Dover buttoned up his overcoat, a desperate, hunted look coming into his little, close-set, black eyes. ‘Come on, MacGregor, we’ll be missing that bus.’
‘But there’s no point in going into Bearle tonight, sir, we haven’t got the address.’
‘There’s no bloody point in stopping here, either,’ snapped Dover. ‘We can always ask at the police station and, if they can’t tell us, we’ll go to the flicks.’ He started to leave the kitchen. MacGregor looked at Mrs Quince and disloyally shrugged his shoulders before following the Chief Inspector.
‘Here, what about your dinner?’ shouted Mrs Quince. ‘I’ve spent the best part of two hours getting it ready.’
A suggestion was thrown back by a rapidly disappearing Dover which, mercifully, Mrs Quince did not quite catch.
‘I shall have to tell Dame Alice I gave you her message!’ she screamed as the outer door slammed shut. With a sigh she wiped her hands on the tea towel, and went into the bar and picked up the telephone.
The Station Sergeant at Bearle police station had a well-earned reputation for being a bit of a wag and he spent a large part of his time, both on and off duty, burnishing this image.
‘Scotland Yard, eh?’ he rumbled, examining MacGregor’s warrant card as though he’d never clapped eyes on one before. ‘Oh, yes, we got special instructions sent round about you. Gave my boots an extra shine only this morning, just in case you decided to come slumming, eh?’
‘We’re looking for somebody in Bearle who gives French lessons,’ said MacGregor curtly. Dover was temporarily absent, availing himself of the station’s toilet facilities.
‘French lessons?’ The Station Sergeant’s eyes twinkled and he scratched leisurely at his head with his pencil. ‘In Bearle? I should have thought you’d have done better in London – a good-looking young spark like you. We don’t go in much for foreign languages up here.’
‘I don’t want to learn it. I want to contact somebody who teaches it.’
‘Oh, well now, they might teach it at the local school. Have you tried there, eh?’
‘I want somebody who teaches it privately,’ said MacGregor.
‘Privately, eh?’ said the Station Sergeant, fighting to keep a broad grin from spreading right across his face. ‘Well, now, if you’d said that to begin with I’d have known what you were talking about, wouldn’t I, eh?’ He gave MacGregor a knowing wink. ‘You’re a bit of a fast worker, aren’t you, eh? You can’t have been up here more than a couple of days and here you are, bold as brass, walking right in here asking for private French lessons. You’ve got a nerve, some of you young bucks!’ He leant matily over the counter. ‘Who put you on to it, you dirty dog, you? The Chief Constable, eh?’
‘We got on to it during the course of our investigations,’ said MacGregor, consulting his watch with an impatient flourish.
This perfectly normal remark had the Station Sergeant in creases. He rocked merrily on his heels behind his counter, tears of pure bovine mirth filling his eyes.
Before MacGregor had the chance to demand an explanation of such peculiar behaviour there was the sound of flushing in the distance and Dover came stumping along the passage.
‘Right!’ he said, scowling as a matter of principle at the Station Sergeant. ‘Have you got it?’
‘Not yet, sir,’ admitted MacGregor through clenched teeth.
‘Well, what’s the matter?’ Dover swung round irately on the portly figure still rocking easily behind his counter. ‘Have I said something funny, Sergeant?’
The Station Sergeant rocked to an unobtrusive halt. ‘No, sir.’
‘Well, what the hell have you got that stupid grin on your face for? Now, are you going to give me the information I want, or do I have to rout out somebody who will?’ Dover scowled pugnaciously.
‘I think I can help you, sir.’ The eyes stopped twinkling and assumed a surly look.
‘I hope so, Sergeant,’ said Dover nastily. In his opinion there was only one way to deal with the local police : kick ’em where it did most good before they got the chance to put the boot into you. It didn’t produce much in the way of willing co-operation, but Dover was philosophical enough to realize that you can’t have everything.
The Station Sergeant recognized he was going to get no change out of the fat one and sullenly tore a piece of paper out of his Occurrences Book. Laboriously he wrote down a name and address. In answer to Dover’s barked request he gave directions, as complicated and inaccurate as he dared, about how to get there.
‘And may I suggest, sir,’ he added recklessly, ‘that if you lose your way, you should ask a policeman?’
By the time they found the address they had been given Dover had calmed down a little. As he told MacGregor, he wasn’t going to stand insolence like that from anyone, never mind a twopence ha’penny, overweight yobbo of a sergeant with hay seeds in his hair.
‘We ought to have a national police service,’ fumed Dover as he started at a little hand-written notice pinned to the door. ‘It’s the only solution. Make some of these peasants out in the wilds pull their socks up. I suppose you have rung that bell, MacGregor?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said MacGregor and stuck his finger on the button again. ‘Mademoiselle Louise de Gascoigne. French Lessons. By Appointment Only’ was certainly taking her time.
Chapter Ten
A SMALL CROWD had gathered before Mademoiselle de Gascoigne opened her door. She hadn’t chosen the most select
