‘But I don’t know anything, sir,’ complained MacGregor.
‘Hard luck,’ said Dover.
MacGregor glared at him. This sort of thing had happened before. Dover had kept on protesting, right up to the last minute, that he was completely at a loss’ and then had suddenly produced a rabbit out of his hat. It wasn’t always the right rabbit, but that was beside the point.
On the other hand, MacGregor ruminated, as he watched the unedifying spectacle of his Chief Inspector with both feet in the trough, there had been other investigations when Dover had claimed to be equally at a loss. And had been. MacGregor shuddered at the very thought of those cases. They were enough to bring a blush of shame to the cheeks of the most barefaced parasite on the police vote. Dover hadn’t lost any sleep over them of course. ‘You can’t win ’em all,’ he used to say as he shrugged off yet another disaster.
The point was, then, was the old guzzler telling the truth this time or not? MacGregor eyed his lord and master dubiously. It was difficult to tell. He was such a blatant liar. On the other hand, his great fat head was usually devoid of ideas of any sort, especially where his detective duties were concerned, so the odds were that he was completely at sea on this particular occasion, too.
‘I’ve got a few tentative “ideas of my own, actually, sir.’
Dover didn’t even bother to raise his head from his plate. ‘Have you? Congratulations.’
‘I was wondering if I might – well – sort of follow them up, sir.’
Dover turned a suspicious eye on his subordinate. ‘What are they?’
‘Well, sir,’ said MacGregor, as cagey as the Chief Inspector about sharing any of his bright ideas, ‘it’s a bit difficult to say.’
‘Try,’ Dover suggested unhelpfully. ‘What’s crème brûlée?’
‘Burnt cream, sir.’
Dover turned to the waiter. ‘I’ll have plum duff, savvy?’
The waiter looked superciliously down his nose at this podgy peasant with the disgusting table manners. ‘ Oui, monsieur,’ he said with as much of a sneer as he dared, ‘je sais. Plum duff!’
‘Well, come on, laddie!’ said Dover impatiently, as MacGregor was longing for the floor to open under his feet. ‘What’s on your mind?’
‘It’s the Hamilton affair, sir.’
‘Well, I hope you don’t think that stupid nit Armstrong had anything to do with it. More fool you, if you do.’
‘He has a police record, sir,’ MacGregor pointed out primly.
‘It wasn’t for grievous bodily harm or carrying a concealed weapon or anything like that, was it, you damned fool?’
‘His mother said he’d been keeping bad company, sir,’ MacGregor insisted.
‘God help us!’ groaned Dover and rolled his eyes alarmingly.
Macgregor was beginning to get a bit annoyed at these antics. ‘You yourself caught him out in a downright lie, sir.’
‘Did I?’ said Dover.
‘He said that he could see the number of Hamilton’s house with no trouble at all. Well, that’s ridiculous, sir! You saw those house numbers right down the entire street. I’ve got perfect vision and I could hardly make them out in broad daylight. How could Armstrong, with his eyesight, possibly see them on a dark night? He was obviously lying.’
‘Who says it was a dark night?’ asked Dover, showing an unfortunate tendency to quibble over non-essentials.
‘It says so in the police file, sir. A fine dark night with no moon.’
Dover, of course, was in no position to argue about what was or was not said in the police file since the pressure of events and his own lethargy had so far prevented him from even looking at it. ‘It still doesn’t mean Armstrong is lying,’ he said.
MacGregor permitted himself a rather superior laugh. ‘I’m afraid I can’t see any other explanation, sir.’
‘No,’ said Dover broodily, ‘you wouldn’t.’
‘And if he’s lying, sir, that means he’s got something to hide.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well, my theory is this, sir, that Hamilton was bumped off by some of his underworld associates – only, of course, he dropped down dead on them first.’
‘So they made mincemeat out of him just for the fun of it?’
‘More or less. I don’t see anything incongruous in that. You know what some of these gangs are like, sir. They’re always carving people up with their knives.’
‘And where does Cochran come into all this?’
MacGregor frowned. ‘Well, I’m not quite dear about that, sir. I’ve got one or two ideas, though. For instance, he may have been in some sort of partnership with Hamilton, in spite of what Joey the. Jock says. We know they were both hanging around that Country Club and an association like that looks more than suspicious to me. So, when Hamilton cashes in his chips, Cochran takes it as a dreadful warning and realizes that the same fate awaits him. Scared out of his wits, he commits suicide off Cully Point.’
Dover elaborately made no comment. He just gazed up at the ceiling, blew his cheeks out and whistled tunelessly.
‘On the other hand,’ said MacGregor, uncomfortably aware that his theories seemed much more convincing before they had been put into words, ‘ it’s quite possible that Cochran wasn’t hand in glove with Hamilton. Maybe he was hanging around Hamilton because he was suspicious of him. Playing detective, you might call it. Somehow he found out who was responsible for Hamilton’s death and they found out that he’d found out and so, once again, Cochran gets the wind up and kills himself. That would explain why he spent his week’s leave in bed. He was hiding.’
Dover looked at his sergeant as though he couldn’t believe his ears.
‘Something along those lines, sir,’ added MacGregor lamely.
‘And the taxi-driver, Armstrong, is a member of the gang?’
‘Well, yes. Or just a helpless tool, perhaps.’ MacGregor could feel the sweat breaking out on his forehead.
Dover slowly and wonderingly shook his head from side to side and tut-tutted softly to himself. ‘And what line of investigation was it you were thinking of following up?’
Unobtrusively MacGregor got his handkerchief out and, under cover of blowing his nose, dabbed his brow.
