Dover Three

first. She was very upset about it. I told her to chuck the damned thing in the fire and forget all about it – only thing to do with muck like that. But, of course, being a woman, she wouldn’t. She insisted on taking it to the police. I told her she was making a lot of fuss about nothing, but when she got to the station she found Dame Alice there reporting the same thing. Well, they started comparing letters, and obviously they’d both come from the same source, and Dame Alice began wondering if anybody else had had one. She called at every house in the village and found three or four more of the things. She told everybody what to do if they got one. They were to keep the envelope and take it straight round to the police station in Bearle – that’s the nearest one to us. The inspector said she’d been a great help. Then we all had to have our fingerprints taken to see if they could find out who was sending the things. Oh, we had a proper field day in Thornwich, I can tell you. Not that it did much good.’

‘So I heard,’ said Dover vaguely.

‘They reckon whoever’s writing them wears rubber gloves. There isn’t a single print on any of these letters – and there’s more than sixty of them now, so I’ve heard – that can’t be accounted for by the people who’ve handled them. It’s a fair old mystery and no mistake, and it’s making a very nasty atmosphere in the village, too. You mark my words, Mr Dover, if this strain keeps up we’re going to have real trouble on our hands.’

Dover twitched his nose and made a stout effort to sit upright in his chair. ‘Be a’right now I’m here,’ he said with bleary confidence and reached out to give Mr Tompkins a friendly pat on the shoulder. He missed.

Charlie Chettle looked at the Chief Inspector with wry amusement, transferred his glance to Mr Tompkins and winked. Mr Tompkins shook his head in mild reproof and ordered one for the road.

‘Wa’road?’ demanded Dover, staring suspiciously round the bar. He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘You’ll see,’ – he addressed Mr Tompkins with touching solemnity – ‘now I’ve arrived, she’ll pack it in. They a’ways do.’ He tapped the side of his nose with owlish sagacity. ‘Never fear, Dover’s here!’

‘Shall we give you a hand with him upstairs, Bert?’ – Charlie Chettle rose to his feet. ‘If we don’t get him moving now while he’s still got a bit of strength in his pins, we’ll never shift him. He’ll be a fair weight, that one.’

Bert Quince came out from the warmth of his electric fire and a short tactical conference was held. Eventually it penetrated Dover’s befuddled brain that the party was breaking up and they were trying to get rid of him. He protested loudly and tearfully. The whippet started barking. Elsie Quince returned empty- handed and in a bad temper from her bingo session. MacGregor came rushing downstairs to see what all the row was about.

Eventually, by a combined effort, Dover was hoisted to his feet and swept in a headlong rush to the foot of the stairs with sufficient impetus to carry him up the first three or four steps, after which it was a matter of heaving and pushing up to the top. A mortified MacGregor-put him on his bed.

By about three o’clock in the morning, however, Dover had made a partial recovery. He was somewhat surprised to find himself lying fully clothed on his bed with only an eiderdown tossed carelessly over him, but he wasn’t one to be bothered by little things like that. Making noise enough to waken the dead, never mind the other occupants of The Jolly Sailor, he got up and slaked his raging thirst with the water from his flower-bespattered ewer. Then he ventured out to the little room at the end of the corridor and succeeded in breaking the piece of string. Cursing loudly he lumbered back to his room, undressed and collapsed thankfully on to his bed. Next door Sergeant MacGregor lay wide awake, fuming impotently.

Nobody was surprised when, on the following morning, Sunday, Dover indicated that he did not intend to rise early. MacGregor had to cart his breakfast tray up to him since Mrs Quince made it clear that she had no intention of obliging that far.

Dover didn’t get up for lunch either, though he was much more lively when MacGregor made his second appearance with sustenance.

‘Wath is ith?’ he asked as he heaved himself up into a sitting position.

‘Roast beef, sir,’ said MacGregor, carefully stepping over the pile of clothes which lay where Dover had tossed them, on the floor.

‘Oh,’ said Dover. ‘Well, in thath cathe, you’d better fetch me my teeth.’

‘Your teeth, sir?’

‘Yeth, my teeth, you fool! They’re in that glath over there.’

MacGregor stared in blank disbelief at the Chief Inspector who was already reaching imperturbably for his plate of roast beef. Surely the old fool couldn’t . . .? Oh, no – this was too much! This time he’d really have to put his foot down. But as MacGregor observed Dover’s beady eye and toothless scowl, he went meekly over to the washstand and picked up a tumbler. The dentures – a full top and bottom set – gleamed triumphantly at him through the milky water. With eyes averted he carried the glass at arm’s length back to the bed.

‘For God’th thake!’ lisped Dover in outraged disgust. ‘Rinthe them out firth!’

When at last Dover had munched his teeth into position, he waved a fork at MacGregor and gave the wilting young gentleman his orders.

‘You push off now! You can bring my tea at four o’clock and I don’t want to see your ugly mug before then. Got it?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said MacGregor faintly.

It may seem an unusual way to conduct a criminal investigation, but Chief Inspector Dover was a very unusual