Sir Jeremy still looked perplexed.
‘I see what you mean, but it’s impossible,’ he said.
‘It appears to be a fact, if you received the message after it had lain at your base camp for four days. And if it is a fact, it cannot be impossible, because it actually happened. How do you account for it that a message reporting your father’s death must have reached your base camp before he was killed?’
‘I can’t account for it. The chaps at base must have been mistaken.’
‘A strange mistake, surely? You see, Lady Bitton-Bittadon informs me that she despatched her message on the Monday. If she did, that cannot have been the message which had lain at the base camp for four days, could it? We can check, of course, but I do not think the second message ever reached you. I think you had left India before it was delivered. What we have to discover now is the person with second sight who sent the first one.’
‘But that must have been the murderer!’
‘Not necessarily, but we may infer that it was somebody who knew that murder was premeditated.’
Dame Beatrice was a very light sleeper. This was partly owing to her great age and partly because, in the course of her professional life, she had worked in institutions which housed homicidal lunatics. She was awakened that night by hearing someone outside her bedroom door. She had fastened it, and the fumbling at the handle ceased as soon as she asked, ‘Who’s there?’ She picked up one of the heavy metal candlesticks with which the guests at the ancient manor house were provided, went to the door and listened. She thought she could hear the sound of retreating footsteps, but she knew that her room was near the head of the stairs and that her visitor would be out of sight by the time she had unlocked and unbolted the door.
She said aloud, with an eldritch cackle, as she returned to bed,
‘Was I to be victim, mother-confessor or merely the recipient of stale information, I wonder?’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jack-in-the-Green
‘You little Jack o’lent, have you been true to us?’
William Shakespeare – The Merry Wives of Windsor
‘So there we have something which may or may not be helpful,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Lady Bitton-Bittadon remarked that Sir Jeremy went out to India almost without giving a moment’s notice, a remark which did not surprise me, so casual are so many of our young people at the present day, and she also confessed that she was surprised when he came home again. That observation would not have interested me either, except for the curious and illuminating piece of evidence which I obtained, almost by chance, from the young man himself.’
‘We’ve checked,’ said Callon, ‘and he certainly came back by the route he claims he travelled. There is no doubt in our minds that he could not have been directly concerned in his father’s death and, as we have already seen, except for the title, such as it is, he had nothing to gain from it, and, by reason of the death duties, financially he had quite a lot to lose. I really think we can rule him out.’
‘His lady mother?’ said the superintendent. ‘Not that I think this was a woman’s crime.’
‘She had nothing to gain, either, so far as we know,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘There is no evidence of a quarrel or of any ill-feeling between her and Sir Bathy. Moreover, even if she had killed him, she could hardly have thrown him over that wall. We might know a great deal more if we could find out where he was killed.’
‘And where the murder weapon came from,’ said Callon. ‘We’ve been working on that, but a heavy knife of that kind could have come from any house in the village. According to the medical evidence it was probably just an old-fashioned but very broad-bladed carver. That’s another thing, though, in Lady Bitton-Bittadon’s favour, supposing we did suspect her (which we don’t), and it’s equally in the favour of her servants, supposing Sir Bathy had got across one of them. We’ve searched the manor house from cellar to rafters and there’s not a trace of such a weapon, nor in the grounds, either. All the kitchen equipment is up to date and the staff all swear they’ve never seen at the manor a knife such as we’ve described. “Must be a museum piece, such as my grandfather used to have,” one of them said. “There’s never been anything like that in this kitchen.” I believe him, because forensic gave a very clear description of the wound.’
‘We shall have to do a house to house enquiry, I suppose,’ said the superintendent. ‘Not that that will get us anywhere. Nobody is going to have seen, heard or known anything. If there was ever going to be an informer, he’d have come forward by now.’
‘Well,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘the task which I allotted myself at the manor house is completed, so far as I am able to complete it, and the result appears disappointing.’
‘You have given us a pointer, at any rate,’ said Callon. ‘We will see what the ladies at the post office can tell us about the two messages which were sent to India. One thing puzzles me about the first one, though, if it was not sent by Lady Bitton-Bittadon. How did whoever it was know where to send it?’
‘Sir Bathy, who appears to have frequented the More to Come, no doubt referred to it there, and there may have been a chiel among them taking notes,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I doubt whether you will receive much information at
