MacGregor did indeed remember, if only because of the acute embarrassment caused when Dover couldn’t find his. In fact, if it hadn’t been for MacGregor deducing (in the best detective fashion) that Dover’s pockets were probably full of holes, they would never have got into the Talbot house at all. Not that that was much compensation for the pure horror MacGregor had experienced as he plunged his hand down into the Stygian depths of the lining of Dover’s overcoat. MacGregor fought down another heave of nausea and resolutely turned his thoughts to happier subjects. Like murder.
‘Could I have the names and addresses of your guests, sir?’
Mr Talbot was not unprepared for the request. He had the list, already written out and to hand. Such, however, was his love of his own voice that, instead of handing the sheet of paper over to MacGregor, he read its contents out aloud in a clear voice at dictation speed, thoughtfully spelling out any proper names which might give trouble.
MacGregor got them all down. Mr and Mrs Arbuthnot Quail, The Old Brew House, Ghapminster. Mr and Mrs Berkley Rawlinson, Corner Cottage, Pebble Lane, Little Alesford. Mrs Natasha Srednaya, 42b Station Road, Swinham, 16.
‘Our usual group, in fact,’ said Mr Talbot when he saw that MacGregor’s pencil had stopped moving. ‘We meet here every other Wednesday, except in August. I contacted everybody by telephone this afternoon and they have all expressed their readiness to provide Mrs Talbot and myself with an alibi, in the unlikely event that the need for one should arise.’
And that, as far as Mr Talbot was concerned, was that. It was only because Dover hadn’t yet finished feeding his fat face that MacGregor felt obliged to prolong the proceedings. He asked Mr Talbot for the telephone numbers of the bridge players, much to that gentleman’s ill-concealed astonishment.
‘You’re not seriously intending to contact these people, are you, sergeant? I am a Bank Manager, after all. My word is my bond. I can assure you there is absolutely no need to go pestering my guests on the telephone – or in any other way, if it comes to that.’
‘Oh, we most likely won’t, sir,’ said MacGregor soothingly. ‘It’s just that, if we do have to, at least we shan’t have to come bothering you again.’
Mr Talbot sniffed, raised his eyebrows at his wife and read out the phone numbers in an ill-natured gabble. ‘Anything else, sergeant?’
‘Er – you played in this room, did you, sir?’
‘We did.’
‘And you would have heard if anybody had come knocking at your front door?’
‘Naturally.’
Dover, having gone through the tea tray like a plague of locusts, leaned back, belched loudly and, bestowing his rosette for a blow-out first-class, unfastened the top button of his trousers.
MacGregor realized that it was time to go.
At least, he pondered, as he supported a now limping Dover down the drive, this was one occasion when the Chief Inspector wouldn’t try to pin the murder on his late host. Throughout the whole interview he hadn’t opened his mouth except to shovel food into it, and MacGregor doubted whether he had taken in anything at all of the proceedings. But, MacGregor was wrong. Dover had been listening.
‘A bloody likely yam!’
‘Sir?’
‘Overweight stuffed shirt!’
‘You mean Mr Talbot, sir?’
‘Who else, for God’s sake?’ Dover paused to admire the Spring flowers. He also contrived to get his breath back and give his poor old feet a rest at the same time. ‘You didn’t swallow all that load of old codswallop he was dishing out, did you?’
MacGregor tried not to sound too patronizing. ‘Mr Talbot has a pretty solid looking alibi, sir. Apart from his wife, there are no less than five other people who can vouch for him. I’m sure they’ll all confirm his story when we get round to seeing them, and there’s absolutely no question here of anybody nipping out in the middle of a storm to mend a garden fence.’
Dover grunted and resumed his funereal progress down the drive. ‘You play bridge, laddie? Or whist, which comes to the same thing?’
‘Er – no, sir. We used to play a lot of canasta at school, of course.’
‘My old woman’s become a bloody whist fiend recently,’ said Dover gloomily. ‘Says it makes a nice change from bingo.’
Privately, MacGregor reckoned that Mrs Dover had probably earned all the extra-marital amusements she could get, but naturally he wasn’t tactless enough to say so. ‘That’s very interesting, sir,’ he commented brightly, carefully interposing his body between Dover and the sight of the police car waiting out in the roadway.
‘Once a bloody month,’ Dover went grumbling on, obviously unburdening himself of a long-standing grievance, ‘they meet at our house. Coffee and bits of sandwiches with all the crusts cut off, and a cold supper left out on a bloody plate for me. And I have to feed the bloody cat! No wonder my stomach’s in the state it’s in. Cold food rots the lining like nobody’s business.’ MacGregor didn’t wish to know that. ‘You were talking about bridge, sir,’ he reminded Dover hopefully.
Dover was growing bored with the conversation and in his impatience failed to notice that MacGregor was leading him towards yet another garden path. ‘You play bridge in fours, laddie,’ he said irritably. ‘Same as bloody whist. Five’s just possible because you can have each person sitting out in turn and it’s not too bad. Seven, on the other hand, is a bloody silly number. That gives you four people actually playing and three more sitting about twiddling their bloody thumbs. You can’t play any sort of cards with only three people, not properly. And certainly not bridge or bloody whist. I know because my missus bitches like hell when the numbers aren’t right.’
MacGregor blinked. Was it possible
