Dover One Read online

  ‘The wheels?’ Eve Counter looked blank.

  ‘Yes, on the bath chair. I told you about them a fortnight ago at least. They must have been able to hear you coming in Creedon. I’ve never heard such a row.’

  Eve looked down vaguely at the wheels. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘they squeaked, didn’t they?’

  ‘They don’t now,’ said Colonel Bing, bending down to have a look, ‘You’ve oiled ’em, good girl!’

  Eve shrugged her shoulders. ‘I didn’t,’ she muttered.

  ‘Well, somebody has,’ insisted Colonel Bing. ‘Look, there’s oil dripping all over the place.’

  ‘Oh, perhaps Bondy did. I suppose he noticed it, too.’

  The two groups split up and Dover found himself walking down the drive with Sir John and his daughter. The wheel chair was heavy and awkward to push on the rough surface. Dover let Eve Counter struggle on alone. It never occurred to him to do anything else.

  Half-way down the drive they met Mrs Chubb-Smith who was just popping in to see her son and daughter-in-law. Maxine was expertly backing a sleek white Jaguar out of the garage.

  ‘I’ve got a luncheon engagement, Kitty darling!’ she shouted. ‘Can you feed the brute? He’s inside sulking because he wasn’t invited, too.’

  She didn’t bother to wait for a reply, but shot off down the drive with an impressive scattering of stones and dust. Mrs Chubb-Smith smiled distantly at Sir John and Eve, and treated Dover to a frigid nod before hurrying off to question her son about this latest little rift in the matrimonial lute.

  ‘I’ll give ’em six months,’ said Sir John to nobody in particular, ‘six months at the outside. And then that nubile young madam’ll be off with some fellow who’s got more of what she wants than that anaemic young husband of hers has-and she’ll take her father’s money with her, too.’ He sighed. ‘Wish I were ten years younger! I’d give her a run for her money, by God I would!’

  ‘Hm,’ said Dover, and turned round as he heard his name being called.

  ‘Chief Inspector! Chief Inspector!’

  It was Amy Freel, waving frantically at him from her upstairs sitting-room. ‘I’ve go£ those books I was talking to you about, and I’ve written out a few notes on my theory which I’m sure will be very useful to you. Can you come up a minute?’

  ‘Go on, man!’ urged Sir John. ‘An invitation’s an invitation, wherever it comes from! You can’t afford to pick and choose at your age.’

  Dover gave him a filthy look. ‘I’m not that desperate!’ he announced grimly. Raising his voice, he yelled back to Miss Freel, ‘I’m sorry, madam, I can’t spare the time now. Later perhaps.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ wailed Miss Freel, ‘well, just wait there and I’ll bring them down to you. We can have our little discussion when you’ve looked through them. Just wait there! I won’t be a minute!’

  Dover didn’t stand on ceremony. Ramming his bowler hat firmly down over his eyes, he made an elephantine charge for the main gates. Sir John screamed encouragement at his retreating back.

  The chief inspector pounded manfully down the drive. He reached the gates, his face scarlet with exertion.

  ‘Start up the motor!’ he bellowed.

  The taxi was waiting for him on the main road. The one-man who found even Dover a pleasant change from the funeral mourners he habitually drove, gunned his massive 1928 Rolls-Royce engine into life. Dover grabbed the door handle and flung himself on to the capacious rear seat.

  ‘The Two Fiddlers,’ he gasped, adding, for once in his life, ‘and step on it!’

  Chapter Ten

  ‘ALL right,’ said Dover, dragging in a great lungful of smoke from one of Sergeant MacGregor’s cigarettes, ‘let’s hear what you’ve been doing with yourself, my lad!’

  They were sitting in Dover’s bedroom at The Two Fiddlers. The chief inspector, collarless, jacketless and shoeless, was sunk deep in the armchair with his feet propped up on the bed. Sergeant MacGregor, looking as always a credit to the Tailor and Cutter, sat near the window on a hard upright chair, his notebook on his knees. Each man had a pint of Long Herbert within easy reach.

  Dover closed his eyes the better to concentrate.

  If the old bastard starts snoring, Sergeant MacGregor promised himself grimly, so help me, I’ll croak him!

  Dover opened one eye. ‘Well, come on, Sergeant,’ he growled crossly, ‘we don’t want to be here all night! I’ve had a hard day, if you haven’t.’

  Sergeant MacGregor, who had got back ten minutes after The Two Fiddlers stopped serving dinner, apologized to his chief inspector, whose after-luncheon ‘quiet think’ had lasted peacefully till seven o’clock.

  ‘Sorry, sir. I was just wondering where to begin.’

  ‘Begin at the beginning,’ suggested Dover pompously, and, rather pleased with this neat bit of repartee, settled himself back even deeper in his chair.

  ‘Well, there’s still no sign of Juliet Rugg, sir, dead or alive. I think the local police have done about everything they can, short of searching every house in the country. They’ve sent out a call to all main-line railway stations and bus termini and they’ve even had a message put out on the B.B.C. They’ve organized search parties locally to check all the woods and waste ground where somebody might have dumped her, but they’ve found nothing at all.’

  ‘Rivers? Canals? Reservoirs?’

  ‘The local river’s only two feet deep, the nearest canal is over ten miles from Irlam Old Hall and you can’t approach it by road, and the nearest reservoir is twenty miles away. If somebody carted her off in a car or a van, then, of course, she might be anywhere, but I should have thought we’d have heard something by now. What it boils down to is this: nobody has seen or heard of her since Colonel Bing saw her on the drive at eleven o’clock on Tuesday night’

  ‘Since Colonel Bing says she saw her,’ corrected Dover. ‘Well, I think she’s dead!’

  Sergeant MacGregor frowned. ‘But, there’s still the problem of the body, sir,’ he pointed out. ‘Sixteen stone of a problem! And it’s five days now—surely she’d be stinking to high heaven?’

  ‘Could be buried somewhere,’ said Dover vaguely.

  ‘But where, sir?’

  ‘How the hell do I know? Well, what else did you find out?’

  ‘I traced her movements in Creedon on the Tuesday afternoon and evening’ They’re pretty much what we knew already. She caught the three-fifteen bus from Earlam and got into Creedon at three forty-five. The bus conductor knows her and remembers her quite well. Nothing unusual. She booked a single ticket and I thought we’d got something there, but apparently she often did that, presumably when Mr Pilley was going to bring her back by car. Her first stop was at the newsagents where she bought a couple of magazines – tripey romantic stories about shop girls marrying Ruritanian princes, all told in strip cartoons. The shopkeeper showed me some of them, and from what we’ve heard, I’d say they were right up Juliet’s street.

  ‘Well, her next stop was the chemist’s. She must have spent at least half an hour there at the cosmetics counter. The two girls who serve there were at school with her, and from what I can gather they had a good old gossip while Juliet pawed over the pots of cream and what-have-you. Both girls say Juliet was just the same as usual. She told ’em a few hair-raising stories about what old Sir John got up to and a blow-by-blow account of her last evening out with Gordon Pilley. I didn’t get the details, of course, but the two girls giggled like fury and it was mutually agreed that Juliet was awful, really, where men were concerned.

  ‘However, she said nothing about any new boy-friend and there wasn’t a ghost of a hint that she intended going away. In fact, there was a tentative arrangement that she would call round for one of the girls next Tuesday and go to the pictures with her.

  It all depended whether Gordon Pilley was going to be in Creedon and whether the other girl got herself fixed up with a male date. Apparently, if neither girl could find anything better to do, they’d spend the evening toge
ther- Well, after Juliet had been hanging around for about half an hour, the owner of the shop came back and Juliet completed her purchases and left. She bought some stuff for tinting her hair, a box of mascara and this green nail-varnish stuff that Gordon Pilley mentioned.

  ‘After the chemist’s, she went to the post office and deposited seven pounds in her Post Office savings-book. We had a bit of luck there, sir. The post-office assistant also knew her, like everybody else in the place if you ask me, and she remembers that Juliet’s savings-book had to be sent up to the head office – to have the interest put in or something. Well, Juliet just filled in the envelope and handed the book over. It’s the same old story, isn’t it, sir? Doesn’t look like the action of someone who’s on the point of running away, does it?’

  There was a long pause. ‘Humph,’ said Dover at last, still not opening his eyes. He eased himself slightly in his chair. ‘How much had she got in her savings account?’

  ‘I asked about that, sir,’ said MacGregor, not without a modest satisfaction. ‘The assistant couldn’t remember exactly, but it was a fair amount – about one hundred and fifty pounds, she thought. Of course, we can get the exact figure if you think it worth while.’

  ‘Humph,’ said Dover. ‘Well, go on.’

  ‘As far as I can gather, Juliet must have gone straight to the cinema cafe then. The waitress remembers her quite well, too. She was a regular customer, always with some man or other, usually Gordon Pilley, but the waitress described two or three others as well. While Juliet was waiting for Pilley, she spent the time undoing her packages and having a look at the things she’d bought. Then she opened up this green nail varnish and started doing her nails. The waitress says she’d already got some sort of silvery-pink varnish on and she just daubed this green stuff on top. The waitress thought it was a bit off-Juliet painting her nails at the tea table, but, apparently, she contented herself with black looks and didn’t say anything.

  ‘Then Pilley came and joined her and they had a high tea-plaice and chips, the waitress thinks.

  ‘I checked with the cinema and the pub too but I couldn’t get anything very definite in either place. Still, there was nothing to indicate that Pilley’s account of the evening isn’t pretty accurate.’

  Sergeant MacGregor closed his notebook. ‘And that’s the lot, sir,’ he announced.

  Dover’s mind crawled back laboriously from wherever it had got to and he groped lethargically for his beer.

  ‘Got another cigarette?’ he demanded. ‘Well,’ he went on with a sigh, ‘I reckon that just about leaves us where we were before. Frankly I don’t see much point in hanging about down here any longer. We shan’t get any further until that body turns up.’

  ‘If she’s dead,’ MacGregor put in.

  ‘Of course she’s dead!’ snapped Dover. ‘It’s the only explanation, so don’t start yapping on about kidnapping! I’ve told you before, kidnapping’s completely out of the question! Anyhow, I reckon we’d better go and see that old fool Bartlett tomorrow morning and tell him we’re getting nowhere fast. With a bit of luck we should be able to get away after lunch at the latest. You’d better look the trains up. Oh, and there’s one other thing I’d like you to check. You can nip up to Irlam Old Hall first thing before we go into Creedon – won’t take you a minute. They push Sir John Counter out in a wheel chair. Apparently the wheels used to squeak. Now, somebody’s oiled ’em recently, put quite a lot on, too. Eve Counter says she didn’t do it, but it’s possible that William Bondy might have done. Now, I want you to check whether he did. If he didn’t, find out if you can who did and where that wheel chair was on Tuesday night.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said MacGregor, ‘you think somebody might have used this bath chair thing for transporting Juliet?’

  ‘Yes.’ Dover didn’t sound over enthusiastic even though it was his idea. ‘It’s all a bit of a long shot, but you never know. Somebody might have killed Juliet on Tuesday night after Colonel Bing saw her, and found himself with this enormous corpse on his hands. She’d be the devil’s own weight to move any distance, even for a strong man. Well now, he might have thought about Sir John’s wheel chair, got hold of it, oiled the squeaking wheels and loaded Juliet into it.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed MacGregor, rather surprised at the chief inspector’s ingenuity, ‘on the other hand, the murderer might have oiled those wheels before the murder. That’d make it premeditated, wouldn’t it? And in any case, sir,’ he pointed out eagerly, ‘this would narrow the field down a good bit, wouldn’t it? I mean, the murderer would have to know about the bath chair, and about the squeaky wheels, so it looks like somebody up at Irlam Old Hall. And it narrows down the field of the actual murder, too, doesn’t it? I mean, you wouldn’t go pushing a bath chair for miles in the middle of the night, either empty or with a dead body in it, would you?’

  ‘It looked a pretty rickety old thing to me,’ observed Dover thoughtfully, ‘I don’t think you’d be able to shove it far without it dropping to bits. And, of course, you’d have to keep on level ground, you couldn’t push it across a ploughed field or anything. Oh, there’s another thing you’d better check – those bloody main gates! See if the bath chair can be got through that little door in the middle. If it can’t. . . ’

  ‘I’ll get on to it first thing in the morning, sir,’ MacGregor promised excitedly.

  ‘Hey! Don’t count too much on it!’ warned Dover. ‘If it was Bondy who oiled those wheels, it probably doesn’t mean anything. Don’t let’s build too many castles on thin air!’

  ‘No, sir!’ The sergeant’s enthusiasm was undamped. ‘Would you like another pint, sir, before we turn in?’

  Dover looked at his empty tankard. ‘Might as well,’ he accepted ungraciously’

  ‘I think my stomach’s got used to this rot-gut now.’

  It had, and Dover slept with the peace which is supposed only to come to innocent little children. Considering he’d already had a good five hours’ nap in the afternoon it was amazing that he could close his eyes at all.

  However, he came down to breakfast in a benign and smiling mood. He’d had enough sleep, even for him, and there was every likelihood that he’d spend the next night at home in his own bed. Sergeant MacGregor was already hotfoot on the trail of the squeaking bath chair and Dover munched his way through a pretty substantial meal, at peace with the world. As soon as MacGregor got back they would get straight off to Creedon and, with a bit of luck, they should be back in London by early evening.

  Then the phone rang. It was Sergeant MacGregor. He wanted to speak to Chief Inspector Dover, urgently.

  ‘I think you’d better come up here straight away, sir,’ came MacGregor’s voice. ‘I’m at Sir John’s. Something’s happened.’

  ‘What?’ demanded Dover, his good humour rapidly ebbing away.

  ‘I don’t think we’d better discuss it on the phone, sir, the local exchange is bound to be listening in.’

  ‘Well, of all the blooming cheek!’ crackled an outraged female voice, and there was a loud click.

  ‘Oh, all right!’ snapped Dover. ‘I’ll be with you in ten minutes and God help you if you’ve dragged me up there on a wild goose chase!’

  He slammed the phone down and then realized that MacGregor had the police car up at Irlam Old Hall. With a snort of fury he charged out to unearth the village taxi-driver.

  He found MacGregor waiting for him in Sir John Counter’s bedroom. The old man, wearing, of all things, black silk pyjamas, was sitting up in bed, his eyes sparkling with excitement.

  ‘Here,’ he said before MacGregor had the chance to open his mouth, ‘read this!’

  Dover took the letter which Sir John handed over. ‘When did this come?’ he asked, morosely eyeing the envelope.

  ‘This morning’s post,’ said Sir John, ‘and be careful how you handle it. Finger-prints!’

  Dover scowled at him.

  The envelope, a long narrow one, was addressed to Sir John, care of his bank in London. It h
ad been redirected to him at Irlam Old Hall. His name and the London address were neatly printed in pencil in rather large letters, but the redirection was written in a normal hand in ink – obviously the work of some bank clerk. There were two postmarks. One showed that the letter had been originally posted shortly after midday in the West End of London on the previous Saturday, and the second bore a City stamp showing the time of 5.15 p.m. and dated the day before, Monday. It was pretty obvious, even to Dover, what had happened. Someone had posted the letter to Sir John’s bank on the Saturday. The letter would arrive on the Monday morning and had been duly readdressed to Irlam Old Hall and posted late on Monday afternoon. Sir John received it on Tuesday morning.

  Dover sighed and, mindful of Sir John’s watchful eye, carefully extracted the letter with his handkerchief. Fearing the worst, he unfolded the large sheet of paper and read the contents. There was no address or date. The message, like the envelope, was neatly printed in large pencilled letters. It began, with scant regard for Dover’s feelings:

  We have kidnapped Juliet Rugg, and the ransom is five hundred pounds. She is alive and well but you know what will happen if you don’t pay up.

  Place five hundred used non-consecutive one-pound notes in an empty tin of Vim or other cleaning powder and place it in the middle lavatory in the ladies’ convenience in the Market Square, Creedon. The money must be there by ten o’clock on Wednesday morning next. Place an old dish-cloth on top of the Vim tin.

  Don’t try any tricks and don’t tell the police.

  Enclosed please find a signed photograph of Cliff Richard which Juliet always carried in her handbag. You will also find her finger-print in the circle at the bottom of this letter. This is proof that we’ve got her.

  PAY UP OR ELSE.

  Not unnaturally, there was no signature’

  At the bottom of the letter was a pencilled circle, about the size of a penny. In it was a rather amateurish-looking dab.