by Joyce Porter
‘Eh? Oh, well, that’s what I said, wasn’t it? Of course it’s the same fellow. It’s a question of motive, isn’t it? He was trying to rub me out before I nabbed him for the murder of Chantry.’
MacGregor got that old sinking feeling as they approached the frontier of Cloud Cuckoo Land. ‘I don’t think that can be quite right, can it, sir?’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, you’re not going to nab him for the murder of Walter Chantry, are you?’
‘But I must be!’ protested Dover. ‘Why else is he gunning for me? He’s panic-stricken, you see. He’s running scared. He knows that any minute now I’m going to . . .’
‘But you’re not!’ insisted MacGregor, hoping that if he said it three times Dover would realize it was true. ‘Look, sir, let’s be perfectly frank about this. Neither you nor I has the least idea who murdered Chantry, have we?’
Dover’s bottom lip stuck out truculently. ‘I’ve got my theories,’ he muttered. His face cleared. ‘In fact, I reckon I’ve probably got the answer, really, but I just haven’t fitted the pieces together yet.’
MacGregor let his shoulders slump as his worst fears were fully confirmed. Dover, as usual, just hadn’t got a clue. ‘It’s going to be a race, isn’t it, sir?”
‘A race?’
‘Between you and the murderer, sir. Whether you unmask him before he kills you.’ MacGregor didn’t appear to find the prospect entirely distasteful.
‘Oh, charming!’ said Dover. He shivered. ‘Here, let’s have that bloody window shut. I don’t want to go catching pneumonia on top of everything else.’
MacGregor got up and closed the window with the air of one granting the condemned man’s last request. ‘Of course, we’ll give you all the protection we can, sir – for what it’s worth. Unfortunately a clever, ruthless, desperate man isn’t easy to stop. He’s nothing to lose and everything to win.’
‘ ’Strewth!’ groaned Dover. ‘You’re a right Job’s comforter, you are.’
Delicately MacGregor began to bait the hook. ‘The solution’s in your own hands sir.’
‘You’re damned right it is!’ snorted Dover, wresting the bait, hook, line, sinker and rod clean out of his sergeant’s grasp. ‘I’m catching the first bloody train back to London! Where did you put my suitcase?’
‘But you can’t turn tail and run, sir!’
‘Want a bet?’ Dover was on his feet and heading for the wardrobe. ‘I’d sooner be a live donkey than a dead sitting-duck any old day of the week.’ He dragged his overcoat off the hanger. ‘I haven’t lasted this long by playing the bloody hero.’
‘And the Assistant Commissioner, sir?’
Dover, reaching up for his bowler hat, wavered. ‘Stuff him,’ he said with more bluster than conviction. He threw his overcoat back in the wardrobe and slammed the door.
Paradoxically, the Assistant Commissioner (Crime) might well have been delighted to see Dover beat an ignominious and shameful retreat back to London. It would have provided even more fuel for the secret dossier he had been compiling for years on Scotland Yard’s most unwanted man. Indeed, rank cowardice in the face of the enemy might prove to be just the sort of ammunition the Assistant Commissioner (Crime) was waiting for.
Nobody knew better than Dover that, with his blemished record and shaky stature, he couldn’t afford to take too many risks. There was a limit to what even the Metropolitan Police would tolerate. He gave the wardrobe a vicious kick and stumped miserably back to his chair.
‘All right,’ he snarled, ‘what’s your suggestion?’
MacGregor permitted himself a faint smile of relief. If only Dover would accept advice more often, they wouldn’t get into quite so many messes. ‘Well, sir, I propose that we really knuckle down and put our backs into it and find out who murdered Walter Chantry. That way we’ll kill two birds with one stone. We’ll solve the case and put an end to any further attempts on your life.’
‘Solve the case, eh?’ Dover was momentarily intrigued by the dazzling novelty of the idea but reaction soon set in. ‘That’s going to be easier said than done,’ he pointed out.
MacGregor dusted off his most persuasive manner. ‘Not really, sir. After all, you’ve already put your finger on our main advantage. The killer wouldn’t have tried to murder you if he hadn’t been pretty certain that you were on to him. That means that somewhere you must have a clue to his identity. All we have to do is find it.’
‘But when I said that just now,’ objected Dover, ‘all you could do was pooh-pooh the idea.’
‘Well, I just meant, sir, that it wasn’t going to be as easy as all that. We’re not going to get it handed to us on a plate, are we? We’ve got a lot of work to do first.’
Dover winced at the word ‘work’. ‘What have you got in mind?’ he asked with a sigh.
‘Well,’ – MacGregor hitched his chair forward eagerly – ‘I think we’ve just got to review all the evidence you’ve collected since we came here. Maybe, if we go through everything all. over again, we’ll spot the slip or the discrepancy or whatever it is.’
‘Blimey!’ said Dover.
But MacGregor was not going to be denied. He pulled his notebook out and turned with an air of importance to a clean page. ‘We’ll stick to a chronological order, I think, sir. Now, who was the first person you interviewed yesterday afternoon?’
‘I don’t know,’ grumbled Dover unhelpfully. ‘Pile, was it? Or Lickes?’
‘I think it was Mr Lickes, sir.’ MacGregor wrote the name down in large capitals. He looked up. ‘Can I get your notes for you, sir?’
‘What notes?’
‘The notes you took at the interview, sir.’ One look at Dover’s face provided the answer but MacGregor couldn’t stop himself asking the question.
‘How could I take notes when I was lying sick in bed?’ howled Dover. ‘You want it with blood on, you do.’
‘Perhaps you can recall what Mr Lickes said, sir.’
Dover tried to find a more comfortable sitting position on his chair. ‘Of course I can! He said that he and his missus got up after the earthquake and went out into the village. They met Pile and his daughter. Mrs Lickes brought the girl back here and Lickes stayed on to help with the rescue work.’ MacGregor’s pencil hovered forlornly over his notebook. ‘Is that all, sir?’
‘That’s the gist of it,’ said Dover.
‘Did he see Mr Chantry?’
‘Says he didn’t.’
‘Well, did you gather anything about Mr Lickes’s attitude to Mr Chantry, sir?’
‘No,’ said Dover, just for the pleasure of seeing the look on MacGregor’s face. ‘Well, there was something about turning this place into a motel. Lickes wasn’t wild about the idea.’
‘They quarrelled?’
‘Not according to Lickes.’ Dover wriggled around in an effort to ease his aching buttocks. ‘You’ll not find a motive for murder there, laddie. Lickes owns this hotel. He can please himself what he does with it. Chantry was just chucking out potty suggestions.’
‘He might have threatened to open up another hotel in opposition, sir?’ suggested MacGregor hopefully.
‘And pigs might fly! Look, laddie, we’re supposed to be solving a murder case, not making up fairy stories.’
MacGregor accepted the rebuke. ‘Who did you see next, sir?’
‘Pile,’ said Dover, beginning to look bored. ‘Now, he actually admits having seen Chantry so you can stick his name down.’
‘But he was a friend of Chantry’s, wasn’t he, sir?’ objected MacGregor. ‘And would he kill a man who’d just rescued him and his daughter?’
‘Stranger things have happened at sea.’
‘Did he say anything else, sir?’
‘Who?’
‘Wing Commander Pile, sir.’
‘Oh,’ – Dover scratched his head in a burst of irritation – ‘he complained about the goings on of that bunch of artists. All highly exaggerated,’ he remembered crossly. ‘Then,’ he went on, d
etermined to get all this over with as soon as possible, ‘I saw Mrs Lickes. She’d nothing much to say, either.’
‘But she confirmed her husband’s story, sir?’
‘They always do,’ said Dover gloomily.
‘Did she like Mr Chantry?’
Dover was beginning to stare blankly out of the window. There was a lengthy pause. ‘Search me,’ he said at last.
MacGregor recognized the danger signs. Even with his life in jeopardy, Dover was incapable of concentrating on anything for more than a couple of minutes at a time. MacGregor tried to revive the chief inspector’s flagging interest. ‘Should we try a different tack, sir?’
Dover blew wearily down his nose. ‘I wish you’d make up your flipping mind.’
‘I’m only trying to jog your memory, sir. If we keep talking about the case, something might just go click.’
‘Something has!’ Dover stood up and rubbed himself vigorously. ‘My blooming spine! I’ve gone all numb sitting on that dratted chair.’ His eyes began to swivel round to the bed.
‘I thought if we worked out some kind of a timetable, sir,’ said MacGregor hurriedly, ‘and mapped out people’s movements round about the vital time, we might. . .’
‘A good idea!’ approved Dover, stretching himself elaborately. ‘Ooh, my poor old back! Yes, right – well, you carry on with that and I’ll have a look at it when you’ve finished.’ He took a casual step or two away from the window.
‘I really think it would be better if we worked on it together, sir.’
‘Of course, of course!’ Dover reached the bed and sat down with the contentment of a homing pigeon. He plumped up the pillows. ‘Anything you say, laddie.’
‘We really must get on with it, sir!’ protested MacGregor as Dover swung his feet up with an ecstatic grunt. ‘Another attempt may be made on your life at any moment!’
Dover raised his head a couple of inches from the pillow. ‘Just pull that eiderdown up over my feet, will you? There’s one hell of a draught coming from somewhere. Ah,’ – he sank back again – ‘that’s better. Now, you go right ahead and I’ll chip in when you get stuck, eh?’
MacGregor ground his teeth with suppressed fury and, seizing his chair, crashed it down a couple of inches from Dover’s nose. He settled himself on it and filled his lungs. ‘The earthquake occurred at exactly two o’clock, sir,’ he announced in ringing tones, ‘and everybody with the exception of the three artists appears to have been in bed. We’ve got to allow people a few minutes to take in what was happening and then they begin to move. A lot of people, of course, like the regular guests in this hotel, didn’t do anything which is of much interest to us. They didn’t leave their homes, or if they did, they didn’t go anywhere near the scene of the crime. In fact, because of the peculiar way the earthquake split the village in two, most of the inhabitants couldn’t reach the scene of the crime at all until long after Chantry was dead, even if they’d wanted to.’
‘Oh, quite,’ murmured Dover, just to show that he was all ears.
‘So that allows us to eliminate a large part of Sully Martin’s population from the list of suspects. We can also eliminate a lot of other people, too, the victims who were killed or badly injured in the earthquake, the people who were looking after them until the rescue services arrived, those who are too young or too old to have committed the crime, and so on. I’ve checked and re-checked, sir, and, as I see it, we’re really only left with seven: Mr and Mrs Lickes, Wing Commander Pile, Mr Oliver, Mr Lloyd Thomas, Miss Wittgenstein and young Mr Hooper.’
‘Errors and omissions excepted,’ agreed Dover, speaking as though he was very far away. He roused himself. ‘Hasn’t Mrs Lickes got an alibi?’
‘Not much of one, sir. She could have returned to the disaster area much sooner than she says she did.’
‘Was Chantry strangled from in front or behind?’
‘From behind, sir. Does it matter?’
‘I shouldn’t think so. How tall was he?’
‘About five foot ten, sir.’
Dover pursed his lips. ‘Can’t you scrub all the women?’
‘He could have been kneeling down when he was attacked, sir. And Mrs Lickes is quite wiry. Miss Wittgenstein is pretty powerfully built, too, especially about the arms and shoulders.’
‘It’s kneading all that clay,’ muttered Dover as he snuggled down again.
MacGregor pressed doggedly on. ‘So, at two o’clock we have the earthquake and the first incident we know about after that is the collapse of Wing Commander Pile’s house, trapping him and his daughter. Shortly after this, Walter Chantry makes his appearance on the scene when he rescues the Piles. After that, he joins his son-in-law for a few minutes in the Sally Gate area and sends him away to get reinforcements. Nobody admits to seeing him alive again. Colin Hooper could have killed him then. Wing Commander Pile returned alone to his house to collect some clothes so he had a few minutes in which he could have found Chantry and murdered him. Mr Lickes is in pretty much the same boat. After he got separated from Colin Hooper, he’d got ample opportunity and he was in the right area of the village. Then we’ve got these three artists. They all knew roughly where Chantry was and none of them has much in the way of an alibi.’ MacGregor bent forward so that his voice could blast straight down Dover’s ear. ‘Do you agree with me so far, sir?’
‘I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ said Dover.
‘And, now, we come to the question of motive.’
Dover hoisted himself up into a sitting position. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘this is all very fine but I don’t reckon it’s getting us anywhere, do you? I’m the one that’s supposed to have the key to the whole business but, with you rabbiting on like a babbling brook, I can’t hear myself think. Now,’ – he nudged the hint forward with an air of sweet reasonableness – ‘why don’t you push off for a bit and let me give my subconscious a chance?’
‘Your subconscious, sir?’
‘That’s right!’ said Dover, trying not to spoil it all by getting peevish. ‘That’s what you do when you can’t remember something, isn’t it? You just put it right out of your mind and let your subconscious spew it up. Now, if I was to lie here quietly and let my mind go a complete blank, I reckon that by the time you brought my lunch up I’d have the answer.’ MacGregor spared a brief moment to wonder whether Dover in a wheedling mood wasn’t even more sickening than when he was shouting and bawling his head off. Not that it really mattered because, whichever way he played it, this was one time when he was not going to get his own way. ‘I honestly don’t think it’s a very good idea, sir.’
‘Well, luckily,’ sneered Dover, reverting with all the ease in the world to a tougher line, ‘it doesn’t matter a row of two pins what you think. Shove off!’
MacGregor stood up. 'Very well, sir, but I think I ought to warn you that I am not going to bring your lunch up. And neither is anybody else. If you want something to eat, you’re going to have to go down to the dining-room and have your meal there.’
‘Have you gone clean out of your feeble little mind?’ spluttered Dover. ‘I’m giving you an order! You start coming your tricks with me, laddie, and I’ll fix it so’s your own mother won’t recognize you!’
‘I doubt if the board of enquiry would consider my carrying your lunch up a legitimate part of my duties, sir,’ replied MacGregor smoothly.
Dover goggled. ‘What board of enquiry?’
‘The one that will be convened, sir, when I submit a formal complaint about your handling of this investigation. Amongst other things, I shall be charging you with professional incompetence, you see.’
‘You’ll not have much of a future in the force after that!’ snapped Dover.
‘You’ll have none at all, sir.’
This simple statement of fact pulled Dover up sharp. ‘You’re bluffing,’ he said sullenly.
‘I shouldn’t count on it, sir.’
‘Then it’s blackmail!’
‘That’s much more
like it, sir,’ agreed MacGregor calmly. ‘Only for your own good, of course.’
‘Oh, of course!’ echoed Dover sarcastically. He scowled thoughtfully at his sergeant. That was the trouble with these starry-eyed, conscientious types – they’d no bloody sense of proportion. Fancy getting all worked up into a muck sweat over solving a lousy murder case! Still, there was no point in making a big issue out of it. Dover prepared to capitulate gracefully. ‘You bloody kids think you know everything these days,’ he growled.
MacGregor could recognize a white flag when he saw one. ‘Part of my duty is to protect you, sir. When your life’s in danger I can’t in all conscience stand idly by and let you take unnecessary risks.’
Dover rather liked this line. ‘Perhaps I am a bit careless about my personal safety,’ he admitted ruefully. ‘It’s always been one of my failings. Well, laddie, what was it exactly you had in mind?’
MacGregor sat down again and looked at his watch. ‘We’ve got nearly an hour before lunch, sir, so I suggest we use that time for discussing the motives of the various suspects. Then I propose that we go downstairs and have lunch. This will give you the opportunity to mix with some of the people we’ve got our eye on and – who knows ? – you may just remember something. After lunch, I think we ought to go out and have a look at the scene of the crime. I don’t think you’ve actually got round to doing that yet, have you, sir? Then we might call at the Studio again and perhaps have a word or two with the Hoopers.’
‘It sounds fine,’ said Dover bleakly.
MacGregor gave him a cigarette to sugar the pill. ‘And now,’ he went on, ‘we come to the question of motive.’ He opened his notebook again. ‘Here, sir, I think we really must put Chantry’s daughter and her husband at the top of the list. They’ve obviously got much the . . .’
Eleven
By the time he was let out for lunch – and with no remission for good conduct – Dover had worked up a pretty good grudge against MacGregor. This time young Charles Edward had really gone too far. Dover wasn’t quite sure exactly how he was going to wreak his vengeance but he was confident that undiluted spite would find a way. Dover had never been subjected to such torture in his entire career. Shut up all bloody morning talking shop! Well, not so much talking, when you came to think about it, as listening. It was MacGregor who’d done all the spouting, going on and on and on about the sudden death of Walter Chantry – as if anybody cared. Dover had several times tried to re-introduce the more beguiling topic of his own near assassination but MacGregor had refused to be diverted. The attack on Dover, he maintained, had been of secondary and incidental importance. Dover’s amour propre was still smarting over that one. That he should have been reduced to playing second fiddle to the Walter Chantrys of this world!
