by Ngaio Marsh
“Gracious! Aunt Akky, fancy! Ernie!”
“Very nasty,” said Mr. Fox, who was holding the saucepan of punch over the drawing-room fire.
“A few moments later, Ralph Stayne came out with Ernie’s whiffler. He found Ernie and he found ‘Crack,’ squatting there, he says, like a great broody hen. Begg was hiding the decapitated Guiser with the only shield available — ‘Crack.’
“He told Stayne that Ernie was upset and he’d better leave him alone. Stayne returned the whiffler and went on round the wall to the O.P. entrance.
“Begg knew that if the body was found where it lay Stayne would remember how he saw him squatting there. He did the only thing possible. He sent Ernie back to the arena, threw the slasher on the fire and overturned the drum of tar to obliterate any traces of blood. It caught fire. Then he hitched ‘Crack’s’ harness over his own shoulders and returned to the arena. He carried the body in his arms and held the head by the strings of its bag-like mask, both ends of which became bloodstained. All this under cover of the great canvas body.
“At this time the final dance was in progress and the Five Sons were between their audience and the dolmen. ‘Crack’ was therefore masked by the stone and the dancers. Not that he needed any masking. He dropped the body — laid it, like an egg, in the depression behind the dolmen. This accounts for the state it was in when the Andersens found it. Begg leapt with suspicious alacrity at my suggestion that he might have tripped over it or knocked it with the edge of ‘Crack’s’ harness.”
“Oh, dear, Aunt Akky!”
“He was careful to help with the removal of the body, in order to account for any bloodstains on his clothes. When I told him we would search his clothes for bloodstains, he made his only mistake. His vanity tripped him up. He told us the story of his ferocious exploit in Germany and how, if a man was killed as the Guiser was supposed to have been killed, his assailant would be covered in blood. Of course we knew that, but the story told us that Begg had once been involved in unarmed combat with an old peasant and that he had been saved by one of his own men. A hedge-slasher had been involved in that story, too.”
Alleyn glanced at Dame Alice and Dulcie. “Is this altogether too beastly for you?” he asked.
“Absolutely ghastly,” Dulcie said. “Still,” she added in a hurry, “I’d rather know.”
“Don’t be ’ffected, Dulcie. ’Course you would. So’d I. Go on,” Dame Alice ordered.
“There’s not much more to tell. Begg hadn’t time to deliberate, but he hoped, of course, that with all those swords about it would be concluded that the thing was done while the Guiser lay behind the dolmen. He and Dr. Otterly were the only two performers who would be at once ruled out if this theory were accepted. He’s completely callous. I don’t suppose he minded much who might be accused, though he must have known that the only two who would really look likely would be Ernie, with the sharp sword, and Ralph Stayne, who pinched it and made great play slashing it round.”
“But he stuck up for Ernie,” Dr. Otterly said. “All through. Didn’t he?”
Fox sighed heavily. Dame Alice pointed to a magnificent silver punch bowl that was blackening in the smoke on the hearth. He poured the fragrant contents of the saucepan into it and placed it before her.
Alleyn said, “Begg wanted above all things to prevent us finding out about Ernie and the slasher. Once we had an inkling that the Guiser was killed offstage his improvised plan would go to pot. We would know that he was offstage and must have been present. He would be able, of course, to say that Ernie killed the Guiser and that he himself, wearing ‘Crack’s’ harness, was powerless to stop him. But there was no knowing how Ernie would behave: Ernie filled with zeal and believing he had saved his god and wiped out that father-figure who so persistently reappeared, always to Begg’s and Ernie’s undoing. Moreover, there was Mrs. Bünz, who had seen Begg strike his blow, though she didn’t realize he had struck to kill. He fixed Mrs. Bünz by telling her that we suspected her and that there was a lot of feeling against her as a German. Now he’s been arrested, she’s come across with a full statement and will give evidence.”
“What’ll happen?” Dame Alice asked, beginning to ladle out her punch.
“Oh,” Alleyn said, “we’ve a very groggy case, you know. We’ve only got the undeniable fact, based on medical evidence, that he was dead before Ernie struck. Moreover, in spite of Ernie, there may, with luck, be evidence of the actual injury.”
“Larynx,” Dr. Otterly said.
“Exactly.”
“What,” Dr. Otterly asked, “will he plead?
“His counsel may plump for self-defence: the Guiser went for him and his old unarmed-combat training took over. He defended himself instinctively.”
“Mightn’t it be true?”
“The Guiser,” Alleyn said, “was a very small and very old man. But, as far as that goes, I think Begg’s training did re-assert itself. Tickle a dog’s ribs and it scratches itself. There’s Begg’s temperament, make-up and experience. There are his present financial doldrums; there are his prospects if he can start his petrol station. There’s the Guiser, standing in his path. The Guiser comes at him like an old fury. Up goes the arm, in goes the edge of the hand. It was unpremeditated, but in my opinion he hit to kill.”
“Will he get off?” Dr. Otterly asked.
“How the bloody hell should I know!” Alleyn said with some violence. “Sorry, Dame Alice.”
“Have some punch,” said Dame Alice. She looked up at him out of her watery old eyes. “You’re an odd sort of feller,” she remarked. “Anybody’d think you were squeamish.”
Ralph took Camilla to call on his great-aunt.
“We’ll have to face it sooner or later,” he said, “and so will she.”
“I can’t pretend I’m looking forward to it.”
“Darling, she’ll adore you. In two minutes she’ll adore you.”
“Come off it, my sweet.”
Ralph beamed upon his love and untied the string that lecured the wrought-iron gates.
“Those geese!” Camilla said.
They were waiting in a solid phalanx.
“I’ll protect you. They know me.”
“And the two bulls on the skyline. The not very distant skyline.”
“Dear old boys, I assure you. Come on.”
“Up the Campions!” Camilla said. “If not the Andersens.”
“Up, emphatically, the Andersens,” Ralph said and held out his hand.
She went through the gates.
The geese did menacing things with their necks. Ralph shook his stick and they hissed back at him.
“Perhaps, darling, if you hurried and I held them at bay —”
Camilla panted up the drive. Ralph fought a rearguard action. The bulls watched with interest.
Ralph and Camilla stumbled breathless and handfast through the archway and across the courtyard. They mounted the steps. Ralph tugged at the phoney bell. It set up a clangour that caused the geese to scream, wheel and waddle indignantly away.
“That’s done it,” Ralph said and put his arm round Camilla.
They stood with their backs to the door and looked across the courtyard. The snow had gone. Grey and wet were the walls and wet the ground. Beyond the rear archway stood a wintry hill, naked trees and a windy sky.
And in the middle of the courtyard was the dolmen, very black, one heavy stone supported by two others. It looked expectant.
“ ‘Nine-men’s morris is filled up with mud,’ ” Camilla murmured.
“There were nine,” Ralph said. “Counting Mrs. Bünz.”
“Well,” she said under her breath, “that’s the last of the Mardian Morris of the Five Sons, isn’t it? Ralph! No one, not the boys or you or Dr. Otterly can ever want to do it again: ever, ever, ever. Can you? Can you?”
Ralph was saved from answering by Dulcie, who opened the great door behind them.
“How do you do?” Dulcie said to Camilla. “Do come in. Aunt
Akky’ll be delighted. She’s been feeling rather flat after all the excitement.” Ralph gently propelled Camilla into the hall. Dulcie shut the door.
“Aunt Akky,” she said, “does so like things to happen. She’s been saying what a long time it seems to next Sword Wednesday.”
The End
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