Dead Easy for Dover

what that girl might have seen.’
MacGregor, in spite of his better self, began to see the possibilities. ‘Miss Henty-Harris said it was a very stormy night,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe the girl knocked at the front door and, when she couldn’t get an answer, went round to the back. Where Sir Perceval’s bedroom was.’
Dover nodded. ‘And there’s old Miss Thingummyjig, caught in the bloody act! She wouldn’t have much choice, would she? Either she’d got to kill the girl or kiss goodbye to living the life of Reilly on uncle’s fortune. I know which I’d bleeding well do.’ He gave MacGregor a dig in the ribs with his elbow. ‘Well, it’s an idea, isn’t it?’
It was, indeed. And no one knew better than MacGregor how dangerous it was to let such ideas take root in Dover’s fertile brain. It took a long time for anything to sink into Dover’s thick skull but, once in, wild horses couldn’t drag it out again. And ideas which the old fool had thought up for himself were even more tenacious. MacGregor was anxious to lose no time exposing Dover’s hypothesis to the harsh light of day. ‘Actually, sir,’ he said, ‘I doubt whether you could see into the downstairs windows of Les Chenes from the outside. I fancy they’re too far from the ground but, of course, we can easily check. And then, would Miss Henty-Harris be so careless as to murder her uncle with the curtains open? She’s a bit of a funny old girl, I agree, but she didn’t strike me as being stupid. We’ll have to look into all this, of course, but . . .’
He was interrupted by a sharp tapping on the car window. It was Inspector Walters who, having attracted the attention of the Scotland Yard men, proceeded to join them. It proved to be more of a tight squeeze than he had anticipated as Dover was sprawling inelegantly over most of the available space. Inspector Walters had innocently assumed that the Chief Inspector would make room for him as a matter of simple courtesy, and only found out his mistake when he had committed himself too far to draw back.
‘I hope you’ll both be very happy!’ tittered Dover.
Inspector Walters, perched uncomfortably on Sergeant MacGregor’s knees, held a blush at bay by sheer will power. ‘I’ve just had some advance information from Professor Soames, the pathologist, sir, about the post mortem,’ he said and decided not to make a full-scale production out of his news. ‘The girl was three months pregnant.’
‘Ho, ho!’ said Dover. ‘That makes it a very different kettle of fish.’
‘Does it, sir?’
‘Well, it means we’re looking for a bloody man, for starters,’ said Dover, always ready to share the fruits of his long years of experience with his inferiors. ‘And a man, moreover, who lives right here in this blooming road. Yes, I’ve got the picture now. Some over-sexed joker from one of these houses gets the girl in the family way and she comes gunning for him. He can’t stand the scandal so – biff, bang! – and over the nearest wall with the dead body.’
‘It needn’t necessarily be a man, sir,’ MacGregor pointed out as he saw Dover prepared to go haring off down another false trail.
‘It does unless you know any woman capable of fathering a bastard!’ retorted Dover crushingly.
‘That’s not quite what I meant, sir,’ said MacGregor, trying to address Dover across the intervening bulk of Inspector Walters. ‘All I’m saying is that, assuming the girl had come to Frenchy Botham to confront the putative father of her unborn child, it still needn’t have been him who actually killed her. It could just as easily have been the man’s wife, or his mother even.’
‘What the hell for?’ demanded Dover incredulously.
MacGregor shrugged his shoulders as best he could with Inspector Walters still sitting in his lap and wondered why he bothered. He might just as well keep his mouth shut for all the good reasoned arguments did. ‘Well, to protect the man, for instance, sir. Or the marriage or something. Or perhaps out of jealousy. Women do sometimes react quite violently to this sort of situation. They put all the blame on the girl, you see, and . . .’
‘All I see is that you know as much about it as my old boot!’ said Dover disparagingly. ‘’Strewth, where do you get these ideas about marriage from anyhow? The back of cigarette cards?’
‘I was just trying to cover all the possibilities, sir,’ muttered MacGregor who, being as yet an unplucked rose, was fair game for the sneers of much-married martyrs like Dover.
‘That all?’
Inspector Walters, unused to being addressed quite so savagely, gave a little jump. ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’
Dover’s heavily jowled face settled into its habitual scowl of discontent mixed with dyspepsia. ‘I said, is that all you’ve got to tell us or are you sitting there waiting for a bloody bus?’
Even Inspector Walters could take a hint when it came wrapped round a brick. Before he could make his escape, though, he had another mission to carry out. He took an envelope out of his pocket and endeavoured to hand it to Dover. Dover, who’d been caught like that before, refused to take it and, after some confusion, the inspector was obliged to entrust the envelope to MacGregor. ‘It’s just some photographs of the dead girl,’ he explained lamely. ‘I thought they might come in useful. Our chap’s made her look as life-like as possible.’
MacGregor examined the photographs. ‘Oh, well, better than nothing,’ he allowed. ‘By the way, you’ve got your men making enquiries on the railways and buses, have you?’
‘Of course!’ Inspector Walters was slightly affronted at the question. He mightn’t be a member of Scotland Yard, but he did know his job. ‘I’ll let you know the minute we get any lead. I can’t help feeling that somebody somewhere must have seen her. Oh, by the way, sir’ – he turned to Dover – ‘what do you want