MacGregor noted his superior officer’s dilemma and generously offered a more optimistic view of the tragedy. ‘Never mind, sir, it might have been worse!’
Dover’s scowl was bleak. ‘I’d like to know how!’ MacGregor told him.
‘’Strewth!’ Dover’s pasty face went even pastier. ‘I’d have strangled the mucky little bleeder with my bare hands!’ He reached a conclusion about his bowler hat and clapped it back on his head before the rain could make treacle of his dandruff. ‘You know, laddie’ – he took hold of MacGregor’s arm in one of those friendly, affectionate gestures designed to take some of the weight off his own aching feet — ‘it’s going to be a real pleasure nailing that little bastard’s father! I’m not a vindictive man but, on this occasion . . .’ He sniggered unpleasantly to himself. ‘You’ll see, laddie! I’ll make What’s-his-name rue the bloody day he was born, so help me!’
MacGregor suppressed an unworthy sense of déjà vu as he asked the inevitable question and got the inevitable answer.
‘Well, of course I bloody fancy him!’ snapped Dover. ‘What were you doing back in there? Having a ruddy kip?’
‘But, even if he isn’t telling the truth, sir, murder isn’t the only explanation for his absence after dinner. I can think of at least three other reasons why . . .’
‘Three other fiddlesticks!’ snarled Dover. ‘Next thing you’ll be telling me that you believe that banging fence yam! As if he’d go standing out in the rain in his best suit in the pitch dark for half a bloody hour. To say nothing of the fact that he’d got important guests to look after.’Strewth, he admitted himself that he was sucking up to this chap to get a promotion.’
‘That’s true, sir,’ conceded MacGregor who, with his background, probably appreciated the value of social contacts more than Dover did. ‘The presence of Mr and Mrs Bickerton would also tend to militate against what, I fancy, Mrs Bones thinks might have happened.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘I imagine Mrs Bones suspects her husband of nipping upstairs and seducing the au pair girl, sir.’
‘Seducing the au pair girl?’ howled Dover. ‘Have you seen her, laddie? No man in his right senses would try and seduce her. I should have thought even a namby-pamby like you’d have realized that.’
MacGregor swallowed the insult. ‘What do you think happened, sir?’ he asked dutifully.
‘I’ve told you once,’ said Dover. ‘He’s a commercial traveller, isn’t he?’
‘Well, a sales manager, actually, sir.’
‘Same thing!’ grunted Dover irritably. ‘They’re all as randy as buck rabbits. So, What’s-his-name . . .’
‘Peter Bones, sir,’ said MacGregor, with no hope at all that it would stick.
‘. . . gets this girl into trouble and she comes gunning for him. It’s as simple as falling off a log.’
MacGregor nodded. As theories go, he’d heard worse – and most of them from Dover. ‘The timing’s not very good, sir. It must have been nine o’clock at least before they’d finished dinner and Bones went out to mend that fence. The dead girl called at The Laughing Dog round about seven. That leaves a couple of hours to account for.’
Dover brushed such pettifogging details aside. ‘She was wandering around looking for the house!’
MacGregor tried another tack. ‘There were six people in Otterly House that Wednesday evening, sir,’ he pointed out, ‘not counting the children. How did the dead girl manage to attract Peter Bones’s attention without anybody else noticing?’
‘Secret signal!’ said Dover who was now really firing away on all four cylinders. Pomeroy Chemicals Limited just didn’t know what was going to hit them! ‘Whistling or singing a song or something.’
‘Or tapping,’ said MacGregor as he grasped the possibilities.
‘Like I said,’ agreed Dover. ‘She creeps up to the house, peeps in at the dining-room window and sees his lordship sitting there with that other fellow. She taps out their coded signal or whatever and What’s-his-name makes some tom-fool excuse to his guest and goes outside. There the girl threatens him with exposure or demands money or something, so he picks up a stone – or a chunk of wood from that famous broken fence of his – and clouts her one. Then all he has to do is get rid of the corpse in his neighbour’s shrubbery.’
MacGregor looked at Dover with something bordering on respect. Really, the old fool had produced quite a logical case against Peter Bones. MacGregor didn’t believe in it for one moment, but he was quite prepared to award high marks for effort.
Dover was meanwhile rounding off his thesis. ‘The whole blooming business needn’t have taken more than five minutes. Mind you, he’d have got himself wet and muddy, like he said. He might even have got some of her blood on him. So, all that about going upstairs for a bath and change is likely true. It’d give him time to work out that story about mending the broken fence as well.’
‘Hm,’ said MacGregor.
‘And another thing,’ said Dover, really intent on gilding the lily. ‘The only person who could say how long he was actually away or why precisely he left the dining room or anything is this other fellow.’
‘Mr Joseph Bickerton,’ prompted MacGregor.
‘Well, did you notice how many times he mentioned his drinking habits? Damn it, he’s already branded the only witness against him as a drunk and discounted any evidence he might
give at the trial. Here’ – Dover’s laborious progress ground to a complete halt as he cast a liverish eye at his surroundings — ‘where the hell are we? What are we doing here? Where’s the bloody car? Look, laddie, I want a bit of a rest and a think before we start on . . .’
MacGregor gently unhooked Dover’s arm and, mounting the last of the steps, seized hold of the large brass knocker wrought in the shape of a snarling cat and rapped loudly on
