Superintendent Underbarrow was having a field day. ‘Oh, there’s no question of a heart attack, sergeant. The doctor’s already given her a preliminary once-over. Subject to confirmation, of course, she broke her neck.’
‘It could still be accidental death, sir,’ said MacGregor, finding himself being gently pushed aside by a photographer.
Superintendent Underbarrow postponed shattering the poor lad’s illusions on this point while he dealt with a more urgent matter. He leant forward and tapped the photographer on the shoulder. ‘How about one for the old family album, eh, Cliff?’
‘Sure,’ agreed the photographer, amiably winding his film on. ‘How do you want it? Arms folded with your foot on her head?’
Superintendent Underbarrow chuckled and excused himself for a minute to MacGregor. ‘The missus likes to keep a record, just for the kids,’ he confided as he assumed a rather dramatic pose beside the mortal remains of Mrs Boyle.
‘Watch the birdie!’ said the photographer and fired off half a dozen shots from various angles. ‘Right you are, Super! Well, we’re finished with the derelict corpse now, if you are. Shall I tell the boys from the meat wagon to come and get it?’
‘He’s a lad, isn’t he?’ said Superintendent Underbarrow admiringly as the photographer hurried away. ‘But first class at his job,’ he added quickly as he caught the look on MacGregor’s face. ‘Now, where were we? Ah, yes, accidental death. Well, not with that hook screwed in the wall, would you say?’
‘Hook, sir?’
‘And the wire.’ The superintendent had every reason to be highly satisfied with the effect he was producing. ‘Didn’t you notice them?’ he asked innocently.
MacGregor felt himself going pink. ‘Well, no, sir,’ he admitted.
‘Oh, I’ll show you, then. I think you’ll find it interesting.’ The superintendent cast an eye over the plain-clothes men who were beginning to pack up their equipment. ‘Who’s got that bit of wire we found? Oh, Fred – give us the loan of it for a few minutes. Ta!’ He turned back to MacGregor. ‘There you are, sergeant, six foot or so of fine, best quality wire, slightly used. Now,’ – he led the way up to the top of the stairs – ‘here’s the hook, see, screwed firmly down at the bottom here in the wall. Look how shiny it is. It’s not been there long, has it? Now, look at this wire. You can see from these bends in it where it’s been fastened through this hook and across the width of the stairs and then round the bottom of this upright on the banister. You can see where the wire’s cut into the wood.’
MacGregor got down on his hands and knees and examined everything very carefully. He would have been delighted to find something to refute Superintendent Underbarrow’s deductions but he couldn’t. The shape and length of the wire, the screw itself, the scratches on the screw and the woodwork of the banister could only add up to one thing.
Superintendent Underbarrow had no inhibitions about putting the inevitable conclusion into words. ‘Premeditated murder,’ he said, and smacked his lips.
Nine
It was several hours later when MacGregor mounted what was now being called the ‘Fatal Flight’ with Dover’s breakfast tray. His passage past the temporary murder headquarters in the lounge had occasioned a few raised eyebrows and a few sniggers but MacGregor prided himself on being big enough to ignore them. One must expect these provincial boys to be a rather crude lot.
He knocked according to the agreed code on Dover’s door and, when he was let in, was surprised to find that the chief inspector was partly dressed.
‘Are you going out, sir?’ he asked as he put the tray down on the dressing table.
Dover carefully locked the door. It was actually the memory of Miss Kettering’s prediction that he would die in his bed that had shifted him out of it. A man in as vulnerable a situation as Dover felt himself to be couldn’t take too many risks. He responded to MacGregor’s damn-fool question with a grunt that might mean anything and dragged a chair up to the dressing table.
MacGregor perched himself on the window-sill and got his notebook out. ‘These local chaps have certainly been getting their skates on, sir,' he began chattily as he rifled through the pages.’ Their technique strikes one as a bit – well – unpolished perhaps, but they’ve certainly got all the basic stuff tied up. I’ll fill you in on the groundwork first, shall I, sir?’
Dover had poured himself out a cup of tea and was now occupied with, adding sugar by the half pound. He pushed the cup over in MacGregor’s direction. ‘Try that!’ he said.
‘I beg your pardon, sir?’
‘You want to poke that wax out of your ears, laddie! I told you to have a sip out of that cup.’
‘But I’ve already had my breakfast sir.’
‘I don’t give a damn if you’ve had the bloody measles!’ retorted Dover impatiently. ‘I want you to taste that tea. And the bacon and the eggs and the toast and the butter and the marmalade. Can’t you get it into your thick head that somebody’s trying to murder me?’
MacGregor was stupefied. ‘And you want me to . . .?’
‘What else? They could have slipped poison into any of that Jot easy as falling off a log. I’m not touching a thing until I know it’s safe.’
MacGregor didn’t imagine for one moment that Dover’s breakfast had been tampered with but he experienced a rather unpleasant tightness in his throat as he duly humoured the old fool by taking a token mouthful of each item of food. Dover watched the proceedings with a gimlet eye.
‘Taste anything funny?’ he asked.
MacGregor swallowed down a piece of toast. ‘No, sir.’
‘Hm. Well, we’ll wait a couple of minutes and, if you haven’t keeled over by then, I
