‘What about Daniel Wibbley himself, sir? Suppose he made another attempt to buy Perking off only, this time, Perking agrees. He’ll get the marriage annulled in return for a really colossal pay-off. He’s all set when Cynthia phones up and says she’s going to have a baby. That means he can’t get his freedom or collect the bribe, so he kills her.’
‘Same difference, isn’t it, laddie? Motive’s money or sex or both. I still think that the fact the wife was pregnant has got something to do with it.’
‘Perhaps Perking just doesn’t like children, sir?’
Dover frowned. ‘There’s no need to be flippant, laddie! Anyhow, we’ll have to get down to it.’
‘Down to what, sir?’
‘A full examination of Perking, of course. In depth.’
‘You’re not going to interview him again, sir, are you?’
‘Not bleeding likely!’ snorted Dover with some energy. ‘No, we’ll poke around a bit in his background. In a small town like this we ought to be able to dig up some dirt.’
The first spadeful was turned over in the Safari-Agogo Travel Agency.
It was a very modest establishment. In the absence of John Perking it was being manned solely by his assistant manager, Miss Dorothea Bloxwich.
‘There’s just the two of us, usually,’ she explained as she pushed her knitting out of sight under the counter. ‘When we’re busy we take on a temporary but that’s only in the early summer, really. I suppose you want to see round his office?’
‘ ’Sright,’ said Dover gazing placidly at a life-size cardboard cut-out of a Hawaiian lovely.
Miss Bloxwich raised the counter flap. ‘Through here,’ she said. ‘Not that it’s a proper office, more a sort of a storeroom, really. Still, he always sat in here. Thought it gave the branch a bit of tone, you know, him lording it in his private office and me stuck out in the shop part like a lemon. Made me laugh it did, really.’ She tossed an inordinate quantity of streaky blonde hair and fluttered heavily mascaraed eyes at MacGregor. ‘I was wondering when the cops’d be coming round. From London, aren’t you? I’m hoping to get transferred to London myself.’
‘That’ll be nice,’ said MacGregor politely.
‘Better than this dump,’ agreed Miss Bloxwich, wriggling the chewing gum from one side of her mouth to the other. ‘Like a morgue it is here, really. The Safari-Agogo’s quite a big organization, you know. S’got hundreds of branches all over the place. The Head Office is in London, of course. In Bond Street. That’s in the West End, you know.’
‘Is that where you hope to be working?’ asked MacGregor.
‘It’d do for a start,’ the young lady observed casually. ‘I thought they’d have been saying something before now. I mean, I told them right away what had happened as soon as they arrested Mr Perking. I thought they’d have offered me a move then, but they just told me to carry on as best I could for a few days. But you can’t expect me to stay on here, can you? I mean, working with a murderer—it’s not nice, is it? If you ask me the least they can do is offer me a transfer to London, don’t you think?’
‘How long have you been working here?’ Dover had sat himself down at the desk and was desultorily opening and shutting the drawers.
‘Oh, ever since I left school. Six months. I went to the Grammar, you know. I’ve got two “O” levels. Safari-Agogo won’t take you if you haven’t had a good education.’ She examined herself with obvious appreciation in a mirror hanging on the wall. ‘That’s why I want to get to London. I’m wasted down here.’
‘You’d know John Perking pretty well, then,’ said Dover. ‘What did you think of him?’
‘Bit of a stick-in-the-mud, if you ask me,’ replied Miss Bloxwich, rearranging her hair so that it covered one eye in a most seductive manner. ‘Married, too. I don’t go much on married men, myself.’ She eyed MacGregor. ‘I’ll bet you’re not married, are you?’
‘No,’ said MacGregor, feeling rather uncomfortable.
‘Thought not. You’re just about the right age, too. I prefer mature men, myself.’
‘What about Perking?’ said Dover.
‘What about him?’
‘Did he ever try getting fresh with you?’
‘Him?’ Miss Bloxwich shrieked with laughter. ‘I should like to have seen him try! Why, I could eat two of him before breakfast and never notice.’
Dover slumped back in his chair and regarded Miss Bloxwich with intense dislike. Trust a woman! At first glance she had looked an ideal proposition — a tasty bit of fluff with which John Perking could have whiled away his business hours. It would have all fitted in so nicely—had the principals been halfway accommodating. No need for furtive meetings or veiled communications which Pott Winckle’s voluntary cheka would have blown sky high in a couple of minutes. Just a nice snug little love-nest tucked away at the back of the Safari-Agogo Travel Agency to which the pair of them could repair with the greatest of ease.
That’s the trouble with police work these days, Dover ruminated crossly as he watched Miss Bloxwich displaying a stretch of shapely thigh for MacGregor’s delectation, no bloody co-operation from the public. John Perking must have been a right old damp squib and no mistake. Surely any man with a drop of red blood in his veins would have availed himself of this eager and willing opportunity?
‘Staying long in Pott?’ asked Miss Bloxwich idly.
‘Well, I don’t really know,’ MacGregor answered feebly. ‘It all depends.’
‘Thought you might like to buy us a coke one evening,’ said Miss Bloxwich with a cheeky smile. ‘I finish here at half past five and I often go to the coffee bar up the street. They’ve got a groovy juke box there.’
‘Well,’ said MacGregor, gazing at Dover for help, ‘that sounds very nice.’
‘You’ll come then?’ Miss Bloxwich knew what happened to girls who didn’t strike when the iron was lukewarm.
Dover sighed. He was beginning to lose interest in this blessed case, and that was the truth of it. Still, he sighed again, he
