‘Well, that rather does away with one of my theories.’ said Callon. ‘I’ve been working on an idea that Sir Bathy’s death was the result of a pub brawl, but what you mean is that his murder must have been premeditated. By telling you about that first message, Sir Jeremy has put the cat among the pigeons with a vengeance, hasn’t he?’
‘I think he let it out of the bag inadvertently and had not realised which way it would jump. He did his best to recoup by saying that the men at the base camp – it looks as though he did go mountaineering, a point about which, I must admit, I had some doubts – had made a mistake when they said that the message had been waiting for him for four days.’
‘There would have been a postmark,’ said Callon. ‘Well, at present we’re doing our best to trace the Shurrocks and their servants. Mr Soames still thinks that, whether the murder was premeditated or not, Sir Bathy was killed at the pub.’
‘It’s where he was known to spend his evenings,’ said the superintendent. ‘I think one of the zodiac lot did for him there. Then, when the landlord found he was dead, a gang of the chaps brought him home and heaved him over the wall. Stands to reason nobody is going to admit that he saw any part of it happen. He thinks he’d only be bringing suspicion on himself. It’s the likeliest thing, and it could tie up with the Shurrocks and the others clearing out. After all, Sir Bathy may have gone along and hobnobbed with ’em, but he wasn’t their class or one of their pals, and they knew it, and they didn’t want to answer any questions.’
‘The Shurrocks did not leave until a considerable time later, though,’ said Callon. ‘They didn’t leave until we’d turned them inside out, them and their servants, you know.’
‘May have got wind up later. The thing may have preyed on their minds,’ said the superintendent obstinately. ‘Or somebody may have started blackmailing them. You never know what’s going to start people panicking. Shurrock or the boy (or that gipsy woman, come to that) may even have been the murderer.’
‘You told me you gave all five of them and the pub itself a fair old going-over, you know, sir,’ said Callon, ‘before I arrived on the scene, and before Mrs Pardieu stayed there the night her car broke down. My own view is that, wherever Sir Bathy was killed, it wasn’t on those premises. What I’d like to do is to find a connection between five people who’ve disappeared from the pub, and five skeletons which have appeared in the cellar there.’
‘Well, we know where the skeletons came from,’ said the superintendent. ‘There’s no earthly reason to connect them with the missing Shurrocks and the others.’
‘What we don’t know are the identities of these zodiac people, but Dame Beatrice thinks she may be able to help us over that.’ Callon looked hopefully at her. ‘Whatever the truth about Sir Bathy’s death, there’s no doubt in my mind, following the story her great-niece has told her, that they’re the jokers responsible for transferring those skeletons to the pub, and that’s another reason for trying to identify them. Apart from the murder, they’ve got some explaining to do.’
‘Something adds up there, I admit, Mr Callon,’ put in the superintendent. ‘Somebody wanted to bring young Sir Jeremy home in time to attend his father’s funeral, although that didn’t quite work out, and it wasn’t out of sympathy for the family, either. There’s that May-Day ceremony of blessing the seven wells – those springs, you know, down past the old forge – and that, so I’ve heard, is the squire’s job. The way I work it out is that somebody – whether he was the murderer or not – knew the old squire was going to be killed and thought the new squire ought to be summoned home to carry out the ceremony. Doesn’t that seem to make sense?’
‘Nothing makes sense,’ said Callon, ‘until we find the murder weapon and locate the spot where Sir Bathy was actually murdered. All the same, we ought to be able to trace the sender of that message to India, and when we’ve found him we’ll be halfway home, I reckon, whether he’s the murderer or not. Anyway, we’re very much obliged for your help, Dame Beatrice.’
‘Such as it has been,’ said Dame Beatrice, with her crocodile leer. ‘Well, my curiosity suggests that I should take a room at the More to Come, so that is where you will find me until further notice.’ She did not mention that she had had an unknown night-visitor at the manor house.
‘I’m quite sure the people there haven’t a clue to give us,’ said Callon. ‘One thing, though. I expect Sir Jeremy will want his ancestors back. I’d like to take a look at them and at the cellar they’re in, just to make absolutely certain we’ve missed nothing, and then I’d better give him the all-clear, I think. There’s no possible way in which he can be implicated in his father’s death unless, of course, he had him murdered by proxy, and that’s an idea so fantastic that I think we can lose it. How would it be if we all went to the More to Come and looked it over again, just in case the super and I missed anything on our other visits? And then we can claim the skeletons and have them re-interred.’
‘An excellent plan,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I am sorry that my great-niece will not be there to welcome us. When do you propose that we go?’
‘I want a
