The Chief Constable’s eyes narrowed and he prepared to launch himself into a modified and intimidating version of the Riot Act when Sergeant Veitch tugged gently at his sleeve.
‘This way, sir,’ said Sergeant Veitch.
They all trooped off. The caretaker returned to his cubicle. ‘Think they’re the flipping Lords of Creation,’ he remarked sourly to the young lady who had ducked discreetly out of sight when the posse had burst in. ‘Here, what you put your clothes on for? You’re not going, are you?’
‘With five hundred coppers thumping around the place, I’m certainly not staying,’ retorted the young lady and flounced off into the night, her honour by an inexplicable quirk of fate still intact.
Meanwhile the hue and cry was wending its way along empty, dimly-lit and seemingly endless corridors. Dover and Sukey were both showing a marked tendency to lag behind. Dover was beginning to develop some very profound doubts about the advisability of the forthcoming activities, and Sukey’s paws were hurting her. As they scurried round yet another corner Dover saw salvation loom in sight: a dimly-lit sign with the word ‘Gentlemen’ written invitingly on it.
‘I shan’t be a minute,’ said Dover to the nearest constable. ‘Just tell the Chief Constable to carry on without me. I’ll be along in a couple of shakes of a lamb’s tail.’
So saying he pushed open the door of the Gents and disappeared inside. Sukey, for reasons best known to herself, followed him. Together they remained in these somewhat insalubrious surroundings for five minutes, after the elapse of which Dover judged it safe to emerge.
His luck was out. The Beatrice Bencher Memorial Room was less than a stone’s throw away and, to Dover’s great disgust, the whole damned shoot of them were still huddled outside the door.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ hissed the Chief Constable, who might also have begun to have second thoughts.
‘You shouldn’t have waited,’ said Dover.
The Chief Constable snorted and consulted his watch. ‘My chaps should be in position now. You can go ahead.’
Dover surveyed his companions sullenly and picked the one least likely to start answering back. ‘You open the door,’ he said with what was meant to be a fatherly smile.
The bright-eyed young policeman nodded smartly and stepped forward. The door was locked.
‘What else did you expect?’ snapped the Chief Constable. ‘Come on, you lads! Get your shoulders to it!’
The local constabulary may not have been noted for their brains but nobody could question their brawn. Six stalwart men charged the door. It burst asunder with remarkable and unexpected ease, hinges and locks giving way at the same moment. The six stalwart men tumbled into the Beatrice Bencher Memorial Room in a scrabbling confusion of boots and caps.
With a courteous gesture and a touching deference to superior rank Dover motioned the Chief Constable to precede him over the prostrate bodies.
Chapter Seventeen
After the collapse of the door there had been a moment of comparative and, in retrospect, blessed quiet while nigh on a hundred members of the Ladies’ League recovered, from the shock. Then it started.
There were screams and shouts and yells. Some ladies fainted, others collapsed into hysterics. Those made of sterner stuff bawled orders and instructions and demanded at the tops of their stentorian voices to know what was happening. Chairs and tables were overturned and a minor stampede developed towards the fire exit at the far end of the room. Even the Chief Constable’s resolute advance faltered.
The room was in darkness, lit only by an odd flickering patch of brightness on one of the walls.
Dover, peering vaguely about him, fastidiously repelled a covey of ladies who were fluttering, like moths, towards the light which streamed through the demolished doorway.
‘Lights!’ roared the Chief Constable. ‘Somebody switch the bloody lights on!’
Much to his surprise, somebody did. In the harsh glare of the fluorescent strips the two sides gawped in astonishment at each other.
The Chief Constable’s eyes swept the scene before him. With a sinking heart Dover looked round, too.
‘Well?’ demanded the Chief Constable, clearly preparing to bite the hand which had led him thus far by the nose.
Dover looked again. He would have given a great deal to see an anaesthetized MacGregor laid out on an operating table with a fiendish veterinary surgeon, scalpel in hand, bent over him. Nothing so gratifying met his eyes. The body of the hall was still filled with milling, clutching, squealing, swooning females while, at the far end, was a low platform holding only a long table and a dozen or so empty chairs. On the wall over the table was a large screen on which a film was still being projected.
‘Cor!’ rasped one of the policeman throatily, and forgot himself so far as to dig Dover companionably in the ribs. ‘Get a load of that, mate!’
Dover did. The picture on the screen was faint but unmistakable. A young lady of improbable dimensions and no clothes was saucily cavorting with a gentleman in a similar state of undress on an enormous double bed.
‘Cor!’ breathed the policeman again and wiped the back of his hand across his brow. ‘They’re not going to …? By God, they are! Cor!’
But, much to his and Dover’s disappointment, one lady at least had kept her head when all around were losing theirs. With a final gobbling whine of seductive music and a loud click, the screen went blank.
‘Hubert! What, may I ask, is the meaning of this disgraceful intrusion into a strictly private meeting?’
The ladies were rallying, led by the Chief Constable’s own formidable spouse. The unfortunate man cringed as, supported by some very militant-looking members of the sorority, she bore down on him.
His miserable and confused explanations were quite unacceptable. More and more ladies pulled themselves together, switched on the offensive and crowded round demanding enlightenment. It looked as though a very nasty situation was about to develop. One Amazon, who bore a marked resemblance to the winner of the 1962 Grand
