Dead Easy for Dover

the voice of his inner man who had been talking about lunch for some time, hoisted himself to his feet. ‘Gome on, laddie!’ he said.
Mrs Esmond Gough caught onto the situation with unflattering delight and alacrity. ‘Oh, are you going? Well, I’ll see you out.’ The Brigadier made as if to rise but his wife stopped him. ‘No, you just stay there, my dear!’ she ordered firmly. ‘I’d like you to get on with the envelopes, if you don’t mind. We really ought to get them in the box tonight so that they’ll catch the first post on Monday morning.’
Once through the front door, Dover was all set for a quick dash to the waiting police car and back to The Laughing Dog, but he found himself being momentarily detained by Mrs Esmond Gough. She was a great believer in last impressions and was quite prepared to cast her bread on even the most unpromising looking of waters. She thought that Dover’s heart might be reached by a show of warm, feminine sympathy and touched his sleeve shyly. ‘That poor girl!’ she murmured again, her eyes moist with unshed tears. ‘Have you found out yet who she is?’
‘Not yet, I’m afraid,’ said MacGregor, hoping against hope that Dover wouldn’t resort to physical violence in an attempt to make his escape. ‘However, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.’
‘And her family!’ moaned Mrs Esmond Gough. ‘Her poor, poor mother! She’s the one my heart bleeds for!’
‘Yes,’ said MacGregor, feeling inadequate.
‘How she must be suffering!’ Mrs Esmond Gough gave a little shudder and adroitly brought the conversation back to herself. ‘I know how she feels, poor woman, although I haven’t of course been blessed with children myself. We had such high hopes, the Brigadier and I, when we married but, alas, they were not to be.’ She dabbed pathetically at her eyes with a very pretty lace handkerchief.
MacGregor squirmed and Dover gawped.
‘The Brigadier,’ continued Mrs Esmond Gough, looking noble, ‘has never reproached me, although at times he must have felt that I have let him down badly. A lesser man might have been tempted to set his barren wife aside as, indeed, the law permits him to do but. . . Oh, well’ – she pulled herself together bravely and changed the subject — ‘I shall pray for your success.’
Dover could only stand so little. To MacGregor’s embarrassment, he shouldered Mrs Esmond Gough unceremoniously out of the way and went lumbering off down the front steps and along the drive. MacGregor was left to make what amends he could for this boorishness. He seized Mrs Esmond Gough’s hand and squeezed it sympathetically. Then, with a mumbled word of thanks and apology, he too was away.

5
‘Look,’ said Dover in one of those exasperated voices that showed he was making every effort to be reasonable, ‘why mess about? Let’s get a warrant and run the bastard in!’
From time to time Dover could be pretty pungent, even in the open air. In the close confines of the police car, MacGregor was finding him well nigh unbearable. Still, he had to stick it out. He simply couldn’t let Brigadier Gough be arrested for murder just because Dover happened to have taken a violent and irrational dislike to the poor fellow and because – more important – the Chief Inspector wanted a quick scalp to wave before the astonished eyes of Pomeroy Chemicals. MacGregor got his handkerchief out and took a long time over blowing his nose. ‘But, sir,’ he said, ‘there is absolutely no evidence. We’d never get a warrant for his arrest, and as for securing a conviction in court . . .’
‘Who cares about convictions in court?’ demanded Dover incredulously. ‘’Strewth, I’ll be sitting pretty at Pomeroy Chemicals Limited long before it ever comes to trial. By then it won’t matter a damn what the bloody verdict is.’
MacGregor got his cigarettes out. It was the equivalent of diverting the attention of a fractious baby by means of a sweetie. ‘How about a smoke, sir, while we talk things over?’
Dover accepted the cigarette, of course, but he was not the man to be bribed. Well, certainly not by one lousy, filter-tipped, low tar fag. ‘I don’t know what you mean – no evidence,’ he grumbled. ‘For a start, he hasn’t got an alibi.’
MacGregor gently pointed out that not everybody unable to furnish a cast-iron alibi is necessarily guilty of murder.
Dover wasn’t listening. ‘I’ll tell you precisely what happened, laddie. Brigadier What’s-his-name gets this dead girl into trouble, right?’
‘There is absolutely no indication that he even knew her, sir!’ wailed MacGregor.
Dover looked surprised. ‘But he’s got “lady-killer” written all over him! He’s bound to be up to something on the side with a wife like that.’Strewth, it can’t be much bloody fun being married to a woman who wants to be a bishop. Now, where was I?’
‘You’d got the dead girl pregnant by Brigadier Gough, sir,’ said MacGregor, chucking in the sponge.
‘So she comes charging all the way out here to ask him what he’s going to do about it. Maybe she’s blackmailing him or threatening to tell his missus or demanding marriage or wants money for an abortion – I don’t know. We can fill in the details later – when we’ve got His Nibs alone in a cell with no witnesses. I know his sort. All wind and water. It’ll not take me five minutes to bash a few particulars out of him.’ Dover’s lower lip trembled at the prospect of such delights and a lump of ash dropped unheeded off his dangling cigarette to disappear without trace into the antique patina of his waistcoat. ‘And the rest of the story’s as clear as bloody daylight! Our gallant soldier boy’s in that front room watching the telly while her ladyship’s in the kitchen painting her silly posters. There’s a ring at the front door. She doesn’t hear it, but he damned well does. He goes and