‘Not with Bob and Clytie going missing,’ said Shurrock grimly. ‘When they didn’t show up on the morning we’d planned to pack up we decided they were the ones who’d writ the letter and, that being so, that Sukie and me had been properly rumbled and most likely laid ourself open to blackmail, if nothing worse – not as the letter mentioned money.’
‘There is nothing much worse than blackmail,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Where did you think Bob and Clytie had gone?’
‘We didn’t wait to ask,’ answered Shurrock. ‘Quite enough for us when Clytie didn’t come down to breakfast – she lived in, you see – and Bob didn’t turn up for work.’
‘Was there any known connection between them, apart from the fact that both were employed at the inn?’
‘Oh, yes, there was,’ said Fenella eagerly, as Shurrock began shaking his head. ‘They were engaged to be married, I think. I know there was an understanding.’
‘First I’ve heard of it,’ said Mrs Shurrock sharply. ‘I’d have warned Clytie against, had I known. Bob wasn’t much of a catch, and I didn’t like some of his friends.’
‘I think they fixed it up just before Mayering Eve,’ explained Fenella, ‘from something Clytie said.’
‘Nothing was ever said to me. Of course, when neither of them turned up to work – that would have been soon after you left us to go to Douston, Miss – Mrs Pardieu – we knew they must be in it together. Well, I mean, that’s what we thought at the time. Now, of course, poor things, they’re both dead,’ said Mrs Shurrock, in a gentler tone, ‘so it don’t look as though it could have been them.’
‘And the third dead youth is the one whom Fenella knows as Aries,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘is he not?’
‘He’s been identified as Edwin Bartle Pitsey,’ said the superintendent. ‘Turns out to have been a mate of Bob’s, although Clytie didn’t fancy him, or so Mrs Lee here has told us.’
‘I should think not!’ said Fenella. ‘Of all the…’ She stopped and bit her lip, realising that the objectionable youth was dead.
‘We’re left with the conclusion,’ said Callon, ‘that the zodiac people are implicated up to the hilt. The trouble now is going to be how to get them identified as individuals.’
‘Well, I know Leo by sight,’ said Fenella. ‘I met him one day when he wasn’t Leo, and I’m sure I’d recognise him again.’
‘Perhaps, Shurrock, you’d care to give us a few names,’ suggested the superintendent. ‘You’re facing a charge, you and Mrs Lee, you know, so any information you give us now may help you.’
Shurrock shook his head.
‘Can’t be done, Super,’ he said. ‘They all come to the pub incognito, and, so far as I’m concerned, that’s the way they’ll stay.’
‘How often did the zodiac members meet?’ asked Dame Beatrice.
‘Once a month, of course. They’d have to, wouldn’t they, being what they was. Twelve months in the year, so twelve meetin’s is what I make it. But which day of the month they picked on, and who they was, I never concerned myself with. They turned up, they had their drinks and they went, but where they went, and who they were, I haven’t a notion and don’t want to have.’
‘I find that difficult to accept,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I think you know perfectly well who they were. Tell me, for instance, who took Sir Bathy’s place as Aries.’
‘I dunno nothing about it, I tell you,’ said the ex-landlord obstinately.
‘Very well. Then I’ll tell you. He was this murdered young man named Pitsey. Now you tell us who was Leo.’
‘You’ve got me, haven’t you? But if you know it all, you don’t need to hear it from me. Still, to oblige you, Leo is Bert Sawmills.’
‘Thanks,’ said Callon, writing it down. ‘We’ll have a chat with him. Where does he hang out?’
Unwillingly, but seeing no help for it, Shurrock gave the address.
‘He’s no murderer, though,’ he said defiantly. ‘He’s a surly sort of devil, but I’ve never known him so much as raise his fist to anybody.’
‘Now we want the names of Taurus and Scorpio,’ said the superintendent.
‘I don’t know ’em, and that’s the truth. I don’t know none of the others, I’m tellin’ you. I only know about Bert Sawmills because he was the leader of the gang under Sir Bathy and used to make all the arrangements with me for use of my lounge and havin’ snacks and beer sent up, with a drop of gin or sherry for the ladies.’
‘Ah, yes, the ladies,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Pisces was a changeling on occasion, I think.’
‘I dunno what you mean,’ said Shurrock.
‘Oh, Jem, don’t fight about what you don’t have to,’ urged his wife. ‘It can’t hurt to tell ’em as the real Pisces was Sir Jeremy, as both of us knows. But what is meant by him being a changeling – well, I thought that was something to do with the fairies, and I don’t reckon as Sir Jeremy would have any truck with them’
‘It is not in your power, then, to confirm that, on Mayering Eve, Lady Bitton-Bittadon attended the zodiac meeting in the character of Pisces? And that she carried what turned out to be a lethal weapon in her fish-hat?’
‘I don’t know why you keep harpin’ on about her. She wouldn’t drink at a pub, not a lady like her,’ growled Shurrock.
‘But she made one of the gathering in the lounge on Mayering Eve, did she not?’ persisted Dame Beatrice.
‘I tell you I don’t know. If she did, she never come into the bar. She must have sneaked upstairs without me seeing her.’
‘That means,’ said Fenella, ‘that she must have gone into the More to Come by way of that big door to the old church.’
‘How could her? ’Twas always kept bolted ’ceptin’ when I let Sir Bathy out,’ said Sukie.
‘But all the zodiac people knew about it,’ said Fenella, ‘because….’ She met her great-aunt’s compelling eye
