Death of a Fool

Chapter XII The Swords Again

The afternoon had begun to darken when the persons concerned in the Sword Wednesday Morris of the Five Sons returned to Mardian Castle.

Dr. Otterly came early and went indoors to present his compliments to Dame Alice and find out how she felt after last night’s carousal. He found the Rector and Alleyn were there already, while Fox and his assistants were to be seen in and about the courtyard.

At four o’clock the Andersens, with Sergeant Obby in attendance, drove up the hill in their station-waggon, from which they unloaded torches and a fresh drum of tar.

Superintendent Carey arrived on his motor-bike.

Simon appeared in his breakdown van with a new load of brushwood for the bonfire.

Ralph Stayne and his father walked up the hill and were harried by the geese, who had become hysterical.

Trixie and her father drove up with Camilla, looking rather white and strained, as their passenger.

Mrs. Bünz, alone this time, got her new car half-way up the drive and was stopped by one of Alleyn’s men, who asked her to leave the car where it was until further orders and come the rest of the way on foot. This she did quite amenably.

From the drawing-room window Alleyn saw her trudge into the courtyard. Behind him Dame Alice sat in her bucket chair. Dulcie and the Rector stood further back in the room. All of them watched the courtyard.

The preparations were almost complete. Under the bland scrutiny of Mr. Fox and his subordinates, the Andersens had re-erected the eight torches: four on each side of the dolmen.

“It looks just like it did on Sword Wednesday,” Dulcie pointed out, “doesn’t it, Aunt Akky? Fancy!”

Dame Alice made a slight contemptuous noise.

“Only, of course,” Dulcie added, “nobody’s beheaded a goose this time. There is that, isn’t there, Aunt Akky?”

“Unfortunately,” her great-aunt agreed savagely. She stared pointedly at Dulcie, who giggled vaguely.

“What’s that ass Ernie Andersen up to?” Dame Alice demanded.

“Dear me, yes,” the Rector said. “Look at him.”

Ernie, who had been standing apart from his brothers, apparently in a sulk, now advanced upon them. He gesticulated and turned from one to the other. Fox moved a little closer. Ernie pointed at his brothers and addressed himself to Fox.

“I understand,” Alleyn said, “that he’s been cutting up rough all the afternoon. He wants to play the Father’s part.”

“Mad!” Dame Alice said. “What did I tell you? He’ll get himself into trouble before it’s all over, you may depend ’pon it.”

It was clear that Ernie’s brothers had reacted in their usual way to his tantrums and were attempting to silence him. Simon came through the archway from the back, carrying “Crack’s” head, and walked over to the group. Ernie listened. Simon clapped him good-naturedly on the shoulder and in a moment Ernie had thrown his customary crashing salute.

“That’s done the trick,” Alleyn said.

Evidently Ernie was told to light the torches. Clearly mollified, he set about this task, and presently light fans of crimson and yellow consumed the cold air. Their light quivered over the dolmen and dramatized the attentive faces of the onlookers.

“It’s a strange effect,” the Rector said uneasily. “Like the setting for a barbaric play — King Lear, perhaps.”

“Otterly will agree with your choice,” Alleyn said and Dr. Otterly came out of the shadow at the back of the room. The Rector turned to him, but Dr. Otterly didn’t show his usual enthusiasm for his pet theory.

“I suppose I’d better go out,” he said. “Hadn’t I, Alleyn?”

“I think so. I’m going back now.” Alleyn turned to Dulcie, who at once put on her expression of terrified jocosity.

“I wonder,” Alleyn said, “if I could have some clean rags? Enough to make a couple of thick pads about the size of my hand? And some first-aid bandages, if you have them?”

“Rags!” Dulcie said. “Fancy! Pads! Bandages!” She eyed him facetiously. “Now, I wonder.”

“ ’Course he can have them,” Dame Alice said. “Don’t be an ass, Dulcie. Get them.”

“Very well, Aunt Akky,” Dulcie said in a hurry. She plunged out of the room and in a surprisingly short space of time returned with a handful of old linen and two bandages. Alleyn thanked her and stuffed them into his overcoat pocket.

“I don’t think we shall be long now,” he said. “And when you’re ready, Dame Alice —?”

“I’m ready. Haul me up, will yer? Dulcie! Bundle!”

As this ceremony would evidently take some considerable time, Alleyn excused himself. He and Dr. Otterly went out to the courtyard.

Dr. Otterly joined his colleagues and they all took up their positions offstage behind the old wall. Alleyne paused on the house steps and surveyed the scene.

The sky was clear now and had not yet completely darkened: to the west it was still faintly green. Stars exploded into a wintry glitter. There was frost in the air.

The little party of onlookers stood in their appointed places at the side of the courtyard and would have almost melted into darkness if it had not been for the torchlight. The Andersens had evidently strapped their pads of bells on their thick legs. Peremptory jangles could be heard offstage.

Alleyn’s men were at their stations and Fox now came forward to meet him.

“We’re all ready, Mr. Alleyn, when you are.”

“All right. What was biting Ernie?”

“Same old trouble. Wanting to play the Fool.”

“Thought as much.”

Carey moved out from behind the dolmen.

“I suppose it’s all right,” he murmured uneasily. “You know. Safe.”

“Safe?” Fox repeated and put his head on one side as if Carey had advanced a quaintly original theory.

“Well, I dunno, Mr. Fox,” Carey muttered. “It seems a bit uncanny-like and with young Ern such a queer excitable chap — he’s been saying he wants to sharpen up that damned old sword affair of his. ’Course we won’t let him have it, but how’s he going to act when we don’t! Take one of his fits, like as not.”

“We’ll have to keep a nice sharp observation over him, Mr. Carey,” Fox said.

“Over all of them,” Alleyn demanded.

“Well,” Carey conceded, “I daresay I’m fussy.”

“Not a bit,” Alleyn said. “You’re perfectly right to look upon this show as a chancy business. But they’ve sent us five very good men who all know what to look for. And with you,” Alleyn pointed out wickedly, “in a key position I don’t personally think we’re taking too big a risk.”

“Ar, no-no-no,” Carey said quickly and airily. “No, I wasn’t suggesting we were, you know. I wasn’t suggesting that.”

“We’ll just have a final look round, shall we?” Alleyn proposed.

He walked over to the dolmen, glanced behind it and then moved on through the central arch at the back.

Gathered together in a close-knit group, rather like a bunch of carol singers, with lanthorns in their hands, were the five Andersens. As they changed their positions in order to eye the new arrivals, their bells clinked. Alleyn was reminded unexpectedly of horses that stamped and shifted in their harness. Behind them, near the unlit bonfire, stood Dr. Otterly and Ralph, who was again dressed in his great hooped skirt. Simon stood by the cylindrical cheese-shaped body of the Hobby-Horse. “Crack’s” head grinned under his arm. Beyond these again, were three of the extra police officers. The hedge-slasher, with its half-burnt handle and heat-distempered blade, leant against the wall with the drum of tar nearby. There was a strong tang of bitumen on the frosty air.

“We’ll light the bonfire,” Alleyn said, “and then I’ll ask you all to come into the courtyard while I explain what we’re up to.”

One of the Yard men put a match to the paper. It flared up. There was a crackle of brushwood and a pungent smell rose sweetly with smoke from the bonfire.

They followed Alleyn back, through the archway, past the dolmen and the flaring torches and across the arena.

Dame Alice was enthroned at the top of the steps, flanked, as before, by Dulcie and the Rector. Rugged and shawled into a quadrel with a knob on top, she resembled some primitive totem and appeared to be perfectly immovable.

Alleyn stood on a step below and a little to one side of this group. His considerable height was exaggerated by the shadow that leapt up behind him. The torchlight lent emphasis to the sharply defined planes of his face and gave it a fantastic appearance. Below him stood the five Sons with Simon, Ralph and Dr. Otterly.

Alleyn looked across to the little group on his right.

“Will you come nearer?” he said. “What I have to say concerns all of you.”

They moved out of the shadows, keeping apart, as if each was anxious to establish a kind of disassociation from the others: Trixie, the landlord, Camilla and, lagging behind, Mrs. Bünz. Ralph crossed over to Camilla and stood beside her. His conical skirt looked like a giant extinguisher and Camilla in her flame-coloured coat like a small candle flame beside him.

Fox, Carey and their subordinates waited attentively in the rear.

“I expect,” Alleyn said, “that most of you wonder just why the police have decided upon this reconstruction. I don’t suppose any of you enjoy the prospect and I’m sorry if it causes you anxiety or distress.”

He waited for a moment. The faces upturned to his were misted by their own breath. Nobody spoke or moved.

“The fact is,” he went on, “that we’re taking an unusual line with a very unusual set of circumstances. The deceased man was in full sight of you all for as long as he took an active part in this dance-play of yours and he was still within sight of some of you after he lay down behind that stone. Now, Mr. Carey has questioned every man, woman and child who was in the audience on Wednesday night. They are agreed that the Guiser did not leave the arena or move from his hiding place and that nobody offered him any violence as he lay behind the stone. Yet, a few minutes after he lay down there came the appalling discovery of his decapitated body.

“We’ve made exhaustive inquiries, but each of them has led us slap up against this apparent contradiction. We want therefore to see for ourselves exactly what did happen.”

Dr. Otterly looked up at Alleyn as if he were about to interrupt but seemed to change his mind and said nothing.

“For one reason or another,” Alleyn went on, “some of you may feel disinclined to repeat some incident or occurrence. I can’t urge you too strongly to leave nothing out and to stick absolutely to fact. ‘Nothing extenuate,’ ” he found himself saying, “ ‘nor set down aught in malice.’ That’s as sound a bit of advice on evidence as one can find anywhere and what we’re asking you to do is, in effect, to provide visual evidence. To show us the truth. And by sticking to the whole truth and nothing but the truth, each one of you will establish the innocent. You will show us who couldn’t have done it. But don’t fiddle with the facts. Please don’t do that. Don’t leave out anything because you’re afraid we may think it looks a bit fishy. We won’t think so if it’s not. And what’s more,” he added and raised an eyebrow, “I must remind you that any rearrangement would probably be spotted by your fellow performers or your audience.”

He paused. Ernie broke into aimless laughter and his brothers shifted uneasily and jangled their bells.

“Which brings me,” Alleyn went on, “to my second point. If at any stage of this performance any one of you notices anything at all, however slight, that is different from what you remember, you will please say so. There and then. There’ll be a certain amount of noise, I suppose, so you’ll have to give a clear signal. Hold up your hand. If you’re a fiddler,” Alleyn said and nodded at Dr. Utterly, “stop fiddling and hold up your bow. If you’re the Hobby-Horse” — he glanced at Simon — “you can’t hold up your hand, but you can let out a yell, can’t you?”

“Fair enough,” Simon said. “Yip-ee!”

The Andersens and the audience looked scandalized.

“And similarly,” Alleyn said, “I want any member of this very small audience who notices any discrepancy to make it clear, at once, that he does so. Sing out or hold up your hand. Do it there and then.”

“Dulcie.”

“Yes, Aunt Akky?”

“Get the gong.”

“The gong, Aunt Akky?”

“Yes. The one I bought at that jumble-sale. And the hunting horn from the gun-room.”

“Very well, Aunt Akky.”

Dulcie got up and went indoors.

“You,” Dame Alice told Alleyn, “can bang if you want them to stop. I’ll have the horn.”

Alleyn said apologetically, “Thank you very much, but, as it happens, I’ve got a whistle.”

“Sam can bang, then, if he notices anything.”

The Rector cleared his throat and said he didn’t think he’d want to.

Alleyn, fighting hard against this rising element of semi-comic activity, addressed himself again to the performers.

“If you hear my whistle,” he said, “you will at once stop whatever you may be doing. Now, is all this perfectly clear? Are there any questions?”

Chris Andersen said loudly, “What say us chaps won’t?”

“You mean, won’t perform at all?”

“Right. What say we won’t?”

“That’ll be that,” Alleyn said coolly.

“Here!” Dame Alice shouted, peering into the little group of men. “Who was that? Who’s talkin’ about will and won’t?”

They shuffled and jangled.

“Come on,” she commanded. “Daniel! Who was it?”

Dan looked extremely uncomfortable. Ernie laughed again and jerked his thumb at Chris. “Good old Chrissie,” he guffawed.

Big Chris came tinkling forward. He stood at the foot of the steps and looked full at Dame Alice.

“It was me, then,” he said. “Axcuse me, ma’am, it’s our business whether this affair goes on or don’t. Seeing who it was that was murdered. We’re his sons.”

“Pity you haven’t got his brains!” she rejoined. “You’re a hotheaded, blunderin’ sort of donkey, Chris Andersen, and always have been. Be a sensible feller, now, and don’t go puttin’ yourself in the wrong.”

“What’s the sense of it?” Chris demanded. “How can we do what was done before when there’s no Fool? What’s the good of it?”

“Anyone’d think you wanted your father’s murderer to go scot-free.”

Chris sank his head a little between his shoulders and demanded of Alleyn, “Will it be brought up agin’ us if we won’t do it?”

Alleyn said, “Your refusal will be noted. We can’t use threats.”

“Namby-pamby nonsense,” Dame Alice announced.

Chris stood with his head bent. Andy and Nat looked out of the corners of their eyes at Dan. Ernie did a slight kicking step and roused his bells.

Dan said, “As I look at it, there’s no choice, souls. We’ll dance.”

“Good,” Alleyn said. “Very sensible. We begin at the point where the Guiser arrived in Mrs. Bünz’s car. I will ask Mrs. Bünz to go down to the car, drive it up, park it where she parked it before and do exactly what she did the first time. You will find a police constable outside, Mrs. Bünz, and he will accompany you. The performers will wait offstage by the bonfire. Dr. Otterly will come onstage and begin to play. Right, Mrs. Bünz?”

Mrs. Bünz was blowing her nose. She nodded and turned away. She tramped out through the side archway and disappeared.

Dan made a sign to his brothers. They faced about and went tinkling across the courtyard and through the centre archway. Ralph Stayne and Simon followed. The watchers took up their appointed places and Dr. Otterly stepped out into the courtyard and tucked his fiddle under his chin.

The front door burst open and Dulcie staggered out bearing a hunting horn and a hideous gong slung between two tusks. She stumbled and, in recovering, struck the gong smartly with the horn. It gave out a single and extremely strident note that echoed forbiddingly round the courtyard.

As if this were an approved signal, Mrs. Bünz, half-way down the drive, started up the engine of her car and Dr. Otterly gave a scrape on his fiddle.

“Well,” Alleyn thought, “it’s a rum go and no mistake but we’re off.”

Mrs. Bünz’s car, with repeated blasts on the horn, churned in low gear up the drive and turned to the right behind the curved wall. It stopped. There was a final and prolonged hoot. Dr. Otterly lowered his bow.

“This was when I went off to see what was up,” he said.

“Right. Do so, please.”

He did so, a rather lonely figure in the empty courtyard.

Mrs. Bünz, followed by a constable, returned and stood just within the side entrance. She was as white as a sheet and trembling.

“We could hear the Guiser,” Dame Alice informed them, “yellin’.”

Nobody was yelling this time. On the far side of the semi-circular wall, out of sight of their audience and lit by the bonfire, the performers stood and stared at each other. Dr. Otterly faced them. The police hovered anonymously. Mr. Fox, placidly bespectacled, contemplated them all in turn. His notebook lay open on his massive palm.

“This,” he said, “is where the old gentleman arrived and found you” — he jabbed a forefinger at Ernie — “dressed up for his part and young Bill dressed up for yours. He grabbed his clothes off you” — another jab at Ernie — “and got into them himself. And you changed with young Bill. Take all that as read. What was said?”

Simon, Dr. Otterly and Ralph Stayne all spoke together. Mr. Fox pointed his pencil at Dr. Otterly. “Yes, thank you, Doctor?” he prompted.

“When I came out,” Dr. Otterly said, “he was roaring like a bull, but you couldn’t make head or tail of it. He got hold of Ernie and practically lugged the clothes off him.”

Ernie swore comprehensively. “Done it to spite me,” he said. “Old bastard!”

“Was any explanation given,” Fox pursued, “about the note that had been handed round saying Ernie could do it?”

There was no answer. “Nobody,” Fox continued, “spotted that it hadn’t been written about the dance but about that slasher there?”

Ernie, meeting the flabbergasted gaze of his brothers, slapped his knees and roared out, “I foxed the lot of you proper, I did. Not so silly as what I let on to be, me!”

Nat said profoundly, “You bloody great fool.”

Ernie burst into his high rocketing laugh.

Fox held up his hand. “Shut up,” he said and nodded to one of his men, who came forward with the swords in a sacking bundle and gave them out to the dancers.

Ernie began to swing and slash with his sword.

“Where’s mine?” he demanded. “This’un’s not mine. Mine’s sharp.”

“That’ll do, you,” Fox said. “You’re not having a sharp one this time. Places, everyone. In the same order as before, if you please.”

Dr. Otterly nodded and went out through the archway into the arena.

“Now,” Dulcie said, “they really begin, don’t they, Aunt Akky?”

A preliminary scrape or two and then the jiggling reiterative tune. Out through the archway came Ernie, white-faced this time instead of black but wearing his black cap and gloves. His movements at first were less flamboyant than they had been on Wednesday, but perhaps he gathered inspiration from the fiddle, for they soon became more lively. He pranced and curvetted and began to slash out with his sword.

“This, I take it, is whiffling,” Alleyn said. “A kind of purification, isn’t it, Rector?”

“I believe so. Yes.”

Ernie completed his round and stood to one side. His brothers came out at a run, their bells jerking. Ernie joined them and they performed the Mardian Morris together, wearing their bells and leaving their swords in a heap near Dr. Otterly. This done they removed their bells and took up their swords. Ernie threaded his red ribbon. They stared at each other and, furtively, at Alleyn.

Now followed the entry of the hermaphrodite and the Hobby-Horse. Ralph Stayne’s extinguisher of a skirt, suspended from his armpits, swung and bounced. His man’s jacket spread over it. His hat, half topper, half floral toque, was jammed down over his forehead. The face beneath was incongruously grave.

“Crack’s” iron head poked and gangled monstrously on the top of its long canvas neck. The cheese-shaped body swung rhythmically and its skirt trailed on the ground. “Crack’s” jaws snapped and its ridiculous rudiment of a tail twitched busily. Together these two came prancing in.

Dulcie again said, “Here comes ‘Crack,’ ” and her great-aunt looked irritably at her as if she too were bent on a complete pastiche.

“Crack” finished his entry dead centre, facing the steps. A voice that seemed to have no point of origin but to be merely there asked anxiously:

“I say, sorry, but do you want all the fun and games?”

“Crack’s” neck opened a little, rather horridly, and Simon’s face could be seen behind the orifice.

“Everything,” Alleyn said.

“Oh, righty-ho. Look out, ladies, here I come,” the voice said. The neck closed. “Crack” swung from side to side as if the monster ogled its audience and made up its mind where to hunt. Camilla moved closer to Trixie and looked apprehensively from Alleyn to Ralph Stayne. Ralph signalled to her, putting his thumb up as if to reassure her of his presence.

“Crack’s” jaws snapped. It began to make pretended forays upon an imaginary audience. Dr. Otterly, still fiddling, moved nearer to Camilla and nodded to her encouragingly. “Crack” darted suddenly at Camilla. She ran like a hare before it, across the courtyard and into Ralph’s arms. “Crack” went off at the rear archway.

“Just what they did before,” Dulcie ejaculated. “Isn’t it, Aunt Akky? Isn’t it, Sam?”

The Rector murmured unhappily and Dame Alice said, “I do wish to goodness you’d shut up, Dulcie.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Aunt Akky, but — ow!” Dulcie ejaculated.

Alleyn had blown his whistle.

Dr. Otterly stopped playing. The Andersen brothers turned their faces toward Alleyn.

“One moment,” Alleyn said.

He moved to the bottom step and turned a little to take in both the party of three above him and the scattered groups in the courtyard.

“I want a general check, here,” he said. “Mrs. Bünz, are you satisfied that so far this was exactly what happened?”

Bailey had turned his torchlight on Mrs. Bünz. Her mouth was open. Her lips began to move.

“I’m afraid I can’t hear you,” Alleyn said. “Will you come a little nearer?”

She came very slowly towards him.

“Now,” he said.

“]a. It is what was done.”

“And what happened next?”

She moistened her lips. “There was the entry of the Fool,” she said.

“What did he do, exactly?”

She made an odd and very ineloquent gesture.

“He goes round,” she said. “Round and round.”

“And what else does he do?”

“Aunt Akky—”

“No,” Alleyn said so strongly that Dulcie gave another little yelp. “I want Mrs. Bünz to show us what he did.”

Mrs. Bünz was, as usual, much enveloped. As she moved forward, most reluctantly, a stiffish breeze sprang up. She was involved in a little storm of billowing handicraft.

In an uncomfortable silence she jogged miserably round the outside of the courtyard, gave two or three dejected skips and came to a halt in front of the steps. Dame Alice stared at her implacably and Dulcie gaped. The Rector looked at his boots.

“That is all,” said Mrs. Bünz.

“You have left something out,” said Alleyn.

“I do not remember everything,” Mrs. Bünz said in a strangulated voice.

“And I’ll tell you why,” Alleyn rejoined. “It is because you have never seen what he did. Not even when you looked through the window of the barn.”

She put her woolly hand to her mouth and stepped backwards.

“I’ll be bloody well danged!” Tom Plowman loudly ejaculated and was silenced by Trixie.

Mrs. Bünz said something that sounded like “— interests of scientific research —”

“Nor, I suggest, will you have seen what the Guiser did on his first entrance on Wednesday night. Because on Wednesday night you left the arena at the point we have now reached. Didn’t you, Mrs. Bünz?”

She only moved her head from side to side as if to assure herself that it was on properly.

“Do you say that’s wrong?”

She flapped her woollen paws and nodded.

“Yes, but you know, Aunt Akky, she did.”

“Hold your tongue, Dulcie, do,” begged her great-aunt.

“No,” Alleyn said. “Not at all. I want to hear from Miss Mardian.”

“Have it your own way. It’s odds on she don’t know what she’s talkin’ about.”

“Oh,” Dulcie cried, “but I do. I said so to you, Aunt Akky. I said, ‘Aunt Akky, do look at the German woman going away.” I said so to Sam. Didn’t I, Sam?”

The Rector, looking startled and rather guilty, said to Alleyn, “I believe she did.”

“And what was Mrs. Bünz doing, Rector?”

“She — actually — I really had quite forgotten — she was going out.”

“Well, Mrs. Bünz?”

Mrs. Bünz now spoke with the air of a woman who has had time to make up her mind.

“I had unexpected occasion,” she said, choosing her words, “to absent myself. Delicacy,” she added, “excuses me from further cobbent.”

“Rot,” said Dame Alice.

Alleyn said, “And when did you come back?”

She answered quickly, “During the first part of the sword-dance.”

“Why didn’t you tell me all this yesterday when we had such difficulty over the point?”

To that she had nothing to say.

Alleyn made a signal with his hand and Fox, who stood in the rear archway, turned to “Crack” and said something inaudible. They came forward together.

“Mr. Begg,” Alleyn called out, “will you take your harness off, if you please?”

“What say? Oh, righty-ho,” said Simon’s voice. There was a strange and uncanny upheaval. “Crack’s” neck collapsed and the iron head retreated after it into the cylindrical body. The whole frame tilted on its rim and presently Simon appeared.

“Good. Now, I suggest that on Wednesday evening, while you waited behind the wall at the back, you took off your harness as you have just done here.”

Simon began to look resigned. “And I suggest,” Alleyn went on, “that when you, Mrs. Bünz, left the arena by the side arch, you went round behind the walls and met Mr. Begg at the back.”

Mrs. Bünz flung up her thick arms in a gesture of defeat.

Simon said clumsily, “Not to worry, Mrs. B.,” and dropped his hands on her shoulders.

She screamed out, “Don’t touch me!”

Alleyn said, “Your shoulders are sore, aren’t they? But then ‘Crack’s’ harness is very heavy, of course.”

After that, Mrs. Bünz had nothing to say.

A babble of astonishment had broken out on the steps and a kind of suppressed hullabaloo among the Andersens.

Ernie shouted, “What did I tell you, then, chaps? I said it was a wumman what done it, didn’t I? No good comes of it when a wumman mixes ’erself up in this gear. Not it. Same as curing hams,” he astonishingly added. “Keep ’em out when it’s men’s gear, same as the old bastard said.”

“Ah, shut up, Corp. Shut your trap, will you?” Simon said wearily.

“Very good, sir,” Ernie shouted and flung himself into a salute.

Alleyn said, “Steady now, and attend to me. I imagine that you, Begg, accepted a sum of money from Mrs. Bünz in consideration of her being allowed to stand-in as ‘Crack’ during the triple sword-dance. You came off after your tearing act and she met you behind the wall near the bonfire and you put your harness on her and away she went. I think that, struck by the happy coincidence of names, you probably planked whatever money she gave you, and I daresay a whole lot more, on Teutonic Dancer by Subsidize out of Substitution. The gods of chance are notoriously unscrupulous and, without deserving in the least to do so, you won a packet.”

Simon grinned and then looked as if he wished he hadn’t. He said, “How can you be so sure you haven’t been handed a plateful of duff gen?”

“I can be perfectly sure. Do you know what the Guiser’s bits of dialogue were in the performance?”

“No,” Simon said. “I don’t. He always mumbled whatever it was. Mrs. B. asked me, as a matter of fact, and I told her I didn’t know.”

Alleyn turned to the company at large.

“Did any of you ever tell Mrs. Bünz anything about what was said?”

Chris said angrily, “Not bloody likely.”

“Very well. Mrs. Bünz repeated a phrase of the dialogue in conversation with me. A phrase that I’m sure she heard with immense satisfaction for the first time on Wednesday night. That’s why you bribed Mr. Begg to let you take his part, wasn’t it, Mrs. Bünz? You were on the track of a particularly sumptuous fragment of folklore. You didn’t dance, as you were meant to do, round the edge of the arena. Disguised as ‘Crack,’ you got as close as you could to the Guiser and you listened in.”

Alleyn hesitated for a moment and then quoted, “ ‘Betty to lover me.’ Do you remember how it goes on?”

“I answer nothing.”

“Then I’m afraid I must ask you to act.” He fished in his pockets and pulled out the bandages and two handfuls of linen. “These will do to pad your shoulders. We’ll get Dr. Otterly to fix them.”

“What will you make me do?”

“Only what you did on Wednesday.”

Chris shouted violently, “Doan’t let ’er. Keep the woman out of it. Doan’t let ’er.”

Dan said, “And so I say. If that’s what happened ’twasn’t right and never will be. Once was too many, let alone her doing it again deliberate.”

“Hold hard, chaps,” Andy said, with much less than his usual modesty. “This makes a bit of differ, all the same. None of us knew about this, did we?” He jerked his head at Ernie. “Only young Ern seemingly. He knew the woman done this on us? Didn’t you, Ern?”

“Keep your trap shut, Corp,” Simon advised him.

“Very good, sir.”

Chris suddenly roared at Simon, “You leave Ern alone, you, Simmy-Dick. You lay off of him, will you? Reckon you’re no better nor a damned traitor, letting a woman in on the Five Sons.”

“So he is, then,” Nat said. “A bloody traitor. Don’t you heed him, Ern.”

“Ah, put a sock in it, you silly clots,” Simon said disgustedly. “Leave the poor sod alone. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Silly bastards!”

Dan, using a prim voice, said, “Naow! Naow! Language!”

They all glanced self-consciously at Dame Alice.

It had been obvious to Alleyn that behind him Dame Alice was getting up steam. She now let it off by means literally of an attenuated hiss. The Andersens stared at her apprehensively.

She went for them with a mixture of arrogance and essential understanding that must derive, Alleyn thought, from a line of coarse, aristocratic, overbearing landlords. She was the Old Englishwoman not only of Surtees but of Fielding and Wycherley and Johnson: a bully and a harridan, but one who spoke with authority. The Andersens listened to her, without any show of servility but rather with the air of men who recognize a familiar voice among foreigners. She had only one thing to say to them and it was to the effect that if they didn’t perform she, the police and everyone else would naturally conclude they had united to make away with their father. She ended abruptly with an order to get on with it before she lost patience. Chris still refused to go on, but his brothers, after a brief consultation, over-ruled him.

Fox, who had been writing busily, exchanged satisfied glances with his chief.

Alleyn said, “Now, Mrs. Bünz, are you ready?”

Dr. Otterly had been busy with the bandages and the pads of linen, which now rested on Mrs. Bünz’s shoulders like a pair of unwieldy epaulets.

“You’re prepared, I see,” Alleyn said, “to help us.”

“I have not said.”

Ernie suddenly bawled out, “Don’t bloody well let ’er. There’ll be trouble.”

“That’ll do,” Alleyn said, and Ernie was silent. “Well, Mrs. Bünz?”

She turned to Simon. Her face was the colour of lard and she smiled horridly. “Wing-Commander Begg, you, as much as I, are implicated in this idle prank. Should I repeat?”

Simon took her gently round the waist. “I don’t see why not, Mrs. B.,” he said. “You be a good girl and play ball with the cops. Run along, now.”

He gave her a facetious pat. “Very well,” she said and produced a sort of laugh. “After all, why dot?”

So she went out by the side archway and Simon by the centre one. Dr. Otterly struck up his fiddle again.

It was the tune that had ushered in the Fool. Dr. Otterly played the introduction and, involuntarily, performers and audience alike looked at the rear archway where on Sword Wednesday the lonely figure in its dolorous mask had appeared. The archway gaped enigmatically upon the night. Smoke from the bonfire drifted across the background and occasional sparks crossed it like fireflies. It had an air of expectancy.

“But this time there won’t be a Fool,” Dulcie pointed out. “Will there, Aunt Akky?”

Dame Alice had opened her mouth to speak. It remained open, but no voice came out. The Rector ejaculated sharply and rose from his chair. A thin, shocking sound, half laughter and half scream, wavered across the courtyard. It had been made by Ernie and was echoed by Trixie.

Through the smoke, as if it had been evolved from the same element, came the white figure: jog, jog, getting clearer every second. Through the archway and into the arena: a grinning mask, limp arms, a bauble on a stick, and bent legs.

Dr. Otterly, after an astonished discord, went into the refrain of “Lord Mardian’s Fancy.” Young Bill, in the character of the Fool, began to jog round the courtyard. It was as if a clockwork toy had been re-wound.

Alleyn joined Fox by the rear archway. From here he could still see the Andersens. The four elder brothers were reassuring each other. Chris looked angry, and the others mulish and affronted. But Ernie’s mouth gaped and his hands twitched and he watched the Fool like a fury. Offstage, through the archway, Alleyn was able to see Mrs. Bünz’s encounter with Simon. She came round the outside curve of the wall and he met her at the bonfire. He began to explain sheepishly to Alleyn.

“We’d fixed it up like this,” Simon said. “I met her here. We’d plenty of time.”

“Why on earth didn’t you tell us the whole of this ridiculous story at once?” Alleyn asked.

Simon mumbled, “I don’t expect you to credit it, but I was cobs with the boys. They’re a good shower of bods. I knew how they’d feel if it ever got out. And, anyway, it doesn’t look so hot, does it? For all I knew you might get thinking things.”

“What sort of things?”

“Well, you know. With murder about.”

“You have been an ass,” Alleyn said.

“I wouldn’t have done it, only I wanted the scratch like hell.” He added impertinently, “Come to that, why didn’t you tell us you were going to rig up an understudy? Nasty jolt he gave us, didn’t he, Mrs. B.? Come on, there’s a big girl. Gently does it.”

Mrs. Bünz, who seemed to be shattered into acquiescence, sat on the ground. He tipped up the great cylinder of “Crack’s” body, exposing the heavy shoulder straps under the canvas top and the buckled harness. He lowered it gently over Mrs. Bünz. “Arms through the leathers,” he said.

The ringed canvas neck, which lay concertinaed on the top of the cylinder, now swelled at the base. Simon leant over and adjusted it and Mrs. Bünz’s pixie cap appeared through the top. He lifted the head on its flexible rod and then introduced the rod into the neck. “Here it comes,” he said. Mrs. Bünz’s hands could be seen grasping the end of the rod.

“It fits into a socket in the harness,” Simon explained. The head now stood like some monstrous blossom on a thin stalk above the body. Simon drew up the canvas neck. The pixie cap disappeared. The top of the neck was made fast to the head and Mrs. Bünz contemplated the world through a sort of window in the canvas.

“The hands are free underneath,” Simon said, “to work the tail string.” He grinned. “And to have a bit of the old woo if you catch your girlie. I didn’t, worse luck. There you are. The Doc’s just coming up with the tune for the first sword-dance. On you go, Mrs. B. Not to worry. We don’t believe in spooks, do we?”

And Mrs. Bünz, subdued to the semblance of a prehistoric bad dream, went through the archway to take part in the Mardian Sword Dance.

Simon squatted down by the bonfire and reached for a burning twig to light his cigarette.

“Poor old B.,” he said, looking after Mrs. Bünz. “But, still.”

Camilla had once again run away from the Hobby into Ralph Stayne’s arms and once again he stayed beside her.

She had scarcely recovered from the shock of the Fool’s entrance and kept looking into Ralph’s face to reassure herself. She found his great extinguisher of a skirt and his queer bi-sexual hat rather off-putting. She kept remembering stories Trixie had told her of how in earlier times the Betties had used the skirt. They had popped it over village girls, Trixie said, and had grabbed hold of them through the slits in the sides and carried them away. Camilla would have jeered at herself heartily if she had realized that, even though Ralph had only indulged in a modified form of this piece of horseplay, she intensely disliked the anecdote. Perhaps it was because Trixie had related it.

She looked at Ralph now and, after the habit of lovers, made much of the qualities she thought she saw in him. His mouth was set and his eyebrows were drawn together in a scowl. “He’s terribly sensitive, really,” Camilla told herself. “He’s hating this business as much in his way as I am in mine. And,” she thought, “I daresay he’s angryish because I got such an awful shock when whoever it is came in like the Guiser, and I daresay he’s even angrier because Simon Begg chased me again.” This thought cheered her immensely.

They watched young Bill doing his version of his grandfather’s first entry and the ceremonial trot round the courtyard. He repeated everything quite correctly and didn’t forget to slap the dolmen with his clown’s bauble.

“And that’s what Mrs. Bünz didn’t know about,” Ralph muttered.

“Who is it?” Camilla wondered. “He knows it all, doesn’t he? It’s horrible.”

“It’s that damned young Bill,” Ralph muttered. “There’s nobody else who does know. By Heaven, when I get hold of him —”

Camilla said, “Darling, you don’t think —?”

He turned his head and looked steadily at Camilla for a moment before answering her.

“I don’t know what to think,” he said at last. “But I know damn’ well that if the Guiser had spotted Mrs. Bünz dressed up as ‘Crack’ he’d have gone for her like a fury.”

“But nothing happened,” Camilla said. “I stood here and I looked and nothing happened.”

“I know,” he said.

“Well, then — how? Was he carried off? Or something?” Ralph shook his head.

Dr. Otterly had struck up a bouncing introduction. The Five Sons, who had removed their bells, took up their swords and came forward into position. And through the central archway jogged the Hobby-Horse, moving slowly.

“Here she comes,” Camilla said. “You’d never guess, would you?”

Alleyn and Fox reappeared and stood inside the archway. Beyond them, lit by the bonfire, was Simon.

The Sons began the first part of the triple sword-dance.

They had approached their task with a lowering and reluctant air. Alleyn wondered if there was going to be a joint protest about the re-enactment of the Fool. Ernie hadn’t removed his gaze from the dolorous mask. His eyes were unpleasantly brilliant and his face glistened with sweat. He came forward with his brothers and had an air of scarcely knowing what he was about. But there was some compulsion in the music. They had been so drilled by their father and so used to executing their steps with a leap and a flourish that they were unable to dance with less than the traditional panache. They were soon hard at it, neat and vigorous, rising lightly and coming down hard. The ring of steel was made. Each man grasped his successor’s sword by its red ribbon. The lock, or knot, was formed. Dan raised it aloft to exhibit it and it glittered in the torchlight. Young Bill approached and looked at the knot as if at his reflection in a glass.

A metallic rumpus broke out on the steps. It was Dame Alice indulging in a wild cachinnation on her hunting horn.

Dr. Otterly lowered his bow. The dancers, the Betty and the Hobby-Horse were motionless.

“Yes, Dame Alice?” Alleyn asked.

“The Hobby ain’t close enough,” she said. “Nothin’ like. It kept sidlin’ up to Will’m. D’you ’gree?” she barked at the Rector.

“I rather think it did.”

“What does everybody else say to this?” Alleyn asked.

Dr. Otterly said he remembered noticing that “Crack” kept much closer than usual to the Fool.

“So do I,” Ralph said. “Undoubtedly it did. Isn’t that right?” he added, turning to the Andersens.

“So ’tis, then, Mr. Ralph,” Dan said. “I kind of seed it was there when we was hard at it dancing. And afterwards, in all the muck-up, I reckon I forgot. Right?” He appealed to his brothers.

“Reckon so,” they said, glowering at the Hobby, and Chris added angrily, “Prying and sneaking and none of us with the sense to know. What she done it for?”

“In order to hear what the Fool said when he looked in the ‘glass’?” Alleyn suggested. “Was it, Mrs. Bünz?” he shouted, standing over the Hobby-Horse and peering at its neck. “Did you go close because you wanted to hear?”

A muffled sound came through the neck. The great head swayed in a grotesque nod.

“ ‘Once for a looker,’ ” Alleyn quoted, “ ‘and all must agree /If I bashes the looking-glass so I’ll go free.’ Was that what he said?”

The head nodded again.

“Stand closer then, Mrs. Bünz. Stand as you did on Wednesday.”

The Hobby-Horse stood closer.

“Go on,” Alleyn said. “Go on, Fool.”

Young Bill, using both hands, took the knot of swords by the hilts and dashed it to the ground. Dr. Otterly struck up again, the Sons retrieved their swords and began the second part of the dance, which was an exact repetition of the first. They now had the air of being fiercely dedicated. Even Ernie danced with concentration, though he continually threw glances of positive hatred at the Fool.

And the Hobby-Horse stood close.

It swayed and fidgeted as if the being at its centre was uneasy. Once, as the head moved, Alleyn caught a glimpse of eyes behind the window in its neck.

The second sword-knot was made and exhibited by Dan. Then young Bill leant his mask to one side and mimed the writing of the Will and the offer of the Will to the Sons.

Alleyn quoted again:

“ ‘Twice for a Testament. Read it and see/If you look at the leavings then so I’ll go free.’ ”

The Betty drew nearer. The Hobby and the Betty now stood right and left of the dolmen.

The Sons broke the knot and began the third part of the dance.

To the party of three on the steps, to the watching audience and the policemen and to Camilla, who looked on with a rising sensation of nausea, it seemed as if the Five Sons now danced on a crescendo that thudded like a quickening pulse towards its climax.

For the last and the third time their swords were interlaced and Dan held them aloft. The Fool was in his place behind the dolmen, the hermaphrodite and the horse stood like crazy acolytes to left and right of the stone. Dan lowered the knot of swords to the level of the Fool’s head. Each of the Sons laid hold of his own sword-hilt. The fiddling stopped.

“I can’t look,” Camilla thought and then, “But that’s not how it was. They’ve gone wrong again.”

At the same time the gong, the hunting horn and Alleyn’s whistle sounded. Ralph Stayne, Tom Plowman and Trixie all held up their hands and Dr. Otterly raised his bow.

It was the Hobby-Horse again. It should, they said, have been close behind the Fool, who was now leaning across the dolmen towards the sword-lock.

Very slowly the Hobby moved behind the Fool.

“And then,” Alleyn said, “came the last verse. ‘Here comes the rappers to send me to bed/They’ll rapper my head off and then I’ll be dead.’ Now.”

Young Bill leant over the dolmen and thrust his head with its rabbit-cap and mask into the lock of swords. There he was, grinning through a steel halter.

The swords flashed and sang. The rabbit head dropped on the dolmen. The Fool slid down behind the stone out of sight.

“Go on,” Alleyn said. He stood beside the Hobby-Horse. The Fool lay at their feet. Alleyn pointed at Ralph Stayne. “It’s your turn,” he said. “Go on.”

Ralph said apologetically, “I can’t very well without any audience.”

“Why not?”

“It was an ad lib. It depended on the audience.”

“Never mind. You’ve got Mr. Plowman and Trixie and a perambulation of police. Imagine the rest.”

“It’s so damn’ silly,” Ralph muttered.

“Oh, get on,” Dame Alice ordered. “What’s the matter with the boy!”

From the folds of his crate-like skirt Ralph drew out a sort of ladle that hung on a string from his waist. Rather half-heartedly he made a circuit of the courtyard and mimed the taking up of a collection.

“That’s all,” he said and came to a halt.

Dame Alice tooted, Dulcie banged the gong and Chris Andersen shouted, “No, it bean’t all, neither.”

“I mean it’s all of that bit,” Ralph said to Alleyn.

“What comes next? Keep going.”

With rather bad grace he embarked on his fooling. He flirted his crinoline and ran at two or three of the stolidly observant policemen.

His great-aunt shouted, “Use yer skirt, boy!”

Ralph made a sortie upon a large officer and attempted without success to throw the crinoline over his head.

“Yah!” jeered his great-aunt. “Go for a little ’un. Go for the gel.”

This was Trixie.

She smiled broadly at Ralph. “Come on, then, Mr. Ralph. I doan’t mind,” said Trixie.

Camilla turned away quickly. The Andersens stared, bright-eyed, at Ralph.

Alleyn said, “Obviously the skirt business only works if the victim’s very short and slight. Suppose we resurrect the Fool for the moment.”

Young Bill got up from behind the dolmen. Ralph ran at him and popped the crinoline over his head. The crinoline heaved and bulged. It was not difficult, Alleyn thought, to imagine the hammer blows of bucolic wit that this performance must have inspired in the less inhibited days of Merrie England.

“Will that do?” Ralph asked ungraciously.

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “Yes, I think it will.”

Young Bill rolled out from under the rim of the crinoline and again lay down between dolmen and “Crack.”

“Go on,” Alleyn said. “Next.”

Ralph set his jaw and prepared grimly for a revival of his Ernie-baiting. Ernie immediately showed signs of resentment and of wishing to anticipate the event.

“Not this time yer won’t,” he said showing his teeth and holding his sword behind him. “Not me. I know a trick worth two nor that.”

This led to a general uproar.

At last when the blandishments of his brothers, Dame Alice’s fury, Alleyn’s patience and the sweet reasonableness of Dr. Otterly had all proved fruitless, Alleyn fetched Simon from behind the wall.

“Will you,” he said, “get him to stand facing his brothers and holding his sword by the ribbons, which, I gather, is what he did originally?”

“I’ll give it a whirl if you say so, but don’t depend on it. He’s blowing up for trouble, is the Corp.”

“Try.”

“Roger. But he may do anything. Hey! Corp!”

He took Ernie by the arm and murmured wooingly in his ear. Ernie listened but, when it came to the point, remained truculent. “No bloody fear,” he said. He pulled away from Simon and turned on Ralph. “You keep off.”

“Sorry,” Simon muttered. “N.b.g.”

“Oh, well,” Alleyn said. “You go back, will you?”

Simon went back.

Alleyn had a word with Ralph, who listened without any great show of enthusiasm but nodded agreement. Alleyn went up to Ernie.

He said, “Is that the sword you were making such a song about? The one you had on Wednesday?”

“Not it,” Ernie said angrily. “This’un’s a proper old blunt ’un. Mine’s a whiffler, mine is. So sharp’s a knife.”

“You must have looked pretty foolish when the Betty took it off you.”

“No, I did not, then.”

“How did he get it? If it’s so sharp why didn’t he cut his hand?”

“You mind your own bloody business.”

“Come on, now. He ordered you to give it to him and you handed it over like a good little boy.”

Ernie’s response to this was furious and unprintable.

Alleyn laughed. “All right. Did he smack your hand or what? Come on.”

“He wouldn’t of took it,” Ernie spluttered, “if I’d seen. He come sneaking up be’ind when I worn’t noticing, like. Didn’t you?” he demanded of Ralph. “If I’d held thik proper you wouldn’t ’ave done it.”

“Oh,” Alleyn said offensively. “And how did you hold it? Like a lady’s parasol?”

Ernie glared at him. A stillness had fallen over the courtyard.

The bonfire could be heard crackling cheerfully beyond the wall. Very deliberately Ernie reversed his sword and swung it by the scarlet cord that was threaded through the tip.

“Now!” Alleyn shouted and Ralph pounced.

“Crack” screamed: a shrill wavering cry. Mrs. Bünz’s voice could be heard within, protesting, apparently, in German, and the Hobby, moving eccentrically and very fast, turned and bolted through the archway at the rear. At the same time Ralph, with the sword in one hand and his crinoline gathered up in the other, fled before the enraged Ernie. Round and round the courtyard they ran. Ralph dodged and feinted, Ernie roared and doubled and stumbled after him.

But Alleyn didn’t wait to see the chase.

He ran after the Hobby. Through the archway he ran and there behind the old wall in the light of the bonfire was “Crack,” the Hobby-Horse, plunging and squealing in the strangest manner. Its great cylinder of a body swung and tilted. Its skirt swept the muddy ground, its canvas top bulged and its head gyrated wildly. Fox and three of his men stood by and watched. There was a final mammoth upheaval. The whole structure tipped and fell over. Mrs. Bünz, terribly dishevelled, bolted out and was caught by Fox.

She left behind her the strangest travesty of the Fool. His clown’s face was awry and his pyjama jacket in rags. His hands were scratched and he was covered in mud. He stepped out of the wreckage of “Crack” and took off his mask.

“Nice work, young Bill,” Alleyn said. “And that, my hearties, is how the Guiser got himself offstage.”

There was no time for Mrs. Bünz or Simon to remark upon this statement. Mrs. Bünz whimpered in the protective custody of Mr. Fox. Simon scratched his head and stared uncomfortably at young Bill.

And young Bill, for his part, as if to clear his head, first shook it, then lowered it and finally dived at Simon and began to pummel his chest with both fists.

Simon shouted, “Hey! What the hell!” and grabbed the boy’s wrists.

Simultaneously Ernie came plunging through the archway from the arena.

“Where is ’e?” Ernie bawled. “Where the hell is the bastard?”

He saw Simon with the Fool’s figure in his grip. A terrible stillness came upon them all.

Then Ernie opened his mouth indecently wide and yelled, “Let ’im have it, then. I’ll finish ’im.”

Simon loosed his hold as if to free himself rather than his captive.

The boy in Fool’s clothing fell to the ground and lay there, mask upwards.

Ernie stumbled towards him. Alleyn and the three Yard men moved in.

“Leave ’im to me!” Ernie said.

“You clot,” Simon said. “Shut your great trap, you bloody clot. Corp! Do you hear me? Corp!”

Ernie looked at his own hands.

“I’ve lost my whiffler. Where’s ’tother job?”

He turned to the wall and saw the charred slasher. “Ar!” he said. “There she is.” He grabbed it, turned and swung it up. Alleyn and one of his men held him.

“Lemme go,” he said, struggling. “I got my orders. Lemme go.”

Mrs. Bünz screamed briefly and shockingly.

“What orders?”

“My Wing-Commander’s orders. Will I do it again, sir? Will I do it, like you told me? Again?”

Looking larger than human in the smoke of the bonfire, five men moved forward. They closed in about Simon.

Alleyn stood in front of him.

“Simon Richard Begg,” he said, “I am going to ask you for a statement, but before I do so I must warn you —”

Simon’s hand flashed. Alleyn caught the blow on his forearm instead of on his throat. “Not again,” he said.

It was well that there were five men to tackle Simon. He was experienced in unarmed combat and he was a natural killer.