‘But she’s a school-teacher!’ protested a voice from the back of the crowd. Mr Tompkins was justifiably annoyed. That was his line.
‘I don’t care if she’s a blinking astronaut,’ retorted Dover, ‘she can’t spell for toffee. You’ve only got to read this so-called suicide note.’ Several hands reached forward in answer to the implied invitation, but Dover crossly pushed the letter back in his pocket. The cheek of some people! Fancy thinking he was going to hand round an official document as though it was a bag of chips or something!
Chips! Now that was an idea. ‘Any chance of getting a bite to eat?’ he asked Mr Tompkins. ‘All this talking’s making me a bit peckish. And a bit dry too, too,’ he added quickly with a deprecating laugh. You might as well kill two birds with one stone while you were at it.
Charlie Chettle, who must have suffered from a subconscious death wish, was dispatched across the road to Freda’s Cafe and another pint of beer was transferred from hand to willing hand.
‘Well now,’ said Mr Tompkins when things had settled down again, ‘I must say, speaking on behalf of all of us, what a great privilege it’s been, Mr Dover, and how interesting to hear all about this – er – unfortunate business straight from what you might call the horse’s mouth.’ There was a shy spatter of applause. Mr Tompkins cleared his throat. ‘There’s just one last question I would like to ask – if you don’t mind.’ Dover inclined his head graciously. ‘Why did Poppy Gullimore do all this? I mean, why did she confess to writing the poison-pen letters and why did she pretend to commit suicide?’
‘Ah, Mr Tompkins,’ said Dover blandly, ‘I’m afraid you’re asking me to delve into the mysteries of the human mind. Of course, I could expound on all the psychological ramifications of Miss Gullimore’s motives and her general mental state, but I hardly think this is either the time or the place for discussions of such profundities. On the other hand, I could perhaps express it more simply in terms that a layman could understand. To put it briefly, she’s a nut-case.’
‘Ah!’ said Mr Tompkins as though one of his own more adventurous theories had been confirmed.
‘As nutty as a fruit cake,’ said Dover, expanding his theme with typical originality of phrase. ‘We see millions of ’em up at the Yard. They come along in their hundreds and confess to any old crime we have on our books – the more sordid the better. Exhibitionists, that’s what we call ’em. They just want somebody to pay a bit of attention to them. They’ll do anything to get in the limelight. Your Miss Gullimore’s typical. I thought so as soon as I first clapped eyes on her. “You’ll have to watch out for this one, Wilf,” I told myself. “She’ll be rushing up to make her free and voluntary before you can say Jack Robinson, if I know anything about it.” And, of course,’ said Dover, modestly casting his eyes down, ‘I was right.’
Mr Quince passed a message from behind the counter. The Chief Inspector was wanted on the telephone. Dover made his way to the back of the bar, turning this simple movement into a triumphant procession. Everybody fell silent and listened hard, but they could only catch a high-pitched squawking coming from the other end. Thornwich had to wait until the following morning to get from the ever vigilant Miss Tilley a verbatim account of what Sergeant MacGregor said. Dover restricted his part in the conversation to a series of knowing grunts.
He put the receiver down and returned to his table, revelling in the knowledge that all eyes were focused upon him.
‘Just a final bit of confirmation from my sergeant,’ he announced. ‘I sent him to the hospital to make some inquiries. Your Miss Gullimore had only swallowed about thirty aspirins – hardly what you might call trying. And,’ tantalizingly Dover saved his titbit till the last – ‘her underwear was grubby, distinctly grubby! Well, you see what that means, don’t you?’
‘Well, no, Mr Dover,’ confessed Mr Tompkins unhappily, ‘I don’t.’
‘Genuine suicides,’ said Dover, a trifle impatiently, ‘realize that somebody’s going to examine their bodies when they’re dead and they’re usually most particular about being clean and tidy underneath. Phony suicides never think about things like that because they know damned well they’re not going to be laid out on a marble slab.’ He was getting fed up with Miss Gullimore, in spite of the fact that she’d provided him with an excellent excuse for showing off in front of the yokels. ‘It’s one of the ways in which we policemen tell the difference between a real attempt and a fake one.’
The timely arrival of Charlie Chettle with a selection of Freda’s hot meat-pies allowed Dover to drop the now tedious subject of Miss Poppy Gullimore’s suicide, and for the rest of the evening he regaled the company with stories of his past detective exploits. He went into great detail about a surprising number of cases which would have remained for ever unsolved in the files of Scotland Yard had it not been for Dover’s keen eye and agile brain. These stories were highly effective and mostly culled from the memoirs of senior officers who had retired from the Yard in a blaze of popular glory. Dover, a masochist if there ever was one, assiduously read all the books they wrote. He had ideas of writing a book himself one day, if he could find enough material to hold the hard covers apart.
Mr Quince called time promptly at 10.30 in deference to the forces of law and
