MacGregor collected his oilskins and gum boots from his room and was half-way downstairs when he realized that the indignation meeting had moved from the dining-room to the entrance hall. Tactfully he withdrew into the shadows.
Mrs Boyle was still in good voice. ‘What’s wrong with givin’ the brute a chamber pot?’ she boomed at a cringing Mr Lickes. ‘Seems to me an admirable solution.’
Mr Lickes mumbled something.
‘I have a spare one in my leather trunk,’ thundered Mrs Boyle. ‘Don’t usually make a habit of lendin’ my personal possessions but, in this case, I’m prepared to make an exception. Tell your wife to come along and collect it later this mornin’.’
Mr Lickes’s dry lips trembled again.
Mrs Boyle drew herself up. Indignation was written in every generous curve. ‘Well, I hope you’re not suggestin’ that I should empty it, Lickes?’
Mr Lickes weakly shook his head.
‘I’m glad to hear it.’ Mrs Boyle regarded Mr Lickes severely. ‘If you and your wife are, as usual, too overworked to perform your proper duties, I can only propose that the emptyin’ of the utensil is entrusted to the brute’s manservant.’
Mr Lickes apparently whispered yet another objection but Mrs Boyle was already leading the way to the lounge.
She tossed her final remarks back over her shoulder. ‘I fail to see that the young man bein’ a policeman makes any difference. It is doubdess like the army. Officers’ batmen are themselves soldiers, are they not?’
Only when the Blenheim Towers guests had all dutifully followed Mrs Boyle and the lounge door was closed did MacGregor venture out of hiding. Mr Lickes saw him coming and fled to the sanctuary of the kitchen quarters.
‘Ready are you, sergeant?’ asked Superintendent Underbarrow, kindly refraining from comment.
MacGregor nodded his head.
‘Bit of a mess, isn’t it?’ Superintendent Underbarrow examined the scene of devastation which spread before and below them with a certain amount of gloomy satisfaction. ‘Worse than you expected, I’ll bet.’
‘Much worse, sir,’ agreed MacGregor, taking a step or two back from the slimy edge of the cliff and unfolding his map. ‘And there was a complete row of houses here?’
Superintendent Underbarrow pointed over to his left. ‘That’s where the Sally Gate was, remember? Then there was a pub, a couple of shops, four cottages and Wing Commander Pile’s house here on the comer of what used to be Sidle Alley.’
‘Sidle Alley?’ queried MacGregor, looking at his map again. ‘Oh, I see. It ran round the back there and down to the main road?’
‘That’s right. Luckily it was mostly barns and sheds and garages along there so we didn’t have any casualties. And then,’ – he gesticulated over to his right – ‘the damage gets progressively less as you get beyond Sidle Alley. Starting with Wing Commander Pile’s house here, the houses were only partially destroyed by the earthquake. The fronts, facing us, were still standing the morning after but, of course, they were in a very dangerous condition and the heavy rescue people had to knock them down. The people who lived in ’em made one hell of a fuss but there was nothing else you could do.’
‘And whereabouts was Chantry’s body found, sir?’ Superintendent Underbarrow led the way over towards the Sally Gate and, stepping over a make-shift rope barrier, stood on the very edge of the drop. ‘Well, down there somewhere.’ MacGregor sighed. ‘That doesn’t look very helpful, sir.’
‘No. He could have been killed up here somewhere and just slipped down with all the rest of the debris, or he could have been chucked over the edge after he was dead by the murderer. I doubt if there’s any way of telling now.’
MacGregor watched a group of workmen who were busy trying to shore up the crumbling lip of the cliff to prevent further landslides. ‘The other people who were killed, sir, – were they in this part, too?’
‘All except one. They came from the pub and the two shops next door to it. Mind you, they were found in the ruins of their houses. Chantry’s body, of course, was more or less on top.’
‘That certainly makes it look as though he was killed after the earthquake,’ said MacGregor, folding up his map and putting it away in his pocket.
Superintendent Underbarrow looked surprised. ‘There’s no doubt about that, is there?’
‘We can’t afford to overlook any possibility, sir.’
‘But Chantry was out helping with the rescue work,’ objected Superintendent Underbarrow as he began to move away to the undamaged side of North Street. ‘Several people saw him.’
MacGregor picked his way carefully round a pile of planks and red warning lamps. ‘I’ve been thinking about that, sir. Now, say I killed Chantry before the earthquake and just left him lying around in a corner somewhere. Then the earthquake happens and I seize the opportunity to confuse the issue. It was pitch dark and everybody must have been very upset and bewildered. All I have to do is point out some distant figure and refer to him as Chantry. Next morning, with a bit of luck, there may be several people who think quite seriously that they really had seen Chantry.’
‘Well, it’s an idea,’ admitted Superintendent Underbarrow unwillingly, ‘but there’s his daughter’s evidence, too. She said quite definitely that Chantry didn’t leave the house until after the earthquake.’
MacGregor had an answer for that. ‘She may be mistaken – or lying.’
‘Lying? Why should she?’
MacGregor shrugged his shoulders. ‘She may have killed her father.’
‘That sounds a bit far-fetched.’
‘She wouldn’t be the first, sir. On the other hand, she may be protecting her husband.’ MacGregor changed the conversation. Superintendent Underbarrow was a very decent chap but he wasn’t CID. These uniformed fellows didn’t really understand the problems. ‘Where is Chantry’s house, by the way?’
‘Just here.’ Superintendent Underbarrow nodded at a large well-cared-for residence, standing on the comer of North Street and East Street. ‘Practically undamaged, as you can see.’
MacGregor looked around. ‘And practically opposite Wing Commander Pile’s house.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Interesting,’ commented MacGregor in an unworthy attempt to mystify the superintendent. ‘Now,
