A hand grasped Dover’s coat collar and shook him. It belonged to an enraged Miss ffiske. She was shouting something at him. Dover turned away to find Mrs Jolliott, arms akimbo, on the other side of him. Out in the middle of the hall Doris Doughty had been hoisted up on to a chair and was already launching fervently into Henry the Fifth’s battle speech before Agincourt. As several well-permed heads turned to listen to her rousing declamation, Dover managed to catch the Chief Constable’s bloodshot eye.
‘Come on!’ gasped Dover, struggling to free himself from the clutching hands. ‘Weve got to get out of here!’
‘Where to?’ demanded the Chief Constable, fighting his way ruthlessly to Dover’s side.
‘There’s only one place we’ll be safe. Follow me!’
They made it to the gentlemen’s cloakroom by the skin of their teeth. The Ladies’ League, excited and intent on vengeance as they were, remembered that they were ladies and hesitated. Even the most dauntless was forced to think twice before she breeched this last bulwark of masculine privacy.
Inside the cloakroom Sukey was cowering in a corner. She snarled automatically but, seeing the expression on Dover’s face, wisely lowered her gums over her teeth and accepted the intrusion. Dover leaned his forehead against the cool white tiles.
‘That was a bloody near squeak!’ he groaned shakily. ‘What’s got in to ’em, for God’s sake? Another couple of seconds and they’d have lynched us.’ He dragged himself over to one of the two available seats and sat down, exhausted.
‘It was those films,’ explained the Chief Constable, whose better half had managed to insert a few explanatory facts into the torrent of abuse she had let fly at him. ‘I say, do you really think they’ll not dare to follow us in here? I wish we could lock that door.’
With an effort Dover hoisted himself to his feet. ‘Maybe we ought to take up action stations,’ he sighed. ‘Just in case.’
He faced the appropriate wall. It took a moment for the penny to drop. Then the Chief Constable got the idea and with a sigh of his own took up his position beside Dover.
‘What about the films?’ asked Dover wearily.
Wild shouts could be heard from the corridors outside. Shrill voices were calling for tar and feathers.
The Chief Constable glanced nervously over his shoulder. ‘God, listen to ’em! The films? Oh, it was a batch they’d got hold of from some scruffy agency in London. You know, the sort they show in the more disreputable strip clubs, and worse. The Ladies’ League were sort of going to review them and then write up to members of Parliament and what have you complaining about the degradation of womanhood.’
‘If that bit I saw was anything to go by, they must have had quite a night of it.’
‘Not half,’ agreed the Chief Constable. ‘They’ve been watching ’em for hours. Of course, that was what all the secrecy was about. No wonder they kept the doors locked. Naturally they didn’t want people to know what they were doing. Well, you can understand it, can’t you? The Ladies’ League having an evening of dirty films? They’d never live it down. You can’t blame ’em for going berserk when we broke in, can you?’ He looked anxiously at Dover. ‘Do you reckon they’ll calm down, given time?’
‘We could swear a solemn oath never to reveal what we saw to a living soul,’ suggested Dover gloomily. ‘Maybe that’d satisfy ’em.’
‘And maybe it wouldn’t,’ the Chief Constable rejoined miserably. ‘Damn it, Dover, this is all your bloody fault! If it hadn’t been for you and your crack-brained theory about’em castrating MacGregor, we wouldn’t be in this mess!’
‘It wasn’t a crack-brained theory!’ snapped Dover crossly. ‘My God, you’ve seen what they’re like. They’re capable of anything! We’ll be damned lucky if they don’t castrate us before we get out of here.’
‘Rubbish,’ said the Chief Constable, blenching.
‘And where’s MacGregor, eh?’ Dover pressed home his defence. ‘You tell me that! Lured away by one of those old bags and kidnapped, that’s where he is. Poor devil, they’ll have cooked his goose for him good and proper by now. I don’t envy you having to face him when he turns up again. You won’t be able to look him in the eye after what you’ve let them do to him.’
‘Me?’ squeaked the Chief Constable. ‘It wasn’t my fault! You were the one who buggered everything up. If you’d told me properly what your plans were I’d have …’
‘Told your wife!’ said Dover nastily. ‘That’s why I’d got to keep it all under my hat. I couldn’t trust any of you! I …’
‘Now, look here, you!’
The argument waxed loud and furious. Even Sukey opened her eyes as the two poliecmen shouted and raged at each other. They were just on the point of resorting to an exchange of physical violence when the cloakroom door opened. Two hearts stopped beating as one.
‘It’s only me, sir,’ said MacGregor with a most inappropriate smile.
Dover sagged with relief and then stiffened with fury. ‘ Where the hell have you been?’
The Chief Constable was a kindlier man. ‘Are you all right, sergeant? I mean, are you …? Have they …? You are all right, aren’t you?’
MacGregor stared at him in some amazement. Such concern for his welfare on the part of a senior officer was unexpected. ‘ Yes, I’m fine, thank you, sir. Er, how are you?’
‘Where’ve you been all evening?’ snarled Dover.
MacGregor turned to him eagerly. ‘That’s what I wanted to tell you, sir. I’ve got a real lead at last. You see, just after you’d gone, this girl rang me up …’
‘What girl?’
‘Sibyl, sir. You remember,
