‘Mary Jones?’ she repeated, wide-eyed with wonder. ‘Golly!’
MacGregor was back in the driving seat again and relieved to find that Miss Montmorency was a girl who could give a straight answer to a fairly straight question.
‘Well, yes,’ she said, ‘of course I know her. We’ve sat together once or twice at breakfast. Ugh!’ She screwed her face up into an expression of disgust. ‘The tinned tomatoes they give us! They’re simply nauseating! Much worse than the porridge and that’s saying something!’
MacGregor sketched a brief and insincere smile of sympathy. ‘Can you remember what you talked about?’
Miss Montmorency launched into a series of callisthenics apparently meant to indicate acute shame. ‘’Fraid I didn’t give her much chance to talk about anything.’ She put one linger in her mouth and cast down her eyes. ‘I’m a terrible chatterbox. Give me half an inch and I’ll talk the hind legs off a dozen donkeys!’
Dover leaned forward to make his sole contribution to the proceedings. He gave MacGregor a sharp poke in the back. ‘And don’t say you haven’t been warned, laddie!’
MacGregor pretended he hadn’t heard. ‘Did you talk about boy-friends, perhaps?’
Miss Montmorency assumed the mien of a Jersey heifer which had been crossed in love. ‘Only mine, I’m afraid! Oh, gosh, aren’t I simply awful? I ought to go on a training course or take pills or something.”
‘What about work?’ asked MacGregor, battling on with a brave smile. ‘Surely you discussed your jobs. Did she tell you where she was employed, for example?’
‘If she did, I wasn’t listening,’ moaned Miss Montmorency, who could have confessed to a dozen child murders with very little additional expenditure of emotion. ‘I think she was a waitress or something somewhere – or did she serve behind the counter in one of those posh grocery shops up West? It was one or the other,’ she concluded earnestly. ‘Of that I’m quite sure.’
‘Did she ever mention Scotland Yard?’
‘No. I mean, why should she?’ Miss Montmorency’s smile was warm and only slightly condescending. ‘She’s hardly likely to confide in me if she’s on the run from the cops, is she, sergeant?’
Out of the corner of his eye MacGregor spotted that Dover was beginning to exhibit all the classic signs of boredom. Time was running short. ‘How about her family? Her background? Did Miss Jones ever mention where she came from?’
Miss Montmorency’s ringlets bounced tragically from side to side. ‘Frightfully sorry!’
That was enough for Dover. He rose from his umbrella stand and rubbed his numbed behind with unwonted energy. Once he’d restored the circulation he began waddling off towards the front door. MacGregor grinned sheepishly at Miss Montmorency, thanked her hurriedly for her help and prepared to follow.
‘She’s got a coat she bought in Bath,’ said Miss Montmorency suddenly.
‘Bath?’ MacGregor hesitated. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t Birmingham? According to our – er – information, she might come from Birmingham.’
Miss Montmorency smiled forgivingly. ‘I do know the difference between Bath and Birmingham, sergeant! I’m not that potty. And it was Bath. She’s got a blue suede jacket just like mine, you see. With red and black fringes and big silver buttons. They cost the earth, of course, but they’re really gorgeous. Well, one morning I was in the habitual mad rush and I grabbed her coat oft the hooks outside the dining room. It was only when the label caught my eye that I realised it wasn’t mine. I got mine in London, you see. From one of those groovy shops just off Bond Street. But Mary’s came from Bath. The same shop – Naicewhere, it’s called – but a different branch.’ She looked anxiously from MacGregor to Dover. ‘Do you understand?’
‘Clear as mud,’ said Dover, continuing his struggle with bolts and bars. ‘Can’t see what bloody help it is, though.’
‘It does show that Mary Jones has been in Bath, sir.’
‘Her and a couple of million other morons,’ grunted Dover. ‘And only provided her Aunt Nellie didn’t buy it for her. Talk about clutching at bloody broken weeds!’
MacGregor felt obliged to emphasise the obvious. ‘It’s all we’ve got, sir.’
Dover believed that arguing gave you crow’s feet and ulcers. He capitulated. ‘Suit yourself,’ he said. ‘Borrow the girl’s bloody jacket and let’s get the hell out of here. This place gives me the creeps.’
‘Not my jacket?’ squealed an aghast Miss Montmorency. ‘Oh, no, I couldn’t!’ The faces that confronted her were adamant. ‘Oh, I say/’she wailed. ‘Must you?’
Dover got the door open at last. ‘Fetch it out to the taxi!’ he ordered. ‘We’ll give you a receipt.’
‘A receipt!’ Whimpered Miss Montmorency.
‘It’ll only be for a few days,’ whispered MacGregor, making a mental vow not to let Dover get his filthy paws on it. ‘And we’ll return it safely, I promise you.’
Miss Montmorency, overcome with distress, seemed rooted to the spot.
Dover broke the impasse with a bellow. ‘Get a move on, girl!’ he yelled. ‘Chop, chop!’
The taxi driver, his eyes blinded by visions of early retirement after a few more jobs like this, actually climbed down and opened the door for his honoured customer. ‘You’ve been a long time,’ he observed gleefully.
‘When I want your opinion,’ Dover informed him, ‘I’ll bloody ask for it! And come on, MacGregor,’ – he turned on his favourite whipping boy – ‘get your cigarettes out! ’Strewth, anybody’d think they were made of gold the way you hang on to ’em.’
But Dover had hardly had time for more than a couple of drags when Miss Montmorency came over the horizon at a hand canter. Once Miss Montmorency got weaving, she wove quickly.
‘I’ve put it in a plastic bag,’ she said as she handed over her prize possession with more good-will than the two detectives had any right to expect. ‘You will take good care of it, won’t you? And let me have it back just as soon as you possibly can?’
MacGregor renewed his promise to guard the suede jacket with his life and handed over a receipt.
‘I say,’ said Miss Montmorency, ‘I’m probably
