Miss Ermengilda was writhing genteelly on the horns of a dilemma. ‘Of course, publicity is very welcome,’ she admitted, ‘but it must be the right kind, mustn’t it? One wouldn’t like Ermengilda’s Kitchen to be mixed up in anything distasteful.’ She broke off as Dover tugged rather urgently at her arm.
‘Got a bog here, missus?’
Miss Ermengilda tried, and failed, to disengage herself. ‘I beg your pardon!’
‘A WC,’ said Dover, giving his victim a shake. ‘A privy! A loo! The jakes!’
‘He means a gentlemen’s cloakroom,’ explained MacGregor, wondering why Dover, who was not normally mealy-mouthed, couldn’t call a spade a spade.
‘I’m afraid not,’ murmured Miss Ermengilda faintly. She was still attempting to unhook Dover’s sausage-thick fingers from her arm. ‘You’ll have to use the public convenience.’
‘Where is it?’
‘In the square outside. Just behind the Jubilee Oak.’
Dover was already on the move. ‘That a pub?’
Miss Ermengilda was glad for once that there were so few customers in her establishment. ‘No!’ she hissed. ‘It’s a tree, planted to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee and one of our main tourist attractions.’
Dover was at the shop door before it occurred to him that his abrupt departure required some explanation. ‘Shan’t be a tick!’ he called back to MacGregor. ‘It must be those bloody salts I took last night.’
In normal circumstances, of course, one would not dream of penetrating behind doors that ought to remain for ever closed to one but, on this particular occasion, an incident took place which, although of an intimate nature, did have some slight bearing on Chief Inspector Dover’s future conduct of the case.
A time came when, not to put too fine a point on it, Dover was in urgent need of paper. The supplies provided by the local Sanitary Department had been exhausted some time ago, and Dover was reduced to searching through his pockets. He could find only one piece that was of an acceptable size and texture: the application form for the position of Chief Security Officer with Pomeroy Chemicals Limited. There was a moment’s hesitation, but only a moment’s. Dover was never the man to get his priorities wrong and, anyhow, he could always send off for another application form.
But, somehow, even at that moment, he knew that he wasn’t going to bother. There is a lot to be said for Public Service, especially for the bone idle. The stresses and strains, the cut and thrust of commercial life – these, Dover realized, were not for him. With one firm pull, he despatched both Ambition and the application form. Then, feeling happier and more at ease with himself than he had done for some time, he adjusted his clothing before leaving, and left.
MacGregor was waiting for him outside with the police car.
‘’Strewth, that’s better!’ sighed Dover, sinking thankfully down on the back seat. ‘You don’t think she could have put something in that tea, do you? Here’ – the car had started moving as soon as MacGregor had shut his door – ‘where are we going?’
‘To the house Pearl Wallace lodged in, sir. Her landlady should be able to give us the girl’s home address and, with any luck, a great deal more information about her, too.’
‘Pearl Wallace?’
MacGregor blamed himself, really. He, if anybody, should have remembered that Dover needed treating like the mental deficient he was. ‘The dead girl, sir.’
‘I know, I know!’ snapped Dover, having had time to work it out for himself. ‘What about that RAF station?’
MacGregor nodded. ‘You think that the putative father might possibly be an airman, sir? Yes, that idea had crossed my mind. The only trouble is that there are something like a thousand men on that station and they’re always changing. An investigation there would involve us in an awful lot of work and I was wondering if we mightn’t just leave it for the moment until we’ve something more to go on. Perhaps later on . . .’
‘Good idea!’ said Dover who would have postponed everything to the morrow, if he could. ‘Besides, we’ve already decided that the real dad’s sitting on his backside in Frenchy Botham.’
‘That’s only a theory, sir,’ warned MacGregor. ‘We must try to keep an open mind.’
‘I’d be happy,’ said Dover, suddenly mindful of his troubles, ‘if I could just keep an open bowel.’
Mrs O’Malley was not unaccustomed to finding policemen on her doorstep though it was the first time she’d encountered Scotland Yard. She thoughtfully examined her visitors’ credentials before making her own position crystal clear. She was a poor widow woman who scratched a meagre living by letting off a few furnished rooms on a weekly basis. Not being blessed by much in the way of book learning, Mrs O’Malley ran a strictly cash-in-advance business. No cheques, no credit cards, no credit.
‘And that’s the only interest I take in my tenants,’ she said, folding thin arms over a thin bosom. ‘I don’t mother’em and I don’t pry into their affairs and I don’t give ’em advice. I just stand here every Friday night and hold my hand out. If they haven’t got it, they don’t stay. I’ve got a son in the next street. He takes after his father. Six foot two in his stocking feet, shoulders like an ox and a nasty temper to go with it. I don’t’ – she allowed the faintest hint of a smile to play on the uncompromising line of her lips – ‘usually have any trouble.’ MacGregor pointed out that Pearl Wallace had been missing for nearly a fortnight.
Mrs O’Malley agreed, without any sign of involvement whatsoever, that this was so. ‘She paid me on the seventh and I kept the room for her till the fifteenth. A couple of days later this blackie turns up. Well, his money’s as good as anybody else’s. I let him have the room.’
MacGregor sighed. ‘You didn’t think of informing the police that the girl was missing?’
‘You get no thanks for it.’
‘What did you do with her things?’
‘Cleared ’em out. Not that there was all that much. Just
