This time the works really had run down and Major Gutty sank back in his chair with a faint puff of a sigh. After all, he’d just completed a performance that would have exhausted a younger man. Inspector Horton prepared to lead the procession on tip-toe out of the room, but Dover, popping another of the major’s throat pastilles into his mouth, stopped him.
‘Ask him how many squatters there were!’ Dover saw the inspector’s reluctance. ‘Go on, man!’ he urged impatiently. ‘Wake the old beggar up and ask him so’s we can get the hell out of this dump!’
It took the united efforts of Inspector Horton and MacGregor to rouse Major Gutty and, when they’d bawled Dover’s question several times down his ear, they were rewarded by a glint of understanding in the old warrior’s eye.
‘How many?’ he asked. ‘I would estimate at least twenty, my dear sir. At least twenty. That’s including the members of the’ – he paused to lick dry lips – ‘weaker sex, of course.’
Ten
‘CLEVER?’ ASKED DOVER WITH AN ALMIGHTY sneer. ‘What was clever about it, for God’s sake?’
Inspector Horton wished he’d kept his opinions to himself and his mouth shut. ‘Well, the kidnappers hiding their victim in a sort of hippie commune, sir, right in the middle of suburbia. I mean, who would ever have thought of looking tor them there?’
‘Not you, for sure,’ said Dover.
‘It was quite effective, though, sir,’ said MacGregor who knew what Inspector Horton must be feeling. ‘None of the neighbours would have noticed one additional body in that mob. And there’d be no extra bottles of milk or unusually large grocery orders to make people suspicious. On the other hand, sir,’ – he saw from the scowl on Dover’s lace that a gesture of loyalty towards the old firm wouldn’t come amiss – ‘you’re quite right. They were taking a considerable risk. Suppose the police had raided the place?’
Inspector Horton rang the front door bell again. ‘That was very unlikely,’ he said. ‘Squatting’s a civil matter. You know that there’s precious little the police can do about it.’
‘Drugs?’
‘Well,’ – Inspector Horton tried to see through the coloured glass in the door – ‘we might have done ’em for drugs, I suppose. But you know what it’s like these days. Large-scale pushing of the stuff and we’d drop on ’em like a ton of bricks, but a few kids smoking reefers ..’. Well, we can’t do everything, can we?’ He rang the door bell for the third time. ‘Damn the woman! I told her we’d be coming round about this time.’ Dover leaned up against the side of the porch. ‘I hope you noticed how many of them there were in the gang. Twenty that old josser said, and he’d probably under-calculated.’ Dover seemed rather pleased that the Claret Tappers were so numerous. ‘And they had to dope me!’ he pointed out proudly. ‘I’m telling you – it took more than a couple of crummy villains to snatch me! There was some massive, high-powered organisation at the back of them, you can bet your boots on that! And now’ – he returned to earth with a bump – ‘am I going to be kept standing out here all bloody day?’
Just in time the front door opened to reveal young Mrs Youings standing there. The disagreeable expression on her patrician face was partly natural and partly the result of overhearing Dover’s last remark. ‘Frightfully sorry to have kept you waiting,’ she drawled, making the apology as perfunctory as possible. ‘I was just loading the kiln.’
‘You’re a potter, are you, madam?’ asked MacGregor when the introductions had been made and the policemen were being allowed across the threshold.
‘Only in a strictly amateur way,’ said Mrs Youings who thought policemen should only speak when they were spoken to. ‘Won’t you go right through into the lounge?’
Dover was already there, and sitting down.
‘Sherry?’ asked Mrs Youings distantly.
Dover was the only one to accept – and that was solely because he saw no prospect of getting anything stronger.
Mrs Youings was not anxious to prolong the visit and got down to her evidence with admirable speed. She, too, had a good view of ‘Osborne’ from her windows and had observed the squatters’ occupation with a keen eye and mounting rage She, too, had some hurtful comments to make about police inactivity and waited with scant courtesy while Inspector Horton trotted out his little speech. ‘Yes, inspector, I know all about that!’ she snapped. ‘I happen to have an uncle who is a chief constable down in the West Country and I took the precaution of checking the legal position with him. While he agreed that mere squatting was not a legal offence, he did think that the local police might have found ways of encouraging the intruders to move on. However, that’s all water under the bridge now. Is there anything else you want to know?’
Everybody waited while MacGregor, who was taking his usual copious notes, turned back the pages of his notebook. ‘You’re sure it was Tuesday evening that you saw these three squatters dragging a fourth man from the old taxi into the house?’
‘I would hardly have said so otherwise, would I? As I told you, I thought the fourth man was drunk or under the influence of drugs or something. I didn’t pay all that much notice because we had a dinner party that night and I was just drawing the curtains
