Dover Strikes Again

in blood. They were only wearing pyjamas, too, and it was pouring with rain and very cold. The wing commander told us that the roof of their house had come down on top of them and then we decided that the best thing would be for my wife to bring the girl back to the Blenheim Towers and put her to bed. I thought the wing commander should have gone with them but he refused. He said he wanted to go back to his house and try and salvage some of his belongings and get some clothes and things. After that, he was determined to help with the rescue work. I must confess I thought that was a quite unnecessary gesture, considering the state the chap was in, but he insisted. I suppose,’ added Mr Lickes with a slightly disparaging sniff, ‘it’s the service training. Gives them a sense of duty.’
Dover gazed dully at Mr Lickes and offered no comment.
‘Well,’ continued Mr Lickes, giving the toes of his right foot a vigorous work-out, ‘Wing Commander Pile and I got to where North Street crosses East Street and it was utter chaos. People were rushing about and shouting and screaming and there was this sort of awful gap where the top side of North Street had been. I can’t tell you how dreadful it was.’
‘Good,’ said Dover briskly. ‘Don’t!’
Mr Lickes blinked. He was all for cutting things short but one does like one’s efforts to be appreciated. He thought that detectives were supposed to bornbard you with questions and demand the most detailed accounts. This specimen didn’t even seem mildly interested in anything. ‘Well,' he asked uncertainly, ‘what is it you want to know?’
Dover blew his cheeks out with an air of hopelessness. ‘Oh, who you saw and what you did,’ he advised. ‘Just cut out the hearts-and-flowers stuff.’
Hearts-and-flowers stuff? Mr Lickes supposed that included any description of the horrors and the suffering he had witnessed that terrible night. Oh well, if that’s what Chief Inspector Dover wanted, he could have it. ‘As far as I can remember, the first person I saw after I’d met up with Wing Commander Pile was one of those artist types from the place they call the Studio. That’s the house in East Street opposite Mr Chantry’s place.’
‘Name?’ said Dover.
‘Oliver, Jim Oliver. He’s the painter. The other man’s a sculptor and the woman does pottery. Well, Jim Oliver was just coming out of their house. He’d got a spade he’d come back for. We were just asking him what was happening when young Hooper loomed up out of the darkness.’ Mr Lickes glanced at Dover doubtfully. ‘Colin Hooper is Mr Chantry’s son-in-law,' he said.
‘I know that!’ snarled Dover. ‘Get on with it!’
‘Well, he told us that the worst part seemed to be over by the pub. He and Mr Chantry had been doing what they could in that area but they needed help. I volunteered to go back with him, and Wing Commander Pile said he’d join us as soon as he’d collected some clothes. Jim Oliver, though, said he and Lloyd Thomas had been trying to rescue a woman at the other end of North Street – that’s why he’d come back for the spade – and so he’d have to get back there. Well, we split up then. Colin Hooper and I went off in the direction of the pub but, when we got as far as the cottages, I found young Mrs Jenkins trying to free her husband from a pile of bricks and things that had fallen across his legs. I stopped off to help her and Colin Hooper went on. I think he said something about joining his father-in-law. After that, I honestly don’t remember noticing anybody much. We got Mr Jenkins free and his wife and I dragged him clear and then carried him off to the Studio. They’ve got a big sort of kitchen there and it sort of developed into a casualty clearing station. When I’d got Jenkins settled I went back to the cottages. I knew the people who lived in the middle one – the girl helps out in the kitchen for us when we’re busy – and . . .’
‘All right, you’re a hero,’ said Dover sourly. ‘Me, I’m interested in Chantry.’
‘I didn’t see Mr Chantry.’
‘Not at all?’
'Not at all.’
‘But you were working in the same area.’
‘Yes, but you’ve no idea what it was like. Everything had just slipped down the side of the hill. All you could do was scramble down in the dark and start pulling the debris away and shouting to see if there was anybody trapped underneath. It was heavy work and it took simply hours. You’d no time to bother about what anybody else was doing. I just got on with my bit and I suppose everybody else was the same.’
‘Didn’t you notice anybody?’
‘Only the poor devils I was trying to pull out – and none of them was in any state to go around committing murder, I can tell you.’
Dover scowled. It was going to be one of those cases, all right. It’d take a miracle to sort this lot out and Dover knew, none better, how very few miracles had ever smiled on him. ‘Did you see Chantry’s son-in-law?’ he asked, since Mr Lickes appeared to be waiting for him to say something.
Mr Lickes shook his head. ‘Not until it was light and the police and everybody’d got up here. When they arrived and took over, most of the rest of us packed it in. We’d just about had it, you understand. My wife had set up a sort of canteen in Chantry’s front garden and she and some of the other ladies were serving tea and sandwiches. I stopped off for a cup and I seem to remember that Colin Hooper was there, too. After that I came back to the hotel and had a quick bath and changed and then it was time to start