Ngaio Marsh - Death of a Fool
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- Название:Death of a Fool
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Death of a Fool: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация
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“And then?”
“Well, then it was just about time for me to go back. So I did. Ernie went back, too.”
“Who threw tar on the bonfire?”
“Nobody. I knocked the drum over with the edge of ‘Crack’s’ body. It’s a dirty big clumsy thing. Swings round. I jolly nearly went on fire myself,” Simon reflected with feeling. “By God, I did.”
“So you went back to the arena? You and Ernie?”
“That’s the story.”
“Where exactly did you go?”
“I don’t know where Ernie got to. Far as I remember, I went straight in.” He half shut his eyes and peered back through the intervening hours. “The boys had started their last dance. I think I went fairly close to the dolmen that time because I seem to remember it between them and me. Then I sheered off to the right and took up my position there.”
“Did you notice the Guiser lying behind the dolmen?”
“Sort of. Poor visibility through the hole in that canvas neck. And the body sticks out like a great shelf just under your chin. It hides the ground for about three feet all round you.”
“Yes, I see. Do you think you could have kicked anything without realizing you’d done it?”
Simon stared, blinked and looked sick. “Nice idea I must say,” he said with some violence.
“Do you remember doing so?”
He stared at his hands for a moment, frowning.
“God, I don’t know. I don’t know. I hadn’t remembered.”
“Why did you stop Ernie Andersen answering me when I asked if he’d done this job?”
“Because,” Simon said at once, “I know what Ernie’s like. He’s not more than nine-and-fivepence in the pound. He’s queer. I sort of kept an eye on him in the old days. He takes fits. I knew. I fiddled him in as a batman.” Simon began to mumble. “You know, same as the way he felt about his ghastly dog, I felt about him, poor old bastard. I know him. What happened last night got him all worked up. He took a fit after it happened, didn’t he, Doc? He’d be just as liable to say he’d done it as not. He’s queer about blood and he’s got some weird ideas about this dance and the stone and what-have-you. He’s the type that rushes in and confesses to a murder he hasn’t done just for the hell of it.”
“Do you think he did it?” Alleyn said.
“I do not. How could he? Only time he might have had a go, Ralphy had pinched his whiffler. I certainly do not.”
“All right. Go away and think over what you’ve said. We’ll be asking you for a statement and you’ll be subpoenaed for the inquest. If you’d like, on consideration, to amend what you’ve told us, we’ll be glad to listen.”
“I don’t want to amend anything.”
“Well, if your memory improves.”
“Ah, hell!” Simon said disgustedly and dropped into his chair.
“You never do any good,” Alleyn remarked, “by fiddling with the facts.”
“Don’t you just,” Simon rejoined with heartfelt emphasis and added, “You lay off old Ern. He hasn’t got it in him: he’s the mild one in that family.”
“Is he? Who’s the savage one?”
“They’re all mild,” Simon said, grinning. “As mild as milk.”
And on that note they left him.
When they were in the car, Dr. Otterly boiled up again.
“What the devil does that young bounder think he’s up to! I never heard such a damned farrago of lies. By God, Alleyn, I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”
“Don’t you?” Alleyn said absently.
“Well, damn it, do you?”
“Oh,” Alleyn grunted. “It sticks out a mile what Master Simon’s up to. Doesn’t it, Fox?”
“I’d say so, Mr. Alleyn,” Fox agreed cheerfully.
Dr. Otterly said, “Am I to be informed?”
“Yes, yes, of course. Hullo, who’s this?”
In the hollow of the lane, pressed into the bank to make way for the oncoming car, were a man and a woman. She wore a shawl pulled over her head and he a woollen cap and there was a kind of intensity in their stillness. As the car passed, the woman looked up. It was Trixie Plowman.
“Chris hasn’t lost much time,” Dr. Otterly muttered.
“Are they engaged?”
“They were courting,” Dr. Otterly said shortly. “I understood it was all off.”
“Because of the Guiser?”
“I didn’t say so.”
“You said Chris hadn’t lost much time, though. Did the Guiser disapprove?”
“Something of the sort. Village gossip.”
“I’ll swap Simon’s goings-on for your bit of gossip.”
Dr. Otterly shifted in his seat. “I don’t know so much about that,” he said uneasily. “I’ll think it over.”
They returned to the fug and shadows of their room in the pub. Alleyn was silent for some minutes and Fox busied himself with his notes. Dr. Otterly eyed them both and seemed to be in two minds whether or not to speak. Presently, Alleyn walked over to the window. “The weather’s hardening. I think it may freeze tonight,” he said.
Fox looked over the top of his spectacles at Dr. Otterly, completed his notes and joined Alleyn at the window.
“Woman,” he observed. “In the lane. Looks familiar. Dogs.”
“It’s Miss Dulcie Mardian.”
“Funny how they will do it.”
“What?”
“Go for walks with dogs.”
“She’s coming into the pub.”
“All that fatuous tarradiddle,” Dr. Otterly suddenly fulminated, “about where he was during the triple sword-dance! Saying he didn’t go behind the dolmen. Sink me, he stood there and squealed like a colt when he saw Ralph grab the sword. I don’t understand it and I don’t like it. Lies.”
Alleyn said, “I don’t think Simon lied.”
“What!”
“He says that during the first dance, the triple sword-dance, he was nowhere near the dolmen. I believe that to be perfectly true.”
“But, rot my soul, Alleyn — I swear —”
“Equally, I believe that he didn’t see Ralph Stayne grab Ernest Andersen’s sword.”
“Now, look here—”
Alleyn turned to Dr. Otterly. “Of course he wasn’t. He was well away from the scene of action. He’d gone offstage to keep a date with a lady-friend.”
“A date ? What lady-friend, for pity’s sake?”
Trixie came in.
“Miss Dulcie Mardian,” she said, “to see Mr. Alleyn, if you please.”
Chapter IX
Question of Fancy
Alleyn found it a little hard to decide quite how addlepated Dulcie Mardian was. She had a strange vague smile and a terribly inconsequent manner. Obviously, she was one of those people who listen to less than half of what is said to them. Yet, could the strangeness of some of her replies be attributed only to this?
She waited for him in the tiny entrance hall of the Green Man. She wore a hat that had been mercilessly sat upon, an old hacking waterproof and a pair of down-at-heel Newmarket boots. She carried a stick. Her dogs, a bull-terrier and a spaniel, were on leashes and had wound them round her to such an extent that she was tied up like a parcel.
“How do you do,” she said. “I won’t come in. Aunt Akky asked me to say she’d be delighted if you’d dine to-night. Quarter past eight for half past and don’t dress if it’s a bother. Oh, yes, I nearly forgot. She’s sorry it’s such short notice. I hope you’ll come because she gets awfully cross if people don’t, when they’re asked. Goodbye.”
She plunged a little but was held firmly pinioned by her dogs and Alleyn was able to say, “Thank you very much,” collect his thoughts and accept.
“And I’m afraid I can’t change,” he added.
“I’ll tell her. Don’t , dogs.”
“May I —?”
“It’s all right, thank you. Ill kick them a little.”
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