‘Just at the top of the hill, sir,’ explained MacGregor brightly. ‘Opposite the church.’
‘ ’Strewth!’ grumbled Dover. ‘If I’d known it was going to be a blooming marathon I damned well wouldn’t have come. My feet are killing me! Why the hell didn’t you order a taxi?’
‘It can’t be more than half a mile, sir.’
‘Oh, can’t it?’ snapped Dover, gingerly placing one boot down after the other. ‘I’d have you remember, young fellow my lad, that I’m still supposed to be on light duties. Being out in all this cold’s not doing my stomach one bit of good. Here,’ – Dover stopped abruptly in his tracks – ‘you walk next to the kerb for a change. These damned lorries keep splashing water all over me.’
After ten minutes’ laborious uphill progress, Dover and MacGregor turned into the drive of Friday Lodge. The house was a pleasant, late Victorian building, set in its own grounds and much the most impressive residence in the village. Opinions differed as to why Dame Alice, whose interests and commitments ranged so wide, continued to live in a cultural backwater like Thornwich. It was true, of course, that a small village gave her genius for officiousness full play, and what she didn’t know about the private and public lives of the villagers was just not worth knowing. Then again, her marriage to a Stote-Weedon gave her an unassailable social position which might not, elsewhere, have been yielded to her with such passive resignation.
In the old days the Stote-Weedons were Thornwich. They had owned the big house and, like previous brides, Dame Alice had been initiated into the rites of rigorous social service by her mother-in-law, whose soup had been known and feared by every poor cottager for a radius of five miles. Comparatively early widowhood had left Dame Alice free to develop her humanitarian instincts, and her D.B.E. had been won for welfare work on a county and, at times, even on a national scale. The villagers had for years expected, and hoped, that she would move to some more congenial part of the country, but she appeared to like Thornwich. It wasn’t what it had been in her young days, of course, but she was comfortable there and saw no good reason for moving. The villagers shrugged their shoulders and accepted the fact that she would be with them for ever: either bossing them from the crumbling splendours of Friday Lodge, or reproaching them for their past lack of co-operation from the family vault in the parish church. The village would miss her when she was gone and almost everybody was eagerly looking forward to the deprivation.
MacGregor mounted the steps to the front door and rang the bell as Dover lumbered up behind him. The peals had hardly died away, when an enormous dog, black, hairy and of uncertain breeding, came bounding out from round the back of the house. It leapt about at the foot of the steps, barking and revealing its teeth aggressively. Dover, in spite of his bad feet and ailing stomach, sprinted so as to position MacGregor between himself and the ravaging animal. When the door was opened the Chief Inspector was across the threshold in a flash, and slammed the door so quickly behind him that MacGregor was nearly shut outside.
A tall woman with straight, iron-grey hair regarded this undignified manoeuvring with undisguised disdain.
‘There’s no need to be afraid,’ she announced calmly. ‘Bonzo is quite harmless. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
‘When I start worrying about flies,’ snarled Dover, ‘I’ll tell you. You ought to keep that brute chained up. Or have him destroyed.’
‘Good heavens,’ – the woman laughed unpleasantly – ‘I never realized that policemen were afraid of poor little dogs! No wonder the number of crimes with violence is rising steadily every year.’
Dover snorted and changed the conversation. ‘You’re Dame Alice, I suppose,’ he said in a voice which implied that his worst suspicions had been realized.
‘No, I’m not,’ said the woman, smugly pleased at being able to contradict him. ‘I am Dame Alice’s companion and secretary. My name is Thickett, Mary Thickett. Miss Mary Thickett.’
‘Ah, an unplucked rose!’ countered Dover smoothly. ‘Well, where is Dame Alice?’
‘She is waiting for you in the sitting-room,’ said Miss Thickett frigidly. ‘If you will kindly let me have your coats and hats, I will take you in to her. I suppose,’ – she smiled sweetly and stared pointedly at Dover’s bowler – ‘you do remove your hat when you are in a private residence?’
‘Only,’ rejoined Dover with a wittiness which made MacGregor cringe, ‘when I’m in the presence of a lady!’
Miss Thickett took the hats and coats and tossed them contemptuously over a chair.
‘By the way,’ said Dover, who sometimes just didn’t know when to stop, ‘speaking of poison, I suppose you’ve had some of these anonymous letters, too, have you?’
‘No,’ said Miss Thickett, looking down her nose, ‘as a matter of fact, I have not. I have been spared that particular humiliation.’
‘Oh,’ said Dover. ‘That’s a bit funny, isn’t it?’
‘Not to me,’ said Miss Thickett severely. ‘We clearly have widely differing senses of humour.’ She walked stiffly across to a small table by the front door and picked up a cardboard tray and a tin collecting box. With the air of one delivering the coup-de-grace to a detested enemy, she proffered the tray to Dover and rattled the collecting box under his nose. ‘Perhaps you would care to purchase your poppy from me,’ she said with a faint smile. ‘I see you’re not wearing one.’
MacGregor fumbled sheepishly in his pocket for half a crown, while Dover backed away like a nervous horse from this blatant attempt to extort money from him.
‘You’re a bit early, aren’t you?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘Remembrance Day is a week on Sunday, my dear Chief Inspector. Now, come along, I’m sure we can rely on you to give generously.’ This was hitting well below the belt, and Miss Thickett knew it.
But Dover was not one to
