Death of a Fool (12 page)

It appeared that, during the late afternoon, the Guiser had fallen deeply asleep and had woken refreshed and fighting fit, only to hear his son driving away without him. Speechless with rage, he had been obliged to accept a hitch-hike from his enemy, Mrs. Bünz.

“He was jibbering when he got to us,” Otterly said, “and pretty well incoherent. He grabbed Ernie and began hauling his Fool’s clothes off him.”

“And how,” Alleyn said to Ernie, “did you enjoy that?”

Ernie, to the evident perturbation of his brothers, flew into a retrospective rage. As far as Alleyn could make out, he had attempted to defy his father but had been hurriedly quelled by his brothers.

“Ern didn’t want to whiffle,” Dan said and they all confirmed this eagerly. Ernie had refused to dance if he couldn’t dance the Fool. Simon Begg had finally prevailed on him.

“I done it for the Wing-Commander and not for another soul. He axed me and I done it. I went out and whiffled.”

From here, what they had to tell followed without addition the account Alleyn had already heard from Carey. None of the five sons had, at any stage of their performance, gone behind the dolmen to the spot where their father lay hidden. They were all positive the Guiser could neither have left the courtyard nor returned to it, alive or dead. They were equally and mulishly positive that no act of violence could have been done upon him during the period begun by his mock fall and terminated by the discovery of his decapitated body. They stuck to this, loudly repeating their argument and banging down their great palms on the table. It was impossible.

“I take it,” said Mr. Fox during a pause, “that we don’t believe in fairies.” He looked mildly round the table.

“Not at the bottom of this garden, anyway,” Alleyn muttered.

“My dad did, then,” Ernie shouted.

“Did what?” Alleyn asked patiently.

“Believe in fairies.”

Fox sighed heavily and made a note.

“Did he,” Alleyn continued, “believe in sacrifices too?”

The Guiser’s five sons fidgeted and said nothing.

“The old idea, you know,” Alleyn said. “I may have got it wrong, but in the earliest times didn’t they sacrifice something — a bird, wasn’t it — on some of these old stones? At certain times of the year?”

After a further and protracted silence, Dr. Otterly said, “No doubt they did.”

“I take it that this morris dance — cum-sword-dance-cum-mumming play — forgive me if I’ve got the terms muddled — is a survival of some such practice?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Dr. Otterly said, impatiently, and yet with the air of a man whose hobby-horse is at the mounting-block. “Immeasurably the richest survival we have.”

“Really? The ritual death of the Fool is the old mystery of sacrifice, isn’t it, with the promise of renewal behind it?”

“Exactly.”

“And, at one time, there would have been actual bloodshed? Or well might have been?”

To this there was no answer.

“Who,” Alleyn asked, “killed Dame Alice’s goose yesterday afternoon and put it on the dolmen?”

Through the pipe-smoke that now hung thick over the table he looked round the circle of reddened faces. “Ernie,” he said, “was it you?”

A slow grin stretched Ernie’s mouth until he looked remarkably like a bucolic Fool himself.

“I whiffled ’im,” he said.

As Ernie was not concerned to extend this statement and returned very foolish answers to any further questions, Alleyn was obliged to listen to his brothers, who were eager in explanation.

Throughout yesterday morning, they said, while they erected the torches and prepared the bonfire, they had suffered a number of painful and determined assaults from Dame Alice’s geese. One male, in particular, repeatedly placing himself in the van, had come hissing down upon them. Damaging stabs and sidelong slashes had been administered, particularly upon Ernie, who had greatly resented them. He had been sent up again in the afternoon with the gardener’s slasher, which he had himself sharpened, and had been told to cut down the brambles on the dancing area. In the dusk, the gander had made a final assault and an extremely painful one. Irked beyond endurance, Ernie had swiped at him with the slasher. When they arrived in the evening the brothers were confronted with the corpse and taken to task by Miss Mardian. Subsequently, they had got the whole story out of Ernie. He now listened to their recital with a maddening air of complacency.

“Do you agree that is what happened?” Alleyn asked him and he clasped his hands behind his head, rocked to and fro and chuckled. “That’s right,” he said. “I whiffled ’im proper.”

“Why did you leave the bird on the dolmen?”

Ernie said conceitedly, “You foreign chaps wouldn’t rightly catch on. I know what for I done it.”

“Was it blood for the stone?”

He ducked his head low between his shoulders and looked sideways at Alleyn. “Happen it was, then. And happen ’twasn’t enough, however.”

“Wanted more?” Alleyn asked and mentally crossed his thumbs.

“Wanted and got it, then.”

(“Naow, naow, naow!”)

Ernie unclasped his hands and brought them down on the table. He gripped the edge so hard that the table quivered. “His own fault,” he gabbled, “and not a soul else’s. Blood axes for blood and always will. I told him. Look what he done on me, Sunday. Murdered my dog, he did, murdered my dog on me when my back was turned. What he done Sunday come home on him, Wednesday, and not a soul to answer for it but himself. Bloody murderer, he was, and paid in his own coin.”

Chris Andersen reached out and gripped his brother’s arm. “Shut your mouth,” he said.

Dan said, “You won’t stop him that fashion. Take thought for yourself, Ernie. You’re not right smart in the head, boy. Your silly ways is well known: no blame to you if you’re not so clear-minded as the rest of us. Keep quiet, then, or, in your foolishness, you’ll bring shame on the family.” His brothers broke into a confused chorus of approval.

Alleyn listened, hoping to glean something from the general rumpus, but the brothers merely reiterated their views with increased volume, no variation and little sense.

Ernie suddenly jabbed his forefinger at Chris. “You can’t talk, Chrissie,” he roared. “What about what happened yesterday? What about what you said you’d give ’im if he crossed you over — you know what —”

There was an immediate uproar. Chris and his three elder brothers shouted in unison and banged their fists down on the table.

Alleyn stood up. This unexpected movement brought about an instant quiet.

“I’m sorry, men,” he said, “but from the way things are shaping, there can be no point in my keeping you round this table. You will stay either here or hereabouts, if you please, and we shall in due course see each of you alone. Your father’s body will be taken to the nearest mortuary for examination, which will be made by the Home Office pathologist. As soon as we can allow the funeral to take place you will be told all about it. There will, of course, be an inquest which you’ll be asked to attend. If you think it wise to do so, you may be legally represented, individually or as a family.” He stopped, looked at each of them in turn and then said, “I’m going to do something that is unorthodox. Before I do so, however, I warn you that to conspire— that is, to act together and in collaboration for the purpose of withholding vital evidence — in a case of murder can be an extremely serious offence. I may be wrong, but I believe there is some such intention in your minds. You will do well to give it up. Now. Before more harm can come of it.” He waited but they said nothing.

“All right,” said Alleyn, “we’ll get on with it.” He turned to Ernie. “Last night, after your father’s body had been found, I’m told you leapt on the stone where earlier in the day you had put the dead gander. I’m told you pointed your sword at the German lady, who was standing not very far away, and you said, ‘Ask her. She’s the one that did it.’ Did you do this?”

A half-smile touched Ernie’s mouth, but he said nothing. “Did you?” Alleyn insisted.

“Ernie took a queer turn,” Andy said. “He can’t rightly remember after his turns.”

“Let him answer for himself. Did you do this, Ernie?”

“I might and I might not. If they say so, I might of.”

“Do you think the German lady killed your father?”

“ ’
Course
she didn’t,” Chris said angrily. “She couldn’t.”

“I asked Ernie if he thought she did.”

“I dunno,” Ernie muttered and laughed.

“Very well, then,” Alleyn said and decided suddenly to treat them to a rich helping of ham. “Here, in the presence of you all — you five sons of a murdered father — I ask you, Ernest Andersen, if you cut off that father’s head.”

Ernie looked at Alleyn, blinked and opened his mouth: but whether to speak or horridly to laugh again would never be known. A shadow had fallen across the little room. A voice from the doorway said:

“I’d keep my mouth shut on that one if I were you, Corp.”

It was Simon Begg.

He came forward easily. His eyes were bright as if he enjoyed the effect he had made. His manner was very quietly tough. Alleyn wondered if it was based on some model that was second-rate but fully authentic.

“Sorry if I intrude,” Simon said. “I’m on my way to the pub to be grilled by the cops and thought I’d look in. But perhaps you
are
the cops. Are you?”

“I’m afraid so,” Alleyn said. “And you, I think, must be Mr. Simon Begg.”

“He’s my Wing-Commander, he is,” Ernie cut in. “We was in the same crowd, him and me.”

“O.K., boy, O.K.,” Simon said and, passing round the table, put his hand on Ernie’s shoulder. “You talk such a lot,” he said good-naturedly. “Keep your great trap shut, Corp, and you’ll come to no harm.” He cuffed Ernie lightly over the head and looked brightly at Alleyn. “The Corp,” he said, “is just a great big baby: not quite with us, shall we say. Maybe you like them that way. Anything I can do for you?”

Alleyn said, “If you’ll go ahead well be glad to see you at the Green Man. Or — can we give you a lift?”

“Thanks, I’ve got my heap out there.”

“We’ll be hard on your heels, then.”

Begg went through the motion of whistling.

“Don’t wait for me,” he said, “I’ll follow you.”

“No,” Alleyn said very coolly, “you won’t. You’ll go straight on if you please.”

“Is that an order or a threat, Mr. — I’m afraid I don’t know your rank.”

“We’re not allowed to threaten. My rank couldn’t matter less. Off you go.”

Simon looked at him, raised his eyebrows, said, with a light laugh, “Well,
really
!” and walked out. They heard him start up his engine. Alleyn briefly surveyed the brothers Andersen.

“You chaps,” he said, “had better reconsider your position a bit. Obviously you’ve talked things over. Now you’d do well to think them over, and jolly carefully at that. In the meantime, if any of you feel like making a sensible statement about this business I’ll be glad to hear what it is.” He moved to the door, where he was joined by Fox and Carey.

“By the way,” he said, “we shall have to find out the terms of your father’s Will, if he made one.”

Dan, a picture of misery and indecision, scratched his head and gazed at Alleyn.

Andy burst out, “We was right fond of the old man. Stood together, us did, father and sons, so firm as a rock.”

“A united family?”

“So we was, then,” Nat protested. Chris added, “And so we are.”

“I believe you,” Alleyn said.

“As for his Will,” Dan went on with great simplicity, “we can’t tell you, sir, what we don’t know our own selves. Maybe he made one and maybe not.”

Carey said, “You haven’t taken a look round the place at all, then?”

Andy turned on him. “It’s our father what’s been done to death, Mr. Carey. It’s his body laying out there, not as an old man’s did ought — peaceful and proper — but ghassly as a sacrifice and crying aloud for — for—” He looked round wildly, saw his youngest brother, hesitated and then broke down completely.

“— for justice?” Alleyn said. “Were you going to say?”

“He’s beyond earthly justice,” Nat put in. “Face to face with his Maker and no doubt proud to be there.”

Superintendent Carey said, “I did hear tell he was up to Biddlefast on Tuesday to see lawyer Stayne.”

“So he was, then, but none of us knows why,” Chris rejoined.

“Well,” Alleyn said, “we’ll be off. I’m very sorry, but I’m afraid we’ll have to leave somebody here. Whoever it is will, I’m sure, be as considerate as possible. You see, we may have to poke back into the past. I can fully understand,” he went on, talking directly to Andy, “how you feel about your father’s death. It’s been — of course it has — an appalling shock. But you will, no doubt, have a hunt round for any papers or instructions he may have left. I can get an expert search made or, if you’d rather, can just leave an officer here to look on. In case something turns up that may be of use to us. We really do want to make it as easy for you as we can.”

They took this without much show of interest. “There’ll be cash, no doubt,” Dan said. “He was a great old one for putting away bits of cash. Proper old jackdaw, us used to call him.” He caught back his breath harshly.

Alleyn said, “I’m sorry it has to be like this.” Dan was the one nearest to him. “He’s an elderly chap himself,” Alleyn thought, and touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Sorry,” he repeated and looked at Fox and Carey. “Shall we move on?”

“Do you want me again?” Dr. Otterly asked.

“If I can just have a word with you.”

They all went out through the forge. Alleyn paused and looked round.

“What a place for a search! The collection of generations. There’s the door, Fox, where Ernie says the note was pinned. And his room’s beyond that.”

He went down a narrow pathway between two heaped-up benches of litter and opened the door in the end wall. Beyond it was a tiny room with a bed that had been pulled together rather than made and gave clear evidence of use. The room was heaped up with boxes, piles of old newspapers and all kinds of junk. A small table had evidently served as a desk and bore a number of account books, files and the Guiser’s old-fashioned copper-plate bills.
In Dr. to W. Andersen, Blacksmith, Copse Forge, South Mardian
. A pencil lay across a folded pile of blotting-paper.