Sergeant Veitch’s face fell. ‘But, it’ll take hours and hours.’
‘I don’t give a twopenny damn if it takes years and years,’ said Dover who got a real kick out of making life miserable for other people. ‘I still want it first thing tomorrow morning.’
‘What do you call first thing?’ asked Sergeant Veitch dolefully. ‘I don’t go on duty till six.’
‘Ten o’clock,’ said Dover, naming the hour at which he considered the day to break.
‘I still don’t see how I’m going to do it,’ grumbled Sergeant Veitch. He was already picturing his constable assistant sweating away over the task. He might even take one of the brighter lads off patrol for an hour or two to lend a hand. ‘ I mean, it’ll be very difficult to sort out what was new and what wasn’t, won’t it? I suppose that’s what you want; the stuff that had come in while he was away?’
Dover nodded.
‘It’s going to be some job,’ Sergeant Veitch said again in an attempt, which he knew was hopeless, to soften Dover’s heart.
‘Well, that’s your problem,’ Dover pointed out comfortably. ‘And do it yourself. I don’t want every Tom, Dick and Harry in the place knowing what’s going on and gabbling about it.’ This was a good example of how Dover endeared himself to his subordinates. He didn’t care two hoots whether every man, woman and child in Wallerton was conversant with the task he had off-loaded on to Veitch’s cringing shoulders. He was well aware that Mrs Veitch would be informed in any case, especially if it looked as though the information was confidential. And what you told Mrs Veitch you told the world. Dover knew, too, how Sergeant Veitch’s mind worked: lumber somebody else with it. It was, after all, the system on which Chief Inspector Dover himself relied. In insisting that the Sergeant performed the task single-handed, Dover was merely being thoroughly bloody-minded.
His spirits perked up considerably after this ignoble little triumph and he wished the sullen sergeant a cheery goodnight when the car dropped him at his hotel. Still buoyantly bouncing on the crest he strode into the dining-room and polished off a dinner that would probably have kept an Asian family for a week. His good humour sagged a little when he found that, once again, MacGregor was not in attendance. He repaired hesitantly to the bar after dinner to have a brandy to settle his stomach. It was the first time for many years that he had entered such a place unaccompanied. It made him feel naked. History was about to be made as he fumbled in his pocket for the exorbitant sum that the bartender, quite brazen-faced about it, appeared to be demanding. But fate, in the person of a dear old lady who’d been propping up the bar since opening time, intervened.
‘Have it on me,” she said unexpectedly.
Dover’s gratitude made him speechless. Gallantly, however, he moved along the counter so as to keep in touch with his new found benefactor and finished up by passing the remainder of the evening in her company. She was a motherly old soul, treating Dover like a son to such an extent that for the Chief Inspector to have offered to stand his round would have been insulting. She was clearly very wealthy and more than a little tipsy. What more could you ask? Dover was disconcerted to find, after an hour or so’s rather incoherent conversation, that she was under the impression that he was a sanitary inspector, but he didn’t hold it against her and, indeed, gave her some very detailed and quite unsound advice on her plumbing problems.
When the old lady became totally paralytic and was removed from the bar by the united effort of three of the hotel staff, Dover decided it was time for bed. MacGregor was still not in his room. Dover poked around amongst MacGregor’s private possessions without finding anything he hadn’t seen before and left a note instructing his assistant to contact him at the earliest opportunity. He propped the note up on the dressing table, and withdrew to his own room.
He was snoring like a pig when MacGregor poked him gingerly. Dover heaved over on to his other side.
MacGregor poked again, harder.
With a snort Dover opened his eyes and immediately closed them again. ‘Warisit?’ he mumbled.
‘It’s me, sir. Sergeant MacGregor.’
Dover screwed his mean little eyes up against the light.
‘Watimeisit?’
‘A quarter to four, sir.’
Dover moaned, and rolling over, buried his head in the pillow. ‘You bloody fool! What do you want to go waking me up at this time for?’
MacGregor sighed, unobtrusively of course. He seemed to have spent his entire professional life carrying on exchanges of this nature. ‘Your note, sir. You said you wanted to see me urgently.’
Dover lay flat on his back and pushed the bed clothes away. ‘Trust you!’ he said bitterly. Trust you!’ He lapsed into thought for a moment. ‘I shall have to go down the corridor now, you damned fool!’
Grunting and groaning he got out of bed and groped for his overcoat. ‘If I catch my death,’ he muttered accusingly, ‘it’ll be all your blasted fault. A quarter to four! ’
He plodded resentfully out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
MacGregor sat on the edge of the bed and listened to the distant but unmistakable sounds of his master’s progress. At last the Chief Inspector came thumping back. He looked more wide awake now but was as bad-tempered as ever.
‘You still here?’ he demanded sulkily as he dropped his overcoat on the floor and clambered back into bed.
‘You did say you wanted to see me, sir,’ protested MacGregor who was very tired.
‘Not at a bloody quarter to four in the morning, I didn’t,’ snapped Dover, pulling the
