Dover stared longingly but said nothing.
Frying to treat Mr Osmond as though he were a rational human being, MacGregor began once again to ask the same old questions. How long had Mr Osmond been a member of the Dockwra Society. Had he attended their meeting at Bowerville- by-the-sea? How well did he know Mr Arthur Knapper? Had there been anything about Mr Knapper’s behaviour that weekend which had seemed unusual? Had there been any quarrels? Did anybody appear to be harbouring a grudge against Mr Knapper? How had Mr Osmond travelled to the Rankin Holiday Ranch? Had he left on the Sunday before or after Mr Knapper? Well, could he perhaps remember when was the last time he’d actually seen Mr Knapper?
Those answers which were not monosyllabic were obscene. A great deal of Mr Osmond’s conversation was decorated with grace-notes of crude, four-letter bawdy and MacGregor was soon thinking of how nice it would be to take a piece of lead pipe and wrap it round the young punk’s ears.
Mr Osmond got out a large sheath knife and began casually to manicure his fingernails with it.
The interview was getting nowhere.
Mr Osmond knew nothing about anything, or if he did he wasn’t talking.
MacGregor glanced at Dover to see if he was ready to call it a day. He was. Even if it meant getting up out of a comfortable chair and leaving a nice warm room to stand on the pavement outside, Dover was ready to make the sacrifice. He’d had a bellyful of Mr Osmond.
It was at this precise moment that Elvira chose to reappear, pattering triumphantly into the room without knocking and all but getting a fatal dose of cold steel through her throat as a result. Mr Osmond’s reactions were razor sharp.
When the dust had settled and both Mr Osmond and Elvira had recovered something of their cool, Dover got his hands on the large brown paper-bag which she’d brought. The girl had done him proud! That brown paper-bag contained a life-support system that would keep even Dover going for the next two hours.
‘That’s two pounds thirty-five you owe me, sergeant,’ said Elvira. She saw that she had caught MacGregor where it hurts. ‘You’ve no idea how expensive things are these days,’ she added, opening her big blue eyes very, very wide. She turned away to deal with Dover who was trying to fight his way into a plastic bag. ‘Shall I open that for you, chief inspector?’ she cooed, and picked up the sheath knife which had fallen from Mr Osmond’s nerveless fingers when he’d finally realised that Elvira’s entrance did not presage the start of the Third World War or whatever onslaught it was he was expecting.
While she was at it, Elvira unwrapped Dover’s sandwiches for him and unboxed his gooseberry and apple tart. She knew how much gentlemen, especially high-ranking policemen, appreciate these little attentions. When she’d finished she returned the sheath knife to Mr Osmond and, for the first time, looked properly at him.
Elvira was a very uninhibited girl. Her screams of delighted recognition split the air. ‘Well, fancy seeing you here!’
Osmond’s response was quieter and less rapturous. ‘Bloody hell!’
‘Don’t you remember me?’ demanded Elvira, all poutingly sexy and provocative.
Osmond stood up. ‘Oh, sure,’ he muttered, looking decidedly less massive and menacing. ‘Sure. Once seen, never forgotten, eh? Look – I’ll be in touch. Later. Right? Meantime,’ – he glanced round at Dover and MacGregor – ‘you’ll have to take your picnic somewhere else. I’m – er – I’m expecting a visitor.’
Dover warmed to the uncertainty in Osmond’s voice and settled back even more comfortably in his chair. Only dynamite would move him now. ‘Plenty of room for everybody!’ he quipped, waving his ham sandwich to illustrate his point.
Osmonds’s face blackened. ‘It’s private.’
‘Good thing I’m broad-minded, then!’
‘I’ve got to go out,’ said Osmond, floundering from one patent lie to another. ‘An urgent appointment. I’ve just remembered.’
The Rock of Gibraltar had nothing on Dover. ‘You carry on, laddie!’ he advised, delicately licking his fingers clean before sinking them in the next sandwich. ‘We’ll lock up for you. After all,’ – the witticisms were flowing like treacle now – ‘you can trust us. We’re coppers.’
But Osmond was recovering his poise. He reached for his coat. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Just drop the catch on the door.’
Dover was thick all right, but he wasn’t as thick as that. Besides, he felt he owed Osmond something – like a smack across the teeth with a pick-axe handle. ‘Hold your horses, laddie!’ he snapped and jerked his head at MacGregor.
Correctly interpreting, for once in his life, one of the Master’s twitches, .MacGregor moved across and cut off Osmond’s escape route.
‘We haven’t finished our little chat yet, have we? asked Dover with a grin.
Elvira seized what appeared to her like an opportunity to go back and listen to pop music on the car radio. ‘Oh, haven’t you finished your conference yet? I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have come barging in if I’d known.’
‘Conference?’ asked Dover who was really firing on all four
cylinders.
‘Or whatever,’ said Elvira with a deprecating little giggle. She adjusted the strap of her handbag on her shoulder. ‘I thought you were supposed to be questioning a suspect or something. Silly me! I’m always getting things wrong.’
‘We are questioning a bloody suspect,’ rumbled Dover, glowering balefully at Osmond. ‘This joker’ll be lucky if he doesn’t finish up with his bloody toes dangling six inches off the ground.’
‘Oh, you are awful!’ protested Elvira in a scream of delight.
Fortunately, MacGregor’s ears had also picked up the vague nuances which had been disturbing Dover and he was prepared to do something about them, otherwise they might all have been standing around there yet. ‘Where did you meet Mr Osmond?’ he asked.
Elvira pondered. ‘Oh, it was Breadbury Hall, wasn’t it? One
