Death of a Fool (26 page)

Fox said, “May we inquire where you’ll be yourself, Mr. Alleyn?”

“Oh,” Alleyn said, “here and there, Br’er Fox. Roaring up and down as a raging lion seeking whom I may devour. To begin with, in the Royal Box with the nobs, I daresay.”

“On the steps with Dame Alice Mardian?”

“That’s it. Now, one word more.” Alleyn looked from Fox, Bailey and Thompson to the five newcomers. “I suggest that each of us marks one particular man and marks him well. Suppose you, Fox, take Ernie Andersen. Bailey takes Simon Begg as ‘Crack,’ the Hobby. Thompson takes Ralph Stayne as the Betty, and the rest of you parcel out among you the boy in his grandfather’s role as the Fool and the other four sons as the four remaining dancers. That’ll be one each for us, won’t it? A neat fit.”

One of the newcomers, a Sergeant Yardley, said, “Er — beg pardon.”

“Yes, Yardley?”

“I must have lost count, sir. There’s nine of us, counting yourself, and I understood there’s only eight characters in this play affair, or dance, or whatever it is.”

“Eight characters,” Alleyn said, “is right. Our contention will be that there were nine performers; however.”

“Sorry, sir. Of course.”

“I,” Alleyn said blandly, “hope to keep my eye on the ninth.”

Young Bill Andersen might have sat to the late George Clauson for one of his bucolic portraits. He had a shock of tow-coloured hair, cheeks like apples and eyes as blue as periwinkles. His mouth stretched itself into the broadest grin imaginable and his teeth were big, white and far apart.

Carey brought him back on the pillion of his motor-bicycle and produced him to Alleyn as if he was one of the natural curiosities of the region.

“Young Bill,” Carey said, exhibiting him. “I’ve told him what he’s wanted for and how he’ll need to hold his tongue and be right smart for the job, and he says he’s able and willing. Come on,” he added, giving the boy a business-like shove. “That’s right, isn’t it? Speak up for yourself.”

“Ar,” said young Bill. He looked at Alleyn through his thick white lashes and grinned. “I’d like it,” he said.

“Good. Now, look here, Bill. What we want you to do is quite a tricky bit of work. It’s got to be cleverly done. It’s important. One of us would do it, actually, but we’re all too tall for the job, as you can see for yourself. You’re the right size. The thing is: do you know your stuff?”

“I know the Five Sons, sir, like the back of me yand.”

“You do? You know the Fool’s act, do you? Your grandfather’s act?”

“Certain-sure.”

“You watched it on Wednesday night, didn’t you?”

“So I did, then.”

“And you remember exactly what he did?”

“Ya-as.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Bill scratched his head. “Reckon I watched him, seeing what a terrible rage he was in. After what happened, like. And what was said.”

“What did happen?”

Bill very readily gave an account of the Guiser’s arrival and the furious change-over: “I ’ad to strip off Uncle Ern’s clothes and he ’ad to strip off Grandfer’s. Terrible quick.”

“And what
was
said?”

“Uncle Ern reckoned it’d be the death of Granfer, dancing. So did Uncle Chris. He’ll kill himself, Uncle Chris says, if he goes capering in the great heat of his rages. The silly old bastard’ll fall down dead, he says. So I was watching Granfer to see.”

Bill passed the tip of his tongue round his lips. “Terrible queer,” he muttered, “as it turned out, because so ’e did, like. Terrible queer.”

Alleyn said, “Sure you don’t mind doing this for us, Bill?”

The boy looked at him. “I don’t mind,” he declared and sounded rather surprised. “Suits me, all right.”

“And you’ll keep it as a dead secret between us? Not a word to anybody: top security.”

“Ya-as,” Bill said. “Surely.” A thought seemed to strike him.

“Yes?” Alleyn said. “What’s up?”

“Do I have to dress up in them bloody clothes of his’n?”

“No,” Alleyn said after a pause.

“Nor wear his ma-ask?”

“No.”

“I wouldn’t fancy thik.”

“There’s no need. We’ll fix you up with something light-coloured to wear and something over your face to look like a mask.”

He nodded, perfectly satisfied. The strange and innocent cruelty of his age and sex was upon him.

“Reckon I can fix that,” he said. “I’ll get me a set of pyjammers and I got a ma-ask of me own. Proper clown’s ma-ask.”

And then, with an uncanny echo of his Uncle Ernie, he said, “Reckon I can make proper old Fool of myself.”

“Good. And now, young Bill, you lay your ears back and listen to me. There’s something else we’ll ask you to do. It’s something pretty tricky, it may be rather frightening and the case for the police may hang on it. How do you feel about that?”

“Bettn’t I know what ’tis first?”

“Fair enough,” Alleyn said and looked pleased. “Hold tight, then, and I’ll tell you.”

He told young Bill what he wanted.

The blue eyes opened wider and wider. Alleyn waited for an expostulation, but none came. Young Bill was thirteen. He kept his family feeling, his compassion and his enthusiasms in separate compartments. An immense grin converted his face into the likeness of a bucolic Puck. He began to rub the palms of his hands together.

Evidently he was, as Superintendent Carey had indicated, a smart enough lad for the purpose.

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

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

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

Superintendent Carey arrived on his motor-bike.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dame Alice made a slight contemptuous noise.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That’s done the trick,” Alleyn said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“All right. What was biting Ernie?”

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

“Thought as much.”

Carey moved out from behind the dolmen.

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

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

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

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

“Over all of them,” Alleyn demanded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alleyn looked across to the little group on his right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Fair enough,” Simon said. “Yip-ee!”

The Andersens and the audience looked scandalized.

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

“Dulcie.”

“Yes, Aunt Akky?”

“Get the gong.”

“The gong, Aunt Akky?”

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

“Very well, Aunt Akky.”

Dulcie got up and went indoors.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You mean, won’t perform at all?”

“Right. What say we won’t?”

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

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

They shuffled and jangled.

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

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

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

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

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

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