by Joyce Porter
Mr Hooper wrung his hands rather pathetically. ‘We’ve had a pretty rough time of it lately,' he explained, ‘what with Millie’s father – er – dying like he did and everything. Millie’s absolutely worn out. As a matter of fact she’s already gone up to bed.’
‘Well, you’ll just have to fetch her down again, won’t you?’ Dover managed to convey by his tone that he was falling over backwards in an effort to be reasonable. ‘If you nip upstairs now you’ll catch her before she’s had time to drop off.’
Colin Hooper could hardly believe his ears. ‘Fetch her down?’ he stammered. ‘In her condition? She’s six months pregnant, you know, and . . . Oh, hell!’ He broke off with a groan as a whistling kettle in the kitchen began to let off steam. ‘I’d better go and turn it off, I suppose. I was just going to make Millie a hot drink.’
‘Good idea!’ beamed Dover who prided himself on being the perfect guest. ‘Make it tea and we’ll all have a cup. MacGregor, give that fire a poke while Mr Hooper here goes and brews up.’ He turned to Colin Hooper whose somewhat slack mouth was opening and shutting with the desperation of a stranded goldfish. ‘You can fetch your wife down while it’s drawing, can’t you? And make it a good strong cup, laddie! I can’t abide tea that hasn’t got the strength to crawl out of the spout.’
Dover’s instructions were eventually executed to his complete satisfaction and a somewhat mixed foursome found themselves settled round the fire. The room was warming up nicely and the tea was black enough to put hair on your chest.
Something, however, still seemed to be lacking and Dover fidgeted about hopefully on his sofa.
Mrs Hooper, saucer-eyed with fright and weariness, nudged her husband who had perched himself protectively on the arm of her chair. ‘You should have brought some biscuits, Colin,’ she whispered timidly.
He frowned warningly at her. ‘They don’t want any biscuits,’ he whispered back.
Which is where he was wrong.
Mr Hooper flounced out of the room and then in again with mounting exasperation showing in every line of his face. Much to his wife’s dismay he had forgotten the best plates and a clean white doily. A whole packet of biscuits – naked, unashamed and sixpence off – was slapped down on the coffee table with the clear implication that those that didn’t like it could lump it.
Dover had a hand out before the coffee table had stopped vibrating.
Colin Hooper nerved himself for a bit of plain speaking. ‘Have you found my father-in-law’s murderer yet?’ he demanded.
‘Not quite,’ said Dover with the air of a cat positively constipated on canary feathers. ‘Not quite.’
‘But you are making some progress?’
‘Some progress,’ agreed Dover, implying that he could say much more were his lips not sealed. ‘I think I can safely say that one or two bits of the jig-saw puzzle are beginning to drop into place.’
Oh, Christ, thought MacGregor irreverently, what are we playing now – Hercules Bloody Poirot?
Millie Hooper was staring at Dover as though he were some obese and malignant idol that needed placating. ‘You’ve not had much time,’ she said.
‘True, true. Mind you, I’m not much of a one for sitting back with my feet up and letting the grass grow under ’em.’
‘I can see that,’ murmured Millie Hooper.
‘But it’s not all rushing around like a scalded clockwork mouse, you know.’ Dover jerked a fat and grimy thumb at MacGregor. ‘That’s where young hopefuls like him make their big mistake. It’s not dust you want to stir up, I tell ’em, it’s your brains!’ He leaned forward to address Mrs Hooper more intimately. ‘I don’t mind telling you I’ve solved more murders just sitting quietly with my eyes closed than you’ve had hot dinners.’
‘Gosh!’ said Millie Hooper.
It was left to Colin Hooper to break up what could have blossomed into a beautiful friendship. ‘Did you want to ask us something special?’
‘Eh?’
‘Well, making a special journey to come round here in the middle of the night, without warning, and . . .’
‘I’ve got my reasons,’ retorted Dover, managing to appear sly and defiant at the same time. ‘Besides, we didn’t make a special journey. I’ve just been having one of my little chats with that crummy bunch of daubers across the street. Most instructive, that was. Call themselves artists? I tell you, scum like that want.. .’
Even Dover noticed that his words were having a remarkable effect upon young Millie Hooper. Her face had not had much colour in it before but now it blanched to a staring white which made her eyes look bigger and rounder than ever. She tried to stifle the groan that rose to her lips by gripping the sleeve of her housecoat with her teeth.
Colin Hooper turned in alarm. ‘Millie, love, what is it?’
She shook her head, unable to answer.
Her distress was catching and it was Colin Hooper’s turn to go pale. ‘Oh, God,’ he cried, ‘it’s not starting already, is it?’ He jumped to his feet and tried to make Millie lie back in the chair. ‘Now, just you stay there, love, and don’t worry about anything. You’ll be all right. Just try and relax, eh? I’ll phone for the doctor right away.’
She summoned up enough strength to stop him before he dashed out of the room. ‘No, Colin, I don’t need the doctor. It’s not that.’
‘Well, what is it, love?’
Millie Hooper closed her eyes and then, helplessly, began to sob.
Her husband dropped on his knees beside her, murmuring vague reassurances. When these didn’t seem to be doing much good he broke off and rounded angrily on Dover. ‘This is all your fault, blast your eyes! Coming round here and frightening the life out of her! Well, I’m warning you, if anything happens to Millie or the baby, I’ll kill you, by God I will!’ Dover helped himself to another biscuit. ‘You want to watch that temper of yours, laddie. It’ll be getting you into trouble one of these days – if it hasn’t already.’
‘You stinking, sadistic old windbag!’ shouted Colin Hooper, losing control and beating his fists on the arm of Millie’s chair, ‘You’ve got thirty seconds to get out of my house!’ Millie Hooper, the tears still dribbling down her face, grabbed her husband’s hands. ‘Oh, Colin, don’t!’ she begged. ‘It’s no good. Can’t you see. He knows.’
Colin Hooper stared at her. ‘He knows?’
‘Why else should he come straight round here. She must have told him.’
Colin Hooper’s shoulders sagged dejectedly. ‘But you said she promised.’
‘I know, and she did, pet, but that was before Dad was murdered, wasn’t it? Things are different now. You can’t blame her really. They probably kept on and on at her until they broke her down.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Colin Hooper grimly, glaring at Dover, ‘bullying women, I should think that’s just about their mark.’ He put his arms round his wife’s shoulders.
Dover passed his empty tea cup to MacGregor for a refill and sat back, quite content to wait until somebody got around to explaining to him what the hell was going on.
‘Did she tell you?’
Dover looked Colin Hooper straight in the eye. ‘Yes,' he said.
There was a sharp and incredulous intake of breath from MacGregor but Colin Hooper didn’t notice. He was too busy putting on a bold face. ‘Well, I can’t see that it’s anything to make a fuss about, not these days. I mean, that Wittgenstein woman’s not all that much room to talk, has she? Some of the things they get up to over there’d make your hair curl but nobody goes round pointing a finger at them, do they?’
‘My dad did,’ sniffed Millie Hooper. ‘Oh, yes,’ – Colin Hooper nodded his head miserably – ‘your dad did.’
‘Well, that’s what we were bothered about, isn’t it? My dad.’ She turned apologetically to Dover. ‘I don’t know what I’m being such a silly about. It’s just that I haven’t really taken it in yet that my dad’s dead.’
‘Ah,’ said Dover.
MacGregor, as usual, was quicker on t
he uptake. He had to be, otherwise they’d have been sitting there all night. ‘Well, now, madam,’ he began with only a hint of menace in his voice, ‘perhaps you’d like to give us your version of what – er – happened. We’ve got Miss Wittgenstein’s statement, of course, but we want to be fair and’ – he made a great show of getting his notebook out – ‘hear your side of the story.’
‘That’s right,’ agreed Dover quickly so that Mr and Mrs Hooper wouldn’t start getting any erroneous ideas about who was top dog. ‘You just tell us all about it in your own words.* He gave MacGregor a warning glower. ‘Anything that’s not clear, I’ll ask the questions about.’
Millie Hooper sighed heavily, wiped her eyes on her husband’s handkerchief and blew her nose.
‘Just a minute!’ interposed Colin Hooper, finally dropping to below zero on Dover’s popularity chart. ‘I don’t see what this has got to do with anything.’
‘You wouldn’t!’ snarled Dover. ‘Well, take my word for it, laddie, it has.’
‘With Mr Chantry’s murder?’
‘Oh, stop arguing, Colin love,’ said Millie Hooper. ‘Just let’s get it over and done with.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Colin and me anticipated our marriage vows.’
‘ ’Strewth!’ groaned Dover and buried his head in his hands.
Millie Hooper felt cheated. When one has bared one’s innermost shame to a couple of complete strangers, one at least expects them to be shocked. ‘Twice!’ she added. ‘He climbed up on to the shed and through my bedroom window.’
‘And the Wittgenstein woman spotted him from their bathroom,’ said Dover, suddenly seeing the light and putting one smartly over MacGregor.
‘Yes. Both times.’
‘That’ll learn you!’ sniggered Dover.
MacGregor brought the conversation back to a more elevated level. ‘How did you find out that Miss Wittgenstein had seen you? Did she tell you?’
‘She couldn’t wait,’ said Millie Hooper sullenly.
‘But she promised not to say anything?’
‘She knew my dad would have gone through the roof if he’d found out.’
Millie Hooper was looking decidedly shifty and MacGregor began to probe deeper. ‘Did she try to make a bargain with you?’
‘A bargain? I’d call it more like blackmail. I don’t suppose she told you that bit, did she?’
‘Not exactly,’ said MacGregor cautiously.
‘Trust her!’
‘Did she want money?’
Millie Hooper shook her head. ‘Where would I have got money from? My dad paid all the bills and everybody in Sully Martin knew I only got two pounds a week allowance. You can’t get blood out of a stone. No, she just wanted me to use my influence, that’s all.’
‘With your father?’
‘That’s right. All this happened just about the time he started trying to get them tipped out of the Studio. Miss Wittgenstein promised she wouldn’t say a word about Colin if I’d persuade my dad to leave them alone. The Studio suited them down to the ground, you see, and they didn’t want to leave, especially when the rent was so low.’
MacGregor tapped his pencil thoughtfully against his teeth. ‘And you agreed?’
‘I hadn’t much choice. If my dad had ever suspected . . . I thought it would stall things off until after Colin and me were married because, of course, I daren’t say anything to my dad about the Studio. He wouldn’t have taken a blind bit of notice if I had.’
‘And this satisfied Miss Wittgenstein?’
‘Well, they haven’t been evicted yet and I kept telling her I was doing my best. To do her justice, I don’t think she wanted to tell my dad and, anyhow, there was no proof that he’d have believed her if she had.’
‘Hm.’ MacGregor made a few aimless squiggles in his notebook to give himself time to think.
Colin Hooper watched him anxiously. ‘But, it’s like I said, isn’t it?’ he demanded. ‘This has nothing to do with Mr Chantry’s murder. I mean, if Millie and me had wanted to do anything, we’d have murdered Miss Wittgenstein, wouldn’t we?’ The embarrassed laugh which accompanied this supposition fell on particularly stony ground.
‘Look, laddie,’ said Dover heavily as he hoisted himself up into a better position for bullying, ‘from the way things are developing round here, your father-in-law wouldn’t have needed the Wittgenstein woman to spill the beans, would he? He’d have guessed for himself that there’d been more than a bit of pre-marital hanky-panky.’
Colin Hooper bit his lip. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I mean the bun in the oven!’ growled Dover. ‘What were you reckoning on doing? Passing it off as premature?’
‘There was a sporting chance,' muttered Colin Hooper, exchanging an agonized glance with his wife.
‘With half the village wearing out their fingertips counting now?’ jeered Dover. ‘If that kid arrives nine months after your wedding day, it’ll have boots on! Now, you listen to me, laddie, because I’m going to give you some good advice. You give us a full confession and I’ll put in a good word for you with the judge. Now, I can’t say fairer than that, can I?’
‘A confession?’ Colin Hooper didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He glanced at MacGregor for some sort of guidance but the sergeant’s poker face was deliberately set on registering nothing. ‘I must be going mad!’
‘Oh, I don’t know that I’d try that for a defence,’ said Dover, graciously giving the matter his careful consideration. ‘Suit yourself, of course, but – me – I’d sooner pay my debt to society in a prison rather than a looney bin.’
Colin Hooper clutched his head. ‘You can’t be serious!’
‘A clean breast now’ll make things much easier in the long run,’ Dover pointed out, without specifying whose convenience he had in mind.
‘You mean you’re really just sitting there, calmly asking me to put my head in a noose?’
‘Ah!’ Dover was glad of the opportunity to put this little misconception right. ‘That’s where you’re making your mistake, isn’t it? There aren’t any of the old necktie parties these days, laddie. More’s the pity, of course, but let’s look at things from your point of view. I reckon you’d be out in fifteen years or so with the best part of your life still before you. You’re one of the lucky ones. A few years ago and you’d have got the drop and no argument. And you don’t want to believe all that rubbish you read in the newspapers, either. Quick and painless?’ Dover’s flabby torso wobbled as he chuckled good-humouredly to himself. ‘Not on your nelly! Well, hangmen are only human, aren’t they? They make mistakes like the rest of us. It’s all a question of judging the drop properly, you see. Underestimate and you’re swinging about for hours, slowly choking to death. Overestimate and you get your head tom clean off. Here,' he pulled his feet sharply out of range – ‘she’s not going to be sick, is she?’
Millie Hooper eventually recovered enough to assure her husband that she was all right, really, and Dover, retreating to the far end of his sofa as a precaution, prepared to continue.
Colin Hooper, however, had had enough. Heaven knows what more of Dover’s social chit-chat might do to his unborn child. ‘Look, sir, could we get one thing quite straight. There’s absolutely no question of my making a confession because I damned well haven’t done anything.’
‘Come off it!’ scoffed Dover. ‘You and your missus have got enough motive for a dozen murders.’
‘You leave my wife out of this!’
‘All right, all right!’ Dover’s efforts to be obliging were rather touching. ‘If you want to shoulder all the guilt, I’m easy. Actually, it’s not a bad line to take. Most judges are right suckers for a whiff of the old chivalry. So – we’ll put it your way. You’ve got enough motive for a dozen murders. You collect all your father-in-law’s money and his business, you get this house to yourself and you forestall him finding out that you got his only daughter in the club before you escorted her down the aisle. What sort of an impression do you think that lot
’s going to make on a jury, eh? Take it from me, laddie, they’d convict you without even leaving the box.’ MacGregor could have sunk through the floor with the shame of it all. A senior Scotland Yard detective going on like this! It was incredible. MacGregor knew it was incredible because it had happened before and none of his superiors, to whom he had submitted a series of highly confidential reports, had believed one word of them.
Colin Hooper jumped to his feet and installed himself firmly in front of the fire in what he hoped was a dominating position. He had wondered about refusing to say another word until he’d got a solicitor to protect his interests but he realized that such a move would only provide Dover with yet more grist for his mill. It was obvious that, in Dover’s book, only the guilty invoked their rights.
Colin Hooper cleared his throat and squared his shoulders. ‘Chief Inspector Dover, I did not kill Mr Chantry.’
Dover looked up and yawned.
‘And,’ – Colin Hooper sternly refused to quail – ‘I can prove it. On the night of the earthquake I left the house a few minutes after my father-in-law because I had to make sure that Millie would be all right. Well, when I got outside I couldn’t see him anywhere. The people in the cottages nearly opposite us were shouting for help and I started trying to get them out. After quite a little time, Mr Chantry came up. He said he’d got the Piles out of their house. Well, things were pretty hopeless where we were and after a bit Mr Chantry suggested that I should go and see if I could find somebody to give us a hand. That was the last time I saw him. I groped my way back to the top of East Street and came across Wing Commander Pile and Mr Lickes, and Jim Oliver was there, too. I told them what my father-in-law had said and Mr Lickes agreed to come back with me. Wing Commander Pile said something about getting some clothes and joining us later. Well, Mr Lickes and I came back over this way. There was a woman trapped somewhere, I think, and Mr Lickes stopped to get her free but I thought I’d better go on and try and find my father-in-law. I looked around for him for a bit as best I could but I couldn’t spot him anywhere. After a while I stopped bothering about him. Well, you can’t just step over somebody who’s screaming for help, can you? I carried on by myself as best I could and I didn’t worry about Mr Chantry because I thought he was doing the same sort of thing quite near by. It was only much later, when it got light and the proper rescue people arrived, that Millie and I began to get a bit worried when he didn’t show up.’ Colin Hooper folded his arms resolutely across his chest. ‘Now, is there anything else you want to know?’