‘It’s Davenport,’ the brunette chick said, ‘Chauncey Theobald Davenport, if you must know.’
‘And she can give you a description of his birth marks if you want.’ added her sister Chick unkindly.
Dover’s eyes crossed slightly as he concentrated. MacGregor, fearful that the old fool was on to something, watched him intently.
‘Ah!’ said Dover and smiled with an air of great satisfaction. ‘Chauncey Davenport.’
It was the name of one of the two men who had been brought into the police station when Dover had been trying to report the suicide which his wife had so inconsiderately witnessed. He was the one in the striped underpants. The one without a sense of humour who had started the fight. The one who had refused, dramatically, to let the police surgeon examine his wounds.
‘Ah!’ said Dover again, with the express intention of mystifying MacGregor. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the expression of frustrated fury on MacGregor’s face, Dover might have let the matter drop there and then. Had he done so it is highly unlikely that the mystery of Constable Cochran’s death would ever have been solved. From such small acorns great big oak trees grow.
‘Hm,’ said Dover, jutting his bottom lip out portentously. ‘Very interesting,’ he murmured and shot a glance at MacGregor to see how this was going down. Apparently it was going down very well. MacGregor was fidgetting impatiently and clearly dying to ask what it was all about. ‘Hm,’ said Dover again, wondering hard what he could say next.
The two Fluffy Chicks watched him suspiciously.
‘This Chauncey what’s-his-name,’ Dover plunged in rashly, ‘ you say he’s stopped, er, coming to the Club?’
The brunette Chick nodded her head unwillingly.
‘When did he stop?’
‘Oh, months and months ago,’ chipped in the blonde Chick spitefully.
‘He had a nervous breakdown.’ The brunette Chick leapt to the defence of her lover. ‘He went missing, you know, and lost his memory or something. Overwork, they said it was.’
‘Ha, ha!’ laughed the blonde sardonically. ‘Well, that’s a new name for it, I must say! The only work he ever did …’
‘Why don’t you keep your trap shut?’ snarled her friend. ‘Just because he never took a fancy to you …’
‘Never took a fancy to me? I like that! He tried it on a good few times, I don’t mind telling you, but I happen to have my standards. I can’t stick these men who think that they’ve just got to jerk their heads at you and you’ll come running. So, unlike you, dearie, and unlike every other cheap little tart, amateur or professional, in this godforsaken town, I said no!’
Chapter Nine
MacGregor tried every means, subtle and crudely blunt, to find out what Chauncey Davenport and his amorous adventures had got to do with anything. He was so intent on this line of investigation that he completely forgot to ask why Dover hadn’t told him about the true identity of Mr Hamilton. Dover, however, stubbornly refused to reveal all. This was partly due to sheer meanness and partly to the fact that the Chief Inspector really didn’t know himself. He just had an ill-defined, cloudy sort of impression that there was some connection between Chauncey Davenport and Constable Cochran. They had both been members of the Country Club, of course, but it wasn’t only that. What more it was, Dover grandly decided to think about on the morrow. He’d had a hard day and you never got any gratitude for flogging yourself to death.
It had been no later than half past eleven when Dover and MacGregor had left the Country Club, their Fluffy Chicks having fled the roost as soon as Dover had indicated that he had finished with them. The barman rang up for a taxi and barely concealed his astonishment when he received a mere fourpence for his trouble. Dover and MacGregor entered the lift and slowly descended to the ground floor. The doorman watched them leave in silence, contenting himself with making an obscene gesture of farewell to their departing backs.
In the taxi MacGregor took it upon himself to display some initiative in the partnership and asked the driver if he was the one who’d driven Hamilton home on that fatal night.
‘No,’ said the taxi-driver.
MacGregor asked him if he knew the man who had driven Hamilton.
‘Yes,’ said the taxi-driver.
‘Does he work for the same firm?’ asked MacGregor.
The taxi-driver became loquacious. ‘He does.’
‘What’s his name?’ MacGregor’s usually excellent memory had let him down and it was too dark in the car to read his notes.
From the darkness of the back seat came a scornful sniff. ‘ How to be a detective in ten easy lessons,’ said Dover, sotto voce.
‘Arthur Armstrong,’ obliged the driver.
‘Mate of yours, is he?’
‘No.’
‘Oh,’ said MacGregor, wishing he’d never started the conversation. ‘Is he on duty now?’
‘No.’
‘Well, what time does he come on then?’
‘Midnight till eight in the morning.’
‘I suppose we’d better leave it till tomorrow, sir.’ MacGregor sank back in his seat.
‘Leave what?’ grunted Dover.
‘Well, questioning the taxi-driver, sir. He’s a very important witness. He was one of the last people to see Hamilton alive.’
‘And good luck to him!’ rumbled Dover.
‘Shall we leave it till tomorrow then, sir?’
‘Too right we shall,’ said Dover sourly.
‘You’ll have to be early,’ said the taxi-driver suddenly. ‘ He’ll be in bed by nine, soon as he’s had a meal.’
Dover groaned.
As things turned out it was after half past ten before MacGregor managed to get Dover, who had developed his limp again, to the cottage in which Arthur Armstrong lived.
The cottage looked poor but respectable and Dover sniffed contemptuously. He was more than a bit of a snob and was always resentful that none of the really juicy cases involving the aristocracy ever seemed to come his way. He would dearly have loved to put his feet up in some marble halls for a change. Still, he made an unaccustomed effort to look on the bright side, the down-trodden peasants who inhabited this modest cot might be
