‘Yes, darling,’ said Mr Topping-Wibbley.
‘What precisely is your position in the firm, sir?’ asked MacGregor.
‘Well, at the moment he’s Assistant Sales Manager,’ said Mrs Topping-Wibbley with a bright laugh. ‘It’s a very important job, really. Of course, he’s moving about all the time. Uncle Daniel keeps a very fatherly eye on his progress — doesn’t he, darling? As he gets a bit more experience so he gets a bit more responsibility.’
Dover stopped watching the flickering electric flames and looked at Mrs Topping-Wibbley. Then he looked at Mr Topping-Wibbley and sniffed, audibly.
MacGregor broke what was promising to turn into a rather embarrassing silence. ‘I suppose the death of Cynthia Perking will make a great difference to your prospects, won’t it, sir?’
Mrs Topping-Wibbley proved capable of taking a hint. With a triumphant glance at Dover she let her husband answer for himself.
‘Er—I don’t quite know what you mean,’ he stammered awkwardly.
‘Oh, darling, it’s perfectly obvious what the sergeant means! And you’re quite wrong, too, sergeant!’ She shook her head at MacGregor in playful reproach. ‘Cynthia would never have taken any part in the running of the business, whatever had happened. Uncle Daniel is a firm believer in the principle that a woman’s place is in the home. He would never allow any woman, even his own daughter, to become head of the business. It was always intended that my husband would succeed his uncle there.’
‘But Mrs Perking would presumably have inherited the actual ownership of the firm?’
‘Well, probably, but we weren’t anticipating any difficulty in that direction,’ said Mrs Topping-Wibbley. ‘Hereward would have been managing director and Cynthia would just have been majority shareholder, that’s all.’
‘And now your husband will be both?’
‘Good heavens!’ Mrs Topping-Wibbley switched on the bright smile again. ‘That’s all very far in the future, we hope. We have no idea how Uncle Daniel will dispose of his shares now, have we, darling?’
‘No,’ said Mr Topping-Wibbley through taut lips.
‘Did you know Cynthia Perking was going to have a baby, sir?’ asked MacGregor suddenly. He had a feeling that the interview was beginning to get bogged down and that if he didn’t get a move on Dover would barge in and take over.
‘Not until last night,’ Mrs Topping-Wibbley said, climbing automatically once again into the saddle. ‘That just makes it all the more horrible, doesn’t it? Poor Uncle Daniel, he was so longing for a grandson. Oh well,’ she laughed softly, ‘he’ll just have to make do with our three boisterous offspring now, won’t he, darling? Poor man, I suppose we’re all the family he’s really got left now.’
‘He has got a sister and a wife,’ Mr Topping-Wibbley pointed out rather disagreeably.
‘Yes, but you know what I mean, darling!’ His wife bared her teeth at him in a fair imitation of indulgence.
‘To get back to what we were talking about. . . ’ MacGregor plunged in again, thus earning full marks for trying ‘ . . . you didn’t know, sir, before she was murdered that Cynthia Perking was pregnant?’
Mr Topping-Wibbley shook his head.
‘She didn’t tell you, sir, when you called on her shortly before she died?’
There was a moment’s hesitation while the implications of MacGregor’s question sank in and then an outburst of well-bred indignation.
‘I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about,’ protested Mr Topping-Wibbley. ‘I haven’t seen Cynthia since before her marriage.’
‘Are you trying to suggest that my husband had anything even remotely to do with Cynthia’s murder?’ stormed his wife. ‘I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in my life! You evidently don’t know my husband. He isn’t capable of harming a fly.’
MacGregor sat calmly through it all and, when the Topping- Wibbleys finally ran out of breath, went on with his questions. ‘Am I to take it, sir, that you deny going to see your cousin, Cynthia Perking, on the afternoon she was killed?’
‘Well, of course he denies it. Hereward, for God’s sake, don’t just sit there like a dummy! Can’t you see how their minds are working? Sergeant, I can’t imagine why you have come here asking such ridiculous questions but I can tell you here and now that I refuse to have my husband implicated in the death of Cynthia Perking. This matter can be cleared up in a couple of seconds. In the first place, in deference to Uncle Daniel’s wishes, neither Hereward nor I have had anything to do with Cynthia since she married that dreadful little man. And, in the second place, my husband wasn’t even in Pott Winckle on the day of her death. He spent the greater part of the day over at Breadford and he didn’t get back home until after seven o’clock.’
MacGregor looked somewhat crestfallen. ‘Is that true, sir?’
‘Course it is!’ rumbled Dover, creaking irritably in his wheelchair. ‘I told you all along you were barking up a gum tree. The chap’s got an alibi. Not that it matters a damn one way or the other.’
‘What do you mean —it doesn’t matter?’ demanded Mrs Topping-Wibbley.
‘The afternoon caller, whoever he was, didn’t kill Cynthia Perking,’ explained Dover through an enormous yawn. ‘Her husband did.’
MacGregor was furious at this gratuitous intervention. A fat chance you had of trying to be subtle when Dover was around! He tried to salvage something from the wreck.
‘Well, there you are, sir,’ he said, turning back to Mr Topping-Wibbley. ‘The Chief Inspector has given you the official point of view so, if you did call to see Mrs Perking, there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t tell us, is there, sir? It’s just a matter of helping us build up a clear and accurate picture of her last hours.’
Mr Topping-Wibbley was still looking unhappy. ‘I didn’t go to see Cynthia,’ he repeated.
‘Why on earth’, asked his help-mate, ‘should you think he did?’
‘We’ve had a description of the caller, madam, and it does fit your husband.’
‘And half the male population of the country, too,’ growled Dover.
‘And’, continued MacGregor, ignoring the interruption, ‘we do have a description of his car.’
Mrs Topping-Wibbley relaxed. ‘That
