Death of a Fool ra-19

by Ngaio Marsh

  “They may get it — now,” Alleyn said without emphasis. “And Simon may climb out of the red.”

  “He’s scarcely going to murder William Andersen,” Dr. Otterly pointed out acidly, “on the off-chance of the five sons putting up five petrol pumps. Apart from the undoubted fact that, wherever Begg himself may have got to last night, the Guiser certainly didn’t leave the stage after he walked on to it and I defy you to perform a decapitation when you’re trussed up in ‘Crack’s’ harness. Besides, I like Begg; ghastly as he is, I like him.”

  “All right. I know. I didn’t say a thing.”

  “You are not, I hope,” Dr. Otterly angrily continued, “putting on that damned superior-sleuth act: ‘you have the facts, my dear — whatever the stooge’s name is.’ ”

  “Not I.”

  “Well, you’ve got some damned theory up your sleeve, haven’t you?”

  “I’m ashamed of it.”

  “Ashamed?”

  “Utterly, Otterly.”

  “Ah, hell!” Dr. Otterly said in disgust.

  “Come with us to Begg’s garage. Keep on listening. If anything doesn’t tally with what you remember, don’t say a word unless I tip you the wink. All right? Here we go.”

  In spite of the thaw, the afternoon had grown deadly cold. Yowford Lane dripped greyly between its hedgerows and was choked with mud and slush. About a mile along it, they came upon Simmy-Dick’s Service Station in a disheartened-looking shack with Begg’s car standing outside it. Alleyn pulled up at the first pump and sounded his horn.

  Simon came out, buttoning up a suit of white overalls with a large monogram on the pocket: witness, Alleyn suspected, to a grandiloquent beginning. When he saw Alleyn, he grinned sourly and raised his eyebrows.

  “Hullo,” Alleyn said. “Four, please.”

  “Four what? Coals of fire?” Simon said, and moved round to the petrol tank.

  It was an unexpected opening and made things a good deal easier for Alleyn. He got out of the car and joined Simon.

  “Why coals of fire?” he asked.

  “After me being a rude boy this morning.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “It’s just that I know what a clot Ernie can make of himself,” Simon said, and thrust the nose of the hosepipe into the tank. “Four, you said?”

  “Four. And this is a professional call, by the way.”

  “I’m not all that dumb,” Simon grunted.

  Alleyn waited until the petrol had gone in and then paid for it. Simon tossed the change up and caught it neatly before handing it over. “Why not come inside?” he suggested. “It’s bloody cold out here, isn’t it?”

  He led the way into a choked-up cubby-hole that served as his office. Fox and Dr. Otterly followed Alleyn and edged in sideways.

  “How’s the Doc?” Simon said. “Doing a Watson?”

  “I’m beginning to think so,” said Dr. Otterly. Simon laughed shortly.

  “Well,” Alleyn began cheerfully, “how’s the racing-news?”

  “Box of birds,” Simon said.

  “Teutonic Dancer do any good for herself?”

  Simon looked sharply at Fox. “Who’s the genned-up type?” he said. “You?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Begg. I heard you on the telephone.”

  “I see.” He took out his cigarettes, frowned over lighting one and then looked up with a grin. “I can’t keep it to myself,” he said. “It’s the craziest thing. Came in at twenty-seven to one. Everything else must have fallen down.”

  “I hope you had something on.”

  “A wee flutter,” Simon said and again the corners of his mouth twitched. “It was a dicey do, but was it worth it! How’s the Doc?” he repeated, again aware of Dr. Otterly.

  “Quite well, thank you. How’s the garage proprietor?” Dr. Otterly countered chillily.

  “Box of birds.”

  As this didn’t seem to be getting them anywhere, Alleyn invited Simon to give them his account of the Five Sons.

  He started off in a very business-like way, much, Alleyn thought, as he must have given his reports in his bomber-pilot days. The delayed entrance, the arrival of the Guiser, “steamed-up” and roaring at them all. The rapid change of clothes and the entrance. He described how he began the show with his pursuit of the girls.

  “Funny! Some of them just about give you the go-ahead signal. I could see them through the hole in the neck. All giggles and girlishness. Half-windy, too. They reckon it’s lucky or something.”

  “Did Miss Campion react like that?”

  “The fair Camilla? I wouldn’t have minded if she had. I made a very determined attempt, but not a chance. She crash-landed in the arms of another bod. Ralphy Stayne. Lucky type!”

  He grinned cheerfully round. “But, still!” he said. It was a sort of summing up. One could imagine him saying it under almost any circumstances.

  Alleyn asked him what he did after he’d finished his act and before the first morris began. He said he had gone up to the back archway and had a bit of a breather.

  “And during the morris?”

  “I just sort of bummed around on my own.”

  “With the Betty?”

  “I think so. I don’t remember exactly. I’m not sort of officially ‘on’ in that scene.”

  “But you didn’t go right off?”

  “No, I’m meant to hang round. I’m the animal-man. God knows what it’s all in aid of, but I just sort of trot round on the outskirts.”

  “And you did that last night?”

  “That’s the story.”

  “You didn’t go near the dancers?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Nor the dolmen?”

  “No,” he said sharply.

  “You couldn’t tell me, for instance, exactly what the Guiser did when he slipped down to hide?”

  “Disappeared as usual behind the stone, I suppose, and lay doggo.”

  “Where were you at that precise moment?”

  “I don’t remember exactly.”

  “Nowhere near the dolmen?”

  “Absolutely. Nowhere near.”

  “I see,” Alleyn said, and was careful not to look at Dr. Otterly. “And then? After that? What did you do?”

  “I just hung round for a bit and then wandered up to the back.”

  “What was happening in the arena?”

  “The Betty did an act and after that Dan did his solo.”

  “What was the Betty’s act?”

  “Kind of ad lib. In the old days, they tell me, ‘she’ used to hunt down some bod in the crowd and tuck him under her petticoats. Or she’d come on screeching and, presently, there’d be a great commotion under the crinoline and out would pop some poor type. You can imagine, a high old time was had by all.”

  “Mr. Stayne didn’t go in for that particular kind of clowning?”

  “Who — Ralphy? Only very mildly. He’s much too much the gentleman, if you know what I mean.”

  “What did he do?” Alleyn persisted.

  “Honest, I’ve forgotten. I didn’t really watch. Matter of fact, I oozed off to the back and had a smoke.”

  “When did you begin to watch again?”

  “After Dan’s solo. When the last dance began. I came back for that.”

  “And then?”

  After that, Simon’s account followed the rest. Alleyn let him finish without interruption and was then silent for so long that the others began to fidget and Simon Begg stood up.

  “Well,” he said, “if that’s all—”

  “I’m afraid it’s nothing like all.”

  “Hell!”

  “Let us consider,” Alleyn said, “your story of your own movements during and immediately after the first dance — this dance that was twice repeated and ended with the mock decapitation. Why do you suppose that your account of it differs radically from all the other accounts we have had?”

  Simon glanced at Dr. Otterly and assumed a tough and mulish expression.


  “Your guess,” he said, “is as good as mine.”

  “We don’t want to guess. We’d like to know. We’d like to know, for instance, why you say you trotted round on the outskirts of the dance and that you didn’t go near the dancers or the dolmen. Dr. Otterly here and all the other observers we have consulted say that, as a matter of fact, you went up to the dolmen at the moment of climax and stood motionless behind it.”

  “Do they?” he said. “I don’t remember everything I did. Perhaps they don’t either. P’r’aps you’ve been handed a lot of duff gen.”

  “If that means,” Dr. Otterly said, “that I may have laid false information, I won’t let you get away with it. I am absolutely certain that you stood close behind the dolmen and therefore so close to where the Guiser lay that you couldn’t fail to notice him. Sorry, Alleyn. I’ve butted in.”

  ‘That’s all right. You see, Begg, that’s what they all say. Their accounts agree.”

  “Too bad,” Simon said.

  “If, in fact, you did stand behind the dolmen when he hid behind it you must have seen exactly what the Guiser did.”

  “I didn’t see what the Guiser did. I don’t remember being behind the stone. I don’t think I was near enough to see.”

  “Would you make a statement, on oath, to that effect?”

  “Why not?”

  “And that you don’t remember exactly what the clowning act was between the Betty and Ernest Andersen?”

  “Didn’t he and Ralphy have a row about his whiffler? Come to think of it, I believe I oozed off before they got going.”

  “No, you didn’t. Sorry, Alleyn,” said Dr. Otterly.

  “We are told that ‘Crack,’ who was watching them, gave a sort of neighing sound before he went off by the rear archway. Did you do that?”

  “I might have. Daresay. Why the heck should I remember?”

  “Because, up to the point when you finished tarring the village maidens and the dance-proper began, you remember everything very clearly. Then we get this period when you’re overtaken by a sort of mental miasma, a period that covers the ritual of the Father and the Five Sons culminating in the mock death. Everybody else agrees about where you were at the moment of the climax: behind the dolmen, they tell us, standing stock still. You insist that you don’t remember going near the dolmen.”

  “That’s right,” Simon said very coolly and puckered his lips in a soundless whistle. “To the best of my remembrance, you know.”

  “I think I’d better tell you that, in my opinion, this period, from the end of your improvisation until your return (and, incidentally, the return of your memory) covers the murder of William Andersen.”

  “I didn’t hand him the big chop,” Simon said. “Poor old bastard.”

  “Have you any notion who did?”

  “No.”

  “I do wish,” Alleyn said vexedly, “you wouldn’t be such an ass — if you are being an ass, of course.”

  “Will that be all, Teacher?”

  “No. How well do you know Mrs. Bünz?”

  “I never met her till she came down here.”

  “You’ve sold her a car, haven’t you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Any other transactions?”

  “What the hell do you mean?” Simon asked very quietly.

  “Did you come to any understanding about Teutonic Dancer?”

  Simon shifted his shoulders with a movement that reminded Alleyn of Mrs. Bünz herself. “Oh,” he said. “That.” He seemed to expand and the look of irrepressible satisfaction appeared again. “You might say the old dear brought me that bit of luck. I mean to say: could you beat it? Teutonic Dancer by Subsidize out of Substitution? Piece of cake!”

  “Subsidize?”

  “Yes. Great old sire, of course, but the dam isn’t so hot.”

  “Did they give you any other ideas?”

  “Who?”

  “Subsidize and Substitution?”

  “I don’t,” Simon said coolly, “know what you mean.”

  “Let it go, then. What clothes did you wear last night?”

  “Clothes? Oldest I’ve got. By the time the party was over, I looked pretty much like the original tar-baby myself.”

  “What were they?”

  “A heavy R.A.F. sweater and a pair of old cream slacks.”

  “Good,” Alleyn said. “May we borrow them?”

  “Look here, I don’t much like this. Why?”

  “Why do you think? To see if there’s any blood on them.”

  “Thanks,” said Simon turning pale, “very much!”

  “We’ll be asking for everybody’s.”

  “Safety in numbers?” He hesitated and then looked again at Dr. Otterly. “Not my job,” he muttered, “to try and teach the experts. I know that. All the same—”

  “Come on,” Alleyn said. “All the same, what?”

  “I just happen to know. Anybody buys his bundle that way, there isn’t just a little blood.”

  “I see. How do you happen to know?”

  “Show I was in. Over Germany.”

  “Can you elaborate a bit?”

  “It’s not all that interesting. We got clobbered and I hit the silk the same time as she exploded.”

  “His bomber blew up and they parachuted down,” Dr. Otterly translated drily.

  “That’s the story,” Simon agreed.

  “Touch and go?” Alleyn hazarded.

  “You can say that again.” Simon drew his brows together. His voice was unemphatic and without dramatic values, yet had the authentic colour of vivid recollection.

  “I could see the Jerries before I hit the deck. Soon as I did they bounced me. Three of them. Two went the hard way. But the third, a little old tough-looking type he was, with a hedge-cutter, came up behind while I was still busy with his cobs. I turned and saw him. Too late to cope. I’d have bought it if one of my own crew hadn’t come up and got operational. He used his knife.”

  Simon made an all too graphic gesture. “That’s how I know,” he said. “O.K., isn’t it, Doc? Buckets of blood?”

  “Yes,” Dr. Otterly agreed. “There would be.”

  “Yes. Which ought to make it a simple story,” Simon said and turned to Alleyn. “Oughtn’t it?”

  “The story,” Alleyn said, “would be a good deal simpler if everyone didn’t try to elaborate it. Now, keep still. I haven’t finished with you yet. Tell me this: as far as I can piece it out, you were either up at the back exit or just outside it when Ernie Andersen came backstage.”

  “Just outside it’s right.”

  “What happened?”

  “I told you. After the morris, I left Ralphy to it. I could hear him squeaking away and the mob laughing. I had a drag at a gasper and took the weight off the boots. Then the old Corp — that’s Ernie, he was my batman in the war — came charging out in one of his tantrums. I couldn’t make out what was biting him. After a bit, Ralphy turned up and gave Ernie his whiffler. Ralphy started to say, ‘I’m sorry,’ or something like that, but I told him to beat it. So he did.”

  “And then?”

  “Well, then it was just about time for me to go back. So I did. Ernie went back, too.”

  “Who threw tar on the bonfire?”

  “Nobody. I knocked the drum over with the edge of ‘Crack’s’ body. It’s a dirty big clumsy thing. Swings round. I jolly nearly went on fire myself,” Simon reflected with feeling. “By God, I did.”

  “So you went back to the arena? You and Ernie?”

  “That’s the story.”

  “Where exactly did you go?”

  “I don’t know where Ernie got to. Far as I remember, I went straight in.” He half shut his eyes and peered back through the intervening hours. “The boys had started their last dance. I think I went fairly close to the dolmen that time because I seem to remember it between them and me. Then I sheered off to the right and took up my position there.”

  “Did you notice the Guiser lyin
g behind the dolmen?”

  “Sort of. Poor visibility through the hole in that canvas neck. And the body sticks out like a great shelf just under your chin. It hides the ground for about three feet all round you.”

  “Yes, I see. Do you think you could have kicked anything without realizing you’d done it?”

  Simon stared, blinked and looked sick. “Nice idea I must say,” he said with some violence.

  “Do you remember doing so?”

  He stared at his hands for a moment, frowning.

  “God, I don’t know. I don’t know. I hadn’t remembered.”

  “Why did you stop Ernie Andersen answering me when I asked if he’d done this job?”

  “Because,” Simon said at once, “I know what Ernie’s like. He’s not more than nine-and-fivepence in the pound. He’s queer. I sort of kept an eye on him in the old days. He takes fits. I knew. I fiddled him in as a batman.” Simon began to mumble. “You know, same as the way he felt about his ghastly dog, I felt about him, poor old bastard. I know him. What happened last night got him all worked up. He took a fit after it happened, didn’t he, Doc? He’d be just as liable to say he’d done it as not. He’s queer about blood and he’s got some weird ideas about this dance and the stone and what-have-you. He’s the type that rushes in and confesses to a murder he hasn’t done just for the hell of it.”

  “Do you think he did it?” Alleyn said.

  “I do not. How could he? Only time he might have had a go, Ralphy had pinched his whiffler. I certainly do not.”

  “All right. Go away and think over what you’ve said. We’ll be asking you for a statement and you’ll be subpoenaed for the inquest. If you’d like, on consideration, to amend what you’ve told us, we’ll be glad to listen.”

  “I don’t want to amend anything.”

  “Well, if your memory improves.”

  “Ah, hell!” Simon said disgustedly and dropped into his chair.

  “You never do any good,” Alleyn remarked, “by fiddling with the facts.”

  “Don’t you just,” Simon rejoined with heartfelt emphasis and added, “You lay off old Ern. He hasn’t got it in him: he’s the mild one in that family.”