‘Thank you, madam,’ said Dover, not without a certain admiration for such quick-thinking composure- ‘By the way,’ he added casually, ‘I wonder if you can help me on one minor point? Ladies notice these things more than we men do. Can you remember, by any chance, what colour nail varnish Juliet Rugg used to wear?’
It was Eulalia’s turn to frown as she carefully examined the implications of this question. She decided to play it safe.
‘I’m sorry, Inspector,’ she smiled, not without a flicker of triumph, ‘I’m afraid I can’t remember.’
‘Pity,’ said Dover slowly. ‘Oh well, it can’t be helped.’
He put his bowler hat straight on his head and got up with a sigh from his chair.
‘Is that all?’ asked Eulalia suspiciously.
‘I think so, madam, unless of course you’ve got anything you want to tell me.’
Eulalia relaxed almost imperceptibly and shook her head. Boris lolled back in his chair, grinning widely.
Suddenly Dover turned on him, dragged him to his feet by a fistful of his whiter-than-white shirt and slammed him up against the kitchen wall. Bogolepov’s head cracked painfully as it came into contact with the unyielding surface.
‘What happened,’ bawled Dover ferociously, his face not more than an inch from Bogolepov’s, ‘what happened when Juliet Rugg called here on Tuesday night at eleven o’clock?’ He underlined the importance of the question by giving his victim a good shaking.
Boris blinked. Don’t hit me!’ he screamed suddenly in a high, terrified voice. ‘Don’t hit me!’
‘What happened?’ roared Dover.
Boris opened his mouth and let out a stream of German. He struggled ineffectively to free himself from Dover’s grip. The chief inspector bunched an enormous meaty fist menacingly under his victim’s nose. In the background Sergeant MacGregor groaned inwardly.
‘What happened?’ snarled Dover again.
‘Nothing! Nothing happened!’ sobbed the young man.
‘Nothing happened when she called?’
‘No, nothing! Nothing!’
‘Oh, so she did call, did she? You did see her on the Tuesday night?’
Boris tried to pull himself together and collect his thoughts.
‘No, I haven’t seen her at all.’
‘Don’t – lie – to – me!’ shouted Dover, punctuating each word with a bone-jarring shake. ‘I know you saw her.’
Eulalia had jumped to her feet. ‘Don’t answer, Boris!’ she screamed. ‘They’re only trying to trap you. Don’t answer!’
But the German wasn’t listening to her. He cringed, whimpering and blubbering, back against the wall. ‘Don’t hit me,’ he begged, ‘don’t hit me!’
‘If you don’t tell me the truth,’ promised Dover, ‘I’ll break every bone in your body, one by one.’
Don’t hit me! It wasn’t me! She killed her! She did it! It wasn’t me. Don’t hit me!’
‘Shut up, you blabbing fool!’ shouted Eulalia from the other side of the table. ‘For God’s sake keep your damned mouth shut!’
‘What did you do with the body?’ demanded Dover. ‘D’you hear me? What did you do with the body?’
‘No!’ Eulalia’s scream cut through the air. With a tremendous leap she flung herself on Dover’s back, her hands clawing desperately for his face. As Dover released his hold to protect his eyes, Boris slipped out of his grasp and laughing in a shrieking hysteria, tears and sweat streaming down his face, he dashed across the room towards MacGregor.
‘The body?’ he screeched dementedly. ‘The body? You wish to know where the body is?’ He broke into a spine-chilling giggle which racked his whole body.
Dover flung Eulalia to one side. ‘Get him, Sergeant!’ he shouted to MacGregor, who was still hovering uncertainly on the outskirts of the fracas.
The two detectives came at Boris with a rush but he sidestepped them smartly. Giggling uncontrollably and dancing about on his toes he went on shouting his refrain.
‘You want the body? You want the body? Well, you are getting quite warm! Do you understand? You are getting quite warm!’
Dover made another clumsy grab at him, but Boris tore himself away and went crashing into the kitchen table. The whole lot toppled over; glasses, cutlery, flowers and wine shattered on to the floor.
‘’Strewth!’ ejaculated Dover, gesticulating ludicrously as he tried to free his feet from the clinging folds of the table-cloth.
‘Look out, sir!’ yelled MacGregor.
Dover did and, much to his annoyance, found Boris charging at him, his eyes wild and a nasty-looking table knife in his hand. The chief inspector parried the savage knife-thrust with his left arm and sank his clenched fist into the pit of Bogolepov’s stomach. His assailant doubled forward, choking and spitting, just as Dover’s right knee jerked upwards. Boris received the blow right on the point of his chin.
With a sigh Dover tugged his handcuffs out of his hip pocket, snapped one end round Boris’s wrist and dragged his unconscious body across the kitchen floor. With a grunt he bent down and clipped the other end of the handcuffs to the leg of the electric cooker. Boris groaned and began to show feeble signs of reviving. Dover thoughtfully gave him a kick where it would do most good and turned to see how his sergeant was getting on.
MacGregor, inhibited by a gentle upbringing and the mistaken idea that women are the weaker sex, wasn’t doing any too well. Eulalia had already managed to drag her finger-nails effectively down the side of his face while the sergeant tried manfully to restrain her without actually doing anything which might cause annoyance or offence. No such delicacy of feeling deterred Dover. He grabbed one of Eulalia’s arms and twisted it painfully behind her back. She lashed out with her feet at Dover’s shins but he merely increased the pressure. Eulalia may have picked up a few pointers about hand-to-hand fighting from the noble savages with whom she had spent so much of her time, but Dover had learned his methods from free-born Englishmen and modestly reckoned, when it came to slashing and gouging, that he could hold his own with anyone. Once again the arts of civilization triumphed.
‘Get your handcuffs out, you fool!’ he
