Death of a Fool

Chapter IX Question of Fancy

Alleyn found it a little hard to decide quite how addlepated Dulcie Mardian was. She had a strange vague smile and a terribly inconsequent manner. Obviously, she was one of those people who listen to less than half of what is said to them. Yet, could the strangeness of some of her replies be attributed only to this?

She waited for him in the tiny entrance hall of the Green Man. She wore a hat that had been mercilessly sat upon, an old hacking waterproof and a pair of down-at-heel Newmarket boots. She carried a stick. Her dogs, a bull-terrier and a spaniel, were on leashes and had wound them round her to such an extent that she was tied up like a parcel.

“How do you do,” she said. “I won’t come in. Aunt Akky asked me to say she’d be delighted if you’d dine to-night. Quarter past eight for half past and don’t dress if it’s a bother. Oh, yes, I nearly forgot. She’s sorry it’s such short notice. I hope you’ll come because she gets awfully cross if people don’t, when they’re asked. Goodbye.”

She plunged a little but was held firmly pinioned by her dogs and Alleyn was able to say, “Thank you very much,” collect his thoughts and accept.

“And I’m afraid I can’t change,” he added.

“I’ll tell her. Don’t, dogs.”

“May I —?”

“It’s all right, thank you. Ill kick them a little.”

She kicked the bull-terrier, who rather half-heartedly snapped back at her.

“I suppose,” Dulcie said, “you ran away to be a policeman when you were a boy.”

“Not exactly.”

“Isn’t it awful about old William? Aunt Akky’s furious. She was in a bad mood anyway because of Ralph and this has put her out more than ever.”

Trixie came through the passage and went into the public bar.

“Which reminds me,” Dulcie said, but didn’t elucidate which reminded her of what. It was much too public a place for Alleyn to pursue the conversation to any professional advantage, if there was any to be had. He asked her if she’d come into their improvised office for a few minutes and she treated the suggestion as if it were an improper advance.

“No, thank you,” she said, attempting to draw herself up but greatly hampered by her dogs. “Quite impossible, I’m afraid.”

Alleyn said, “There are one or two points about this case that we’d like to discuss with you. Perhaps, if I come a little early tonight? Or if Dame Alice goes to bed early, I might —”

“I go up at the same time as my aunt. We shall be an early party, I’m afraid,” Dulcie said, stiffly. “Aunt Akky is sure you’ll understand.”

“Of course, yes. But if I might have a word or two with you in private—”

He stopped, noticing her agitation.

Perhaps her involuntary bondage to the bull-terrier and the spaniel had put into Dulcie’s head some strange fantasy of jeopardized maidenhood. A look of terrified bravado appeared on her face. There was even a trace of gratification.

“You don’t,” Dulcie astoundingly informed him, “follow with the South Mardian and Adjacent Hunts without learning how to look after yourself. No, by Jove!”

The bull-terrier and the spaniel had begun to fight each other. Dulcie beat them impartially and was forced to accept Alleyn’s help in extricating herself from a now quite untenable position.

“Hands off,” she ordered him brusquely as soon as it was remotely possible for him to leave her to her own devices. “Behave yourself,” she advised him, and was suddenly jerked from his presence by the dogs.

Alleyn was left rubbing his nose.

When he rejoined the others, he asked Dr. Otterly how irresponsible he considered Miss Mardian to be.

“Dulcie?” Dr. Otterly said. “Well—”

“In confidence.”

“Not certifiable. No. Eccentric, yes. Lot of in-breeding there. She took a bad toss in the hunting-field about twenty years ago. Kicked on the head. Never ridden since. She’s odd, certainly.”

“She talked as if she rode to hounds every day of the week.”

“Did she? Odd, yes. Did she behave as if you were going to make improper proposals?”

“Yes.”

“She does that occasionally. Typical spinster’s hallucination. Dame Alice thinks she waxes and wanes emotionally with the moon. I’d give it a more clinical classification, but you can take your choice. And now, if you don’t mind, Alleyn, I really am running terribly late.”

“Yes, of course.”

“I won’t ask you for an explanation of your extraordinary pronouncement just now. Um?”

“Won’t you? That’s jolly big of you.”

“You go to hell,” Dr. Otterly said without much rancour and took himself off.

Fox said, “Bailey and Thompson have rigged up a workroom somewhere in the barn and got cracking on dabs. Carey saw the gardener’s boy from the castle. He went down yesterday with the note from the gardener himself about the slasher. He didn’t see the Guiser. Ernie took the note in to him and came back and said the Guiser would do the job if he could.”

“I thought as much.”

“Carey’s talked to the lad who was to stand in for Ernie: Dan’s boy, he is. He says his grand-dad arrived on the scene at the last moment. Ernie was dressed up in the Guiser’s clothes and this boy was wearing Ernie’s. The Guiser didn’t say much. He grabbed Ernie and tried to drag the clothes off of him. Nobody explained anything. They just changed over and did the show.”

“Yes, I see. Let’s take another dollop of fresh air, Fox, and then I think I’ll have a word with the child of nature.”

“Who? Trixie?”

“That, as Mr. Begg would say, is the little number. A fine, cheerful job straight out of the romps of Milkwood. Where’s the side door?”

They found it and walked out into the back yard.

“And there,” Alleyn said, “is the barn. They rehearsed in here. Let’s have a look, shall we?”

They walked down the brick path and found themselves by a little window in the rear of the barn. A raincoat had been hung over it on the inside. “Bailey’s,” Alleyn said. “They’ll be hard at it.”

He stood there, filling his pipe and looking absently at the small window. “Somebody’s cleaned a peephole on the outside,” he said. “Or it looks like a peephole.”

He stooped down while Fox watched him indulgently. Between the brick path and the wall of the barn there was a strip of un-melted snow.

“Look,” Alleyn said and pointed.

Mrs. Bünz had worn rubber overboots with heels. Night after night she had stood there and, on the last night, the impressions she made had frozen into the fresh fall of snow. It was a bitterly cold, sheltered spot and the thaw had not yet reached it. There they were, pointing to the wall, under the window: two neat footprints over the ghosts of many others.

“Size six. Not Camilla Campion and Trixie’s got smallish feet, too. I bet it was the Teutonic folklorist having a sly peep at rehearsals. Look here, now. Here’s a nice little morsel of textbook stuff for you.”

A naked and ragged thornbush grew by the window. Caught up on one of its twigs was a tuft of grey-blue woollen material.

“Hand-spun,” Alleyn said, “I bet you.”

“Keen!” Fox said, turning his back to a razor-like draught.

“If you mean the lady,” Alleyn rejoined, “you couldn’t be more right, Br’er Fox. As keen as a knife. A fanatic, in fact. Come on.”

They moved round to the front of the barn and went in. The deserted interior was both cold and stuffy. There was a smell of sacking, cobwebs and perhaps the stale sweat of the dancers. Cigarettes had been trodden out along the sides. The dust raised by the great down-striking capers had settled again over everything. At the far end, double-doors led into an inner room and had evidently been dragged together by Bailey and Thompson, whose voices could be heard on the other side.

“We won’t disturb them,” Alleyn said, “but, if those doors were open, as I should say they normally are, there’d be a view into this part of the barn from the little window.”

“It’d be a restricted view, wouldn’t it?”

“It’d be continually interrupted by figures coming between the observer and the performers and limited by the size of the opening. I tell you what, Foxkin,” Alleyn said, “unless we can ‘find,’ as the Mardian ladies would say, pretty damn’ quickly, we’ll have a hell of a lot of deadwood to clear away in this case.”

“Such as?”

“Such as the Andersen boys’ business instincts, for one thing. And tracking down Master Ralph’s peccadillos, for another. And the Bünz, for a third. And just what Ernie got up to before the show. And Chris’s love pangs. All that and more and quite likely none of it of any account in the long run.”

“None?”

“Well — there’s one item that I think may ring the bell.”

Bailey, hearing their voices, wrenched open one of the double-doors and stuck his head out.

“No dabs anywhere that you wouldn’t expect, Mr. Alleyn,” he reported. “A few stains that look like blood on the Andersens’ dancing pants and sleeves. Nothing on their swords. They handled the body, of course. The slasher’s too much burnt for anything to show and the harness on the horse affair’s all mucked up with tar.”

Bailey was a man of rather morose habit, but when he had this sort of report to make he usually grinned. He did so now. “Will I get Mr. Begg’s clothes off him?” he asked.

“Yes. I’ve told him we want them. You may have the car for the next hour.”

Bailey said, “The local sergeant looked in. Obby. Pretty well asleep in his boots. He says when you left this morning the Andersens had a bit of a set-to. Seems Ernie reckons there was something about Chris Andersen. He kept saying, ‘What about Chris and the Guiser and you-know-who?’ Obby wrote it all down and left his notes. It doesn’t sound anything much.”

“I’ll look at it,” Alleyn said and, when Bailey produced the notebook, read it carefully.

“All right,” he said. “Carry on finding out nothing you wouldn’t expect. Glad you’re enjoying yourself.”

Bailey looked doubtful and withdrew his head.

“I’m going to see Trixie,” Alleyn announced.

“If you get frightened,” Mr. Fox said, “scream.”

“I’ll do that, Fox. Thank you.”

Trixie was behind the shutter tidying the public bar. Tucked away behind the shelves of bottles, she had a snuggery with a couple of chairs and an electric fire. Into this retreat she invited Alleyn, performed the classic gesture of dusting a chair and herself sat down almost knee-to-knee with him, calmly attentive to whatever he might choose to say.

“Trixie,” Alleyn began, “I’m going to ask you one or two very personal questions and you’re going to think I’ve got a hell of a cheek. If your answers are no help to us, then I shall forget all about them. If they are of help, we shall have to make use of them, but, as far as possible, we’ll treat them as confidential. All right?”

“I reckon so,” Trixie said readily.

“Good. Before we tackle the personalities, I want you to tell me what you saw last night, up at the castle.”

Her description of the dance tallied with Dr. Otterly’s except at moments when her attention had obviously strayed. Such a moment had occurred soon after the entry of the Guiser. She had watched “Crack’s” antics and had herself been tarred by him. “It’s lucky to get touched,” Trixie said with her usual broad smile. She had wonderfully strong white teeth and her fair skin had a kind of bloom over it. She remembered in detail how “Crack” had chased Camilla and how Camilla had run into the Betty’s arms. But, at the moment when the Guiser came in, it seemed, Trixie’s attention had been diverted. She had happened to catch sight of Mrs. Bünz.

“Were you standing anywhere near her?” Alleyn asked.

“So I was, then, but she was powerful eager to see and get tar-touched and crept in close.”

“Yes?”

“But after Guiser come in I see her move back in the crowd and, when I looked again, she wasn’t there.”

“Not anywhere in the crowd?”

“Seemingly.”

Knowing how madly keen Mrs. Bünz was to see the dance, Trixie was good-naturally concerned and looked round for her quite persistently. But there was no sign of her. Then Trixie herself became interested in the performance and forgot all about Mrs. Bünz. Later on, when Dan was already embarked on his solo, Trixie looked round again and, lo and behold, there was Mrs. Bünz after all, standing inside the archway and looking, Trixie said, terribly put-about. After that, the account followed Dr. Otterly’s in every respect.

Alleyn said, “This has been a help. Thank you, Trixie. And now, I’m afraid, for the personalities. This afternoon when you came into our room and Mr. Ralph Stayne was there, I thought from your manner and from his that there had been something — some understanding — between you. Is that right?”

Trixie’s smile widened into quite a broad grin. A dimple appeared in her cheek and her eyes brightened.

“He’s a proper lad,” she said, “is Mr. Ralph.”

“Does he spend much time at home, here?”

“During the week he’s up to Biddlefast lawyering, but most week-ends he’s to home.” She chuckled. “It’s kind of slow most times hereabouts,” said Trixie. “Up to rectory it’s so quiet’s a grave. No place for a high-mettled chap.”

“Does he get on well with his father?”

“Well enough. I reckon Passon’s no notion what fancies lay hold on a young fellow or how powerful strong and masterful they be.”

“Very likely not.”

Trixie smoothed her apron and, catching sight of her reflection in a wall-glass, tidied her hair. She did this without coquetry and yet, Alleyn thought, with a perfect awareness of her own devastating femininity.

“And so —?” he said.

“It was a bit of fun. No harm come of it. Or didn’t ought to of. He’s a proper good chap.”

“Did something come of it?”

She giggled. “Sure enough. Ernie seen us. Last spring ’twas, one evening up to Copse Forge.” She looked again at the wall-glass but abstractedly, as if she saw in it not herself as she was now but as she had been on the evening she evoked. “Twasn’t nothing for him to fret hisself over, but he’s a bit daft-like, is Ern.”

“What did he do about it?”

Nothing, it seemed, for a long time. He had gaped at them and then turned away. They had heard him stumble down the path through the copse. It was Trixie’s particular talent not so much to leave the precise character of the interrupted idyll undefined as to suggest by this omission that it was of no particular importance. Ernie had gone, Ralph Stayne had become uneasy and embarrassed. He and Trixie parted company and that was the last time they had met, Alleyn gathered, for dalliance. Ralph had not returned to South Mardian for several week-ends. When summer came, she believed him to have gone abroad during the long vacation. She answered all Alleyn’s questions very readily and apparently with precision.

“In the end,” Alleyn suggested, “did Ernie make mischief, or what?”

“So he did, then. After Camilla came back, ’twas.”

“Why then, particularly?”

“Reckon he knew what was in the wind. He’s not so silly but what he doesn’t notice. Easy for all to see Mr. Ralph’s struck down powerful strong by her.”

“But were they ever seen together?”

“No, not they.”

“Well, then —”

“He’d been courting her in London. Maids up to castle heard his great-auntie giving him a terrible rough-tonguing and him saying if Camilla would have him he’d marry her come-fine-or-foul.”

“But where,” Alleyn asked patiently, “does Ernie come in?”

Ernie, it appeared, was linked up with the maids at the castle. He was in the habit of drifting up there on Sunday afternoon, when, on their good-natured sufferance, he would stand inside the door of the servants’ hall, listening to their talk and, occasionally, contributing an item himself. Thus he had heard all about Dame Alice’s strictures upon her great-nephew’s attachment to Camilla. Ernie had been able, as it were, to pay his way by describing his own encounter with Ralph and Trixie in the copse. The elderly parlour-maid, a gossip of Trixie’s, lost no time in acquainting her of the whole conversation. Thus the age-old mechanics of village intercommunication were neatly demonstrated to Alleyn.

“Did you mind,” he asked, “about this tittle-tattle?”

“Lor’, no,” she said. “All they get out of life, I reckon, them old maidens.”

“Did anyone else hear of these matters?”

She looked at him with astonishment.

“Certain-sure. Why wouldn’t they?”

“Did the Guiser know, do you think?”

“He did, then. And was so full of silly notions as a baby, him being Chapel and terrible narrow in his views.”

“Who told him?”

“Why,” she said, “Ernie, for sure. He told, and his dad went raging and preachifying to Dame Alice and to Mr. Ralph saying he’d tell Passon. Mr. Ralph come and had a tell with me, axing me what he ought to do. And I told him, ‘Pay no ’tention: hard words break no bones and no business of Guiser’s, when all’s said.’ Course,” Trixie added, “Mr. Ralph was upset for fear his young lady might get to hear of it.”

“Did she?”

“I don’t reckon she did, though if she had, it mightn’t have made all that differ between them. She’m a sensible maid, for all her grand bringing-up: a lovely nature, true’s steel and a lady. But proper proud of her mother’s folk, mind. She’s talked to me since she come back: nobody else to listen, I dessay, and when a maid’s dizzy with love, like Camilla, she’s a mighty need to be talking.”

“And you don’t really think she knew about you and Mr. Ralph?”

“Not by my reckoning, though Mr. Ralph got round to thinking maybe he should tell her. Should he make a clean breast of it to Camilla and I dunno what else beside. I told him it were best left unsaid. Anyway, Camilla had laid it down firm they was not to come anigh each other. But, last Sunday, he seen her in church and his natural burning desire for the maid took a-hold of him and he followed her up to Copse Forge and kissed her and the Guiser come out of the smithy and seen them. Camilla says he ordered her off and Mr. Ralph told her it would be best if she went. So she did and left them together. I reckon Guiser gave Mr. Ralph a terrible tonguing, but Camilla doesn’t know what ’twas passed between them.”

“I see. Do you think the Guiser may have threatened to tell Camilla about you?”

Trixie thought this extremely likely. It appeared that, on the Monday, the Guiser had actually gone down to the Green Man and tackled Trixie herself, declaiming that Ralph ought to make an honest woman of her. For this extreme measure, Trixie said, perhaps a thought ambiguously, there was no need whatever. The Guiser had burst into a tirade, saying that he wouldn’t hear of his grand-daughter marrying so far “above her station,” and repeating the improper pattern of her mother’s behaviour. It could lead, he said, to nothing but disaster. He added, with superb inconsistency, that, anyway, Ralph was morally bound to marry Trixie.

“What did you say to all that?” Alleyn asked her.

“I said I’d other notions.”

He asked her what had been the outcome of her interview with the Guiser and gathered that a sort of understanding had been arrived at between them. An armed neutrality was to be observed until after Sword Wednesday. Nobody could do the Betty’s act as well as Ralph and for the Guiser this was a powerful argument. Towards the end of their talk, the old man had become a good deal calmer. Trixie could see that a pleasing thought had struck him.

“Did you discover what this was?”

“So I did, then. He was that tickled with his own cunning, I reckon he had to tell me.”

“Yes?”

“He said he’d make his Will and leave his money to Camilla. He said he’d make Mr. Ralph do it for him and that’d stop his nonsense.”

“But why?”

“Because he’d make him lay it down that she’d only get the money if she didn’t marry him,” said Trixie.

There was a long silence.

“Trixie,” Alleyn said at last. “Do you mind telling me if you were ever in love with Ralph Stayne?”

She stared at him and then threw back her head. The muscles in her neck swelled sumptuously and she laughed outright.

“Me! He’s a nice enough young fellow and no harm in him, but he’s not my style and I’m not his. It were a bit of fun, like I said, and natural as birds in May: no offence taken either side.”

Thinking, evidently, that the interview was over, she stood up and, setting her hands at her waist, pulled down her dress to tidy it.

“Have you got a man of your own?” Alleyn asked.

“So I have, then, and a proper man, too.”

“May I know who he is?”

“I don’t see why for not,” she said slowly. “It’s Chris Andersen. Reckon you saw us a while back in the lane.”

“What did the Guiser have to say about that?”

For the first time since he spoke to her, Trixie looked uneasy. An apple-blossom blush spread over her face and faded, Alleyn thought, to an unusual pallor.

“You tell me,” he said, “that the Guiser thought Mr. Stayne should marry you. Did the Guiser know about Chris?”

She hesitated and then said, “Reckon he knew, all right.”

“And objected?”

“He wasn’t all that pleased, no doubt,” she said.

“Did he have an argument about it with Chris?”

She put her hand over her mouth and would say no more.

Alleyn said, “I see you can keep things to yourself and I hope you’ll decide to do so now. There’s something else I want you to do.”

Trixie listened. When he’d finished she said, “I reckon I can but try and try I will.”

He thanked her and opened the door for her to go out.

“A remarkable young woman,” he thought.

Fox, who had enjoyed a substantial high-tea, sat on the edge of the bed, smoked his pipe and watched his chief get ready for his dinner-party.

“The water’s hot,” Alleyn said. “I’ll say that for the Green Man or Trixie or whoever stokes the boilers.”

“What happened, if it’s not indiscreet, of course, with Trixie?”

Alleyn told him.

“Fancy!” Fox commented placidly. “So the old boy asks the young solicitor to make out the Will that’s planned to put the kibosh on the romance. What a notion!”

“I’m afraid the Guiser was not only a bloody old tyrant but a bloody old snob into the bargain.”

“And the young solicitor,” Mr. Fox continued, following his own line of thought, “although he talks to us quite freely about the proposed Will, doesn’t mention this bit of it. Does he?”

“He doesn’t.”

“Ah!” said Fox calmly. “I daresay. And how was Trixie, Mr. Alleyn?”

“From the point of view of sex, Br’er Fox, Trixie’s what nice women call a-moral. That’s what she is.”

“Fancy!”

“She’s a big, capable, good-natured girl with a code of her own and I don’t suppose she’s ever done a mean thing in her life. Moreover, she’s a generous woman.”

“So it seems.”

“In every sense of the word.”

“That’s right, and this morning,” Fox continued, “Ernie let on that there were words between Chris and the old man. On account of Trixie, would you think?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Ah! Before you go up to the castle, Mr. Alleyn, would there be time for a quick survey of this case?”

“It’ll have to be damn’ quick. To put it your way, Fox, the case is going to depend very largely on a general refusal to believe in fairies. We’ve got the Guiser alive up to the time he ducks down behind the dolmen and waves to Ralph Stayne (if, of course, he did wave). About eight minutes later, we’ve got him still behind the dolmen, dead and headless. We’ve got everybody swearing blue murder he didn’t leave the spot and offering to take Bible oaths nobody attacked him. And, remember, the presumably disinterested onlookers, Carey and the sergeant, agree about this. We’ve got to find an answer that will cover their evidence. I can only think of one and it’s going to be a snorter to ring home.”

“You’re telling me.”

“Consider the matter of bloodstains, for instance, and I wish to hell Curtis would get here and confirm what we suppose. It the five brothers, Begg, Otterly and Stayne had blood all over their clothes it wouldn’t get us much nearer because that old ass Carey let them go milling round the corpse. As it it, Bailey tells me they’ve been over the lot and can’t find anything beyond some smears on their trousers and sleeves. Begg, going on his own cloak-and-dagger experience in Germany, points out that the assailant in such cases is well-enough bloodied to satisfy the third murderer in Macbeth. And he’s right, of course.”

“Yes, but we think we know the answer to that one,” said Fox. “Don’t we?”

“So we do. But it doesn’t get us any closer to an arrest.”

“Motive?”

“I despise motive. (Why, by the way, don’t we employ that admirable American usage?) I despise it. The case is lousy with motive. Everybody’s got a sort of motive. We can’t ignore it, of course, but it won’t bring home the bacon, Br’er Fox. Opportunity’s the word, my boy. Opportunity.”

He shrugged himself into his jacket and attacked his head violently with a pair of brushes.

Fox said, “That’s a nice suit, Mr. Alleyn, if I may say so. Nobody’d think you’d travelled all night in it.”

“It ought to be Victorian tails and a red silk handkerchief for the Dame of Mardian Castle. What’ll you do, Fox? Could you bear to go down to the forge and see if the boys have unearthed the Guiser’s wealth? Who’s on duty there, by the way?”

“A fresh P. C. Carey got up by the afternoon bus from Biddlefast. The ambulance is coming from Yowford for the remains at nine. I ought to go down and see that through.”

“Come on, then. I’ll drop you there.”

They went downstairs and, as they did so, heard Trixie calling out to some invisible person that the telephone lines had broken down.

“That’s damn’ useful,” Alleyn grumbled.

They went out to their car, which already had a fresh ledge of snow on it.

“Listen!” Alleyn said and looked up to where a lighted and partially opened window glowed theatrically beyond a light drift of falling snow. Through the opening came a young voice. It declaimed with extraordinary detachment and great attention to consonants:

“ ‘Nine-men’s morris is filled up with mud.’ ”

“Camilla,” Alleyn said.

“What’s she saying!” Fox asked, startled. Alleyn raised a finger. The voice again announced:

“ ‘Nine-men’s morris is filled up with mud.’ ”

“It’s a quotation. ‘Nine-men’s morris.’ Is that why I kept thinking it ought to be nine and not eight? Or did I —”

The voice began again, using a new inflexion.

“ ‘Nine-men’s morris is filled up with MUD.’ ”

“So was ours this morning,” Alleyn muttered.

“I thought, the first time, she said ‘blood,’ Fox ejaculated, greatly scandalized.

“Single-track minds: that’s what’s the matter with us.” He called out cheerfully, “You can’t say, ‘The human mortals want their winter here,’ ” and Camilla stuck her head out of the window.

“Where are you off to?” she said. “Or doesn’t one ask?”

“One doesn’t ask. Good-night, Titania. Or should it be Juliet?”

“Dr. Otterly thinks it ought to be Cordelia.”

“He’s got a thing about her. Stick to your fairy-tales while you can,” Alleyn said. She gave a light laugh and drew back into her room.

They drove cautiously down the lane to the cross-roads. Alleyn said, “We’ve got to get out of Ernie what he meant by his speech from the dolmen, you know. And his remark about Chris and the old man. If a propitious moment presents itself, have a shot.”

“Tricky, a bit, isn’t it?”

“Very. Hullo! Busy night at the smithy.”

Copse Forge was alert in the snowbound landscape. The furnace glowed and lights moved about in the interior: there was a suggestion of encrusted Christmas cards that might open to disclose something more disturbing.

When Alleyn and Fox arrived, however, it was to discover Simon Begg’s car outside and a scene of semi-jubilant fantasy within. The five Andersen brothers had been exceedingly busy. Lanthorns, lighted candles and electric torches were all in play. A trestle-table had been rigged up in the middle of the smithy and, on it, as if they bore witness to some successful parish fete, were many little heaps of money. Copper, silver, paper: all were there; and, at the very moment of arrival, Alleyn and Fox found Dan Andersen with his brothers clustered round him shining their torches on a neat golden pile at one end of the table.

“Sovereigns,” Dan was saying. “Eleven golden sovereigns. There they be! Can you believe your eyes, chaps?”

“Gold,” Ernie said loudly, “ain’t it? Gold.”

“It’ll’ve been the Grand-dad’s, surely,” Andy said solemnly. “He were a great saver and hoarder and the Dad after him: so like’s two cherry stones. As has always been recognized.”

A little worshipful chorus mounted above the totem brightness of the sovereigns. A large policeman moved nearer the table, and out of the shadows behind the forge came Simon Begg, wearing the broad and awkward smile of an onlooker at other people’s good fortune.

They heard Alleyn and Fox and they all looked up, preoccupied and perhaps a little wary.

Dan said, “Look at this, sir. This is what we’ve found and never thought to see. My father’s savings and his dad’s before him and no doubt his’n before that. There’s crown pieces here with a king’s head on them and sovereigns and bank notes so old and dirty it’s hard to say what they’re worth. We’re flabbergasted.”

“I’m not surprised,” Alleyn said. “It’s a fabulous sight. Where did you find it all?”

Dan made a comprehensive sweep of his arm.

“Everywhere. Iron boxes under his bed. Mouldy old tins and pots along the top shelves. Here it’s been, as you might say, laughing at us, I dun know how many years. We’ve not touched on the half of it yet, however. No doubt there’ll be lashings more to come.”

“I can’t credit it!” Andy said. “It’s unnatural.”

“We’re made men, chaps,” Nat said doubtfully. “Bean’t we?”

“Have you found a Will?” Alleyn asked.

“So we have, then,” they chanted. They were so much alike in appearance and in manner that, again, Alleyn couldn’t help thinking of them as chorus to the action.

“May I see it?”

Dan produced it quite readily. It had been found in a locked iron box under the bed and was twenty years old.

Andy, who was gradually emerging as the least rugged and most sentimental of the Andersens, embarked, with some relish, on a little narrative.

“April the second, 1936. That was the day our Bess ran away to marry. Powerful angered he was that night. Wouldn’t go to bed. Us could hear him tramping about in yur, all hours.”

“Stoked up the fire, he did,” Dan chipped in and he also adopted the story-teller’s drone, “and burnt all her bits of finery and anything else she left behind. Ah-huh!”

Ernie laughed uproariously and hit his knees.

Chris said, “He must of wrote it that night. Next day when two chaps come in with a welding job, he axed ’em into his room and when they come out I yurd ’em laughing and telling each other they didn’t reckon what the old chap left would make a millionaire of nobody. There’s their names put to it in witness.”

“More fools them, as it turns out,” Dan said amiably. “Not to say ‘millionaire,’ mind, but handsome.”

They all murmured together and the policeman from Biddle-fast cleared his throat.

Simon said, “Funny how things work out, though, isn’t it?”

Alleyn was reading the Will. It was a very short document: the whole of the Guiser’s estate was to be divided equally among his sons, “ ‘on condition that they do not give any to my daughter Elizabeth or to any child she may bear, on account of what she done this day.’ Signed ‘W. Andersen.’ ”

“Terrible bitter,” Andy pointed out and sighed heavily.

Nat, addressing himself to Alleyn, asked anxiously, “But how do us chaps stand, sir? Is this here document a proper testyment? Will it hold up afore a coroner? Is it law?”

Alleyn had much ado not to reply, “ ‘Aye, marry is’t. Crowner’s quest law?’ ” so evocative of those other countrymen were the Andersens, peering up at him, red-faced and bright-eyed in the lamplight.

He said, “Your solicitor will be the man to talk to about that. Unless your father made a later Will, I should think this one ought to be all right.”

“And then us’ll have enough to turn this old shop into a proper masterpiece of a garridge, won’t us, chaps?” Ernie demanded excitedly.

Dan said seriously, “It’s not the occasion to bring that up, now, Ern. It’ll come due for considering at the proper time.”

Chris said, “Why not consider it now? It’s at the back of what we’re thinking. And with all this great heap of cash — well!”

Andy said, “I don’t fancy talking about it, knowing how set he was agin it.” He turned to Alleyn. “Seems to me, sir, we ought to be axing you what’s the right thing to do with all this stuff.”

“You should leave everything as it is until the Will is proved. But I don’t really know about these things and I’ve got to be off. Inspector Fox will stay here until the ambulance comes. I’d suggest that when your — your astonishing search is completed, you do very carefully count and lock away all this money. Indeed, if I may say so, I think you should keep a tally as you go. Goodnight.”

They broke into a subdued chorus of acknowledgment. Alleyn glanced at Fox and turned to go out. Simon said, “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t do if I was watching you, all you bods. Cheery-ho-ho,” and accompanied Alleyn to the cars. Fox walked down with them.

“Like a lot of great big kids, really, aren’t they?” Simon said.

Alleyn was non-committal.

“Well, Ern is, anyway,” Simon said defensively. “Just a great big kid.” He opened the door for Alleyn and stood with his hand still on it. He looked at his boots and kicked the snow, at the moment rather like a small boy, himself.

“You all seem to pick on the old Corp,” Simon mumbled.

“We only want the facts from him, you know. As from everybody else.”

“But he’s not like everybody else. He’ll tell you anything. Irresponsible.”

(“He’s going to say it again,” Alleyn thought.)

“Just like a great big kid,” Simon added punctually.

“Don’t worry,” Alleyn said. “We’ll try not to lose our heads.”

Simon grinned and looked at him sideways.

“It’s nice for them, all the same,” he said. He rubbed his fingers and thumb together.

“Oh!” Alleyn said, “the Guiser’s hoard. Yes. Grand, for them, isn’t it? I must get on.”

He started his engine. It was cold and sluggish and he revved it up noisily. Ernie appeared in the pool of light outside the smithy door. He came slowly towards the car and then stopped. Something in his demeanor arrested Alleyn.

“Hi-ya, Corp,” Simon called out cheerfully. It was characteristic of him to bestow perpetual greetings.

Alleyn suddenly decided to take a chance. “See here,” he said hurriedly to Simon. “I want to ask Ernie something. I could get him by himself, but I’ve a better chance of a reasonable answer if you stand by. Will you?”

“Look here, though —”

“Ernie,” Alleyn called, “just a second, will you?” Ernie moved forward.

“If you’re trying to catch him out—” Simon began.

“Do you suggest there’s anything to catch?”

“No.”

“Ernie,” Alleyn said, “come here a moment.” Ernie walked slowly towards them, looking at Simon.

“Tell me,” Alleyn said, “why did you say the German lady killed your father?”

Chris Andersen had come into the smithy doorway. Ernie and Simon had their backs turned to him.

Ernie said, “I never. What I said, she done it.”

“Ah, for Pete’s sake!” Simon ejaculated. “Go on! Go right ahead. I daresay he knows, and, anyway, it couldn’t matter less. Go on.”

But Ernie seemed to have been struck by another thought. “Wummen!” he observed. “It’s them that’s the trouble, all through, just like what the Guiser reckoned. Look at our Chris.”

The figure standing in the over-dramatic light from the smithy turned its head, stirred a little and was still again.

“What about him?” Alleyn asked very quietly and lifted a warning finger at Simon.

Ernie assumed a lordly off-hand expression. “You can’t,” he said, “tell me nothing I don’t know about them two,” and incontinently began to giggle.

Fox suddenly said, “Is that so? Fancy!”

Ernie glanced at him. “Ar! That’s right. Him and Trix.”

“And the Guiser?” Alleyn suggested under his breath.

Ernie gave a long affirmative whistle.

Chris moved down towards them and neither Simon nor Ernie heard him. Alleyn stamped in the snow as if to warm his feet, keeping time with Chris.

Simon appealed to Alleyn. “Honest to God,” he said, “I don’t know what this one’s about. Honest to God.”

“What’s it all about, Corp?” Simon began obediently. “Where did the Guiser come into it? What’s the gen? Come on.”

Ernie, always more reasonable with Simon than with anyone else, said at once, “Beg pardon, sir. I was meaning about Trix and what I told the Guiser I seen. You know. Her and Mr. Ralph.”

Simon said, “Hell!” and to Alleyn, “I can’t see this is of any interest to you, you know.”

Chris was close behind his brother.

“Was there a row about it?” Alleyn asked Ernie. “On Sunday?”

Ernie whistled again, piercingly.

Chris’s hand closed on his brother’s arm. He twisted Ernie round to face him.

“What did I tell you?” he said, and slapped him across the face.

Ernie made a curious sound, half whimper, half giggle. Simon, suddenly very tough indeed, shouldered between them.

“Was that necessary?” he asked Chris.

“You mind your own bloody business,” Chris rejoined. He turned on his heel and went back into the smithy. Fox, after a glance at Alleyn, followed him.

“By God!” Simon said thoughtfully. He put his arm across Ernie’s shoulders.

“Forget it, Corp,” he said. “It’s like what I said: nobody argues with the dumb. You talk too much, Corp.” He looked at Alleyn. “Give him a break, sir,” Simon said. “Can’t you?”

But Ernie burst out in loud lamentation. “Wummen!” he declared. “There you are! Like what the old man said. They’re all the same, that lot. Look what the fureigness done on us. Look what she done.”

“All right,” Alleyn said. “What did she do?”

“Easy on, easy, now, Corp. What did I tell you?” Simon urged very anxiously and looked appealingly at Alleyn. “Have a heart,” he begged. He moved towards Ernie and checked abruptly. He stared at something beyond the rear of Alleyn’s car.

Out of range of the light from the smithy, but visible against the background of snow and faintly illuminated by a hurricane lanthorn that one of them carried, were three figures. They came forward slowly into the light and were revealed.

Dr. Otterly, Mrs. Bünz and Ralph Stayne.

Mrs. Bünz’s voice sounded lonely and small on the night air and had no more endurance than the jets of frozen breath that accompanied it. It was like the voice of an invalid.

“What is he saying about me? He is speaking lies. You must not believe what he tells you. It is because I was a German. They are in league against me. They think of me as an enemy, still.”

“Go on, Ernie,” Alleyn said.

“No!” Ralph Stayne shouted, and then, with an air that seemed to be strangely compounded of sheepishness and defiance, added:

“She’s right. It’s not fair.”

Dr. Otterly said, “I really do think, Alleyn —”

Mrs. Bünz gabbled, “I thank you. I thank you, gentlemen.” She moved forward.

“You keep out of yur,” Ernie said and backed away from her. “Don’t you go and overlook us’ns.”

He actually threw up his forearm as if to protect himself, turned aside and spat noisily.

“There you are!” Simon said angrily to Alleyn. “That’s what that all adds up to.”

“All right, all right,” Alleyn said.

He looked past Simon at the smithy. Fox had come out and was massively at hand. Behind him stood the rest of the Andersen brothers, fitfully illuminated. Fox and one of the other men had torches and, whether by accident or design, their shafts of light reached out like fingers to Mrs. Bünz’s face.

It was worth looking at. As the image from a lantern slide that is being withdrawn may be momentarily overlaid by its successor, so alarm modulated into fanaticism in Mrs. Bünz’s face. Her lips moved. Out came another little jet of breath. She whispered, “Wunderbar!” She advanced a pace towards Ernie, who at once retired upon his brothers. She clasped her hands and became lyrical.

“It is incredible,” Mrs. Bünz whispered, “and it is very, very interesting and important. He believes me to have the Evil Eye. It is remarkable.”

Without a word, the five brothers turned away and went back into the smithy.

“You are determined, all of you,” Alleyn said with unusual vehemence, “to muck up the course of justice, aren’t you? What are you three doing here?”

They had walked down from the pub, it appeared. Mrs. Bünz wished to send a telegram and to buy some eucalyptus from the village shop, which she had been told would be open. Ralph was on his way home. Dr. Otterly had punctured a tyre and was looking for an Andersen to change the wheel for him.

“I’m meant to be dining with you at the castle,” he said. “Two nights running, I may tell you, which is an acid test, metaphorically and clinically, for any elderly stomach. I’ll be damn’ late if I don’t get moving.”

“I’ll drive you up.”

“Like me to change your wheel, Doc?” Simon offered.

“I didn’t expect you’d be here. Yes, will you, Begg? And do the repair? I’ll pick the car up on my way back and collect the wheel from your garage to-morrow.”

“Okey-doke, sir,” Simon said. “I’ll get cracking, then.” He tramped off, whistling self-consciously.

“Well,” Ralph Stayne said from out of the shadows behind Alleyn’s car, “I’ll be off, too, I think. Good-night.”

They heard the snow squeak under his boots as he walked away.

“I also,” said Mrs. Bünz.

“Mrs. Bünz,” Alleyn said, “do you really believe it was only the look in your eye that made Ernie say what he did about you?”

“But yes. It is one of the oldest European superstitions. It is fascinating to find it. The expression ‘overlooking’ proves it. I am immensely interested,” Mrs. Bünz said rather breathlessly.

“Go and send your telegram,” Alleyn rejoined crossly. “You are behaving foolishly, Mrs. Bünz. Nobody, least of all the police, wants to bully you or dragoon you or brain-wash you, or whatever you’re frightened of. Go and get your eucalyptus and snuff it up and let us hope it clears your head for you. Guten Abend, Mrs. Bünz.”

He walked quickly up the path to Fox.

“I’ll hand you all that on a plate, Fox,” he said. “Keep the tabs on Ernie. If necessary, we’ll have to lock him up. What a party! All right?”

“All right, Mr. Alleyn.”

“Hell, we must go! Where’s Otterly? Oh, there you are. Come on.”

He ran down the path and slipped into the car. Dr. Otterly followed slowly.

Fox watched them churn off in the direction of Mardian Castle.