‘Have you got any plans for this afternoon, sir?’ asked MacGregor innocently.
Dover regarded him with well-founded suspicion. ‘Why?’
‘Well, I thought there were one or two routine jobs that needed doing, sir, and I thought, if you didn’t want me for anything, I might just get on with them and get them cleared out of the way.’
‘What sort of jobs?’
‘Well, I think we should do a house-to-house inquiry in Birdsfoot-Trefoil Close, don’t you, sir? And in that row of houses that faces the back of Mrs Perking’s residence. I imagine it’ll be a complete waste of time and the dickens of a bore into the bargain, but I fear it’s got to be done, don’t you, sir?’
‘Hm,’ said Dover, searching for the snags. ‘These routine jobs are very important, you know,’ he observed piously. ‘I’m for ever telling you that. Just because they’re boring it doesn’t mean you can shirk ’em.’
‘No, sir.’
‘Just house-to-house inquiries round Birdsfoot-Trefoil Close, eh?’
‘That sort of thing, sir.’ MacGregor was anxious not to be tied down too strictly.
‘Just house-to-house inquiries round Birdsfoot-Trefoil Close,’ said Dover with unmistakable finality. ‘And just see that’s all you-do do, or I’ll rip your ears off.’
‘Very well, sir,’ said MacGregor meekly, glad to get half a loaf at least. He glanced, as if by accident, out of the window. ‘Oh dear, look at that rain! It’s absolutely pouring down.’ Dover looked. It merely served to strengthen his already firm resolve. ‘Drop of rain never hurt anyone,’ he commented sourly. ‘Well, are you going to get on with it or do you propose sitting around here all day?’
‘Oh no, sir. I’m off.’
There was a pause. MacGregor didn’t dare ask the question to which Dover felt, somehow, obliged to give the answer.
‘I shall be staying on here for a bit,’ he rumbled. ‘There are one or two points about this case that need — er— thinking about. There’s more to detection than leg-work,’ he added aggressively.
‘Oh, of course, sir. And you’ll be in your room if I need to get in touch with you, sir?’
Dover nodded. ‘Yes, but I don’t want disturbing unless it’s absolutely necessary. Understand?’
‘Of course, sir.’ MacGregor kept a perfectly straight face.
The two Scotland Yard men went their separate ways: MacGregor out into the sooty drizzle of Pott Winckle and Dover to his hotel bedroom to have one of those quiet thinks for which he was so well known.
Dover was already halfway through his dinner before MacGregor returned. The Chief Inspector was always complaining about the vagaries of his stomach and the delicacy of his digestion but he usually proved himself a stout trencherman when presented with the opportunity.
MacGregor had entered the dining-room feeling on top of the world, but the sight of his superior officer with both feet in the trough brought back that old sinking feeling. Dover was not a pretty sight. He had still not shaved and there was now thirty-six hours of stubble adorning his pasty face. His blue serge, off-the-peg suit looked as though it had been slept in, which of course it had.
Dover regarded MacGregor with a beady and suspicious eye as the elegant young man took his place at the table. ‘Oh, you’re here at last, are you?’
‘It was quite a big job, sir,’ said MacGregor meekly and gave his order to the waiter.
‘And if it wasn’t, you could be trusted to make it one,’ observed Dover surlily, splattering the table cloth with a half-masticated mixture of potato and gravy. ‘Well, get any results — or is that asking too much?’
‘On the contrary, sir,’ retorted MacGregor with quite a show of spirit. ‘I think we’re really on to something at last. A number of ladies in Birdsfoot-Trefoil Close and its neighbourhood spend all their time peeping out of their windows and I’ve picked up quite a lot of useful information.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well, sir, for one thing Cynthia Perking wasn’t having an affair or anything like that with another man. Every move she made was watched—she was quite a centre of interest, as you can well appreciate, knowing who her father was—and all her neighbours agree that nobody, apart from the odd tradesmen, ever called at the house. And she was never away except for the time it took her to do her shopping and things like that. So, you see, sir,’ —MacGregor stepped nervously on to forbidden ground—‘this makes it even more unlikely that her husband killed her, doesn’t it? Everybody says they were a most devoted couple and we know he’d nothing to gain financially by her death. And she wasn’t two-timing him with some other man. So, why should he kill her?’
Dover scowled. ‘How do you know, he’d no hopes of financial gain? He might have had her insured for half a million quid. Probably had. And, even if she wasn’t having an affair, Perking might have thought she was and that’d come to the same thing, wouldn’t it?’
MacGregor sighed. You might as well save your breath, really.
‘Is that all you’ve found out? Not much for a whole afternoon’s work, if you ask me.’
‘I got a lot more information about this mysterious caller Cynthia Perking had before she was murdered, sir.’
‘Mysterious? Who says he’s mysterious? He doesn’t strike me as being mysterious,’ rumbled Dover, eyeing MacGregor’s plate with interest. ‘Bit off your oats, aren’t you?’
‘The ladies were very hospitable, sir. I’ve had nineteen cups of tea and, I must confess, it’s rather taken the edge off my appetite.’
‘Waste not, want not,’ said Dover, his fork already piercing the choicest morsels on MacGregor’s plate. ‘Well, get on with it, man! We don’t want to be sitting here all night.’
‘One of the ladies was an ex-A.T.S. driver, sir, and she took a bit more interest than most of them in the car. She reckons it was an M.G. noo, dark green and brand new, this year anyhow. Now, that’s not an especially common car, sir. There can’t be all
