Death of a Fool

Chapter VI Copse Forge

Ralph had big hands. When they closed like twin shells over Camilla’s her own felt imprisoned and fluttery, like birds.

She looked at his eyes and hair, which were black, at his face, which was lean, and at his ears, which were protuberant and, at that moment, scarlet. “I am in love with Ralph,” thought Camilla.

She said, “Hullo, you. I thought we’d agreed not to meet again. After last Sunday.”

“Thing of the past,” Ralph said grandly.

“You promised your father.”

“I’ve told him I consider myself free. Under the circs.”

“Ralph,” Camilla said, “you mustn’t cash in on murder.”

“Is that a very kind thing to say?”

“Perhaps it’s not. I don’t mean I’m not glad to see you — but — well, you know.”

“Look,” he said, “there are one or two things I’ve got to know. Important things. I’ve got to know them, Camilla. The first is: are you terribly upset about last night? Well, of course you are, but so much upset, I mean, that one just mustn’t bother you about anything. Or are you — Oh, God, Camilla, I’ve never so much as kissed you and I do love you so much.”

“Do you? No, never mind. About your first question: I just don’t know how I feel about Grandfather and that’s a fact. As far as it’s a personal thing — well, I scarcely even knew him ten days ago. But, since I got here, we’ve seen quite a lot of each other and — this is what you may find hard to believe — we kind of clicked, Grandfather and I.”

Ralph said on an odd inflexion, “You certainly did that,” and then looked as if he wished he hadn’t.

Camilla, frowning with concentration, unconsciously laced her fingers through his.

“You, of course,” she said, “just think of him as a bucolic character. The Old Guiser. Wonderful old boy in his way. Not many left. Didn’t have much truck with soap and water. Half of me felt like that about him: the Campion half. Smelly old cup-of-tea, it thought. But then I’d see my mother look out of his eyes.”

“Of course,” he said. “I know.”

“Do you? You can’t quite know, dear Ralph. You’re all-of-a-piece: half Mardian, half Stayne. I’m an alloy.”

“You’re a terrible old inverted snob,” he said fondly, but she paid no attention to this.

“But as for sorrow — personal grief,” she was saying, “no. No. Not exactly that. It doesn’t arise. It’s the awful grotesquerie that’s so nightmarish. It’s like something out of Webster or Marlowe: horror-plus. It gives one the horrors to think of it.”

“So you know what happened? Exactly, I mean?”

She made a movement of her head indicating the landlord. “He saw. He told us: Trixie and me.”

She felt a stillness in his hands, almost as if he would draw them away, but he didn’t do that. “The whole thing!” she exclaimed. “It’s so outlandish and sickening and ghastly. The way he was dressed and everything. And then one feels such pity.”

“He couldn’t have known anything at all about it.”

“Are you sure? How can you tell?”

“Dr. Otterly says so.”

“And then — worst of all, unthinkably worst — the — what it was — the crime. You see, I can’t use the word.”

“Yes,” Ralph said. “There’s that.”

Camilla looked at him with panic in her eyes. “The boys!” she said. “They couldn’t. Any of them. Could they?” He didn’t answer, and she cried out, “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking about Ernie and — what he’s like. You’re remembering what I told you about the dog. And what you said happened with his sword. Aren’t you?”

“All right,” Ralph said. “I am. No, darling. Wait a bit. Suppose, just suppose it is that. It would be quite dreadful and Ernie would have to go through a very bad time and probably spend several years in a criminal lunatic asylum. But there’d be no question of anything worse than that happening to him. It’s perfectly obvious, if you’ll excuse me, darling, that old Ernie’s only about fifteen-and-fourpence in the pound.”

“Well, I daresay it is,” Camilla said, looking very white. “But to do that!”

“Look,” he said, “I’m going on to my next question. Please answer it.”

“I can guess —”

“All right. Wait a bit. I’ve told you I love you. You said you were not sure how you felt and wanted to get away and think about it. Fair enough. I respected that and I’d have held off and not waited for you on Sunday if it hadn’t been for seeing you in church and — well, you know.”

“Yes, well, we disposed of that, didn’t we?”

“You were marvellously understanding. I thought everything was going my way. But then you started up this business. Antediluvian hooey! Because you’re what you choose to call an ‘alloy’ you say it wouldn’t do for us to marry. Did you, by any chance, come down here to see your mother’s people with the idea of facing up to that side of it?”

“Yes,” Camilla said, “I did.”

“You wanted to glower out of the smithy at the county riding by.”

“In effect. Though it’s not the most attractive way of putting it.”

“Do you love me, blast you?”

“Yes,” Camilla said wildly. “I do. So shut up.”

“Not bloody likely! Camilla, how marvellous! How frightfully, frightfully nice of you to love me. I can’t get over it,” said Ralph, who, from emotion and rapture, had also turned white.

“But I stick to my point,” she said. “What’s your great-aunt going to say? What’s your father going to think? Ralph, can you look me in the eye and tell me they wouldn’t mind?”

“If I look you in the eye I shall kiss you.”

“Ah! You see? You can’t. And now — now when this has happened! There’ll be the most ghastly publicity, won’t there? What about that? What sort of a fiancée am I going to be to a rising young county solicitor? Can you see the headlines? ‘History Repeats Itself!’ ‘Mother Ran Away from Smithy to Marry Baronet’! ‘Grand-daughter of Murdered Blacksmith Weds Peer’s Grandson’! ‘Fertility Rite Leads to Engagement’! Perhaps — perhaps — ‘Niece of —’ What are you doing?”

Ralph had got up and, with an air of determination, was buttoning his mackintosh. “I’m going,” he said, “to send a telegraph to Auntie Times. Engagement announced between —”

“You’re going to do nothing of the sort.” They glared at each other. “Oh!” Camilla exclaimed, flapping her hands at him, “what am I going to do with you? And how can I feel so happy?”

She made an exasperated little noise and bolted into his arms.

Alleyn walked in upon this scene and, with an apologetic ejaculation, hurriedly walked out again.

Neither Ralph nor Camilla was aware either of his entry or of his withdrawal.

When they had left Bailey and Thompson to deal with certain aspects of technical routine in the old coach-house, Alleyn and Fox, taking Carey and Dr. Otterly with them, had interviewed the Guiser’s five sons.

They had found them crammed together in a tiny kitchen-living-room in the cottage next door to the coach-house. It was a dark room, its two predominant features being an immense iron range and a table covered with a plush cloth. Seated round this table in attitudes that were somehow on too large a scale for their environment were the five Andersen sons: Daniel, Andrew, Nathaniel, Christopher and Ernest.

Dr. Otterly had knocked and gone in and the others had followed him. Dan had risen; the others merely scraped their chair legs and settled back again. Carey introduced them.

Alleyn was greatly struck by the close family resemblance among the Andersens. Even the twins were scarcely more like to each other than to the other three brothers. They were all big, sandy, blue-eyed men with fresh colour in their cheeks: heavy and powerful men whose muscles bulged hard under their countrymen’s clothing. Dan’s eyes were red and his hands not perfectly steady. Andy sat with raised brows as if in a state of guarded astonishment. Nat looked bashful and Chris angry. Ernie kept a little apart from his brothers. A faint, foolish smile was on his mouth and he grimaced; not broadly, but with a portentous air as if he was possessed of some hidden advantage.

Alleyn and Fox were given a chair at the table. Carey and Dr. Otterly sat on a horsehair sofa against the wall and were thus a little removed from the central party.

Alleyn said, “I’m sorry to have to worry you when you’ve already had to take so much, but I’m sure that you’ll want the circumstances of your father’s death to be cleared up as quickly as possible.”

They made cautious sounds in their throats. He waited and, presently, Dan said, “Goes without saying, sir, we want to get to the bottom of this. We’m kind of addle-headed and over-set, one way and ’tother, and can’t seem to take to any notion.”

“Look at it how you like,” Andy said, “it’s fair fantastical.”

There was a strong smell of stale tobacco-smoke in the room. Alleyn threw his pouch and a packet of cigarettes on the table. “Suppose we take our pipes to it,” he said. “Help yourselves.”

After a proper show of deprecation they did so: Ernie alone preferred a cigarette and rolled his own. He grimaced over the job, working his mouth and eyebrows. While they were still busy with their pipes and tobacco, Alleyn began to talk to them.

“Before we can even begin to help,” he said, “we’ll have to get as clear an account of yesterday’s happenings as all of you can give us. Now, Superintendent Carey has already talked to you and he’s given me a damn’ good report on what was said. I just want to take up one or two of his points and see if we can carry them a bit further. Let’s go back, shall we, to yesterday evening, about half an hour before the Dance of the Five Sons was due to start. All right?”

They were lighting their pipes now. They looked up at him guardedly and waited.

“I understand,” Alleyn went on, “that would be about half past eight. The performers were already at Mardian Castle, with the exception of Mr. William Andersen himself and his youngest son, Mr. Ernest Andersen. That right?”

Silence. Then Dan, who looked like becoming the spokesman, said, “Right enough.”

“Mr. William Andersen — may I for distinction use the name by which I’m told he was universally known — the Guiser? That means ‘the mummer,’ doesn’t it?”

“Literally,” Dr. Otterly said from the sofa, “it means ‘the disguised one.’ ”

“Lord, yes! Of course. Well, the Guiser, at half past eight, was still down here at the forge. And Mr. Ernest Andersen was either here too, or shortly to return here, because he was to drive his father up to the castle. Stop me if I go wrong.”

Silence.

“Good. The Guiser was resting in a room that opens off the smithy itself. When did he go there, if you please?”

“I can answer that one,” Dr. Otterly said. “I looked in at midday to see how he was and he wasn’t feeling too good. I told him that if he wanted to appear at all he’d have to take the day off — I said I’d come back later on and have another look at him. Unfortunately, I got called out on an urgent case and found myself running late. I dined at the castle and it doesn’t do to be late there. I’d had a word with the boys about the Guiser and arranged to have a look at him when he arrived and—”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “Thank you so much. Can we just take it from there? So he rested all day in his room. Any of you go and see how he was getting on?”

“Not us!” Chris said. “He wouldn’t have nobody anigh him when he was laying-by. Told us all to keep off.”

“So you went up to the castle without seeing him?”

Dan said, “I knocked on the door and says, ‘We’re off then,’ and, ‘Hoping to see you later,’ and Dad sings out, ‘Send Ern back at half past. I’ll be there.’ So we all went up along and Ern drove back at half past like he’d said.”

“Right.” Alleyn turned to Ernie and found him leaning back in his chair with his cigarette in his mouth and his hands clasped behind his neck. There was something so strained in this attitude that it suggested a kind of clumsy affectation. “Now, will you tell us just what happened when you came back for your father?”

“A-a-a-aw!” Ernie drawled, without looking at him. “I dunno. Nuthin.”

“Naow, naow, naow!” counselled his brothers anxiously.

“Was he still in his room?”

“Reckon so. Must of been,” Ernie said and laughed.

“Did you speak to him?”

“Not me.”

“What did you do?”

Nat said, “Ernie seen the message—”

“Wait a bit,” Alleyn said. “I think we’ll have it from him, if we may. What did you do, Ernie? What happened? You went into the forge, did you — and what?”

“He’d no call,” Ernie shouted astonishingly without changing his posture or shifting his gaze, “he’d no call to treat me like ’e done. Old sod.”

“Answer what you’re axed, you damned young fool,” Chris burst out, “and don’t talk silly.” The brothers all began to tell Alleyn that Ernie didn’t mean what he said.

Alleyn held up his hand and they stopped. “Tell me what happened,” he said to Ernie. “You went into the forge and what did you see?”

“Ar?” He turned his head and looked briefly at Alleyn. “Like Nat says. I seen the message pinned to his door.”

Alleyn drew from his coat pocket the copper-plate billhead with its pencilled message. It had been mounted between two sheets of glass by Bailey. He said,‘“Look at this, will you? Is this the message?”

Ernie took it in his hand and gave a great laugh. Fox took it away from him.

“What did you do then?” Alleyn asked.

“Me? Like what it says. ‘Young Ern,’ that’s me, ‘will have to.’ There was his things hanging up ready: mask, clothes and old rabbity cap. So I puts ’em on; quick.”

“Were you already dressed as the whiffling son?”

“Didn’t matter. I put ’em on over. Quiet like. ’Case he heard and changed his mind. Out and away, quick. Into old bus and up the road. Whee-ee-ee!” Ernie gave a small boy’s illustration of excessive speed. “I bet I looked right clever. I was the Fool, I was. Driving fast to the dance. Whee-ee-ee!”

Dan suddenly buried his face in his hands. “T’ain’t decent,” he said.

Alleyn took them through the scene after Ernie’s arrival. They said they had passed round the note and then sent it in to Dr. Otterly by Dan’s young son, Bill, who was then dressed and black-faced in his role of understudy. Dr. Otterly came out. The brothers added some last-minute instructions to the boy. When the clock struck nine, Dr. Otterly went into the courtyard with his fiddle. It was at that moment they all heard Mrs. Bünz’s car hooting and labouring up the drive. As they waited for their entrance-music, the car appeared round the outer curve of the old wall with the Guiser rampant in the passenger’s seat. Dr. Otterly heard the subsequent rumpus and went back to see what had happened.

It appeared that, during the late afternoon, the Guiser had fallen deeply asleep and had woken refreshed and fighting fit, only to hear his son driving away without him. Speechless with rage, he had been obliged to accept a hitch-hike from his enemy, Mrs. Bünz.

“He was jibbering when he got to us,” Otterly said, “and pretty well incoherent. He grabbed Ernie and began hauling his Fool’s clothes off him.”

“And how,” Alleyn said to Ernie, “did you enjoy that?”

Ernie, to the evident perturbation of his brothers, flew into a retrospective rage. As far as Alleyn could make out, he had attempted to defy his father but had been hurriedly quelled by his brothers.

“Ern didn’t want to whiffle,” Dan said and they all confirmed this eagerly. Ernie had refused to dance if he couldn’t dance the Fool. Simon Begg had finally prevailed on him.

“I done it for the Wing-Commander and not for another soul. He axed me and I done it. I went out and whiffled.”

From here, what they had to tell followed without addition the account Alleyn had already heard from Carey. None of the five sons had, at any stage of their performance, gone behind the dolmen to the spot where their father lay hidden. They were all positive the Guiser could neither have left the courtyard nor returned to it, alive or dead. They were equally and mulishly positive that no act of violence could have been done upon him during the period begun by his mock fall and terminated by the discovery of his decapitated body. They stuck to this, loudly repeating their argument and banging down their great palms on the table. It was impossible.

“I take it,” said Mr. Fox during a pause, “that we don’t believe in fairies.” He looked mildly round the table.

“Not at the bottom of this garden, anyway,” Alleyn muttered.

“My dad did, then,” Ernie shouted.

“Did what?” Alleyn asked patiently.

“Believe in fairies.”

Fox sighed heavily and made a note.

“Did he,” Alleyn continued, “believe in sacrifices too?”

The Guiser’s five sons fidgeted and said nothing.

“The old idea, you know,” Alleyn said. “I may have got it wrong, but in the earliest times didn’t they sacrifice something — a bird, wasn’t it — on some of these old stones? At certain times of the year?”

After a further and protracted silence, Dr. Otterly said, “No doubt they did.”

“I take it that this morris dance — cum-sword-dance-cum-mumming play — forgive me if I’ve got the terms muddled — is a survival of some such practice?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Dr. Otterly said, impatiently, and yet with the air of a man whose hobby-horse is at the mounting-block. “Immeasurably the richest survival we have.”

“Really? The ritual death of the Fool is the old mystery of sacrifice, isn’t it, with the promise of renewal behind it?”

“Exactly.”

“And, at one time, there would have been actual bloodshed? Or well might have been?”

To this there was no answer.

“Who,” Alleyn asked, “killed Dame Alice’s goose yesterday afternoon and put it on the dolmen?”

Through the pipe-smoke that now hung thick over the table he looked round the circle of reddened faces. “Ernie,” he said, “was it you?”

A slow grin stretched Ernie’s mouth until he looked remarkably like a bucolic Fool himself.

“I whiffled ’im,” he said.

As Ernie was not concerned to extend this statement and returned very foolish answers to any further questions, Alleyn was obliged to listen to his brothers, who were eager in explanation.

Throughout yesterday morning, they said, while they erected the torches and prepared the bonfire, they had suffered a number of painful and determined assaults from Dame Alice’s geese. One male, in particular, repeatedly placing himself in the van, had come hissing down upon them. Damaging stabs and sidelong slashes had been administered, particularly upon Ernie, who had greatly resented them. He had been sent up again in the afternoon with the gardener’s slasher, which he had himself sharpened, and had been told to cut down the brambles on the dancing area. In the dusk, the gander had made a final assault and an extremely painful one. Irked beyond endurance, Ernie had swiped at him with the slasher. When they arrived in the evening the brothers were confronted with the corpse and taken to task by Miss Mardian. Subsequently, they had got the whole story out of Ernie. He now listened to their recital with a maddening air of complacency.

“Do you agree that is what happened?” Alleyn asked him and he clasped his hands behind his head, rocked to and fro and chuckled. “That’s right,” he said. “I whiffled ’im proper.”

“Why did you leave the bird on the dolmen?”

Ernie said conceitedly, “You foreign chaps wouldn’t rightly catch on. I know what for I done it.”

“Was it blood for the stone?”

He ducked his head low between his shoulders and looked sideways at Alleyn. “Happen it was, then. And happen ’twasn’t enough, however.”

“Wanted more?” Alleyn asked and mentally crossed his thumbs.

“Wanted and got it, then.”

(“Naow, naow, naow!”)

Ernie unclasped his hands and brought them down on the table. He gripped the edge so hard that the table quivered. “His own fault,” he gabbled, “and not a soul else’s. Blood axes for blood and always will. I told him. Look what he done on me, Sunday. Murdered my dog, he did, murdered my dog on me when my back was turned. What he done Sunday come home on him, Wednesday, and not a soul to answer for it but himself. Bloody murderer, he was, and paid in his own coin.”

Chris Andersen reached out and gripped his brother’s arm. “Shut your mouth,” he said.

Dan said, “You won’t stop him that fashion. Take thought for yourself, Ernie. You’re not right smart in the head, boy. Your silly ways is well known: no blame to you if you’re not so clear-minded as the rest of us. Keep quiet, then, or, in your foolishness, you’ll bring shame on the family.” His brothers broke into a confused chorus of approval.

Alleyn listened, hoping to glean something from the general rumpus, but the brothers merely reiterated their views with increased volume, no variation and little sense.

Ernie suddenly jabbed his forefinger at Chris. “You can’t talk, Chrissie,” he roared. “What about what happened yesterday? What about what you said you’d give ’im if he crossed you over — you know what —”

There was an immediate uproar. Chris and his three elder brothers shouted in unison and banged their fists down on the table.

Alleyn stood up. This unexpected movement brought about an instant quiet.

“I’m sorry, men,” he said, “but from the way things are shaping, there can be no point in my keeping you round this table. You will stay either here or hereabouts, if you please, and we shall in due course see each of you alone. Your father’s body will be taken to the nearest mortuary for examination, which will be made by the Home Office pathologist. As soon as we can allow the funeral to take place you will be told all about it. There will, of course, be an inquest which you’ll be asked to attend. If you think it wise to do so, you may be legally represented, individually or as a family.” He stopped, looked at each of them in turn and then said, “I’m going to do something that is unorthodox. Before I do so, however, I warn you that to conspire— that is, to act together and in collaboration for the purpose of withholding vital evidence — in a case of murder can be an extremely serious offence. I may be wrong, but I believe there is some such intention in your minds. You will do well to give it up. Now. Before more harm can come of it.” He waited but they said nothing.

“All right,” said Alleyn, “we’ll get on with it.” He turned to Ernie. “Last night, after your father’s body had been found, I’m told you leapt on the stone where earlier in the day you had put the dead gander. I’m told you pointed your sword at the German lady, who was standing not very far away, and you said, ‘Ask her. She’s the one that did it.’ Did you do this?”

A half-smile touched Ernie’s mouth, but he said nothing. “Did you?” Alleyn insisted.

“Ernie took a queer turn,” Andy said. “He can’t rightly remember after his turns.”

“Let him answer for himself. Did you do this, Ernie?”

“I might and I might not. If they say so, I might of.”

“Do you think the German lady killed your father?”

“ ’Course she didn’t,” Chris said angrily. “She couldn’t.”

“I asked Ernie if he thought she did.”

“I dunno,” Ernie muttered and laughed.

“Very well, then,” Alleyn said and decided suddenly to treat them to a rich helping of ham. “Here, in the presence of you all — you five sons of a murdered father — I ask you, Ernest Andersen, if you cut off that father’s head.”

Ernie looked at Alleyn, blinked and opened his mouth: but whether to speak or horridly to laugh again would never be known. A shadow had fallen across the little room. A voice from the doorway said:

“I’d keep my mouth shut on that one if I were you, Corp.”

It was Simon Begg.

He came forward easily. His eyes were bright as if he enjoyed the effect he had made. His manner was very quietly tough. Alleyn wondered if it was based on some model that was second-rate but fully authentic.

“Sorry if I intrude,” Simon said. “I’m on my way to the pub to be grilled by the cops and thought I’d look in. But perhaps you are the cops. Are you?”

“I’m afraid so,” Alleyn said. “And you, I think, must be Mr. Simon Begg.”

“He’s my Wing-Commander, he is,” Ernie cut in. “We was in the same crowd, him and me.”

“O.K., boy, O.K.,” Simon said and, passing round the table, put his hand on Ernie’s shoulder. “You talk such a lot,” he said good-naturedly. “Keep your great trap shut, Corp, and you’ll come to no harm.” He cuffed Ernie lightly over the head and looked brightly at Alleyn. “The Corp,” he said, “is just a great big baby: not quite with us, shall we say. Maybe you like them that way. Anything I can do for you?”

Alleyn said, “If you’ll go ahead well be glad to see you at the Green Man. Or — can we give you a lift?”

“Thanks, I’ve got my heap out there.”

“We’ll be hard on your heels, then.”

Begg went through the motion of whistling.

“Don’t wait for me,” he said, “I’ll follow you.”

“No,” Alleyn said very coolly, “you won’t. You’ll go straight on if you please.”

“Is that an order or a threat, Mr. — I’m afraid I don’t know your rank.”

“We’re not allowed to threaten. My rank couldn’t matter less. Off you go.”

Simon looked at him, raised his eyebrows, said, with a light laugh, “Well, really!” and walked out. They heard him start up his engine. Alleyn briefly surveyed the brothers Andersen.

“You chaps,” he said, “had better reconsider your position a bit. Obviously you’ve talked things over. Now you’d do well to think them over, and jolly carefully at that. In the meantime, if any of you feel like making a sensible statement about this business I’ll be glad to hear what it is.” He moved to the door, where he was joined by Fox and Carey.

“By the way,” he said, “we shall have to find out the terms of your father’s Will, if he made one.”

Dan, a picture of misery and indecision, scratched his head and gazed at Alleyn.

Andy burst out, “We was right fond of the old man. Stood together, us did, father and sons, so firm as a rock.”

“A united family?”

“So we was, then,” Nat protested. Chris added, “And so we are.”

“I believe you,” Alleyn said.

“As for his Will,” Dan went on with great simplicity, “we can’t tell you, sir, what we don’t know our own selves. Maybe he made one and maybe not.”

Carey said, “You haven’t taken a look round the place at all, then?”

Andy turned on him. “It’s our father what’s been done to death, Mr. Carey. It’s his body laying out there, not as an old man’s did ought — peaceful and proper — but ghassly as a sacrifice and crying aloud for — for—” He looked round wildly, saw his youngest brother, hesitated and then broke down completely.

“— for justice?” Alleyn said. “Were you going to say?”

“He’s beyond earthly justice,” Nat put in. “Face to face with his Maker and no doubt proud to be there.”

Superintendent Carey said, “I did hear tell he was up to Biddlefast on Tuesday to see lawyer Stayne.”

“So he was, then, but none of us knows why,” Chris rejoined.

“Well,” Alleyn said, “we’ll be off. I’m very sorry, but I’m afraid we’ll have to leave somebody here. Whoever it is will, I’m sure, be as considerate as possible. You see, we may have to poke back into the past. I can fully understand,” he went on, talking directly to Andy, “how you feel about your father’s death. It’s been — of course it has — an appalling shock. But you will, no doubt, have a hunt round for any papers or instructions he may have left. I can get an expert search made or, if you’d rather, can just leave an officer here to look on. In case something turns up that may be of use to us. We really do want to make it as easy for you as we can.”

They took this without much show of interest. “There’ll be cash, no doubt,” Dan said. “He was a great old one for putting away bits of cash. Proper old jackdaw, us used to call him.” He caught back his breath harshly.

Alleyn said, “I’m sorry it has to be like this.” Dan was the one nearest to him. “He’s an elderly chap himself,” Alleyn thought, and touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Sorry,” he repeated and looked at Fox and Carey. “Shall we move on?”

“Do you want me again?” Dr. Otterly asked.

“If I can just have a word with you.”

They all went out through the forge. Alleyn paused and looked round.

“What a place for a search! The collection of generations. There’s the door, Fox, where Ernie says the note was pinned. And his room’s beyond that.”

He went down a narrow pathway between two heaped-up benches of litter and opened the door in the end wall. Beyond it was a tiny room with a bed that had been pulled together rather than made and gave clear evidence of use. The room was heaped up with boxes, piles of old newspapers and all kinds of junk. A small table had evidently served as a desk and bore a number of account books, files and the Guiser’s old-fashioned copper-plate bills. In Dr. to W. Andersen, Blacksmith, Copse Forge, South Mardian. A pencil lay across a folded pile of blotting-paper.

“Hard lead,” Alleyn said to Fox, who stood in the doorway. “The message was written with a hard point. Wonder if the paper lay here. Let’s have a look.”

He held the blotting-paper to the light and then took out his pocket lens. “Yes,” he grunted, “it’s there all right. A faint trace but it could be brought out. It’s the trace of the note we’ve already got, my hearties. We’ll put Bailey and Thompson on to this lot. Hullo!”

He had picked up a sheet of paper. Across it, in blue indelible pencil, was written, Wednesday, W. Andersen. Kindly sharpen my slasher at once if not all ready done do it yourself mind and return by bearer to avoid further trouble as urgently require and oblige Jno. MacGlashan. P.S. I will have none but yourself on this job.

“Carey!” Alleyn called out, and the Superintendent loomed up behind Fox. “Who’s Jno. MacGlashan? Here, take a look at this. Will this be the slasher in question?”

“That’ll be the one, surely,” Carey agreed. “MacGlashan’s the gardener up along.”

“It was written yesterday. Who would the bearer be?”

“His boy, no doubt.”

“Didn’t they tell us Ernie sharpened the slasher? And took it up late yesterday afternoon? And whiffled the goose’s head off with it?”

“That’s right, sir. That’s what they said.”

“So the boy, if the boy was the bearer, was sent empty away.”

“Must of been.”

“And the slasher comes to a sticky end in the bonfire. Now, all of this,” Alleyn said, rubbing his nose, “is hellish intriguing.”

“Is it?” Fox asked stolidly.

“My dear old chap, of course it is. Nip back to the coach-house ünd tell Bailey and Thompson to move in here as soon as they’re ready and do their stuff.” Fox went sedately off and Alleyn shut the door of the bedroom behind him. “We’ll have this room sealed, Carey. And will you check up on the slasher story? Find out who spoke to the boy. And, Carey, I’ll leave you in charge down here for the time being. Do you mind?”

Superintendent Carey, slightly bewildered by this mode of approach, said that he didn’t.

“Right. Come on.”

He led the way outside, where Dr. Otterly waited in his car.

Carey, hanging off and on, said, “Will I seal the room now, sir? Or what?”

“Let the flash and dabs chaps in first. Fox is fixing them. Listen as inconspicuously as you can to the elder Andersen boys’ general conversation. How old is Dan, by the way? Sixty, did you say?”

“Turned sixty, I reckon.”

“And Ernie?”

“He came far in the rear, which may account for him being not right smart.”

“He’s smart enough,” Alleyn muttered, “in a way. Believe me, he’s only dumb nor’-nor’-west and yesterday, I fancy, the wind was in the south.”

“It shifted in the night,” Carey said and stared at him. “Look, Mr. Alleyn,” he burst out, “I can’t help but ask. Do you reckon Ernie Andersen’s our chap?”

“My dear man, I don’t know. I think his brothers are determined to stop him talking. So’s this man Begg, by the way. I could cheerfully have knocked Begg’s grinning head off his shoulders. Sorry! Unfortunate phrase. But I believe Ernie was going to give me a straight answer, one way or the other.”

“Suppose,” Carey said, “Ernie lost his temper with the old chap, and gave a kind of swipe, or suppose he was just fooling with that murderous sharp whiffler of his and — and — well, without us noticing while the Guiser was laying doggo behind the stone — Ar, hell!”

“Yes,” Alleyn said grimly, “and it’ll turn out that the only time Ernie might have waltzed round behind the stone was the time when young Stayne had pinched his sword. And what about the state of the sword, Carey? Nobody had time to clean it and restain it with green sap, had they? And, my dear man, what about blood? Blood, Carey — which reminds me, we are keeping the doctor waiting. Leave Bailey and Thompson here while you arrange with Obby or that P.C. by the castle gates to take your place when you want to get off. I’ll bring extra men in if we need them. I’ll leave you the car and ask Dr. Otterly to take us up to the pub. O.K.?”

“O.K., Mr. Alleyn. I’ll be up along later, then?”

“Right. Here’s Fox. Come on, Foxkin. Otterly, will you give us a lift?”

Carey turned back into the forge and Alleyn and Fox got into Dr. Otterly’s car.

Dr. Otterly said, “Look here, Alleyn, before we go on I want to ask you something.”

“I bet I know what it is. Do we or do we not include you in our list of suspects?”

“Exactly so,” Otterly said rather stuffily. “After all, one would prefer to know. Um?”

“Of course. Well, at the moment, unless you can explain how you fiddled unceasingly in full view of a Superintendent of Police, a P.C., a Dame of the British Empire, a parson and about fifty other witnesses during the whole of the period when this job must have been done and, at the same time, did it, you don’t look to be a likely starter.”

“Thank you,” said Dr. Otterly.

“On the other hand, you look to be a damn’ good witness. Did you watch the dancers throughout?”

“Never took my eyes off ’em. A conscientious fiddler doesn’t.”

“Wonderful. Don’t let’s drive up for a moment, shall we? Tell me this. Would you swear that it was in fact the Guiser who danced the role of Fool?”

Dr. Otterly stared at him. “Good Lord, of course it was! I thought you understood. I’d gone out to start proceedings, I heard the rumpus, I went back and found him lugging his clothes off Ernie. I had a look at him, not a proper medical look, because he wouldn’t let me, and I told him if he worked himself up any more he’d probably crock up anyway. So he calmed down, put on the Fool’s clothes and the bag-mask, and, when he was ready, I went out. Ernie followed and did his whiffling. I could see the others waiting to come on. The old man appeared last, certainly, but I could see him just beyond the gate, watching the others. He’d taken his mask off and only put it on at the last moment.”

“Nobody, at any stage, could have taken his place?”

“Utterly impossible,” Otterly said impatiently.

“At no time could he have gone offstage and swapped with somebody?”

“Lord, Lord, Lord, how many more times! No!”

“All right. So he danced and lay down behind the stone. You fiddled and watched and fiddled and watched. Stayne and Ernie fooled and Stayne collared Ernie’s sword. Begg, as the Hobby-Horse, retired. These three throughout the show were all over the place and dodged in and out of the rear archway. Do you know exactly when and for how long any of them was out of sight?”

“I do not. I doubt if they do. Begg dodged out after his first appearance when he chivvied the girls, you know. It’s damn’ heavy, that gear he wears, and he took the chance, during the first sword-dance, to get the weight off his shoulders. He came back before they made the lock. He had another let-up after the ‘death.’ Ralph Stayne was all over the shop. In and out. So was Ernie during their interlude.”

“Right. And at some stage Stayne returned the sword to Ernie. Dan did a solo. The Sons danced and then came the denouement. Right?”

“It hasn’t altered,” Dr. Otterly said drily, “since the last time you asked.”

“It’s got to alter sometime, somehow,” Fox observed unexpectedly.

“Would you also swear,” Alleyn said, “that at no time did either Ernie or Ralph Stayne prance round behind the stone and make one more great swipe with the sword that might have done the job?”

“I know damn’ well neither of them did.”

“Yes? Why?”

“Because, my dear man, as I’ve told you, I never took my eyes off them. I knew the old chap was lying there. I’d have thought it a bloody dangerous thing to do.”

“Is there still another reason why it didn’t happen that way?”

“Isn’t it obvious that there is?”

“Yes,” Alleyn said, “I’d have thought it was. If anybody had killed in that way he’d have been smothered in blood?”

“Exactly.”

“But, all the same, Otterly, there could be one explanation that would cover that difficulty.”

Dr. Otterly slewed round in his seat and stared at Alleyn. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, you’re right. I’d thought of it, of course. But I’d still swear that neither of them did.”

“All the same it is, essentially, I’m sure, the explanation nearest to the truth.”

“And, in the meantime,” Mr. Fox observed, “we still go on believing in fairies.”