Death of a Fool

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 want the circumstances of your father’s death to be cleared up as quickly as possible.”

They made cautious sounds in 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 addle-headed and over-set, one way and ’tother, and can’t seem to take to any notion.”

“Look at it how you like,” Andy said, “it’s fair fantastical.”

There was a strong smell of stale tobacco-smoke in the room. Alleyn threw his pouch and a packet of cigarettes on the table. “Suppose we take our pipes to it,” he said. “Help yourselves.”

After a proper show of deprecation they did so: Ernie alone preferred a cigarette and rolled his own. He grimaced over the job, working his mouth and eyebrows. While they were still busy with their pipes and tobacco, Alleyn began to talk to them.

“Before we can even begin to help,” he said, “we’ll have to get as clear an account of yesterday’s happenings as all of you can give us. Now, Superintendent Carey has already talked to you and he’s given me a damn’ good report on what was said. I just want to take up one or two of his points and see if we can carry them a bit further. Let’s go back, shall we, to yesterday evening, about half an hour before the Dance of the Five Sons was due to start. All right?”

They were lighting their pipes now. They looked up at him guardedly and waited.

“I understand,” Alleyn went on, “that would be about half past eight. The performers were already at Mardian Castle, with the exception of Mr. William Andersen himself and his youngest son, Mr. Ernest Andersen. That right?”

Silence. Then Dan, who looked like becoming the spokesman, said, “Right enough.”

“Mr. William Andersen — may I for distinction use the name by which I’m told he was universally known — the Guiser? That means ‘the mummer,’ doesn’t it?”

“Literally,” Dr. Otterly said from the sofa, “it means ‘the disguised one.’ ”

“Lord, yes! Of course. Well, the Guiser, at half past eight, was still down here at the forge. And Mr. Ernest Andersen was either here too, or shortly to return here, because he was to drive his father up to the castle. Stop me if I go wrong.”

Silence.

“Good. The Guiser was resting in a room that opens off the smithy itself. When did he go there, if you please?”

“I can answer that one,” Dr. Otterly said. “I looked in at midday to see how he was and he wasn’t feeling too good. I told him that if he wanted to appear at all he’d have to take the day off — I said I’d come back later on and have another look at him. Unfortunately, I got called out on an urgent case and found myself ru

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “Thank you so much. Can we just take it from there? So he rested all day in his room. Any of you go and see how he was getting on?”

“Not us!” Chris said. “He wouldn’t have nobody anigh him when he was laying-by. Told us all to keep off.”

“So you went up to the castle without seeing him?”

Dan said, “I knocked on the door and says, ‘We’re off then,’ and, ‘Hoping to see you later,’ and Dad sings out, ‘Send Ern back at half past. I’ll be there.’ So we all went up along and Ern drove back at half past like he’d said.”

“Right.” Alleyn turned to Ernie and found him leaning back in his chair with his cigarette in his mouth and his hands clasped behind his neck. There was something so strained in this attitude that it suggested a kind of clumsy affectation. “Now, will you tell us just what happened when you came back for your father?”

“A-a-a-aw!” Ernie drawled, without looking at him. “I du

“Naow, naow, naow!” counselled his brothers anxiously.

“Was he still in his room?”

“Reckon so. Must of been,” Ernie said and laughed.

“Did you speak to him?”

“Not me.”

“What did you do?”

Nat said, “Ernie seen the message—”

“Wait a bit,” Alleyn said. “I think we’ll have it from him, if we may. What did you do, Ernie? What happened? You went into the forge, did you — and what?”

“He’d no call,” Ernie shouted astonishingly without changing his posture or shifting his gaze, “he’d no call to treat me like ’e done. Old sod.”

“Answer what you’re axed, you damned young fool,” Chris burst out, “and don’t talk silly.” The brothers all began to tell Alleyn that Ernie didn’t mean what he said.

Alleyn held up his hand and they stopped. “Tell me what happened,” he said to Ernie. “You went into the forge and what did you see?”

“Ar?” He turned his head and looked briefly at Alleyn. “Like Nat says. I seen the message pi

Alleyn drew from his coat pocket the copper-plate billhead with its pencilled message. It had been mounted between two sheets of glass by Bailey. He said,‘“Look at this, will you? Is this the message?”

Ernie took it in his hand and gave a great laugh. Fox took it away from him.

“What did you do then?” Alleyn asked.

“Me? Like what it says. ‘Young Ern,’ that’s me, ‘will have to.’ There was his things hanging up ready: mask, clothes and old rabbity cap. So I puts ’em on; quick.”

“Were you already dressed as the whiffling son?”

“Didn’t matter. I put ’em on over. Quiet like. ’Case he heard and changed his mind. Out and away, quick. Into old bus and up the road. Whee-ee-ee!” Ernie gave a small boy’s illustration of excessive speed. “I bet I looked right clever. I was the Fool, I was. Driving fast to the dance. Whee-ee-ee!”

Dan suddenly buried his face in his hands. “T’ain’t decent,” he said.

Alleyn took them through the scene after Ernie’s arrival. They said they had passed round the note and then sent it in to Dr. Otterly by Dan’s young son, Bill, who was then dressed and black-faced in his role of understudy. Dr. Otterly came out. The brothers added some last-minute instructions to the boy. When the clock struck nine, Dr. Otterly went into the courtyard with his fiddle. It was at that moment they all heard Mrs. Bünz’s car hooting and labouring up the drive. As they waited for their entrance-music, the car appeared round the outer curve of the old wall with the Guiser rampant in the passenger’s seat. Dr. Otterly heard the subsequent rumpus and went back to see what had happened.