Dover was now beginning to sit up and take notice. His fat, pasty face assumed an almost happy expression as, for the first time on this lousy case, he felt solid ground beneath his feet. A disgruntled, down-trodden daughter! Now, that was something a chap could get his teeth into!
Dover’s approach to murder cases was crudely simple. Husbands were murdered by their wives and wives by their husbands. If they weren’t, he rapidly lost interest in the face of the additional work likely to be involved in pinning the crime on somebody else. Occasionally, of course, even Dover was forced to adjust his ideas. Some murder victims hadn’t got a spouse to cop it for them and the chief inspector was obliged to look elsewhere. That’s when children proved such a blessing.
He addressed Mrs Lickes with unaccustomed delicacy. ‘This fellow Chantry was rolling in it, was he?’
‘I believe he was quite nicely off,’ admitted Mrs Lickes, who had more than an inkling of where Dover’s thoughts were wending. ‘He wasn’t short of the odd shilling, that’s for sure. He was the biggest builder round these parts and those property deals of his in the village must have brought in quite a pretty penny.’
‘And his daughter’s the sole heir, eh?’
‘I should imagine so. She was his only child and his wife’s been dead for a long time now. Millie Hooper will come in for the lot, if you ask me – the business and everything.’
‘Who’ll run the business now?’
Mrs Lickes avoided Dover’s eye as she put the boot in. ‘Well, Colin Hooper will, won’t he? That’s what everybody in the village is assuming. There were only two partners, you see. Him and poor Mr Chantry.’
‘It’s an ill wind,’ said Dover with patent cunning.
Mrs Lickes was forced to agree. ‘Young people are so impatient these days,’ she sighed. ‘They don’t want to wait for anything. Of course,’ she added hurriedly, ‘I don’t for one moment believe that Millie Hooper would have harmed a hair of her father’s head. She was quite fond of him, really. Besides, she wouldn’t have been up to it physically, would she?’
‘You’re putting your money on the husband, are you?’
‘Certainly not!’ Mrs Lickes endeavoured to look as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. ‘They’re a very nice young couple, both of them, and I’m sure they’d never dream of hurting a fly. All I’m saying is that I just don’t see Millie Hooper having the strength to murder a grown man in the middle of an earthquake. She’s six months pregnant, you know, and by all accounts she’s not having an easy time of it. Of course, she’s always been a rather sickly-looking little thing.’
For once in his life Dover put two and two together and got the right answer. ‘Six months?’ he repeated. ‘I thought you just said she hadn’t been married as long as six months?’
Mrs Lickes lowered her eyes. ‘I was only speaking in round numbers,’ she said. ‘Of course, with Millie Hooper being so enormous, you do tend to think she’s further gone than she actually is.’
‘ ’Strewth,’ guffawed Dover, ‘they must have hit the blooming jackpot pretty quick!’
‘I suppose in their case there was nothing much to wait for,’ murmured Mrs Lickes. ‘Most young couples have got all kinds of financial problems and nowhere proper to live. The Hoopers hadn’t any problems on that score.’
Dover sniggered. 'Maybe they jumped the gun a bit, eh?’ Having, at last, got Dover under starter’s orders, Mrs Lickes could afford to wax indignant. ‘I don’t know what you mean!’ she protested. ‘Millie Hooper isn’t that kind of girl at all.’
‘It’s these innocent ones that usually get caught.’
‘They don’t get caught if they don’t do something wrong in the first place,’ retorted Mrs Lickes hotly. 'And Millie Hooper just wouldn’t have dared. Her father would have killed her. Why, if he’d suspected for one second that that baby had been conceived out of wedlock, he’d have thrown Millie and her husband out of that house so quick their feet wouldn’t have touched the ground!’
Five
Dover had hoped to make it downstairs to the bathroom and back before the next witness arrived but things took a little longer than he had anticipated. He laboured, panting and blaspheming, up the precipitous stairs to find a grim-faced Wing Commander Pile already standing bolt upright in the middle of the bedroom.
‘I believe,’ said Wing Commander Pile, squinting disdainfully down his nose, ‘that you wished to see me.’
Dover removed his overcoat and dropped it by the side of his bed. ‘Got to see all the murder suspects,’ he explained as he bent down to kick off his unlaced boots. ‘Where’s the girl?’
Wing Commander Pile’s closely shaven jaw tightened as he watched Dover clamber back into bed and tug the sheets up. ‘You are not proposing to conduct this interview on your back, I trust?’ he asked icily.
‘I can understand you being surprised,’ grunted Dover, digging about under the bedclothes for something that was sticking into him. ‘Most men in my state of health’d be in hospital, not flogging themselves to a shadow doing their duty. Of course,’ – he brought out a piece of toast and examined it morosely – ‘that’s always been my trouble – too bloody conscientious.’ He sighed and shoved the
