Death of a Fool (23 page)

“I
don’t
suppose, sir,” Fox said, smiling sedately.

‘The little odd golden morsel of information that clicks down into the pattern and pulls it together. The key to the whole damn’ set-up, my boy. Don’t look scandalized, Br’er Fox, I’m not so tight that I don’t know a crucial bit of evidence when it’s shoved under my nose. Have you heard the weather report?”

Mr. Fox began to look really disturbed. He cleared his throat and said warmer and finer weather had been predicted.

“Good,” Alleyn cried and clapped him on the back. “Excellent. You’re in for a treat.”

“What sort of treat,” Mr. Fox said, “for Heaven’s sake?”

“A touch of the sword and fiddle, Br’er Fox. A bit of hey-nonny-no. A glimpse of Merrie England with bells on. Nine-men’s morris, mud and all. Repeat,
nine
.”

“Eh?”

“We’re in for a reconstruction, my boy, and I’ll tell you why. Now, listen.”

The mid-winter sun smiled faint as an invalid over South and East Mardian on the Friday after Sword Wednesday. It glinted on the breakfast tables of the Reverend Mr. Samuel Stayne and of his great-aunt, Dame Alice Mardian. It touched up the cruet-stand and the britannia metal in the little dining-room at the Green Man and an emaciated ray even found its way to the rows of bottles in the bar and to the anvil at Copse Forge. A feeble radiance it was, but there was something heartening about it, nevertheless. Up at Yowford, Dr. Otterly surveyed the scene with an uplifting of his spirit that he would have found hard to explain. Also at Yowford, Simon Begg, trundling out Dr. Otterly’s wheel with its mended puncture, remembered his winning bet, assured himself that he stood a fair chance now of mending his fortunes with an interest in a glittering petrol station at Copse Forge, reminded himself it wouldn’t, under the circumstances, look nice to be too obviously pleased about this and broke out, nevertheless, into a sweet and irresponsibly exultant whistling.

Trixie sang and the potboy whistled louder but less sweetly than Simon. Camilla brushed her short hair before her open window and repeated a voice-control exercise. “Bibby bobby bounced a ball against the wall.” She thought how deeply she was in love and, like Simon, told herself it wasn’t appropriate to be so obviously uplifted. Then the memory of her grandfather’s death suddenly flooded her thoughts and her heart was filled with a vast pity and love, not only for him but for all the world. Camilla was eighteen and a darling.

Dame Alice woke from a light doze and felt for a moment quite desperately old. She saw a robin on her windowsill. Sharp as a thorn were its bright eyes and quick as thought the turn of its sun-polished head. Down below, the geese were in full scream. Dulcie would be pottering about in the dining-room. The wave of depression receded. Dame Alice was aware of her release but not, for a moment, of its cause. Then she remembered her dinnerparty. Her visitor had enjoyed himself. It was, she thought, thirty years — more — since she had been listened to like that. He was a pretty fellow, too. By “pretty” Dame Alice meant “dashing.” And what was it he’d said when he left? That with her permission they would revive the Mardian Morris that afternoon. Dame Alice was not moved by the sort of emotions that the death of the Guiser had aroused in younger members of Wednesday’s audience. The knowledge that his decapitated body had been found in her courtyard did not fill her with horror. She was no longer susceptible to horror. She merely recognized in herself an unusual feeling of anticipation and connected it with her visitor of last night. She hadn’t felt so lively for ages.

“Breakfast,” she thought and jerked at the tapestry bell-pull by her bed.

Dulcie in the dining-room heard the bell jangling away in the servant’s hall. She roused herself, took the appropriate dishes off the hot plate and put them on the great silver tray. Porridge. Kedgeree. Toast. Marmalade. Coffee. The elderly parlour-maid came in and took the tray up to Dame Alice.

Dulcie was left to push crumbs about the tablecloth and hope that the police wouldn’t find the murderer too soon. Because, if they did, Mr. Alleyn, to whom she had shown herself as a woman of the world, would go somewhere else.

Ralph Stayne looked down the table at his father, who had, he noticed, eaten no breakfast.

“You’re looking a bit poorly, Pop,” he said. “Anything wrong?”

His father stared at him in pale bewilderment.

“My dear chap,” he said, “no. Not with me. But the — the events of the night before last—”

“Oh!” Ralph said, “that! Yes, of course. As long as it’s only that — I mean,” he went on hurriedly, answering the look in his father’s eye, “as long as it’s not anything actually
wrong
with you. Yes, I
know
it was ghastly about the poor Old Guiser. It was quite frightful.”

“I can’t get it out of my head. Forgive me, old boy, but I really don’t know how you contrive to be so — so resilient.”

“I? I expect this sounds revoltingly tough to you — but, you see, Pop, if one’s seen rather a lot of that particular kind of horror — well, it’s a hell of a sight different. I have. On the deck of a battleship, among other places. I’m damn’—blast, I keep swearing! — I couldn’t be sorrier about the Guiser, but the actual look of the thing wasn’t all that much of a horror to me.”

“I suppose not. I suppose not.”

“One’d go mad,” Ralph said, “if one didn’t get tough. When there’s a war on. Simmy-Dick Begg would agree. So would Ernie and Chris. Although it
was
their father. Any returned chap would agree.”

“I suppose so.”

Ralph got up. He squared his shoulders, looked steadily at his father and said, “Camilla’s the one who really did get an appalling shock.”

“I know. Poor child. I wondered if I should go and see her, Ralph.”

“Yes,” Ralph said. “I wish you would. I’m going now, and I’ll tell her. She’ll be awfully pleased.”

His father, looking extremely disturbed, said, “My dear old man, you’re not —?”

“Yes, Pop,” Ralph said, “I’m afraid I am. I’ve asked Camilla to marry me.”

His father got up and walked to the window. He looked out on the dissolving whiteness of his garden.

“I wish this hadn’t happened,” he said. “Something was suggested last night by Dulcie that seemed to hint at it. I — as a churchman, I hope I’m not influenced by — by — well, my dear boy, by any kind of snob’s argument. I’m sure I’m not. Camilla is a dear child and, other things being equal, I should be really delighted.” He rubbed up his thin hair and said ruefully, “It’ll worry Aunt Akky most awfully.”

“Aunt Akky’ll have to lump it, I’m afraid,” Ralph said and his voice hardened. “She evidently heard that I’ve been seeing a good deal of Camilla in London. She’s already tried to bulldoze me about it. But, honestly, Pop, what, after all, has it got to do with Aunt Akky? I know Aunt Akky’s marvellous. I adore her. But I refuse to accept her as a sort of animated tribal totem, though I admit she looks very much like one.”

“It’s not only that,” his father said miserably. “There’s — forgive me, Ralph, I really detest having to ask you this, but isn’t there — someone —”

Mr. Stayne stopped and looked helplessly at his son. “You see,” he said, “I’ve listened to gossip. I tried not to, but I listened.”

Ralph said, “You’re talking about Trixie Plowman, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Who gossiped? Please tell me.”

“It was old William Andersen.”

Ralph drew in his breath. “I was afraid of that,” he said.

“He was genuinely worried. He thought it his duty to talk to me. You know how adamant his views were. Apparently Ernie had seen you and Trixie Plowman together. Old William was the more troubled because, on last Sunday morning —”

“It appears to be my fate,” Ralph said furiously, “to be what the Restoration dramatists call ‘discovered’ by the Andersens. It’s no good trying to explain, Pop. It’d only hurt you. I know, you would look on this Trixie thing as — well —”

“As a sin? I do, indeed.”

“But — it was so brief and so much outside the general stream of my life. And hers — Trixie’s. It was just a sort of natural thing; a little kindness of hers.”

“You can’t expect me to take that view of it.”

“No,” Ralph said. “I’ll only sound shallow or something.”

“It’s not a question of how you sound. It’s a question of wrongdoing, Ralph. There’s the girl — Trixie herself.”

“She’s all right. Honestly. She’s going to be tokened to Chris Andersen.”

The Rector momentarily shut his eyes. “Oh, Ralph!” he said and then, “William Andersen forbade it. He spoke to Chris on Sunday.”

“Well, anyway,
now
they can,” Ralph said, and then looked rather ashamed of himself. “I’m sorry, Pop. I shouldn’t have put it like that, I suppose. Look: it’s all
over
, that thing. It was before I knew Camilla. I did regret it very much, after I loved Camilla. Does that help?”

The Rector made a most unhappy gesture. “I am talking to a stranger,” he said. “I have failed you, dreadfully, Ralph. It’s quite dreadful.”

A bell rang distantly.

“They’ve fixed the telephone up,” the Rector said.

“I’ll go.”

Ralph went out and returned looking bewildered.

“It was Alleyn,” he said. “The man from the Yard. They want us to go up to the castle this afternoon.”

“To the
castle
?”

“To do the Five Sons again. They want you too, Pop.”

“Me? But why?”

“You were an observer.”

“Oh,
dear
!”

“Apparently, they’re calling everybody up: Mrs. Bünz included.”

Ralph joined his father in a kind of half-companionable dissonance and looked across the rectory tree-tops towards East Mardian, where a column of smoke rose gracefully from the pub.

Trixie had done her early chores and seen that the fires were burning brightly.

She had also taken Mrs. Bünz’s breakfast up to her.

At this moment, Trixie was behaving oddly. She stood with a can of hot water outside Mrs. Bünz’s bedroom door, intently listening. The expression on her face was not at all sly, rather it was grave and attentive. On the other side of the door, Mrs. Bünz clicked her knife against her plate and her cup on its saucer. Presently, there was a more complicated clatter as she put her tray down on the floor beside her bed. This was followed by the creak of a wire mattress, a heavy thud and the pad of bare feet. Trixie held her breath, listened feverishly and, then, without knocking, quickly pushed open the door and walked in.

“I’m sure I do ax your pardon, ma-am,” Trixie said. “Axcuse, me, please.” She crossed the room to the washstand, set down her can of water, returned past Mrs. Bünz and went out again. She shut the door gently behind her and descended to the back parlour, where Alleyn, Fox, Thompson and Bailey had finished their breakfasts and were setting their course for the day.

“Axcuse me, sir,” Trixie said composedly.

“All right, Trixie. Have you any news for us?”

“So I have, then.” She crossed her plump arms and laid three fingers of each hand on the opposite shoulder. “So broad’s that,” she said, “and proper masterpieces for a colour: blue and red and yaller and all puffed up angry-like, either side.”

“You’re a clever girl. Thank you very much.”

“Have you in the force yet, Miss Plowman,” Fox said, beaming at her.

Trixie gave them a tidy smile, cleared the breakfast things away, asked if that would be all and left the room.

“Pity,” Thompson said to Bailey, “there isn’t the time.”

Bailey, who was a married man, grinned sourly.

“Have we got through to everybody, Fox?” Alleyn asked.

“Yes, Mr. Alleyn. All set for four o’clock at the castle. The weather report’s still favourable, the telephone’s working again and Dr. Curtis has rung up to say he hopes to get to us by this evening.”

“Good. Before we go any further, I think we’d better have a look at the general set-up. It’ll take a bit of time, but I’ll be glad of a chance to try and get a bit of shape out of it.”

“It’d be a nice change to come up against something unexpected, Mr. Alleyn,” Thompson grumbled. “We haven’t struck a thing so far.”

“We’ll see if we can surprise you. Come on.”

Alleyn put his file on the table, walked over to the fireplace and began to fill his pipe. Fox polished his spectacles. Bailey and Thompson drew chairs up and produced their notebooks. They had the air of men who had worked together for a long time and who understood each other’s ways.

“You know,” Alleyn said, “if this case had turned up three hundred years ago, nobody would have had any difficulty in solving it. It’d have been regarded by the villagers, at any rate, as an open-and-shut affair.”

“Would it, now?” Fox said placidly. “How?”

“Magic.”

“Hell!” Bailey said, and looked faintly disgusted.

“Ask yourselves. Look how the general case echoes the pattern of the performance. Old Man. Five Sons. Money. A Will. Decapitation. The only thing that doesn’t tally is the poor old boy’s failure to come to life again.”

“You reckon, do you, sir,” Thompson asked, “that, in the olden days, they’d have taken a superstitious view of the death?”

“I do. The initiates would have thought that the god was dissatisfied, or that the gimmick had misfired, or that Ernie’s offering of the goose had roused the blood lust of the god, or that the rites had been profaned and the Guiser punished for sacrilege. Which again tallies, by the way.”

“Does it?” Bailey asked, and added, “Oh, yes. What you said, Mr. Alleyn. That’s right.”

“The authorities, on the other hand,” Alleyn went on, “would have plumped at once for witchcraft and the whole infamous machinery of seventeenth-century investigation would have begun to tick over.”

“Do you reckon,” Thompson said, “that any of these chaps take the superstitious view? Seems hardly credible but — well?”

“Ernie?” Fox suggested rather wearily.

“He’s dopey enough, isn’t he, Mr. Fox?”

“He’s not so dopey,” Alleyn said strongly, “that he can’t plan an extremely cunning leg-pull on his papa, his four brothers, Simon Begg, Dr. Otterly and Ralph Stayne. And jolly nearly bring it off, what’s more.”