by Joyce Porter
Dover was rapidly reaching the end of his tether, a feat which didn’t take much doing. ‘Does it,’ he asked, ‘make any bloody difference?’
Lord Crouch slowly hunched his shoulders. ‘To Gary’s murder? Well, I really don’t know. All this happened well over twenty years ago and I would have thought that the boy’s real parentage had long since ceased to be of much significance. Young Marsh was just an ordinary sort of lad, as far as I am aware. Actually, if you want more information about his recent life, I suggest you have a word with Tiffin.’
Dover was in the middle of an enormous yawn, the compound product of intense boredom and acute under-nourishment, but he interrupted it at the sound of a word which vaguely reminded him of food. ‘Tiffin?’
‘My butler. The fellow who opened the front door to you.’
‘Oh,’ said Dover.
‘His daughter was engaged to be married to Gary Marsh – though whether that had any bearing on his death either, I’m sure I don’t know.’
Chapter Three
‘Verbal diarrhoea!’ snorted Dover viciously. He was so taken with the brilliant originality of the description that he willingly put himself to the trouble of repeating it. ‘Bloody verbal diarrhoea!’
MacGregor didn’t think this was a very nice way to talk about the sister of a peer but he was reluctant to say so in case he distracted Dover even further from the idea of doing some work by starting an argument. The pair of them had been installed in the Orange Drawing-room, a show apartment which was temporarily closed to the public while the funny smell coming from the fire-place was tracked down and cured. As rooms go, this was lofty, sparsely furnished and as draughty as a football pitch. It also had a very famous painted ceiling with troupes of unclothed ladies and trouserless cherubs which Dover would have instantly condemned as pornographic if he’d been able to see that far.
Showing his usual good taste, MacGregor had settled himself down at a charming little bonheur-du-jour upon which he proceeded to spread out an impressive array of folders and maps. Dover had simply lowered himself into what he judged to be the most comfortable chair in the room. It seemed likely that there would soon be one piece of late eighteenth century Florentine work the less.
MacGregor lovingly opened his first folder. He and Dover were supposed to be planning the details of their forthcoming investigation but privately MacGregor was aiming no higher than ramming enough basic information into his superior’s thick skull to stop him making a bigger fool of himself than was necessary.
He cleared his throat. ‘Ready, sir?’
‘I’ve been ready for the last bleeding half hour, laddie!’ said Dover with his habitual charm of manner.
‘Yes, sir. Well, Gary Marsh – the murder victim – was a young man, unmarried, aged twenty-three. He lived here in the village with the maiden aunt who had brought him up since he was a child. He worked as a hotel receptionist in Dunningby, which is a town about twenty miles away. For the past couple of years he’s only been at Beltour here for holidays and his off-duty time.’
The Florentine chair creaked violently, indicating that Dover was bestirring himself to ask a question.
MacGregor felt pleased. Such a display of interest was most unusual. ‘Sir?’
‘What did they give you for lunch at this boozer of yours?’
Oh, well, he should have known better! ‘The Bull Reborn, sir? Er,’ – MacGregor thought for a moment – ‘I had ox-tail soup, steak and kidney pudding, apple pie and fresh cream and some Stilton to finish off with.’
‘’Strewth!’ Dover gazed enviously at his sergeant. Some people fell on their feet all right. ‘ What’s the beer like?’
MacGregor was busy running his eye over the reports. ‘Oh, not bad, sir. It’s quite a decent little pub altogether, really. Now, sir, Gary Marsh was engaged to be married to a local girl called Charmian Tiffin. She’s the daughter of.…’
‘I know all that!’ snapped Dover irritably. He remembered the brass-knobbed, broken-springed horror upon which he was expected to rest his weary bones that night. ‘Bed all right?’
‘I think so, sir.’ MacGregor, being young and healthy, didn’t pay much attention to these things. Somewhat belatedly he returned the compliment. ‘Are you quite comfortable here, sir?’
Dover sank back miserably in his chair. ‘ Oh, fine,’ he said. ‘Lap of Luxury.’ He hooked another armchair nearer and, with a grunt, hoisted his filthy boots on to its priceless tapestry seat. ‘Well, go on!’ he rumbled. ‘Get on with it! I don’t know why you’ve always got to make such a meal of everything. When was this joker croaked? God rot him!’
‘Sunday evening, sir,’ said MacGregor, smoothly turning to the right page. ‘The local police have been able to fix the time pretty accurately. About half past six.’
‘Well, bully for them!’ sneered Dover, who knew all about the doctrine of friendly cooperation with provincial police forces and for two pins would have told you where you could stick it. ‘I’ll lay a pound to a penny they’ve got it wrong.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so, sir. Apart from the medical evidence, there’s the timetable of Marsh’s movements. You see, he was on his way to the railway station to catch the six forty-five back to Dunningby. Now, according to Lord Crouch, he left Beltour House at twenty past six. That would give him about twenty-five minutes, ample time to walk to the.…’
‘Here, just a minute!’ Dover was so excited that he snagged several threads in the tapestry chair seat with the hobnails on his boots. ‘Wadderyemean – according to Lord Crouch?’
‘Well, sir, it looks very much as though Lord Crouch was the last person to see Gary Marsh alive, apart from the murderer, that is.’
‘’Swelp me!’ exclaimed Dover, appalled at the duplicity of mankind. ‘There they were, filling me up with all this crap about who What’s-his-name’s mother really was, but they never so much as mention that His Nibs is suspect number one!’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t exactly say that, sir!’ objected MacGregor quickly. He knew from past experience the danger of letting Dover pick out the murderer before he was even sure of the name of the victim.
‘Well, I would! Why hide it, if he’s not guilty? I thought there was something shifty about Crouch as soon as I clapped eyes on him. What were him and What’s-his-name doing together, anyhow?’
MacGregor would have preferred to deal with things logically and finish detailing the circumstances surrounding the actual murder, but knew the dangers of thwarting the chief inspector. One word out of place and you’d have the old bumbler going to sleep on you. ‘I’m not quite sure, sir,’ he admitted as he leafed through his reports at top speed. ‘ Nobody seems to have asked. I gather Lord Crouch tends to get the kid glove treatment in this part of the world.’
Dover sniggered unpleasantly. ‘He’s in for a nasty shock then, isn’t he?’ He licked his lips. ‘ Let’s haul him in now and give him a good going-over!’
MacGregor hastened to restrain the savage beast. ‘Don’t you think it would be a good idea if I finished briefing you first, sir? You’ll be in a much better position to put him through it if you have all the facts at your finger-tips.’
Dover’s bottom lip protruded sulkily. He was not the man to be bothered about piddling little things like facts but, on the other hand, he didn’t care much for indulging in a punch-up on an empty stomach. Typically he extracted a price for his capitulation. ‘Got a fag, laddie?’ he asked.
MacGregor couldn’t help glancing at his watch. At this rate the murderer would be dying of old age before they’d even got around to visiting the scene of the crime. Still – he looked on the bright side – life wasn’t entirely without its compensations. ‘I’m sorry, sir. We’re not allowed to smoke in here.’
Dover’s bottom lip jutted out even further. ‘Says who?’
‘The butler told me, sir. It’s something to do with the pictures and the wallpaper. They’re afraid of the tobacco smoke damaging them.’
‘Stuff that fo
r a tale!’ blustered Dover. ‘How do you expect me to concentrate without a fag?’
It was an unanswerable question and MacGregor got his cigarette case out. ‘I should have thought you’d have been puffing away at one of his lordship’s Corona-Coronas, sir!’ he joked.
Dover scowled and expelled his first mouthful of smoke straight in his sergeant’s face. Manfully MacGregor refrained from ramming the old fool’s false teeth straight down his throat and busied himself with finding an ashtray until he’d got his temper back under control.
As far as Dover was concerned, though, honour still wasn’t satisfied. He examined with apparent interest the rock crystal bon-bon dish, which was all MacGregor could find, and then deliberately flicked his ash on the carpet. MacGregor gritted his teeth. There is little doubt that if Dover and MacGregor had devoted as much energy and imagination to fighting crime as they did to squabbling with each other, they would both have been considerably more successful in their chosen profession than they were.
MacGregor sat down again and picked up his folder. ‘ Shall I continue, sir?’ he asked icily.
Dover was magnificently indifferent. ‘You can stand on your head and wiggle your ears for all I care, laddie.’
‘Gary Marsh had been spending the weekend at Beltour, staying as usual with his aunt. A great deal of his time was passed, naturally enough, in his fiancée’s company and he’d been to tea at her house on the Sunday afternoon. At about a quarter to six he said goodbye to Miss Tiffin. She knew, it seems, that he was calling on Lord Crouch before catching his train back to Dunningby and she assumed that he would continue from there to the railway station via Bluebell Wood and the Donkey Bridge. It is a recognized short cut, sir.’
Dover sighed and tried to fit himself more comfortably into his protesting chair. Yackety, yackety, yack! All he ever seemed to do, week in and week out, was sit listening to other people flapping their big mouths off. He rested his eyes.
MacGregor ploughed on. It was a lonely furrow. ‘ The local police – and one is rather inclined to agree with them – think that the murderer knew of Marsh’s likely movements and lay in wait for him by the Donkey Bridge. The motive for the crime was not robbery as Marsh’s wallet, containing seven pounds, was untouched, and his small suitcase lay unopened in the stream a few feet from the body. Of course, the meeting between Marsh and his assailant could have been purely accidental but the local police doubt it. The short cut is not much frequented, especially when it’s getting dark, as it only runs between Beltour House here and the station.’
Dover opened his eyes. ‘If there’s a railway station that near, why didn’t we use it instead of being dumped three miles away?’
‘It’s only a local line, sir, between Dunningby and Claverhouse. We’d have had to change at Claverhouse and wait nearly two hours for a connection.’
Dover closed his eyes again.
‘Well, sir, it would appear that the murderer lay in wait for Gary Marsh at this Donkey Bridge and …’
‘Hold it!’ Every now and again Dover liked to show MacGregor that he was taking an intelligent interest. It helped keep the sergeant on his toes. ‘ What’s to stop the murderer following him from here?’
MacGregor was only too eager to explain. ‘Well, partly, sir, because the murder weapon was actually a lump of wood torn off the bridge and partly because of the nature of Marsh’s injuries. You see, the situation is like this, sir: the Donkey Bridge is a rickety little structure crossing a stream in the middle of Bluebell Wood. To get on to the bridge, it seems that you have to negotiate some rather broken, slippery steps. Now, Marsh’s body was found in the stream, by the steps on this side of the bridge, and, according to the pathology report, he had been struck down from above. That would imply that the murderer was standing above Marsh, on the bridge presumably, and had attacked him as he was scrambling up these rather awkward steps.’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Dover.
‘Sir?’
‘Suppose What’s-his-name was a midget and the murderer a great long streak of misery like Lord Crouch? You’d have got the same sort of injuries then, wouldn’t you, even if they’d both been standing on the same level?’
‘Gary Marsh was six foot one inch tall, sir.’
Once Dover got an idea in his head, it took more than indisputable facts to get it out again. ‘So he was bending down tying his bootlaces or something.’
‘Well, yes, sir,’ admitted MacGregor, hanging on to his reason with both hands, ‘I admit that we can’t be a hundred per cent sure that the murderer was waiting on the bridge, but it does seem the more likely hypothesis.’
‘I’m putting my money on Crouch,’ said Dover obstinately. ‘He has this meeting with Swamp here, they have a row, he sneaks after him and clobbers him. Plain as the nose on your face! Here, do they still try these bigwigs in the House of Lords?’
MacGregor, unasked, got up and gave Dover another cigarette. He decided to ignore the question about the House of Lords. ‘You may be right, sir,’ he said, playing it tactfully. ‘The trouble is, we are rather working in the dark, aren’t we?’
Dover cocked a wary eye. He wasn’t usually so alert in the afternoon but the combination of galloping malnutrition and a freezing cold room was playing havoc with his routine.
‘I’m sure, sir,’ MacGregor went on, trying to introduce the subject as painlessly as possible, ‘ that we’ll have a much clearer idea of what happened when we’ve seen the actual spot where the murder took place. I was thinking that we might go on out there as soon as we’ve paid our duty visit to the murder headquarters.’
‘Murder headquarters?’ Dover was highly indignant. ‘This is the bloody murder headquarters, laddie! Where I am!’
‘I meant the one the local police have set up, sir. A temporary centre as near to the scene of the crime as was convenient. They’ve got everything laid on there, sir – photographs, charts, clerical staff, extra telephones.’ MacGregor could see that Dover was not succumbing to the temptations. ‘ Mr Pinkham, the Chief Constable, promised to meet us there and introduce us to the local chaps.’
‘Later,’ said Dover. ‘Maybe.’
MacGregor smiled a sickly smile. ‘Well, actually, sir, he’s expecting us in about ten minutes.’
‘Hard luck,’ said Dover. He settled his head well back and closed his eyes again.
‘I really do think, sir, …’
‘In this weather?’ yelped Dover, jerking almost upright in his vexation at the constant badgering. ‘It’s raining cats and dogs!’
‘I’ve got a car, sir.’
‘And me barely out of my sick bed!’ remembered Dover, waxing pathetic. ‘ You want me to catch double pneumonia or something?’
MacGregor would have settled for almost any fatal disease, provided it was sufficiently lingering and painful. ‘ Perhaps I’d better pop down there by myself, sir, and …’
‘Your place is with me, laddie! Not that you’re any more use than a sick headache but I’m not interviewing Lord Crouch without a reliable witness. If I have to thump him around a bit I want somebody there to swear he attacked me first.’
So much for the sacred obligations of a guest.
MacGregor was spared the embarrassment of wriggling out of this one by a gentle tap on the door. Almost immediately it was opened and Lady Priscilla popped her head round.
‘Hello, there!’ she hissed. ‘ How are you getting on?’
Dover responded by promptly turning his face to the wall and it was left to MacGregor to find a suitably evasive, but kindly, answer.
Lady Priscilla needed little encouragement. She advanced a further few inches. ‘ I’ve brought you both a nice cup of my herbal tea. It’s most refreshing and it helps clear the brain.’
In spite of himself, Dover couldn’t resist having a peep. There were three cups on the tray.
‘And I wanted to let the chief inspector know about supper,’ Lady Priscilla continued, carefully addressing her remarks to MacGregor
so as not to disturb the Great Man. ‘My brother and I generally have it about seven but, if Mr Dover isn’t able to make it by then, it doesn’t matter because it’s cold. A biscuit, sergeant?’
‘Oh, no thank you, Lady Priscilla! I’m afraid I ate far too much at luncheon!’ MacGregor, anxious to make a favourable impression, twinkled his eyes roguishly at Lady Priscilla and patted his stomach in a way that wrung Dover’s withers.
Lady Priscilla began to pour out her thaumaturgic infusion in a swirl of steam which wouldn’t have shamed a Chinese laundry. ‘I thought you could take down my statement at the same time,’ she said. ‘We’ve got three Darby and Joan coach parties booked for tomorrow and I have to do my stint as a guide. It takes such absolutely ages to get them round, you know. Of course, I don’t know anything much about the actual murder but I’m a mine of information about all the circumstances surrounding it – as Chief Inspector Dover will be able to tell you!’
Up to this point Dover had been wavering. After all, nobody likes getting wet and the prospect of tramping round Beltour’s draughty acres was not an alluring one. Still, bodily comfort isn’t everything. Dover dragged his feet off the chair with the once immaculate tapestry seat and stood up. He jerked his head at MacGregor. ‘Come on!’
‘Sir?’
Dover looked round for his hat and coat which he had dropped on the floor by the door. ‘Mustn’t keep the Chief Constable waiting!’
‘Oh – no, sir!’ MacGregor hastened to pick up Dover’s outer garments though normally he was careful to avoid touching them with his bare hands. He threw an apologetic smile at Lady Priscilla. ‘I’m afraid we shall have to postpone our interview until later.’
Dover let MacGregor stuff him into his overcoat. ‘ Tell her I shan’t be in for supper!’ he instructed in a raucous stage whisper.
‘Sir?’
‘Tell her I shan’t be in to supper, you moron!’ repeated Dover hoarsely as he grabbed his bowler hat. ‘I’m eating with you tonight. Tell her we’ve got to go to a bloody conference or something!’
