Dover and the Unkindest Cut of All

miracle, really. You wouldn’t hardly credit it. You see, it was Arthur picking these middle-aged ladies that did it, really. Nearly all of ’em belonged to the Ladies’ League and, of course, they were up in arms about it and no mistake. They kept writing to the police and the council and goodness knows what. Well, when it looked like nothing was going to stop him, one of them came to see me. She was very nice about it, really. She said they quite understood that Arthur probably couldn’t help himself but, in a respectable town like Wallerton, with visitors and everything, they just couldn’t let him go on and do nothing about it. Well, I said I could quite see that because it was a nasty business all round and I shouldn’t have liked it myself, but what could we do about it. Well, she said that the Ladies’ League was there to help people, whatever some folks might say about it, and they thought they could get him cured if I’d let him go away for a bit. They had to have my consent, you see, because he’s not twenty-one yet. Well, to cut a long story short, eventually I said yes and off his lordship went and since then we’ve had no trouble. Thank God!’

Dover moved his chair back from the fire. One side of him was sizzling. ‘How long was he away?’ he asked, blinking his eyes and stretching himself.

‘Oh, I forget now. A week or ten days.’

‘But what has all this got to do with your son being a taxi-driver?’ Smugly MacGregor congratulated himself on probably being the only person there who remembered the source of this long-winded rigmarole.

‘Well, he had to get a job, didn’t he?’ queried Mrs Armstrong reasonably. ‘I couldn’t afford to keep him at home for evermore eating his head off, and his unemployment had run out and we weren’t going on the National Assistance, that I can tell you. We never have and, as far as I can help it, we never will. But he couldn’t get a job, you see. There’s not much work in Wallerton for lads of his age, specially in the winter, and, of course, what there was they wouldn’t give him. Everybody knew, you see. So this Mrs Liversedge – she was the lady that came to see me – she said she’d see what she could do. Well, her husband runs this taxi firm so eventually they decided they’d teach him to drive and make a taxi-driver out of him.’

‘But how on earth did he ever pass his test?’ asked MacGregor, staring in bewilderment at the grinning and myoptic Arthur.

‘Oh, Mrs Liversedge was a magistrate,’ Mrs Armstrong explained proudly. ‘She had a word with the examiner.’

‘But he must be an absolute menace on the road,’ protested. MacGregor, horrified at the mere thought of Arthur behind a steering wheel.

‘He certainly isn’t!’ Mrs Armstrong was offended. ‘He only drives between midnight and eight o’clock in the morning and there’s no traffic in Wallerton at that time.’

‘But even so …’

‘Mrs Liversedge said that anybody that wants a taxi after midnight deserves all they get,’ announced Arthur righteously. ‘She said they’re only drunks and suchlike from the Country Club.’

‘But suppose it’s an emergency,’ said MacGregor. ‘Suppose somebody’s got to go to the hospital or something?’

‘Then,’ responded Arthur simply, ‘they ring up the other firm. Anybody in Wallerton knows that and the visitors don’t matter. I hardly ever get a call when I’m on duty. I spend most of my time washing the cars.’

Chapter Ten

On that encouraging note the police intrusion of Mrs Armstrong’s cottage virtually came to an end.

Dover, somewhat half-heartedly because MacGregor had announced the time in a meaningful voice, had bestirred himself to ask Arthur where he had gone for his miraculous treatment. Arthur took an unbelievable time to indicate that he didn’t rightly know. He rambled on about car rides and clean white sheets and the sweets they had given him, all mixed up with memories of a Sunday school outing to Brighton in 1954. Mrs Armstrong, equally vague, was unable to help. She had been so grateful to Mrs Liversedge that she hadn’t felt it incumbent on her to inquire where her son was being taken.

‘Oh well,’ Dover grunted as he rose stiffly to his feet, ‘we might have a chat with Mrs Liversedge some time.’

Mrs Armstrong, now slicing carrots at a rate of knots, shook her head. ‘She passed away a couple of months ago. Very sudden it was. Pneumonia.’

Dover was not sorry. One less interfering old busybody in the would could only be put on the credit side.

‘What do you think, sir?’

‘Eh?’ Dover looked up from the menu. ‘Oh, well, I’m going to have the steak and kidney pud.’

‘No, sir.’ MacGregor fought to keep his exasperation under control. ‘About the case?’

‘Oh, that,’ said Dover, and went back to his menu. ‘What’s pot au feu?’

‘Beef stew, sir.’

‘Well, why the blazes can’t they say so,’ grumbled Dover.

But MacGregor was not to be denied. ‘I may be wrong, sir,’ he went on when the business of ontering lunch had been completed, ‘but I’ve had the impression once or twice that you were on to something.’

‘Who, me?’ said Dover, trying to look innocent.

‘Well, I have had that impression, sir. I thought perhaps you’d seen a chink of light somewhere.’

‘As far as I’m concerned, Cochran’s dratted suicide is almost as big a blooming mystery as it was when we started.’

‘Almost?’ MacGregor pounced like a tiger.

Dover leered maliciously. ‘I reckon anybody who’s forced to live in a dump like this has got motive enough for sticking his head in a gas oven every now and again.’

‘Oh,’ said MacGregor, thwarted. ‘ So you haven’t got a theory?’

Dover shook his head.

‘Nor about the Hamilton business, sir? I thought from the way you were questioning young Arthur Armstrong that, maybe …?’

‘You heard the questions, laddie,’ said Dover with aggravating smugness, ‘and you heard the answers. You should know as