Mrs Chubb-Smith resorted to her only defence. She burst into tears. Dover, completely unmoved, watched sourly as she carefully dabbed at her eyes with a tiny lace-edged handkerchief. He hadn’t been a policeman for over twenty years to be put off his stroke by a snivelling woman. She could scream and chew the carpet for all he cared.
Mrs Chubb-Smith shot him an oblique look, and sighed.
‘Oh well, I suppose I’d better tell you the whole thing,’ she snapped crossly, ‘though it’s nothing at all to do with this wretched girl’s disappearance.
‘The thing is, Inspector, that I had every reason to believe that the baby was Michael’s – my son’s. She came to see me one day, it must have been almost as soon as she knew she was pregnant, and told me that she was “in trouble” as she put it. She said my son was responsible.’
‘And you believed her?’ asked Dover.
‘It was not beyond the realms of possibility,’ replied Mrs Chubb-Smith grimly. ‘Michael has been rather naughty where some of the local girls have been concerned, and this dreadful Rugg girl has quite a reputation in the district for, well, for being rather loose in her ways. Michael is, I’m afraid, rather highly sexed – like his dear father – though, of course, he’s never got a girl into trouble before. In any case, these modern girls are just as much to blame as the men are. More, really. After all, it is up to them to set the standards.’
‘Anyhow, you accepted her statement that your son was the putative father?’
‘After I’d had a little talk with Michael, yes, I did.’
‘Then what?’
‘She wanted money, naturally.’
‘Blackmail?’
‘I suppose you could call it that. But what could I do? I had to keep her quiet. It was just about the time that Michael was getting engaged to Maxine and, of course, neither she nor her father would have tolerated a scandal like that! I just couldn’t afford to take the risk.’
‘So you paid up?’
‘Yes.’
Dover scratched his stomach pensively. ‘Why didn’t she go to your son?’
‘Oh, she knew he’d no money!’ Mrs Chubb-Smith gave a short, scathing laugh.
‘And when the baby was born ?’
‘Well, it was obvious it wasn’t Michael’s, and she couldn’t even pretend for a moment it was. You can imagine how relieved I was when I heard!’
‘And you stopped the payments?’
‘Naturally. The whole thing was over. There was no point in continuing them, was there?’
‘Did Juliet Rugg start the same little game again, just recently?’ asked Dover.
Mrs Chubb-Smith tossed him a look of loathing and started to shake her head.
‘I wouldn’t bother lying if I were you,’ advised Dover, ‘we’ve other sources of information.’
Mrs Chubb-Smith uttered a short, rude word not usually found in the vocabulary of gentlewomen, however decayed.
‘I met her about a week ago,’ she snapped. ‘She said something about some letters she had, from Michael. She kept simpering like a great fat cow and saying she wondered what his wife would think about them. She didn’t actually ask me for money, but I gathered that was what the filthy little bitch was leading up to.’
‘Has she approached you since?’
‘No. I’ve been expecting her every day. I don’t mind telling you that I’ve been nearly at my wits’ end. I can’t go on paying money out for ever!’
‘Did you discuss what Juliet had said to you with your son?’
‘Oh yes!’ Mrs Chubb-Smith laughed bitterly. ‘You can imagine what a tower of strength he was! He admitted that he’d written some letters to Juliet, the damned fool, and they certainly weren’t the sort he wanted Maxine to see. All he could suggest was that I should go on paying through the nose to keep Juliet Rugg’s mouth shut.’
‘You didn’t consider calling her bluff? After all, this business took place before your daughter-in-law was married, didn’t it? Perhaps she wouldn’t be quite so upset as you seem to fear.’
‘In the first place,’ said Mrs Chubb-Smith, ‘I’m not absolutely sure that Michael hasn’t been seeing this Rugg girl since his marriage. He won’t admit it, but I’m not quite so stupid as you may think, Inspector. Maxine is a rather, well, shall we say she’s not a submissive wife. At times Michael may have turned elsewhere for — er — consolation.
‘And in the second place, Maxine is not the kind of girl to forgive and forget. I’m very fond of her, naturally, but she’s been very spoilt and she’s rather used to having her own way. Modern girls, Inspector, especially those with rich fathers, have one eye on the divorce courts when they’re walking up the aisle. In my day a woman accepted a little infidelity on the part of her husband as regrettable, even painful perhaps, but not disastrous. But a girl like Maxine doesn’t marry for a home and children and security. She marries for her own pleasure. And I can assure you that, devoted as she is to Michael, Maxine would break that marriage up without a qualm if she thought Michael has as much as looked twice at a girl like Juliet. Young people, I find, are very selfish and self-centred these days.’
‘Hm,’ said Dover with a deep grunt of agreement. He was second to none in his disapproval of the younger generation. ‘So, Juliet’s disappearance must have come as quite a relief to you?’
‘When I heard she was missing, it was one of the happiest days of my life!’ Mrs Chubb-Smith spoke with weary frankness. ‘I suppose it’s a dreadful thing to say, but if she’s dead . . . ’
She couldn’t finish the phrase and shrugged her shoulders helplessly.
Chapter Six
CHIEF INSPECTOR DOVER was never, as his wife well knew, at his brightest and best first thing in the morning. But when he appeared in the dining-room of The Two Fiddlers on the Saturday, even the landlord’s wife, a woman of considerable experience, was a bit taken aback at the air of gloom, despondency and sheer bad temper
