Dover Three

my room now, just to have a quiet think and sort the case out in my mind.’ He looked Mrs Quince straight in the eye as he said this. Mrs Quince nodded sceptically. ‘And I don’t want to be disturbed on any account until dinner-time.’
‘What about Dame Alice?’ asked Mrs Quince. ‘She’s likely to phone, isn’t she?’
‘Dame Alice can . . . ’ Dover put the brakes on in time. There was no point in getting Dame Alice’s back up more than he had to. Things might not work out the way he was hoping and Dame Alice had a bit too much influence in certain quarters for Dover’s peace of mind. Better to be diplomatic at this stage. ‘You’d better tell Dame Alice I’m engaged.’
‘She’ll not believe me,’ said Mrs Quince unhelpfully.
‘Well, tell her I’m out!’ snapped Dover, beginning to find Mrs Quince somewhat obstructive in her attitude.
‘That,’ said Mrs Quince flatly, ‘would be a lie.’
‘Look,’ – Dover was turning nasty – ‘I don’t care how you do it but, if I’m disturbed before half-past seven, there’ll be trouble. I should have thought that somebody in your position would have been only too pleased to keep on the right side of the police. Considering some of the things I’ve seen in this establishment,’ he added meaningly.
‘Dame Alice is on the Licensing Committee,’ said Mrs Quince. ‘I can’t afford to put her back up.’
‘You can’t afford to put my back up either!’ stormed Dover. ‘Just tell the old faggot I’m out.’
Mrs Quince shrugged her shoulders and said unconvincingly that she would do her best. Dover snorted and went upstairs to his own room. Within five minutes he was giving his subconscious full rein to solve the problem of who was writing Thornwich’s poison- pen letters.
Just after seven o’clock, his meditations were rudely interrupted by a violent hammering on his door. Only half awake he groped for the bedside light as the eiderdown slid to the floor.
‘What is it?’ he bawled. Then he remembered there was no bedside light in this cyclist’s haven of rest. He clambered out of bed to get to the switch by the door. Mrs Quince beat him to it.
Dover charged back to the bed for his eiderdown.
‘You shouldn’t come barging into people’s rooms without knocking,’ he protested, draping the eiderdown modestly over his long underpants.
‘I did knock,’ retorted Mrs Quince.
‘If it’s Dame Alice I’m not in. I told you that before.’
‘It’s not Dame Alice,’ said Mrs Quince with a certain amount of malicious satisfaction. ‘It’s Poppy Gullimore, that young schoolteacher girl. She’s just killed herself!’

Chapter  Four
THE NEXT fifteen minutes passed quickly as Dover behaved as he usually did when confronted with any kind of crisis. His first reaction was one of blinding fury at the inconsiderateness of fate and other people. His second was to shout for MacGregor. On this occasion the thwarting of the second reaction merely added fuel to the first, and Dover vented his surging ill-temper on Mrs Quince.
Mrs Quince retreated to the other side of the bedroom door while Dover dragged on those articles of his clothing which he had removed to assist his meditative powers.
‘How do you know she’s croaked herself?’ yelled Dover.
‘Miss Tilley rang me!’ shouted Mrs Quince.
‘And who the hell’s Miss Tilley?’
‘She runs the sub post office.’
‘Well, what the devil’s it got to do with her?’
‘She heard them phoning for the ambulance.’
‘Who was phoning for the ambulance?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Quince crossly, ‘but whoever it was she heard them. She always listens in to the telephone calls. It’s the only excitement she gets, poor thing, what with her mother and everything.’
Dover emerged from his room, his bowler hat crowning a black and scowling face. ‘Where is it?’ he roared.
‘Where’s what?’ asked Mrs Quince, very sensibly retreating as Dover advanced.
‘The house!’
‘What house?’ Mrs Quince had now been forced into descending the stairs backwards. It was awkward, but preferable to taking her eyes off the menacing figure of Dover.
‘The house where this blasted girl’s killed herself!’ screamed Dover.
‘It’s half-way up the hill on the other side of the road. Mrs Leatherbarrow’s place. They’ve got gardens at the front. Hers is one from the top just before you get to the Parish Rooms.’
‘Hasn’t it got a confounded number?’
‘I think it’s called “The Ferns”,’ said Mrs Quince, making a sudden dash for her kitchen and locking the door behind her.
Dover set off up the hill in pouring rain. Thornwich appeared to possess only two street lamps, neither of which was any help at all. Every now and again a lorry went swishing past, spraying passers-by with water and dazzling them with its headlights. Dover wasn’t much of a one for physical exercise and by the time he’d groped and fumbled his way to ‘The Ferns’ he fervently hoped that Miss Gullimore was being made to suffer for it all, wherever she was.
The front door of ‘The Ferns’ stood open. Dover, panting with temper and his exertions, staggered up the crippling flight of steps and entered the narrow hall. He leaned against a mahogany hall-stand while he got his breath back.
Somebody was coming slowly down the stairs. Dover gulped air into his deprived lungs and raised his head. Gradually the figure came into view. First a pair of carefully moving feet in brown carpet slippers, then a pair of shaky legs. The final vision was of a very old gentleman with a tartan travelling rug wrapped round his shoulders. He gave a nervous little start when he caught sight of Dover.
‘All right!’ said Dover in a tone that indicated he wasn’t going to stand any nonsense from anybody. ‘Where’s the body?’
The old man regarded him doubtfully and then gingerly negotiated the last two stairs to reach the hall.
‘They’ve taken her away,’ he said in a thin, wavering voice. ‘Only a couple of minutes ago,’ he added helpfully. ‘You’ve only just missed her.’
Dover took a deep, deep breath.
‘I’m Dr Hawnt,’ said the old man, pulling his rug tighter round his