Ngaio Marsh - Death of a Fool

“Murderous?” Thompson offered.

“I think so. Murderous.”

“Yes,” said Fox and Bailey and Thompson. “Yes. Well. What?”

“He goes on for their show, doesn’t he, with the ritual sword that he’s sharpened until it’s like a razor: the sword that cut the Guiser’s hand in a row they had at their last practice, which was first blood to Ernie, by the way. On he goes and takes it out on the thistles. He slashes their heads off with great sweeps of his sword. Ernie is a thistle whiffler and he whiffles thistles with a thistle whiffler. Diction exercise for Camilla Campion. He prances about and acts the savage. After that he gets warmed up still more effectively by dancing and going through the pantomime of cutting the Fool’s head off. And, remember, he’s in a white-hot rage with the Fool. What happens next to Ernie? Nothing that’s calculated to soothe his nerves or sweeten his mood. When the fun is at its height and he’s looking on with his sword dangling by its red cord from his hand, young Stayne comes creeping up behind and collars it. Ernie loses his temper and gives chase. Stayne hides in view of the audience and Ernie plunges out at the back. He’s dithering with rage. Simon Begg says he was incoherent. Stayne comes out and gives him back the whiffler. Stayne re-enters by another archway. Ernie comes back complete with sword and takes part in the final dance. If you consider Ernie like that, in continuity, divorced for the moment from the trimmings, you get a picture of mounting fury, don’t you? The dog, the Guiser’s cut hand, the decapitated goose, the failure of the great plan, the Guiser’s rage, the stolen sword. A sort of crescendo.”

“Ending,” Fox mused, “in what?”

“Ending, in my opinion, with him performing, in deadly reality, the climax of their play.”

“ Hey ?” Bailey ejaculated.

“Ending in him taking his Old Man’s head off.”

“ Ernie ?”

“Ernie.”

“Then — well, cripes,” Thompson said, “so Ernie’s our chap, after all?”

“No.”

“Look — Mr. Alleyn—”

“He’s not our chap, because when he took his Old Man’s head off, his Old Man was already dead.”

Mr. Fox, as was his custom, glanced complacently at his subordinates. He had the air of drawing their attention to their chief’s virtuosity.

“Not enough blood,” he explained, “on anybody.”

“Yes, but if it was done from the rear,” Bailey objected.

“Which it wasn’t.”

“The character of the wound gives us that,” Alleyn said. “Utterly agrees and I’m sure Curtis will. It was done from the front. You’ll see when you look. Of course, the P.M. will tell us definitely. If decapitation was the cause of death, I imagine there will be a considerable amount of internal bleeding. I feel certain, though, that Curtis will find there is none.”

“Any other reasons, Mr. Alleyn? Apart from nobody being bloody enough?” Thompson asked.

“If it had happened where he was lying and he’d been alive, there’d have been much more blood on the ground.”

Bailey suddenly said, “Hey!”

Mr. Fox frowned at him.

“What’s wrong, Bailey?” Alleyn asked.

“Look, sir, are you telling us it’s not homicide at all? That the old chap died of heart failure or something and Ernie had the fancy to do what he did? After? Or what?”

“I think that may be the defence that will be raised. I don’t think it’s the truth.”

“You think he was murdered?”

“Yes.”

“Pardon me,” Thompson said politely, “but any idea how ?”

“An idea, but it’s only a guess. The post mortem will settle it.”

“Laid out cold somehow and then beheaded,” Bailey said, and added most uncharacteristically, “Fancy.”

“It couldn’t have been the whiffler,” Thompson sighed. “Not that it seems to matter.”

“It wasn’t the whiffler,” Alleyn said. “It was the slasher.”

“Oh! But he was dead?”

“Dead.”

“Oh.”

Camilla sat behind her window. When Ralph Stayne came into the inn yard, he stood there with his hands in his pockets and looked up at her. The sky had cleared and the sun shone quite brightly, making a dazzle on the window-pane. She seemed to be reading.

He scooped up a handful of fast-melting snow and threw it at the glass. It splayed out in a wet star. Camilla peered down through it and then pushed open the window.

“ ‘Romeo, Romeo,’ ” she said, “ ‘wherefore art thou Romeo?’ ”

“I can’t remember any of it to quote,” Ralph rejoined. “Come for a walk, Camilla. I want to talk to you.”

“O.K. Wait a bit.”

He waited. Bailey and Thompson came out of the side door of the pub, gave him good morning and walked down the brick path in the direction of the barn. Trixie appeared and shook a duster. When she saw Ralph she smiled and dimpled at him. He pulled self-consciously at the peak of his cap. She jerked her head at him. “Come over, Mr. Ralph,” she said.

He walked across the yard to her, not very readily.

“Cheer up, then,” Trixie said. “Doan’t look at me as if I was going to bite you. There’s no bones broke, Mr. Ralph. I’ll never say a word to her, you may depend, if you ax me not. My advice, though, is to tell the maid yourself and then there’s nothing hid betwixt you.”

“She’s only eighteen,” Ralph muttered.

“That doan’t mean she’s silly, however. Thanks to Ernie and his dad, everybody hereabouts knows us had our bit of fun. The detective gentleman axed me about it and I told him yes.”

“Good God, Trixie!”

“Better the truth from me than a great blowed-up fairy-tale from elsewhere and likewise better for Camilla if she gets the truth from you. Here she comes.”

Trixie gave a definite flap with her duster and returned indoors. Ralph heard her greet Camilla, who now appeared with the freshness of morning in her cheeks and eyes and a scarlet cap on her head.

Alleyn, coming out to fetch the car, saw them walk off down the lane together.

“And I fancy,” he muttered, “he’s made up his mind to tell her about his one wild oat.”

“Camilla,” Ralph said, “I’ve got something to tell you. I’ve been going to tell you before and then — well, I suppose I’ve funked it. I don’t know what you feel about this sort of thing and — I — well — I—”

“You’re not going to say you’ve suddenly found it’s all been a mistake and you’re not in love with me after all?”

“Of course I’m not, Camilla. What a preposterous notion to get into your head! I love you more every minute of the day: I adore you, Camilla.”

“I’m delighted to hear it, darling. Go ahead with your story.”

“It may rock you a bit.”

“Nothing can rock me really badly unless — you’re not secretly married, I hope !” Camilla suddenly ejaculated.

“Indeed I’m not. The things you think of!”

“And, of course (forgive me for mentioning it) you didn’t murder my grandfather, did you?”

“Camilla!”

“Well, I know you didn’t.”

“If you’d just let me —”

“Darling Ralph, you can see by this time that I’ve given in about not meeting you. You can see I’ve come over to your opinion: my objections were immoderate.”

“Thank God, darling. But—”

“All the same, darling, darling Ralph, you must understand that although I go to sleep thinking of you and wake in a kind of pink paradise because of you, I am still determined to keep my head. People may say,” Camilla went on, waving a knitted paw, “that class is vieux jeu , but they’re only people who haven’t visited South Mardian. So what I propose—”