The Freels,’ replied Sergeant MacGregor sulkily – he was hungry – ‘and all die people in the flats.’
‘Oh, hell!’ said Dover. ‘Well, let’s start with the Freels. Maybe one of ’em’ll up and confess and then we can all go home.’
The Freel’s front door had two bells on it, marked A and B. With a muttered curse Dover stuck his finger into B and kept it there.
After a long wait the door was opened a grudging crack and a man’s face peered out at them. With great reluctance he admitted that he was Basil Freel and allowed his visitors to cross the threshold.
‘Kindly keep to the left of the line,’ he begged them, indicating a thin piece of white tape which had been laid down the centre of the hall carpet. He led them to a room at the back of the house. ‘This is my study,’ he observed. ‘I was working.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I’m very busy,’ he added.
‘We shan’t keep you a moment, sir,’ said Dover, hoping it was true.
‘Good,’ said Mr Freel bleakly and sat down gingerly on the edge of his chair. He was a tall thin man with a greyish but impressively strong face. Unfortunately, behind Basil Freel’s beaked nose and eagle eye, there lurked only a bird’s brain and he was inclined to fuss and cluck like an old hen.
He knew nothing, he protested with feeble fretfulness, about Juliet Rugg or her disappearance. He admitted that Colonel Bing and Miss McLintock had spent last Tuesday evening playing bridge with him and his sister.
‘They came after supper,’ he pointed out anxiously. ‘They come to us on Tuesdays and we go to them on Fridays, but always after supper. It comes so expensive if you have to provide a meal every time and, frankly, you don’t get enough to keep a sparrow going at their place, so it isn’t worth it.’
‘What time did Colonel Bing and Miss McLintock leave?’
‘Rather early, I remember. About a quarter to eleven. They were winning. They always leave early when they’re winning, just so that their luck doesn’t change. Not quite the behaviour you’d expect from gentlemen, but there you are, aren’t you?’
‘Where were you playing, sir?’
‘In here,’ said Mr Freel with a sigh. ‘She said it was my turn but I don’t think it was. I’m going to keep a notebook in future. Whoever’s host has to give ’em a hot drink, you know. I always make Ovaltine. They don’t like Ovaltine much so they generally leave quite a lot. I warm it up for myself the next day. Sometimes they leave nearly a whole cupful. The only trouble is,’ he sighed again, ‘I don’t like Ovaltine much either.’
‘What did you do when they left, sir?’ said Dover, who was beginning to feel he’d caught a ripe one here.
‘Oh, I went to bed straight away. The electric light had been on all evening, and the fire. I leave the clearing up till morning, when it’s daylight.’
‘And is your bedroom at the front of the house, sir?’
Mr Freel looked longingly at the pile of papers on his desk and sighed yet again. ‘Yes,’ he said reluctantly, ‘I sleep in the front room downstairs. My sister has the top floor for her quarters and I live down here.’
Dover’s next question was postponed by a loud, persistent miaowing outside the door.
‘Oh, dear,’ complained Mr Freel distractedly, and got up to let a large, bad-tempered-looking and very pregnant cat into the room. She stalked around with a deliberate, sneering gait while Mr Freel hovered anxiously over her.
‘For God’s sake, don’t frighten her!’ he hissed at Dover. ‘If she has the kittens down here I shall have to dispose of them, and it’s not fair. It’ll be the third time. She shoos her downstairs, you know,’ he added spitefully.
Mr Freel’s anxiety was catching. Dover and Sergeant MacGregor watched the mother-to-be with bated breath as she made a leisurely tour of inspection. There was an audible sigh of relief as she finally waddled insolently out of the door by which she had entered. Freel collapsed into his chair and wiped a grubby-looking handkerchief over his face.
Dover resumed his questioning, but Mr Freel had neither seen nor heard anything on Tuesday night which had struck him in the slightest as suspicious or unusual. He always slept with the windows closed and the curtains drawn, and a dozen Juliet Ruggs could have walked up and down the drive without his being aware of it. Yes, he knew who Juliet Rugg was but he couldn’t ever recall having even spoken to her. He lived a very retired life nowadays and his few social contacts did not include the missing girl.
‘I understand,’ said Dover, ‘that you are a retired clergyman?’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Freel with his habitual sigh, ‘you can put it that way if you like, I lost my faith, you know. It was very awkward. Of course, one had always had minor doubts and reservations here and there, but to lose all one’s faith all at once was a bit of a blow. In the prime of life, too, I was. Had a brilliant career ahead of me in the Church. Everybody said so. I might,’ he offered abjectly, ‘I might have been a bishop by now, or even had my own programme on television. But, there it is. You can’t go on if you’ve lost your faith, can you?’
‘No,’ said Dover, ‘I suppose not. And what do you do now?’
Mr Freel waved a long bony hand vaguely in the direction of his desk. ‘Mark correspondence course papers, mostly,’ he said. ‘Not very satisfying work, really. Most of ’em never last beyond the first lesson. I mark exam papers, too, sometimes. It’s all very depressing. Doesn’t pay all that well either. I have to live very
