‘When Sir Bathy did not appear at breakfast, Lady Bitton-Bittadon, who always came down to the meal and never had it in her room, sent the butler upstairs to find out whether Sir Bathy was unwell. She was dismayed when the man came back and reported that Sir Bathy did not appear to have slept in the house that night. She ordered the chauffeur to drive to the More to Come, and told the rest of the male staff – the butler, two gardeners, a groom, a stable boy and the odd-job man – to search the grounds.
‘The body was found by one of the gardeners about midway along the boundary wall which marks off the manor grounds from a public footpath. This man seems to have kept his head. He returned to the house, made his report and was ordered to tell the groom to ride for the doctor (the car having been sent to the village) while Lady Bitton-Bittadon telephoned the police. Sir Bathy, as we know, had not been killed in his own woods, but the body, we deduce, had been thrown over the low stone wall from the public footpath. He was not a particularly big or heavy man, so one person could have thrown the body over, but our opinion (which is in line with the medical evidence) is that at least two people were involved, since the body struck the trunk of a tree with sufficient force to cause post-mortem bruising. The actual cause of death was a stab-wound between the shoulders which penetrated the heart.
‘We can find nobody in whose interest it would have been to kill him, either for gain, revenge, or any other motive. His marriage seems to have been satisfactory, his heir was wealthy beyond any need to be in a hurry to inherit the estate, Sir Bathy was a bit of a philanderer, but he does not appear to have made any enemies and he was not, so far as we have been able to find out, a blackmailer or in debt. Suicide is entirely ruled out, owing to the position of the wound, and accident seems so unlikely that we have disregarded it as a possibility. In fact,’ concluded Callon, ‘we simply don’t know the answer, and I don’t think we shall get any further until we find Shurrock and the rest of them.’
‘Do you assume, then, that Sir Bathy went to the More to Come that night? I understood that your enquiries along those lines had been without result,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘Yes, that’s true, Dame Beatrice, but you know what people are like when they think there’s trouble brewing. Nobody wants to know. We’ve gone through the pub’s regulars with a small-tooth comb, but nobody ain’t saying nothing, and there’s nobody so mum as a rustic who’s made up his mind not to talk, except maybe a schoolboy who’s in trouble.’
‘I have never asked you for a personal opinion before, Detective-Inspector, but you are a man of experience in these matters, more so, if he will forgive the remark, than the superintendent, maybe….’
‘Lord, yes, ma’am,’ said the superintendent cheerfully. ‘I’ve never had a murder case before. Mostly it’s motoring offences and petty larceny, with one case of malicious wounding and a couple of suicides.’
‘That being so, you will not take it amiss if I ask Mr Callon how he sums up Lady Bitton-Bittadon.’
‘I think she’s told us all she knows, but perhaps not all she surmises,’ said Callon, ‘but, of course, surmises are not evidence, although I must say I wish she’d advance one or two. They might put us on the track, and we could do with it. It’s true she’s talked about the zodiac people, but I don’t think she knows much about them.’
‘Have you anything particularly in mind?’
‘Well, no, Dame Beatrice, I can’t say I have. There’s only one thing which seems to be just a bit out of line.’
‘Yes, that had struck me, too. You mean that she sent the groom on horseback for the doctor while she telephoned the police. One would have thought her reaction would have been to telephone for the doctor and leave the police until later.’
‘Ah, you noted that, too. It’s clear to me that nobody knew at first – when the body was discovered, I mean – that Sir Bathy had been stabbed to death. Not only was there no trace of blood round about, but he was lying on his back, so that the wound was not visible as he lay there. There was nothing to be seen at first glance except the big post-mortem bruise down the side of his face. I said just now that the gardener who found him didn’t panic. I can’t believe he didn’t touch him, though. It would have been a completely natural thing to do. However, he swears he simply realised that Sir Bathy was dead and so he tore back to the house without another thought except to report the matter.’
‘Whether he touched the body or not, the body was dead all right,’ said the superintendent, ‘and not a clue, so far, as to who did
