Like a punch-drunk boxer who doesn’t know when he’s taken enough, Dover got himself up on his hands and knees. There was a yelp of innocent canine joy. Dame Alice’s dog, which had been cowering terrified at the back of the house, emerged, saw Dover and hurled himself on his adversary with teeth snapping and paws scrabbling.
‘ ’Strewth!’ groaned Dover as the dog landed on him, square in the small of the back.
It was MacGregor who sorted things out.
Dover sensibly refused to acknowledge anybody or anything until he found himself reclining with his feet up on a settee. There was a clink of glasses. He opened his eyes and closed them again in horror as he found Dame Alice standing over him, proffering a tumbler of brandy.
‘Where am I?’ he asked feebly, thinking it better to stick to the conventional script until he found out what the hell was going on. ‘What’s happened?’
‘You might well ask,’ said Dame Alice grimly and rammed the glass of brandy between Dover’s teeth. ‘My companion has absconded, my drive has been ruined and my dog is having hysterics.’
‘Mrs Comersall?’ choked Dover as the brandy seared his throat.
‘Oh, she’s gone chasing after Miss Thickett,’ said MacGregor, moving into Dover’s view. ‘I don’t think she’ll catch her, though, not in that old van.’
‘Miss Thickett?’ said Dover with a nasty feeling that his dearest hopes were going to be dashed.
‘Miss Thickett!’ repeated Dame Alice with withering scorn. ‘A viper I have nursed in my bosom! After she had received this very peculiar telephone-call about which your sergeant has given me a most incoherent account, she rushed upstairs, packed a suitcase, and left, without so much as by-your-leave or a word of explanation. From what the sergeant here has been telling me, it seems unlikely that she will return. What has been going on, Chief Inspector? I demand an explanation.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Dover crossly. He took another sip of brandy. It wasn’t Dame Alice whom Mrs Comersall had phoned. It wasn’t Dame Alice who had been flogging babies at three hundred smackers a go. His lower lip stuck out in a sulky pout. He’d damned near ruptured himself, rushing up that hill. And for what? Not for the pleasure of slipping the bracelets over Miss Thickett’s hairy hands, he could tell you that!
‘You must know something!’ insisted Dame Alice.
Dover scowled ferociously at her. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her to belt up, but diplomacy and a tender regard for his public image restrained him. ‘During my investigations into the circumstances of Mrs Tompkins’s suicide,’ he began with great dignity, ‘my attention was drawn to the fact that she had withdrawn the sum of three hundred pounds in cash from her bank only a few days before her death. We already knew that Mrs Tompkins had earlier been unsuccessful in adopting a baby through the usual channels and when, in the further course of my investigations, I discovered a girl in Bearle who had been preparing to sell her illegitimate and unwanted infant, I naturally put two and two together.’
Dover perked up a bit. Put like that it didn’t sound at all bad. Besides, he reflected maliciously, it might be as well to get the authorized version firmly established before MacGregor got a chance to open his great trap.
‘I discovered,’ he went on, growing more and more pompous, ‘that the girl had entered into negotiations with Mrs Freda Comersall here in Thornwich. Naturally this confirmed my suspicions that there was some connection with Mrs Tompkins, suspicions which up to now had been little more than inspired guesses.
‘When interviewed, Mrs Comersall was evasive, but it was clear from her manner that she knew more than she was prepared to divulge. I therefore,’ said Dover, assuming a cunning look, ‘informed her, casually as if by accident, that we had reason to suppose that Mrs Tompkins was prepared to pay, and, as far as we knew, actually had paid three hundred pounds for the baby. The effect was electrifying! Clearly Mrs Comersall did not know either that the prospective purchaser was – or had been – Mrs Tompkins, nor did she know that a sum of the magnitude of three hundred pounds was involved.
‘Immediately upon vacating Freda’s Cafe, my assistant and I repaired to the sub post office on the other side of the road. There, with the co-operation of Miss Tilley, I overheard a most revealing telephone conversation between Mrs Comersall and someone in this house. It was obvious that Mrs Comersall had got in touch with her fellow conspirator. The two women had been working together to sell Mrs Tompkins the baby recently born to Eleanor Smith.’
‘Mary Thickett!’ spat Dame Alice. ‘How dare she! Living under my roof, how dare she! Of course, she knew all about my dealings with Mrs Tompkins over the legal adoption of a baby. I naturally gave her access to the most confidential material. She must have seen her opportunity to make a profit out of the distress of someone else. I wonder how she got in touch with Mrs Comersall? Miss Thickett has only been in my employ some three or four months and I didn’t even know that she’d even so much as spoken to Mrs Comersall. Of course, I have been keeping my eye on Mrs Comersall for some time. I suspect that she carries out illegal abortions, but it is very difficult to get adequate proof in cases of that kind. No doubt’ – she shivered fastidiously – ‘Mary Thickett considered that background an ideal one for her nefarious machinations. Mrs Comersall could be relied upon to know where to lay her hands on unwanted infants.’
‘Well, there it is,’
