Dover, sycophant and snob that he was, smarmily agreed.
‘Whisky?’ asked Daniel Wibbley. ‘And there are some sandwiches for you by the fire. Roast beef, I think. Perhaps you would like to take your overcoat and hat off before we sit down.’
Dover took the hint and draped his overcoat over a chair, being careful not to crush the cigars which he had already purloined from his gracious host.
For the next hour or so Daniel Wibbley spoke and Dover ate. This made them both happy.
‘I want to get one or two things straight right at the beginning,’ Daniel Wibbley announced from the depths of his deep leather armchair. ‘On a man-to-man basis, you understand. You probably appreciate the position I hold in Pott Winckle. My father and grandfather made this town and I keep it going. This naturally gives me a certain amount of power. Within broad limits I can do what I want in Pott Winckle and with Pott Winckle. Unfortunately Pott Winckle is at times not the whole world and outside the confines of the town while I may have influence I do not have total control.’
‘Quite, quite,’ said Dover, through a roast-beef sandwich.
‘A murder trial’, Daniel Wibbley continued, ‘will be held in the Assize town. I cannot hope to get the consideration from a Queen’s Bench judge and his jury that I would from the local magistrates. That being the case I shall have to deal with this tragic business as any ordinary man would. Not even I’ — he smiled bleakly — ‘can hope to manipulate the entire majesty of the Law.’
Dover blinked. His jaws moved slowly up and down. He’d got a right one here all right!
‘Nor’, said Daniel Wibbley vehemently, ‘must there be the slightest suspicion that I have even contemplated assisting the course of Justice. That would ruin everything! This is why I insisted, when the Chief Constable called round to see me, that Scotland Yard should be called in without delay. The local police are no doubt perfectly capable of tracking down my daughter’s murderer, but in so doing we might be providing the defence with a loop-hole. There would always be some malicious and ill-informed people who would hint that my wishes had played an undue part in the course of their investigations. With you in charge of the case, Dover, there can be no such suspicions. When you present your findings the whole world will be forced to admit that they are entirely unbiased and based on solid fact. You follow my line of reasoning?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Dover and casually waved his empty glass. ‘The decanter is by your elbow. Kindly help yourself. Now, I propose to put you in the picture as far as my daughter’s death is concerned. No doubt Bream has already given you some information so you must forgive me if I repeat what you already know.’
‘Don’t both about me,’ said Dover graciously. Just you pretend that I don’t know a blind thing.’
‘That’s very kind of you. Please feel quite free to ask any questions if you wish clarification of some point.’
‘Thank you,’ said Dover without the faintest trace of irony. ‘Not at all. Well now, where shall I start? My daughter was called Cynthia and she was twenty-one years of age. She resided at Sligachan, 17 Birdsfoot-Trefoil Close—part of a housing estate built for owner-occupiers of the lower-middle classes. She had resided there since her marriage. The house’ —Mr Wibbley repressed a shudder—‘is being purchased on a mortgage. My daughter, at the age of eighteen, married a young man called Perking, John Perking. He was twenty-one years old at the time and the son of one of our store-room clerks.’ Mr Wibbley suddenly stopped looking down his nose and glanced at Dover. ‘Oughtn’t you to be writing these details down in your notebook?’ he asked sharply.
Dover’s eyes shot open. ‘Eh?’ He always claimed that he concentrated better with his eyes closed and, in any case, it was really getting very warm there by the fire and he’d been up all night and . . . ‘Oh, a notebook?’ The old master brain clicked over at top speed. ‘No, no!’ He smiled reassuringly. ‘I don’t bother with notebooks.’ He tapped the side of his head with quiet confidence. ‘I keep it all up here!’
‘Really? Well, it is perhaps advisable not to have too much down in writing at this stage. Now, my daughter’s husband is employed as the manager of a small branch of a travel agency which opened here in Pott Winckle several years ago—when the working classes began to frequent the Costa Brava for Wakes Week. The Safari-Agogo Travel Agency, situated at 42 Mary-Anne Wibbley Street—our main shopping centre.
‘My daughter, unlike most of the childless young wives of the social stratum into which she had married, did not go out to work. Not, I may observe in passing, out of any consideration for my position in the town but principally because at Benbowly Abbey College, where she was educated, they do not make a point of training their pupils for employment as shop assistants or milk roundswomen. Yesterday afternoon, therefore, she was, not surprisingly, at home. There she was murdered. In the front room, as I believe it is called. She was beaten to death with, probably, a poker which formed part of a set of fire-irons, also located in this same front room. The police surgeon—the only person incidentally who has been permitted to enter the house since the discovery of the murder — confirmed that my daughter was indeed dead, gave his preliminary opinion as to the cause of death — the poker, and estimated that the death had occurred between four thirty and six thirty that afternoon. You will no doubt be somewhat surprised that he could not be more precise.’
The pause lasted just a fraction
