by Joyce Porter
‘We have no evidence that Miss Marsh was anywhere at all at the relevant time on Sunday night,’ Dover yelped in triumph, ‘because you, you thick-headed numbskull, didn’t bloody well ask her that, either!’
Rebukes are not less galling because they are justified. MacGregor had to admit that he had slipped up but he hoped he was man enough to acknowledge his mistakes when he made them. On the other hand, he would dearly have loved to remind Dover that he, as senior officer, was supposed to be in charge of all aspects of the investigation – and that included the interrogation of witnesses. However, there was no future in drawing Dover’s attention to his shortcomings and MacGregor settled for a feeble excuse. ‘As a matter of fact, sir,’ he said stiffly, ‘ Miss Marsh was asked to account for her whereabouts during the preliminary investigations by Detective Inspector Dawkins.’
‘Oh, your drinking chum!’ sneered Dover, who had no difficulty in remembering things when he wanted to be unpleasant. ‘Well, bully for him! Well, let’s be having it! Where was she? Or are you going to keep that as a little secret just between the two of you?’
‘She was at home, sir, in her cottage.’
‘Can she prove it?’
‘Not really, sir. She was alone.’
‘Well, her unsupported word isn’t worth a row of pins, is it? Not in my book it bloody well ain’t!’
‘We shall have to look into it, of course, sir,’ agreed MacGregor, though the effort of keeping a civil tongue in his head was well-nigh too much for him. ‘Meanwhile, I really do think we ought to see what Miss Tiffin has to say. As his fiancée, she was probably closer to Gary Marsh than anybody and she’s bound to know if there was anything going on that might be connected with his murder.’ MacGregor, who never learnt, looked hopefully at Dover. ‘I was thinking that we could perhaps go along and have a talk with her this afternoon, sir. After you’ve had your lunch, of course,’ he added quickly.
Dover’s podgy little nose crinkled up in distaste. ’Strewth, Miss Marsh had been more than enough for one day! He glared balefully at his sergeant. This miserable little bleeder had missed his vocation: he should have been a flipping slave-driver. ‘ I shall have to have a rest after lunch,’ he rumbled. ‘That was a nasty fall I had yesterday. And my stomach’s been playing me up, too.’
‘Perhaps later on, then, sir? I mean, you won’t be in bed for the rest of the day, will you?’
Dover’s scowl grew darker. ‘Tomorrow!’ he said firmly. ‘What’s your sweat? This Tiffin bird’s not going to run away.’
‘But speed is so important in murder cases, sir,’ mumbled MacGregor, unhappily forced to try to instruct his grandmother. ‘Especially the first forty-eight hours. If one doesn’t get a lead by then.… Perhaps if I were to go and see Miss Tiffin?’
‘You dare!’ Rather than see MacGregor get any credit, Dover would prefer to have Gary Marsh’s murderer get away scot free.
The ship’s bell, which served The Bull Reborn as a dinner gong, put an end to the discussion and Dover, tossing back the last dregs of his scotch, headed the field in the stampede for the dining room.
After consuming a meal which would have put a lesser man to sleep for good and all, Dover permitted MacGregor to escort him upstairs and into the bedroom. Dover began to remove some of his clothes and MacGregor turned considerately, and squeamishly, away but he was soon brought back to heel.
‘Well, don’t just stand there!’ barked Dover. ‘Turn the bloody bed down!’
With a sigh MacGregor obediently pulled off the top cover and then paused in astonishment. ‘Goodness, they don’t seem to have made the bed very.… Oh, dear!’
‘What’s up?’ Dover came staggering across with his trousers at an indelicate half-mast.
The bed clothes had been roughly tugged down, exposing the bottom sheet. And there, in the middle of the bottom sheet, was.…
‘What is it?’ demanded Dover.
MacGregor had already pulled his handkerchief out and clapped it over his nose. The stink!
It took Dover only a second or two longer to get the revolting message. His beady little eyes bulged and his face went an apoplectic purple. ‘It’s that bloody cat!’ he howled. ‘’Strewth, I’ll ring its neck for it!’ Another outrage caught his attention. ‘And look at my pyjamas!’ he screamed. ‘Look at ’em! They’ve been torn to bloody shreds!’ He reached out a hand quivering with fury and picked up his pyjama jacket to flourish it before MacGregor’s gaze. A mangled and long dead mouse rolled out.
It was too much for MacGregor. ‘Oh, my God!’ he gasped and, stuffing his handkerchief into his mouth, fled the room.
When, some time later, he returned, chalk-faced, he found Dover perched disconsolately on the edge of the sofa.
‘Well?’
MacGregor dabbed his lips with his handkerchief and avoided looking either at the bed or at Dover. ‘ Sir?’
‘Haven’t you been to fetch the landlord, you lily-livered puke?’
MacGregor opened the window. ‘ No, sir, I went …’ He flapped a vague hand. ‘I’ll summon him now, sir.’
The landlord was another person who liked to have his forty winks after lunch but he didn’t lose his sense of humour when he was disturbed. ‘That damned tom!’ he chuckled with frank admiration. ‘I don’t know how he manages it, honest I don’t! You shut all the doors and close all the windows but the cunning little bugger still manages to slip in somehow.’
MacGregor was indignant. ‘ You mean this has happened before?’
‘Dozens of times!’ laughed the landlord, wiping away the tears of happy memories with the back of his hand. ‘Soon as he gets at outs with one of the guests the old devil’s off upstairs making a convenience of the chap’s bed before you can say Jack Robinson. And don’t think it’s a once-and-for-all job, either! Once that cat starts anything, there’s no stopping him.’
‘Why haven’t you drowned the mangy brute?’ demanded Dover.
‘I can’t do that! He’s a family pet. Besides, Mr Dover, you can take a joke, can’t you? I should have thought you were the sort of bloke who’d appreciate a bit of lavatory humour.’
This appeal to look on the funny side fell on extremely deaf ears and Dover set about cross-examining the landlord with more acuity and ruthlessness than he ever brought to the interrogation of a suspected murderer. It did little good. Mine host stuck to his guns: as an opponent, the ginger cat was implacable and all additional laundry charges would be added to the bill.
‘I would offer you the sofa, sir,’ said MacGregor, anxious to give the impression of being helpful, ‘but it’s not very comfortable.’
‘He’d track you down there quick as a wink,’ boasted the landlord. ‘Got a better nose than a bloodhound, that cat!’
‘Another room?’ asked Dover, without much hope.
‘Waste of time,’ grinned the landlord. ‘Besides, we haven’t got one.’
Dover addressed himself to MacGregor. ‘Ring up Beltour and tell ’ em I’m moving back.’
In normal circumstances MacGregor would have objected very strongly to being landed with such an embarrassing mission but, if it meant getting rid of Dover, he would probably have telephoned Buckingham Palace without a qualm. ‘ Shall I say you’ll be arriving right away, sir?’
Dover gloomily weighed the pros and cons and decided to postpone the evil hour. ‘Certainly not!’ he snapped. ‘I haven’t packed in work for the day if you have, laddie! We’ve got to go and see this Tiffin girl. Tell Lord What’s-his-name I’ll be there in time for dinner.’
While MacGregor rushed off cheerfully to make all the necessary arrangements, Dover began chucking his belongings back into his suitcase under the amused eye of the landlord. All things considered Dover reckoned Beltour was giving him a pretty raw deal. So raw in fact that it mightn’t be a bad idea to clear the murder up in double quick time and catch the first available train back to London. An instant arrest, that was what was needed. Once you’d picked your victim and got him safe
ly tucked away behind bars, you could always fiddle the evidence a bit to make things fit. Dover had done it dozens of times. Of course it didn’t always stand up in a court of law but the case wouldn’t come up for trial for months and months and by that time anything might have happened. Now, upon whose lucky head should the scales of Justice fall?
The landlord found himself getting a trifle hot round the collar. Dover, who was incapable of doing more than one thing at a time, had stopped packing and was staring unseeingly right through the landlord while he worked out the strategy of getting back to his own bed and his wife’s cooking.
The landlord’s conscience was pricking him. ‘Here, steady on, Mr Dover!’ he said with an uneasy laugh. ‘You’re looking at me as though you were measuring me up for a pair of handcuffs.’
Dover was still trying to decide between Lord Crouch and Miss Marsh. ‘ Ugh?’
‘Oh, come off it!’ The landlord managed another unconvincing laugh. ‘I’m not so green as I’m cabbage looking, you know. This village idiot act doesn’t take me in. It didn’t last night and it doesn’t now.’
‘Eh?’ Dover’s brow furrowed alarmingly as he gradually became aware that he was in the middle of a conversation.
‘It beats me why you couldn’t just come straight out and ask me. I’d have told you all about it then, wouldn’t I?’
‘About what?’ asked Dover, looking more moronic than ever.
The landlord was nearly beside himself with exasperation. ‘All about me and Gary Marsh, of course! Jesus, you don’t half make it hard for a chap! All right, Gary Marsh and me had an argument. I’m not trying to hide it. I was just waiting for you to mention it first that’s all. Maybe we both did get a bit worked up and said a bit more than we meant. So what? It’s still no reason for you to start looking at me sideways, is it?’
What Dover’s response to this well-nigh incoherent statement would have been, the waiting world will never know because it was at precisely this moment that MacGregor came bustling back into the room. His whole future had miraculously assumed a rosy hue and he was as happy as a sandboy. ‘All fixed, sir!’ he reported with a wide grin. ‘ Lady Priscilla is delighted to hear that you are returning to Beltour and supper will be at seven.’
‘Cold, I suppose,’ muttered Dover, steeling himself for the worst.
‘Oh, no, sir! Lady Priscilla recognizes that you need building up after your accident and she’s going off to the butcher’s straight away.’
‘The butcher’s?’ Dover forgot with the utmost ease all about the landlord and his muddled sense of injustice. ‘Are we going to have meat?’
‘Stewed tripe, sir!’ said MacGregor and began finishing off Dover’s packing for him. ‘There we are, sir! I think that’s the lot. Shall we go?’
‘Might as well,’ grunted Dover as he permitted MacGregor to help him into his overcoat. ‘Where is it we’re going?’
‘The Tiffins, sir.’
‘Oh, yes. Well, come on then!’
‘Here, just a minute!’ The landlord grasped Dover’s arm. ‘What about me?’
‘You?’
‘Holy-Mary-Mother-of-God!’ groaned the landlord. ‘Don’t you want to hear about me and Gary Marsh?’
Dover generously gave him a straight answer to a straight question. ‘No,’ he said.
Chapter Eight
‘What was Mr Buckley talking about, sir?’ asked MacGregor when he had got Dover comfortably installed in the car.
‘Who’s Mr Buckley?’
‘He’s the publican, sir. Of The Bull Reborn. Wasn’t he saying something about Gary Marsh?’
Dover grunted. It might have meant anything or – more probably – nothing.
‘We’d better have a word with him later, don’t you think, sir? He may have some useful information.’
‘And pigs might fly,’ said Dover, as co-operative and constructive as ever. Still, he didn’t want to let MacGregor think that he hadn’t got the situation under control. ‘ I’m letting him stew a bit.’
‘Oh,’ said MacGregor. He might have been tempted to pursue the matter further if his eye hadn’t alighted on the village shop. He opened the car door again. ‘Do you mind just hanging on for a second, sir? I’ve – er – run out of cigarettes.’
Dover gave another of his all purpose grunts and closed his eyes. Many great men have had the priceless ability to drop off to sleep at any time and in any circumstances, and Chief Inspector Dover was no exception. He was well away by the time MacGregor climbed back into the car and thus missed seeing the little parcel that his sergeant hid with all possible speed in the glove compartment. Even Dover might have thought that it didn’t look much like a packet of cigarettes.
MacGregor swung the car out on the road which led to the Beltour estate and grinned to himself. Twenty-seven new pence was a small price to pay for a good night’s sleep. That was what the tin of best quality, middle cut salmon had just cost him. He trusted that the ginger cat would enjoy it.
The Tiffins’ cottage lay only a few minutes’ walk from the big house at Beltour and was mercifully hidden from it by a slight dip in the ground. Originally the cottage must have looked pretty much like the others in the neighbourhood – simple and undistinguished, but pleasing. The Tiffins had changed all that. They had seen the possibilities and had exploited them with a ruthlessness and lack of taste that had to be seen to be believed. No fewer than three coaching lamps (wired for the electric) surrounded the front door and fought it out for lebensraum with a particularly rampant Dorothy Perkins. The front door itself sported, on a background of bright yellow, a brass knocker and a brass letter box, a wooden poker-work name plate and a complete set of antique plastic nail heads. Each window had its matching yellow non-functional shutters and in the small front garden a pair of old cart wheels, with each spoke painted a different colour, loomed disproportionately large.
MacGregor shuddered fastidiously and opened the mail-order, wrought iron, bargain offer gate with reluctance. From there he picked his way up the do-it-yourself, crazy paving path and felt grateful that the day was decently overcast. On a bright and sunny afternoon the Tiffins’ pad would have been quite unbearable.
Dover, on the other hand, was full of admiration and envy. He spent a great deal of his time dreaming about his retirement and this was just the sort of place he had in mind. He could just picture himself, snoozing happily in a deck chair in the fresh air and sunshine while his wife dug the garden or chopped the wood. What bliss! As he stood waiting for the front door to be opened, he stared longingly at the sundial and the plaster stork standing next to the little artificial pond. Some people had it with jam on!
‘Sir!’
Dover turned round to find the front door open and MacGregor, as befitted a mere underling, standing respectfully to one side. The happy day dreams faded and Dover sighed in an orgy of self pity. Back to the bloody grindstone!
Mrs Tiffin was an admirable match for the cottage, having also been tarted up with more enthusiasm than skill but Dover found her a real queen amongst women. It must be admitted, however, that this realization didn’t come to him until he found himself confronted by an afternoon tea of truly heroic proportions. True that, once she was settled presiding over the teapot, Mrs Tiffin turned out to be no mean conversationalist, but with such a feast spread before him Dover was prepared to forgive her even that.
‘I made our Charmian go in to work today,’ said Mrs Tiffin as she poured out. ‘ Just to take her mind off things. Well, life has to go on, hasn’t it? And it’s no good crying over spilt milk. I told her she was doing no good to anybody, moping around the house looking like a wet weekend. She’ll be home in about an hour, though, if you want to have a word with her, and her dad comes in about the same time though I don’t see that either of them’ll be able to tell you anything much. It’s a real mystery to us and, believe you me, there’s been nothing else discussed in this house since it happened. We’ve gone on and on about it until I’ve been fit to scream
.’
‘It must have been a great shock,’ murmured MacGregor.
‘I could kill Gary Marsh for getting himself murdered!’ said Mrs Tiffin bitterly. ‘I really thought we’d done it this time.’
MacGregor took a polite nibble at his ham sandwich and duly noted the margarine. ‘Done it?’
‘Got our Charmian settled,’ explained Mrs Tiffin, stirring her tea resentfully. ‘I warned Arthur what would happen if we buried ourselves down here in the country before we’d got her off our … before we’d got her nicely settled.’
‘Arthur is your husband?’
Mrs Tiffin nodded. ‘That’s right.’
‘So you’ve not been at Beltour long?’
‘A couple of years. We came here just after I’d had my operation.’
‘Really?’ MacGregor pushed a plate of sausage rolls nearer to Dover. The longer he could keep the old glutton feeding his face, the less likelihood there was of him chipping in and ruining everything.
‘The doctors told us I had to take things easy,’ Mrs Tiffin went on with the easy complacency of the hypochondriac. ‘I’d had a very bad time, you know. Well, the surgeon said he’d never seen anything like it in his life, never. If they hadn’t cut me open and taken it out when they did, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you now.’ Mrs Tiffin smiled modestly. ‘Touch and go, it was.’
‘Fancy,’ said MacGregor.
‘Of course, up till then, me and Arthur had always worked as a team, you see. He was butler and I did the housekeeping. But, after my operation, they said I had to have a complete rest so Arthur started looking round for a job on his own.’
‘You’ve always been in service, then?’ asked MacGregor as he unobtrusively got his notebook out, a feat of legerdemain which Dover assisted by shoving his cup across and distracting Mrs Tiffin’s attention by imperiously demanding a refill.
‘Oh, yes, always.’ Mrs Tiffin handed the teacup back and gave a nervous little start as Dover’s other hand shot out like a rapier to grab the last cheese’n’pickle munchie off the plate. ‘Mind you, we’ve always picked our places. We like titled people. They’re usually much more considerate and understanding than the merely rich. Oh, well, we did oblige a bishop once, but that was Arthur. He’s always been of a very religious turn of mind and his Lordship came from a very good family – unlike some I could name. We did think at one time of trying one of those American millionaires but you never know somehow with foreigners, do you?’ Mrs Tiffin filled up the teapot from the hot water jug. ‘Mind you, we wouldn’t have touched this job here in the normal course of events.’
