by Joyce Porter
‘Did you hear that?’ demanded Dover hoarsely, leaving another smear of gravy on MacGregor’s sleeve. ‘Talking like that when people are eating! It’s downright disgusting.’ MacGregor was by now too full for words. In any case he was trying to block out the whole terrible scene by selecting the eight gramophone records he would take with him on a desert island, should he ever be lucky enough to be cast away on one.
‘Continence!’ boomed Mrs Boyle. ‘Continence and a modicum of self-restraint! I don’t think that’s too much to ask, do you, Miss Dewar? If it is,’ – she gave a very unpleasant laugh -4 we shall have to try some kind of a deterrent.’
‘So help me,’ swore Dover passionately, ‘I’ll get that fat bitch if it’s the last thing I do!’ He glared at MacGregor’s barely touched plate. ‘Get a move on, can’t you? I’m not going to sit here all night and be insulted!’
Back at Mrs Boyle’s table Miss Kettering was rallying again. ‘What happened to that article you were going to lend?’ she asked sweetly.
‘The chamber pot?’ Mrs Boyle, whatever her faults, was not mealy mouthed. ‘Unfortunately I have mislaid the keys to my leather trunk. In any case, I doubt if it would be a solution. You can take a horse to the water,’ she proclaimed sententiously, ‘but you can’t make it drink. But you have no need to worry, Miss Ketterin’. I have other plans. I have issued my final warnin’. Those who choose to ignore it do so at their peril!’
It was at this point that Dover had choked down his last mouthful of creme caramel and stormed out of the diningroom. For a man who was not unused to public abuse, he had put up a very poor show. He had let that opinionated old battle-axe trample all over him without so much as bloodying her nose for her. He must be losing his grip. In a crisis of selfconfidence Dover was never one to blame himself. He looked around for a whipping-boy – and there, on cue, was MacGregor slinking after him through the dining-room door.
Not that bawling out MacGregor was much consolation and its effect on Mrs Boyle was negligible. So, as Dover stood on the Studio doorstep waiting for his ring to be answered, he tried to work out something in the way of revenge. Mrs Boyle had to be chopped down to a more manageable size. It would be nice, as he’d thought before, to get the old harridan at least arrested for the murder of Walter Chantry but Dover doubted if even he could manage that.
He pouted sulkily at the Studio door. They were taking their blooming time, and no mistake. He rang again and added a couple of kicks for good measure. The toe of his boot didn’t do the sparkling white paintwork much good but it did achieve the required result.
The door opened and a big, bearded man dressed in a shortie flannel nightshirt appeared in the opening. His legs and feet were bare. Dover cheered up. It looked as though the bit about nudism was true anyway.
‘You waiting for a tram, Sam?’
Dover tore his eyes away from the big man’s toenails. Were they really varnished alternately green and gold? ‘Detective Chief Inspector Dover,’ he announced with an ingratiating smile, ‘from Scotland Yard.’
‘Got a warrant?’
‘A warrant?’ yelled Dover. ‘What do I want a warrant for? I only want to ask you a few questions.’
‘Is that so?’ The big man propped himself up against the door jamb. ‘OK, ask away!’
‘Out here?’
‘Why not? I’m easy. No law, is there, that says we’ve got to have you inside?’
‘No, there’s no law,’ admitted Dover unhappily, ‘but it is usual.’
‘So you’ll enjoy the change,’ said the big man coolly. ‘Besides, we’ve already had one scuffer trampling all over the Aubusson this morning. What gives – a harassment?’
‘Murder’s a very serious business,’ Dover pointed out, shifting his weight from one aching foot to the other.
‘Would you believe I save my worrying for ingrowing toenails? What’s the matter anyhow – don’t parking offences give you a kick any more?’
‘What’s your name?’ demanded Dover, fighting hard not to lose his temper and ruin everything.
‘Lloyd Thomas, O shining one! But you can call me master.’
Dover clutched at the straw with a quick wittedness that threats to his personal comfort sometimes inspired. ‘Then you’re not the householder, are you?’
‘Negative,’ agreed the big man. ‘That’s James-Love-Your-Local-Policeman Oliver.’ He pushed himself off the door jamb. ‘So enter in! Oliver’s got foam rubber for a heart. He wouldn’t keep even the wolf standing out in the cold.’
Lloyd Thomas padded softly up the stairs and led Dover into a large room on the first floor. Here was assembled as varied a collection of dust-covered junk as Dover had seen in many a long year. Every fad and fashion of the last decade seemed to have made its tawdry contribution. Victoriana fought it out with Art Noveau. African devil masks leered at crumpled examples of Japanese calligraphy. The walls were covered with posters of wanted bad men of the American West, bull fighting and Toulouse-Lautrec, all mixed in with domestically produced graffiti.
Dover searched amongst the bamboo and the stripped pine and the cubes covered in red leatherette for something on which he could sit without doing himself a mischief. That rocking horse in the comer?
Lloyd Thomas felt he had done his share of the honours. 'Wittgenstein,' he said, 'look what I found on the doorstep.’ A young woman, who had been lying sprawled on the floor in front of the stove, sat up, parted the streaky blonde curtain of her hair and looked out. ‘Oh, God!’ she groaned. ‘Jim’ll go spare! He ordered a strong bone structure, not a bag of jelly.’ Lloyd Thomas folded himself up into the window seat. ‘It isn’t a model, you idiot! It’s a rozzer.’
Dover lowered himself gingerly on to one of the cubes and hoped for the best.
The young woman flopped back on her hearth mg. ‘Thank God for that!’ she said. ‘I couldn’t face another of Jim’s temper tantrums, not tonight.’ She sat up again with a jerk. ‘For Christ’s sake, not another bloody policeman!’
‘Precisely my own sentiments,’ said Lloyd Thomas, nodding his head. ‘No need to take up panic stations though. It’s only about the Chantry murder.’
‘Nothing became that man’s life like his leaving it,’ Miss Wittgenstein commented petulantly. ‘A bloody nuisance, quick or dead.’
Dover judged it was about time he started getting in on the act. He settled his feet firmly on a home-made mat decorated with three feathers and the legend ‘God Bless Our Prince of Wales’ and addressed himself to Miss Wittgenstein. ‘You didn’t go much on Mr Chantry, eh?’
‘Watch it, Wittgenstein!’ advised Lloyd Thomas from the window seat. ‘Twenty years in Holloway will dull that dewy bloom on your cheeks – and just min your development as an artist.’
‘Nonsense!’ scoffed Miss Wittgenstein. ‘I’d never get twenty years, not for a creep like Chantry.’
‘They won’t give you no illuminated scroll, girlie.’
Miss Wittgenstein reached for a cigarette and lit it by holding it against the red-hot side of the stove. ‘Anyhow, who says it’s me they’re gunning for? I should have thought you two boys were much more alluring suspects.’ She caught Dover’s appealing glance. ‘Want a fag, fuzz?’
‘I wouldn’t say no,’ simpered Dover.
Miss Wittgenstein took the cigarette from her mouth and handed it over, lipstick-decorated end and all. Then she lit herself another.
‘Is that wise, Wittgenstein?’ asked Lloyd Thomas who had been watching the transaction with some apprehension.
‘Wise?’ Miss Wittgenstein looked blank for a moment. ‘Oh, I see what you mean. Give me some credit, duckie. I’m dispensing tobacco, not tea.’
The mention of the cup that cheers reminded Dover of the main purpose of his visit. ‘I could just do with a cup of tea,’ he remarked chattily. ‘It’s thirsty work, asking questions.’
‘You’ve only asked one so far,’ said Miss Wittgenstein with a preciseness that Dover could well have done without.
‘I haven’t started yet!’ he retorted with a flash of the old fire. ‘Still,’ – remembering that fires can bum your boats irretrievably – ‘I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble, miss. A glass of beer or such-like’d do me just as well.’
Before Miss Wittgenstein had a chance to pick up this delicate cue, the front door bell rang.
Lloyd Thomas folded his arms across his chest. ‘Enough is too much,’ he said firmly. ‘An Englishman’s home is his castle. I propose and second that we raise the jolly old drawbridge.’ The bell rang again.
Miss Wittgenstein rolled over on to her stomach. ‘It’ll only disturb Jim.’
‘Bugger Jim,’ said Lloyd Thomas indifferently. ‘Just because he’s got himself hooked on a working jag is no reason for me to make like a footman, is it?’
‘Butlers answer doors,’ Miss Wittgenstein pointed out with kindly superiority. ‘If you weren’t a pig-headed Taffy from up the bloody valleys, you’d know that.’
‘Stuff you!’ came the amiable reply.
‘If it was you, Jim would.’
‘Well, it isn’t and I’m not. And if you’ve got dear Jamie’s interests so much at heart, why don’t you go and answer the bloody door yourself?’
‘All right,’ said Miss Wittgenstein belligerently, ‘I will!’ She uncoiled herself like a cat and stood up. ‘Oh, God!’ She fished despondently down the neck of her blouse. ‘Something’s gone bust!’
Miss Wittgenstein was dramatically well endowed in certain spheres and Lloyd Thomas was still groping frantically for some suitably bitchy bon mot when the door opened and the third member of the household ushered MacGregor in.
From then on things began to move at a more business-like pace. Jim Oliver might have been an artist but he believed in keeping his feet on the ground. Within a matter of moments he had taken control. Dover, as guest of honour, was ceremoniously ensconced in a comfortable chair which had earlier escaped even his eagle eye and a packet of cigarettes was placed conveniently at his elbow. Miss Wittgenstein was despatched to the cellar for supplies of liquid refreshment and Lloyd Thomas was quietly told to go and put his trousers on. Jim Oliver had no more love for the police than his companions had but he knew, from past experience, that rubbing them up the wrong way only ended in tears.
MacGregor found himself a little table and got out his notebook. Jim Oliver, determined to miss out on nothing, sped across with a bunch of newly sharpened pencils.
‘So much better than those nasty ball points, dear,’ he whispered. ‘They never seem to allow you to express your personality, do they? Ah,’ – Miss Wittgenstein staggered in with an armful of bottles – ‘here comes the plonk! You’ll take a glass, won’t you, dear? You’ll find it astonishingly palatable. What I call a real vintage Algerian.’
MacGregor declined. ‘I am on duty, sir.’
Jim Oliver pouted his disappointment. ‘Does that mean your delightful chief inspector won’t be able to imbibe either?’
Dover had already got both paws round a bottle.
MacGregor hung a sour little smile over his disapproval. ‘He’s rather a law unto himself,’ he said.
‘Of course, of course,’ cooed Jim Oliver understanding^ and took up a dominating position on the hearthrug. ‘Now, are you all sitting comfortably? Good, then I’ll begin.’
This attempt at the humorous approach didn’t go down too well. MacGregor maintained a poker face while Miss Wittgenstein and Lloyd Thomas realistically mimed being sick in a bucket. Dover, needless to say, wasn’t even listening.
Jim Oliver gave a nervous cough and turned to MacGregor. ‘Well, what is it you want, precisely?’
MacGregor turned to Dover. ‘Sir?’
The question was so sharp that Dover jumped and nearly spilled his wine. ‘Eh?’
‘We’re waiting to begin, sir.’
‘Oh?’ Dover squinted round the assembled company in some bewilderment. As far as he was concerned, they had begun. He clutched his glass. He’d got all he’d come for, anyhow.
MacGregor, through tight lips, broke the ignominious silence. ‘Shall I carry on, sir?’
Dover scowled at his sergeant and ungraciously nodded his head. ‘You do that, laddie.’
The story was pretty much the same as the ones Dover and MacGregor had been listening to all day, except that Oliver, Wittgenstein and Lloyd Thomas, as befitted their status as dissolute artists, were not in bed when the earthquake struck.
‘We were in this very room, dear,’ explained Oliver, ‘and suddenly everything just quivered. Not one of us so much as squeaked. Wasn’t that brave? Then we heard this sound of tearing and crashing. It seemed to come from all round. Not particularly loud, really, but ominous. It was old L.T. here who was the first to guess what it was. Well, we all came to the conclusion that we’d be safer outside so we grabbed a few coats and torches and things and headed for the open air.’
‘Now, you actually saw Mr Chantry, didn’t you?’ asked MacGregor with a meaningful – and completely wasted – glance at Dover.
‘You must be psychic!’ sneered Lloyd Thomas. ‘We told you all this this morning. And we didn’t so much see as hear. Like we told you, it was pitch dark.’
‘We heard people shouting up in North Street,’ explained Jim Oliver quickly. ‘Mr Chantry was just pulling Pile out of the wreckage when we arrived. Well,’ – he pulled uneasily at his left ear – ‘we thought the situation seemed under control and we’d probably be more use giving somebody else a hand, so we pushed off.’
Lloyd Thomas leaned forward impatiendy. ‘Come off it, Jim. These bluebottles have been nosing round the village all bloody day. Somebody’ll have marked our card for sure.’ He swung round to MacGregor. ‘Look, spook, the honest to God is that none of us would have given Pile a helping hand if we’d tripped over him. And likewise for Chantry.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t exactly say that,’ bleated Jim Oliver, blowing his nose nervously on a paint rag.
‘Why not?’ Miss Wittgenstein put her glass down with a bang. ‘It’s milk and water compared with what you did say before Chantry zipped through the pearly gates. I’m on Taffy’s side. Let’s shame the devil.’
‘Oh, nonsense!’ blustered Jim Oliver. ‘You’re making quite unnecessary mountains, my darlings. We didn’t like Chantry and Chantry didn’t like us, but that doesn’t mean . . .’
‘I understand that Mr Chantry was trying to evict you from these premises, sir,’ said MacGregor quietly.
Jim Oliver gulped and muttered something about gossipy old women. ‘That man didn’t know his own mind for two minutes together, sergeant. Yes, he was trying to terminate my lease but I’m sure you know as well as I do that that’s easier said than done these days.’
‘We had a crafty ace or two up our sleeves,’ Miss Wittgenstein chimed in and got a furious look for her pains.
‘The fact is, sergeant, that I’m the sitting tenant and, as such, I am immovable.’
‘Mr Chantry could have been making life rather unpleasant for you, sir.’
‘That creep?’ bellowed Lloyd Thomas. ‘Take it from me, scuffer, where persecution is concerned, Chantry didn’t even know where to begin. For God’s sake, look at us! Do we look the sort to be scared by a couple of sanctimonious, morality-spouting bastards like Chantry and old Haemorrhoids? What could they do but talk?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know, sir,’ murmured MacGregor noncommittally. He had one or two ideas he intended to investigate in his own good time. ‘Perhaps we could continue now with your movements round about the time of the murder? You’d decided not to go to the help of the Piles and Mr Chantry. What happened next?’
‘Just a minute!’ Dover held up a beefy hand which had in its time arrested the flow of London’s traffic.
‘You have a question sir?’
‘Well, I’m not requesting permission to leave the bloody room!’ barked Dover to the delight of Lloyd Thomas and Miss Wittgenstein. ‘I want to know why these three layabouts took so long.’
‘Took so long about what?’ asked Jim Oliver anxiously.
Dover jabbed an accusing finger at him. ‘Chantry was in bed – wasn’t he? – yet he’d time to get up, get dressed and rescue Pile and the girl before you lot even arrived on the scene. Either he ran like the clappers or you were dragging your feet more than somewhat.’
‘Ah,’ said Miss Wittgenstein quickly, ‘but we’d turned the other way first, you see, down East Street. We didn’t know where the real damage was and we only came back up towards North Street when we found the road blocked by the church steeple.’ She appealed to her companions. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, chaps?’
The chaps agreed that it was.
‘What have you got against Pile?’ demanded Dover, abruptly switching the point of his attack just for the hell of it.
‘‘ He was Chantry’s side-kick and little Sir Echo,’ said Lloyd Thomas. ‘Who wants more?’
‘We’d tried to be friendly,’ said Miss Wittgenstein, addressing herself to MacGregor because she thought he had a sympathetic face, ‘but, honestly, he used to back away from us as though we were lepers or something so now we don’t bother. As a matter of fact, I was all for going and giving a hand that night but Jim and L.T. here wouldn’t let me.’
‘They’d have spat in your eye, girl,’ said Lloyd Thomas bitterly. ‘Your trouble is you’re a dedicated masochist. Remember what happened the last time you tried to play Little Miss Philanthropy-Incorporated.’
Miss Wittgenstein sighed. ‘It was soon after they came here,’ she explained. ‘You see, I’ve done quite a bit of work with sub-normal children in my time and it’s amazing what you can achieve when you go about it properly. Pile’s doing all the wrong things with his daughter. He’s forever yacking on about how he’s devoted his life to her – you know, the big self-sacrifice kick – but the truth is he just keeps the kid cooped up as though she was some sort of animal. And, if you ask me, she’s nothing like as backward as everybody makes out. With a bit of proper training she could probably do . . .’ She swung her feet up on to the seat of her chair and hugged her knees resentfully. ‘Oh, well, out of the sheer goodness of my heart, I offered to have her over here for an hour or so every now and again and do some pottery with her. Well, it’s what she needs – an outside interest and a bit of normal company. Pottery would have been ideal and she would have got a hell of a kick out of it, poor little devil, but you should have heard old Pile when I suggested it. He made me feel like some old tart procuring for a Port Said brothel! That man’s got a mind like a sewer. Now, if it had been Pile who’d been murdered, I could have understood it. Compared with him. Chantry was almost human.’
