Oh, over at Castle Perilous?’
‘Castle Perilous?’
‘Well, that’s what I call it, dear. For want of a better description. Didn’t you notice that dear Raymond is barricaded in there like the Crown Jewels? Not that I know much about it from personal experience, you understand. I’ve only ever been invited there once. However, dear Mrs Yarrow obliges there on occ
asion and I’m indebted to her for the description of the defences.’
‘Mr Talbot said it was to prevent him being kidnapped and forced to open the bank vaults,’ said MacGregor carefully.
‘Oh, how sweet!’ Clifford de la Poche cooed with delight.
‘And how convenient that dear Raymond is a bank manager and thus able to explain all! I suppose that’s why they always meet at his house where they’re safe from intruders.’
