Off with His Head

by Ngaio Marsh

  With some evidence of gratification, Carey broke the seal he had put on the double-doors of the coach-house and opened them wide enough to make an entry.

  It was a dark place filled with every imaginable kind of junk but a space had been cleared in the middle and an improvised bier made up from boxes and an old door covered by a horsecloth.

  A clean sheet had been laid over the Guiser. When Dr Otterly turned this down it was a shock, after the conventional decency of the arrangements to see an old dead man in the dirty dress of a clown. For collar there was a ragged blood-stained and slashed frill, and this had been pulled up to hide the neck. The face was smudged with black on the nose, forehead, cheek-bones and chin.

  ‘That’s burnt cork,’ Dr Otterly said. ‘From inside his mask, you know. Ernie had put it on over his black makeup when he thought he was going to dance the Fool.’

  The Guiser’s face under these disfigurements was void of expression. The eyes had been closed, but the mouth gaped. The old hands, chopped and furrowed, were crossed heavily over the breastbone. The tunic was patched with bloodstains. And above the Guiser, slung on wooden pins, were the shells of his fellow mummers: ‘Crack’, the Hobby Horse, was there. Its hinged jaw had dropped as if in burlesque of the head below it. The harness dangled over its flat drum-shaped carcass, which was propped against the wall. Nearby, hung the enormous crinoline of the Betty, and, above it, as if they belonged to each other, the Guiser’s bag-like and dolorous mask, hanging upside down by its strings. It was stained darkly round the strings and also at the other end, at the apex of the scalp. This interested Alleyn immensely. Lower down, caught up on a nail, was the rabbit-cap. Farther away hung the clothes and sets of bells belonging to the Five Sons.

  From the doorway, where he had elected to remain, Carey said: ‘We thought best to lock all their gear in here, Mr Alleyn. The swords are in that sacking there, on the bench.’

  ‘Good,’ Alleyn said.

  He glanced up at Fox. ‘All right,’ he said, and Fox, using his great hands very delicately, turned down the rag of the frilling from the severed neck.

  ‘One swipe,’ Dr Otterly’s voice said.

  ‘From slightly to the right of front centre to slightly left of back centre, would you say?’ Alleyn asked.

  ‘I would.’ Dr Otterly sounded surprised. ‘I suppose you chaps get to know about things.’

  ‘I’m glad to say that this sort of thing doesn’t come even our way very often. The blow must have fallen above the frill on his tunic and below the strings that tied the bag-mask. Would you say he’d been upright or prone when it happened?’

  ‘Your Home Office man will know better than I about that. If it was done standing I’d say it was by somebody who was just slightly taller than the poor old Guiser.’

  ‘Yes. Was there anybody like that in the team?’

  ‘No. They’re all much taller.’

  ‘And there you are. Let’s have a look at that whiffler, Fox.’

  Fox came back with Ernie’s sword, holding it by the red cord that was threaded through the tip. ‘You can see the stains left by all that green stuff,’ he said. ‘And sharp! You’d be astounded.’

  ‘We’d better put Bailey on it for dabs though I don’t fancy there’s much future there. What do you think, Dr Otterly? Could this be the weapon?’

  ‘Without closer examination of the wound, I wouldn’t like to say. It would depend—but no,’ Dr Otterly said, ‘I can’t give an opinion.’

  Alleyn had turned away and was looking at the garments hanging on the wall. ‘Tar over everything. On the Betty’s skirt, the Sons’ trousers and I suppose on a good many village maidens’ stockings and shoes to say nothing of their coats.’

  ‘It’s a cult,’ Dr Otterly said.

  ‘Fertility rite?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘See old Uncle T. Frazer and all,’ Alleyn muttered. He turned to the rabbit. ‘Recently killed and gutted with head left on. Strings on it. What for?’

  ‘He wore it on his head.’

  ‘How very undelicious. Why?’

  ‘Helped the decapitation effect. He put his head through the lock of swords, untied the strings and, as the Sons drew the swords, he let the rabbit’s head drop. They do it in the Grenoside sword dance too, I believe. It’s quite startling—the effect.’

  ‘I dare say. In this case, rather overshadowed by the subsequent event,’ Alleyn said drily.

  ‘All right!’ Dr Otterly ejaculated with some violence. ‘I know it’s beastly. All right.’

  Alleyn glanced at him and then turned to look at ‘Crack’s’ harness. ‘This must weigh a tidy lump. How does he wear it?’

  ‘The head is on a sort of rod. His own head is inside the canvas neck. It was made in the smithy.’

  ‘The century before last?’

  ‘Or before that. The body too. It hangs from the yoke. His head goes through a hole into the canvas tube, which has got a sort of window in it. “Crack’s” head is on top again and joined to the yoke by the flexible rod inside the neck. By torchlight it looks quite a thing.’

  ‘I believe you,’ Alleyn said absently. He examined the harness and then turned to the Betty’s crinoline. ‘How does this go on? It’s a mountain of a garment.’

  ‘It hangs from a kind of yoke, too. But in this case, the arms are free. The frame, as you see, is made of withies like basket-work. In the old days there used to be quite a lot of fairly robust fun with the Betty. The chap who was acting her would chase some smaller fellow round the ring and pop the crinoline thing right over him and go prancing off with the little chap hidden under his petticoats as it were. You can imagine the sort of barracking that went on.’

  ‘Heaps of broad bucolic fun,’ Alleyn said, ‘was doubtless had by all. It’s got a touch of the tarbrush, too, but not much.’

  ‘I expect Ralph kept clear of “Crack” as well as he could.’

  ‘And the Guiser?’ Alleyn returned to the bier and removed the sheet completely.

  ‘A little tar on the front of the tunic and—’ He stooped. ‘Quite a lot on the hands,’ he said. ‘Did he handle the tar barrel, do you know?’

  ‘Earlier in the day perhaps. But no. He was out of action, earlier. Does it matter?’

  ‘It might,’ Alleyn said, it might matter very much indeed. Then again not. Have you noticed this fairly recent gash across the palm of his right hand?’

  ‘I saw it done.’ Dr Otterly’s gaze travelled to the whiffler which Fox still held by the ribbons. He looked away quickly.

  ‘With that thing,’ Alleyn asked, ‘by any chance?’

  ‘Actually, yes.’

  ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘It was nothing, really. A bit of a dust-up about it being too sharp. He—ah—he tried to grab it away from—well from—’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ Alleyn said. ‘Ernie.’

  IV

  The shutters were down over the Private Bar and the room was deserted. Camilla went in and sat by the fire. Since last night she had felt the cold. It was as if some of her own natural warmth had deserted her. When the landlord had driven her and Trixie back to the pub from Mardian Castle, Camilla shivered so violently that they gave her a scalding toddy and two aspirins and Trixie put three stone hot-jugs in her bed. Eventually, she had dropped into a doze and was running away again from ‘Crack’. He was the big drum in a band. Somebody beat him with two swords making a sound like a fiddle. His jaws snapped, dreadfully close. She experienced the dream of frustrated escape. His breath was hot on her neck and her feet were leaden. Then there was Ralph with his arms strapped close about her, saying: ‘It’s all right. I’ll take care of you.’ That was heaven at first, but even that wasn’t quite satisfactory because Ralph was trying to stop her looking at something. In the over-distinct voice of nightmare, he said: ‘You don’t want to watch Ernie because it’s not most awfully nice.’ But Ernie jumped up on the dolmen and shouted at the top of his voice: ‘What price blood for the stone?’ T
hen all the Morris bells began to jingle like an alarm clock and she woke.

  Awake, she remembered how Ralph had, in fact, run to where she and Trixie stood and had told them to go to the car at once. That was after Ernie had fainted and Dame Alice had made her announcement. The landlord, Tom Plowman, had gone up to the stone and had been ordered away by Dr Otterly and Superintendent Carey. He drove the girls back to the pub and, on the way, told them in great detail what he had seen. He was very excited and pleased with himself for having looked behind the stone. In one of her dreams during the night, Camilla thought he made her look too.

  Now she sat by the fire and tried to get a little order into her thoughts. It was her grandfather who had been murdered, dreadfully and mysteriously, and it was her uncle who had exulted and collapsed. She herself, therefore, must be said to be involved. She felt as if she was marooned and deserted. For the first time since the event she was inclined to cry.

  The door opened and she turned, her hand over her mouth. ‘Ralph!’ she said.

  He came to her quickly and dragged up a chair so that he could sit and hold both her hands.

  ‘You want me now, Camilla,’ he said. ‘Don’t you?’

  CHAPTER 6

  Copse Forge

  Ralph had big hands. When they closed like twin shells over Camilla’s, her own felt imprisoned and fluttery like birds.

  She looked at his eyes and hair, which were black, at his face, which was lean and at his ears, which were protuberant and, at that moment, scarlet. ‘I am in love with Ralph,’ thought Camilla.

  She said: ‘Hallo, you. I thought we’d agreed not to meet again. After last Sunday.’

  ‘Thing of the past,’ Ralph said grandly.

  ‘You promised your father.’

  ‘I’ve told him I consider myself free. Under the circs.’

  ‘Ralph,’ Camilla said, ‘you mustn’t cash in on murder.’

  ‘Is that a very kind thing to say?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s not. I don’t mean I’m not glad to see you—but—well, you know.’

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘there are one or two things I’ve got to know. Important things. I’ve got to know them, Camilla. The first is: are you terribly upset about last night? Well, of course you are, but so much upset, I mean, that one just mustn’t bother you about anything. Or are you—oh, God, Camilla, I’ve never so much as kissed you and I do love you so much.’

  ‘Do you? No, never mind. About your first question: I just don’t know how I feel about Grandfather and that’s a fact. As far as it’s a personal thing—well, I scarcely even knew him ten days ago. But, since I got here, we’ve seen quite a lot of each other and—this is what you may find hard to believe—we kind of clicked, Grandfather and I.’

  Ralph said on an odd inflexion: ‘You certainly did that,’ and then looked as if he wished he hadn’t.

  Camilla, frowning with concentration, unconsciously laced her fingers through his.

  ‘You, of course,’ she said, ‘just think of him as a bucolic character. The Old Guiser. Wonderful old boy in his way. Not many left. Didn’t have much truck with soap and water. Half me felt like that about him: the Campion half. Smelly old cup of tea, it thought. But then I’d see my mother look out of his eyes.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I know.’

  ‘Do you? You can’t quite know, dear Ralph. You’re all of a piece: half Mardian, half Stayne. I’m an alloy.’

  ‘You’re a terrible old inverted snob,’ he said fondly, but she paid no attention to this.

  ‘But as for sorrow—personal grief,’ she was saying, ‘no. No. Not exactly that. It doesn’t arise. It’s the awful grotesquerie that’s so nightmarish. It’s like something out of Webster or Marlowe: horror-plus. It gives one the horrors to think of it.’

  ‘So you know what happened. Exactly, I mean?’

  She made a movement of her head indicating the landlord. ‘He saw. He told us: Trixie and me.’

  She felt a stillness in his hands: almost as if he would draw them away, but he didn’t do that. ‘The whole thing!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s so outlandish and sickening and ghastly. The way he was dressed and everything. And then one feels such pity.’

  ‘He couldn’t have known anything about it.’

  ‘Are you sure? How can you tell?’

  ‘Dr Otterly says so.’

  ‘And then—worst of all, unthinkably worst—the—what it was—the crime. You see, I can’t use the word.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ralph said. ‘There’s that.’

  Camilla looked at him with panic in her eyes. ‘The boys!’ she said. ‘They couldn’t. Any of them. Could they?’ He didn’t answer, and she cried out: ‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking about Ernie and—what he’s like. You’re remembering what I told you about the dog. And what you said happened with his sword? Aren’t you?’

  ‘All right,’ Ralph said. ‘I am. No, darling. Wait a bit. Suppose, just suppose it is that. It would be quite dreadful and Ernie would have to go through a very bad time and probably spend several years in a criminal lunatic asylum. But there’d be no question of anything worse than that happening to him. It’s perfectly obvious, if you’ll excuse me, darling, that old Ernie’s only about fifteen and fourpence in the pound.’

  ‘Well, I dare say it is,’ Camilla said, looking very white. ‘But to do that!’

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m going on to my next question. Please, answer it.’

  ‘I can guess—’

  ‘All right. Wait a bit. I’ve told you I love you. You said you were not sure how you felt and wanted to get away and think about it. Fair enough. I respected that and I’d have held off and not waited for you on Sunday if it hadn’t been for seeing you in church and—well, you know.’

  ‘Yes, well, we disposed of that, didn’t we?’

  ‘You were marvellously understanding. I thought everything was going my way. But then you started up this business. Antediluvian hooey! Because you’re what you choose to call an “alloy” you say it wouldn’t do for us to marry. Did you, by any chance, come down here to see your mother’s people with the idea of facing up to that side of it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Camilla said, ‘I did.’

  ‘You wanted to glower out of the smithy at the county riding by.’

  ‘In effect. Though it’s not the most attractive way of putting it.’

  ‘Do you love me, blast you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Camilla said wildly. ‘I do. So shut up.’

  ‘Not bloody likely! Camilla, how marvellous! How frightfully, frightfully nice of you to love me. I can’t get over it,’ said Ralph who, from emotion and rapture, had also turned white.

  ‘But I stick to my point,’ she said. ‘What’s your great-aunt going to say? What’s your father going to think? Ralph, can you look me in the eye and tell me they wouldn’t mind?’

  ‘If I look you in the eye I shall kiss you.’

  ‘Ah! You see? You can’t. And now—now when this has happened! There’ll be the most ghastly publicity, won’t there? What about that? What sort of fiancée am I going to be to a rising young county solicitor? Can you see the headlines? “History Repeats Itself!”

  “Mother ran away from Smithy to marry Baronet!” “Granddaughter of murdered Blacksmith weds Peer’s Grandson!” “Fertility Rite Leads to Engagement” Perhaps—perhaps—“Niece of—” What are you doing?’

  Ralph had got up and, with an air of determination, was buttoning his mackintosh. ‘I’m going,’ he said, ‘to send a telegraph to Auntie Times. Engagement announced between—’

  ‘You’re going to do nothing of the sort.’ They glared at each other. ‘Oh!’ Camilla exclaimed, flapping her hands at him, ‘what am I going to do with you? And how can I feel so happy?’

  She made an exasperated noise and bolted into his arms.

  Alleyn walked in upon this scene and with an apologetic ejaculation hurriedly walked out again.

  Neither Ralph nor Camilla was aware either of his entry
or of his withdrawal.

  II

  When they had left Bailey and Thompson to deal with certain aspects of technical routine in the old coach-house, Alleyn and Fox, taking Carey and Dr Otterly with them, had interviewed the Guiser’s five sons.

  They had found them crammed together in a tiny kitchen-living-room in the cottage next door to the coach-house. It was a dark room, its two predominant features being an immense iron range and a table covered with a plush cloth. Seated round this table in attitudes that were somehow on too large a scale for their environment, were the five Andersen sons: Daniel, Andrew, Nathaniel, Christopher and Ernest.

  Dr Otterly had knocked and gone in, and the others had followed him. Dan had risen, the others merely scraped their chair legs and settled back again. Carey introduced them.

  Alleyn was greatly struck by the close family resemblance among the Andersens. Even the twins were scarcely more like to each other than to the other three brothers. They were all big, sandy, blue-eyed men with fresh colour in their cheeks: heavy and powerful men whose muscles bulged hard under their countrymen’s clothing. Dan’s eyes were red and his hands not perfectly steady. Andy sat with raised brows as if in a state of guarded astonishment. Nat looked bashful and Chris angry. Ernie kept a little apart from his brothers. A faint, foolish smile was on his mouth and he grimaced; not broadly, but with a portentous air as if he was possessed of some hidden advantage.

  Alleyn and Fox were given a chair at the table. Carey and Dr Otterly sat on a horsehair sofa against the wall and were thus a little removed from the central party.

  Alleyn said: ‘I’m sorry to have to worry you when you’ve already had to take so much, but I’m sure that you’ll all want the circumstances of your father’s death to be cleared up as quickly as possible.’

  They made cautious sounds with their throats. He waited, and presently Dan said: ‘Goes without saying, sir. We want to get to the bottom of this. We’m kind of addleheaded and over-set, one way and t’other, and can’t seem to take to any notion.’