‘Vagueness and ineffectiveness seem strange characteristics for an intrepid mountaineer,’ said Dame Beatrice. Her own impressions of the new holder of the baronetcy were rather different from those which Lady Bitton-Bittadon appeared to have formed. The young man, upon being introduced to her and informed of the reason for her visit, had been polite but cool; as soon as he and Dame Beatrice had been left together – and this had been at the young man’s own curt request, made in a tone neither vague nor ineffectual – he had said abruptly,
‘What’s it all about? Why are you really here?’
Dame Beatrice told him.
‘Absence of motive for my father’s death? Yes, I see, and, of course, I agree. There’s no possible motive, so far as one can make out. That leaves one with the uncomfortable feeling that there’s a maniac about. That’s really where you come in, I suppose, although, to my mind, this whole village is one vast loony-bin.’
‘I am interested to hear you say that. Have you lived here very long?’
‘Well, we’ve owned the place only for a few years, but I was here a good deal in my late uncle’s time, the brother from whom my father, as the nearest male heir, inherited the property, so I may claim to know something about the neighbourhood. Well, look, I understand that you’ve been invited to stay here while enquiries are going on, and I really do hope you will. She hasn’t any friends much – the lady mother, you know – and although she puts a good face on things I know my father’s death, totally unexpected and, as you’ve realised, quite pointless as it seems it was, has made her very nervous. I might tell you that I’m carrying out my own enquiries. It’s no good leaving everything to the police. If I get in your way you must let me know, of course. Anyway, I hope you’ll take carte blanche and let’s hope that, between the lot of us, we can find the chap or chaps who did for the old gov’nor. I don’t know that anybody is all that upset to see the back of him – he was too much of a drunkard for anybody to bother overmuch about whether he was with us or not, you know – but fair’s fair. I mean, we may owe God a death, but a death with neither rhyme, reason, accident or illness to account for it, is a bit much, don’t you think?’
After that preliminary interview, Dame Beatrice had seen very little of the young man except at mealtimes. She did not mention to him that soon after her arrival at the manor house she knew that he had dropped out of a tree almost on top of her great-niece; in fact, so far, she had not mentioned Fenella either to him or to Lady Bitton-Bittadon. The police paid what seemed to have become routine visits to the house. They were still looking for the murder weapon and questioning the household, including the servants, in an attempt to find out whether anybody had remembered any item of information which might help to solve the mystery of Sir Bathy’s death. Apart from that, they continued to make enquiries in and around his old haunts and the house in which he had lived before he inherited the manor, but, until the day on which Dame Beatrice obtained Jeremy’s permission to re-open the grave, nothing had resulted. She herself had made up her mind that if the re-opening of the family vault provided no further help in the elucidation of the mystery, she would take up her residence at the More to Come in case there was anything to be learned there which Fenella did not already know. She was also aware that Lady Bitton-Bittadon’s enthusiastic welcome was beginning to wear rather thin.
This became increasingly apparent when Dame Beatrice, following the superintendent’s request, approached her with the first suggestion that the family tomb should be re-opened.
‘I know that it is Sir Jeremy’s permission we have to seek, as the land in which the sarcophagus rests is now his property,’ she said, ‘but the police felt that I should speak first to you. Would you have any personal objection?’
‘I suppose not, if Jeremy agrees to such unnecessary desecration of my husband’s resting-place. It is for him to decide, as you say. I cannot see what purpose it will serve.’ Lady Bitton-Bittadone spoke with cold disapprobation and eyed Dame Beatrice with an open unfriendliness which she had not hitherto shown, although Dame Beatrice was well aware that it existed.
‘It will certainly serve a purpose,’ she said, ‘otherwise we should not have considered it. You agree, then, that we should speak to Sir Jeremy about it?’
‘As you wish. It is out of my hands. I should have thought that the medical evidence given at the inquest was more than sufficient, without taking up the body and opening the whole wretched business again.’
Dame Beatrice did not disclose that the police had no intention of taking up the body. Armed with the grudging consent she had received from the widow, she sought out the son.
‘Open the grave? Whatever for?’ he asked. ‘Isn’t the village ghoulish enough already? I know what goes on at the Mayering, you know, but my old man isn’t a skeleton yet, not by a very long chalk, so they won’t want him dug up for several years yet. They’re a lot of necrophiles, you know, but their only interest is in bones.’
‘Most interesting. Well, Sir Jeremy, may we have a definite answer?’
‘To what? Oh, about opening up the family mausoleum. Yes, go ahead by all means, so long as you don’t want me to be present when you do it. I’m not keen
