‘Blimey!’ said Dover.
But MacGregor was not going to be denied. He pulled his notebook out and turned with an air of importance to a clean page. ‘We’ll stick to a chronological order, I think, sir. Now, who was the first person you interviewed yesterday afternoon?’
‘I don’t know,’ grumbled Dover unhelpfully. ‘Pile, was it? Or Lickes?’
‘I think it was Mr Lickes, sir.’ MacGregor wrote the name down in large capitals. He looked up. ‘Can I get your notes for you, sir?’
‘What notes?’
‘The notes you took at the interview, sir.’ One look at Dover’s face provided the answer but MacGregor couldn’t stop himself asking the question.
‘How could I take notes when I was lying sick in bed?’ howled Dover. ‘You want it with blood on, you do.’
‘Perhaps you can recall what Mr Lickes said, sir.’
Dover tried to find a more comfortable sitting position on his chair. ‘Of course I can! He said that he and his missus got up after the earthquake and went out into the village. They met Pile and his daughter. Mrs Lickes brought the girl back here and Lickes stayed on to help with the rescue work.’ MacGregor’s pencil hovered forlornly over his notebook. ‘Is that all, sir?’
‘That’s the gist of it,’ said Dover.
‘Did he see Mr Chantry?’
‘Says he didn’t.’
‘Well, did you gather anything about Mr Lickes’s attitude to Mr Chantry, sir?’
‘No,’ said Dover, just for the pleasure of seeing the look on MacGregor’s face. ‘Well, there was something about turning this place into a motel. Lickes wasn’t wild about the idea.’
‘They quarrelled?’
‘Not according to Lickes.’ Dover wriggled around in an effort to ease his aching buttocks. ‘You’ll not find a motive for murder there, laddie. Lickes owns this hotel. He can please himself what he does with it. Chantry was just chucking out potty suggestions.’
‘He might have threatened to open up another hotel in opposition, sir?’ suggested MacGregor hopefully.
‘And pigs might fly! Look, laddie, we’re supposed to be solving a murder case, not making up fairy stories.’
MacGregor accepted the rebuke. ‘Who did you see next, sir?’
‘Pile,’ said Dover, beginning to look bored. ‘Now, he actually admits having seen Chantry so you can stick his name down.’
‘But he was a friend of Chantry’s, wasn’t he, sir?’ objected MacGregor. ‘And would he kill a man who’d just rescued him and his daughter?’
‘Stranger things have happened at sea.’
‘Did he say anything else, sir?’
‘Who?’
‘Wing Commander Pile, sir.’
‘Oh,’ – Dover scratched his head in a burst of irritation – ‘he complained about the goings on of that bunch of artists. All highly exaggerated,’ he remembered crossly. ‘Then,’ he went on, determined to get all this over with as soon as possible, ‘I saw Mrs Lickes. She’d nothing much to say, either.’
‘But she confirmed her husband’s story, sir?’
‘They always do,’ said Dover gloomily.
‘Did she like Mr Chantry?’
Dover was beginning to stare blankly out of the window. There was a lengthy pause. ‘Search me,’ he said at last.
MacGregor recognized the danger signs. Even with his life in jeopardy, Dover was incapable of concentrating on anything for more than a couple of minutes at a time. MacGregor tried to revive the chief inspector’s flagging interest. ‘Should we try a different tack, sir?’
Dover blew wearily down his nose. ‘I wish you’d make up your flipping mind.’
‘I’m only trying to jog your memory, sir. If we keep talking about the case, something might just go click.’
‘Something has!’ Dover stood up and rubbed himself vigorously. ‘My blooming spine! I’ve gone all numb sitting on that dratted chair.’ His eyes began to swivel round to the bed.
‘I thought if we worked out some kind of a timetable, sir,’ said MacGregor hurriedly, ‘and mapped out people’s movements round about the vital time, we might. . .’
‘A good idea!’ approved Dover, stretching himself elaborately. ‘Ooh, my poor old back! Yes, right – well, you carry on with that and I’ll have a look at it when you’ve finished.’ He took a casual step or two away from the window.
‘I really think it would be better if we worked on it together, sir.’
‘Of course, of course!’ Dover reached the bed and sat down with the contentment of a homing pigeon. He plumped up the pillows. ‘Anything you say, laddie.’
‘We really must get on with it, sir!’ protested MacGregor as Dover swung his feet up with an ecstatic grunt. ‘Another attempt may be made on your life at any moment!’
Dover raised his head a couple of inches from the pillow. ‘Just pull that eiderdown up over my feet, will you? There’s one hell of a draught coming from somewhere. Ah,’ – he sank back again – ‘that’s better. Now, you go right ahead and I’ll chip in when you get stuck, eh?’
MacGregor ground his teeth with suppressed fury and, seizing his chair, crashed it down a couple of inches from Dover’s nose. He settled himself on it and filled his lungs. ‘The earthquake occurred at exactly two o’clock, sir,’ he announced in ringing tones, ‘and everybody with the exception of the three artists appears to have been in bed. We’ve got to allow people a few minutes to take in what was happening and then they begin to move. A lot of people, of course, like the regular guests in this hotel, didn’t do anything which is of much interest to us. They didn’t leave their homes, or if they did, they didn’t go anywhere near the scene of the crime. In fact, because of the peculiar way the earthquake split the village in two, most of the inhabitants couldn’t reach the scene of the crime at all until long after Chantry was dead, even if they’d wanted to.’
‘Oh, quite,’ murmured Dover, just to show that he was all ears.
‘So that allows us to eliminate a large part of Sully Martin’s population from the list of suspects. We can also eliminate a lot of other people, too, the victims who were killed or badly injured in the earthquake, the people who were looking after them until the
