‘Here,’ said Dover, a great one for sitting on his dignity, ‘I’ll thank you to remember who you’re talking to, laddie! We aren’t running a democracy round here and don’t you forget it.’ MacGregor gritted his teeth. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said tightly. ‘It’s just that I was wondering if you had any ulterior motive, of which I am unfortunately unaware, for putting such a hypothetical question to Mrs Carruthers.’
‘She yacks too much,’ muttered Dover sullenly. ‘Talk about a never-ending stream! And don’t you start coming the sarky with me, either, laddie! She needed teaching a lesson. You’d think we’d nothing else to do all day except sit around on our backsides listening to her gabbling her stupid head off.’
‘Well, that’s really what a large part of our job consists of, isn’t it, sir?’ ventured MacGregor carefully. ‘It gets very boring at times, I do admit, but it’s a cross we have to bear.’
‘Oh, I can quite believe it doesn’t bother you,’ said Dover nastily. ‘You’d spend your whole life lolling about doing nothing if you were given half the chance. Well, it doesn’t do for me, laddie. I like a bit of action myself.’
MacGregor raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘It sounds as though you’ve got it, sir.’
Dover sniggered. ‘I was wondering how she’d take it. She’s a very neurotic type, if you ask me.’ He scratched his unshaven chin reflectively. ‘Here, you don’t think by any chance that I’ve scored a bull’s eye, do you, laddie?’
‘No, sir, I don’t,’ MacGregor replied resolutely. Things, in his opinion, had already gone quite far enough.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure. Very guilty reaction that was, if you ask me. I mean, if she didn’t go into next door yesterday afternoon, what does she want to go flying off the handle like that for, eh?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know, sir, but, since by the sound of it, Mrs Carruthers is coming downstairs you’ll be able to ask her yourself.’
But MacGregor wasn’t going to be allowed to get away with it as easily as that. To his lot fell the task of assuaging the understandably outraged sensibilities of young Mrs Carruthers. Not surprisingly she found it difficult to comprehend that she had been the victim of a light-hearted joke. Looking dazed, she sat down at the kitchen table and clutched a selection of infants to her bosom. ‘I’ve come over all shaky,’ she said resentfully, pushing her best hat back off her brow. ‘My knees have gone as weak as water, they have really.’
‘Why don’t you make us all a nice cup of tea?’ asked Dover helpfully.
Young Mrs Carruthers shook her head and laid her collapsible umbrella on the table. It fell heavily. Mrs Hutchinson was never to know how lucky she’d been. ‘I shall have to go and apologize to her first, shan’t I?’ asked Mrs Carruthers piteously. ‘I mean, the things I was saying about her. She’ll never let me hear the last of it. That other row we had — that was bad enough. But, this time . . . ’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, pull yourself together, woman!’ Dover’s paper-thin patience was fraying at the edges. ‘Mrs Whatever-her-name-is doesn’t know what you’ve been saying about her, so you’ve nothing to worry about, have you?’
‘Ah,’ said Mrs Carruthers in gloomy triumph, ‘but she’ll guess, won’t she? She knows me. She knows I wouldn’t sit quietly twiddling my thumbs while people were casting aspersions on my good name and all but accusing me of murdering my best friend.’
‘But she hasn’t cast any bloody aspersions!’ raged Dover, his thirst getting the better of him. ‘I haven’t even spoken to the blasted woman! I’ve never even laid eyes on her and she’s never accused you of anything.’
‘Oh yes, she has! Indeed she has! What about that time her scruffy old cat went missing? With all these rowdy teenagers hanging about the place, who does she have to pick on? My poor little . . . ’
‘MacGregor!’ Dover brought a truly baleful glance to bear on his subordinate. ‘I’m not going to stand much more of this. Get this woman calmed down and be quick about it!’ Eventually MacGregor, employing all his tact and boyish charm at full strength, got Mrs Carruthers back to as near normal as she was likely to be for some considerable time. She’d had a bad shock and, as she herself put it, it would be ages before she got back her trust in human nature. However, she incarcerated most of the infants behind bars in a stout play pen and set about making a cup of tea for the adults.
Dover grabbed a handful of rusks and bravely pressed the button which would set Mrs Carruthers off again. ‘Did you see anything out of the ordinary going on next door yesterday afternoon?’
Young Mrs Carruthers stopped stirring her tea. ‘Round at Cynthia’s? Well now, it’s funny you should ask me that, because I didn’t. I mean, when your next-door neighbour gets murdered, you’d think you’d see something, wouldn’t you? Well, I’ve been racking my brains ever since I heard what happened but I can’t call to mind a thing that struck me as being odd. Of course, unlike some I could name, I don’t spend all my time gawping out of the window, spying on what my neighbours are doing. If you want a minute by minute account of what happened at Number 17 I suggest you go and ask your friend Mrs Hutchinson.’
Dover scowled and MacGregor leapt in with a question.
‘What time did Mrs Perking leave you yesterday?’
‘Well now, I suppose it’d be about half past twelve. I know it was getting quite late because, of course, she’d had to wait simply ages at the doctor’s. He’s always busy, he is. Of course he’s supposed to be very good but, as I told my hubbie, you need all your health and strength to sit it out in his dratted waiting room until it’s your turn.’
‘And you
