Gary Alexander - Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Vol. 86, No. 6. Whole No. 511, December 1985

“You’re so sharp it’s a wonder you don’t cut yourself,” muttered Dover.

“But, sir—”

“Go and get my brandy and stop sticking your nose into what’s none of your business! And give us a fag while you’re at it.”

MacGregor got his cigarette case out. “But this is my business, sir! And yours. We’re supposed to be investigating a murder.”

“Ah,” said Dover, delighted to have his entire argument handed to him on a plate, “investigating’s the word, laddie! I’m with you there. It’s solving the bloody thing that’s going to drop us right in it. Look at it this way — there’s millions of unsolved crimes every year. This is just another one.”

MacGregor could be very uncooperative. “Sir, it’s our duty—”

“We’d be crucified in court!” Dover was twitching with exasperation. “Accusing somebody as rich and famous as Mrs. Ongar — a frail, bedridden old duck of seventy-five — of killing her teenage heir from Australia the day after she’d met him for the first time. Bloody hell” — he shuddered dramatically — “it doesn’t bear thinking about!”

“But she isn’t frail and bedridden, is she, sir?”

“Of course she is!” Dover’s voice rose to a near scream. “You saw her!”

“That was mostly for our benefit, sir.” MacGregor had ceased grasping at straws and was now beginning to make good, durable bricks. “She wasn’t bedridden on the night of her birthday party. She was even dancing. Stockdale said so. She sounds perfectly capable of getting up in the middle of the night and walking as far as Montgomery’s room. She wouldn’t even have to go upstairs afterward.”

Dover scowled. “She’s still an old lady.”

“A babe in arms could have stuck that bayonet in Montgomery, sir, especially if he was drunk. And who was it who’d — most untypically — been plying him with drink all evening?”

“You want your head examining!”

But MacGregor wasn’t going to be put off by vulgar abuse. “Mrs. Ongar had Montgomery put in that downstairs room, sir, well away from everybody else. She ensured he’d be sleeping soundly, and she had a torch. She also knew how awkwardly placed the main light switch was.”

“Anybody could have known that!” squealed Dover. “And had a torch. And what about motive? Montgomery was her blue-eyed boy. She was going to leave him all her money.”

“We don’t have to prove motive, sir.”

“Sometimes it bloody well helps!” snapped Dover. “ ’Strewth, she’d barely clapped eyes on the little bastard. You going to claim she suddenly ran amuck or something?”

“Didn’t she give you a hint?”

Dover squinted suspiciously at MacGregor. “Who?”

“Mrs. Ongar. sir.”

“When?”

“When you went to see her, sir, just before we left the house. When you — er — acquired the torch, sir.”

Dover had had time to work out his answer. “We didn’t discuss the matter,” he said firmly.

“You must have talked about something, sir.”

Dover shrugged his meaty shoulders. “I was asking her about getting a job at Ongar’s, if I took early retirement. You know, something in the security line.” He grinned to himself. “She was very helpful. Thought she might be able to shift that major joker to another department. Said it’d be simpler than trying to pin the murder on him. Give her her due,” said Dover generously, “she’s got a good head on her shoulders, that woman.”

“You don’t think she was perhaps trying to bribe you, sir?”

Less convincing displays of indignation have won Oscars, and Dover brought his performance to a sizzling conclusion by advising his sergeant to go and boil his head and reminding him that there was still a double brandy outstanding.

MacGregor reached reluctantly for his wallet. “If it had been Montgomery who’d killed Mrs. Ongar, I could have understood it. That would have been normal.”

“I used to think I had an ulcer,” said Dover, “the pain was so bad.”

But MacGregor’s thoughts were soaring far above Dover’s stomach. “I wonder if that’s what Mrs. Ongar thought — that Montgomery was going to kill her? She was terrified of being murdered for her money — Daniel Ongar or somebody said that. With Montgomery in Australia, she felt safe. But, when he turned up here—”

“The doctor’s quite definite, though. It’s just the wind.”

“He was a right young tearaway by all accounts,” MacGregor went on, “and when Mrs. Ongar found she had him under the same roof with her, she must have panicked. And when he started fooling around with that army bayonet, it must have confirmed all her fears. He intended killing her.”

“Chronic gastritis,” said Dover. “There’s only one treatment. Lots of rest.”

“Sir” — MacGregor was so pleased with himself that he burst straight through Dover’s favorite daydream, in which the chief inspector was a semi-invalid for life — “I’ve got the motive! It was a preemptive strike. Mrs. Ongar killed her great-nephew because she thought he was planning to kill her.”

Dover was getting very bored with all this Ongar business. “You’d be laughed out of court,” he grunted. “Not that you’d ever get it into court. Like I said, no bloody evidence.”

“There’s that torch, sir.”

Quite slowly and deliberately. Dover picked the torch up off the table and put it back in his pocket. “What torch, laddie?”

MacGregor nodded slightly to acknowledge defeat. The torch didn’t really make a ha’porth of difference. Dover was right. They’d never be able to make a case out against Mrs. Ongar. “I’ll get your brandy, sir.”

MacGregor stood up and walked over to the bar. He arrived just in time to see mine host drape the last towel over the beer pumps.

“We’re closed, mate. I called last orders ten minutes ago.”

MacGregor appealed to the landlord’s sense of decency, fair play, and compassion.

“We’ve all got sick friends, mate, and if I was you I’d get mine out into the fresh air before I give the pair of you something to take to casualty with you.”

MacGregor swore under his breath. Damn Michael Montgomery and damn old Mrs. Ongar. If he hadn’t been so preoccupied with their blooming troubles, he wouldn’t be faced with the problem of telling Dover that he couldn’t take his medicine for at least two and a half hours.

She was only a criminal’s daughter.

Who gave daddy no reason to boast,

Till she focused on what he had taught her

And was listed as one wanted most.

Said a shoplifting lady named Nast.

Whose proficiency truly was vast.

“Pay attention, my son.

To the way that it’s done

And I know that you’ll pick things up fast.”

I knew a detective named Slade.

Who confronted a murderous maid—

She confessed to the crime

But her charms were sublime

And that night in her bedroom he stayed.

But the morning sun found him alone—

He awoke with a start and a moan For his suspect had fled.

Leaving him in her bed—

With his wallet and car she had flown.

She was caught and was quickly confined.

Against Slade’s credit card she had signed.

And he smiled when he said,

“I had fun in your bed

But my payments are five months behind.”