Death of a Fool (13 page)

“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.”

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

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

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

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

“The latter. I’ll fix it up.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What would you do?”

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

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

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

“Good. Shall we about it?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Not — by any chance—
Lear
?”

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

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

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

“The spelling of the Andersen name, though?”

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

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

“Of some sort, I have no doubt.”

“Human?”

Dr. Otterly said, “Possibly.”

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

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

“How do they form it?”

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

“And Ernie’s was as sharp as hell.”

“Absolutely illicit, but it was.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are we to hear what it is?”

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

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

“I was, yes.”

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

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

“And in Ernie?”

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

“Like the headless goose on the dolmen?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh?” Dr. Otterly murmured. “Really?”

“What’s her name?”

“Camilla Campion.”

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

“Isn’t it?”

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

“That’s right.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So he ignored her?”

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

“Let’s have her in,” said Alleyn.

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