Off with His Head

by Ngaio Marsh

She moistened her lips. ‘There was the entry of the Fool,’ she said.

  ‘What did he do, exactly?’

  She made an odd and very ineloquent gesture.

  ‘He goes round,’ she said. ‘Round and round.’

  ‘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.

  III

  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 baarstard 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 tarring 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 plonked whatever money she gave you, and I dare say a whole lot more, on Teutonic Dancer by Subsidize out of Substiteuton. 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!’

  Dan, using a prim voice, said: ‘Naow! Naow! Language!’

  They all glanced self-consciously at Dame Alice.

  It had been obvious to Alleyn that behind him Dame Alice was getting up steam. She now let it off by means literally of an attenuated hiss. The Andersens stared at her apprehensively.

  She went for them with a mixture of arrogance and essential understanding that must derive, Alleyn thought, from a line of coarse, aristocratic, overbearing landlords. She was The Old Englishwoman not only of Surtees but of Fielding and Wycherley and Jonson: a bully, and a harridan, but one who spoke with authority. The Andersens listened to her, without any show of servility but rather with the air of men who recognize a familiar voice among foreigners. She had only one thing to say to them and it was to the effect that if they didn’t perform she, the police, and everyone else would naturally conclude that they had united to make away with their father. She ended abruptly with an order to get on with it before she lost patience. Chris still refused to go on but his brothers, after a brief consultation, overruled him.

  Fox, who had been writing busily, exchanged satisfied glances with his chief.

  Alleyn said: ‘Now, Mrs Bünz. Are you ready?’

  Dr Otterly had been busy with the bandages and the pads of linen which now rested on Mrs Bünz’s shoulders like a pair of unwieldly epaulets.

  ‘You’re prepared, I see,’ Alleyn said, ‘to help us.’

  ‘I have not said.’

  Ernie suddenly bawled out: ‘Don’t bloody well let ’er. There’ll be trouble.’

  ‘That’ll do,’ Alleyn said, and Ernie was silent. ‘Well, Mrs Bünz?’

  She turned to Simon. Her face was the colour of lard and she smiled horridly. ‘Wing-Commander Begg, you as much as I, are implicated in this idle prank. Should I repeat?’

  Simon took her gently round the waist. ‘I don’t see why not, Mrs B.,’ he said. ‘You be a good girl and play ball with the cops. Run along now.’

  He gave her a facetious pat. ‘Very well,’ she said, and produced a sort of laugh. ‘After all, why dot?’

  So she went out by the side archway and Simon by the centre one. Dr Otterly struck up his fiddle again.

  It was the tune that had ushered in the Fool. Dr Otterly played the introduction and, involutarily, performers and audience alike looked at the rear archway where on Sword Wednesday the lonely figure in its dolorous mask had appeared. The archway gaped enigmatically upon the night. Smoke from the bonfire drifted across the background and occasional sparks crossed it like fireflies. It had an air of expectancy.

  ‘But this time there won’t be a Fool,’ Dulcie pointed out. ‘Will there, Aunt Akky?’

  Dame Alice had opened her mouth to speak. It remained open but no voice came out. The Rector ejaculated sharply and rose from his chair. A thin, shocking sound, half laughter and half scream, wavered across the courtyard. It had been made by Ernie and was echoed by Trixie.

  Through the smoke, as if it had been evolved from the same element, came the white figure: jog, jog, getting clearer every second. Through the archway and into the arena: a grinning mask, limp arms, a bauble on a stick, and bent legs.

  Dr Otterly, after an astonished discord, went into the refrain of Lord Mardian’s Fancy. Young Bill, in the character of the Fool, began to jog round the courtyard. It was as if a clockwork toy had been rewound.

  Alleyn joined Fox by the rear archway. From here he could still see the Andersens. The four elder brothers were reassuring each other. Chris looked angry, and the others mulish and affronted. But Ernie’s mouth gaped and his hands twitched and he watched the Fool like a fury. Offstage, through the archway, Alleyn was able to see Mrs Bünz’s encounter with Simon. She came round the outside curve of the wall and he met her at the bonfire. He began to explain sheepishly to Alleyn.

  ‘We’d fixed it up like this,’ Simon said. ‘I met her here. We’d plenty of time.’

  ‘Why on earth didn’t you tell us the whole of this ridiculous story at once?’ Alleyn asked.

  Simon mumbled. ‘i don’t expect you to credit it but I was cobs with the boys. They’re a good shower of bods. I knew how they’d feel if it ever got out. And anyway it doesn’t look so hot, does it? For all I knew, you might get thinking things.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Well, you know. With murder about.’

  ‘You have been an ass,’ Alleyn said.

  ‘I wouldn’t have done it only I wanted the scratch like hell.’ He added impertinently: ‘Come to that, why didn’t you tell us you were going to rig up an understudy? Nasty jolt he gave us, didn’t he, Mrs B? Come on, there’s a big girl. Gently does it.’

  Mrs Bünz, who seemed to be shattered into acquiescence, sat on the ground. He tipped up the great cylinder of ‘Crack’s’ body, exposing the heavy shoulder straps under the canvas top and the buckled harness. He lowered it gently over Mrs Bünz. ‘Arms through the leathers,’ he said.

  The ringed canvas neck which lay concertina-ed on the top of the cylinder now swelled at the base. Simon leant over and adjusted it, and Mrs Bünz’s pixie cap appeared through the top. He lifted the head on its flexible rod and then introduced the rod into the neck. ‘Here it comes,’ he said. Mrs Bünz’s hands could be seen grasping the end of the rod.

  ‘It fits into a socket in the harness,’ Simon explained. The head now stood like some monstrous blossom on a thin stalk above the body. Simon drew up the canvas neck. The pixie cap disappeared. The top of the neck was made fast to the head and Mrs Bünz contemplated the world through a sort of window in the canvas.

  ‘The hands are free underneath,’ Simon said, ‘to work the tail string.’ He grinned. ‘And to have a bit of the old woo if you catch your girlie. I didn’t, worse luck. There you are. The Doc’s just coming up with the tune for the first sword dance. On you go, Mrs B. Not to worry. We don’t believe in spooks, do we?’

  And Mrs Bünz, subdued to the semblance of a prehistoric bad dream, went through the archway to take part in the Mardian Sword Dance.

  Simon squatted down by the bonfire and reached for a burning twig to light his cigarette.

  ‘Poor old B.,’ he said, looking after Mrs Bünz. ‘But still.’

  IV

  Camilla had once again run away from the Hobby into Ralph Stayne’s arms and once again he stayed beside her.

  She had scarcely recovered from the shock of the Fool’s entrance and kept looking into Ralph’s face to reassure herself. She found his great extinguisher of a skirt and his queer bi-sexual hat rather offputting. She kept remembering stories Trixie had told her of how in earlier times the Betties had used the skirt. They had popped it over village girls, Trixie said, and had grabbed hold of them through the slits in the sides and carried them away. Camilla would have jeered at herself heartily if she had realized that even though Ralph had only indulged in a modified form of this piece of horseplay, she intensely disliked the anecdote. Perhaps it was because Trixie had related it.

  She looked at Ralph now and, after the habit of lovers, made much of the qualities she thought she saw in him. His mouth was set and his eyebrows were drawn together in a scowl. ‘He’s terribly sensitive, really,’ Camilla told herself. ‘He’s hating this business as much in his way as I am in mine. And,’ she thought, ‘I dare say he’s even angrier because Simon Begg chased me again.’ This thought cheered her immensely.

  They watched young Bill doing his version of his grandfather’s first entry and the ceremonial trot round the courtyard. He repeated everything quite correctly and didn’t forget to slap the dolmen with his clown’s bauble.

  ‘And that’s what Mrs Bünz didn’t know about,’ Ralph muttered.

  ‘Who is it?’ Camilla wondered. ‘He knows it all, doesn’t he? It’s horrible.’

  ‘It’s that damned young Bill,’ Ralph muttered. ‘There’s nobody else who does
know. By heaven, when I get hold of him—’

  Camilla said: ‘Darling, you don’t think—?’

  He turned his head and looked steadily at Camilla for a moment before answering her.

  ‘I don’t know what to think,’ he said at last. ‘But I know damn’ well that if the Guiser had spotted Mrs Bünz dressed up as “Crack” he’d have gone for her like a fury.’

  ‘But nothing happened,’ Camilla said. ‘I stood here and I looked and nothing happened.’

  ‘I know,’ he said.

  ‘Well then—how? Was he carried off? Or something?’ Ralph shook his head.

  Dr Otterly had struck up a bouncing introduction. The Five Sons, who had removed their bells, took up their swords and came forward into position. And through the central archway jogged the Hobby Horse, moving slowly.

  ‘Here she comes,’ Camilla said. ‘You’d never guess, would you?’

  Alleyn and Fox reappeared and stood inside the archway. Beyond them lit by the bonfire was Simon.

  The Sons began the first part of the Triple Sword Dance.

  They had approached their task with a lowering and reluctant air. Alleyn wondered if there was going to be a joint protest about the re-enactment of the Fool. Ernie hadn’t removed his gaze from the dolorous mask. His eyes were unpleasantly brilliant and his face glistened with sweat. He came forward with his brothers and had an air of scarcely knowing what he was about. But there was some compulsion in the music. They had been so drilled by their father and so used to executing their steps with a leap and a flourish that they were unable to dance with less than the traditional panache. They were soon hard at it, neat and vigorous, rising lightly and coming down hard. The ring of steel was made. Each man grasped his successor’s sword by its red ribbon. The lock or knot was formed. Dan raised it aloft to exhibit it and it glittered in the torchlight. Young Bill approached and looked at the knot as if at his reflection in a glass.

  A metallic rumpus broke out on the steps. It was Dame Alice indulging in a wild cachinnation on her hunting-horn.

  Dr Otterly lowered his bow. The dancers, the Betty and the Hobby Horse were motionless.