Death of a Fool (22 page)

The elderly parlour-maid put an exquisite silver dish filled with puckered old apples on the table. Dame Alice, Dulcie, Alleyn and Dr. Otterly removed their mats and finger bowls from their plates. Nobody helped themselves to apples.

The combined aftermath of pallid soup, of the goose that was undoubtedly the victim of Ernie’s spleen and of Queen Pudding lingered in the cold room together with the delicate memory of a superb red wine. The parlour-maid returned, placed a decanter in front of Dame Alice and then withdrew.

“Same as last night,” Dame Alice said. She removed the stopper and pushed the decanter towards Dr. Otterly.

“I can scarcely believe my good fortune,” he replied. He helped himself and leant back in his chair. “We’re greatly honoured, believe me, Alleyn. A noble wine.”

The nobility of the port was discussed for some time. Dame Alice, who was evidently an expert, barked out information about it, no doubt in much the same manner as that of her male forebears. Alleyn changed down (or up, according to the point of view) into the appropriate gear and all the talk was of vintages, body and aroma. Under the beneficent influence of the port even the dreadful memory of wet Brussels sprouts was gradually effaced.

Dulcie, who was dressed in brown velveteen with a lace collar, had recovered her usual air of vague acquiescence, though she occasionally threw Alleyn a glance that seemed to suggest that she knew a trick worth two of his and could look after herself if the need arose.

In the drawing-room, Alleyn had seen an old copy of one of those publications that are dedicated to the profitable enshrinement of family relationships. Evidently, Dame Alice and Dulcie had consulted this work with reference to himself. They now settled down to a gruelling examination of the kind that leaves not a second-cousin unturned nor a collateral unexplored. It was a pastime that he did not particularly care for and it gave him no opportunity to lead the conversation in the direction he had hoped it would take.

Presently, however, when the port had gone round a second time, some execrable coffee had been offered and a maternal great-aunt of Alleyn’s had been tabulated and dismissed, the parlour-maid went out and Dame Alice suddenly shouted:

“Got yer man?”

“Not yet,” Alleyn confessed.

“Know who did it?”

“We have our ideas.”

“Who?”

“It’s a secret.”

“Why?”

“We might be wrong and then what fools we’d look.”

“I’ll tell yer who I’d back for it.”

“Who?” asked Alleyn in his turn.

“Ernest Andersen. He took the head off that goose you’ve just eaten and you may depend upon it he did as much for his father. Over-excited. Gets above himself on Sword Wednesday, always. Was it a full moon last night, Otters?”

“I — yes, I rather think — yes. Though, of course, one couldn’t see it.”

“There yar! All the more reason. They always get worst when the moon’s full. Dulcie does, don’t you, Dulcie?” asked her terrible aunt.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Akky, I wasn’t listening.”

“There yar! I said you always get excited when the moon’s full.”

“Well, I think it’s awfully
pretty
,” Dulcie said, putting her head on one side.

“How,” Alleyn intervened rather hurriedly, “do you think Ernie managed it, Dame Alice?”

“That’s for you to find out.”

“True.”

“Pass the port. Help yerself.”

Alleyn did so.

“Have you heard about the great hoard of money that’s turned up at Copse Forge?” he asked.

They were much interested in this news. Dame Alice said the Andersens had hoarded money for as long as they’d been at the forge, a matter of four centuries and more, and that Dan would do just the same now that his turn had come.

“I don’t know so much about that, you know,” Dr. Otterly said, squinting at his port. “The boys and Simon Begg have been talking for a long time about converting the forge into a garage and petrol station. Looking forward to when the new road goes through.”

This, as might have been expected, aroused a fury in Dame Alice. Alleyn listened to a long diatribe, during which her teeth began to play up, against new roads, petrol pumps and the decline of proper feeling in the artisan classes.

“William,” she said (she pronounced it Will’m), “would never’ve had it. Never! He told me what his fools of sons were plottin’. Who’s the feller that’s put ’em up to it?”

“Young Begg, Aunt Akky.”

“Begg? Begg? What’s he got to do with it? He’s a grocer.”

“No, Aunt Akky, he left the shop during the war and went into the Air Force and now he’s got a garage. He was here yesterday.”

“You don’t have to tell me that, Dulcie. Of course I know young Begg was here. I’d have given him a piece of my mind if you’d told me what he was up ter.”

“When did you see William Andersen, Dame Alice?”

“What? When? Last week. I sent for ’im. Sensible old feller, Will’m Andersen.”

“Are we allowed to ask why you sent for him?”

“Can if yer like. I told ’im to stop his grand-daughter makin’ sheep’s eyes at my nephew.”

“Goodness!” Dulcie said, “was she? Did Ralph like it? Is that what you meant, Aunt Akky, when you said Ralph was a rake?”

“No.”

“If you don’t mind my cutting in,” Dr. Otterly ventured, “I don’t believe little Miss Camilla made sheep’s eyes at Ralph. She’s a charming child with very nice manners.”

“Will’m ’greed with me. Look what happened when his girl loped with young Campion. That sort of mix-up never answers and he knew it.”

“One can’t be too careful, can one, Aunt Akky,” Dulcie said, “with men?”

“Lor’, Dulcie, what a stoopid gel you are. When,” Dame Alice asked brutally, “have you had to look after yerself, I’d like to know?”

“Ah-ha, Aunt Akky!”

“Fiddlesticks!”

The parlour-maid re-appeared with cigarettes and, surprisingly, a great box of cigars.

“I picked ’em up,” Dame Alice said, “at old Tim Comberdale’s sale. We’ll give you ten minutes. You can bring ’em to the drawin’-room. Come on, Dulcie.”

She held out her arm. Dulcie began to collect herself.

“Let me haul,” Alleyn said, “may I?”

“Thanks. Bit groggy in the fetlocks, these days. Go with the best, once I’m up.”

He opened the door. She toddled rapidly towards it and looked up at him.

“Funny world,” she said. “Ain’t it?”

“Damned odd.”

“Don’t be too long over your wine. I’ve got a book to show you and I go up in half an hour. Don’t keep ’im now, Otters.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Dr. Otterly said. When the door had shut he placed his hand on his diaphragm and muttered, “By Heaven, that was an athletic old gander. But what a cellar, isn’t it?”

“Wonderful,” Alleyn said abstractedly.

He listened to Dr. Otterly discoursing on the Mardian family and its vanished heyday. “Constitutions of oxes and heads of cast-iron, the lot of them,” Dr. Otterly declared. “And arrogant!” He wagged a finger. “ ’Nuff said.” It occurred to Alleyn that Dr. Otterly’s head was not perhaps of the same impregnability as the Mardians’.

“Join the ladies?” Dr. Otterly suggested, and they did so.

Dame Alice was established in a bucket-shaped armchair that cut her off in some measure from anybody that wasn’t placed directly in front of her. Under her instructions, Alleyn drew up a hideous Edwardian stool to a strategic position. Dulcie placed a newspaper parcel on her great-aunt’s knee. Alleyn saw with some excitement a copy of the
Times
for 1871.

“Time someone got some new wrappin’ for this,” Dame Alice said and untied the tape with a jerk.

“By Heaven,” Dr. Otterly said, waving his cigar, “you’re highly favoured, Alleyn. By Heaven, you are!”

“There yar,” said Dame Alice. “Take it. Give him a table, Dulcie, it’s fallin’ to bits.”

Dr. Otterly brought up a table and Alleyn laid down the book she had pushed into his hands. It was of the kind that used to be called “commonplace” and evidently of a considerable age. The leather binding had split down the back. He opened it and found that it was the diary of one “Ambrose Hilary Mardian of Mardian Place, nr. Yowford, written in the year 1798.”

“My great-grandfather,” said Dame Alice. “I was born Mardian and married a Mardian. No young. Skip to the Wednesday before Christmas.”

Alleyn turned over the pages. “Here we are,” he said.

The entry, like all the others, was written in an elaborate copper-plate. The ink had faded to a pale brown.

“ ‘Sword Wednesday,’ ” he read, “ ‘1798. A note on the Mardian Morris of Five Sons.’ ” Alleyn looked up for a second at Dame Alice and then began to read.

There the entry for Sword Wednesday ended.

“Extraordinarily interesting,” Alleyn said. “Thank you.” He shut the book and turned to Dr. Otterly. “Did the Guiser speak any of this verse?”

“I believe he did, but he was very cagey about it. He certainly used to mutter something at those points in the dance, but he wouldn’t tell anybody what it was. The boys were near enough to hear, but they don’t like talking about it, either. Damn’ ridiculous when you come to think of it,” Dr. Otterly said, slightly running his words together. “But interesting, all the same.”

“Did he ever see this diary, Dame Alice?”

“I showed it to him. One of the times when he’d come to mend the boiler. He put on a cunnin’ look and said he knew all about it.”

“Would you think these lines, particularly the last four, are used in other places where folk dancing thrives?”

“Definitely not,” Dr. Otterly said, perhaps rather more loudly than he had intended. “They’re not in the Revesby text nor anywhere else in British ritual mumming. Purely local. Take the word ‘lover’ used as a verb. You still heard it hereabouts when I was a boy, but I doubt if it’s ever been found elsewhere in England. Certainly not in that context.”

Alleyn put his hand on the book and turned to his hostess. “Clever of you,” he said, “to think of showing me this. I congratulate you.” He got up and stood looking at her. She turned her Mrs. Noah’s face up to him and blinked like a lizard.

“Not goin’, are yer?”

“Isn’t it your bedtime?”

“Most certainly it is,” said Dr. Otterly, waving his cigar.

“Aunt Akky, it’s after ten.”

“Fiddlededee. Let’s have some brandy. Where’s the grog-tray? Ring the bell, Otters.”

The elderly parlour-maid answered the bell at once, like a servant in a fairy-tale, ready-armed with a tray, brandy-glasses and a bottle of fabulous cognac.

“I ’fer it at this stage,” Dame Alice said, “to havin’ it with the coffee. Papa used to say, ’When dinner’s dead in yer and bed is still remote, ring for the brandy.’ Sound advice in my?pinion.”

It was eleven o’clock when they left Mardian Castle.

Fox, running through his notes with a pint of beer before the fire, looked up over his spectacles when his chief came in. There was an unusual light in Alleyn’s eyes.

“You’re later than I expected, sir,” said Fox. “Shall I order you a pint?”

“Not unless you feel like carrying me up to bed after it. I’ve been carousing with the Dame of Mardian Castle. She may be ninety-four, Fox, but she carries her wine like a two-year-old, does that one.”

“God bless my soul! Sit down, Mr. Alleyn.”

“I’m all right. I must say I wonder how old Otterly’s managing under his own steam. He was singing the ‘Jewel Song’ from
Faust
in a rousing falsetto when we parted.”

“What did you have for dinner? To eat, I mean.”

“Ernie’s victim and sodden Brussels sprouts. The wine, however, was something out of this world. Laid down by one of the gods in the shape of Dame Alice’s papa. But the
pièce de résistance
, Br’er Fox, the wonder of the evening, handed to me, as it were, on a plate by Dame Alice herself, was — what do you suppose?”