Dover, loving every minute of it, turned a pair of large and deaf ears to every argument and then, just in case MacGregor thought such foolhardiness suspicious, grudgingly agreed not to make up his mind finally until the following morning. This was a concession that would keep MacGregor on tenterhooks very nicely.
MacGregor’s face showed clearly how worried he was. As Dover’s assistant, however unwilling, he knew how liable he was to be judged bungling by association. The top brass at Scotland Yard were going to go clean through the roof when they found out about this little episode. ‘Well, you’ve no objection to me carrying on with things this afternoon, have you, sir?’
‘Not once you’ve checked the time of that train,’ said Dover generously. ‘First things first, eh? Mind you, I shan’t be taking the afternoon off myself.’
‘No, sir?’
Dover shook his head. ‘Certainly not! I’ll be working right up to the bitter end, like I always do.’
‘In your room, sir?’
‘In my room,’ agreed Dover cheerfully. ‘I’m just going to spend a couple of hours sort of going over the case in my mind and having a quiet think. Let’s face it, that blighter didn’t try to kill me for fun, did he? Oh, I’ve got the answer somewhere, don’t you make any mistake about that! What I’ve got to do now is let my mind go a complete blank and hope that the clue’ll float to the top. Like the cream on the milk,’ he added, rather pleased with this picturesque touch.
Or the scum on a duckpond, thought MacGregor bitterly. He glanced at his watch. Eighteen hours, say, before they had to leave. Could he solve the case single-handed in that time? He straightened his back. Why not? With two murders it shouldn’t be as difficult as all that. There were shoals of leads they hadn’t even begun to check. He’d see if Inspector Stokes had got anywhere with that wire and the screw and then he’d question everybody all over again about their movements at the relevant times and . . .
‘I think I’d better have a word with old Wheelbarrow myself,’ said Dover whose plans for outwitting MacGregor were now beginning to take shape. ‘Just to put him in the picture. Scout round and see if you can find him.’
‘You’ll see him in your room, sir?’
‘Where else, laddie?’ Dover knew only too well what unkind thoughts were passing through his sergeant’s mind. ‘And I don’t want you barging in and out every five minutes, either.’
MacGregor could promise that he wouldn’t be doing that.
‘I shan’t disturb you sir.’
Dover gave a warning jerk on the reins. ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.
MacGregor was vague. ‘Oh, just tidy up a few loose ends, sir. I thought I might go and have a word with those artists. I think you were probably right, sir, and we ought to find out a bit more about their activities. I’d like to know how well they know the interior of the hotel, for instance. Even with a verbal description from Mrs Lickes, I can’t see a complete stranger being able to fix that wire up just like that. I mean – how would he know there’d be a crack in the woodwork to stick that screw in? How would he know it was wood there at all? It might have been solid brick and he’d have had to drill a hole and plug it to hold that screw. If I can prove that any of the artists, or the Hoopers for that matter, have never been upstairs in the Blenheim Towers – well, it would whittle the lists of suspects down quite a bit.’
Dover decided he’d nothing to worry about. ‘Good idea, laddie!’ he said with a smile as false as his teeth. ‘You go ahead! Do you good, having to stand on your own feet. I always say that a fellow who doesn’t make mistakes doesn’t make anything.’
MacGregor innocently attributed this astonishing good nature to the fact that Dover was looking forward to spending the rest of the day in bed. It was a prospect that usually mellowed the old fool. ‘I’ll ask Mrs Lickes to bring your afternoon tea up, shall I, sir?’
‘Yes,’ beamed Dover. ‘I’ll have it at four o’clock. But find Wheelbarrow first. I want to see him right away.’
Twelve
Superintendent Underbarrow proved unexpectedly uncooperative or – as Dover preferred to put it – bloody-minded and chicken-hearted to boot.
‘But you can’t do it!’ spluttered the superintendent, going distinctly pallid round the gills. ‘Suppose there’s a complaint? You’d be for the high jump. And so,’ he added, realizing it was more to the point, ‘would I. A good lawyer’d crucify you in court and your bosses’d jump on the little pieces afterwards. No – be sensible – it’s just not on.’
‘I can see why you never made CID,’ said Dover nastily. ‘I don’t know what it’s like collecting car numbers in your little book all day long but, in the plain-clothes branch, you’ve got to be flexible.’
‘Flexible?’ exploded Superintendent Underbarrow. ‘Bent’s the word I’d use. What you’re proposing breaks every rule that’s ever been written and, in my opinion, it’s downright unethical as well.’
Dover raised his eyes in supplication to the heavens. ‘’Strewth!’ he groaned. ‘This is murder, mate, not a bloody game of cricket. We’ve got two stiffs laid out on marble slabs and all you can do is yack on about ethics. Just don’t forget’ – he gave Superintendent Underbarrow a sharp poke in the chest to see that he didn’t – ‘one of those bodies might have been mine.’
‘But why involve me?’
‘That’s what I’m beginning to ask myself,' said Dover sulkily. ‘I thought
