Death of a Fool

Chapter VII The Green Man

Before they set off for the Green Man, Alleyn asked Dr. Otterly if he could arrange for the Guiser’s accommodation in a suitable mortuary.

“Curtis, the Home Office man, will do the P.M.,” Alleyn said, “but he’s two hundred-odd miles away across country, and the last time I heard of him he was held up on a tricky case. I don’t know how or when he’ll contrive to get here.”

“Biddlefast would offer the best facilities. It’s twenty miles away. We’ve a cottage hospital at Yowford where we could fix him up straightaway — after a fashion.”

“Do, will you? Things are very unsatisfactory as they are. Can we get a mortuary van or an ambulance?”

“The latter. I’ll fix it up.”

“Look,” Alleyn said, “I want you to do something else, if you will. I’m going now to talk to Simon Begg, young Stayne, the German lady and the Guiser’s grand-daughter, who, I hear, is staying at the pub. Will you sit in on the interviews? Will you tell me if you think anything they may say is contrary to the facts as you observed them? Will you do that, Otterly?”

Dr. Otterly stared at the dripping landscape and whistled softly through his teeth. “I don’t know,” he said at last.

“Don’t you? Tell me, if this is deliberate homicide, do you want the man run in?”

“I suppose so.” He pulled out his pipe and opened the door to knock it out on the running-board. When he re-appeared he was very red in the face. “I may as well tell you,” he said, “that I disapprove strongly and vehemently of the McNaughton Rules and would never voluntarily bring anybody who was mentally a borderline case under their control.”

“And you look upon Ernie Andersen as such a case.”

“I do. He’s an epileptic. Petit mal. Very rare attacks, but he had one, last night, after he saw what had happened to his father. I won’t fence with you, but I tell you that, if I thought Ernie Andersen stood any chance of being hanged for the murder of his father, I wouldn’t utter a syllable that might lead to his arrest.”

“What would you do?”

“Bully a couple of brother-medicos into certifying him and have him put away.”

Alleyn said, “Why don’t you chaps get together and make a solid medical front against the McNaughton Rules? But never mind that now. Perhaps if I tell you exactly what I’m looking for in this case, you’ll feel more inclined to sit in. Mind you, I may be looking for something that doesn’t exist. The theory, if it can be graced with the title, is based on such slender evidence that it comes jolly close to being guesswork and, when you find a cop guessing, you kick him in the pants. Still, here, for what it’s worth, is the line of country.”

Dr. Otterly stuffed his pipe, lit it, threw his head back and listened. When Alleyn had finished, he said, “By God, I wonder!” and then, “All right. I’ll sit in.”

“Good. Shall we about it?”

It was half past twelve when they reached the pub. Simon and Ralph were eating a snack at the bar. Mrs. Bünz and Camilla sat at a table before the parlour fire, faced with a meal that Camilla, for her part, had been quite unable to contemplate with equanimity. Alleyn and Fox went to their private room, where they found that cold meat and hot vegetables awaited them. Dr. Otterly returned from the telephone to say he had arranged for the ambulance to go to Copse Forge and for his partner to take surgery alone during the early part of the afternoon.

While they ate their meal, Alleyn asked Dr. Otterly to tell him something of the history of the Dance of the Five Sons.

“Like most people who aren’t actively interested in folklore, I’m afraid I’m inclined to associate it with flushed ladies imperfectly braced for violent exercise and bearded gentlemen dressed like the glorious Fourth of June gone elfin. A Philistine’s conception, I’m sure.”

“Yes,” Dr. Otterly said, “it is. You’re confusing the ‘sports’ with the true generic strain. If you’re really interested, ask the German lady. Even if you don’t ask, she’ll probably tell you.”

“Couldn’t you give me a succinct résumé? Just about this particular dance?”

“Of course I could. I don’t want any encouragement, I assure you, to mount on my hobby-horse. And there, by the way, you are! Have you thought how many everyday phrases derive from the folk drama? Mounting one’s hobby-horse! Horseplay! Playing the fool! Cutting capers! Midsummer madness! Very possibly ‘horn mad,’ though I recognize the more generally known application. This pub, the Green Man, gets its name from a variant of the Fool, the Robin Hood, the Jack-in-the-Green.”

“What does the whole concept of the ritual dance go back to? Frazer’s King of the Sacred Grove?”

“Certainly. And the Dionysian play about the Titans who killed their old man.”

“Fertility rite-cum-sacrifice-death and resurrection?”

“That’s it. It’s the oldest manifestation of the urge to survive and the belief in redemption through sacrifice and resurrection. It’s as full of disjointed symbolism as a surrealist’s dream.”

“Maypoles, corn-babies, ladles — all that?”

“Exactly. And, being a folk manifestation, the whole thing changes all the time. It’s full of cross-references. The images overlap and the characters swap roles. In the few places in England where it survives in its traditional form, you get, as it were, different bits of the kaleidoscopic pattern. The lock of the swords here, the rabbit-cap there, the blackened faces somewhere else. Horns at Abbots Bromely, Old Hoss in Kent and Old Tup in Yorkshire. But always, however much debased and fragmentary, the central idea of the death and resurrection of the Fool, who is also the Father, Initiate, Medicine Man, Scapegoat and King. At its lowest, a few scraps of half-remembered jargon. At its highest —”

“Not — by any chance—Lear?”

“My dear fellow,” Dr. Otterly cried, and actually seized Alleyn by the hand, “you don’t mean to say you’ve spotted that! My dear fellow, I really am delighted with you. You must let me bore you again and at greater length. I realize, now is not the time for it. No. No, we must confine ourselves for the moment to the Five Sons.”

“You’re far from boring me, but I’m afraid we must. Surely,” Alleyn said, “this particular dance-drama is unusually rich? Doesn’t it present a remarkable number of elements?”

“I should damn’ well say it does. Much the richest example we have left in England and, luckily for us, right off the beaten track. Generally speaking, traditional dancing and mumming (such of it as survives) follows the line of the original Danish occupation, but here we’re miles off it.”

“The spelling of the Andersen name, though?”

“Ah! There you are! In my opinion, they’re a Danish family who, for some reason, drifted across to this part of the world and brought their winter-solstice ritual with them. Of course, the trade of smith has always been particularly closely associated with folklore.”

“And, originally, there was an actual sacrifice?”

“Of some sort, I have no doubt.”

“Human?”

Dr. Otterly said, “Possibly.”

“This lock, or knot, of swords, now. Five swords — you’d expect it to be six.”

“So it is everywhere else that I know of. Another element that makes the Five Sons unique.”

“How do they form it?”

“While they dance. They’ve got two methods. The combination of a cross interwoven with an A and a sort of monogram of an X and an H. It takes quite a bit of doing.”

“And Ernie’s was as sharp as hell.”

“Absolutely illicit, but it was.”

“I wonder,” Alleyn said, “if Ernie expected his particular Old Man to resurrect.”

Dr. Otterly laid down his knife and fork. “After what happened?” He gave a half-laugh. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“What’s their attitude to the dance? All of them? Why do they go on with it, year after year?”

Dr. Otterly hesitated. “Come to that, Doctor,” Fox said, “why do you?”

“Me? I suppose I’m a bit of a crank about it. I’ve got theories. Anyway, I enjoy fiddling. My father and his before him and his before that have been doctors at Yowford and the two Mardians and we’ve all fiddled. Before that, we were yeomen and, before that, tenant farmers. One in the family has always been a fiddler. I try not to be cranky. The Guiser was a bigger crank in his way than I. I can’t tell you why he was so keen. He just inherited the Five Sons’ habit. It runs in his blood like poaching does in old Moley Moon’s up to Yowford Bridge or hunting in Dame Alice Mardian’s, or doctoring, if you like, in mine.”

“Do you think any of the Andersens pay much attention to the ritualistic side of the thing? Do you think they believe, for instance, that anything tangible comes of the performance?”

“Ah. Now! You’re asking me just how superstitious they are, you know.” Dr. Otterly placed the heels of his well-kept hands against the edge of his plate and delicately pushed it away. “Hasn’t every one of us,” he asked, “a little familiar shamefaced superstition?”

“I daresay,” Alleyn agreed. “Cossetted but reluctantly acknowledged. Like the bastard sons of Shaksperian papas.”

“Exactly. I know, I’ve got a little Edmund. As a man of science, I scorn it; as a countryman, I give it a kind of heart-service. It’s a particularly ridiculous notion for a medical man to harbour.”

“Are we to hear what it is?”

“If you like. I always feel it’s unlucky to see blood. Not, may I hasten to say, to see it in the course of my professional work, but fortuitously. Someone scratches a finger in my presence, say, or my own nose bleeds. Before I can stop myself I think, ‘Hullo. Trouble coming.’ No doubt it throws back to some childish experience. I don’t let it affect me in the slightest. I don’t believe in it. I merely get an emotional reflex. It’s—” He stopped short. “How very odd,” he said.

“Are you reminded that the Guiser cut his hand on Ernie’s sword during your final practice?”

“I was, yes.”

“Your hunch wasn’t so far wrong that time,” Alleyn observed. “But what are the Andersens’ superstitious reflexes? Concerning the Five Sons?”

“I should say pretty well undefined. A feeling that it would be unlucky not to do the dance. A feeling, strong perhaps in the Guiser, that, in doing it, something is placated, some rhythm kept ticking over.”

“And in Ernie?”

Dr. Otterly looked vexed. “Any number of crackpot notions, no doubt,” he said shortly.

“Like the headless goose on the dolmen?”

“I am persuaded,” Dr. Otterly said, “that he killed the goose accidentally and in a temper and put it on the dolmen as an afterthought.”

“Blood, as he so tediously insists, for the stone?”

“If you like. Dame Alice was furious. She’s always been very kind to Ernie, but this time—”

“He’s killed the goose,” Fox suggested blandly, “that lays the golden eggs?”

“You’re in a bloody whimsical mood, aren’t you?” Alleyn inquired idly and then, after a long silence, “What a very disagreeable case this is, to be sure. We’d better get on with it, I suppose.”

“Do you mind,” Dr. Otterly ventured, “my asking if you two are typical C.I.D. officers?”

“I am,” Alleyn said. “Fox is a sport.”

Fox collected their plates, stacked all the crockery neatly on a tray and carried it out into the passage, where he was heard to say, “A very pleasant meal, thank you, miss. We’ve done nicely.”

“Tell me,” Alleyn asked, “is the Guiser’s grand-daughter about eighteen with dark reddish hair cut short and very long fingers? Dressed in black skiing trousers and a red sweater?”

“I really can’t tell you about the fingers, but the other part’s right. Charming child. Going to be an actress.”

“And is young Stayne about six feet? Dark? Long back? Donegal tweed jacket with a red fleck and brown corduroy bags?”

“That’s right, I think. He’s got a scar on his cheekbone.”

“I couldn’t see his face,” Alleyn said. “Or hers.”

“Oh?” Dr. Otterly murmured. “Really?”

“What’s her name?”

“Camilla Campion.”

“Pretty,” Alleyn said absently. “Nice name.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Her mum was the Guiser’s daughter, was she?”

“That’s right.”

“There’s a chap,” Alleyn ruminated, “called Camillo Campion who’s an authority on Italian primitives. Baronet. Sir Camillo.”

“Her father. Twenty years ago, his car broke an axle coming too fast down Dame Alice’s drive. He stopped at Copse Forge, saw Bess Andersen, who was a lovely creature, fell like a plummet and married her.”

“Lor’!” said Fox mildly, returning from the passage. “Sudden!”

“She had to run away. The Guiser wouldn’t hear of it. He was an inverted snob and a bigoted nonconformist and, worst of all, Campion’s a Roman Catholic.”

“I thought I remembered some story of that kind,” Alleyn said. “Had he been staying at Mardian Castle?”

“Yes. Dame Alice was livid because she’d made up her mind he was to marry Dulcie. Indeed, I rather fancy there was an unofficial engagement. She never forgave him and the Guiser never forgave Bess. She died in childbirth five years ago. Campion and Camilla brought her back here to be buried. The Guiser didn’t say a word to them. The boys, I imagine, didn’t dare. Camilla was thirteen and like enough to her mama at that age to give the old man a pretty sharp jolt.”

“So he ignored her?”

“That’s right. We didn’t see her again for five years and then, the other day, she turned up, determined to make friends with her mother’s people. She managed to get round him. She’s a dear child, in my opinion.”

“Let’s have her in,” said Alleyn.

When they had finished their lunch, of which Camilla ate next to nothing and Mrs. Bünz, who normally had an enormous appetite, not much more, they sat, vis-à-vis, by the parlour fire and found very little to say to each other. Camilla was acutely conscious of Simon Begg and, in particular, of Ralph Stayne, consuming their counter lunches in the public bar. Camilla had dismissed Ralph with difficulty when Mrs. Bünz came in. Now she was in a rose-coloured flutter only slightly modified by the recurrent horror of her grandfather’s death. From time to time, gentle Camilla reproached herself with heartlessness and as often as she attempted this pious exercise the memory of Ralph’s kisses made nonsense of her scruples.

In the midst of her preoccupations, she noticed that Mrs. Bünz was much quieter than usual and seemed, in some indefinable way, to have diminished in size. She noticed, too, that Mrs. Bünz had a monstrous cold, characterized by heavy catarrhal noises of a most irritating nature. In addition to making these noises, Mrs. Bünz sighed very often and kept moving her shoulders uneasily as if her clothes prickled them.

Trixie came round occasionally from the public bar into the private. It was Trixie who had been entrusted by Alleyn with the message that the police would be obliged if Mrs. Bünz and Miss Campion would keep the early afternoon free.

“Which was exactly the words he used,” Trixie said. “A proper gentleman, if a policeman, and a fine deep voice, moreover, with a powerful kind of a smack in it.”

This was not altogether re-assuring.

Mrs. Bünz said unexpectedly, “It is not pleasant to be told to await the police. I do not care for policemen. My dear husband and I were anti-Nazi. It is better to avoid such encounters.”

Camilla, seeing a look of profound anxiety in Mrs. Bünz’s eyes, said, “It’s all right, Mrs. Bünz. They’re here to take care of us. That’s what we keep them for. Don’t worry.”

“Ach!” Mrs. Bunz said, “you are a child. The police do not look after anybody. They make investigations and arrests. They are not sympathetic. Da,” she added, making one of her catarrhal noises.

It was upon this sombre note that Inspector Fox came in to say that if Miss Campion had finished her luncheon, Mr. Alleyn would be very pleased to have a word with her.

Camilla told herself it was ridiculous to feel nervous, but she continued to do so. She followed the enormous bulk of Mr. Fox down the narrow passage. Her throat became dry and her heart thumped. “Why?” she thought. “What have I got to get flustered about? This is ridiculous.”

Fox opened the door into the little sitting-room and said, “Miss Campion, Mr. Alleyn.” He beamed at Camilla and stepped aside for her. She walked in and was immeasurably relieved to find her friend, Dr. Otterly. Beyond him, at the far side of a table, was a tall dark man who stood up politely as she came in.

“Ah!” Dr. Otterly said, “here’s Camilla.”

Alleyn came round the table and Camilla found herself offering him her hand as if they had been introduced at a party.

“I hope,” he said, “you don’t mind giving us a few minutes.”

“Yes,” murmured Camilla. “I mean, no.”

Alleyn pushed forward a chair.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “it won’t be as bad as all that and Dr. Otterly’s here to see fair play. The watchword is ‘routine.’ ”

Camilla sat down. Like a good drama student, she did it beautifully without looking at the chair. “If I could pretend this was a mood-and-movement exercise,” she thought, ‘I’d go into it with a good deal more poise.”

Alleyn said, “We’re checking the order of events before and during the Dance of the Five Sons. You were there, weren’t you, for the whole time? Would you be very patient and give us an account of it? From your point of view?”

“Yes, of course. As well as I can. I don’t expect I’ll be terribly good.”

“Let’s see, anyway,” he suggested comfortably. “Now: here goes.”

Her account tallied in every respect with what he had already been told. Camilla found it easier than she would have expected and hadn’t gone very far before she had decided, with correct professional detachment, that Alleyn had “star-quality.”

When she arrived at the point where Simon Begg as “Crack,” the Hobby-Horse, did his improvisation, Camilla hesitated for the first time and turned rather pink.

“Ah, yes,” Alleyn said. “That was the tar-baby thing after the first general entrance, wasn’t it? What exactly is ‘Crack’s’ act with the tar?”

“It’s all rather ham, I’m afraid,” Camilla said grandly. “Folksy hokum.” She turned a little pinker still and then said honestly, “I expect it isn’t, really. I expect it’s quite interesting, but I didn’t much relish it because he came thundering after me and, for some ridiculous reason, I got flustered.”

“I’ve seen the head. Enough to fluster anybody in that light, I should imagine.”

“It did me, anyway. And I wasn’t all that anxious to have my best skiing trousers ruined. So I ran. It came roaring after me. I couldn’t get away because of all the people. I felt kind of cornered and faced it. Its body swung up — it hangs from a frame, you know. I could see his legs: he was wearing lightish-coloured trousers.”

“Was he?” Alleyn said with interest.

“Yes. Washed-out cords. Almost white. He always wears them. It was silly,” Camilla said, “to be rattled. Do you know, I actually yelled. Wasn’t it shaming? In front of all those village oafs.” She checked herself. “I don’t mean that. I’m half village myself and I daresay that’s why I yelled. Anyway, I did.”

“And then?”

“Well,” Camilla said, half laughing, “well, then I kind of made a bee-line for the Betty, and that was all right because it was Ralph Stayne, who’s not at all frightening.”

“Good,” Alleyn said, smiling at her. “And he coped with the situation, did he?”

“He was just the job. Masterful type: or he would have been if he hadn’t looked so low-comedy. Anyway, I took refuge in his bombazine bosom and ‘Crack’ sort of sloped off.”

“Where to?”

“He went sort of cavorting and frisking out at the back and everybody laughed. Actually, Begg does get pretty well into the skin of that character,” Camilla said with owlish professionalism.

Alleyn led her through the rest of the evening and was told nothing that he hadn’t already heard from Dr. Otterly. It was oddly touching to see how Camilla’s natural sprightliness faltered as she approached the moment of violence in her narrative. It seemed to Alleyn she was still so young that her spirit danced away from any but the most immediate and direct shock. “She’s vulnerable only to greenstick fracture of the emotion,” he thought. But, as they reached the point when her grandfather failed to re-appear and terror came upon the five sons, Camilla turned pale and pressed her hands together between her knees.

“I didn’t know in the slightest what had happened, of course. It was queer. One sort of felt there was something very much amiss and yet one didn’t exactly know, one felt it. Even when Dan called them and they all went and looked I — it was so silly, but I think I sort of wondered if he’d just gone away.”

“Ah!” Alleyn said quickly. “So he could have gone away during the dance and you mightn’t have noticed?”

Dr. Otterly sighed ostentatiously.

“Well — no,” Camilla said. “No, I’m sure he couldn’t. It would have been quite impossible. I was standing right over on the far side and rather towards the back of the stage. About O.P. second entrance, if you know where that is.”

Alleyn said he did. “So you actually could see behind the stone?”

“Sort of,” Camilla agreed and added in a worried voice, “I must stop saying ‘sort of.’ Ralph says I do it all the time. Yes, I could see behind the stone.”

“You could see him lying there?”

She hesitated, frowning. “I saw him crouch down after the end of the dance. He sat there for a moment, and then lay down. When he lay down, he sort — I mean, I really couldn’t see him. I expect that was the idea. He meant to hide. I think he must have been in a bit of a hollow. So I’d have noticed like anything if he’d got up.”

“Or, for the sake of argument, if anybody had offered him any kind of violence?”

“Good Heavens, yes!” she said, as if he’d suggested the ridiculous. “Of course.”

“What happened immediately after he sank out of sight? At the end of the dance?”

“They made a stage picture. The Sons had drawn their swords out of the lock. ‘Crack’ stood behind the stone looking like a sort of idol. Ralph stood on the prompt side and the Sons separated. Two of them stood on one side, near me, and two on the other and the fifth, the Whiffler — I knew afterwards it was Ernie — wandered away by himself. Ralph went round with the collecting thing and then Ralph snatched Ernie’s sword away and they had a chase. Ralph’s got rather a nice sense of comedy, actually. He quite stole the show. I remember ‘Crack’ was behind the dolmen about then so he ought to be able to tell you if there was anything — anything — wrong —”

“Yes. What did he do while he was there?”

“Nothing. He just stood. Anyway,” Camilla said rapidly, “he couldn’t do anything much, could he, in that harness? Nothing — nothing that would—”

“No,” Alleyn said, “he couldn’t. What did he do, in fact?”

“Well, he sort of played up to Ralph and Ernie. He gave a kind of falsetto scream — meant to be a neigh, I expect — and he went off at the back.”

“Yes? And then?”

“Then Ralph pretended to hide. He crouched down behind a heap of rubble and he’d still got Ernie’s sword. And Ernie went offstage looking for him.”

“You’re sure all this is in the right order?”

“I think so. One looked at it in terms of theatre,” said Camilla. “So, of course, one wouldn’t forget.”

“No,” Alleyn agreed with careful gravity, “one wouldn’t, would one? And then?”

“Then Uncle Dan did his solo and I rather think that was when the bonfire flared up.” She looked at Dr. Otterly. “Do you?”

“It was then. I was playing ‘Lord Mardian’s Fancy,’ which is Dan’s tune.”

“Yes. And Ralph came out of his hiding place and went off at the back. He must have returned his sword to Ernie and walked round behind the wall because he came on at the O.P. entrance. I call it ‘O.P.’ ”

“Precisely.”

“And I think, at about the same time, Ernie and ‘Crack’ must have come back together through the centre entrance at the back.”

“And Ernie had got his sword?”

“Yes, he had. I remember thinking, ‘So Ralph’s given him back his sword,’ and, anyway, I’d noticed that Ralph hadn’t got it any longer.”

Camilla had a very direct way of looking at people. She looked, now, straight at Alleyn and frowned a little. Then, a curious thing happened to her face. It turned ashen white without changing its expression. “About the sword,” she said. “About the sword—?”

“Yes?”

“It wasn’t — it couldn’t have been — could it?”

“There’s no saying,” Alleyn said gently, “what the weapon was. We’re just clearing the ground, you know.”

“But it couldn’t. No. Nobody went near with the sword. I swear nobody went near. I swear.”

“Do you? Well, that’s a very helpful thing for us to know.”

Dr. Otterly said, “I do, too, you know, Alleyn.”

Camilla threw a look of agonized gratitude at him and Alleyn thought, “Has she already learnt at her drama school to express the maximum of any given emotion at any given time? Perhaps. But she hasn’t learnt to turn colour in six easy lessons. She was frightened, poor child, and now she’s relieved and it’s pretty clear to me she’s fathoms deep in love with Master Stayne.”

He offered Camilla a cigarette and moved round behind her as he struck a match for it.

“Dr. Otterly,” he said, “I wonder if you’d be terribly kind and ring up Yowford about the arrangements there? I’ve only just thought of it, fool that I am. Fox will give you the details. Sorry to be such a bore.”

He winked atrociously at Dr. Otterly, who opened his mouth and shut it again.

“There, now!” said Mr. Fox, “and I’d meant to remind you. ’T,’t,’t! Shall we fix it up now, Doctor? No time like the present.”

“Come back,” Alleyn said, “when it’s all settled, won’t you?”

Dr. Otterly looked fixedly at him, smiled with constraint upon Camilla and suffered Mr. Fox to shepherd him out of the room.

Alleyn sat down opposite Camilla and helped himself to a cigarette.

“All wrong on duty,” he said, “but there aren’t any witnesses. You won’t write a complaint to the Yard, will you?”

“No,” Camilla said and added, “Did you send them away on purpose?”

“How did you guess?” Alleyn asked admiringly.

“It had all the appearance of a piece of full-sized hokum.”

“Hell, how shaming! Never mind, I’ll press on. I sent them away because I wanted to ask you a personal question and having no witnesses makes it unofficial. I wanted to ask you if you were about to become engaged to be married.”

Camilla choked on her cigarette.

“Come on,” Alleyn said. “Do tell me, like a nice comfortable child.”

“I don’t know. Honestly I don’t.”

“Can’t you make up your mind?”

“There’s no reason that I can see,” Camilla said, with a belated show of spirit, “why I should tell you anything at all about it.”

“Nor there is, if you’d rather not.”

“Why do you want, to know?”

“It makes it easier to talk to people,” Alleyn said, “if you know about their preoccupations. A threatened engagement is a major preoccupation, as you will allow and must admit.”

“All right,” Camilla said. “I’ll tell you. I’m not engaged but Ralph wants us to be.”

“And you? Come,” Alleyn said, answering the brilliant look she suddenly gave him. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

“It’s not as easy as all that.”

“Isn’t it?”

“You see, my mother was Bess Andersen. She was the feminine counterpart of Dan and Andy and Chris and Nat, and talked and thought like them. She was their sister. I loved my mother,” Camilla said fiercely, “with all my heart. And my father, too. We should have been a happy family and, in a way, we were: in our attachment for each other. But my mother wasn’t really happy. All her life she was homesick for South Mardian and she never learnt to fit in with my father’s setting. People tell you differences of that sort don’t matter any more. Not true. They matter like hell.”

“And that’s the trouble?”

“That’s it.”

“Anything more specific?”

“Look,” Camilla said, “forgive my asking, but did you get on in the Force by sheer cheek or sheer charm or what?”

“Tell me your trouble,” Alleyn said, “and I’ll tell you the secret of my success-story. Of course, there’s your pride, isn’t there?”

“All right. Yes. And there’s also the certainty of the past being rehashed by the more loathsome daily newspapers in the light of this ghastly crime. I don’t know,” Camilla burst out, “how I can think of Ralph, and I am thinking all the time of him, after what has happened.”

“But why shouldn’t you think of him?”

“I’ve told you. Ralph’s a South Mardian man. His mother was a Mardian. His aunt was jilted by my papa when he ran away with my mum. My Mardian relations are the Andersen boys. If Ralph marries me, there’d be hell to pay. Every way there’d be hell. He’s Dame Alice’s heir, after his aunt, and, although I agree that doesn’t matter so much — he’s a solicitor and able to make his own way — she’d undoubtedly cut him off.”

“I wonder. Talking of Wills, by the way, do you know if your grandfather made one?”

Camilla caught back her breath. “Oh, God!” she whispered. “I hope not. Oh, I hope not.”

Alleyn waited.

“He talked about it,” Camilla said, “last time I saw him. Four days ago. We had a row about it.”

“If you’d rather not tell me, you needn’t.”

“I said I wouldn’t touch a penny of his money, ever, and that, if he left me any, I’d give it to the Actors’ Benevolent Fund. That rocked him.”

“He’d spoken of leaving you something?”

“Yes. Sort of backhandedly. I didn’t understand, at first. It was ghastly. As if I’d come here to — ugh! — to sort of worm my way into his good books. Too frightful it was.”

“The day before yesterday,” Alleyn said, watching her, “he visited his solicitors in Biddlefast.”

“He did? Oh, my goodness me, how awful. Still, perhaps it was about something else.”

“The solicitors are Messrs. Stayne and Stayne.”

“That’s Ralph’s office,” Camilla said instantly. “How funny. Ralph didn’t say anything about it.”

“Perhaps,” Alleyn suggested lightly, “it was a secret.”

“What do you mean?” she said quickly.

“A professional secret.”

“I see.”

“Is Mr. Ralph Stayne your own solicitor, Miss Campion?”

“Lord, no,” Camilla said. “I haven’t got one.”

The door opened and a dark young man, wearing a face of thunder, strode into the room.

He said in a magnificent voice, “I consider it proper and appropriate for me to be present at any interviews Miss Campion may have with the police.”

“Do you?” Alleyn said mildly. “In what capacity?”

“As her solicitor.”

“My poorest heavenly old booby!” Camilla ejaculated, and burst into peals of helpless laughter.

“Mr. Ralph Stayne,” Alleyn said, “I presume.”

The five Andersens, bunched together in their cold smithy, contemplated Sergeant Obby. Chris, the belligerent brother, slightly hitched his trousers and placed himself before the sergeant. They were big men and of equal height.

“Look yur,” Chris said, “Bob Obby. Us chaps want to have a tell. Private.”

Without shifting his gaze, which was directed at some distant object above Chris’s head, Obby very slightly shook his own. Chris reddened angrily and Dan intervened:

“No harm in that now, Bob; natural as the day, seeing what’s happened.”

“You know us,” the gentle Andy urged. “Soft as doves so long’s we’re easy-handled. Harmless.”

“But mortal set,” Nat added, “on our own ways. That’s us. Come on, now, Bob.”

Sergeant Obby pursed his lips and again slightly shook his head.

Chris burst out, “If you’re afraid we’ll break one of your paltry by-laws you can watch us through the bloody winder.”

“But out of earshot, in simple decency,” Nat pursued. “For ten minutes you’re axed to shift. Now!”

After a longish pause and from behind an expressionless face, Obby said, “Can’t be done, souls.”

Ernie broke into aimless laughter.

“Why, you damned fool,” Chris shouted at Obby, “what’s gone with you? D’you reckon one of us done it?”

“Not for me to say,” Obby primly rejoined, “and I’m sure I hope you’re all as innocent as newborn babes. But I got my duty, which is to keep observation on the whole boiling of you, guilty or not, as the case may be.”

“We got to talk PRIVATE!” Chris shouted. “We got to.”

Sergeant Obby produced his notebook.

“No ‘got’ about it,” he said. “Not in the view of the law.”

“To oblige, then?” Andy urged.

“The suggestion,” Obby said, “is unworthy of you, Andrew.”

He opened his book and licked his pencil.

“What’s that for?” Chris demanded.

Obby looked steadily at him and made a note.

“Get out!” Chris roared.

“That’s a type of remark that does an innocent party no good,” Obby told him. “Let alone a guilty.”

“What the hell d’you mean by that?”

“Ax yourself.”

“Are you trying to let on you reckon one of us is a guilty party? Come on. Are you?”

“Any such caper on my part would be dead against the regulations,” Obby said stuffily.

“Then why do you pick on me to take down in writing? What ’ave I done?”

“Only yourself and your Maker,” Obby remarked, “knows the answer to that one.”

“And me,” Ernie announced unexpectedly. “I know.”

Sergeant Obby became quite unnaturally still. The Andersens, too, seemed to be suspended in a sudden, fierce attentiveness. After a considerable pause, Obby said, “What might you know, then, Ernest?”

“Ar-ar-ar! That’d be telling!”

“So it would,” Chris said shortly. “So shut your big silly mouth and forget it.”

“No, you don’t, Christopher,” Obby rejoined. “If Ern’s minded to pass a remark, he’s at liberty to do so. Speak up, Ernest. What was you going to say? You don’t,” Obby added hastily, “have to talk, but if you want to, I’m here to see fair play. What’s on your mind, Ernest?”

Ernie dodged his head and looked slyly at his brothers. He began to laugh with the grotesquerie of his kind. He half shut his eyes and choked over his words. “What price Sunday, then? What price Chrissie and the Guiser? What price you-know-who?”

He doubled himself up in an ecstasy of bucolic enjoyment. “How’s Trix?” he squeaked and gave a shrill catcall. “Poor old Chrissie,” he exulted.

Chris said savagely, “Do you want the hide taken off of you?”

“When’s the wedding, then?” Ernie asked, dodging behind Andy. “Nothing to hold you now, is there?”

“By God —!” Chris shouted and lunged forward. Andy laid his hands on Chris’s chest.

“Steady, naow, Chris, boy, steady,” Andy begged him.

“And you, Ernie,” Dan added, “you do like what Chris says and shut your mouth.” He turned on Obby. “You know damn’ well what he’s like. Silly as a sheep. You didn’t ought to encourage him. Tain’t neighbourly.”

Obby completed his notes and put up his book. He looked steadily from one of the Andersens to another. Finally, he addressed himself to them collectively.

“Neighbourliness,” he said, “doesn’t feature in this job. I don’t say I like it that way, but that’s the way it is. I don’t say if I could get a transfer at this moment I wouldn’t take it and pleased to do so. But I can’t, and that being so, souls, here I stick according to orders.” He paused and buttoned his pocket over his notebook. “Your dad,” he said, “was a masterpiece. Put me up for the Lodge, did your dad. Worth any two of you, if you’ll overlook the bluntness. And, unpleasant though it may be to contemplate, whoever done him in, ghastly and brutal, deserves what he’ll get. I said ‘whoever,’ ” Sergeant Obby repeated with sledgehammer emphasis and let his gaze dwell in a leisurely manner first on Ernest Andersen and then on Chris.

“All right. All right,” Dan said disgustedly. “Us all knows you’re a monument.”

Nat burst out, “What d’you think we are, then? Doan’t you reckon we’re all burning fiery hot to lay our hands on the bastard that done it? Doan’t you?”

“Since you ax me,” Sergeant Obby said thoughtfully, “no. Not all of you. No, I don’t.”

“I am not in the least embarrassed,” Ralph said angrily. “You may need a solicitor, Camilla, and, if you do, you will undoubtedly consult me. My firm has acted for your family — ah — for many years.”

“There you are!” Alleyn said cheerfully. “The point is did your firm act for Miss Campion’s family in the person of her grandfather, the day before yesterday?”

“That,” Ralph said grandly, “is neither here nor there.”

“Look,” Camilla said, “darling. I’ve told Mr. Alleyn that Grandfather intimated to me that he was thinking of leaving me some of his cash and that I said I wouldn’t have it at any price.”

Ralph glared doubtfully at her. It seemed to Alleyn that Ralph was in that degree of love which demands of its victim some kind of emphatic action. “He’s suffering,” Alleyn thought, “from ingrowing knight-errantry. And I fancy he’s also very much worried about something.” He told Ralph that he wouldn’t at this stage press for information about the Guiser’s visit but that, if the investigation seemed to call for it, he could insist.

Ralph said that, apart from professional discretion and propriety, there was no reason at all why the object of the Guiser’s visit should not be revealed, and he proceeded to reveal it. The Guiser had called on Ralph, personally, and told him that he wished to make a Will. He had been rather strange in his manner, Ralph thought, and beat about the bush for some time.

“I gathered,” Ralph said to Camilla, “that he felt he wanted to atone — although he certainly didn’t put it like that — for his harshness to your mama. It was clear enough you had completely won his heart and I must say,” Ralph went on in a rapid burst of devotion, “I wasn’t surprised at that.”

“Thank you, Ralph,” said Camilla.

“He also told me,” Ralph continued, addressing himself with obvious difficulty to Alleyn, “that he believed Miss Campion might refuse a bequest and it turned out that he wanted to know if there were some legal method of tying her up so that she would be obliged to accept it. Of course I told him there wasn’t.” Here Ralph looked at Camilla and instantly abandoned Alleyn. “I said — I knew, dar — I knew you would want me to — that it might be better for him to think it over and that, in any case, his sons had a greater claim, surely, and that you would never want to cut them out.”

“Darling, I’m terribly glad you said that.”

“Are you? I’m so glad.”

They gazed at each other with half-smiles. Alleyn said, “To interrupt for a moment your mutual rejoicing—” and they both jumped slightly.

“Yes,” Ralph said rapidly. “So then he told me to draft a Will on those lines, all the same, and he’d have a look at it and then make up his mind. He also wanted some stipulation made about keeping Copse Forge on as a smithy and not converting it into a garage, which the boys, egged on by Simon Begg, rather fancy. He asked me if I’d frame a letter that he could sign, putting it to Miss Campion —”

“Darling, I have told Mr. Alleyn we’re in love, only not engaged on account I’ve got scruples.”

“Camilla, darling! Putting it to her that she ought to accept for his ease of spirit, as it were, and for the sake of the late Mrs. Elizabeth Campion’s memory.”

“My mum,” Camilla said in explanation.

“And then he went. He proposed, by the way, to leave Copse Forge to his sons and everything else to Camilla.”

“Would there be much else?” Alleyn asked, remembering what Dan Andersen had told him. Camilla answered him almost in her uncle’s words. “All the Andersens are great ones for putting away. They used to call Grandfather an old jackdaw.”

“Did you, in fact, frame a draft on those lines?” Alleyn asked Ralph.

“No. It was only two days ago. I was a bit worried about the whole thing.”

“Sweetest Ralph, why didn’t you ask me?”

“Darling: (a) because you’d refused to see me at all and (b) because it would have been grossly unprofessional.”

“Fair enough,” said Camilla.

“But you already knew, of course,” Alleyn pointed out, “that your grandfather was considering this step?”

“I told you. We had a row about it.”

“And you didn’t know he’d gone to Biddlef ast on Tuesday?”

“No,” she said, “I didn’t go down to the forge on Tuesday. I didn’t know.”

“All right,” Alleyn said and got up. “Now I want to have a word or two with your young man, if I’m allowed to call him that. There’s no real reason why you should leave us, except that I seem to get rather less than two fifths of his attention while you are anywhere within hail.” He walked to the door and opened it. “If you see Inspector Fox and Dr. Otterly,” he said, “would you be very kind and ask them to come back?”

Camilla rose and walked beautifully to the door.

“Don’t you want to discover Ralph’s major preoccupation?” she asked and fluttered her eyelashes.

“It declares itself abundantly. Run along and render love’s awakening. Or don’t you have that one at your drama school?”

“How did you know I went to drama school?”

“I can’t imagine. Star-quality, or something.”

“What a heavenly remark!” she said.

He looked at Camilla. There she was: loving, beloved, full of the positivism of youth, immensely vulnerable, immensely resilient. “Get along with you,” he said. No more than a passing awareness of something beyond her field of observation seemed to visit Camilla. For a moment she looked puzzled. “Stick to your own preoccupation,” Alleyn advised her, and gently propelled her out of the room.

Fox and Dr. Otterly appeared at the far end of the passage. They stood aside for Camilla, who, with great charm, said, “Please, I was to say you’re wanted.”

She passed them. Dr. Otterly gave her an amiable buffet. “All right, Cordelia?” he asked. She smiled brilliantly at him. “As well as can be expected, thank you,” said Camilla.

When they had rejoined Alleyn, Dr. Otterly said, “An infallible sign of old age is a growing inability to understand the toughness of the young. I mean toughness in the nicest sense,” he added, catching sight of Ralph.

“Camilla,” Ralph said, “is quite fantastically sensitive.”

“My dear chap, no doubt. She is a perfectly enchanting girl in every possible respect. What I’m talking about is a purely physiological matter. Her perfectly enchanting little inside mechanisms react youthfully to shock. My old machine is in a different case. That’s all, I assure you.”

Ralph thought to himself how unamusing old people were when they generalized about youth. “Do you still want me, sir?” he asked Alleyn.

“Please. I want your second-to-second account of the Dance of the Five Sons. Fox will take notes and Dr. Otterly will tell us afterwards whether your account tallies with his own impressions.”

“I see,” Ralph said, and looked sharply at Dr. Otterly.

Alleyn led him along the now-familiar train of events and at no point did his account differ from the others. He was able to elaborate a little. When the Guiser ducked down after the mock beheading, Ralph was quite close to him. He saw the old man stoop, squat and then ease himself cautiously down into the depression. “There was nothing wrong with him,” Ralph said. “He saw me and made a signal with his hand and I made an answering one, and then went off to take up the collection. He’d planned to lie in the hollow because he thought he would be out of sight there.”

“Was anybody else as close to him as you were?”

“Yes, ‘Crack’ — Begg, you know. He was my opposite number just before the breaking of the knot. And after that, he stood behind the dolmen for a bit and —” Ralph stopped.

“Yes?”

“It’s just that — no, really, it’s nothing.”

“May I butt in?” Dr. Otterly said quickly from the fireside. “I think perhaps I know what Ralph is thinking. When we rehearsed, ‘Crack’ and the Betty — Ralph — stood one on each side of the dolmen and then, while Ralph took up the collection, ‘Crack’ was meant to cavort round the edge of the crowd repeating his girl-scaring act. He didn’t do that last night. Did he, Ralph?”

“I don’t think so,” Ralph said and looked very disturbed. “I don’t, of course, know which way your mind’s working, but the best thing we can do is to say that, wearing the harness he does, it’d be quite impossible for Begg to do — well, to do what must have been done. Wouldn’t it, Dr. Otterly?”

“Utterly impossible. He can’t so much as see his own hands. They’re under the canvas body of the horse. Moreover, I was watching him and he stood quite still.”

“When did he move?”

“When Ralph stole Ernie Andersen’s sword. Begg squeaked like a neighing filly and jogged out by the rear exit.”

“Was it in order for him to go off then?”

“Could be,” Ralph said. “The whole of that part of the show’s an improvisation. Begg probably thought Ernie’s and my bit of fooling would do well enough for him to take time off. That harness is damned uncomfortable. Mine’s bad enough.”

“You, yourself, went out through the back exit a little later, didn’t you?”

“That’s right,” Ralph agreed very readily. “Ernie chased me, you know, and I hid. In full view of the audience. He went charging off by the back exit, hunting me. I thought to myself, Ernie being Ernie, that the joke had probably gone far enough, so I went out too, to find him.”

“What did you find, out there? Behind the wall?”

“What you’d expect. ‘Crack’ squatting there like a great clucky hen. Ernie looking absolutely furious. I gave him back his sword and he said —” Ralph scratched his head.

“What did he say?”

“I think he said something about it being too late to be any use. He was pretty bloody-minded. I suppose it was rather a mistake to bait him, but it went down well with the audience.”

“Did Begg say anything?”

“Yes. From inside ‘Crack.’ He said Ernie was a bit rattled and it’d be a good idea if I left him alone. I could see that for myself, so I went off round the outside wall and came through the archway by the house. Dan finished his solo. The Sons began their last dance. Ernie came back with his sword and ‘Crack’ followed him.”

“Where to?”

“Just up at the back somewhere, I fancy. Behind the dancers.”

“And you, yourself? Did you go anywhere near the dolmen on your return?”

Ralph looked again at Dr. Otterly and seemed to be undecided. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I don’t really remember.”

“Do you remember, Dr. Otterly?”

“I think,” Otterly said quietly, “that Ralph did make a round trip during the dance. I suppose that would bring him fairly close to the stone.”

“Behind it?”

“Yes. Behind it.”

Ralph said, “I remember now. Damn’ silly of me. Yes, I did a trip round.”

“Did you notice the Guiser lying in the hollow?”

Ralph lit himself a cigarette and looked at the tip. He said, “I don’t remember.”

“That’s a pity.”

“Actually, at the time, I was thinking of something quite different.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. I’d caught sight of Camilla,” said Ralph simply.

“Where was she?”.

“At the side and towards the back. The left side, as you faced the dancing arena. O.P., she calls it.”

“By herself?”

“Yes. Then.”

“But not earlier? Before she ran away from ‘Crack’?”

“No.” Ralph’s face slowly flooded to a deep crimson. “At least, I don’t think so.”

“Of course she wasn’t,” Dr. Otterly said in some surprise. “She came up with the party from this pub. I remember thinking what a picture the two girls made, standing there together in the torch light.”

“The two girls?”

“Camilla was there with Trixie and her father.”

“Was she?” Alleyn asked Ralph.

“I — ah — I — yes, I believe she was.”

“Mr. Stayne,” Alleyn said, “you will think my next question impertinent and you may refuse to answer it. Miss Campion has been very frank about your friendship. She has told me that you are fond of each other but that, because of her mother’s marriage and her own background, in its relation to yours, she feels an engagement would be a mistake.”

“Which is most utter and besotted bilge,” Ralph said hotly. “Good God, what age does she think she’s living in! Who the hell cares if her mum was a blacksmith’s daughter?”

“Perhaps she does.”

“I never heard such a farrago of unbridled snobbism.”

“All right. I daresay not. You said, just now, I think, that Miss Campion had refused to see you. Does that mean you haven’t spoken to each other since you’ve been in South Mardian?”

“I really fail to understand —”

“I’m sure you don’t. See here, now. Here’s an old man with his head off, lying on the ground behind a sacrificial stone. Go back a bit in time. Here are eight men, including the old man, who performed a sort of play-dance as old as sin. Eight men,” Alleyn repeated and vexedly rubbed his nose. “Why do I keep wanting to say ‘nine’? Never mind. On the face of it, the old man never leaves the arena, or dance-floor, or stage, or whatever the hell you like to call it. On the face of it, nobody offered him any violence. He dances in full view. He has his head cut off in pantomime and in what, for want of a better word, we must call fun. But it isn’t really cut off. You exchanged signals with him after the fun, so we know it isn’t. He hides in a low depression. Eight minutes later, when he’s meant to resurrect and doesn’t, he is found to be genuinely decapitated. That’s the story everybody gives us. Now, as a reasonably intelligent chap and a solicitor into the bargain, don’t you think that we want to know every damn’ thing we can find out about those eight men and anybody connected with them?”

“You mean — just empirically. Hoping something will emerge?”

“Exactly. You know very well that where nothing apropos does emerge, nothing will be made public.”

“Oh, no, no, no,” Ralph ejaculated irritably. “I suppose I’m being tiresome. What was this blasted question? Have I spoken to Camilla since we both came to South Mardian? All right, I have. After church on Sunday. She’d asked me not to, but I did because the sight of her in church was too much for me.”

“That was your only reason?”

“She was upset. She’d come across Ernie howling over a dead dog in the copse.”

“Bless my soul!” Alleyn ejaculated. “What next in South Mardian? Was the dog called Keeper?”

Ralph grinned. “I suppose it is all a bit Brontë. The Guiser had shot it because he said it wasn’t healthy, which was no more than God’s truth. But Ernie cut up uncommonly rough and it upset Camilla.”

“Where did you meet her?”

“Near the forge. Coming out of the copse.”

“Did you see the Guiser on this occasion?”

After a very long pause, Ralph said, “Yes. He came up.”

“Did he realize that you wanted to marry his grand-daughter?”

“Yes.”

“And what was his reaction?”

Ralph said, “Unfavourable.”

“Did he hold the same views that she does?”

“More or less.”

“You discussed it there and then?”

“He sent Camilla away first.”

“Will you tell me exactly all that was said?”

“No. It was nothing to do with his death. Our conversation was entirely private.”

Fox contemplated the point of his pencil and Dr. Otterly cleared his throat.

“Tell me,” Alleyn said abruptly, “this thing you wear as the Betty — it’s a kind of Stone Age crinoline to look at, isn’t it?”

Ralph said nothing.

“Am I dreaming it, or did someone tell me that it’s sometimes used as a sort of extinguisher? Popped over a girl so that she can be carried off unseen? Origin,” he suggested facetiously, “of the phrase ‘undercover girl’? Or ‘undercover man,’ of course.”

Ralph said quickly and easily, “They used to get up to some such capers, I believe, but I can’t see how they managed to carry anybody away. My arms are outside the skirt thing, you know.”

“I thought I noticed openings at the sides.”

“Well — yes. But with the struggle that would go on —”

“Perhaps,” Alleyn said, “the victim didn’t struggle.”

The door opened and Trixie staggered in with two great buckets of coal.

“Axcuse me, sir,” she said. “You-all must be starved with cold. Boy’s never handy when wanted.”

Ralph had made a movement towards her as if to take her load, but had checked awkwardly.

Alleyn said, “That’s much too heavy for you. Give them to me.”

“Let be, sir,” she said, “no need.”

She was too quick for him. She set one bucket on the hearth and, with a sturdy economy of movement, shot half the contents of the other on the fire. The knot of reddish hair shone on the nape of her neck. Alleyn was reminded of a Brueghel peasant. She straightened herself easily and turned. Her face, blunt and acquiescent, held, he thought, its own secrets and, in its mode, was attractive.

She glanced at Ralph and her mouth widened.

“You don’t look too clever yourself, then, Mr. Ralph,” she said. “Last night’s ghastly business has overset us all, I reckon.”

“I’m all right,” Ralph muttered.

“Will there be anything, sir?” Trixie asked Alleyn pleasantly.

“Nothing at the moment, thank you. Later on in the day sometime, when you’re not too busy, I might ask for two words with you.”

“Just ax,” she said. “I’m willing if wanted.”

She smiled quite broadly at Ralph Stayne. “Bean’t I, Mr. Ralph?” she asked placidly and went away, swinging her empty bucket.

“Oh, God!” Ralph burst out, and, before any of them could speak, he was gone, slamming the door behind him.

“Shall I —?” Fox said and got to his feet.

“Let him be.”

They heard an outer door slam.

“Well!” Dr. Otterly exclaimed with mild concern, “I must say I’d never thought of that!”

“And nor, you may depend upon it,” Alleyn said, “has Camilla.”