by Joyce Porter
DOVER THREE is another adventure of Chief Inspector Wilfred Dover of Scotland Yard. Dover is still as dyspeptic, unappealing, and insensitive as ever. With his assistant, young Sergeant MacGregor, he is sent off to isolated Thornwich in bleak mid-winter to look into an epidemic of lewd poison-pen letters.
To Dover’s mind, no one is above suspicion, neither a Dame of the British Empire, nor the venerable Dr. Hawnt; neither a dubious teacher of French, nor the inoffensive Mrs. Tompkins, to whom death comes not long after a windfall of some half-million dollars.
As to Dover’s success—well, the letters do cease and he alone identifies the true criminal. But you will have to read the book through to learn why Dover, who normally claims all credit going, whether due or not, declines, in this instance, the honors which should rightfully be his.
Miss Porter has outdone herself with this hilarious new Dover mystery.
DOVER THREE
by the same author
DOVER ONE
DOVER TWO
Copyright © 1965 Joyce Porter
All rights reserved. No part of this book
may be reproduced in any form without the
permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons.
A — 12.65 [MV]
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 66-13088
To L.L.W.
d.d.d.
Chapter One
‘PREVENTION‘, said Dame Alice, ‘is better than cure. You’re not going to argue with that, are you?’
The man she was addressing shook his head and cowered even further behind his desk. After half an hour of Dame Alice’s undivided attention he had had most of the argument knocked out of him.
‘In that case,’ said Dame Alice, pulling on her gloves with an air of high satisfaction, ‘we needn’t waste any more time discussing it. Let me know the minute you’ve made the necessary arrangements, and remember, speed is the most important thing now.’
The man behind the desk pulled himself together and made a last-ditch effort to get her to see reason. He was, after all, a chief constable, and when it came to police matters he ought to be given credit for the fact that he knew what he was talking about.
‘It can’t be done,’ he muttered and ducked instinctively as Dame Alice jerked her head and snorted with exasperation.
‘What can’t be done?’ she demanded with justifiable irritation. Really, these men! One sometimes wondered if they obstructed every suggestion on principle.
‘Scotland Yard,’ explained the Chief Constable unhappily. ‘They won’t come, you know.’
‘And why not?’ she asked. Typical! You beat them hands down on the main issue and then they started trying to trip you with a lot of footling, minor details. Well, let the old fool get on with it! Dame Alice was nursing an ace up her sleeve with which she would fell this bumbling idiot to the ground when the time came.
Mr Mulkerrin, the Chief Constable, sighed. Women! Always interfering and poking their noses into other people’s affairs. Look at Dame Alice! Mr Mulkerrin did, and was not reassured by what he saw. She ought to be sitting at home knitting instead of ranging round the county trying to teach every hard-working official she could lay her hands on how to suck eggs.
‘Well,’ said Dame Alice, ‘I am waiting.’
Aw, drop dead! Get stuffed! Put your head in a bucket three times and pull it out twice! Go for a long walk on a short pier!
‘It’s a simple matter of police procedure, Dame Alice,’ explained Mr Mulkerrin meekly. ‘We can only call in Scotland Yard to deal with cases of serious crime which we can’t handle ourselves. Well, now’ – he risked a patronizing smile – ‘you can hardly call this a serious crime.’
‘Can’t I?’ retorted Dame Alice indignantly. ‘Let me remind you that I, personally, have been involved in this revolting business, and I can assure you I regard it as a very serious matter indeed.’
‘A few poison-pen letters.’ Mr Mulkerrin shrugged his shoulders.
‘Hundreds of poison-pen letters!’ Dame Alice corrected him firmly. ‘Nasty, obscene epistles which have been arriving by every post for a month now, and whose author your policemen so far have proved themselves completely incapable of finding.’
‘There are no clues!’ protested Mr Mulkerrin, furious at finding himself on the defensive once again.
‘Fiddlesticks!’ snapped Dame Alice. ‘There must be clues. Your men are just too stupid and incompetent to find them, that’s all. Gracious heavens, there aren’t more than four hundred people in the entire village. An intelligent child of five could discover the culprit, and at considerably less cost to the ratepayers,’ she added spitefully.
Mr Mulkerrin scowled. That was a typical woman’s blow, right below the belt. Amongst her other numerous activities, Dame Alice was a county councillor of antique standing and currently the chairman of the Standing Joint Committee. Mr Mulkerrin had several pet plans on the boil for improving the amenities of his force (and, of course, improving its efficiency), but without Dame Alice’s support he could kiss his dreams a sweet goodbye. He switched the conversation on to another track.
‘Scotland Yard wouldn’t touch it with a barge-pole,’ he said. ‘They only send their people out on murder cases and things like that. They’re all high-ranking, senior detectives, you know. They won’t waste their time on a tuppence-ha’penny case like this. Besides,’ he added quickly, ‘even if they would come, which they won’t, the County would have to foot the bill.’
‘We will cross that bridge when we come to it,’ said Dame Alice.
‘But they won’t come!’ insisted Mr Mulkerrin. Damn it, didn’t she listen to anything you said?
‘They will,’ said Dame Alice with a smug smile. ‘I’ve already arranged that. Perhaps you didn’t know, Mr Mulkerrin,’ – the smile was very sweet now – ‘that the Assistant Commissioner for Crime at New Scotland Yard is a very dear friend of mine.’ Dame Alice produced a simper which made the Chief Constable’s blood run cold. ‘A very dear friend of mine! We knew each other years ago – long before either of us was married. I telephoned him last night and explained the whole situation. He quite agreed with me that while on the surface it might look a very trivial matter, there could be ugly and dangerous developments if the perpetrator of these disgusting missives was not found quickly. I had to tell him, of course, that your men had been working on the case for four weeks without any sign of success. He seemed very surprised. I asked him to help us. He was quite agreeable, but pointed out that the assistance of Scotland Yard must be requested by the local police.’ Dame Alice fixed Mr Mulkerrin with a steely eye. ‘I told him there would be no difficulty about that. He is expecting you to ring him. No doubt you know the number.’
‘It’s all very irregular,’ muttered Mr Mulkerrin, conceding victory but doing it as ungraciously as possible. ‘And anyhow,’ he added with a flash of truculence, ‘I don’t see what a couple of bogies from London are going to find out in a place like Thornwich. It’s obviously a job for local men who know the district – and the peculiarities of the inhabitants,’ he concluded, getting a dig in on his own account.
‘Poppycock!’ said Dame Alice. ‘It’s no good whining about it. You’ve had your chance. This man is obviously just too clever for you. We need real experts on the job. Now, I hope you’ve got everything straight. I’ve got to go now – I’ve got an important meeting and I’m already late for it – so you can telephone the Assistant Commissioner right away. Just mention my name. You’d better give me a ring this evening at home and let me know what’s happening.’
No one will ever know how Dame Alice managed to persuade the Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard to send two of his detectives down to Thornwich to investigate
an outbreak of poison-pen letters. There were, of course, several theories, mostly scurrilous and ranging from a sudden onslaught of dementia praecox to simple blackmail. Whatever the reason was, it left the Assistant Commissioner in a filthy temper. He swore at his secretary, kicked his desk, rang for an underling and shoved the whole business into his lap.
‘It can’t be done, sir,’ said the underling, happy to be able to disoblige.
‘It must be done!’ roared the Assistant Commissioner, adding a few colourful epithets to drive his point home.
‘I just haven’t anybody to spare,’ insisted the underling, who was actually a deputy commander.
‘Don’t give me that crap!’ snarled the Assistant Commissioner. ‘I know how many men you’ve got and I know how much ruddy work they do! I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.’
‘Well, there’s Chief Inspector Dover, sir.’ The suggestion was made with the utmost caution.
The Assistant Commissioner’s face turned an alarming purple. ‘You’re joking, of course,’ he said in a strangled voice. ‘I thought I told you to get rid of that fat, stupid swine months ago!’ The sentence finished on an ear-piercing squeak of fury.
‘I’ve tried, sir,’ said the Deputy Commander unhappily, ‘but nobody’ll have him. I’ve offered him to every single division in the Metropolitan area. They’re all short-handed and none of ’em’ll touch him. I can’t understand it.’
‘I can!’ said the Assistant Commissioner grimly. ‘Why don’t you promote him? He’d have to go then. We’ve no vacancy for a superintendent at the Yard, have we?’
‘We’ve no vacancy for a chief inspector, sir, either,’ the Deputy Commander pointed out sadly. ‘Dover’s supernumerary to establishment and has been for years. H Division lent him to us when we were short-handed during that Mullen’s business. And then they wouldn’t take him back again.’
‘Selfish blighters!’ said the Assistant Commissioner, speaking from the bottom of his heart. ‘I can’t think whoever promoted him to Chief Inspector in the first place.’
‘Well, you did that, sir.’
‘Eh? Oh, but that was just to help old Gooch out in J Division. He threatened to cut his throat if J didn’t get rid of Dover for him. Kicking him upstairs was the only way.’
‘Oh, quite, sir.’
The Assistant Commissioner lapsed into deep thought. After a few moments he glanced wickedly at his subordinate. ‘D’you think we dare, Tom?’
‘I don’t see why not, sir.’ The wicked grin was returned. ‘This Chief Constable is hardly in a position to cut up rough about it, is he, sir? I mean, the whole thing’s so irregular anyhow.’
‘Yes,’ agreed the Assistant Commissioner doubtfully. ‘That last chap – what was his name? – he wrote me a very nasty letter. Very nasty. Can’t say I blame him,’ he added after a pause.
‘Actually, it would fit in very well, sir – sending Dover on this poison-pen case. He’s on light duties at the moment.’
‘Not again!’ groaned the Assistant Commissioner, clutching his head in both hands. ‘What the hell’s supposed to be the matter with him this time?’
‘His stomach, sir. Same as usual. He was in my office this morning telling me all about it. He was asking for a job, too. One that’d get him out of London for a bit.’
‘Ho, ho!’ scoffed the Assistant Commissioner. ‘Very funny! Now pull the other one.’
‘No, seriously, sir. The doctor turfed him out of bed and put his missus in. Said she was exhausted and needed a rest. Her sister’s coming over to look after her. Apparently our Wilf can’t stand the sister at any price, so any excuse – even work – to get out of London would suit him down to the ground just now.’
‘But he didn’t actually ask for a job, though, did he?’ insisted the Assistant Commissioner.
‘Well, no, sir – not in so many words. That would be expecting too much, wouldn’t it? But I think he’d go all right – without all the usual screams about victimization, overwork, cooked rosters, and all the rest of it.’
‘O.K.!’ The Assistant Commissioner made up his mind quickly. ‘Send him! And if they don’t like it, they can lump it. Who generally works with him?’
‘Detective Sergeant MacGregor, sir, but he’s asking for a change.’
‘Huh!’ snorted the Assistant Commissioner. ‘He’ll be lucky! We aren’t running an academy for sensitive young ladies. Do him a world of good, working with Dover. Knock a few corners off him. Broaden his outlook. Teach him how the other half live.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Right!’ The Assistant Commissioner leaned back in his chair with the air of a man who’s done a good day’s work. ‘That’s settled. Well, don’t just sit there, man! Get moving!’
* * *
Chief Inspector Wilfred Dover cleaned a hole in the steamed-up window of the bus with his handkerchief and peered through. It was pitch-dark outside. Occasionally a flurry of thin snow or sleet pattered against the outside of the glass.
‘ ’Strewth!’ said Dover in tones of deep disgust. He scowled at his companion as though it was all his fault.
Sergeant MacGregor sat silently by his Chief Inspector’s side, and suffered. They were the only passengers on the bus and they made an incongruous pair. MacGregor was young, tall, slim, rather handsome and a very snappy dresser. He was keen, too. He wanted to get on in his chosen profession. That was why he was always whining about having to work with Chief Inspector Dover. Prolonged association with Scotland Yard’s worst detective just wasn’t doing Charles Edward MacGregor’s career any good at all. Detectives, like most other people, are judged by results, and Dover’s results were very poor. Of course, he did manage to solve some of his cases – not many, but some. MacGregor didn’t mind being associated with the successes, it was being associated with a lengthy list of crashing failures that worried him. Besides – well, MacGregor prided himself on not being a snob, but really, it was rather embarrassing to be seen about with a lout like Dover.
The Chief Inspector was a big man, and fat – six foot two and turning the scales at seventeen and a quarter stone. Some coarse-minded colleague had once said that he looked like a pregnant hippopotamus, but this was generally agreed to be grossly unfair to that animal. It was true that most of Dover’s excess burden of fat had settled below waist level and well to the fore, but his face had a most un-hippopotamus-like appearance. For one thing it was too pale, except around the extensive, overhanging jowls which were permanently sown with dark stubble. Dover had a big, flabby face in which the features – small button nose, tiny rosebud mouth and piggy little eyes – were almost lost in the wide expanses of pasty-coloured flesh. On top of his head was a thin covering of dark, dandruff-bespeckled hair.
Dover’s figure generally might be considered to constitute a tailor’s nightmare, but luckily no tailor was ever called upon to answer the challenge. When he bought a suit – a very rare occurrence – he bought it off the outsize peg, and it looked like it. He favoured blue serge, which soon acquired a disgusting patina of grease and dirt. He usually wore an enormous dusty black overcoat and a bowler hat. This latter was no frivolous, guardee affair with a smart curly brim, but a heavy, solid, utility job, designed to protect Dover’s cranium from the onslaughts of the wicked. Throw in a grubby shirt with a too-tight collar and a tie whose original colouring was now quite unidentifiable, and the elegant Sergeant MacGregor’s feelings arouse some sympathy.
Not that Dover in his turn was too enthusiastic about consorting with young MacGregor. He considered his assistant more than a bit of a cissy and frequently asked his superior officers how they thought MacGregor could dress so expensively on the pittance he received as a detective sergeant, second class. ‘Stands to reason,’ Dover was wont to say in the quarters where it would do most harm, ‘the young pup’s taking a bit on the side. You don’t find me coughing up forty quid for a suit and I’m a chief inspector. Where does he get the money from, that’s what I want to know.’
Th
e bus was now churning painfully along in bottom gear. MacGregor shivered and pulled his overcoat collar up round his ears. It was bitterly cold and only the driver, baked by his overheated engine, was making the journey in any comfort.
‘How much longer are we going to be?’ Dover twisted round awkwardly in his seat and bawled the question at the conductor.
That young man stopped writing things in a little notebook and stared out of the window in his turn.
‘ ’Bout half an hour,’ he announced. ‘It’s a long pull up to Thornwich. ’Course, with a decent bus you’d do it in half the time. Not that you’ll find this company wasting its money on decent buses. Not them! Or on anything else. Squeeze every last ha’penny out in profits, they do, so they can run around in their posh limousines. They don’t worry about decent working chaps like you and me and Fred up front there getting stranded out in the dark and cold with nothing but a lot of frozen sheep to keep us company – not them, they don’t! We’re expendable, we are, mate! They weigh up what we’re worth against the price of a new set of piston rings and, take my word for it, brother – you and me and our wives and kids come a hell of a long way down on the list of priorities!’
‘Ask a silly question and you get a silly answer,’ observed Dover in a loud voice. Both he and MacGregor had been at first surprised, and then outraged by the bus conductor’s unexpected tirade. ‘Decent working chaps like you and me’ indeed! Dover scowled blackly. He had had a hard day and he didn’t suffer the proletariat gladly at the best of times.
The bus conductor, sensing that his audience wasn’t exactly with him, lapsed into a moody silence and started writing in his little notebook again.
Dover’s stomach rumbled loudly.
‘Hear that?’ he asked MacGregor with gloomy triumph. ‘It shows I’m hungry. Regular meals, that’s what the doctor said I had to have.’
MacGregor nodded and hoped they weren’t going to have another session on the vagaries of Dover’s stomach. Coming down in the train had been bad enough. Dover had started off by insisting that a rather fetching and very surprised young lady should give up her seat by the corridor to him in case he had to make a quick dash to the toilet, as he had explained to her with an over-generous wealth of detail. The young lady had looked very pointedly at the communication cord and then removed herself from the compartment in a dudgeon so high as to have snow on it. Dover took the comer seat without batting an eyelid. For the rest of the journey, when he wasn’t sound asleep and snoring with his mouth open, he regaled MacGregor and the rest of his fellow passengers with a twinge-by-twinge account of his latest bout of sick leave. By the time they reached their destination, MacGregor wasn’t feeling too good himself.
