‘It’s got all the hallmarks of a professional job, though, don’t you think, sir?’ MacGregor was actually more concerned with clarifying his own ideas than soliciting Dover’s. ‘Cutting that barbed-wire fence so neatly, stripping the body and removing the teeth, burying it in a rubbish dump . . . As Inspector Telford pointed out, with a modicum of luck we’d have never found out about the murder at all. Even now the odds are well against us being able to identify the victim. The whole business has a certan smoothness and coolness about it that’s just not typical of your ordinary, run-of-the-mill murder.’
If there was one thing Dover didn’t waste time on, it was arguments that he looked like losing. Skilfully he directed the discussion into less contentious channels. He held up the tumbler from his bedside table in a meaty, accusing paw. ‘Have you nicked my teeth?’ he demanded hotly.
It was at moments like this that Sergeant MacGregor was grateful that his dear mother couldn’t see him. It would have broken her heart. ‘I think you’ve already got them in, sir,’ he said quietly, stifling a well-nigh overpowering impulse to ram the aforementioned dentures right down the abominable old fool’s abominable throat.
Dover acknowledged the solution to his problem with an exploratory munch and an ill-natured grunt. ‘A professional killer,’ he pointed out, ‘would have made one-hundred-percent bloody certain that we never found the body. He’d have used more men on the job, for a start.’
‘But we don’t know how many men, sir, were . . .’
‘Course we do! One! That’s why the body wasn’t taken a damned sight further into the rubbish tip and that’s why it wasn’t buried at least five or six feet down in a proper grave. The sloppy way it was done is proof positive it was a one-man job. He was too scared or too hurried or too bloody exhausted to make absolutely sure.’
Naturally MacGregor would rather have died than admit it, but it did strike him that there might be a tiny, mustard-seed size of sense in what Dover was saying. Not that he was prepared to abandon his own theory entirely. He still thought that there were definite indications that the dead body of the unknown man had been disposed of by somebody who was far from being either an amateur or a mug. Still, it was far too early to start theorising. What they needed at this stage was plenty of good, hard facts.
The telephone by Dover’s bed rang and MacGregor hurried across to answer it while Dover put the finishing touches to his toilet.
‘We’ll be with you in five minutes!’ MacGregor promised, the excitement of the news he’d just heard making him reckless. He put the phone down and turned to Dover who was moodily scraping at what looked like a lump of antique scrambled egg on his waistcoat. ‘That was Inspector Telford, sir! There’s been a new development! He’s waiting for us at the Operations Room.’
Two
It was always a mistake to try and rush Dover, a fact MacGregor remembered a little too late. Dover had two speeds – dead slow and reverse – and so, instead of five, it was thirty-five minutes before they made it to the Operations Room.
Dr Hone-Hitchcock, the eminent pathologist who had performed the post mortem, was not best pleased. Assuming that the detective in charge of the investigation would be anxious to have the results without delay, Dr Hone-Hitchcock had come round to deliver the gist of his report in person, confident that he would find Scotland Yard’s Finest already hard at work by half past eight in the morning.
‘God damn it!’ he exploded to Inspector Telford, holding his watch up to his ear to make sure it was still going, i can’t hang around here all day! Where the hell is he?’
Inspector Telford had been wondering about that, too. They’ve probably got held up in the traffic, sir,’ he said soothingly.
‘What traffic?’ demanded Dr Hone-Hitchcock who had a very fiery temperament for a pathologist. ‘Muncaster’s rush-hour consists of six bicycles and a pram – and it was over three hours ago.’
‘Perhaps Mr Dover is pursuing some line of his own, sir, and it’s taking him a bit longer than they anticipated.’
‘Balls!’ retorted Dr Hone-Hitchcock with lamentable crudeness. ‘He was still in bed when you rang through, wasn’t he?’
‘Well, maybe he’s . . .’
Mercifully Inspector Telford’s inventive powers were saved from further strain by the arrival of a car which drew up beside the caravan. It was the Great Man himself and Inspector Telford went out to welcome him and assist in hoisting him up the caravan steps which were, as Inspector Telford freely admitted, a touch on the precipitous side for a man of Dover’s build.
Dr Hone-Hitchcock had prepared quite a scholarly dissertation on his autoptical findings, but one look at Dover and he jettisoned it. ‘I thought you’d like to have the P.M. results without delay,’ he began when the introductions had been made and they’d got Dover settled in his chair.
Dover responded with his usual charm. ‘No skin off my nose either way,’ he grunted. ‘Just don’t go making a meal of it. The bare bones’ll do me.’ He sniggered delightedly at his own wit.
‘The deceased,’ said Dr Hone-Hitchcock shortly, ‘was a middle-aged man. Flabby, over-weight and generally out of condition, thought there were no signs of any specific disease and no operation scars. I put his age about forty-five. At some time in his youth he broke his left arm, though I doubt if that’s going to be of much help to you. Now, the cause of death. He was strangled from behind with a thin rope which was held tightly round his neck until life was extinct. Just held, not knotted. Time of death? Well, anything from four to eight weeks I’d guess, and he was placed in that
