‘I beg your pardon, sir,' apologized MacGregor, ‘but I do feel we’ve got to do something. We’ve got two murders on our hands now – Walter Chantry and Mrs Boyle – and we just aren’t getting anywhere with either of them. I’m merely suggesting that we try and work out some plan of action.’ Dover turned his coat collar up. ‘Well, we’re not going to bust a gut avenging Walter Chantry, for a start. It’s the joker who tried to get me that matters. I’ll make him rue the day he was born, don’t you worry!’
MacGregor sighed. It was like trying to quarry through solid granite with a toothpick. ‘I thought we’d already agreed, sir, that the same person was responsible for both crimes.’
‘Eh? Oh, well, that’s what I said, wasn’t it? Of course it’s the same fellow. It’s a question of motive, isn’t it? He was trying to rub me out before I nabbed him for the murder of Chantry.’
MacGregor got that old sinking feeling as they approached the frontier of Cloud Cuckoo Land. ‘I don’t think that can be quite right, can it, sir?’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, you’re not going to nab him for the murder of Walter Chantry, are you?’
‘But I must be!’ protested Dover. ‘Why else is he gunning for me? He’s panic-stricken, you see. He’s running scared. He knows that any minute now I’m going to . . .’
‘But you’re not!’ insisted MacGregor, hoping that if he said it three times Dover would realize it was true. ‘Look, sir, let’s be perfectly frank about this. Neither you nor I has the least idea who murdered Chantry, have we?’
Dover’s bottom lip stuck out truculently. ‘I’ve got my theories,’ he muttered. His face cleared. ‘In fact, I reckon I’ve probably got the answer, really, but I just haven’t fitted the pieces together yet.’
MacGregor let his shoulders slump as his worst fears were fully confirmed. Dover, as usual, just hadn’t got a clue. ‘It’s going to be a race, isn’t it, sir?”
‘A race?’
‘Between you and the murderer, sir. Whether you unmask him before he kills you.’ MacGregor didn’t appear to find the prospect entirely distasteful.
‘Oh, charming!’ said Dover. He shivered. ‘Here, let’s have that bloody window shut. I don’t want to go catching pneumonia on top of everything else.’
MacGregor got up and closed the window with the air of one granting the condemned man’s last request. ‘Of course, we’ll give you all the protection we can, sir – for what it’s worth. Unfortunately a clever, ruthless, desperate man isn’t easy to stop. He’s nothing to lose and everything to win.’
‘ ’Strewth!’ groaned Dover. ‘You’re a right Job’s comforter, you are.’
Delicately MacGregor began to bait the hook. ‘The solution’s in your own hands sir.’
‘You’re damned right it is!’ snorted Dover, wresting the bait, hook, line, sinker and rod clean out of his sergeant’s grasp. ‘I’m catching the first bloody train back to London! Where did you put my suitcase?’
‘But you can’t turn tail and run, sir!’
‘Want a bet?’ Dover was on his feet and heading for the wardrobe. ‘I’d sooner be a live donkey than a dead sitting-duck any old day of the week.’ He dragged his overcoat off the hanger. ‘I haven’t lasted this long by playing the bloody hero.’
‘And the Assistant Commissioner, sir?’
Dover, reaching up for his bowler hat, wavered. ‘Stuff him,’ he said with more bluster than conviction. He threw his overcoat back in the wardrobe and slammed the door.
Paradoxically, the Assistant Commissioner (Crime) might well have been delighted to see Dover beat an ignominious and shameful retreat back to London. It would have provided even more fuel for the secret dossier he had been compiling for years on Scotland Yard’s most unwanted man. Indeed, rank cowardice in the face of the enemy might prove to be just the sort of ammunition the Assistant Commissioner (Crime) was waiting for.
Nobody knew better than Dover that, with his blemished record and shaky stature, he couldn’t afford to take too many risks. There was a limit to what even the Metropolitan Police would tolerate. He gave the wardrobe a vicious kick and stumped miserably back to his chair.
‘All right,’ he snarled, ‘what’s your suggestion?’
MacGregor permitted himself a faint smile of relief. If only Dover would accept advice more often, they wouldn’t get into quite so many messes. ‘Well, sir, I propose that we really knuckle down and put our backs into it and find out who murdered Walter Chantry. That way we’ll kill two birds with one stone. We’ll solve the case and put an end to any further attempts on your life.’
‘Solve the case, eh?’ Dover was momentarily intrigued by the dazzling novelty of the idea but reaction soon set in. ‘That’s going to be easier said than done,’ he pointed out.
MacGregor dusted off his most persuasive manner. ‘Not really, sir. After all, you’ve already put your finger on our main advantage. The killer wouldn’t have tried to murder you if he hadn’t been pretty certain that you were on to him. That means that somewhere you must have a clue to his identity. All we have to do is find it.’
‘But when I said that just now,’ objected Dover, ‘all you could do was pooh-pooh the idea.’
‘Well, I just meant, sir, that it wasn’t going to be as easy as all that. We’re not going to get it handed to us on a plate, are we? We’ve got a lot of work to do first.’
Dover winced at the word ‘work’. ‘What have you got in mind?’ he asked with a sigh.
‘Well,’ – MacGregor hitched his chair forward eagerly – ‘I think we’ve just got to review all the evidence you’ve collected since we came here. Maybe, if we go through everything all. over again, we’ll spot the slip
