MacGregor thought for a minute. The time was about right if the kidnappers had driven straight from Scotland and to Flamborough Close. The traffic would be fairly light at that hour in the evening.
Dover’s stomach rumbled loudly and, since he had managed to collect everybody’s attention, he decided to put a question on his own behalf. ‘That old fellow next door, he said, ‘reckoned there were some twenty squatters altogether. You, on the other hand . . .’
‘Four!’ said young Mrs Youings, getting up to rearrange one of her hand-thrown pots on a small, highly polished table. ‘Three youths and a girl. I don’t think the girl ever stayed overnight, but I can’t be sure about that, of course. She usually seemed to be around during the middle of the morning or the early part of the afternoon.’
‘But Major What’s-his-name . . .’
Mrs Youings pursed her lips. ‘Kindly don’t quote Major Gutty’s senile maunderings to me! Just because he’s as old as the hills it doesn’t mean that he’s automatically endowed with the wisdom of the ages. In fact, if you want my opinion, the sooner Major Gutty’s put in a bottle and presented to the Royal College of Surgeons, the better!’
‘The discrepancy is rather large, Mrs Youings,’ said MacGregor. ‘Between four and twenty, I mean.’
‘They kept changing their clothes,’ explained Mrs Youings impatiently. ‘And they wore wigs. That’s why unobservant people like old Gutty thought there were hundreds of them, but there weren’t. I always,’ she added with a patronising smile, ‘watch people’s feet. They are an unmistakable indication of character.’
After that, there didn’t seem much point in the three policemen hanging around any longer and they took their leave. Mrs Youings hurried off to get her fresh-air spray and give the lounge a good squirting.
‘Lunch!’ said Dover when they were out on the pavement. ‘Where’s the nearest boozer?’
Inspector Horton’s face fell. He scurried across to Dover’s side. ‘But we’ve got two more witnesses to see, sir,’ he protested.
‘They’ll keep,’ said Dover callously. ‘In fact, if they’re as bloody useless as the last two have been, it’ll do no bloody harm if I never see ’em.’
‘One’s a child, sir,’ said Inspector Horton, hoping to touch Dover’s heart.
‘You must be joking!’
‘His parents have kept him away from school specially this morning because I said you’d be sure to want to see him. He lives right here, sir.’ Inspector Horton was a quick learner and even MacGregor was impressed with the way he had learned to cope with Dover.
Dover stared gloomily at the garden gate which was being held invitingly open for him. Where you’d been offered one glass of sherry, he reasoned, you might be offered another. Graciously he allowed himself to be persuaded and waddled hopefully up yet another garden path. ‘And God help you it this one’s as big a bloody wash-out as those other two!’ he growled, just in case Inspector Horton thought he had won himself an easy victory.
The Arnfields had been hovering behind their curtains and only paused momentarily for politeness sake before opening their front door.
‘We saw you leaving Yvonne Youings’s! Mrs Arnfield twittered excitedly. ‘I’m afraid we can’t hope to compete with her beautiful interior decoration but, please, do come in! Gilbert, the sherry decanter, dear, if you please!’
The Arnfields provided a much better sherry than Mrs Youings did, but then they were so painfully unsure of their judgement that they daren’t risk anything that wasn’t the best. Mrs Arnfield settled coyly on a pouffe at Dover’s feet and kept him well supplied with cheese footballs.
‘It must be simply marvellous being a detective,’ she cooed. ‘I’m sure I’d never be clever enough!’
Dover beamed and then rather spoilt things by belching loudly. ‘Dyspepsia,’ he explained, thumping himself vigorously in the chest. He managed to convey the impression that this trifling indisposition was more or less on a par with a war wound.
Mrs Arnfield, her eyes moist with sympathy, passed the cheese footballs again. ‘You ought to be taking it easy somewhere,’ she said, ‘after your ordeal. They must have no heart, those people up in Scotland Yard.’
MacGregor could have been sick on the spot. ‘Could we see the boy?’ he asked, breaking up what might have been a wonderful friendship between Dover and Mrs Arnfield. ’The chief inspector is working to a rather tight schedule.’
‘Yes, of course!’ Mr Arnfield glanced at his wife and, receiving her consent, trotted off to the kitchen where Arnfield Junior was being kept under wraps until it was time for him to make his big entrance.
‘He’s so excited!’
If he was, Master Arnfield was managing to conceal it quite brilliantly. A podgy seven-year-old, he was propelled gently into the room by his doting father. In his hand the bribe for good behaviour – a choc-ice – was already melting and he stood, lumpishly staring at Dover with hard shrewd eves. Whether he recognised the awful warning with which he was being confronted, history does not record, but MacGregor found the resemblance quite uncanny. Indeed, if he hadn’t known Dover’s attitude to sex, he might even have been tempted to think that Mrs Arnfield . . .
‘Go on, Leofric!’ urged the mini-monster’s mother.
Leofric licked his choc-ice thoughtfully. ‘I don’t like that fat man,’ he said.
Mrs Arnfield laughed uproariously. ‘Don’t they say some funny things, the little darlings!’
Dover placed a heavy hand on the conversation before it rollicked completely out of control. ‘What’s this miserable little bugger supposed to be doing here?’ he demanded furiously.
Behind Dover’s back, Inspector Horton made frantic signs to Mr Arnfield who responded with a pride which would have been unseemly in Leopold Mozart. ‘Leofric collects car numbers!’
‘Amongst other things!’ corrected his wife, who had no intention of standing idly by while her son was sold short. ‘There’s his collection of foreign stamps and he must have got practically every picture that’s ever been published of Bobby
