When he had had his afternoon tea he accepted one of MacGregor’s cigarettes and graciously indicated that he was now prepared to discuss the problem of the poison-pen letters. He had abandoned the idea of explaining to MacGregor that he had been temporarily incapacitated by a bilious attack. He had a faint suspicion that he’d used that excuse before. Besides, even MacGregor wasn’t such a fool as he looked. It would be better just to ignore the whole episode.
He dropped a lump of cigarette-ash down the front of his pyjamas. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘how far have we got?’
MacGregor blinked. Sometimes it was a bit difficult to know what the old fool was rambling on about. ‘Got, sir?’ he asked stupidly.
‘With the case, you idiot!’ snarled Dover. ‘You’ve gone through the file, haven’t you?’
‘Oh, yes, sir,’ said MacGregor hastily. ‘Well, the local police don’t seem to have achieved very much.’
‘I know that, you blithering nit!’ snapped Dover. ‘We wouldn’t be here if they’d solved the bloody case, would we?’
‘No, sir,’ said MacGregor.
‘All right, you just give me a brief outline of how things stand at the moment.’ Dover settled back on his pillows, closed his eyes and prepared – no doubt – to listen.
‘Well, sir,’ began MacGregor, rapidly marshalling his facts and translating them into language simple enough for a moronic child of two to understand, ‘the anonymous letters started arriving just about a month ago. They’ve been coming at irregular intervals ever since. We’ve now got a total of seventy-two. All the letters have been posted in the village, either at the post office or in the box at the top of the hill. There seems to be no pattern.’ Dover opened one yellowish eye and looked at MacGregor. MacGregor hastened to explain. ‘What I mean is, sir, that if the writer had posted the letters in – say – the post office on Wednesdays and in the other box on – say – Fridays, it might have given us some sort of a clue as to his movements.’
Dover rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. ‘ ’Strewth!’ he murmured.
MacGregor took a deep, temper-controlling breath and went on, ‘Almost every woman in the village has received a letter – some of them have had a comparatively large number. All the letters are couched in obscene language but contain no spelling or grammatical mistakes. I think that may be not without significance, sir.’
Dover didn’t bother to open his eyes this time. ‘Humph,’ he said.
‘All the letters were typewritten, sir, on Tendy Bond writing paper, white, post quarto size – that’s nine inches by seven, sir, and you can buy it in every stationer’s shop in the country. They even sell it in the supermarkets.’
Dover grunted.
‘They’ve identified the make of typewriter, sir. It’s a Pantiles Portable with a ten-point long primer type. These machines were produced three or four years after the end of the war and sold like hot cakes. There must be thousands kicking around and you can buy them in practically any typewriter shop for about £15 second-hand. The villagers co-operated well with the local police – thanks mainly to this Dame Alice woman from what I can gather – and a house-to-house search was carried out. There was no sign of the typewriter, though a number of people use the Tendy Bond writing paper – which is only what you’d expect.’
‘Humph,’ said Dover again, just to show that he was still awake.
‘Whoever is typing the letters, sir, is – according to the experts – an efficient two-finger typist. Not a professional touch-typist, but somebody who’s done a fair amount of typing in his time. Neat and fairly quick.’
‘Very interesting,’ mumbled Dover. ‘Anything else?’
‘No, I don’t think so, sir. The writer is being extremely canny about not leaving fingerprints and obviously he’s somebody well up in all the local scandal. It looks very much as though it must be somebody actually in the village.’
‘Yes,’ said Dover and yawned. ‘Shouldn’t be too difficult to find. It’s a woman, of course.’
‘I suppose so, sir.’
‘No supposing about it!’ retorted Dover crossly. ‘Typical woman’s crime. Always has been. Everybody knows that. Now then, which of these women have had the most letters?’
‘Well, up to the present, sir,’ – MacGregor hunted amongst his papers and produced a list – ‘there are four women who’ve received more than fifteen each : Mrs Tompkins, Dame Alice Stote-Weedon, Miss Poppy Gullimore and Mrs Grotty – she’s the vicar’s wife.’
‘It’ll be one of them.’
MacGregor looked anxiously at his recumbent superior officer. God knows, he ought to be used to the old idiot going off half-cock and jumping to conclusions, but this was going a bit too far, even for Dover. He hadn’t read a single one of the poison- pen letters nor even opened the local police file on the case, but he had already narrowed down his list of suspects to one of four women.
Some of MacGregor’s astonishment and outraged professional feeling must have communicated itself to Dover. The Chief Inspector opened his eyes, sat up and actually showed signs of getting out of bed.
‘These cases are all the same,’ he explained offhandedly. ‘Some blasted woman goes off her nut and starts writing dirty letters. Form of exhibitionism, really. Naturally – chuck my trousers over, there’s a good lad – naturally she writes a good few to herself to avoid suspicion.’
‘But would she write so many to herself, sir? I mean, what’s the point?’
‘Circulation,’ said Dover with a grunt as he pulled his stomach in and struggled to fasten the top button of his trousers. ‘She wants as many people as possible to read her literary efforts. Naturally, she doesn’t burn her letters. No, she carts ’em straight round to the police like an upright and conscientious citizen and has a fine old time watching some sweating young copper plough his
