CHAPTER ELEVEN
Witch’s Sabbath
‘A-hunting she goes;
A crackt horne she blowes;
A which the hounds fall a-bounding;
While th’ Moone in her sphere
Peepes trembling for feare,
And night’s afraid of the sounding.’
Robert Herrick – The Hagg
Upon receiving Fenella’s frantic telephone call on the following morning Dame Beatrice acted promptly.
‘Are you at the inn?’ she asked.
‘No, I couldn’t telephone from there, and, in any case, I wouldn’t have dared. I’m with Miriam and Hubert at Douston. I’ve let Nicholas know that I didn’t feel I could spend another night at the More to Come.’
‘You have done wisely to leave, I think. Has anybody there any knowledge of what you have seen in the cellar?’
‘I don’t think so. I pulled myself together when I got back to my room, then I went to the reception desk and checked out. As I’m only booked from day to day it was quite easy, and I don’t believe they were all that sorry to see the back of me. Unwisely, in the opinion of Nicholas, I let out, a day or two ago, that I had been there in the Shurrocks’ time. He covered up for me very quickly, but I expect somebody in the village has recognised me and given it away that I spent Mayering Night at the pub.’
‘I will come along to Douston at once. I have made little progress at the manor house and shall be glad to talk things over with you. It will be interesting to compare notes, because I think your mystery impinges on mine and by this time I have no doubt that a connection exists between them.’
‘Miriam invites you to stay the night, great-aunt. You will, won’t you? Anyway, I don’t see how you can get back to the manor house after dinner unless you want to travel in the dark and knock your people up in the small hours.’
Dame Beatrice had received the telephone message at ten in the morning of the day which followed Fenella’s flight from Seven Wells. She explained to her hostess, Sir Bathy’s widow, that she had received an urgent summons from a relative, and would be back at the manor house in a couple of days’ time. She lunched in Cridley and, her chauffeur scorning the byroads in which Fenella delighted, arrived at Douston Hall in time for tea.
‘I am reminded,’ she said, ‘of a passage in a light novel by Ian Hay which I read many years ago. The hero was taking tea with an elderly Scottish lady and remarked upon what good bread and butter she always kept. May I pass on the compliment, my dear Miriam?’
‘Thanks,’ said Miriam, ‘but Hubert always cuts it when we have visitors. He won’t leave it to the maids.’
‘Cutting bread and butter is the only thing I do really well, Aunt Adela,’ said Hubert. ‘And now do put an end to our extreme curiosity and tell us exactly what you’ve been up to in Seven Wells. When you left us after Fenella’s wedding, we understood that you intended to spend a peaceful summer at the Stone House and that you and that delightful Mrs Gavin were working on your memoirs.’
‘I had so intended, but I found myself fascinated by Fenella’s adventures in the village of Seven Wells and persuaded myself (and others) that possibly something might be gained by a psychological approach to the case of Sir Bathy Bitton-Bittadon, who was recently murdered.’
‘But Fenella’s experiences had nothing to do with the murder, surely?’
‘That is one point which I hope to elucidate. My hostess, Lady Bitton-Bittadon, has suggested a motive for her husband’s murder, but really it is such a fantastic one that I feel she must know something which she has not yet made clear to me. The police are baffled because there seems no possible reason why anybody should have thought to gain anything by Sir Bathy’s demise. So far as is known, the poor man had no enemies, his past life appears (as they say) to have been an open book (although the pages seem to have been somewhat spotted by alcohol and possibly other self-indulgencies) and nobody had a financial interest in his death.’
‘What about the heir? Fenella tells us that she has heard a rumour to the effect that father and son did not get on together.’
‘For one thing, he cannot be the actual murderer, since he seems to have been in India at the time of his father’s death. For another, owing to the fact that he won an enormous sum on the football pools the year before last, and has also obtained another large amount of money recently when he received the first prize of fifty thousand pounds on a premium bond, Sir Jeremy is so well off, in fact, that his father’s property has ceased to interest him. He is not, so to speak, in the direct line of succession, anyhow, for it seems that Sir Bathy was a younger son, and inherited on the death of his brother. He had been lord of the manor for less than ten years when he was killed, and Sir Jeremy has no sentimental associations with the property.’
‘Yes, I see,’ said Hubert. ‘But what has the wife to say which you find so incredible?’
‘She has shown me a motive for Sir Bathy’s murder, but, as I said, it is a fantastic one and, at the present stage of the enquiry, I do not think the police would entertain it. I am keeping it to myself, therefore, and am seeking to identify the actual murderer, although, when
