With such an ally Dover couldn’t lose. Protesting feebly the old man was hoisted up into the saddle and Dover’s suitcase roped securely across the handlebars in front of him. Wilhelmina tied a thin khaki scarf round his neck and Dover, one foot on the back cross-bar and one on the ground, gave him a good initial shove-off.
The journey to the telephone kiosk was eventful and took almost as much out of Dover as it did out of William. The trouble was that William just wouldn’t knuckle down to it. At first he complained about his heart and then his legs and tried to cap everything by saying he was coming over all dizzy.
‘Stop talking so much!’ Dover bellowed heartlessly in his ear. ‘Save your breath for pedalling!’
A major contretemps occurred when they came to the hill. Dover was disgusted, and said so. Half a mile long it might be, but the gradient was so gentle as to be almost non-existent. No, he had no intention of getting off. William was to stop this endless whining and get a move on. He, Dover, would assist from time to time by a scootering action with his right leg should William falter.
‘Oh no! Not that, for God’s sake!’ wheezed William. ‘You damned near ruptured me last time! It makes these pedals fair fly round.’
Dover snorted, and scootered regardless whenever William’s speed began to drop. In between times he urged on his driver by frequent cries of exhortation and encouraging thumps in the back. Luckily for both of them the last five hundred yards was downhill William’s feet were whirled round at a rate of knots while Dover, grim-faced and terrified, hung round his neck with the tenacity of a giant octopus.
Their speed increased. The telephone box rushed nearer.
‘The brakes!’ howled Dover. ‘Put the bloody brakes on!’
William’s teeth were chattering too violently to tell Dover that the brakes didn’t work. They were passing the telephone box. Dover abandoned William to his fate and baled out. The tricycle shot completely out of control across the road and landed up in the ditch. William, flung clear just in time, lay coughing and panting on the grass verge. Even Dover could see that there was no sense to be got out of him at the moment. Without saying a word he strode across to the old man and turned him over on his back. In the third pocket he tried he found William’s purse. Feeling very honest he extracted only the fourpence he needed and put the rest back.
Chapter Fifteen
The police car made it from Wallerton in fifteen minutes. William had got his tricycle back on the road though he still wasn’t up to facing the return journey.
‘Perhaps we could give him a lift, sir?’ said the driver as he put Dover’s suitcase in the boot.
‘We’ve no time to waste on him!’ snorted Dover, getting into the car. ‘ We’ve got a job to do!’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ the Chief Constable said caustically as he slid across the seat before Dover sat on him.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Dover foolishly.
‘Who were you expecting? Snow White and the seven dwarfs?’
Dover refrained from verbal comment.
‘Now, look here, Dover.’ The Chief Constable’s voice was unfriendly. ‘Before we go any further with this charade, I want a full explanation and I want it now. Thanks to your letter, I’ve got the police station in Wallerton cram-jam packed with policemen of assorted sizes. They don’t know what for, I don’t know what for, and I have a horrible suspicion that you don’t know what for either. God help you if I’m right!’
Dover assumed his most aggrieved expression. It was wasted because the Chief Constable couldn’t bear to look at him. ‘ There’s nothing to worry about,’ he said in an offended tone. ‘I’ve got the situation under complete control.’
There was a sceptical grunt from his travelling companion.
‘By the way,’ said Dover, ‘ where are we going?’
‘Straight up the creek, as far as I can see.’
‘I think we ought to get back to my hotel as soon as possible. I’m getting a bit bothered about Sergeant MacGregor.’
‘You hear that, Taylor?’ the Chief Constable barked at his driver. ‘Biggest bloody ears in the force, that fellow,’ he muttered. ‘What’s all this about MacGregor?’
‘Well, he’s a sort of decoy you see, sir,’ said Dover ingratiatingly. He didn’t make a habit of calling senior officers ‘sir’.
‘Go on!’
‘Well, you see, sir, things have started going a bit cockeyed with that train not stopping. I meant to be back in Wallerton by a quarter to seven at the latest. Then I’d have contacted you and we’d have kept a watch on MacGregor and then when they grabbed him we’d have walked in at full strength and caught’em red-handed.’
‘Who’s them?’
‘Why, the Ladies’ League, sir.’
You could practically see the steam coming out of the Chief Constable’s ears. ‘ The Ladies’ League!’ he exploded. ‘ What the purple blazes has the Ladies’ League got to do with it?’
‘Oh, they’re at the back of the whole caboodle, sir,’ explained Dover.
‘You’re mad!’ said the Chief Constable slowly. ‘You’re stark, staring mad! You need treatment, you do. It’s overwork, I expect. Turned your brain, that’s what it’s done. You great, fat, blithering slob, do you realize my wife belongs to the Ladies’ League?’
‘That’s why I had to move so carefully, sir. Everybody’s wife belongs to the Ladies’ League, and if I’d told you all about the plan to use MacGregor and everything, it’d have been all round the place in five minutes flat. Those women have got an organization that would put the Gestapo to shame. You just think about it, sir – every other woman in the whole of Wallerton a potential spy. The mind boggles!’
‘Mine certainly does.’
‘It’s quite simple, really,’ said Dover with an easy assurance that was perfectly genuine, ‘once you get the hang of it.’
‘Well, I should be grateful to be let in
