Ngaio Marsh - Death of a Fool

“Yes, but fancy !” Dulcie said, coming in with a steaming grog tray. “He had such a good war record. You know he came down in a parachute and killed quantities of Germans with his bare hands all at once and escaped and got decorated.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said drily, “he’s had lots of practice. He told us about that. That was the last time.”

“D’you meantersay,” Dame Alice asked, handing Alleyn a bottle of rum and a corkscrew, “that he killed Will’m Andersen out of temper and nothin’ else?”

“Out of an accumulation of spleen and frustrated ambition and on a snap assessment of the main chance.”

“Draw that cork and begin at the beginnin’.”

“Aunt Akky, shouldn’t you have a rest —”

“No.”

Alleyn drew the cork. Dame Alice poured rum and boiling water into a saucepan and began to grind up nutmeg. “Slice the lemons,” she ordered Fox.

Dr. Otterly said, “Frustrated ambition because of Copse Forge and the filling station?”

“That’s it.”

“Otters, don’t interrupt.”

“I daresay,” Alleyn said, “he’d thought often enough that if he could hand the old type the big chop, and get by, he’d give it a go. The boys were in favour of his scheme, remember, and he wanted money very badly.”

“But he didn’t plan this thing?” Dr. Otterly interjected and added, “Sorry, Dame Alice.”

“No, no. He only planned the substitution of Mrs. Bünz as ‘Crack’ and she gave him, she now tells us, thirty pounds for the job and bought a car from him into the bargain. He’d taken charge of ‘Crack’ and left the thing in the back of her car. She actually crept out when the pub was bedded down for the night and put it on to see if she could support the weight. They planned the whole thing very carefully. What happened was this: at the end of his girl-chase he went offstage and put Mrs. Bünz into ‘Crack’s’ harness. She went on for the triple sword-dance and was meant to come off in time for him to change back before the finale. La Belle Bünz, however, hell-bent on picking up a luscious morsel of folksy dialogue, edged up as close to the dolmen as she could get. She thought she was quite safe. The tar-daubed skirts of the Hobby completely hid her. Or almost completely.”

“Completely. No almost about it,” Dame Alice said. “I couldn’t see her feet.”

“No. But you would have seen them if you’d lain down in a shallow depression in the ground a few inches away from her. As the Guiser did.”

“Hold the pot over the fire for a bit, one of you. Go on.”

“The Guiser, from his worm’s viewpoint, recognized her. There she was, looming over him, with ‘Crack’s’ carcass probably covering the groove where he lay and her rubber overshoes and hairy skirts showing every time she moved. He reached up and grabbed her. She screamed at the top of her voice and you all thought it was Begg trying to neigh. The Guiser was a very small man and a very strong one. He pinioned her arms to her body, kept his head down and ran her off.”

“That was when Ralph pinched Ernie’s sword?” Dr. Otterly ventured.

“That’s it. Once offstage, while he was still, as it were, tented up with her, the Guiser hauled her out of ‘Crack’s’ harness. He was gibbering with temper. As soon as he was free, a matter of seconds, he turned on Begg, who, of course, was waiting there for her. The Guiser went for Begg like a fury. It was over in a flash. Mrs. Bünz saw Begg hit him across the throat. It’s a well-known blow in unarmed combat, and it’s deadly. She also saw Ernie come charging offstage without his whiffler and in a roaring rage himself. Then she bolted.

“What happened after that, Ernie demonstrated for us to-night. He saw his god fell the Guiser. Ernie was in a typical epileptic’s rage and, as usual, the focal point of his rage was his father — the Old Man, who had killed his dog, frustrated his god’s plans and snatched the role of Fool away from Ernie himself at the last moment. He was additionally inflamed by the loss of his sword.

“But the slasher was there. He’d sharpened it and brought it up himself and he grabbed it as soon as he saw it.

“He said to-night that he was under orders and I’m sure he was. Begg saw a quick way out. He said something like this: ‘He tried to kill me. Get him, Corp!’ And Ernie, his mind seething with a welter of emotions and superstitions, did what he’d done to the aggressive gander earlier that day.”

“Gracious! Aunt Akky, fancy! Ernie !”

“Very nasty,” said Mr. Fox, who was holding the saucepan of punch over the drawing-room fire.

“A few moments later, Ralph Stayne came out with Ernie’s whiffler. He found Ernie and he found ‘Crack,’ squatting there, he says, like a great broody hen. Begg was hiding the decapitated Guiser with the only shield available — ‘Crack.’

“He told Stayne that Ernie was upset and he’d better leave him alone. Stayne returned the whiffler and went on round the wall to the O.P. entrance.

“Begg knew that if the body was found where it lay Stayne would remember how he saw him squatting there. He did the only thing possible. He sent Ernie back to the arena, threw the slasher on the fire and overturned the drum of tar to obliterate any traces of blood. It caught fire. Then he hitched ‘Crack’s’ harness over his own shoulders and returned to the arena. He carried the body in his arms and held the head by the strings of its bag-like mask, both ends of which became bloodstained. All this under cover of the great canvas body.

“At this time the final dance was in progress and the Five Sons were between their audience and the dolmen. ‘Crack’ was therefore masked by the stone and the dancers. Not that he needed any masking. He dropped the body — laid it, like an egg, in the depression behind the dolmen. This accounts for the state it was in when the Andersens found it. Begg leapt with suspicious alacrity at my suggestion that he might have tripped over it or knocked it with the edge of ‘Crack’s’ harness.”

“Oh, dear, Aunt Akky!”

“He was careful to help with the removal of the body, in order to account for any bloodstains on his clothes. When I told him we would search his clothes for bloodstains, he made his only mistake. His vanity tripped him up. He told us the story of his ferocious exploit in Germany and how, if a man was killed as the Guiser was supposed to have been killed, his assailant would be covered in blood. Of course we knew that, but the story told us that Begg had once been involved in unarmed combat with an old peasant and that he had been saved by one of his own men. A hedge-slasher had been involved in that story, too.”

Alleyn glanced at Dame Alice and Dulcie. “Is this altogether too beastly for you?” he asked.

“Absolutely ghastly ,” Dulcie said. “Still,” she added in a hurry, “I’d rather know .”

“Don’t be ’ffected, Dulcie. ’Course you would. So’d I. Go on,” Dame Alice ordered.

“There’s not much more to tell. Begg hadn’t time to deliberate, but he hoped, of course, that with all those swords about it would be concluded that the thing was done while the Guiser lay behind the dolmen. He and Dr. Otterly were the only two performers who would be at once ruled out if this theory were accepted. He’s completely callous. I don’t suppose he minded much who might be accused, though he must have known that the only two who would really look likely would be Ernie, with the sharp sword, and Ralph Stayne, who pinched it and made great play slashing it round.”

“But he stuck up for Ernie,” Dr. Otterly said. “All through. Didn’t he?”

Fox sighed heavily. Dame Alice pointed to a magnificent silver punch bowl that was blackening in the smoke on the hearth. He poured the fragrant contents of the saucepan into it and placed it before her.