‘God moves in a mysterious way,’ sneered Dover. ‘His wonders to perform.’
MacGregor ignored the remark. ‘Chantry and Colin Hooper would have come out of the front door, I imagine, sir, and Chantry would have come across the road about here somewhere to get to the Piles’ house. Hooper must have gone off in that direction – towards the Sally Gate. Now, the three artists must have come out of the Studio over there and gone away from us, down East Street.’ MacGregor frowned. ‘I still think that’s a bit funny, don’t you, sir? I know it was dark and nobody knew what the dickens was going on but – to go right away from where all the damage was?’
Dover fidgeted uneasily. If he didn’t look out, he’d be landed with yet another blow-by-blow account of the whole blooming business. He decided to break up MacGregor’s rhythm. ‘What’s that?’ he asked, pointing to a spot somewhere to the left of where Wing Commander Pile’s house had been.
MacGregor fell for it. ‘Those houses, sir? Well, I think they were a row of farm labourers’ cottages.’ He began hunting through his pockets for his large-scale plan of the village. ‘I can tell you who lived there, sir, if I can just find . . . They were pretty badly damaged, as you can see, and several of the occupants were injured.’
Dover let MacGregor get his plan out and spread it out on the ground before saying calmly, ‘Not the cottages.’
MacGregor, already down on his knees, looked up. ‘Not the cottages, sir?’
Dover inclined his head towards a curved piece of kerbing stone which was still in place. ‘Was there a road there, between Pile’s house and your precious cottages?’
‘Er – yes, sir.’ MacGregor flattened out his map again. ‘It was a sort of continuation of East Street.’ He peered at the plan. ‘Yes, here we are – cutting North Street at right angles. Sidle Alley. Yes, I remember, sir. Superintendent Underbarrow mentioned it. It was just a sort of glorified cart track, really, running down by the side of Wing Commander Pile’s house and curving left down the hill to where it joined the main road. I don’t think it’s of much interest to us, sir. There were no houses along it, only sheds and garages and things like that and, as you can see, it bore the brunt of the earthquake. The whole stretch must have virtually disappeared within seconds of the first tremor.’
‘Sidle Alley?’ muttered Dover, wrinkling his nose. ‘Damn silly name.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said MacGregor.
A workman emerged from a temporary hut which had been erected a few yards away. He looked at Dover and MacGregor, decided they weren’t snoopers from County Hall and went back inside again.
‘We going to hang about here all day?’ asked Dover.
‘You’ve not thought of anything, sir?’
‘No,’ said Dover who held world ranking as a bare-faced liar.
MacGregor sighed and the pair of them began to wend their way back to the Blenheim Towers. The van was still standing outside the Studio but there was now no sign of any of the artists. Across the road, poor Millie Hooper mistimed it again. After waiting timidly in the kitchen for a good ten minutes, she had opted for the back door only to find that those horrid policemen were still there, spying on her. She fled back to the sanctuary of her kitchen and had hysterics.
MacGregor watched this performance with hopeful interest but Dover had too much on his mind to bother about the neurotic behaviour of pregnant women. Having solved the mystery of the murder of Walter Chantry (and, in consequence, that of Mrs Boyle as well) his thoughts were now fully occupied with the mechanics of pulling a fast one on MacGregor. Dover didn’t often solve his cases but, when he did, he liked to get the exclusive credit for it. In this particular instance, however, he had another axe to grind. MacGregor needed taking down a peg' or two. Dover hadn’t forgotten the disgraceful bullying to which he had recently been subjected and he was determined to get his own back. He didn’t underestimate the magnitude of the task before him, it not being easy for a detective to arrest a murderer without his closest colleague knowing anything about it. Still, he comforted himself, where there’s a will, there’s a way.
He began laying the first bricks of a false trail. ‘There’s a through train back to London in the morning, isn’t there?’ he asked and enjoyed the look of horror that crossed MacGregor’s face.
‘We’re not leaving, are we, sir?’
‘Can’t see much point in hanging on here,’ said Dover. ‘We aren’t getting anywhere. Why go on flogging a dead duck?’
‘But, sir, we haven’t been here more than a couple of days. Mrs Boyle was only killed twelve hours ago. What’s the chief constable going to say? What are they going to say at the Yard? Good heavens, sir – this is the sort of think they ask questions about in Parliament!’
‘Pshaw!’ sniffed Dover. ‘My responsibility, isn’t it? I’m in charge of the case and in my opinion we’ve gone as far as we can. We can always reopen the investigation if anything new turns up. I’ve got to look at this from the wider aspect.’
‘The wider aspect, sir?’
‘The taxpayers’ money, laddie,’ exclaimed Dover with a sweet reasonableness calculated to try the patience of a saint. ‘It doesn’t grow on trees, you know. Now, as soon as we get back, you get hold of old Wheelbarrow and tell him I’ll want some transport laid on.’
MacGregor didn’t go down without a fight. He spent the remainder of their journey back to the hotel pleading
