‘Why do you think your car broke down?’
‘I think somebody tampered with it.’
‘Who?’
‘Oh, well, when I found I couldn’t get it to start, I asked some frightful lout to direct me to the post-office. He boasted that he and some mates had put the public telephone out of order, so I thought it wouldn’t have been past him to damage my car.’
‘Nicholas told you, at your first meeting with him, that he had seen you lunching at the More to Come, I believe?’
‘Good heavens, darling! You don’t think Nicholas put my car out of action?’
‘I cannot produce any evidence of it, other than to point out that the damage (if one can describe it as such) was subtly dealt to the car, and hardly accords with what I imagine hooligans would have done to it. Moreover, whereas nobody would have queried what a gentlemanly and self-possessed young man was doing tinkering with a car, (which, it could have been assumed, was his own), I think somebody at the inn – I am looking particularly at Bob, the young pot-boy or whatever he was – would have given warning to the landlord if your young vandal had been seen touching it, you know.’
‘I certainly never thought of Nicholas,’ said Fenella, wrestling with this new idea. ‘I have always thought that if it wasn’t that little whistling yob, (who afterwards, I’m perfectly certain, was Aries), it was the landlord himself who put my car out of action.’
‘That would have been most unlikely. He did not want or need a lodger at the inn that night. How much he knew about the zodiac people and their macabre employments one cannot say, and unfortunately he is no longer here to inform us, but I am sure that the last thing he and his wife would have wanted was a lively and restless stranger at the inn that night. They gave you a bed as far removed from any scene of zodiac activity as they could….’
‘But that’s just what they didn’t do, darling. They gave me a room directly over the spot where the zodiacs really went to town to begin their job with their skeletons.’
‘Having warned you, in a way which was calculated to deter any virtuous young woman from indulging her curiosity, that she must bar her door against Mayering Eve intruders, do not forget.’
‘Oh – “Maiden virtue rudely strumpeted” – yes, I suppose they did rather labour the point with the slots on the inside of the door and that dirty great bar of teak. And then, when I’d gate-crashed the lounge while the zodiacs were holding their meeting, I ran into Mrs Shurrock and she was anything but pleased with me. What was the connection between the zodiacs and the people at the inn, that the Shurrocks and the boy Bob had to be murdered? Did the zodiacs think the Shurrocks knew something about the death of Sir Bathy? I can’t really believe they did, you know.’
‘Oh, the Shurrocks and at least one of their servants almost certainly did know something about the death of Sir Bathy, so that may well be the reason why they had to be eliminated.’
‘Well, that would explain their deaths, but it wouldn’t explain Sir Bathy’s murder, would it? We’re still completely in the dark about that.’
‘Oh, I think Sir Bathy was murdered because of something he knew.’
‘About the zodiacs?’
‘Oh, no, not so far as I know. But I think I hear the voice of the turtle in the passage, and – yes, indeed! – here he is.’
‘I wish they’d stuck the word “dove” after “turtle” in that particular passage,’ said Fenella, as her husband entered the room. ‘It sounds so odd to talk about turtles in a love poem.’
‘Yes,’ said Nicholas. ‘The Scots put it much better.’ He kissed Dame Beatrice’s yellow claw and then embraced his wife. ‘Ma bonnie wee croodlin’ doo,’ he continued, illustrating his contention.
‘Well, that’s all about turtles,’ said Fenella, extricating herself and giving him a push in the chest. ‘What’s all this I hear about you putting my car out of action the first time I went to Seven Wells?’
Nicholas looked reproachfully at Dame Beatrice.
‘ “Et tu, Brute?” ’ he said sorrowfully. He turned back to his wife. ‘Use your imagination, my angel,’ he urged her. ‘There was I at a small table in the saloon bar getting outside a modest demi-litre of wallop, and there were you fortifying yourself with ambrosia and nectar. I had to get to know you before you vanished beyond my ken.’
‘Well!’
‘I’d watched you from the moment you came in through the back door and went to the bar to chat up the landlord. What were you talking about just now, by the way, before turtles introduced themselves into the discussion? I caught the tail end of it as I came in.’
‘Great-aunt was leading me up the garden, I think,’ said Fenella.
‘She’s a great kidder. But why have I been summoned hither? I’ve got to get back to take prep., by the way.’
‘We were having a résumé of the chapter of events which led up to your marriage with Fenella and the murders of the Shurrocks and one of their servants,’ replied Dame Beatrice.
‘You don’t think there was any connection, I hope?’ Nicholas’s choice of words made these sound frivolous, but his eyes were steady and looked seriously into hers.
‘No, no, of course not. I was merely answering your question as succinctly as appeared to be appropriate,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I am sorry we suffered an intrusion of turtles and the Song of Solomon, but it was entirely gratuitous and had little or nothing to do with the subject under discussion.’
‘Which was?’
‘So you did wreck my car, you abominable leper!’ said Fenella, before
