‘What time was this?’
‘I dunno. Half past ten, quarter to eleven —something like that.’
MacGregor leaned forward. ‘Did he tell you where he was going?’
Miss Bloxwich shook her head and concentrated on twisting one strand of hair round and round her finger.
MacGregor was determined to let no stone remain unturned. ‘Do you know where he went?’
Miss Bloxwich gazed at him with round blue eyes. And again shook her head.
She looks, thought MacGregor unkindly, like a Guernsey heifer with a low I.Q. ‘What time did Perking get back?’
‘ ’Bout twelve o’clock, maybe.’ Miss Bloxwich glanced at him from under light-green eyelids. Quite obviously she had more to tell but she was playing hard to get.
‘And?’ prompted MacGregor.
‘Well,’ —Miss Bloxwich licked her lips with relish—‘he looked terrible, he really did. His eyes were staring right out of his head and his face was ashen and his hands were trembling so much that he could hardly get the door open. I’ve never seen anybody look so terrible. Good heavens, Mr Perking, I said, what on earth’s the matter? But he didn’t seem to hear me. He staggered past me as though I wasn’t there and his breath was coming in great deep gusts and there was a trickle of saliva running . . . ’
‘ ’Strewth!’ said Dover. ‘You ought to be writing novels, you ought. Cut out the fancy stuff and get on with it.’
‘Well,’ —Miss Bloxwich looked offended—‘he was upset about something, so there! He just came straight in here and shut the door and he didn’t come out again all afternoon.’
Dover sniffed and gazed round the office. ‘Where’s the telephone?’
‘Oh, it’s on the counter.’
‘Didn’t Perking get a phone call when he got back?’
Miss Bloxwich frowned. ‘That’s right,’ she said slowly, ‘he did. It was his wife. I’d forgotten about that.’
‘Did you hear what she said?’
‘No. He just said yes and no and that’s nice and then he put the phone down and came back in here and shut himself up again.’
‘And you’re sure you don’t know where he went that morning?’ asked MacGregor.
‘Quite sure.’ Miss Bloxwich was firm.
‘Who’, asked Dover, ‘or what is Nayland?’
‘Search me,’ said Miss Bloxwich, getting out her powder and lipstick. ‘Never heard of it.’
‘Nayland, sir?’ MacGregor looked across at Dover in some surprise.
‘Trouble with you, laddie,’ observed Dover as he rose ponderously to his feet, ‘is that you’re so blooming clever you can’t see what’s under your nose. Perking’s desk diary, see? An appointment on the day he killed his wife, see? It says Nayland, eleven o’clock.’
MacGregor was very annoyed. He didn’t like Dover coming up with the answers almost before he—MacGregor—had got round to asking the questions. Of course, any fool sitting there with the diary open in front of him would have seen the relevant entry but MacGregor would have preferred to have made the discovery himself.
‘Well,’ he said, trying to take it like a good loser, ‘Nayland— that’s not a very common sort of name, is it, sir? We should be able to track that down fairly easily. I wonder if there’s anything in the desk amongst Perking’s papers that might give us a clue?’
‘I wonder,’ said Dover with blistering sarcasm. ‘Perhaps you’d care to have a look?’
MacGregor leapt eagerly for the desk, firing questions at Miss Bloxwich about where Mr Perking kept his records and had he got an address book and was she sure she’d never heard the name Nayland before.
Dover lumbered indifferently out of the back office and installed himself on a chair behind the shop counter. Unhurriedly he selected a book from amongst an untidy pile on the shelf and, solemnly licking his thumb, commenced turning over the pages.
When MacGregor at last emerged he found Dover, hands folded across his stomach and eyes closed, still behind the counter. He reached for the telephone.
‘Wadderyedoin?’ asked Dover, not bothering to open his eyes.
‘There’s not a mention of Nayland amongst Per king’s papers, sir,’ explained MacGregor, wondering how much time he wasted spelling out the obvious to his Chief Inspector, ‘so I thought I’d ring the local police and see if they’d got any ideas.’
‘You never learn, do you, laddie?’ murmured Dover in a pitying voice.
‘Sir?’
‘There’s only one Nayland in Pott Winckle.’ said Dover with an enormous yawn.
‘Only one Nayland, sir?’
‘That’s right, laddie.’
‘But—how do you know that, sir?’
Dover opened his eyes and glared bleakly at his sergeant. ‘Because I looked in the telephone directory, you bloody fool.’
‘Oh, charming!’ said Miss Bloxwich from the open doorway, and giggled.
Chapter Twelve
MACGREGOR would have been less than human if he hadn’t hoped, quite hard, that the Nayland Dover had found in the phone book was not the Nayland they were looking for. Indeed, he felt obliged to point out to Dover, respectfully of course, that Pott Winckle might be swarming with people called Nayland who, for one reason or another, were not telephone subscribers.
‘Doubt it,’ said Dover comfortably.
‘Well, this man certainly isn’t Perking’s regular doctor, sir. I can assure you of that.’
‘Thanks very much,’ said Dover.
‘Perking had got the name of his own doctor and the name of Miss Bloxwich’s doctor written down quite clearly inside the first-aid box, sir.’
‘Bully for him,’ said Dover.
MacGregor bit his lips and stared out of the car window. They were getting back to the Canal Bank Street end of the town. MacGregor’s hopes rose slightly. This was the world that
