Ngaio Marsh - Death of a Fool

“We’ll light the bonfire,” Alleyn said, “and then I’ll ask you all to come into the courtyard while I explain what we’re up to.”

One of the Yard men put a match to the paper. It flared up. There was a crackle of brushwood and a pungent smell rose sweetly with smoke from the bonfire.

They followed Alleyn back, through the archway, past the dolmen and the flaring torches and across the arena.

Dame Alice was enthroned at the top of the steps, flanked, as before, by Dulcie and the Rector. Rugged and shawled into a quadrel with a knob on top, she resembled some primitive totem and appeared to be perfectly immovable.

Alleyn stood on a step below and a little to one side of this group. His considerable height was exaggerated by the shadow that leapt up behind him. The torchlight lent emphasis to the sharply defined planes of his face and gave it a fantastic appearance. Below him stood the five Sons with Simon, Ralph and Dr. Otterly.

Alleyn looked across to the little group on his right.

“Will you come nearer?” he said. “What I have to say concerns all of you.”

They moved out of the shadows, keeping apart, as if each was anxious to establish a kind of disassociation from the others: Trixie, the landlord, Camilla and, lagging behind, Mrs. Bünz. Ralph crossed over to Camilla and stood beside her. His conical skirt looked like a giant extinguisher and Camilla in her flame-coloured coat like a small candle flame beside him.

Fox, Carey and their subordinates waited attentively in the rear.

“I expect,” Alleyn said, “that most of you wonder just why the police have decided upon this reconstruction. I don’t suppose any of you enjoy the prospect and I’m sorry if it causes you anxiety or distress.”

He waited for a moment. The faces upturned to his were misted by their own breath. Nobody spoke or moved.

“The fact is,” he went on, “that we’re taking an unusual line with a very unusual set of circumstances. The deceased man was in full sight of you all for as long as he took an active part in this dance-play of yours and he was still within sight of some of you after he lay down behind that stone. Now, Mr. Carey has questioned every man, woman and child who was in the audience on Wednesday night. They are agreed that the Guiser did not leave the arena or move from his hiding place and that nobody offered him any violence as he lay behind the stone. Yet, a few minutes after he lay down there came the appalling discovery of his decapitated body.

“We’ve made exhaustive inquiries, but each of them has led us slap up against this apparent contradiction. We want therefore to see for ourselves exactly what did happen.”

Dr. Otterly looked up at Alleyn as if he were about to interrupt but seemed to change his mind and said nothing.

“For one reason or another,” Alleyn went on, “some of you may feel disinclined to repeat some incident or occurrence. I can’t urge you too strongly to leave nothing out and to stick absolutely to fact. ‘Nothing extenuate,’ ” he found himself saying, “ ‘nor set down aught in malice.’ That’s as sound a bit of advice on evidence as one can find anywhere and what we’re asking you to do is, in effect, to provide visual evidence. To show us the truth. And by sticking to the whole truth and nothing but the truth, each one of you will establish the innocent. You will show us who couldn’t have done it. But don’t fiddle with the facts. Please don’t do that. Don’t leave out anything because you’re afraid we may think it looks a bit fishy. We won’t think so if it’s not. And what’s more,” he added and raised an eyebrow, “I must remind you that any rearrangement would probably be spotted by your fellow performers or your audience.”

He paused. Ernie broke into aimless laughter and his brothers shifted uneasily and jangled their bells.

“Which brings me,” Alleyn went on, “to my second point. If at any stage of this performance any one of you notices anything at all, however slight, that is different from what you remember, you will please say so. There and then. There’ll be a certain amount of noise, I suppose, so you’ll have to give a clear signal. Hold up your hand. If you’re a fiddler,” Alleyn said and nodded at Dr. Utterly, “stop fiddling and hold up your bow. If you’re the Hobby-Horse” — he glanced at Simon — “you can’t hold up your hand, but you can let out a yell, can’t you?”

“Fair enough,” Simon said. “Yip-ee!”

The Andersens and the audience looked scandalized.

“And similarly,” Alleyn said, “I want any member of this very small audience who notices any discrepancy to make it clear, at once, that he does so. Sing out or hold up your hand. Do it there and then.”

“Dulcie.”

“Yes, Aunt Akky?”

“Get the gong.”

“The gong, Aunt Akky?”

“Yes. The one I bought at that jumble-sale. And the hunting horn from the gun-room.”

“Very well, Aunt Akky.”

Dulcie got up and went indoors.

“You,” Dame Alice told Alleyn, “can bang if you want them to stop. I’ll have the horn.”

Alleyn said apologetically, “Thank you very much, but, as it happens, I’ve got a whistle.”

“Sam can bang, then, if he notices anything.”

The Rector cleared his throat and said he didn’t think he’d want to.

Alleyn, fighting hard against this rising element of semi-comic activity, addressed himself again to the performers.

“If you hear my whistle,” he said, “you will at once stop whatever you may be doing. Now, is all this perfectly clear? Are there any questions?”

Chris Andersen said loudly, “What say us chaps won’t?”

“You mean, won’t perform at all?”

“Right. What say we won’t?”

“That’ll be that,” Alleyn said coolly.

“Here!” Dame Alice shouted, peering into the little group of men. “Who was that? Who’s talkin’ about will and won’t?”

They shuffled and jangled.

“Come on,” she commanded. “Daniel! Who was it?”

Dan looked extremely uncomfortable. Ernie laughed again and jerked his thumb at Chris. “Good old Chrissie,” he guffawed.

Big Chris came tinkling forward. He stood at the foot of the steps and looked full at Dame Alice.

“It was me, then,” he said. “Axcuse me, ma’am, it’s our business whether this affair goes on or don’t. Seeing who it was that was murdered. We’re his sons.”

“Pity you haven’t got his brains!” she rejoined. “You’re a hotheaded, blunderin’ sort of donkey, Chris Andersen, and always have been. Be a sensible feller, now, and don’t go puttin’ yourself in the wrong.”

“What’s the sense of it?” Chris demanded. “How can we do what was done before when there’s no Fool? What’s the good of it?”

“Anyone’d think you wanted your father’s murderer to go scot-free.”

Chris sank his head a little between his shoulders and demanded of Alleyn, “Will it be brought up agin’ us if we won’t do it?”

Alleyn said, “Your refusal will be noted. We can’t use threats.”

“Namby-pamby nonsense,” Dame Alice announced.

Chris stood with his head bent. Andy and Nat looked out of the corners of their eyes at Dan. Ernie did a slight kicking step and roused his bells.

Dan said, “As I look at it, there’s no choice, souls. We’ll dance.”

“Good,” Alleyn said. “Very sensible. We begin at the point where the Guiser arrived in Mrs. Bünz’s car. I will ask Mrs. Bünz to go down to the car, drive it up, park it where she parked it before and do exactly what she did the first time. You will find a police constable outside, Mrs. Bünz, and he will accompany you. The performers will wait offstage by the bonfire. Dr. Otterly will come onstage and begin to play. Right, Mrs. Bünz?”