‘I hardly think so. He said nothing of his experiences, either, but I expect he told his parents – Sir Bathy was alive when he went, of course – all about them in his letters home.’
‘Oh, he wrote no letters, so far as we know,’ said the post-office sister. ‘Naturally we should have noticed them if he had. I suppose – ‘she hesitated for a moment – ‘I suppose he got on well with his parents?’
‘Sons usually get on with their mothers, I believe,’ said Dame Beatrice, angling for a riposte which did not come.
‘It seems strange that they never wrote to one another all the time he was away,’ said the post-office sister. ‘We should have known if there had been any mail. Of course, men don’t write family letters and she was only his stepmother.’
‘Now, Marty, that is no business of ours,’ said the shopkeeper sister. Then she spoilt this righteous admonition by adding: ‘It does seem unusual, all the same, but, of course, as this lady says, his father was alive then, and perhaps forbade correspondence between him and his stepmother. There were always rumours that Sir Bathy and Mr Jeremy did not get on too well, and all because of her. She was a great many years younger than Sir Bathy, I believe.’
‘Oh, really?’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Well, of course, fathers and sons do not always see one another’s point of view. All the same, it seems a very Victorian attitude to have taken, if Sir Bathy really forbade any correspondence, but, as I did not know him, it is not for me to judge. As a matter of fact, it was because of his death that I felt I ought to visit Lady Bitton-Bittadon in the first place.’
‘You know her well, then?’
‘Oh, very well indeed,’ said Dame Beatrice, who felt that, all things considered, this was rapidly becoming the case, if all her suspicions were justified. ‘Well, I must get back and write my letters, or they will never get posted, will they?’
‘I believe you are now staying at the inn instead of the manor,’ said the post-office sister.
‘The More to Come. A most unusual name, is it not?’ said Dame Beatrice agreeably.
‘It’s an unusual public house, too, from what one hears,’ said the shopkeeper sister. ‘Of course, we never indulge in village gossip, but one can’t help gleaning a little information here and there. People have very little to occupy their minds in a place like this, and that means it takes very little to set tongues wagging.’
‘I have heard a few rumours myself,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘It seems that the former occupants left the inn in rather a hurry. Did they leave owing money, or something of that sort, I wonder?’
‘Oh, is that the rumour which is going the rounds? We heard that the brewers had dismissed the Shurrocks for incompetence, and for allowing betting to go on on the premises, but one can’t believe all that one hears. So they owed money, did they? I expect Shurrock over-spent on that gipsy woman. By all accounts she was a very bold piece,’ said the post-office sister. ‘I can’t think why his wife allowed her to stay in the place, if all the rumours about her and Shurrock were true.’
‘I believe she had the reputation of being a good cook,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘Yes, but she had this other kind of reputation as well,’ said the shopkeeper sister, ‘if one can believe all one hears, and it’s well known there’s no smoke without fire, but the less said about that the better. This is a most respectable village except on Mayering Eve, and the things that go on then are hallowed by custom, I suppose.’
Dame Beatrice returned to the More to Come and while she waited for the police officers to join her she wrote a couple of letters to friends abroad, thinking that another visit to the post-office in order to make the promised but unnecessary enquiries about stamps might result in further fruitful conversation with the sisters.
Time passed. She finished her letters, put them aside, had her lunch, and still the superintendent and the inspector failed to arrive. After lunch she retired to her room and read. Three o’clock came, and she still had been sent no summons. She remembered her proposed visit to the folk-museum, but decided not to undertake it until she had met the two officers again, for an idea, which gradually appeared less wild than when she had first conceived it, had now taken shape in her mind. If she were right, it might or might not assist the police; if she were wrong, there would be no harm done.’
She settled again to her reading, content to wait, since she guessed what was delaying Callon and the superintendent. She was not mistaken. At just after four o’clock there was a polite tap on the door.
‘Somebody to see you, madam. In the hall.’
Dame Beatrice descended the main staircase. A young plainclothes man was there. She had never seen him before, but she recognised him for what he was.
‘Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would you be good enough to accompany me to Cridley, madam? I can give you a lift there and back.’
‘I have my own car, Mr….’
‘Detective-Constable Carter, madam. Just as you wish about the car.’
‘I will use yours, then.’ Installed in the front seat beside the detective-constable – “it looks better, madam, as this is probably known for a police car, and we usually put suspects on the back seat” – Dame Beatrice asked, ‘Have they disinterred the bodies?’
‘Yes, madam. They are now in the mortuary at Cridley, awaiting identification. The super said I was to apologise on his behalf for keeping you waiting so long, but when he and Detective-Inspector Callon got to the churchyard the grave was closed down again and the lifting gear had been dismantled and taken away. They had to make arrangements to have it all opened up again, and
