Death of a Fool (11 page)

Awake, she remembered how Ralph had, in fact, run to where she and Trixie stood and had told them to go to the car at once. That was after Ernie had fainted and Dame Alice had made her announcement. The landlord, Tom Plowman, had gone up to the stone and had been ordered away by Dr. Otterly and Carey. He drove the girls back to the pub and, on the way, told them in great detail what he had seen. He was very excited and pleased with himself for having looked behind the stone. In one of her dreams during the night, Camilla thought he made her look too.

Now she sat by the fire and tried to get a little order into her thoughts. It was her grandfather who had been murdered, dreadfully and mysteriously, and it was her uncle who had exulted and collapsed. She herself, therefore, must be said to be involved. She felt as if she were marooned and deserted. For the first time since the event she was inclined to cry.

The door opened and she turned, her hand over her mouth. “Ralph!” she said.

He came to her quickly and dragged up a chair so that he could sit and hold both her hands.

“You want me now, Camilla,” he said, “don’t you?”

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.