‘Do you have any special reason for saying “on Mayering Day”, Dame Beatrice?’ asked Callon, as the three of them left by the lych-gate. ‘You have a way of choosing your words, I’ve noticed.’
‘Well, I feel we ought to keep an open mind about the Shurrocks, you know, Detective-Inspector.’
‘In what particular way, Dame Beatrice? As to their complicity, do you mean, over the removal of the skeletons? I’m not at all sure that it was a criminal offence in itself, you know, to remove them, unless Sir Jeremy wants to prosecute for trespass with damage. The grave was not on consecrated ground and the skeletons were ancient bones in the same sense, I take it, as bones dug up by archaeologists, but I’m not sure of my ground here, of course. We should have to get a lawyer on to it, if it came to the point.’
‘Of their complicity, in one sense, there can be no reasonable doubt,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I do not believe that the original skeletons could have been kept in the crypt of the old church (otherwise the cellar under the inn) without the Shurrocks’ knowledge and consent. Whether the consent was given willingly or under duress is, of course, another matter. The important thing is that the Shurrocks must be found.’
‘It’s a long shot if they’ve gone to London, ma’am, as I’ve mentioned,’ said the superintendent. ‘Still…’ he glanced at Callon, ‘the net of the C.I.D. is pretty wide.’
‘If we find them and they decide to keep their mouths shut, we shan’t be much forrarder,’ said Callon. ‘If they deny all knowledge of the skeletons in the crypt – these present ones or any others – it’s going to be difficult to shake them. On Mrs Pardieu’s evidence, retailed to us by Dame Beatrice, the crypt is under a part of the inn which was never used and which has its own door leading on to the street. We could never prove that they even knew of the existence of the crypt, much less that they’d ever been into it. Apart from that, they were comparative newcomers to the village – they had only had the pub for three years – and their knowledge of the Mayering ceremonies may have been anything but profound.’
‘You were good enough to say that I choose my words,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘and you asked me a question to which I can give only a tentative answer. I deliberately chose to indicate that nobody murdered the Shurrocks on Mayering Eve, but I am not at all convinced that they are still alive at the present time.’
‘Have you anything to go on in saying so?’
‘Nothing at all, unless the Shurrocks knew something about the death of Sir Bathy which would incriminate the murderer or murderers if it were communicated to the police.’
‘But Sir Bathy was murdered a week before Mayering Eve!’
‘The Shurrocks had not outlived their usefulness by then, perhaps.’
‘And their pub was the meeting-place for the zodiacs,’ said the superintendent thoughtfully. ‘They only may have been fools, not criminals, of course.’
‘Did you go into the crypt on this last visit to the More to Come?’ Dame Beatrice enquired.
‘Oh, no. There was no point, so far as we could see. The skeletons don’t interest us officially,’ said Callon.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A Little Nearer the Truth
‘He looked at me, with an unearthly quiet in his face. “Wait,” he said, “I shall come back…. Wait and look.” ’
Wilkie Collins – The Woman in White
‘Come to think of it,’ said Callon, when they reached the police car which had picked up Dame Beatrice at the manor house and was to deposit her there before it returned with the two officers to Cridley, ‘I suppose we might have left the grave open for Sir Jeremy to return his ancestors to where they belong, if that’s them in the cellar of the More to Come’
‘Wouldn’t have done to leave it open, with nobody about,’ said the superintendent. ‘No telling what the village kids might get up to when they’re let out of school. A fine thing if one of them, skylarking round that hole, tumbled in and broke his neck. Besides, there’s no evidence (except that of possibility) that the skeletons at the More to Come are Sir Jeremy’s ancestors, Mr Callon. The laws of probability indicate that they are, but there’s no actual proof.’
‘Exactly,’ agreed Dame Beatrice, getting into the car. ‘We shall do better to leave well alone, and the cadavers where they are, for the present. It will not interfere with your plans if I have a last talk with the people at the manor house, I trust?’
‘A last talk? Are you leaving, then, ma’am?’ enquired the superintendent.
‘I have no further excuse for staying, unless my interviews produce better fruit than any I have managed to pluck so far. I cannot help feeling that, whether she is aware of it or not, Lady Bitton-Bittadon must know more than she has told me, but….’
‘Well, I’ve had a number of interviews with her myself, as you know,’ said Callon, ‘and her story doesn’t vary. Summed up, what it amounts to, as you also know, (but it never hurts to recapitulate), is this: According to the medical evidence, Sir Bathy died at between ten o’clock and twelve midnight on April 25th. The sun set that day at about a quarter past eight, so the inference is that he was killed after dark. His wife says that he often went out for an evening walk. He was a man of simple tastes and of a gregarious nature, and she thinks this evening walk took him, more often than not, to the More to Come, for a drink and a game of dominoes, but with whom he played, and whether it was always with the same person, she has no idea.
‘They always dined early,
