‘So you decided to kill her?’ MacGregor prompted helpfully.
‘Of course he didn’t!’ Dover rolled over again. ‘Stop trying to put words in the poor devil’s mouth!’
‘Thank you, Chief Inspector. It’s a great relief to find that not all policemen are sadistic bullies. No, the idea of murdering my cousin never for one moment crossed my mind. I tried to effect a much less dramatic solution. I explored the possibilities of getting another job.’
‘Is that all?’ demanded Dover, his former benevolence taking a severe shock.
‘It may not sound much to you . . . ’
‘It certainly doesn’t!’
‘ . . . but you can take my word for it, it was no simple undertaking for me.’
‘The missus?’
‘And my uncle. Neither of them would ever forgive me. My uncle would sling me out on my ear without a second’s hesitation and my wife— well, I shudder to think what my wife would say, or do. She thinks that the sun rises and sets over Wibbley’s sanitary fittings. So, you see, if I was going to make the break I had to present the pair of them with a fait accompli.’ He looked doubtfully at Dover to see if this last erudite phrase had been understood. Since Dover was now lying flat on his back with his eyes closed and his mouth open, it was not easy to tell just how much was sinking in. Mr Topping-Wibbley shrugged his shoulders and went on with his story. ‘So, without breathing a word to a living soul, I rang up the managing director of March and Jays.’
‘March and Jays?’ asked MacGregor.
‘Our biggest rivals. Their stuff’s slightly more expensive than ours and not so shoddy. My uncle speaks of them as having cornered the carriage trade. It’s his idea of a joke. Actually there’s nothing funny about the competition between us and them. It’s anything goes and no holds barred. You can see why I had to keep the whole thing a deadly secret.’ He laughed shortly. ‘I even arranged my interview under a false name. However, Curtis—the managing director—he knew me all right when he saw me and he’ll vouch that I was in his office from just after lunch until five o’clock. Here’s his business card, if you’re going to get in touch with him.’
With a crestfallen countenance MacGregor accepted the slip of pasteboard. Damn, damn, damn, and damn!
Dover yawned and scratched his head. ‘Well, that’s that, isn’t it? I thought there must be some perfectly innocent explanation. By the way, did you get the job?’
Hereward Topping-Wibbley slumped a little in his chair. ‘I don’t know. He gave me ten days to think it over. I have a feeling that I may well be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. Old Curtis has all the signs of being as big a swine as Uncle Daniel and then, in the course of the interview, it became crystal clear where exactly my value to March and Jays lay. Uncle Daniel’s got several new processes just about coming to fruition. Mr Curtis was very tactful about it, but I rather gathered that March and Jays weren’t terribly interested in me without the processes. Plenty of food for thought there, as they say. And if my uncle Daniel ever finds out he’ll flay me alive, to say nothing of what my wife will do. So’ — he straightened up with a tired half-smile—‘I should be very grateful for your discretion.’
Dover grunted. ‘You can rely on us. I’m sorry you’ve been put to all this inconvenience but there are some people who can’t resist chasing after red herrings.’
MacGregor showed Mr Topping-Wibbley out and then came back, turning the visiting card over and over in his hands. ‘It looks as though Topping-Wibbley is in the clear, doesn’t it, sir? I’ll check with this Mr Curtis tomorrow but I’m pretty certain we’ve got the truth this time.’
Dover loosened his collar. ‘No,’ he said.
‘No what, sir?’
‘Not tomorrow, laddie. Tonight.’
‘Eh?’
‘Why don’t you clean your ears out? I said you’ll go and see this Curtis fellow tonight. Do you want me to spell it out for you?’
‘Tonight, sir?’
‘You started all this, laddie, and you’re damned well going to finish it. Teach you a lesson, that will.’
‘But, sir, this other firm’s nearly sixty miles away! And Mr Curtis won’t be there at this time of night and we haven’t got his home address.’
‘My heart’s bleeding for you,’ said Dover with massive indifference.
‘And I told the chauffeur we wouldn’t need the Rolls again tonight,’ wailed MacGregor. ‘Surely we can leave this till tomorrow, sir?’
‘Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today,’ said Dover with a smugness that made MacGregor itch to belt him one. ‘And the Rolls is out anyhow. Mr Wibbley might find out where you’d been and start putting two and two together. And that wouldn’t be fair to poor Mr Topping- Wibbley, would it? I expect there’s a bus or a train or something.’ He grinned evilly to himself. ‘If I was you I’d be getting a move-on. Otherwise you’ll be at it all night.’
‘Perhaps Mr Topping-Wibbley knows Curtis’s home address?’ suggested MacGregor hopefully.
‘Oh, no!’ Dover was quick to scotch this possible easing of the burden. ‘Discretion we promised him and discretion he’s going to get. No phone calls. His missus might answer or listen in or something. And don’t go trying to scrounge a car from the local coppers, either. They’re riddled with old Wibbley’s spies.’
MacGregor recognized defeat when he saw it but he couldn’t resist one last appeal to Dover’s non-existent good nature.
Dover cut the protestations short. ‘You’re wasting time, laddie!’
Speechless with fury MacGregor left, almost slamming the door behind him.
Never much of a one for standing on his dignity, Dover raised himself up on one elbow and blew
