He began, mistakenly perhaps, with an appeal to reason. ‘But there’s nowhere else, old chap,’ he told an empurpled Dover. ‘This is the only available place.’
‘A temperance boarding house?’ screamed Dover. ‘This bug-infested chicken coop?’
‘We’ve just had an earthquake,' explained Superintendent Underbarrow with commendable patience. 'Every house in the village with spare rooms has taken in refugees. There isn’t a vacant bed anywhere.’
Dover bared his National Health teeth in a snarl of sheer exasperation. ‘What about the local boozer, dolt? You could have shifted a couple of your bloody refugees out of there, couldn’t you?’
‘Sully Martin only had one public house,’ replied Superintendent Underbarrow calmly, ‘and that went over the cliff in the earthquake. It stood just inside the Sally Gate.’
Dover’s jaw dropped. ‘Do you mean we can’t even get a drink?’ he asked hoarsely.
‘I’m afraid not.’
Dover illustrated his ability to make a quick decision in an emergency. ‘MacGregor,’ he bawled, ‘get the suitcases!’
‘Sir?’
‘You don’t think I’m stopping here, do you?’
‘But there’s nowhere else, sir.’
‘Not in Sully bloody Martin, maybe – but there are plenty of other places, aren’t there? Where’s the nearest town?’
Superintendent Underbarrow shrugged his shoulders. He was beginning to go off the human race. ‘If you want to tramp up that hill through all that muck and mud every day, that’s your affair.’
Dover’s outburst of righteous indignation evaporated as it usually did when his personal comfort was threatened. He capitulated with characteristic grace and charm. ‘You’ll have to ship a few bottles of booze up,’ he informed Superintendent Underbarrow. ‘Half a dozen bottles of Scotch and a couple of crates of stout’ll do for a start. I have to have the stout for my stomach. You can charge ’em up to incidental expenses.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘Why not? ’Strewth, if a blooming superintendent can’t cook a few books, who can?’
‘It’s not that. It’s the transport problem. Until we get that road clear we’ve got to manhandle all the supplies up by brute force. It’s taking us all our time to bring the basic necessities in – bread, meat, milk for the babies. Damn it all, Dover, you can’t expect me to let little children go hungry just so that you can knock back a bottle of wallop whenever you feel like it.’
‘It’s medicinal!’ snapped Dover. ‘Doctor’s orders. Besides, kids these days are all too fat. Do ’em a world of good to go on short commons for a bit.’
Superintendent Underbarrow eyed Dover coldly. ‘Well,’ he said grudgingly, ‘I’ll see what I can do but I’m not promising anything, mind. And it’s not being put down to any incidental expenses, either. You’ll have to pay for it yourself.’
There was an embarrassing pause. Dover looked hopefully at MacGregor, but MacGregor was staring with grim determination at the ceiling. An impasse had been reached. Dover resolved it by collapsing sulkily on to a near-by chair and gloomily indicating that he was now ready to have his gum boots removed. With a sigh of relief that they weren’t going to have another nasty scene about money MacGregor carefully hitched up the knees of his trousers and knelt down.
PC Rowney caught Superintendent Underbarrow’s eye. ‘I think it’s about time we were going, sir.’
Superintendent Underbarrow nodded. The sooner the better as far as he was concerned. He had, however, one last duty to perform. A small, youngish man had been popping his head in and out of the door which led back to the service quarters of the hotel. At last his acute impatience was rewarded and he bounced athletically forward to be introduced.
‘This,’ said Superintendent Underbarrow, without much interest, ‘is Mr Lickes, the proprietor of the Blenheim Towers. Detective Chief Inspector Dover and Detective Sergeant MacGregor,’
‘Delighted!’ gurgled Mr Lickes and pirouetted over to the suitcases. ‘Quite delighted!’ He flexed one bicep with evident pride and then flexed the other. ‘May I conduct you gentlemen to your rooms?’
‘Not till I’ve had some afternoon tea,' said Dover as MacGregor finished tying his boodaces and stood up.
Mr Lickes slowly straightened up from the knees-full-bend position he had struck preparatory to picking up the suitcases. ‘Afternoon tea?’ he said doubtfully. ‘But we’re serving supper in five minutes.’
Superintendent Underbarrow and PC Rowney took their leave while the going was good. Dover didn’t even notice them depart, being too busy browbeating a somewhat less bouncy Mr Lickes.
‘Yes, I know it’s only six o’clock,’ admitted Mr Lickes, nervously lacing his fingers across his chest and then trying to drag his hands apart, ‘but most of our guests are rather elderly and they like to eat early. Late meals upset their digestions, so they say. Actually, I suspect the real reason is that they want to sit and watch television all night but it doesn’t make much difference, does it? I am here to serve my clientele and, if they want their supper at six o’clock, mine not to reason why.’
‘We’re clientele, too,’ objected Dover, appalled at the prospect of fourteen hungry hours till breakfast.
Mr Lickes was now pressing his clenched fists into the small of his back. ‘Ah, but you’re only temporaries, you see. It’s our residents I’m talking about. The people who live here. They’re our bread and butter,’ he panted as he swung his right arm round and round like a windmill. ‘You, I’m afraid, are just the jam.’
Dover turned, as he frequently did in moments of crisis, on MacGregor. ‘Well, don’t just stand there like Patience on a monument! Do something!’
MacGregor smiled tentatively at Mr Lickes. ‘I’m afraid, sir, that, because of the peculiar nature of our business here, we’re going to make rather a lot of trouble for you.’
Mr Lickes ground his shoulder blades together and smiled back. ‘Oh, no, you’re not,’ he assured MacGregor pleasantly.
MacGregor tried again. ‘We may have to ask you for meals at rather inconvenient times.’
‘No harm in asking,' came the courteous reply.
‘We are here on official and very important duties, sir.’
‘Breakfast at nine,' said Mr Lickes, ‘lunch at half past twelve and supper at six. Unconsumed meals will be
