Dover Strikes Again

wits she still possesses. She’d got up, too, and gone into Mrs Boyle’s room. In the end all three of us spent the rest of the night there. Miss Dewar and I curled up as best we could on a couple of chairs while Mrs Boyle just stayed in bed, looking’ – a rather malicious gleam appeared in Miss Kettering’s eye – ‘like the Rock of Gibraltar. Such a source of strength to the rest of us! She knew it was an earthquake, of course, having been connected with the navy for so long. She’s always right about things like that. She doesn’t believe in standing for any nonsense either, you know. She was quite sharp when poor Miss Dewar kept snivelling that it was the end of the world and I had to be frightfully careful that she didn’t spot my poor old crystal ball. When I realized that there was no danger of contamination by fall-out, I suggested we might be safer outside in the open air but Mrs Boyle wasn’t having any of that either. Mind you, it was raining very heavily.’
‘I see,’ said MacGregor, digesting these snippets of information carefully. ‘So you, Mrs Boyle and Miss Dewar remained here in the hotel and in each other’s company for the remainder of that night?’
‘Yes.’ Miss Kettering regarded MacGregor shrewdly. ‘So we couldn’t have murdered Mr Chantry, could we?’
‘Has anybody suggested that you did, madam?’
‘Not so far but, presumably, everybody in the village is more or less under suspicion. What time was Mr Chantry actually killed?’
MacGregor, in spite of his elegant appearance, was a real policeman. He preferred asking questions to answering them. ‘Oh, some time before dawn,’ he said reluctantly.
‘Well, I can vouch for Mrs Boyle and Miss Dewar until after lunch when we all went to our rooms for a rest, and they’ll be able to vouch for me. We were never out of each other’s sight for more than a couple of minutes. I was all for going to help with the rescue work but Mrs Boyle said I’d be more trouble than I was worth, and she was probably right. Still, I felt guilty about just sitting here.’
Dover bestirred himself. He gave a tremendous yawn and scratched his head. The dandruff fell in a shower on his shoulders. ‘Anybody got a fag?’ he asked.
When he had got Dover contentedly dribbling ash down the lapels of his jacket, MacGregor resumed his interrogation. ‘What about the other people in the hotel?’
‘The other people?’ Miss Kettering hesitated. She didn’t exactly relish the role of police informer but, on the other hand, she couldn’t see what harm it would do. Whoever had murdered Mr Chantry, it wasn’t anybody from the Blenheim Towers, of that she was quite sure. ‘Well, there weren’t all that many other people here, actually. Only Mr Revel. Wing Commander Pile and Linda didn’t join us until after the earthquake, of course.’
MacGregor glanced across at Mr Revel, who was still absorbed in the silent flickerings of his television screen. ‘Did he leave the hotel?’
‘Mr Revel?’ Miss Kettering’s mouth dropped open but then she recovered her sense of humour and gave MacGregor a reproving slap on the knee. ‘Silly boy!’
‘We have to check on everybody, madam,’ MacGregor pointed out stiffly.
‘But you might as well suspect me, dear!’
MacGregor studiously said nothing.
Miss Kettering sighed. She had thought that hob-nobbing with a couple of real live Scotland Yard detectives was going to be such fun. ‘To the best of my knowledge,’ she said distantly, ‘Mr Revel has not left the grounds of this hotel for the last five years. Even on one of his good days it takes him at least two hours to get to the gates at the bottom of the drive. If you think he is capable of making his way as far as North Street in the pitch dark and murdering a man forty years his junior with his bare hands – well,' – Miss Kettering paused for breath and grammatical orientation – ‘you must have a very vivid imagination, that’s all I can say. Leave the hotel? Why, the poor old thing didn’t even wake up. He slept right through till breakfast time like a babe in arms.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘Of course I’m sure of it. At breakfast time Mrs Boyle and Miss Dewar and I spent twenty minutes trying to explain things to him. Even when he understood us, he wouldn’t believe us. It’s a point of principle with him not to believe anything any woman tells him. We just had to wait until Mr Lickes had time to cope with him.’
‘Ah, Mr Lickes!’ MacGregor restrained himself from pouncing too ferociously. ‘I suppose he left the hotel, did he?’
‘What would you expect him to do?’ demanded Miss Kettering tartly. ‘Cower under the beds like the rest of the silly old women in this place? We could hear all those people screaming and shouting quite distinctly, you know. It was obvious that something terrible had happened. Both Mr and Mrs Lickes rushed out to help as soon as they’d pulled some clothes on and been round to see that the rest of us were all right. Mrs Lickes came back after a bit to make tea and sandwiches for the rescue workers and the injured but Mr Lickes didn’t return until much later. He was nearly dead on his feet, poor man. He . . .’
Dover perked up again, revived by the mention of food and drink. ‘What time do they bring this toast stuff round?’
‘Oh, not for ages yet, dear.’ Miss Kettering came to a painful decision. Masculine company or no masculine company, she had had enough of being grilled for one evening. She eyed MacGregor severely. Maybe she was growing old but, really, she did find the young so brutal these days! She stood up.
‘You going?’ The question came from Dover who, while not exactly enamoured of Miss Kettering, had no wish to be left tete-a-tete with his sergeant.
Miss Kettering smiled down