Dead Easy for Dover

a night nurse in this area. They won’t come for love nor money.’
Dover’s boot-button eyes narrowed. He’d still got the remnants of a headache lurking around in his skull, but he was stoutly determined to carry on. If he could actually arrest a killer within less than twenty-four hours of . . .’Strewth, the mind boggled! Pomeroy Chemicals Limited would have to sit up and take notice of that, all right! Dover dragged his mind away from four-figure expense accounts and keys to the Executives’ washroom, and put the boot in with practised skill.
Miss Henty-Harris was outraged. ‘How dare you?’ she spluttered, the carmine mounting in her quivering cheeks. ‘I thought you were supposed to be investigating a murder, not making extremely unpleasant allegations about me.’
‘Depends on whose murder we’re talking about, missus.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Look at it from my point of view,’ invited Dover with every appearance of being reasonable. ‘Here’s an old geezer who’s left you all his money, and there’s the two of you, all alone at night in this house. Then – surprise, surprise! – the old fellow goes swinging through the pearly gates. Well, what’s anybody in their right mind going to think, eh?’
‘Not, I hope,’ riposted Miss Henty-Harris tartly, ‘that I murdered my uncle after looking after him with unstinting devotion since the end of the Second World War. I’ve a good mind to sue you for slander!’
‘I’m merely putting a hypothetical case,’ said Dover, marvelling – and not for the first time – how women would always start taking things personally. ‘You’ve got to remember,’ he added, making a little joke of it, ‘that I’m paid to be suspicious.’
‘You’re not paid to be insulting!’ snapped Miss Henty-Harris. ‘Now, if you have any further questions to ask about the girl I found dead in my front garden, I shall be pleased to answer them. If not. . .’ She gestured curtly in the direction of the door.
Dover flopped back in a sulk and left it to MacGregor to get the interview back onto a more amicable footing. ‘I wonder, Miss Henty-Harris,’ MacGregor began, switching on the winsome, little-boy-lost smile that usually went down so well with elderly maiden ladies, ‘if you could possibly cast your mind back to a week last Wednesday. That would be the twelfth, actually. Er – were you at home that evening?’
Miss Henty-Harris was patently not succumbing to the MacGregor charm. ‘I find your question extremely tasteless, sergeant.’
‘Really?’ said MacGregor unhappily.
‘Wednesday the twelfth was the night my uncle died. Well, actually it was in the small hours of the following morning that he finally slipped away. I spent the whole of Wednesday evening at his bedside. The doctor had called that afternoon and he had warned me that the end could not be far off. Sir Perceval was quite comfortable and peaceful. There was nothing anybody could do for him except be with him and wait.’
‘Of course,’ murmured MacGregor. ‘It’s just that we have reason to think that that might have been the night on which the girl was killed. I was wondering if you had heard anything suspicious.’
‘Sir Perceval’s bedroom, as I told you, was in what used to be the dining room. It’s on the ground floor at the back of the house. It was an extremely stormy night with a lot of wind and rain. I neither heard nor saw anything suspicious. Is that all?’ After this Dover and MacGregor returned to the haven of their police car in some disorder. They installed themselves in the back seat and tried to sort out their differences.
‘I really do think suggesting that she’d murdered her uncle for his money was going too far, sir,’ said MacGregor reproachfully. ‘In my opinion she’d every right to be annoyed.’
‘Gam!’ scoffed Dover, totally unrepentant. ‘She’d got opportunity and motive. What more do you want?’
‘But it’s not our concern, sir,’ said MacGregor, unable to understand Dover’s predilection for going off in full cry after red herrings. ‘We don’t happen to be here to investigate the death of Sir Perceval Henty-Harris. Our job is merely to find out who killed this girl. Now’ – MacGregor’s voice took on a mildly patronizing tone – ‘we don’t want to waste time meddling in things that are none of our concern, do we, sir?’
Dover thought quickly. He could be surprisingly inventive at times, especially when jumped-up, snotty-nosed little sergeants began trying to teach him how to suck eggs. He leaned back, folded his arms and stuck several chins out obstinately. ‘I reckon the two things are connected.’
‘Sir?’
‘Look, we can place this girl in this road on the night of Wednesday the twelfth, right?’
‘Yes,’ agreed MacGregor, frantically searching for some clue as to whither Dover’s thoughts were winging. ‘That would certainly appear to be the situation, as far as we know it. But there’s no indication that the girl was looking for the Henty-Harris house. Mr Plum merely said that she asked her way to The Grove in general. You think that she was actually calling on the Henty-Harrises, do you, sir?’
‘Not necessarily,’ grunted Dover. ‘Makes no odds, actually, as far as my theory’s concerned. In fact, I reckon a chance encounter is more likely because old Miss Thingummyjig over there wouldn’t have dumped the body in her own front garden if there’d been any connection for us to trace.’
MacGregor, quite unable to follow the logic of Dover’s thought processes, chucked in the towel. ‘I’m afraid I don’t see what you’re driving at, sir.’
‘Now tell me something new!’ sniggered Dover who could have majored in cheap sarcasm. ‘Look, suppose that girl just happened to call at What’s-their-name’s house. Maybe to ask where somebody else lived or something. Well, then she sees something.’
‘Like what, sir?’ asked MacGregor with an apprehension born of long experience.
‘Like old Miss Thingummyjig holding a pillow over Uade Percy’s face,’ said Dover, shrugging his ample shoulders. ‘The old boy was in a downstairs room. Well, it’d only need a chink in the curtain and God knows