‘I’ve told you you can bring her up here,’ said Dover.
‘No!’
‘Suit yourself! I shan’t be keeping you much longer but, I’m afraid, if you think you’re going to be reunited with Miss Pile, you’re in for a big disappointment.’
‘We’ll see about that. So far, all I’ve heard from you is a lot of vague talk. When are you going to produce some facts?’ Dover began to count on his fingers. ‘Fact number one: you murdered Walter Chantry. Fact number two: you murdered him because he was the man who dug you and your daughter out of the ruins of your house.’
‘A gesture of gratitude, I suppose?’ sneered the wing commander.
‘No,’ said Dover, refusing to be drawn, ‘a gesture of pure self-preservation. If there was one thing Walter Chantry was, it was strait-laced. Everybody says that. Being a chum of yours wouldn’t have counted for anything. He’d have done his duty and exposed you without batting an eyelid.’
Wing Commander Pile sat very still. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I don’t know exactly what or how much he saw,’ Dover went relentlessly on, ‘because we’ve only got your version of the actual rescue. My guess is that at the very least he saw you in bed with your daughter.’
There was a tense silence, relieved only by the deafening squeak of Superintendent Underbarrow’s boots as he leaned expectantly forward.
‘Do you realize what you are saying?’ In spite of all his efforts, Wing Commander Pile’s voice came out cracked and strained.
Dover didn’t answer.
Wing Commander Pile tried again. ‘You can’t prove it.’
‘That’s better!’ said Dover. ‘I’m glad we’re not going to waste time on any protestations of innocence.’ He lit another of MacGregor’s cigarettes and once again let the smoke drift into the wing commander’s face. Dover never missed the chance of kicking a man when he was down. ‘Now, proof!’ He dropped the match on the floor. ‘Your daughter’s bedroom was round at the back of the house, wasn’t it? Overlooking Sidle Alley?’
‘I refuse to answer any more questions!’ shouted Wing Commander Pile with such unexpected violence that both Dover and Superintendent Underbarrow jumped nervously.
‘All right, all right!’ said Dover, keeping a wary eye on his prey. ‘You don’t have to say anything. I shall call Mr Lickes as a witness. You stopped him taking his evening exercise along Sidle Alley, didn’t you, because you said he was spying on the girl when she was getting undressed. I dare say there are plenty of other people in the village who could swear to where her bedroom was so we shan’t have any difficulty there. You get the point, don’t you? If your daughter had been in her own room at the time of the earthquake, she’d probably have been killed because that part of the house collapsed immediately and was totally destroyed. As it was, she didn’t suffer more than a few scratches and Chantry rescued her from the front of the house. He never went near Sidle Alley because by the time he arrived on the scene all that part was already half-way down the hill. Any comments?’
Wing Commander Pile clenched his hands together to hide their trembling. ‘I don’t have to explain anything. I deny categorically that what you say is true but, even if it was, it wouldn’t prove anything. Linda could have been frightened by the earthquake and run into my room.’
Dover shook his head. ‘That won’t wash. She wouldn’t have had time. The earthquake struck without warning. Everybody says that. Besides, if it was all as innocent and above board as that, what did you kill Chantry for?’
The wing commander was not too distraught to spot the weakness in that particular piece of reasoning. ‘But you’re arguing in circles!’ he protested. ‘You say I murdered Mr Chantry because . . . because of what he saw and then you say he must have seen something because I killed him. It’s so illogical.’
‘It’ll do to fix you!’ rasped Dover, beginning to get cross.
‘I can’t believe you’re serious. You still haven’t produced one single scrap of evidence. I think you’re bluffing.’
Superintendent Underbarrow looked anxiously at Dover. The wing commander was proving an uncomfortably tricky customer and it was unnerving to hear him producing exactly the same arguments that the superintendent himself had raised earlier on. The moment had now come for Dover to produce the ace which he was supposed to have up his sleeve. Superintendent Underbarrow, a regular churchgoer and bridge player, offered up a fervent prayer that it wasn’t going to be trumped.
Dover was beginning to sweat a bit, too. If he’d realized it was going to be all this trouble, he’d never have started the blooming thing. When you’ve actually solved a murder case, the least you expect is that the guilty party will chuck his hand in after a decent interval. He glared resentfully at Wing Commander Pile. Oh well, off with the kid gloves. ‘You don’t think I’d get a conviction?’
‘Not in a thousand years!’ came the scornful reply.
‘So I’ll need a confession from you, won’t I?’
‘I should like to know how you propose to get it. What are we in for now? Brain washing? Torture? Third degree?’ Dover shook his head. ‘You’re going to give me one. Oh, you will, mate! I’ve got the whip hand – see? Now, I agree with you. I don’t think I’ve got enough evidence to persuade a jury to convict you of murder.’
‘At last!’
‘But I reckon I have got just about enough to charge you and bring you to trial.’
Wing Commander Pile frowned. ‘What would be the point of that?’
‘Oh, come on, laddie! Use your brains! There’s more ways of killing a cat than skinning it. I’m going to throw you to the lions. What do you think the newspapers are going to do to you, eh? They’ll flay you alive! An ex-officer having it off with his own mentally retarded daughter? ’Strewth, your name’ll stink from one end of the country to the other.
