Dover and the Claret Tappers

tempted to tell young Lochinvar where he could stuff his so-and-so rules and regulations, but she remembered in time that their conversation wasn’t being conducted at that level of crudity. ‘All the rules and regulations are being complied with, sergeant. More or less.’
‘Oh?’
Mrs Fish automatically dropped her voice. ‘I’ve got a little private arrangement with ever such a nice old chap in Personnel. I hire the girls, you see, and then we take up the references and do all the security checks afterwards. Do you follow me, dear? Well, when all the paperwork’s finished and everything, all you have to do is put an earlier date on things, isn’t it? That way everybody’s happy.’ She saw from the expression on MacGregor’s face that he wasn’t joining the general elation. ‘I hope you’re not going to start making trouble.’
MacGregor was something of a stickler for discipline but he decided to turn a blind eye to the peccadilloes of Mrs Fish and her nice old chap in Personnel, for the time being at least. ‘Let’s get back to Miss Mary Jones,’ he said.
‘Suits me,’ sniffed Mrs Fish.
‘She began work in the canteen a week last Tuesday, volunteering rather unusually for the evening shift. You were about to tell me what else was odd about her.’
‘Well, she was never there when you wanted her,’ grumbled Mrs Fish. ‘That I do remember. Always popping off somewhere. I thought she’d got a boy-friend but I can see now that she was really casing the joint.’
‘Yes,’ said MacGregor, sparing a tear for the debasement of the English language. ‘There were other things, one imagines, that aroused your suspicions?’
Mrs Fish’s earrings sparkled as she shook her head. ‘Not really, dear,’ she said. ‘I mean, the girl had obviously never been engaged in the catering trade before but, then, they all lie about previous experience. And she was a cut above the usual type of person we get here – socially, I mean. Most of my girls are – well – rather common, if you’ll excuse the expression.’ Mrs Fish’s smile was patronising, if kindly. ‘Of course, we do occasionally get a more superior type of girl, from a better home background, what’s entering the catering trade at the bottom merely to gain the proper experience.’ She cast her eyes down modestly. ‘I myself began that way.’
MacGregor stared sullenly at Mrs Fish and closed his notebook. ‘Well, we’ll have a word with her, Mrs Fish. We can’t afford to leave any stone unturned at this stage in our investigations. Meantime’ – he nodded in the direction of the hie which Mrs Fish had been consulting – ‘perhaps you could let me have the names of any other of your assistants who were working in the canteen on Tuesday evening.’
‘Mary Jones hasn’t been into work since Wednesday,’ said Mrs Fish. ‘She rang me up mid-day on Thursday to say as how she was in bed with a bad cold.’
‘She rang you up?’
‘Oh, she tried to kid me it was the warden of this hostel place she was staying in, but I recognised her voice. They’re always trying to pull that trick on me when they want a couple of days off.’
MacGregor opened his notebook. ‘Have I got this straight? She was at work on Tuesday evening, the night Chief Inspector Dover was kidnapped, and on the next day, Wednesday. Then, on Thursday, she rang up to say that she wasn’t coming in because she was ill.’
‘That’s right, my darling!’ Mrs Fish sat back. ‘And since then – neither hide nor hair of her.’
‘She’s cleared off all together?’
‘Looks like it. It’s all happened before, you know. Sometimes they write later asking for their cards and sometimes they don’t.’
MacGregor chewed the end of his pencil. It sounded a bit thin but it was all he had got. ‘Mary Jones lives in a hostel? Have you got the address?’
Mrs Fish reached for her rile. ‘She gave us the names and addresses of two character references,’ she said. ‘I expect they’re as phoney as I don’t know what, but you can have ’em if you want ’em.’
‘Might as well,’ said MacGregor with a sigh. ‘And then I must be getting back to my boss.’ He laughed awkwardly. ‘He gets a mite tetchy if he’s left alone too long.’
Mrs Fish didn’t mingle any more than was absolutely necessary with the rest of New Scotland Yard, but even she knew all about Detective Chief Inspector Dover. She had gone off MacGregor during the course of their interview but she still had some vestige of affection left for him. She handed him the file. ‘Here,’ she said with warm hearted generosity, ‘you can let me have it back later. It’ll save you a bit of time now.’

Eight
‘IT’S ALL GO,’ COMPLAINED DOVER, GRABBING HOLD of MacGregor as the taxi took a corner on two wheels. ‘Where the hell are we supposed to be off to now?’
MacGregor braced himself, both in order to counteract the next onslaught of centrifugal force and to overcome the sheer, mind-blowing irritation of having to tell Dover everything three times. Of course, he reminded himself in a sporting effort to take a balanced view, the old fool had been more than half asleep during the first recital. ‘The Dame Letitia Egglestone Hostel for Single Girls in London, sir.’
‘What is?’ Dover was staring anxiously out of the window. ‘Here, tell the driver to pull up at the next gents’. ’Strewth, those bloody curried eggs! I knew they’d do for me.’
‘I did suggest that we shouldn’t stay for lunch in the canteen, sir,’ murmured MacGregor as he leaned forward to convey Dover’s request to the driver.
‘The trouble with you, laddie, is that you can’t see further than the end of your nose!’
‘Sir?’
‘Where’s the point in hurrying? If we cleared up my kidnapping tomorrow and got that bunch of murderous thugs under lock and key, we’d not get any thanks for it. All that’d happen is that old Brockhurst’d shove