He pouted sulkily at the Studio door. They were taking their blooming time, and no mistake. He rang again and added a couple of kicks for good measure. The toe of his boot didn’t do the sparkling white paintwork much good but it did achieve the required result.
The door opened and a big, bearded man dressed in a shortie flannel nightshirt appeared in the opening. His legs and feet were bare. Dover cheered up. It looked as though the bit about nudism was true anyway.
‘You waiting for a tram, Sam?’
Dover tore his eyes away from the big man’s toenails. Were they really varnished alternately green and gold? ‘Detective Chief Inspector Dover,’ he announced with an ingratiating smile, ‘from Scotland Yard.’
‘Got a warrant?’
‘A warrant?’ yelled Dover. ‘What do I want a warrant for? I only want to ask you a few questions.’
‘Is that so?’ The big man propped himself up against the door jamb. ‘OK, ask away!’
‘Out here?’
‘Why not? I’m easy. No law, is there, that says we’ve got to have you inside?’
‘No, there’s no law,’ admitted Dover unhappily, ‘but it is usual.’
‘So you’ll enjoy the change,’ said the big man coolly. ‘Besides, we’ve already had one scuffer trampling all over the Aubusson this morning. What gives – a harassment?’
‘Murder’s a very serious business,’ Dover pointed out, shifting his weight from one aching foot to the other.
‘Would you believe I save my worrying for ingrowing toenails? What’s the matter anyhow – don’t parking offences give you a kick any more?’
‘What’s your name?’ demanded Dover, fighting hard not to lose his temper and ruin everything.
‘Lloyd Thomas, O shining one! But you can call me master.’
Dover clutched at the straw with a quick wittedness that threats to his personal comfort sometimes inspired. ‘Then you’re not the householder, are you?’
‘Negative,’ agreed the big man. ‘That’s James-Love-Your-Local-Policeman Oliver.’ He pushed himself off the door jamb. ‘So enter in! Oliver’s got foam rubber for a heart. He wouldn’t keep even the wolf standing out in the cold.’
Lloyd Thomas padded softly up the stairs and led Dover into a large room on the first floor. Here was assembled as varied a collection of dust-covered junk as Dover had seen in many a long year. Every fad and fashion of the last decade seemed to have made its tawdry contribution. Victoriana fought it out with Art Noveau. African devil masks leered at crumpled examples of Japanese calligraphy. The walls were covered with posters of wanted bad men of the American West, bull fighting and Toulouse-Lautrec, all mixed in with domestically produced graffiti.
Dover searched amongst the bamboo and the stripped pine and the cubes covered in red leatherette for something on which he could sit without doing himself a mischief. That rocking horse in the comer?
Lloyd Thomas felt he had done his share of the honours. 'Wittgenstein,' he said, 'look what I found on the doorstep.’ A young woman, who had been lying sprawled on the floor in front of the stove, sat up, parted the streaky blonde curtain of her hair and looked out. ‘Oh, God!’ she groaned. ‘Jim’ll go spare! He ordered a strong bone structure, not a bag of jelly.’ Lloyd Thomas folded himself up into the window seat. ‘It isn’t a model, you idiot! It’s a rozzer.’
Dover lowered himself gingerly on to one of the cubes and hoped for the best.
The young woman flopped back on her hearth mg. ‘Thank God for that!’ she said. ‘I couldn’t face another of Jim’s temper tantrums, not tonight.’ She sat up again with a jerk. ‘For Christ’s sake, not another bloody policeman!’
‘Precisely my own sentiments,’ said Lloyd Thomas, nodding his head. ‘No need to take up panic stations though. It’s only about the Chantry murder.’
‘Nothing became that man’s life like his leaving it,’ Miss Wittgenstein commented petulantly. ‘A bloody nuisance, quick or dead.’
Dover judged it was about time he started getting in on the act. He settled his feet firmly on a home-made mat decorated with three feathers and the legend ‘God Bless Our Prince of Wales’ and addressed himself to Miss Wittgenstein. ‘You didn’t go much on Mr Chantry, eh?’
‘Watch it, Wittgenstein!’ advised Lloyd Thomas from the window seat. ‘Twenty years in Holloway will dull that dewy bloom on your cheeks – and just min your development as an artist.’
‘Nonsense!’ scoffed Miss Wittgenstein. ‘I’d never get twenty years, not for a creep like Chantry.’
‘They won’t give you no illuminated scroll, girlie.’
Miss Wittgenstein reached for a cigarette and lit it by holding it against the red-hot side of the stove. ‘Anyhow, who says it’s me they’re gunning for? I should have thought you two boys were much more alluring suspects.’ She caught Dover’s appealing glance. ‘Want a fag, fuzz?’
‘I wouldn’t say no,’ simpered Dover.
Miss Wittgenstein took the cigarette from her mouth and handed it over, lipstick-decorated end and all. Then she lit herself another.
‘Is that wise, Wittgenstein?’ asked Lloyd Thomas who had been watching the transaction with some apprehension.
‘Wise?’ Miss Wittgenstein looked blank for a moment. ‘Oh, I see what you mean. Give me some credit, duckie. I’m dispensing tobacco, not tea.’
The mention of the cup that cheers reminded Dover of the main purpose of his visit. ‘I could just do with a cup of tea,’ he remarked chattily. ‘It’s thirsty work, asking questions.’
‘You’ve only asked one so far,’ said Miss Wittgenstein with a preciseness that Dover could well have done without.
‘I haven’t started yet!’ he retorted with a flash of the old fire. ‘Still,’ – remembering that fires can bum your boats irretrievably – ‘I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble, miss. A glass of beer or such-like’d do me just as well.’
Before Miss Wittgenstein had a chance to pick up this delicate cue, the front door bell rang.
Lloyd Thomas folded his arms
