Ngaio Marsh - Death of a Fool
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- Название:Death of a Fool
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- Год:неизвестен
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“And what else does he do?”
“Aunt Akky—”
“No,” Alleyn said so strongly that Dulcie gave another little yelp. “I want Mrs. Bünz to show us what he did.”
Mrs. Bünz was, as usual, much enveloped. As she moved forward, most reluctantly, a stiffish breeze sprang up. She was involved in a little storm of billowing handicraft.
In an uncomfortable silence she jogged miserably round the outside of the courtyard, gave two or three dejected skips and came to a halt in front of the steps. Dame Alice stared at her implacably and Dulcie gaped. The Rector looked at his boots.
“That is all,” said Mrs. Bünz.
“You have left something out,” said Alleyn.
“I do not remember everything,” Mrs. Bünz said in a strangulated voice.
“And I’ll tell you why,” Alleyn rejoined. “It is because you have never seen what he did. Not even when you looked through the window of the barn.”
She put her woolly hand to her mouth and stepped backwards.
“I’ll be bloody well danged!” Tom Plowman loudly ejaculated and was silenced by Trixie.
Mrs. Bünz said something that sounded like “— interests of scientific research —”
“Nor, I suggest, will you have seen what the Guiser did on his first entrance on Wednesday night. Because on Wednesday night you left the arena at the point we have now reached. Didn’t you, Mrs. Bünz?”
She only moved her head from side to side as if to assure herself that it was on properly.
“Do you say that’s wrong?”
She flapped her woollen paws and nodded.
“Yes, but you know, Aunt Akky, she did .”
“Hold your tongue, Dulcie, do,” begged her great-aunt.
“No,” Alleyn said. “Not at all. I want to hear from Miss Mardian.”
“Have it your own way. It’s odds on she don’t know what she’s talkin’ about.”
“Oh,” Dulcie cried, “but I do . I said so to you , Aunt Akky. I said, ‘Aunt Akky, do look at the German woman going away.” I said so to Sam. Didn’t I, Sam?”
The Rector, looking startled and rather guilty, said to Alleyn, “I believe she did.”
“And what was Mrs. Bünz doing, Rector?”
“She — actually — I really had quite forgotten — she was going out.”
“Well, Mrs. Bünz?”
Mrs. Bünz now spoke with the air of a woman who has had time to make up her mind.
“I had unexpected occasion,” she said, choosing her words, “to absent myself. Delicacy,” she added, “excuses me from further cobbent.”
“Rot,” said Dame Alice.
Alleyn said, “And when did you come back?”
She answered quickly, “During the first part of the sword-dance.”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this yesterday when we had such difficulty over the point?”
To that she had nothing to say.
Alleyn made a signal with his hand and Fox, who stood in the rear archway, turned to “Crack” and said something inaudible. They came forward together.
“Mr. Begg,” Alleyn called out, “will you take your harness off, if you please?”
“What say? Oh, righty-ho,” said Simon’s voice. There was a strange and uncanny upheaval. “Crack’s” neck collapsed and the iron head retreated after it into the cylindrical body. The whole frame tilted on its rim and presently Simon appeared.
“Good. Now, I suggest that on Wednesday evening, while you waited behind the wall at the back, you took off your harness as you have just done here.”
Simon began to look resigned. “And I suggest,” Alleyn went on, “that when you, Mrs. Bünz, left the arena by the side arch, you went round behind the walls and met Mr. Begg at the back.”
Mrs. Bünz flung up her thick arms in a gesture of defeat.
Simon said clumsily, “Not to worry, Mrs. B.,” and dropped his hands on her shoulders.
She screamed out, “Don’t touch me!”
Alleyn said, “Your shoulders are sore, aren’t they? But then ‘Crack’s’ harness is very heavy, of course.”
After that, Mrs. Bünz had nothing to say.
A babble of astonishment had broken out on the steps and a kind of suppressed hullabaloo among the Andersens.
Ernie shouted, “What did I tell you, then, chaps? I said it was a wumman what done it, didn’t I? No good comes of it when a wumman mixes ’erself up in this gear. Not it. Same as curing hams,” he astonishingly added. “Keep ’em out when it’s men’s gear, same as the old bastard said.”
“Ah, shut up, Corp. Shut your trap, will you?” Simon said wearily.
“Very good, sir,” Ernie shouted and flung himself into a salute.
Alleyn said, “Steady now, and attend to me. I imagine that you, Begg, accepted a sum of money from Mrs. Bünz in consideration of her being allowed to stand-in as ‘Crack’ during the triple sword-dance. You came off after your tearing act and she met you behind the wall near the bonfire and you put your harness on her and away she went. I think that, struck by the happy coincidence of names, you probably planked whatever money she gave you, and I daresay a whole lot more, on Teutonic Dancer by Subsidize out of Substitution. The gods of chance are notoriously unscrupulous and, without deserving in the least to do so, you won a packet.”
Simon grinned and then looked as if he wished he hadn’t. He said, “How can you be so sure you haven’t been handed a plateful of duff gen?”
“I can be perfectly sure. Do you know what the Guiser’s bits of dialogue were in the performance?”
“No,” Simon said. “I don’t. He always mumbled whatever it was. Mrs. B. asked me, as a matter of fact, and I told her I didn’t know.”
Alleyn turned to the company at large.
“Did any of you ever tell Mrs. Bünz anything about what was said?”
Chris said angrily, “Not bloody likely.”
“Very well. Mrs. Bünz repeated a phrase of the dialogue in conversation with me. A phrase that I’m sure she heard with immense satisfaction for the first time on Wednesday night. That’s why you bribed Mr. Begg to let you take his part, wasn’t it, Mrs. Bünz? You were on the track of a particularly sumptuous fragment of folklore. You didn’t dance, as you were meant to do, round the edge of the arena. Disguised as ‘Crack,’ you got as close as you could to the Guiser and you listened in.”
Alleyn hesitated for a moment and then quoted, “ ‘Betty to lover me.’ Do you remember how it goes on?”
“I answer nothing.”
“Then I’m afraid I must ask you to act.” He fished in his pockets and pulled out the bandages and two handfuls of linen. “These will do to pad your shoulders. We’ll get Dr. Otterly to fix them.”
“What will you make me do?”
“Only what you did on Wednesday.”
Chris shouted violently, “Doan’t let ’er. Keep the woman out of it. Doan’t let ’er.”
Dan said, “And so I say. If that’s what happened ’twasn’t right and never will be. Once was too many, let alone her doing it again deliberate.”
“Hold hard, chaps,” Andy said, with much less than his usual modesty. “This makes a bit of differ, all the same. None of us knew about this, did we?” He jerked his head at Ernie. “Only young Ern seemingly. He knew the woman done this on us? Didn’t you, Ern?”
“Keep your trap shut, Corp,” Simon advised him.
“Very good, sir.”
Chris suddenly roared at Simon, “You leave Ern alone, you, Simmy-Dick. You lay off of him, will you? Reckon you’re no better nor a damned traitor, letting a woman in on the Five Sons.”
“So he is, then,” Nat said. “A bloody traitor. Don’t you heed him, Ern.”
“Ah, put a sock in it, you silly clots,” Simon said disgustedly. “Leave the poor sod alone. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Silly bastards!”
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