A kindly darkness masked the sneer on Dover’s face and the superintendent looked around for something else to interest his guests.
‘There’s the church,’ he said, indicating a noble mediaeval pile on his left. ‘It’s a blessing that’s still standing. There’d have been some glum faces knocking around if that had gone. You’ll see where the steeple fell when we get round the comer into East Street.’
Chief Inspector Dover stumped wearily on. For all he cared, you could take every mediaeval church and steeple in Christendom and stuff ’em. He’d more serious problems on his mind. His feet and his stomach, to name but two. Both, of course, were always with him but at the moment they were causing him even more anxiety than usual. His stomach had been rumbling menacingly for some time and what those bloody Wellington boots were doing to his feet didn’t bear thinking about. Everybody knew rubber drew your feet something cruel and the last thing Dover’s feet needed was drawing.
MacGregor, too, had other preoccupations though his were of a less personal nature. ‘What sort of man was this Chantry fellow?’ he asked.
‘Walter Chantry?’ repeated Superintendent Underbarrow. ‘Well, I didn’t really know him, of course. Sat on the same committees with him once or twice but that’s about all. Middle-aged. Widower. Lived here in Sully Martin with his married daughter and her husband.’
‘A professional man?’
‘A builder. In a very good way of business, too, by all accounts. Tragic, really. He’d have made a packet out of this lot, wouldn’t he?’ Superintendent Underbarrow chuckled softly to himself. ‘Ah, well, that’s life! We turn left again here, sergeant. Yes, a builder he was. Had his offices and yard over at Keilet Sands. Look – that’s where the steeple came down. Right across this road – see? It blocked it completely for several hours but they’ve cleared it away now, of course. By the way, sergeant, you’ll see what this means from your point of view?’
‘Er – not exactly, sir.’
‘Well, for an hour or more after the actual earthquake, that devastated part of the village where Chantry’s body was found was completely cut off. The main road up through the old Sally Gate was blocked by the landside. West Street, the one we just came along, was cut by that ravine thing and I can’t see anybody scrambling across that in the dark, can you?’
MacGregor bit his lip and looked thoughtfully around. ‘And this street, East Street, was blocked by the fallen steeple?’
‘That’s right. It narrows the field of suspects down a bit.’
‘And there’s no other way through?’
‘I suppose you could get across this central square area, here, through the churchyard perhaps and over a few garden walls, but it’d be far from easy. There’s spikes and barbed wire and broken glass all over the place. Some of our lads explored it as a possible route this morning but they said it was well nigh hopeless. Well, if a couple of fit young coppers can’t do it in broad daylight . . . Oh, we turn right down this lane here.’ He turned back to call encouragingly over his shoulder to the bulky and glowering figure that was falling farther and farther behind. ‘We’re all but there, chief inspector!’
Dover’s reply was inaudible but short.
At the end of the lane they came to a fair-sized house which stood rather primly in its own neglected looking grounds. Wrought-iron gates hung crazily open, their rusty hinges showing that they had not been used for many years. PC Rowney, still carrying his two suitcases, led the way up the short circular drive which swept, rather meanly and weedily, up to the front door.
Dover, dimly sensing that food, warmth and shelter were at long last within sight, caught up with the others just as they were mounting the short flight of steps.
‘Home at last!’ beamed Superintendent Underbarrow as Dover stopped dead in his tracks and stared up at the peeling sign which hung above the front door. ‘You’ll not be sorry to get in out of this rain, eh?’
The habitual bad-tempered expression on Dover’s face gradually gave way to a scowl of bleak fury. His eyesight not being what it used to be, he read the sign again before exploding with an oath that set even PC Rowney’s ears tingling.
Superintendent Underbarrow blinked. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘That’s the matter, you great gibbering idiot!’ howled Dover and pointed a fat, trembling finger at the sign.
MacGregor felt an iron hand of apprehension clutch his heart. He scurried back down the front steps to see what it was that had reduced his superior officer to a quivering jelly of wrath.
Oh, God!
The sign was blistered and faint but perfectly legible. There was no mistaking its dreadful message, ‘THE BLENHEIM TOWERS PRIVATE HOTEL,’ it read. ‘Unlicensed.’
Two
It was a good quarter of an hour before Dover’s boiling rage could be reduced to a more manageable simmering sulk. The handful of residents and guests, who had gathered to have a discreet peep at the exciting new arrivals, retreated in some disorder to their rooms, the more timid ones amongst them going so far as to hide their heads under the bedclothes. Really, the language! It was much worse than the time the Reverend Adalbert Brown’s partner had failed to return his lead when their opponents (vulnerable) were on a little slam in spades, doubled and redoubled.
The brunt of the vituperation was borne, of course, by a bewildered Superintendent Underbarrow. Even Dover couldn’t hold Sergeant MacGregor entirely responsible for this particular catastrophe, much as he would have liked to. The superintendent, once he had grasped that Dover was not being funny, had hastened to defend himself and the accommodation
