For all Dover cared, she could have dropped down dead, but MacGregor took the fight against crime more seriously. To the accompaniment of baleful looks from both Dover and Mrs. Wilkins, he insisted on asking a few questions.
When Mrs. Wilkins went to waken Mr. Montgomery—
Well?
— was the door closed?
Yes. Mrs. Wilkins had given a perfunctory tap and come straight in, having no intention of standing on ceremony with the likes of him.
Was the light on?
It had better not have been. Mrs. Ongar had a thing about wasting electricity.
So the room was in darkness?
Bright as day. Which was just as well, seeing the state his room was in. Why youngsters like him couldn’t hang things up in a civilized manner was beyond her. Mind you, she blamed the parents.
MacGregor frowned. So the curtains were open?
The curtains were closed. They were also paper-thin. Mrs. Wilkins was surprised that MacGregor hadn’t spotted that for himself. They let in more light than they kept out. And with the sun blazing down out of a clear blue sky—
MacGregor tried again. “I understand that Mr. Montgomery was only a guest. He didn’t live here.”
He lived in Australia and it was a pity he hadn’t stayed there. Of course he was only a guest — and an uninvited one to boot. That’s why he’d been put in the old pantry. It was the best they could do at short notice with the house being full. Waltzed in the day before yesterday, he had, large as life and twice as handsome if you didn’t count those shifty eyes and the pimples. Straight from Heathrow without so much as a phonecall first to see if it was convenient. As if Mrs. Wilkins hadn’t enough on her plate without hordes of foreigners descending without so much as a by-your-leave.
MacGregor had looked up from his notebook some time ago, but Mrs. Wilkins was not one to yield the floor until she was good and ready. “You say the house was full?”
Of course it was full. Still was. Full of Mrs. Ongar’s sponging relations, any one of whom would walk barefoot over a bed of nails for a free meal.
But they had been invited.
Mrs. Wilkins tossed MacGregor a final crumb before she brought the interview to a close. Of course they’d been invited. They’d come to celebrate Mrs. Ongar’s seventy-fifth birthday yesterday. There’d been a posh dinner party and Mrs. Wilkins still hadn’t got straight after it — a situation she proposed to rectify forthwith. Meantime, she would like to remind everybody that it was nearly a quarter past and Mrs. Ongar didn’t like to be kept waiting.
“Mrs. Ongar?” echoed MacGregor.
“Across the entrance hall,” said Mrs. Wilkins crisply. Turn left. First on the right. Knock before you go in.”
Mrs. Ongar was in bed. Propped up amongst her pillows, she gave an impression of frailty and vulnerability, belied only by a formidable jaw line of which the late Benito Mussolini would not have been ashamed.
Two chairs had been placed in readiness and Dover sank gratefully into the nearest. This hot weather played hell with his feet. When a few moments later Mrs. Wilkins marched in with coffee and biscuits, the chief inspector was almost happy. Munching rhythmically, he stared with some curiosity at the woman who single-handedly had put toilet rolls on the map. Mrs. Ongar handed a sheet of paper to MacGregor. “The name of the murderer is on that list.”
MacGregor tried to look grateful.
“It contains the names of the five people who were staying in the house as my guests last night.”
“For your birthday party, eh?” asked Dover, wondering if there’d been a cake.
Mrs. Ongar had got Dover’s measure as soon as he entered the room. She continued to address herself to MacGregor. “They are the sole surviving members of the family, on my side and on my late husband’s. Three of them — Christine Finch, Daniel Ongar, and young Toby Stockdale — would like to think of themselves as potential heirs to the Ongar empire. I don’t believe in rule by committee and it has always been my aim to leave the entire concern to one person. Since I own ninety-eight percent of the shares, whoever I appoint as my heir will get the lot.”
“It sounds more like a motive for your murder than for your great-nephew’s,” said MacGregor diffidently.
Mrs. Ongar’s nostrils flared. “If I might continue without interruption... Some years ago I made a will leaving everything to my great-nephew, Michael Montgomery, in Australia. I have had ample time to study my other relations and none of them is fit to run a multi-million-pound business. Daniel Ongar. Toby Stockdale, and Christine’s husband. Major Finch, have all been given jobs in the firm and their achievements have been no more than average. If they hadn’t been members of the family. I should have dispensed with their serviced long ago.”
Dover shifted unhappily in his chair. Having drunk his coffee and eaten all the biscuits, he was beginning to find time hanging heavy on his hands. His gaze wandered idly about in search of diversion. Mrs. Ongar’s bedroom was on the ground floor and had a bathroom en suite. Dover envied her that convenience. Not that it stopped the old biddy keeping an old-fashioned chamber pot under her bed. In fact, Mrs. Ongar seemed to be a real belt-and-braces character. Everything had a back-up system. On the bedside table there was not only an electric bell-push but a large handbell as well, to say nothing of a police whistle dangling on a ribbon from the headboard of the bed. And she’d got two wheelchairs, one manual and one battery-driven.
Mrs. Ongar was still telling MacGregor about her family. “Toby Stockdale is a junior sales representative — in other words, a commercial traveler. David Ongar, my late husband s younger brother, is Chief Personnel Officer, when he can tear himself away from the golf course.”
“And Major Finch, madam?”
“He is in charge of security. After an undistinguished career in the Army, he seemed well suited for the position. There is,” observed Mrs. Ongar drily, “comparatively little crime in the toilet-paper industry and, as far as industrial espionage is concerned, I myself safeguard the formula for our ink.”
Dover was losing interest in the desultory inventory he’d been making of Mrs. Ongar’s possessions — an electric torch and a candle, wires denoting an electric blanket on the bed and a rubber hotwater-bottle on one of the chairs, a pair of stout walking-sticks and one of those Zimmer frame things. His eye slipped indifferently over a single red rose drooping terminally in a vase. Security officer at Ongar’s? That didn’t sound a bad job. The sort of thing an experienced ex-copper should be able to do with his eyes closed.
“What’s the screw?”
Mrs. Ongar blenched, but she hadn’t got where she was by letting trifles like Dover throw her. Quite calmly and dispassionately she studied the crumpled suit, the dandruff epaulettes on that disgusting overcoat, the unspeakable bowler hat, the pale podgy face with the mean little eyes, the motheaten moustache. Then she took a deep breath and put the whole sordid spectacle right out of her mind.
“You must realize,” she said, addressing herself exclusively to MacGregor, “that while Christine Finch is actually my niece, her husband — the major — and her daughter have just as good reasons for killing poor Michael. They would both benefit if I were to leave Ongar’s to Christine.”
“Oh, quite,” said MacGregor.
“One of the reasons, you know, that I made poor Michael my heir was that I thought he would be safe, far away in Australia, from the murderous machinations of the rest of the family, safe from their greed and jealousy. You can imagine my feelings” — Mrs. Ongar raised a lightly starched handkerchief momentarily to her eyes — “when the poor boy just walked in. It was a terrible shock. And when I saw the hatred on their faces — I blame myself. I should have known they would kill him the moment they had the chance.”