and a half till dinner,’ she said, ‘and you’m no doubt starved for a bite after travelling all night. Will you take something?’
They took three pints, which were increased to five on the arrival of Bailey and Thompson. They helped themselves to the hunks of food and settled down, finally, to Superintendent Carey’s report.
It was admirably succinct.
Carey, it appeared, had been present at the Dance of the Five Sons. He had walked over from Yowford, more out of habit than enthusiasm and not uninfluenced, Alleyn gathered, by the promise of Dame Alice’s Sword Wednesday punch.
Like everybody else, he had heard rumours of the Guiser’s indisposition and he had supposed that the Fool was played by Ernie. When he heard Dr Otterly’s announcement, he concluded that the Guiser had, after all, performed his part and that on his mock decapitation, which Mr Carey described vividly, he had died of a heart attack.
When, however, the Whiffler (now clearly recognizable as Ernie) had made his appalling announcement from the Mardian Dolmen, Carey had gone forward and spoken to Dr Otterly and the Rector. At the same time, Ernie’s brothers had hauled him off the stone. He then, without warning, collapsed into a fit from which he was recovered by Dr Otterly and, from then onwards, refused to speak to anybody.
After a word with the doctor, Carey had ordered the stragglers off the place and had then, and not till then, walked round the dolmen and seen what lay on the ground beyond it.
At this point Carey, quite obviously, had to take a grip of himself. He finished his pint and squared his shoulders.
‘I’ve seen things, mind,’ he said. ‘I had five years of it on active service and I didn’t reckon to be flustered. But this flustered me, proper. Partly, no doubt, it was the way he was got up. Like a clown with the tunic thing pulled up. It’d have been over his head if – well, never mind. He didn’t paint his face but he had one of these masks. It ties on like a bag and it hadn’t fallen off. So he looked, if you can follow me, gentlemen, like a kind of doll that the head had come off of. There was the body, sort of doubled up, and there was the head two feet away, grinning, which was right nasty, until Rector took the bag off, which he did, saying it wasn’t decent. And there was old Guiser’s face. And Rector put, as you may say, the pieces together, and said a prayer over them. I beg your pardon, Mr Alleyn?’
‘Nothing. Go on.’
‘Now, Ernie Andersen had made this statement, which I have repeated to the best of my memory, about the German lady having “done it”. I came out from behind where the remains was and there, to my surprise, the German lady stood. Kind of bewildered, if you can understand, she seemed to be, and axing me what had happened. “What is it? What has happened? Is he ill?” she said.
‘Now, Mr Alleyn, this chap, Ernie Andersen, is not what you’d call right smart. He’s a bit touched. Not simple exactly but not right. Takes funny turns. He was in a terrible state, kind of half frightened and half pleased with himself. Why he said what he did about Mrs Bünz, I can’t make out, but how a lady of, say, fifty-seven or so, could step out of the crowd and cut the head off a chap at one blow in full view of everybody and step back again without being noticed takes a bit of explaining. Still, there it was. I took a statement from her. She was very much put about.’
‘Well she might be.’
‘Just so. Denied knowing anything about it, of course. It seems she was latish getting to the castle. She’s bought a new car from Simmy-Dick Begg up to Yowford and couldn’t start it at first. Over-choked would be my bet. Everybody in the pub had gone early, Trixie, the barmaid, and the pot-boy having to help the Dame’s maids. Well, Mrs Bünz started her car at last and, when she gets to the corner, who should she see but the old Guiser himself.’
‘Old Guiser?’
‘That’s what we called William Andersen hereabouts. There he was, seemingly, standing in the middle of the lane shaking his fist and swearing something ghastly. Mrs Bünz stops and offers a lift. He accepts, but with a bad grace, because, as everybody knows, he’s taken a great unliking for Mrs Bünz.’
‘Why?’
‘On account of her axing questions about Sword Wednesday. The man was in mortal dread of it getting made kind of public and fretted accordingly.’
‘A purist, was he?’
‘That may be the word for it. He doan’t pass a remark of any kind going up to the castle and, when she gets there, he bolts out of the car and goes round behind the ruins to where the others was getting ready to begin. She says she just walked in and stood in the crowd which, to my mind, is no doubt what the woman did. I noticed her there myself, I remember, during the performance!’
‘Did you ask her if she knew why Ernie Andersen said she’d done it?’
‘I did, then. She says she reckons he’s turned crazy-headed with shock, which is what seems to be the general view.’
‘Why was the Guiser so late starting?’
‘Ah! Now! He’d been sick, had the Guiser. He had a bad heart and during the day he hadn’t felt too clever. Seems Dr Otterly, who played the fiddle for them, was against the old chap doing it at all. The boys (I call them boys but Daniel’s sixty if he’s a day) say their father went and lay down during the day and left word not to be disturbed. They’d fixed it up that Ernie would come back and drive his dad up in an old station-wagon they’ve got there, leaving it till the last so’s not to get him too tired.’
‘Ernie again,’ Alleyn muttered.
‘Well, axacly so, Mr Alleyn, and when Ernie returns it’s with a note from his dad which he found pinned to his door, that being the old Guiser’s habit, to say he can’t do it and Ernie had better. So they send the note in to Dr Otterly, who is having dinner with the Dame.’
‘What?’ Alleyn said, momentarily startled by this apparent touch of transatlantic realism. ‘Oh, I see, yes. Dame Alice Mardian?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Have you got the note?’
‘The doctor put it in his pocket, luckily, and I have.’
‘Good.’
Carey produced the old-fashioned billhead with its pencilled message: ‘Cant mannage it young Ern will have to. W. A.’
‘It’s his writing all right,’ he said. ‘No doubt of it.’
‘And are we to suppose he felt better, and decided to play his part after all and hitch-hiked with the lady?’
‘That’s what his sons reckon. It’s what they say he told them when he turned up.’
‘Do they, now!’
‘Pointing out that there wasn’t much time to say anything. Ernie was dressed up for his dad’s part … It’s what they call the Fool. So he had to get out of his clothes quick and dress up for his own part and Daniel’s boy, who was going to do Ernie’s part, was left looking silly. So he went round and joined the onlookers. And he confirms the story. He says that’s right, that’s what happened when the old chap turned up.’
