‘Get lost, laddie!’ said Dover, and returned to pinning back a few more credulous ears.
It was indeed rather late before British Rail disgorged Dover and MacGregor back to Chapminster. Inspector Walters was patiently waiting for them with a car. He had been rather taken aback to find that ‘his’ murder had been solved, apparently on the Isle of Man, but he had decided not to raise his Chief Constable’s hopes until they’d got the whole thing cut and dried. Somehow Inspector Walters couldn’t quite rid himself of the notion that Chief Inspector Dover really was the fat, stupid, lazy slob he looked. This made it difficult to believe that he could do anything properly and Inspector Walters, rather foolishly, preferred not to involve his superior officer until he was quite sure.
If Inspector Walters had been looking forward to some sort of comradely reunion, he was sadly disappointed. Both the Scotland Yard men were weary and travel stained, and one of them was apparently still suffering from train sickness. When Dover eventually emerged from the gents’ lavatory on Chapminster station the police car set off for Frenchy Botham.
At first the atmosphere was one of expectant silence. Then Inspector Walters was obliged to ask the question. ‘Where to in Frenchy Botham, sir?’
‘The Grove,’ grunted Dover.
‘Any particular house, sir?’ Inspector Walters fished with more hope than MacGregor had done, but with an equal lack of success.
‘Nope,’ said Dover who was determined to stretch out his moment of glory as long as possible. ‘Tell the driver to stop at the top and we’ll walk from there.’
And walk they did, their footsteps lit by the light of an evasive moon and the stronger beam of Inspector Walters’s electric torch.
‘That’s Lilac View, sir,’ said Inspector Walters, illuminating a gatepost and a short stretch of gravelled drive. ‘Mr de la Poche. I suppose we’re hardly likely to be calling there looking for the mother of the Wallace girl – not with him being a bachelor and everything.’
‘You never know these days,’ growled Dover, his feet making him disinclined for conversation. ‘Who lives in this one?’
‘This is Fairacre, sir.’ Inspector Walters played his torch on a clump of hydrangeas and the little cortege veered slightly in this new direction. ‘That’s the bank manager, sir. Mr Talbot. He and his wife are the ones who dabble in all this spirit nonsense. Could Mrs Talbot be the one you’re after?’
Inspector Walters paused interrogatively, but Dover plodded painfully on.
Remembering the incident of What Had Happened to the Bowler Hat, Inspector Walters left it to MacGregor to do the honours at the next house. After all, the Sergeant knew as much about the inhabitants of The Grove as anybody did. MacGregor duly poked Dover’s failing memory into life with the utmost care. ‘Otterly House, sir. That’s the youngish couple – Peter and Maddie Bones – with the French au pair girl and the three small – er – children, if you remember.’
‘I remember all bloody right,’ muttered Dover darkly. ‘Mucky little bugger!’
‘The Bones’s are the ones, sir, who had his boss and wife to dinner and . . .’
‘Where’s the telly?’ demanded Dover suddenly. ‘And the newspaper men?’ He swung round on Inspector Walters. ‘I thought you were supposed to be laying a bit of publicity on?’
Inspector Walters backed off, in order to protect the innocent. ‘Sergeant MacGregor did ask me, sir, but I’m afraid it’s against our Standing Orders. I did check. The Chief Constable apparently likes investigations and particularly arrests to be carried out with as much discretion as possible. He thinks it’s only fair for the protection of the person or persons involved.’
‘’Strewth!’ said Dover in tones of the deepest disgust. ‘A fine bloody pal you’ve turned out to be! You could have tipped ’em off on the bloody quiet, couldn’t you? God damn it, I’d have done it myself if I’d known you were going to be so bloody weak-kneed about it. Where the hell’s this?’
Confused by the abrupt change of subject, Inspector Walters let his torch waver. Then he got his bearings. ‘Ah, this is Ilfracombe, sir. Where Mrs Esmond Gough lives with her retired brigadier husband. She’s the founder of the Sorority for Sacerdotal Sex Equality, as I expect you remember. She wants women to have the right to be ordained as priests.’
‘She wants her bloody head examining!’ grunted Dover. ‘Silly cow!’
MacGregor, stumbling along in the dark behind old Master Mind, tried frantically to work it out. There was only Miss Charlotte Henty-Harris left! But, surely, she was far too old to be Pearl Wallace’s mother? No doubt it was biologically possible – MacGregor did some rapid mental arithmetic – yes, just. But everybody had talked of the mysterious Miss Jones as a young woman. Even eighteen years ago Miss Henty-Harris would have been well into her forties. The sweat began to run down MacGregor’s back. Could it be that the mysterious Miss Jones was only a decoy? A stand-in? Could Pearl Wallace’s mother actually be somebody quite different? If so, though, how the hell had Dover ever unravelled the complications?
‘Oh, sorry, sir!’ MacGregor bumped into Dover who had stopped dead in his tracks to listen to Inspector Walters’s final oration.
‘Watch it!’ squealed Dover, viewing as always any physical contact with MacGregor with the utmost suspicion. ‘You keep your hands to yourself, laddie!’
The darkness mercifully spared MacGregor’s blushes.
‘And that was where Miss Henty-Harris found the body, sir,’ concluded Inspector Walters lamely. He shone his torch on the fatal shrubbery behind the open gate. Inspector Walters didn’t know what the hell was going on between these two Scotland Yard men, but, in his opinion, the sooner the pair of them cleared off back to London, the better for all concerned. ‘Shall we go in, sir? There’s a light on in the front room so it looks as though Miss Henty-Harris is still up.’
‘Go in?’ In the light of the torch Dover’s pasty face
