‘Funny man!’ said the girl.
Mr Lickes was delighted. ‘Oh, so you think I’m funny, do you? Well, how about this, then?’ He put his dish down, had a quick look round to see that he’d got enough room and turned a somersault.
Linda Pile clapped her hands and spurred Mr Lickes on to more acrobatic feats. He did a couple of cartwheels which sent the poor child into ecstasies.
‘Isn’t she sweet?’ murmured Miss Kettering.
‘Such a shame!’ agreed Miss Dewar and dabbed her eyes.
Mr Lickes let rip with an allez-oop and stood on his head,
peering up at Linda and pulling funny faces. Then he hoisted himself a little higher and began to walk, rather unsteadily, on his hands.
The performance began to get rather noisy and Mrs Lickes came out of the kitchen to see what on earth was going on. At the same time Wing Commander Pile came through the door from the entrance hall.
Wing Commander Pile must have had the gift of instant comprehension because he took the entire scene and its implications in at one glance: his daughter jumping about in unfeigned joy, Mr Lickes willingly making a fool of himself and everybody else watching.
‘Stop that!’ he roared.
Linda’s giggles continued but the rest of the room fossilized into a shocked silence as Mr Lickes picked himself up off the floor.
Wing Commander Pile marched across and stood towering over his daughter. ‘Be quiet, Linda!’ he shouted.
The girl didn’t seem to understand. She pointed at Mr Lickes.‘ Funny man, Daddie!’
‘I told you to shut up!’ The wing commander had his hand half raised in a gesture that might have meant anything before MacGregor was out of his seat. Mr Lickes was nearer and quicker. He caught hold of the wing commander’s arm.
Wing Commander Pile’s face went black with fury. He whipped round and knocked Mr Lickes’s hand away. ‘Don’t you touch me!’ he snarled with such ferocity that Mr Lickes took a precautionary step backwards. ‘And don’t you dare speak to my daughter again, you . . . you performing monkey! I shan’t warn you a second time!’
‘Here, steady on!’ stammered Mr Lickes.
Wing Commander Pile advanced on him, clenching his hands into useful looking fists. ‘I’m sick to death of you hanging round her, you lecher! What’s the matter – aren’t there enough normal girls for you to paw about?’
‘Here, I say!’ protested Mr Lickes.
The wing commander turned back to his daughter. ‘Come on, Linda!’
Linda’s pretty face fell. 'Din-dins,’ she said. A dribble of saliva began trickling down her face.
‘We’ll have luncheon in our rooms. Oh, do come along when you’re told!’ He reached across the table and dragged her to her feet. The laughter of a few minutes ago turned inevitably to tears, loud and uninhibited.
‘Look,’ said Mr Lickes, ‘there’s no need to . . .’
The wing commander continued to propel his squawling daughter out of the dining-room. ‘There’s every need!’ he barked. He stopped for a moment to throw his next words straight into Mr Lickes’s face. ‘And don’t you try creeping up on me in the dark! You might get rather more than you bargained for!’
‘Never a dull moment,’ said Dover as the door banged shut and MacGregor resumed his seat at their table.
‘The man must be mad, sir.’
‘Pile?’ Dover tore a chunk off his bread roll and shoved it into his mouth. ‘He’s got a point, if you ask me. A child’s mind in a woman’s body? You can’t blame him for taking a few precautions.’
A pale-faced Mr Lickes set the soup bowls down on the table with a trembling hand. Dover watched with sly amusement. ‘That’s knocked a bit of the bounce out of him,' he observed.
MacGregor glanced at Mr Lickes as he served the other tables. ‘You realize that Pile practically accused him of being the murderer, sir?’
Unfortunately Dover was already eating his soup and it is doubtful if MacGregor’s softly worded question even penetrated the sound barrier. In any case, there was no response.
After lunch MacGregor still insisted that Dover should inspect the scene of the crime, in spite of having it very forcibly pointed out to him that the chief inspector’s stomach was likely to react with unspeakable violence if it didn’t get its postprandial nap.
‘Nonsense, sir!’ said MacGregor with all the callousness of the young and healthy. ‘Fresh air and a bit of exercise will do you the world of good.’
Dover doubted this from the bottom of his heart but actually he was quite pleased to be getting out of the Blenheim Towers for a bit. Even he appreciated an occasional change of scenery.
MacGregor couldn’t get the unpleasant scene in the dining-room out of his mind. ‘I wonder if Lickes could be involved in Chantry’s murder, sir?’
‘Anything’s possible,’ grunted Dover, noting with disgust that they were back on that boring old subject again. ‘If he is, his wife must be in cahoots with him.’
‘Not necessarily sir. She’d come back to the hotel with the . . .’
Dover scowled. ‘The attempt on me, you fool! You seem to be paying no blooming attention to that at all. Lickes couldn’t have fixed that wire up in the middle of the night without his wife at least guessing what he’d been up to.’
‘I suppose not, sir. I was wondering, though, if Lickes could be a bit of a lad for the ladies.’
‘Oh, ’strewth!’ groaned Dover.
‘Perhaps it is a bit far-fetched, sir,’ admitted MacGregor, ‘but suppose Lickes was having an affair with somebody in the village and Walter Chantry found out about it. He threatens to expose Lickes and Lickes kills him.’
‘You’ve got a mind like the wall of a public lavatory,’ said Dover, stopping to give his feet a rest. ‘Any proof that Lickes is a womanizer?’
‘Well, only what Wing Commander Pile more or less hinted at just now, sir.’
Dover thought for a moment. ‘How about Chantry being a sex maniac, the Don Juan of Sully Martin? He makes improper advances to
