Dover had actually reached the door before he remembered that he was the type of man who prided himself on using his head to save his legs. He stopped abruptly. MacGregor, who’d thought they were really going places this time, cannoned softly into him.
‘Hey, watch it!’ growled Dover, choosing to behave as though MacGregor was on the point of making an improper approach to him.
MacGregor clenched his fists. One day.… ‘Have you forgotten something, sir?’ he asked as calmly as he could.
‘Why should I go chasing all over after a blooming murderer?’ demanded Dover indignantly. ‘Up and down those flaming stairs like a yo-yo? Besides, it’ll be crawling with trippers down there and we don’t want an audience, do we?’ He executed a sloppy about turn and began to retrace what few steps he’d taken.
MacGregor remained hovering by the door like a fish out of water. Who but Dover, of course, would ever dream of arresting a man for murder in his own bedroom? ‘Do you want me to go and fetch him, sir?’
‘Save your energy, laddie!’ said Dover, feeling quite generous now that he was sitting down again. ‘Tell Lady What’s-her-name to give him a ring on that house phone of theirs.’
MacGregor didn’t care for the idea of asking someone of Lady Priscilla’s birth and position to perform such a menial task. ‘Oh, it’s no trouble, sir. It won’t take me a minute just to pop …’
Dover didn’t like people arguing with him. ‘Tell Lady P to ring for him!’ he snarled and, taking off his bowler hat, flung it petulantly on the bed.
Lady Priscilla was in the kitchen, up to her eyebrows in soya bean flour and peering very anxiously at a recipe book which she’d got propped up against a jar of fermenting home-made jam. She received the request and MacGregor’s fulsome apologies with a harrassed smile.
‘Oh, no, it’s no trouble at all, sergeant,’ she said. ‘I’ll just wash my hands and … Mr Dover wants to see him right away, does he?’
‘The sooner the better,’ said MacGregor, looking very important about it. ‘ It’s a matter of extreme urgency, otherwise’ – and here Lady Priscilla got the youthful knight-errant smile – ‘we would never have asked for your assistance.’
Lady Priscilla fluttered with delight and MacGregor took a light dusting of soya bean flour back to Dover’s bedroom.
Half an hour later, the two detectives were still sitting there.
‘That bloody woman!’ howled Dover. ‘ What does she think she’s playing at?’
MacGregor went to find out.
‘Lady Priscilla telephoned Tiffin almost immediately, sir,’ he reported a moment or two later. ‘She told him we wanted to see him right away. We’ve just rung down again and the woman on the souvenir stall says he left some time ago.’
‘Left?’ Dover’s face was not a pretty sight.
‘The house, sir.’
‘Damn and blast it!’ exploded Dover. ‘He’s made a run for it! And it’s all your bloody fault, MacGregor! If it’d been left to me we’d have gone downstairs and nabbed him before he knew what hit him.’
‘Yes, sir.’ MacGregor knew the futility of arguing.
‘Well, you’d better get cracking and organize a search, then!’ Dover began to remove his overcoat. ‘Alert the local police, set up road blocks, send out patrols. Not that it’ll do any blooming good. He’ll be out of the country by now.’ He looked up impatiently. ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’
‘I was just wondering, sir.’
‘Oh, put the flags out!’ sneered Dover, trying to push his right boot off without untying the laces. ‘You’ve done enough wondering for one day, laddie, and look where it’s landed us.’
‘Tiffin may have gone home, sir.’
‘And pigs might fly!’
‘If he is going to make a run for it, sir, he’ll need money, a passport, a change of clothing.’
Dover could see what was coming. ‘ He’s probably been keeping a suitcase already packed hidden away somewhere,’ he grumbled.
‘No, I don’t think so, sir. The lady on the souvenir stall who saw him go said he wasn’t carrying anything. It’s worth a try, isn’t it, sir?’
There’s none as dense as those who don’t want to know. ‘What is?’
‘Us going round to his house, sir. I think there’s a fair chance that that’s where he’s gone.’
Dover sighed. It was like being on a bloody treadmill. ‘Oh, well, get the car then!’ he growled.
The Tiffins’ cottage was looking as normal as it was ever likely to do when MacGregor brought the car to a halt outside the gate.
‘He’s here, sir! I was right!’
Dover was still trying to extract himself from the car. ‘ How do you know?’
‘His bicycle’s there, sir.’
‘’Strewth!’ muttered Dover. ‘Bloody Sherlock Holmes now!’
It was Mrs Tiffin who opened the door. ‘Well, seems you two just can’t keep away!’ she greeted them cheerfully. She gave MacGregor a very special smile. ‘Charmian’ll be back any minute. You won’t have long to wait. Well,’ – she extended her smile to include Dover – ‘I suppose I’d better go and put the kettle on.’
MacGregor had scruples about sitting down and sharing a high tea with a man he was about to arrest for murder. ‘Is your husband in?’ he asked.
‘Up in the bathroom, dear,’ said Mrs Tiffin with an exasperated jerk of her head. ‘As usual.’ She turned her attention back to Dover. ‘Think you could manage a bit of my toad-in-the-hole?’
Dover was not to be outdone in the matter of friendly exchanges. ‘I could manage,’ he responded gallantly as he waddled across the threshold, ‘ a lot!’
Mrs Tiffin let rip a delighted shriek at such bare-faced sauciness and sped away in the direction of her kitchen while somewhere, up above their heads, a cistern emptied and filled itself with much satisfied gurgling. A few seconds later and Mr Tiffin came down the stairs.
‘Oh, there you are!’ he said, leading the way into the sitting room. ‘I got your message.’
Dover sat himself down at the table and grabbed a couple of slices of bread and butter just to keep body and soul together. ‘What message?’
‘About you wanting to see me,’ explained Mr Tiffin as he took the chair opposite. ‘I was beginning to wonder where you’d got to.’
MacGregor, for what it was worth, studiously refrained from making himself at home. ‘We wanted to see you in the flat at Beltour,’ he pointed out sternly.
Mr Tiffin reached for a piece of bread and butter while there was still some left. ‘ Really? Well, that’s Lady Priscilla all over, you know. If you want something mucked up, give it to her to do. Still,’ – he began to pour the milk in the cups – ‘ what’s on your mind?’
‘We’ve come to arrest you for the murder of Gary Marsh,’ said Dover. The remark was intended not so much to shock Mr Tiffin into a full and frank confession as to put him off his food, but it failed on both counts.
Mr Tiffin calmly took another piece of bread and butter. ‘They really ought to have you on the telly!’ he chuckled. ‘The way you said that! Face as straight as an undertaker’s and everything!’
Dover had a crushing retort trembling on his lip but Mrs Tiffin’s triumphant entry with two plates heaped high with toad-in-the-hole effectively diverted his mind to higher things.
Mr Tiffin, though, wanted his better half to share the fun. ‘ What do you think, Alice? Mr Dover here thinks I killed poor Gary! First our Charmian, now me. You’d better look out, love, or it’ll be your turn next!’
Mrs Tiffin glared at her husband, and at Dover. ‘ It’s a pity some people haven’t got a sense of decency!’ she snapped. ‘I don’t think the death of our Charmian’s fiancé is anything to make silly jokes about.’
‘I’m afraid it’s not a joke, Mrs Tiffin.’ MacGregor was still standing just inside the door. No-one knew better than he did that this was no way to go about confronting a criminal with his misdeeds, but there was nothing like a few years of close association with Dover to make you lower your standards. ‘ We have good grounds for believing that your husband was responsible for Marsh’s death.’
‘Well, you’ve got a blooming nerve, I must say!’ Mrs Tiffin’s eyes flashed and she clamped both hands resolutely on her hips. ‘Of all the cheek! Coming here and.… Why, I’ve a good mind to put my hat and coat on this minute and go round and see what Lord Crouch’s got to say about all this. He’ll soon take the wind out of your sails, young man! He’ll …’
‘Keep your hair on, love,’ advised Mr Tiffin placidly. ‘It’s just some misunderstanding, that’s all.’
‘Misunderstanding be blowed!’ spluttered Dover, digging another sausage out of its delicious hole. ‘You murdered Gary Marsh and, soon as I’ve had my second cup of tea, I’m going to run you in for it.’ He transferred his gaze to Mrs Tiffin. ‘Three lumps this time, missus!’
But Mrs Tiffin was really annoyed. She folded her arms. ‘Pour your own out!’ she responded tartly. ‘ I’m not raising another finger for you until we’ve got to the bottom of this nonsense.’
MacGregor sighed. With Dover’s mouth stuffed full of the best home cooking for fifty miles around, it was clearly up to him. ‘We have evidence, Mrs Tiffin,’ he began, gilding the lily a little because there was no point in admitting that it was just one of the wilder ideas thrown off the top of Dover’s head, ‘that your husband was Gary Marsh’s father. Gary Marsh, as you may know, was born – or at any rate conceived – in the village of Henniford. At the relevant time, your husband was stationed near by at the army camp at Tuppeny Hill.’
‘Along with a couple of hundred other able-bodied, red-blooded men!’ put in Mr Tiffin quickly with a side ways glance at his wife’s rapidly hardening face.
MacGregor ignored the interruption. ‘Of course your husband was unaware of this relationship. He only found out about it during that conversation he had with Gary Marsh last Sunday in the bar of The Bull Reborn. You yourself, Mrs Tiffin, remarked that your husband was not himself when he came home that afternoon. No wonder. He had suddenly realized what a dreadful predicament he was in. This young man, his own son, was about to get married to Charmian, his own daughter. It was unthinkable. Somehow he had to stop it.’
‘Lies!’ objected Mr Tiffin, wilting visibly as his wife turned to look at him. ‘A pack of lies!’
‘Hold your tongue, you filthy pig!’ spat Mrs Tiffin. She switched her attention back to MacGregor. ‘Go on!’ she instructed grimly.
‘Well, that’s about all there is, Mrs Tiffin. Your husband obviously felt that he couldn’t reveal the true facts of the situation. That would have meant admitting to you, to your daughter and to the world at large that he had been unfaithful to his marriage vows twenty years and more ago. I suppose he just felt he couldn’t do it, not with him being such a pillar of the church and everything. That left him with only one solution. To stop the marriage, he had to kill Gary Marsh.’
MacGregor thought he had summarized the case against Arthur Tiffin rather well. Mrs Tiffin thought so, too. She had already found her husband guilty without any extenuating circumstances and was now about to carry out the sentence.
Mr Tiffin made a pathetic attempt to avert the wrath to come. ‘Here, steady on, Alice!’ he begged. ‘ You don’t believe all this rubbish, do you?’
Mrs Tiffin continued her progress towards the poker. ‘I believe every word!’ she stated uncompromisingly. ‘ Every word! Because I know you, Arthur Tiffin. With your dirty mind and your unspeakable lusts. You’ve always been sex mad.’ She picked up the poker. ‘ I’m just surprised you’ve only got one bastard to your name.’
‘Hey, watch it dear!’ Mr Tiffin got up from his seat at the table and appealed to MacGregor. ‘I want protection. This is all your fault. The least you can do is keep her off till she’s simmered down a bit.’
‘Give us a confession,’ said Dover, dropping his knife and fork on to a locust clean plate, ‘and we’ll have you locked up in a nice safe cell in no time. She won’t be able to get at you there.’
Mr Tiffin began an unobtrusive retreat round the room. ‘Confess? Not flipping likely! I deny the whole thing. Categorically. You haven’t an atom of proof. And, even if I was Gary Marsh’s father,’ – he swung a chair across Mrs Tiffin’s path – ‘which I most definitely am not, that still doesn’t mean I murdered him. I’ve got an alibi. I was in church. You ask the vicar and all the rest of the congregation.’
‘Hanging’s too good for you!’ announced Mrs Tiffin, doggedly tracking her husband through the tables and chairs. ‘I don’t want you dead, Arthur. I want you alive and suffering. It’ll be some small consolation for what you’ve put me and our Charmian through all these years. The shame you’ve brought on us!’
‘Keep her off!’ pleaded Mr Tiffin.
‘Tell us the truth, then,’ advised Dover, making a devastating start on the home-baked plum cake. ‘We’ve got you bang to rights but a confession always goes down well with the judge.’
‘I didn’t do it!’ insisted Mr Tiffin, beginning to find the sitting room a little short on cover. ‘I’ve got a cast-iron alibi. Why don’t you bloody well listen?’
Mrs Tiffin permitted herself a frisson of triumph. ‘ Foul language now, is it?’ she demanded. ‘ Oh, we’re seeing you in your true colours and no mistake. Are there no depths to which you won’t sink, you animal?’
MacGregor, seeing that Mr Tiffin had got himself holed up by the window, abandoned his post by the door and ventured a word in Dover’s ear. ‘I think we ought to take him off to the station, sir.’
Dover ground his way moodily through the last slice of cake. ‘Pity you didn’t think about that bloody alibi before dragging me down here on a wild goose chase,’ he grumbled.
‘Oh, I’m sure we can break that down, sir.’
Dover ran an exploratory tongue round his upper set. ‘He seems pretty confident.’
‘Bluff, sir.’
‘The vicar and a bunch of God botherers? You’ll have a hell of a job convincing a jury that they’re party to a fiddle.’
MacGregor did not fail to notice that the foolhardy decision to arrest Arthur Tiffin was now being firmly accredited to him. Oh, well, it was no good arguing about it. ‘I still think we should take the risk, sir.’
‘And get hauled over the coals for false arrest?’ yelped Dover indignantly. He was cheesed off to the back teeth with the whole tedious business and thought righteous indignation was a rather novel way of sliding out from under. ‘I happen to have a reputation to think of, laddie, even if you haven’t.’
MacGregor shrugged his shoulders and prepared to chalk up yet another dreary failure. ‘Well, in that case, sir, I suppose we’d just better cut our losses and leave.’ He watched Mr and Mrs Tiffin as they continued their intricate manoeuvrings round the room. ‘At least we’ll be sure that Tiffin isn’t going to get away with it scot free.’
Dover examined the tea table and satisfied himself that nothing edible had been overlooked. He hoisted himself wearily to his feet. ‘We’ll pop in and see that fool of a Chief Constable before we go back to London and tell him that Tiffin’s the murderer,’ he said, apparently anxious to assure his sergeant that they weren’t just going to walk away and do nothing. ‘ He’ll spread the word around. Tiffin’s life’ – he paused while the subject of his concern flashed past in a vain attempt to reach the kitchen door – ‘won’t be worth living. Cheer up, MacGregor,’ he added comfortably as he got under way, ‘you can’t win ’em all.’
MacGregor followed his lord and master out of the cottage and carefully closed the front door on the sounds of strife which were already breaking out in the sitting room. He looked up to find that Dover was nose to nose with a little old lady who was blocking his way down the garden path.
‘What’s she doing here?’ demanded Dover.
MacGregor, not surprisingly, didn’t know.
‘Well, ask her, you damned fool!’
‘Oh, I was only coming to see Mrs Tiffin,’ said the little old lady. She glanced at the bicycle propped up against the wall. ‘I hadn’t realized that Mr Tiffin was at home. I’ll call some other time.’
‘Watchergothere?’ demanded Dover, determined to take his frustration out on somebody – and who better than a little old lady?
‘Nothing!’ The little old lady clutched the small parcel she was carrying even closer and went a bright red. ‘Er – nothing at all.’
She attempted to withdraw but Dover yanked her back. ‘Don’t gimme that!’ he snarled.
‘It’s only a present,’ squeaked the little old lady. ‘For Mrs Tiffin. Well, for Mr Tiffin, actually, but of course I couldn’t possibly give it to him.’
‘Why not?’ Dover looked at the parcel with interest. A pot of home made jam, perhaps? Or honey?
‘Oh, I just couldn’t!’ repeated the little old lady faintly. ‘I’d die with embarrassment.’
Dover took time off to toss his considered opinion over his shoulder to MacGregor. ‘We’ve got a right nutter here!’ He swung back to his, as he hoped, helpless victim. ‘Look, I’m a police officer and I want to know what’s in that parcel. What’s your name, anyhow?’
‘Sampson. Miss Sampson.’
It meant Sweet Fanny Adams to Dover, of course, who’d difficulty knowing what day of the week it was, but MacGregor was quick to pick it up. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘You’re a member of Mr Liddle’s congregation, aren’t you?’
Miss Sampson, grateful for being addressed as though she was a human being, shyly admitted that she was.
‘Well,’ said MacGregor kindly, ‘if you’ll just tell us what’s in the parcel, I’m sure we needn’t detain you any longer.’
Miss Sampson was not one to stand on her rights. Indeed, she was quite willing to help such a nice young man. ‘It’s some medicine.’
‘Medicine?’
‘A herbal remedy, of course. From my own recipe. Everyone says it is most efficacious and I’m sure it will clear up Mr Tiffin’s little complaint in no time. I would have brought it round first thing on Monday morning, of course, but I found I had run out of supplies and it takes several days, you understand, to brew up a fresh quantity from scratch. It all has to be infused, you know, and then articum lappa is not at all easy to come by these days.’
‘Mr Tiffin’s complaint? And what’s that when it’s at home?’
Miss Sampson flinched pitifully at finding herself once more the object of Dover’s attention and swallowed hard. ‘Well, it’s his – er – bladder, I believe,’ she whispered.
‘Oh, Jesus!’ groaned Dover.
Miss Sampson turned back to MacGregor. ‘Poor man, I felt so terribly embarrassed for him on Sunday night. I mean, fancy having to slip out right in the middle of Evensong! He was away such a long time, too, and he looked so simply dreadful when he crept back in again. He must have been in agony. I …’
‘Just a minute!’ There were some things so obvious that even Dover could see them. ‘Are you saying that Arthur Tiffin sneaked out of church?’
Miss Sampson blinked at the vehemence with which the question was fired at her. ‘That’s right.’
‘Last Sunday night?’
‘Yes.’
‘How long was he gone?’
‘Oh, ten minutes. A quarter of an hour, perhaps. He missed most of dear Mr Liddle’s most excellent sermon, I’m afraid.
‘’Strewth!’ Dover’s face broke into an evil grin. ‘Go get him, laddie!’
MacGregor was less impetuous. ‘Oh, but don’t you think, sir, that we ought to …?’
‘What are you belly-aching about now?’ demanded Dover furiously. ‘That’s Tiffin’s alibi busted wide open! You gone deaf or something? This old biddy here has put the kibosh right on him.’
‘But – don’t you remember, sir? – Mr Liddle said he was present throughout the entire service. If Miss Sampson saw him leave, why didn’t the Vicar? Or anybody else, for that matter?’
‘Trust you to start nit-picking!’ snarled Dover before letting fly with another blast in Miss Sampson’s direction. ‘Well?’
‘Well, – er – what?’
‘You heard the bloody question!’
‘Oh, I see.’ Miss Sampson cringed back fearfully but managed to keep hold of enough of her wits to find an answer. ‘Well, I suppose nobody else noticed.’
‘Blind are they?’ sneered Dover. ‘And bloody deaf, too?’
‘Oh, Mr Tiffin made his exit most reverently. Well, you would expect that of him, wouldn’t you? I would never have seen him myself if I hadn’t been sitting right at the side of the church. Our old family pew, you know,’ she explained proudly. ‘I know Mr Liddle likes to have everybody sitting right in front of him so that he doesn’t have to strain his voice but, as I told him, I have sat in that pew ever since I was a tiny child and I really don’t see why …’
Dover was no longer listening. He glared at MacGregor. ‘Well?’
‘But, wouldn’t Mr Tiffin know that Miss Sampson could see him, sir?’
‘I don’t usually attend Evensong,’ twittered Miss Sampson nervously. ‘Not in the winter. It’s the dark nights, you know.’
‘Satisfied, now, moron?’
MacGregor shrugged his shoulders. ‘I suppose so, sir.’
‘There’s no bloody suppose about it!’ bellowed Dover. ‘Tiffin knew to the minute what time Marsh would be on that path on his way to the station and he slipped out of the bloody church to kill him. We’ve got motive and opportunity. This old trout’s fixed him.’
MacGregor sighed. ‘Very good, sir. I’ll go and get him.’
‘And you stay there!’ said Dover to Miss Sampson.
‘Here?’
‘Right there!’ said Dover, starting off down the path towards the car. It was coming on to rain again and he’d no intention of catching his death for all the Arthur Tiffins in the world. ‘You move an inch and I’ll have you for obstructing the police in the execution of their duty and for attempting to withold vital evidence.’
‘Oh, dear!’ wailed Miss Sampson.
Dover hesitated. ‘This stuff of yours any good for the bowels?’ he asked.
Miss Sampson swayed. The …? Oh, no, I don’t think so. I think you would require something quite different for …’
‘I’ll risk it,’ said Dover, coming back to relieve a trembling Miss Sampson of her burden. ‘It might do some good though, with my constipation, I reckon it’s a stick of dynamite …’
MacGregor hurried off into the Tiffins’ cottage and left Miss Sampson to Dover’s tender mercies. The moving account of some of his difficulties had just reached a truly nauseating climax when it was interrupted by the arrival of a small, shabby car which came roaring up to the garden gate. The cub reporter from the local newspaper came tumbling out, terrified that he was going to miss the scoop of a lifetime.
‘Is it true,’ he panted, running up the garden path and catching Dover by the arm, ‘that you’re about to make an arrest in the murder of Gary Marsh?’
Dover fended him off. ‘Who told you?’
The reporter dragged a fresh supply of air into his aching lungs. ‘Lady Priscilla!’ he gasped. ‘ She makes a point of tipping us off. Publicity for Beltour, you know.’ He took another gulp. ‘Have you caught the murderer?’
‘I always get my man,’ said Dover demurely.
The cub reporter dragged his notebook out. ‘Can you give me a statement, chief inspector?’
Dover was just about to repel the young pup with a well chosen flea in his ear when the sheer beauty of the situation suddenly struck him. His face creased up and several stones of surplus fat began to wobble in a most alarming manner. The young reporter’s mouth dropped open.
‘I can’t,’ chuckled Dover as the tears spurted from his eyes and began to trickle down his podgy cheeks, ‘give you any names at this stage but …’ – he broke off as the desire to laugh overcame him – ‘ but … you can tell your readers … it was the butler what done it!’