Dover Three Page 4

  She had telephoned The Jolly Sailor on Sunday evening in a state of some annoyance and pained surprise. She had expected, she informed MacGregor at length, that Chief Inspector Dover would have called ere now at Friday Lodge and presented his compliments. MacGregor, with stout loyalty, told her that the Chief Inspector had been fully occupied with his preliminary studies of the case. Dame Alice retorted that she was glad to hear it. Obviously the intelligence she had received – to wit, that the Chief Inspector had spent the entire day in bed – was erroneous. She couldn’t, she said in a sour aside, understand why Mrs Quince should lie, but there it was. MacGregor cleared his throat and prepared to tangle the web a bit more, but he was saved the trouble. Dame Alice announced that she would like to see the Chief Inspector up at Friday Lodge as soon as possible. Tonight? MacGregor asked her to hold on while he consulted the Chief Inspector who, unfortunately, was not able for unspecified reasons to come to the phone himself.

  Dame Alice held on with grim determination and tried to interpret the howl which came dimly along the wires.

  MacGregor was sorry but tonight was quite impossible. Tomorrow morning? If Dame Alice would just hold the line for a minute.

  Long mutterings this time as Dover and MacGregor worked out a new set of excuses.

  MacGregor was extremely sorry but tomorrow morning the Chief Inspector was going to Bearle.

  ‘Bearle?’ repeated Dame Alice in tones of frank disbelief.

  ‘Yes, Bearle,’ said MacGregor miserably. ‘He’s going to interview Miss Poppy Gullimore. She teaches at a school in Bearle so we understand.’

  ‘But why not wait till she comes home at night and interview her then?’ demanded Dame Alice reasonably. ‘She’s back by five o’clock.’

  ‘I’m afraid that wouldn’t quite fit in with Chief Inspector Dover’s plans,’ explained MacGregor.

  ‘Well, what time are you going to be back in Thornwich?’

  MacGregor couldn’t say.

  Dame Alice breathed heavy dissatisfaction down the telephone. MacGregor couldn’t blame her. He listened sympathetically while she enumerated her pressing obligations and appointments for the next week. Yes, he could quite see that Dame Alice was a very busy woman. Perhaps it would be better if Chief Inspector Dover rang her. MacGregor knew he was most anxious to see her. Dame Alice indicated that she didn’t think this was a very good idea. She would be sorry to think that the Chief Inspector was trying to avoid her.

  It was ten minutes before MacGregor was able to rejoin Dover in the public bar.

  ‘She’s going to ring you again tomorrow night, sir,’ he told Dover.

  Dover was not pleased. He said so loudly. Mr Quince listened sympathetically as he polished the glasses.

  ‘Well,’ concluded Dover, ‘when she does ring, you can damned well tell her to take a running jump at herself. I’ll see her when I’m good and ready, and not before. She may have the Chief Constable and the Assistant Commissioner in her pocket, but she hasn’t got me, and the sooner she realizes it the better. You can tell her that when you answer the phone. Now, you’re in the chair, laddie. Mine’s a pint.’

  They had spent a quiet evening. Mr Tompkins, Dover’s newfound and generous friend, did not turn up. Charlie Chettle, who stood alternate rounds with MacGregor, explained why.

  ‘It’s his missus,’ he said, sharing a packet of potato crisps with his dog. ‘She doesn’t like him having a drink at the best of times, but Sunday evenings she really puts her foot down, doesn’t she, Bert?’

  Bert Quince nodded agreement and turned away to serve a couple of lorry drivers who’d come in to break their journey.

  ‘You don’t have to look far to see who wears the trousers in that household,’ Charlie Chettle went on, giving Dover a broad wink. ‘Hen-pecked, that’s what Arthur Tompkins is.’

  ‘More fool him,’ observed Dover who prided himself on not having any nonsense like that in his house.

  ‘Ah, but you don’t know Winifred! She was a right bossy little madam when she was nothing but a nipper and she’s not changed much. Of course, her health’s not good,’ – Charlie Chettle grinned slyly at Dover – ‘being crossed upsets her. She’s led Arthur Tompkins a fair old dance in her time, I can tell you. Every time she doesn’t get her own way she has a heart attack or something. Mind you, Arthur’s a right old mutton-head or he’d have packed it in years ago, especially when he got the money.’

  Dover obliged. After all, the dreary old codger had bought him a drink. ‘What money?’ he asked.

  Charlie Chettle’s grin widened and he leaned forward, his watery old eyes sparkling. ‘Do you mean you don’t know? He won the pools, Arthur did, about five years ago.’ Charlie Chettle lowered his voice and spoke with suitable awe. ‘One hundred and seventy thousand quid!’

  ‘One hundred and seventy thousand quid!’ yelped Dover. ‘And he still lives in a dump like this? He must be barmy!’

  ‘Oh, Arthur’d be off to the Riviera if he got half a chance,’ said Charlie Chettle. ‘It’s Winifred as won’t budge. She was born and bred here, you see. When they got the money she made Arthur buy that grocer’s shop and, as far as she’s concerned, they’ll stay here for the rest of their lives. One hundred and seventy thousand quid! ’Swelp me!’ He shook his head in honest, if senile, bewilderment. ‘Crikey, if I had half that, you wouldn’t see me for dust! I’d be off to the bright lights and the pretty girls and blue the blinking lot!’

  ‘Me, too,’ said Dover with a deep sigh.

  MacGregor was quite disgusted. A couple of revolting, dirty old men, that’s what they were. Bright lights and pretty girls at their age, it was enough to make you throw up. A pair of slippers and the telly, that’s what they ought to be dreaming about. ‘Perhaps the Tompkinses have children,’ he suggested severely. ‘Maybe they’re saving the money for them instead of squandering it.’ MacGregor didn’t approve of idle gossip and had quite made up his mind not to join in the conversation, but occasionally one set of principles had to be permitted to overcome another.

  Charlie Ghettle shook his head. ‘No, no kids. She can’t have any. Not, if you ask me that she’s tried very hard. Or’ – he sniggered into his tankard and winked yet again at Dover – ‘allowed Arthur to, which is more to the point, eh? I did hear as how they were thinking of adopting one but they seemed to have dropped the idea. Arthur wasn’t keen, not that what he thinks cuts much ice with her.’

  As he stood waiting for the bus to Bearle, Dover pondered enviously over Arthur Tompkins and his hundred and seventy thousand pounds. Some people have all the luck! The Tompkins’s shop was right opposite the bus stop and The Jolly Sailor. Dover stared moodily at it as the heavy lorries thundered past. It was a dingy place with a window full of faded cardboard boxes and piles of dusty tins. They couldn’t be making their fortunes with a shop like that. But then, as he reminded himself gloomily, they didn’t have to. They’d already made it. A hundred and seventy thousand pounds! ’Strewth!

  ‘The bus is coming, sir.’ MacGregor’s voice broke into Dover’s esoteric dreams and he returned to the world of public transport, Dame Alice Stote-Weedon and poison-pen letters. With a scowl he climbed aboard.

  The headmaster of the Violet Stote-Weedon County (Mixed) Secondary Modem School was surprised to find a couple of stalwart detectives from Scotland Yard invading his office and demanding to interview a member of his staff.

  ‘Miss Gullimore?’ he asked, distractedly tugging down a brown, hand-knitted pullover in a vain attempt to get it to make contact with the top of his trousers. ‘What on earth has she been doing now? If she’s been sitting down again, she’ll have to go. I’ve warned her. The School Governors just won’t stand for it – and neither will the Office. I don’t care how good a cause it is, having members of the staff arrested and flung into jail is bad for the school’s reputation.’

  Dover sat down uninvited in what looked like (but wasn’t) a comfortable armchair, and let MacGregor get on with the explanations. The headmast
er was even more horrified to find that Miss Gullimore was wanted by the police for something else besides sitting down.

  ‘Poison-pen letters? You don’t mean to tell me she’s been writing poison-pen letters?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said MacGregor patiently. ‘We just want her to help us in our inquiries, that’s all.’

  The headmaster clutched his head. ‘You just want her to help you with your inquiries? That’s what you always say, isn’t it? And the next minute they’re being marched off in handcuffs. Now, look, Chief Inspector, I must ask you to be discreet, circumspect, even prudent. Miss Gullimore is not exactly popular with the children, but then neither are the police. If they’re given the choice, I think they’ll be on her side rather than yours. And don’t make the mistake of underestimating them. Some of my senior boys are hefty, tough young thugs, though if it comes to the crunch, it’s the girls I’d look out for, if I were you.’

  ‘Really, sir,’ said MacGregor, smiling indulgently, ‘I do assure you, there’s not going to be anything like that at all.’

  ‘Oh, isn’t there?’ The headmaster looked offended. ‘Well, permit me, Sergeant, to point out that I do happen to know what I’m talking about. I’ve not been headmaster here for twenty years for nothing. And if you think Miss Gullimore is going to go quietly, you’ve got another think coming. She’s a militant, you know. Civil disobedience is right up her street.’

  In the end MacGregor found it simpler to assure the headmaster that, if it proved necessary to drag Miss Gullimore bodily from the school, the manoeuvre would be performed either when the children were devouring their dinners or after they had repaired to their classrooms for afternoon school.

  The headmaster, still not entirely satisfied, went off to find Miss Gullimore.

  Dover shook his head.

  ‘’Strewth, anybody’d think we were the ruddy Gestapo, wouldn’t they?’

  When Miss Gullimore arrived she proved a bit of a shock. She looked about sixteen, though MacGregor, who took an interest in these things, worked it out that she must be at least six or seven years older. Whatever her age, she made a striking impression. She had a thin, sallow face liberally bedaubed with what looked like the entire cosmetics stock of a large shop : lipstick, rouge, dead-white face powder, eye shadow, eyebrow pencil, false eyelashes and several other bits and pieces which mere men like Dover and MacGregor failed to identify. This action-painter’s palette effect was draped with lank, shoulder-length, jet black hair, chewed rather than cut into an elongated page-boy style. Pale blue eyes, made interesting by the faintest squint, flicked with interest from MacGregor to Dover, and then rapidly back to MacGregor again. Miss Gullimore’s bosom, decorated not with one but with two G.N.D. badges, provocatively placed, heaved seductively.

  ‘Won’t you sit down, Miss Gullimore?’ said Dover who had moved into the headmaster’s chair behind the desk.

  Even the Chief Inspector felt a twinge of anxiety as she accepted his invitation. The tight, imitation leopard-skin skirt creaked as it took the strain, but it held fast. It rose alarmingly over Miss Gullimore’s knees and revealed her red-nylon-sheathed legs. MacGregor began to lose interest. Miss Gullimore’s legs were fat.

  Dover had lost interest long ago – and not only in Miss Gullimore. He sighed deeply, helped himself to a cigarette from the box on the desk and started asking Miss Gullimore some pretty pointless questions.

  Miss Gullimore, far from being antagonistic to the forces of law and order, almost fell over herself in her eagerness to answer.

  Yes, she had received sixteen of these terrible letters and they’d upset her absolutely awfully, though, of course, she wasn’t exactly an innocent little virgin, having spent her last three summer holidays hitch-hiking on the Continent. Actually, out of school, she went around with a pretty advanced crowd – they were all way-out, you know. Poets and artists and things like that. Satirists, too. She just daren’t tell a policeman some of the things they got up to, she really daren’t!

  ‘In Thornwich?’ asked Dover with weary scepticism.

  ‘Holy cats, no!’ squeaked Miss Gullimore, flinging up her hands in mock horror. ‘Thornwich is embalmed, mummified. There’s no life there, not what I call life. No,’ – she tried a come-hither glance in MacGregor’s direction and hitched up her skirt another couple of inches or so – ‘I’m talking about London. I often go down for the week-end.’

  Dover sighed. Gripes! The people you had to mix with in his profession. It shouldn’t happen to a dog.

  ‘How long have you lived in Thornwich, miss?’

  ‘Well, I’ve existed there for about two years. I’m in digs with Mrs Leatherbarrow. It’s cheaper than Bearle and not quite so provincial, if you see what I mean. Besides, Mrs Leatherbarrow doesn’t interfere. She lets me paint and play records and – well – generally express myself. I think that’s vital, don’t you? I mean, I’ve got Bach at the moment and I just have to play him all day long.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Dover.

  ‘Of course, Mrs Leatherbarrow is frightfully understanding for a landlady.’

  ‘She must be,’ said Dover.

  ‘When I had puppets she used to help me with the clothes – just the sewing, of course. I did all the designs, naturally. Mind you, she’s a terrible old gossip.’ Miss Gullimore ran her tongue thoughtfully along her top lip. ‘She knows absolutely everything that goes on in that village. I did wonder if she was maybe writing those letters. The ones I got were absolutely potty, of course, but – well – some of the details were bang on.’

  ‘Really?’ said Dover.

  Miss Gullimore shrugged her shoulders extravagantly and crossed her legs. There was another quick glance at MacGregor to see if he was registering anything. He wasn’t. ‘Of course, whatever you can say about Mrs Leatherbarrow, she’s not sick,’ said Miss Gullimore fairly. ‘And, I mean, whoever’s writing these letters must be sick, mustn’t they? Sexually repressed, I should think,’ said Miss Gullimore, offering her contribution with great nonchalance. After all, she had had to read several books on psychology to get her diploma in education. ‘That’s why the letters to me were so bitchy. Sheer green jealousy! If you catch her, will there be a trial? Will you want me to give evidence?’

  Miss Gullimore’s eyes snapped with excitement and Dover regarded her sourly.

  ‘We may be able to spare you that ordeal, miss,’ he said drily.

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ said Miss Gullimore, tossing a couple of yards of dank hair over her shoulder. ‘It’d be quite exciting, really.’

  Dover scowled at her. ‘You ever done any typing, miss?’

  Far from being offended at the implication, Poppy Gullimore appeared to be delighted. She could, she revealed coyly, actually type quite well. At one stage in her short career she had seriously considered taking up secretarial work but had changed her mind with shrewd appreciation that teaching offered shorter hours, longer holidays and less competition. ‘Besides,’ she added candidly, ‘I couldn’t stick the shorthand business. Terribly drab! I’d have probably had to go on living at home, too, and that would have been the end! My stepfather keeps trying to seduce me and I’m terrified my mother will find out. That’s why I never go home.’

  ‘Very wise, miss,’ said Dover placidly and reached for his bowler hat. ‘Come on, MacGregor!’

  ‘Is that all?’ asked Miss Gullimore, highly disconsolate at losing her audience.

  ‘For the moment, miss,’ said Dover. ‘We may want to see you later on. I suppose,’ he gazed at her thoughtfully, ‘I suppose you’ve no pet theories of your own as to who’s writing these letters?’

  ‘How about Dame Alice?’ suggested the girl sulkily. ‘She’s always had a down on me. I suppose it’s because I’m young and I won’t kowtow to her like the rest of them do. She’s one of the governors of this school, and about once a term she invites me to dinner at Friday Lodge to pump me about what goes on here.’

  ‘And do you tell her anything?’ asked Dover.


  ‘Well, of course I do!’ Miss Gullimore looked surprised. ‘It’s every man for himself, isn’t it? They’d tell tales about me if they got half a chance, so why shouldn’t I do the same about them?’

  * * *

  ‘That was a funny girl,’ said Dover some three hours later when he and MacGregor were trundling along in the bus back to Thornwich.

  ‘Very odd, sir,’ agreed MacGregor, glad to see that they were once more on speaking terms. Buses ran very infrequently between Bearle and Thornwich and the long wait, hanging around an exceedingly dull little town after the pubs had closed, had placed a severe strain on Dover’s good humour, never a very hardy plant at the best of times.

  ‘They must be damned short of teachers to employ her,’ observed Dover, watching the mist settling down on the moors. He sniffed. ‘I should think a young lady like her would get very bored up here, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I should think so, sir,’ said MacGregor.

  ‘The poison-pen writer could be bored,’ said Dover ponderously. ‘Might be somebody who wants to stir the old fuddy duddies up and have a good giggle.’

  ‘Would she know enough about Thornwich’s scandals though, sir?’ asked MacGregor doubtfully.

  ‘The landlady might have told her. It’s amazing how much gossip you can pick up, just casually like, if you put your mind to it.’

  ‘Miss Gullimore is a touch-typist, sir,’ MacGregor pointed out. ‘Those letters were typed by somebody who only uses two fingers.’

  ‘She’s probably bright enough to know we can check that sort of thing,’ said Dover gloomily, ‘and changed her style accordingly.’ He yawned. ‘I wonder if that school’s got any typewriters.’

  ‘Oh, it’s bound to have, sir,’ said MacGregor, rather impressed as he saw the line that Dover’s reflections were taking. ‘The school secretary definitely had one, but it wasn’t a portable. But I believe these schools sometimes teach the girls commercial subjects. They probably have typewriters for that.’