Dover removed his bowler hat so that the air could get to his head and leaned weakly against a table. Miss Kettering, a little disturbed by the way his eyes had suddenly gone a funny red, pushed the box of chocolates at him. Dover focused his eyes and, at the second attempt, made his selection.
‘Ah,’ said Miss Kettering, getting a mite flustered and moving her ouija board out of harm’s way, ‘I see you’re admiring my dollies.’
‘Your dollies?’ gasped Dover. He calculated that it was worth jollying the old trout on since the chocolate box was not yet empty.
‘Yes. You know, the effigies one makes of one’s enemies. I should have thought you would have known about them. I did them quite early on in my correspondence course. Mind you,’ – she picked up the plumpest dolly and adjusted one or two of the pins sticking in it – ‘there’s a lot more to it than just making the models. You need to incorporate a wisp of hair or a few nail clippings for the best results. And then the incantations are most important. It took me simply hours to get this one fixed up.’
Dover looked somewhat sceptically at the plump dolly. ‘Does it work?’
Miss Kettering sighed. ‘Not as well as the correspondence course people led one to anticipate,' she admitted sadly. ‘But I have had one or two minor successes.’ She indicated a large pin which had been thrust through the middle of the dolly’s left leg. ‘She did complain of rheumatism five days after I jabbed that one in.’
Seeing that Miss Kettering’s attention was concentrated elsewhere, Dover quietly helped himself to another chocolate. ‘She?’ he questioned through a bulging mouth.
Miss Kettering giggled and looked suitably shamefaced. ‘Can’t you guess?’ She held the dolly up so that Dover could see it better.
Dover caught a stream of anisette before it dripped right off his chin and examined the dolly more closely. The hair fashioned out of corrugated paper painted silver? The crudely thick ankles? The huge nobbly nose? ‘Not Mrs Boyle?’
‘Who else?’
Dover looked at the figurine again.
Miss Kettering could read his mind like an open book. She selected a businesslike hatpin from the collection on the table. It had a carved jet bead on the end. ‘Would you like to try your luck?’
Dover considered it obligatory to make his position quite clear. ‘A load of old codswallop,' he remarked as he accepted the pin.
‘Of course, of course, dear!’ Miss Kettering pushed the dolly into Dover’s hands and trotted off to her bookshelf to find a spell with a really good punch to it.
Dover blew dubiously down his nose. Oh, well, you never knew – and they did say it was the thought that counts. He turned the dolly over, selected a likely looking spot in the area of the lower back and struck.
‘That’ll make her sit up!’ grinned Miss Kettering, coming back with one of the handbooks from her correspondence course. ‘Have another . . . Oh, we seem to have eaten them all! What a couple of greedy grunters we are! Do you know, that was a pound box! Oh,’ – as Dover began to edge towards the door – ‘you’re not going, are you? I was hoping you’d give me a hand with the incantations. I suppose duty calls, does it? Oh well, I mustn’t detain you but hang on just a sec while I see if I can find you an amulet.’ Miss Kettering scurried over to her dressing-table and began hunting through the drawers. Dover, on the off chance that you might be able to eat it, stood upon the order of his going.
‘Here we are!’ Miss Kettering waved a small brown object about the size and shape of a pill box gaily over her head. ‘Now, if I can just find those silly old thongs . . . Got them!’ She advanced purposefully on Dover.
‘What do you do with it?’ he demanded.
‘Well, actually you’re really supposed to wear it strapped across your forehead. I got it from one of those mail-order firms and there was a picture of an Onondaga Indian Squaw wearing it that way.’ Miss Kettering acknowledged that this was unlikely to lure Dover. ‘You could keep it in your pocket, I should think,’ she went on, ‘and I’m sure the smell will go off completely in time.’
Dover was not one for putting himself out for anybody but he showed his gratitude by letting Miss Kettering down gently. ‘I reckon I’ll go on relying on my strong right arm,’ he said modestiy.
‘Oh well, perhaps you’re right.’ Miss Kettering dropped the amulet back in the drawer. ‘After all, it’s all in the mind, isn’t it? And you’ve nothing to worry about.’
‘Haven’t I?’ said Dover.
‘I can tell by your aura,’ confided Miss Kettering, finally establishing herself as a witch of many parts. ‘It’s all there. You’ll die in your bed all right.’
Dover didn’t find this prognostication quite as reassuring as Miss Kettering doubtless intended it to be but, on the whole, he was feeling pretty pleased with life as he stumped up the stairs to his room. He’d forgotten all about his plan to catch Mrs Boyle napping but he managed it just the same. The row he kicked up brought her with a jolt out of a shallow sleep and for a few seconds she couldn’t imagine where she was or what was happening. Then comprehension dawned and, gritting her teeth, she groped for the shillelagh. It was not Mrs Boyle’s night and for a long time she couldn’t find it. When at last she fished it out from where it had rolled under the bed, she had missed the bus. Dover’s second boot had long since walloped into the ceiling immediately over her head.
Mrs Boyle sank impotently back, quivering with rage. Never had she endured such humiliation, not even from the late admiral who had once, early in their married life, tried to assert himself. She set her jaw grimly.
