Dover’s beady little black eyes snapped with suspicion. ‘What are you going to do?’
MacGregor frowned. He’d hoped to get away without any questions. ‘I did think I’d just pop in and see Cynthia Perking’s doctor, sir?’
‘Waffor?’
MacGregor shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, sir, something’s gone wrong somewhere, hasn’t it? Cynthia Perking’s doctor might be able to throw some light, mightn’t he? Lots of people treat their doctors as sort of father confessors. Suppose Mrs Perking was so set on having a baby that she — well — resorted to artificial insemination or something.’
Dover, snuggled down and getting nicely warm and cosy, contented himself with one brief four-letter word.
‘Well, we’ve still got the contradiction, haven’t we, sir? We’ve got a husband who’s sterile and a wife who’s pregnant. There must be some explanation and, in my opinion, we could do with some more medical guidance.’
‘Tell you what,’ mumbled Dover sleepily, ‘you go back and chat with the neighbours again.’
‘Oh, sir!’
‘It’s got to be done, laddie. No use whining about it. Ask around. Maybe Cynthia Perking did have a gentleman friend after all.’
‘But, sir, I’ve already done that twice and there’s not a breath of scandal about her anywhere.’
‘Don’t let’s spoil the ship for a ha’porth of your valuable time, laddie.’ Dover yawned. ‘You could make a few more inquiries about that dark-green car, too, while you’re at it.’ MacGregor made a stand. ‘Really, sir, I must protest! I just don’t see the point of going over and over ground we’ve already covered. I do think that we ought to go and see Cynthia Perking’s doctor. At least he might be able to tell us something new.’ There was a muffled grunt from the pile of bedclothes. ‘Sir?’
The pile of bedclothes heaved irritably. ‘Are you still here?’ came Dover’s voice. ‘Push off and let me get some rest!’
‘But, Cynthia Perking’s doctor, sir? I do think he ought to be interviewed, I really do.’
‘So do I,’ agreed Dover unexpectedly. ‘In fact, I reckon I’ll go and see him myself. In the morning.’
Many of Dover’s overnight declarations did not survive the harsh light of the following morning, but this one was an exception. The Rolls came round, the two detectives stepped into it and MacGregor gave the chauffeur the address of Cynthia Perking’s doctor.
MacGregor’s expedition the previous afternoon back into the jungle of Birdsfoot-Trefoil Close had once again drawn a complete blank, as both Dover and MacGregor had known it would. Their reactions to the failure were, however, quite different. Dover was exuberant that he had pulled another fast one on his snooty young sergeant and MacGregor, his misbegotten afternoon still rankling, was sulking. Several of the ladies had completely misinterpreted the purpose of his repeated visits and at times it had been extremely embarrassing. Both Dover and MacGregor, however, were so occupied with their own thoughts that neither of them had bothered about phoning up their next interviewee to see if the time of their visit was convenient.
They arrived in the middle of morning surgery.
‘Dr M’Gillooly certainly can’t see you now.’ The harassed-looking woman entrenched in a glorified cubby hole in the hallway shook her head. Her starched white overall crackled. ‘I’m afraid I don’t care who you are or where you’ve come from. You’ll just have to wait your turn.’
MacGregor, in charge as usual of these mundane negotiations, found himself caught between Scylla and Charybdis.
Scylla administered an impatient and rather painful thump in the small of his underling’s back. ‘Get on with it, laddie! Tell the old cow we’re going to see the doctor and if she doesn’t like it she can lump it!’ He didn’t bother to lower his voice.
Charybdis drew herself up in a cold fury. ‘Over my dead body!’ she enunciated slowly.
‘Suits me!’ rumbled Scylla, trying to propel MacGregor forward by brute force.
MacGregor gazed appealingly at Charybdis.
Charybdis was unmoved. ‘No,’ she repeated, her prim Edinburgh accent getting full value out of the word. ‘I absolutely forbid it.’
As he himself was wont to claim, Dover was a man of deeds not words. Faced with an immovable object he rather fancied himself as an irresistible force. War-war was often better than jaw-jaw. He’d tried being reasonable and courteous and where had it got him? Now it was time to act. With his feet. He walked forward.
MacGregor, a comparative lightweight, was swept aside. Charybdis made as if to leap across her counter and out of the cubby hole, a selfless victim to the Juggernaut. Then she had second thoughts and contented herself by saying, ‘Well, really!’ in a very disgusted voice.
‘Which way?’ demanded Dover as he passed.
Charybdis clamped her lips. Then she smiled in disagreeable anticipation. ‘Through the waiting room. You’ll see the notice on the door.’
‘Ta,’ said Dover sarcastically and flung open the door of the waiting room.
He was greeted by an expectant and inquisitive hush accompanied by a pungent whiff of eucalyptus. No less than forty pairs of eyes examined him, summed him up and, for the most part, dismissed him.
One or two judicious comments were however passed before the speakers reverted to the more interesting subject of their own and other people’s ailments. ‘Drunken brawl,’ opined one uncharitable housewife to her neighbour. ‘I think it’s disgusting, letting the likes of them get treatment on the National Health.’ An elderly man wheezed an alternative verdict. ‘He’ll not make old bones,’ he chuckled. ‘Fat as a pig. He wants to get some of that belly off him. If he don’t’ —he wheezed and chuckled at the same time—‘they’ll be needing a doubledecker box for him when his time comes.’
Luckily Dover was above such things. In any case his hearing wasn’t as good as it might have been. He spotted the surgery door at the far end of the room and rolled purposefully towards it, towing MacGregor like a dinghy in his wake.
The atmosphere in the waiting room underwent a rapid change.
‘In the queue, mate!’ ordered a burly workman who wanted a few days’ sick while he decorated the
