Dover Three

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?’