‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Dover grudgingly, ‘but what about Bondy himself? We’ve only his word for it that he was in his room all night As I see it, he was the one person inside the Hall who could have got out without being spotted.’
‘Well, yes.’ Sergeant MacGregor pondered this over doubtfully. ‘But do you think a chap with his record . . . ?’
‘It’s his record that set me wondering,’ said Dover crossly. ‘My God, doesn’t anything ever penetrate that thick skull of yours? You were there, you heard what he said! He served in the Commandos! You know what they were trained to do, don’t you? They were trained to kill, silently!’
Chapter Nine
WHEN Dover arrived back at The Two Fiddlers he found a message asking him to ring police headquarters in Creedon. He left Sergeant MacGregor to deal with it and headed resolutely upstairs to his room. He had just removed his boots, dropping them one by one in grateful relief on the floor, and was loosening the waistband of his trousers when MacGregor came bursting in to report.
‘They’ve traced the owner of that car, sir!’ he announced excitedly. ‘You know, the one Colonel Bing saw Juliet get out of on Tuesday night.’
Dover wiggled his toes and removed his collar and tie, revealing a thin red mark round his beefy, policeman’s neck. He grunted interrogatively. MacGregor took “his as meaning he could continue.
‘It belongs to a fellow called Pilley, sir, Gordon Pilley. He lives in a place called Coleton Garden City. It’s about forty miles from here. The inspector says he’s a commercial traveller and do you want to go over and see him or shall they cope with it?’
‘Not bloody likely!’ snorted Dover, ‘Tell him to keep his paws off my case! You can drive me over there tomorrow morning.’
‘O.K., sir,’ said Sergeant MacGregor brightly, ‘I’ll ring him back.’ He looked pointedly at the chief inspector who was now flat on his back on the bed and happily pulling the eiderdown up to his chin. ‘Will you want me for a bit, sir?’
‘No,’ said Dover, settling his head more comfortably into the pillows. ‘You can go off and get the reports written. And make ’em nice and long. That way nobody’ll ever bother to read ’em. People always read short reports and then they start bothering you. Put down everything every blithering idiot we’ve seen so far has said.’ Dover closed his eyes. ‘You never know, it might prove useful, though I doubt it. Give me a knock when it’s time for dinner.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Sergeant MacGregor with evident disapproval.
Dover opened one eye. ‘I’m just going to have a quiet little think,’ he explained huffily. ‘I want to clarify my ideas about the case.’
Whether or not the chief inspector succeeded in clarifying his ideas, the world will never know. Certainly he made no effort to share his enlightenment, if any, with Sergeant MacGregor on the following morning as they proceeded with the dispatch of a hearse along the roads to Coleton Garden City. Dover was his usual glum, early-morning self and he gazed sullenly out of the window, only occasionally glancing at the speedometer to check that the needle had not insidiously crept above thirty. He noted with sulky satisfaction that the little lambs in the fields on either side of the road were now sufficiently grown up to pass their sunny days bashing each other violently on the head. Somehow, it confirmed Dover’s views on human nature.
Coleton Garden City consisted of acres upon acres of small semi-detached houses set in scruffy unkempt gardens. Everywhere had a raw, unfinished look about it. Reddish-brown soil showed clearly through the wispy green of nascent lawns, and small, leafless hedges marked lines of demarcation but as yet offered no privacy or protection. By dint of much asking of the way they eventually reached the address they had been given-a small semi-detached house in a scruffy unkempt garden.
Dover walked moodily up the path and gave the little brass gnome affixed to the door a good belting. He was rewarded by a sound of scuffling and whispering from inside and somebody peeped round the curtains of the front room to have a look at him.
Eventually the front door was opened by a youngish woman wearing a grubby pink housecoat and a pair of bedraggled mules on her bare feet. Under a crumpled silk head-scarf it was evident that her hair was still imprisoned in a ferocious-looking cluster of curlers.
‘Good morning.’ She spoke with a cautious gentility which was painful to hear. ‘Ken ay help yew?’
‘We’d like to speak to Mr Gordon Pilley, madam,’ said Dover, wrinkling his nose in a disconcerting manner- ‘Is he in?’
‘Well,’ said the woman doubtfully, ‘ay reelly don’t know. Ay’ll just see.’ She turned back into the house, pulling the door to behind her.
Dover stuck a timely, heavy-shod boot forward. ‘Just get him,’ he said briefly, ‘we’re from the police!’ Followed by Sergeant MacGregor, he pushed his way into the hall.
Mr Gordon Pilley hadn’t quite time to duck out of sight. The presence of a small child clinging to his left leg no doubt impeded him.
‘Mr Pilley?’ demanded Dover in one of his voices of doom. ‘We’d like a few words with you, sir. We’re from Scodand Yard.’
There was a moment’s confusion while Mr Pilley picked up the child, which immediately started bawling, handed it to his wife and then squeezed past her in the narrow hall-way. With many ‘excuse mes’ and ‘pardons’ and much to-ing and fro-ing the two policemen eventually found themselves ushered into what Mr Pilley referred to as the ‘lounge’. Whatever else may have taken place in this room, the door of which was kept locked against possible depredations by young Pilley, lounging almost certainly didn’t. This was a room in which you sat, careful not to crease either your best trousers or your hostess’s loose covers, and sipped tea out of the best teacups while
