Dead Easy for Dover

Hold your nose if you can’t stand the smell.’
Since Dover reckoned he was in extremis anyhow, he did as he was told and, though no instant miracle took place, he did gradually begin over the next half hour or so to feel better. Not better enough, of course, to conduct the examination of Miss Henty-Harris himself, but well enough to listen quite intelligently to MacGregor doing the job for him.
Miss Henty-Harris began by describing how she had come to find the dead body of the unknown girl. ‘I was going away for a little holiday,’ she explained, almost apologetically. ‘Just for a week. To a cousin in North Wales. She’d wanted to take me back with her when she came over to the funeral but, of course, there was far too much clearing up to be done here for me to leave then.’
‘That’s the funeral of your uncle, Sir Perceval Henty-Harris?’ questioned MacGregor who had sat up late the previous night studying the notes provided for him by the local police.
‘That’s right,’ agreed Miss Henty-Harris cheerfully. ‘We had the funeral on the Saturday, which was very nice because it meant that a lot more people could come. The village church was absolutely packed. Uncle Percy would have liked that. He liked to be appreciated. Of course, it meant a great deal of work for the rest of us because a simply enormous crowd came back to the house afterwards. I thought at one time we were going to run out of food. Relations, mostly, of course. None of them had been down here for years and years and I think they wanted to see if there’d been any changes. There hadn’t, of course. Uncle Percy couldn’t bear changes of any sort, especially as he grew older. Do you know, sergeant, I had to take all his sweets out of those nasty plastic bags they sell them in these days and put them in little white paper-bags. Little white paper-bags were what he was used to, you see. And they’re getting very hard to find, I don’t mind telling you. I managed to collect about half a dozen, but I have to keep ironing them. Had to,’ she corrected herself with a happy little smile. ‘Lots of the silly, time-wasting things I had to do are finished with now, thank goodness.’
MacGregor tactfully reintroduced the question of the dead body and its discovery.
Miss Henty-Harris blinked her baby-blue eyes. ‘Oh, haven’t I told you about that yet? Well, I was very busy after the funeral, tidying things up and sorting things out. Uncle Percy was a terrible hoarder, you know, and that didn’t make things any easier. Then there were bills to pay and certificates to get and people to notify. So it wasn’t until yesterday that I felt I could get away to my cousin in North Wales with a clear conscience. Several other people had asked me to go and stay, you know. So kind after all these years. But my cousin in North Wales was the first, so that’s why I was going to go and stay with her.’ Miss Henty-Harris caught MacGregor’s despairing eye and giggled shame-facedly. ‘Oh, dear, am I rambling on again, sergeant? I’m so sorry! It’s not having had anybody to talk to all this time. Uncle Percy just wanted a listener, you see. And then he got so deaf that it wasn’t really worth . . . Oh, well, that’s all over and done with now. So – where was I? Oh yes, well, I was a bit worried about leaving the house empty, you know. I mean, it never had been before, not in all the thirty years I’ve been living here with Uncle. He had this thing, you know, about sleeping in his own bed and . . .’ She pulled herself up again with a rather touching moue of dismay. ‘Well, I took every precaution. I sent the silver to the Bank, put the best china out of sight in the cellar, turned off the gas and the water and the electricity, stopped the newspapers and the milk, told the police and asked the Boneses to keep an eye on things in general. They live opposite, you see, and they’re always pottering about what with the children and everything and . . .’ Miss Henty-Harris was quite incorrigible, but she did keep trying. She took a deep breath and started again. ‘So, yesterday morning I was all set to go. I’d done my packing, booked my train ticket and provided for every eventuality . . . I thought! It was only when I was actually in the taxi and he was turning out into the road that I suddenly thought about the gate and how I’d really better close it. It came to me, just like that! I don’t know why because I can’t remember the last time that gate was shut, if ever. Anyhow, I thought it would make the whole place look more secure so I told the taxi driver to stop and I got out. Well, I found that I couldn’t pull the gate closed. It was all sort of jammed up, you see, with dead leaves and gravel and goodness knows what. The hinges were rusty, too. So I went round to the other side of the gate, in amongst the bushes in the shubbery, to get behind it and push it. I’d allowed ample time to get to the station, you see, so I wasn’t really worried about missing my train or anything. And, then, there she was, poor child. Just lying there. All huddled up and sort of crumpled. I knew right away that she was dead. Well, you do, don’t you? And do you know, sergeant, what my very first reaction was?’ Miss Henty-Harris shook her head reproachfully. ‘I’m almost ashamed to tell you, I really am. I thought – thank goodness Uncle Percy isn’t here to see this. He’d have gone mad! He really