‘We had a crafty ace or two up our sleeves,’ Miss Wittgenstein chimed in and got a furious look for her pains.
‘The fact is, sergeant, that I’m the sitting tenant and, as such, I am immovable.’
‘Mr Chantry could have been making life rather unpleasant for you, sir.’
‘That creep?’ bellowed Lloyd Thomas. ‘Take it from me, scuffer, where persecution is concerned, Chantry didn’t even know where to begin. For God’s sake, look at us! Do we look the sort to be scared by a couple of sanctimonious, morality-spouting bastards like Chantry and old Haemorrhoids? What could they do but talk?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know, sir,’ murmured MacGregor noncommittally. He had one or two ideas he intended to investigate in his own good time. ‘Perhaps we could continue now with your movements round about the time of the murder? You’d decided not to go to the help of the Piles and Mr Chantry. What happened next?’
‘Just a minute!’ Dover held up a beefy hand which had in its time arrested the flow of London’s traffic.
‘You have a question sir?’
‘Well, I’m not requesting permission to leave the bloody room!’ barked Dover to the delight of Lloyd Thomas and Miss Wittgenstein. ‘I want to know why these three layabouts took so long.’
‘Took so long about what?’ asked Jim Oliver anxiously.
Dover jabbed an accusing finger at him. ‘Chantry was in bed – wasn’t he? – yet he’d time to get up, get dressed and rescue Pile and the girl before you lot even arrived on the scene. Either he ran like the clappers or you were dragging your feet more than somewhat.’
‘Ah,’ said Miss Wittgenstein quickly, ‘but we’d turned the other way first, you see, down East Street. We didn’t know where the real damage was and we only came back up towards North Street when we found the road blocked by the church steeple.’ She appealed to her companions. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, chaps?’
The chaps agreed that it was.
‘What have you got against Pile?’ demanded Dover, abruptly switching the point of his attack just for the hell of it.
‘‘ He was Chantry’s side-kick and little Sir Echo,’ said Lloyd Thomas. ‘Who wants more?’
‘We’d tried to be friendly,’ said Miss Wittgenstein, addressing herself to MacGregor because she thought he had a sympathetic face, ‘but, honestly, he used to back away from us as though we were lepers or something so now we don’t bother. As a matter of fact, I was all for going and giving a hand that night but Jim and L.T. here wouldn’t let me.’
‘They’d have spat in your eye, girl,’ said Lloyd Thomas bitterly. ‘Your trouble is you’re a dedicated masochist. Remember what happened the last time you tried to play Little Miss Philanthropy-Incorporated.’
Miss Wittgenstein sighed. ‘It was soon after they came here,’ she explained. ‘You see, I’ve done quite a bit of work with sub-normal children in my time and it’s amazing what you can achieve when you go about it properly. Pile’s doing all the wrong things with his daughter. He’s forever yacking on about how he’s devoted his life to her – you know, the big self-sacrifice kick – but the truth is he just keeps the kid cooped up as though she was some sort of animal. And, if you ask me, she’s nothing like as backward as everybody makes out. With a bit of proper training she could probably do . . .’ She swung her feet up on to the seat of her chair and hugged her knees resentfully. ‘Oh, well, out of the sheer goodness of my heart, I offered to have her over here for an hour or so every now and again and do some pottery with her. Well, it’s what she needs – an outside interest and a bit of normal company. Pottery would have been ideal and she would have got a hell of a kick out of it, poor little devil, but you should have heard old Pile when I suggested it. He made me feel like some old tart procuring for a Port Said brothel! That man’s got a mind like a sewer. Now, if it had been Pile who’d been murdered, I could have understood it. Compared with him. Chantry was almost human.’
‘Yes, well,’ said Jim Oliver as Miss Wittgenstein paused for well-earned breath, ‘it’s Mr Chantry we’re interested in at the moment, my love. We don’t want to keep the police here all night, do we?’
‘Why the hell not?’ asked Miss Wittgenstein aggressively. ‘At least they break up this dreary menage a trois.’
Lloyd Thomas got up and went to perch himself astride the rocking horse. ‘The door’s never locked, duckie,’ he said. ‘And you can bugger off any old time you feel like it.’
‘Oh yes, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ Miss Wittgenstein tossed her head angrily.
‘Three’s none,’ observed Lloyd Thomas with infuriating composure. ‘Anybody with a drop of sensitivity in their veins would have noticed they were highly redundant weeks and weeks ago.’
Miss Wittgenstein bared her teeth in a snarl. ‘That’s what you think! If Jim wasn’t such a soft-hearted slob, he’d have given you your marching orders before you even came.’
‘Children, children!’ Jim Oliver flashed a few warning glances around. ‘Shall we save the dirty linen for later, eh?’ Miss Wittgenstein, determined to exercise her feminine prerogative, collared the last word. ‘The only dirty linen round here,’ she snapped, ‘is on that great hairy brute!’
MacGregor hastened to call the meeting to order before Dover began getting nasty and the three artists were persuaded to continue with their story. To give him his due, Dover was not exhibiting any of his usual signs of impatience. He had, after all, achieved his nirvana: a comfortable chair, free booze and fags. He asked little more from life and the bickering going on around him wasn’t really troublesome because
