by Joyce Porter
‘You’d better knock,’ said Dover, nodding at the heavy mahogany door.
‘She’s keeping the water running a long time, sir, isn’t she?’ said MacGregor as a trickle of sweat ran down his temple.
‘She may have cut her throat,’ Dover suggested. ‘That’ll be even worse. Quicker, of course, if you do it properly but most .people tend to botch it. It takes some doing to draw a sharp blade clean across, nice and steady and cutting deep enough.’ He illustrated his point with a chubby forefinger across his own neck.
MacGregor gulped and tapped hesitantly on the door.
They listened intently. There was only the sound of the water pouring from the bath taps.
Dover shook his head. ‘I reckon we’re too late,’ he said. ‘You’d better go in.’
MacGregor turned the handle. The door opened a fraction of an inch. He glanced back at the Chief Inspector. Dover nodded his head. MacGregor steeled himself and opened the door wider. He stepped over the threshold with Dover close behind, treading on his heels.
It took them a fraction of a second to get their bearings. The bathroom was enormous. Over on the far left, gushing out great clouds of steam, stood a huge old-fashioned bath. Both taps were full on.
‘’Strewth! You could drown an elephant in that,’ breathed Dover as he and MacGregor moved forward instinctively to investigate whatever horrors the billowing steam might conceal.
They were well into the bathroom before a movement on the right attracted their attention. Only a few wisps of steam had managed to cross the vast tiled expanse so that the view was clear and unobstructed. There was Dame Alice, clothed in nothing but a flowered plastic mob cap, cavorting and preening herself in front of a large tarnished mirror. As the two detectives stood with gaping jaws, Dame Alice twisted herself into a creaking, shaky arabesque. Had she been thirty years younger it might have been a sight to stir the blood. As things were, it wasn’t.
Dame Alice regarded herself in the mirror with quite unwarranted satisfaction. She smiled at her reflection and, taking a deep breath, spun into a pirouette. On the second time round, shortage of wind and an obscure intuition that something was wrong made her hesitate. She peered towards the door.
Dover’s hand went to his bowler hat, a gesture of courtesy that was as incongruous as it was untypical.
Dame Alice opened her mouth and screamed. Being a lady of good family and impeccable connections, she then clutched herself desperately in the appropriate places. For the first time in her life, perhaps, she regretted her exquisite, tiny, small-boned hands. They were totally inadequate for the task modesty demanded of them.
Dame Alice screamed again, but by this time the two masculine intruders were in full and fearful retreat. Even MacGregor, a great one for smoothing over little social awkwardnesses, decided to postpone the abject apologies which the situation clearly demanded. He fought valiantly with Dover for the honour of being first through the bathroom door. Neck and neck they pounded down the stairs and across the hall. MacGregor, forging slightly ahead, got the front door open in time for Dover to surge through unchecked. With winged heels they flew down the front steps and along the gravelled drive. Dame Alice’s dog, a bewildered look on its face, came round the side of the house only in time to see them disappearing through the gates. It sat down and had a good scratch, wondering in its dumb way what the hell was going on.
But there was no rest for Dover and MacGregor. They pounded resolutely on, down the hill to the sanctuary of The Jolly Sailor. From time to time MacGregor, younger and fitter than his Chief Inspector, turned round to see if they were being followed. Dover, eyes popping, jowls wobbling, concentrated all his energies on putting as much distance as possible between himself and Dame Alice. Sweat poured off him, and his face acquired a glow like that of the rising sun. Had The Jolly Sailor been another fifty yards farther away, it is more than likely that Dover’s undistinguished career would have ended in apoplexy there and then.
They reached the bar parlour. Dover flopped panting for dear life into the nearest chair. But the old war-horse still maintained a firm grasp on the essentials.
‘Lock the door!’ he gasped. ‘And give us a fag!’
Chapter Sixteen
IT MUST have been a good ten minutes before either Dover or MacGregor returned to something like a normal state. The cigarette which Dover had insisted on having did little to restore his physical condition, but it may have helped steady his nerves. When MacGregor had got his breath back, he lit one for himself.
‘Do you think she recognized us, sir?’ he asked anxiously.
Dover, still speechless, still scarlet in the face and coughing dangerously, shook his head to indicate that he really didn’t know.
‘It was actually quite dark in the bathroom, wasn’t it, sir?’ asked MacGregor hopefully. ‘And there was quite a lot of steam where we were standing. She can only have caught a glimpse of us for a split second. And she hadn’t got her glasses on. I should think she’s probably as blind as a bat without them, wouldn’t you, sir?’
Dover gulped down another lungful of air and tobacco smoke and went on coughing. MacGregor looked at him with some concern. The last thing he wanted at this particular moment was to be left alone to face the wrath to come.
‘Are you all right, sir?’ he asked.
Dover regarded him with bleary, bloodshot eyes. ‘Gemeadrink!’ he croaked.
‘A glass of water, sir?’
Dover raised an exhausted head from the table on which he had laid it. ‘You bloody fool!’ he groaned.
Feeling much happier MacGregor went behind the counter and helped himself to a couple of large whiskies. The bar was locked but MacGregor knew where the Quinces hid the key.
‘Should I go and have a look to see if she’s coming, sir?’
Dover shook his head again. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’ve just got to behave normally. If she did spot us our only hope is to deny it. Swear we’ve never been near the place. It’ll be our word against hers, and everybody knows what funny fancies some women get at her age.’
MacGregor looked dubious. ‘But, suppose somebody saw us, sir?’
‘Hallucinations!’ snapped Dover. ‘And if you’ve got any better suggestions, let’s be hearing them! If it hadn’t been for you and your crack-brained ideas we’d have never gone upstairs in the first place. Things always go in threes! She’s cutting her wrists in the bath! By God, MacGregor, if there are any repercussions from this, I’ll break you! So help me, I will!’
MacGregor meekly bowed his head. He knew that Dover could turn very nasty when needs be, and that he had a solid reputation at Scotland Yard for wriggling out of tricky situations with a whole skin while his innocent subordinates found themselves being flayed alive.
Suddenly Dover chuckled. It started him off coughing again. He soothed his throat with another mouthful of neat whisky. As the minutes went by he began to feel more and more secure. If a rampaging Dame Alice was going to appear on the threshold of The Jolly Sailor, she would appear quickly. It couldn’t take her more than ten minutes to get dressed and be down at the pub, and already a quarter of an hour had passed since Dover and MacGregor had returned.
‘Mind you,’ said Dover with a grin, ‘I shouldn’t think she’ll be too keen on the idea of having this spread all round the blooming county, even if she did recognize us. Prancing about in her birthday suit like a water nymph! In front of a mirror, too. Damned disgusting, I call it, at her age. ’Strewth!’ he chuckled again. ‘The look on her face when she spotted us!’
MacGregor smirked. ‘I must say, sir, you’re very observant,’ he twitted Dover. ‘It wasn’t her face I was looking at!’
‘You dirty-minded young pup!’ Dover’s tone dripped with masculine indulgence. ‘And her a Dame of the British Empire, too!’
This set them both off laughing.
‘Come to think of it, sir,’ said MacGregor, sniggering like a smutty-minded schoolboy, ‘she hasn’t got a bad figure, not considerin
g she’s a bit past her prime. Quite – er – full, she was. In parts!’
‘Oh, do you think so?’ said Dover, now thoroughly relaxed and enjoying himself hugely. ‘I thought . . . ’ – he broke off for a guffaw and a cough – ‘I thought things had slipped a bit here and there!’
MacGregor sniggered again and made some vulgar remark to which Dover responded with equal coarseness. They were both laughing almost uncontrollably as the conversation grew bawdier.
‘What she should have done,’ said Dover, mopping the tears of mirth from his eyes, ‘was use that little plastic hat she was wearing. Properly placed it would have covered a lot of her embarrassment!’
‘Yes,’ agreed MacGregor, ‘her hands were far too small – from her point of view, of course, not ours. I thought that purple stuff on her fingers provided the final kinky touch, didn’t you, sir? It clashed so gloriously with the blush which, if I remember correctly, reached right down to her . . .’
‘What purple stuff?’ asked Dover sharply, his face sinking back with relief into its usual sullenness as he wiped the smile off.
‘Oh, I suppose she’d burnt her finger or something, sir. She’d dabbed some of that gentian violet stuff on it. I remember it quite distinctly. I’m surprised you didn’t notice it, sir. It was on her . . . ’ – MacGregor jiggled about with his hands as he repeated Dame Alice’s modest gesture – ‘right hand.’
‘My God!’ Dover stared with fascination at his sergeant. ‘My God!’ he repeated fervently. ‘Are you calmly sitting there, you great nincompoop, telling me that Dame Alice had gentian violet daubed all over her hands!’ His voice cracked on an outraged bellow.
‘Well, yes, sir,’ said MacGregor.
‘Gentian violet!’ roared Dover. ‘You damned fool, it wasn’t gentian violet! It was purple ink!’
‘Oh, no, sir!’
‘Purple ink from a kids’ printing-set, you blithering half-wit! The stuff the second batch of poison-pen letters was written with. We’ve got her! By all that’s holy, we’ve got her!’ Dover gave a whoop of triumph and slapped his hand down painfully on the table to emphasize his point.
‘Oh, no!’ said MacGregor.
‘Don’t you say “oh, no” to me!’ yelped Dover. ‘Gall yourself a detective! You couldn’t see a frying-pan if it was held right under your nose. I told you she was responsible for those poison- pen letters. I told you so right from the beginning. Of course you didn’t believe me. You had to go haring off after a lot of red herrings all over the place. Black-market babies, my Aunt Fanny! Well, thanks to me we’re home and dry now. It’s a good thing one of us has got some brains.’
‘It might really be gentian violet, sir,’ muttered MacGregor unhappily. ‘People do burn their fingers.’
‘Only when they play with fire!’ retorted Dover. ‘And that’s what your Dame Alice has been doing. Cheek of the woman, getting me sent down here. I suppose she thought she was being very clever. Well,’ – Dover smirked complacently – ‘he who laughs last, laughs longest!’
‘What are we going to do now, sir? asked MacGregor timidly. ‘We’ll have to get her along to the police lab. and get the stuff on her fingers analysed. If we can prove it’s the same ink as was used in the letters, well, she’ll have some explaining to do, won’t she?’ Dover scowled. Time was getting on. He was going to be out of Thornwich on that six o’clock bus if it was the last thing he did, Dame Alice or no Dame Alice.
‘If,’ he said cautiously, ‘the old cow knows it was us in her bathroom, she’ll know that we spotted the purple ink on her fingers. And, if she knows I’ve seen it, she’ll know I’m going to do something about it. Right?’
‘Er – yes, sir,’ agreed MacGregor doubtfully.
‘So, what’ll she do? She’ll wash it off, won’t she?’
‘Er – yes, I suppose so, sir.’
‘There’s no suppose about it!’ snarled Dover. ‘The woman’s not a complete fool. She’ll have that stuff off in two shakes of a lamb’s tail if she’s got to amputate every finger she’s got to do it. And then where shall we be? Right back where we started!’ Dover’s jowls dropped sulkily and his lower lip stuck out like a bad-tempered child’s. ‘We know who it is and we haven’t an ounce of proof, nothing that’d stand up in court for five lousy seconds.’ Dover’s voice dropped pathetically. ‘It’s too bad, really it is.’ MacGregor maintained a tactful silence. It was difficult and possibly dangerous to find anything to say.
‘No.’ Dover shook his head sorrowfully as he got into his stride. ‘It’s no good kicking against fate. We’re never going to be able to bring Dame Alice before the Bar of Justice. These things happen, laddie, even to the best of detectives. In our profession you’ve just got to learn to take the rough with the smooth.’
‘Oh, I don’t know, sir,’ said MacGregor with the selfish optimism of youth, ‘I dare say if we poked around a bit’
‘No!’ said Dover categorically. ‘I know when I’m beaten and I hope I’m big enough to accept it gracefully. Further investigation would be an unjustified waste of the taxpayers’ money.’
‘It still may not be Dame Alice, sir,’ ventured MacGregor. ‘I mean, everything’s very circumstantial, sir, isn’t it?’
‘It’s Dame Alice,’ said Dover crossly. ‘Don’t start up another argument about that!’
‘But if you abandon the case now, sir,’ MacGregor protested, ‘it means she’ll get clean away with it. Apart from all the trouble and distress she’s caused, she may even have been responsible for driving Mrs Tompkins to her death, though of course – as you know, sir – I’ve always thought there was something more . . .’
‘I said we couldn’t get a conviction in court,’ Dover broke in quickly before MacGregor started dragging all that business up again, ‘but there is, however, still the Bar of Public Opinion.’ He permitted himself a sly, wicked smile. ‘Lead me to the telephone, laddie. I am about to cook Dame Alice’s goose!’
It was Miss Tilley who answered with a twitter of delight when she heard Dover’s rumbling voice throbbing in her ear. ‘The Chief Constable, Mr Dover? I’ll look his number up for you right away. It won’t take me a minute. Just hang on, will you?’
‘If there’s any difficulty about putting me through,’ said Dover portentously, ‘just tell ’em I wish to speak to Mr Mulkerrin on a matter of the utmost importance in connection with the case I have been investigating here in Thornwich.’
There was another gurgle from Miss Tilley and Dover gave MacGregor a broad wink. ‘Wild horses wouldn’t keep the old dear from listening in after that!’ he observed complacently.
Miss Tilley was indeed in such a flurry of excitement that it was several minutes before she got the Chief Constable on the line. Her hands twitched nervously over the keys on her switchboard and it was only by the grace of God that she didn’t cut him off again. ‘You’re through!’ she whispered and, from long practice, gave a convincing click on the wires as Dover identified himself.
Chief Inspector Dover spoke fluently and at length. Mr Mulkerrin at the other end seemed to have lost his voice.
Eventually, when Dover had had his say, he found it. ‘Are you sure?’ he said weakly.
‘Without a shadow of doubt,’ said Dover firmly. Then, feeling that politeness doesn’t cost anything, he added a fractionally belated ‘sir’.
‘I just can’t believe it,’ said the Chief Constable, floundering as his world was turned ruthlessly upside-down. ‘Dame Alice writing poison-pen letters? It’s completely incredible!’
‘You can’t get away from the facts,’ said Dover. ‘My sergeant and I have no doubts at all.’
‘But surely you’re not just going to throw up the case at this stage?’
‘No choice, sir. She’s not going to make a slip now. Your men can keep an eye on the situation, if you like, now they know where to look, but I doubt if they’ll catch her Dameship.’
‘Well, it’s all very unsatisfactory,’ grumbled the Chief Constable. ‘You’re going
to let me have a written report, I hope?’
‘Er – no,’ said Dover, ‘no, I think not. The whole case has been handled on a very unofficial and irregular level, as you know. I don’t think it would be a very good idea to have anything on paper at this stage, especially in view of Dame Alice’s position.’
‘It’s precisely Dame Alice’s position that’s worrying me,’ said the Chief Constable tartly. ‘It’s most unsuitable that she should be allowed to continue as a County Councillor and Chairman of my Standing Joint Committee. Most unsuitable! Why, the woman’s nothing more than a common criminal of the most disgusting kind.’
‘That’s why I thought I ought to let you know, confidentially, what conclusions my sergeant and I had come to. Perhaps you can find some way, behind the scenes, you know, of easing her out.’
‘There is such a thing as slander,’ said the Chief Constable.
‘Oh, quite,’ said Dover. ‘You’ll have to be careful. But I didn’t want you to think that I’d just been unable to solve the case.’
‘No,’ said the Chief Constable. ‘No, of course not.’
Dover replaced the telephone receiver and turned with great satisfaction to a goggle-eyed MacGregor. ‘There are more ways of killing a cat, laddie,’ he observed gleefully. ‘That’ll teach the old baggage to come the high hat with me! And now’ – he looked at the bar clock – ‘I think we’ve just nice time to pack and have something to eat before we catch that bus.’
As departures go, it was a rather ignominious one. Mrs Quince obliged, for the last time and with no visible signs of regret, with a high tea consisting of tomato soup and kippers – a very popular combination with walkers and cyclists from all quarters of the country. Charlie Chettle and his whippet dog came along to see the two detectives off, and Mr Quince flatly refused to hear any hint that he should carry the bags downstairs. Only little Mr Tompkins was missing from those who had come to know Chief Inspector Dover most intimately during his short stay in Thornwich.
‘Don’t ask me where he is,’ said Mrs Quince unhelpfully. ‘He went off somewhere this morning before you were up and he didn’t know what time he’d be back.’
