Death of a Fool

Camilla told herself it was ridiculous to feel nervous, but she continued to do so. She followed the enormous bulk of Mr. Fox down the narrow passage. Her throat became dry and her heart thumped. “Why?” she thought. “What have I got to get flustered about? This is ridiculous.”

Fox opened the door into the little sitting-room and said, “Miss Campion, Mr. Alleyn.” He beamed at Camilla and stepped aside for her. She walked in and was immeasurably relieved to find her friend, Dr. Otterly. Beyond him, at the far side of a table, was a tall dark man who stood up politely as she came in.

“Ah!” Dr. Otterly said, “here’s Camilla.”

Alleyn came round the table and Camilla found herself offering him her hand as if they had been introduced at a party.

“I hope,” he said, “you don’t mind giving us a few minutes.”

“Yes,” murmured Camilla. “I mean, no.”

Alleyn pushed forward a chair.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “it won’t be as bad as all that and Dr. Otterly’s here to see fair play. The watchword is ‘routine.’ ”

Camilla sat down. Like a good drama student, she did it beautifully without looking at the chair. “If I could pretend this was a mood-and-movement exercise,” she thought, ‘I’d go into it with a good deal more poise.”

Alleyn said, “We’re checking the order of events before and during the Dance of the Five Sons. You were there, weren’t you, for the whole time? Would you be very patient and give us an account of it? From your point of view?”

“Yes, of course. As well as I can. I don’t expect I’ll be terribly good.”

“Let’s see, anyway,” he suggested comfortably. “Now: here goes.”

Her account tallied in every respect with what he had already been told. Camilla found it easier than she would have expected and hadn’t gone very far before she had decided, with correct professional detachment, that Alleyn had “star-quality.”

When she arrived at the point where Simon Begg as “Crack,” the Hobby-Horse, did his improvisation, Camilla hesitated for the first time and turned rather pink.

“Ah, yes,” Alleyn said. “That was the tar-baby thing after the first general entrance, wasn’t it? What exactly is ‘Crack’s’ act with the tar?”

“It’s all rather ham, I’m afraid,” Camilla said grandly. “Folksy hokum.” She turned a little pinker still and then said honestly, “I expect it isn’t, really. I expect it’s quite interesting, but I didn’t much relish it because he came thundering after me and, for some ridiculous reason, I got flustered.”

“I’ve seen the head. Enough to fluster anybody in that light, I should imagine.”

“It did me, anyway. And I wasn’t all that anxious to have my best skiing trousers ruined. So I ran. It came roaring after me. I couldn’t get away because of all the people. I felt kind of cornered and faced it. Its body swung up — it hangs from a frame, you know. I could see his legs: he was wearing lightish-coloured trousers.”

“Was he?” Alleyn said with interest.

“Yes. Washed-out cords. Almost white. He always wears them. It was silly,” Camilla said, “to be rattled. Do you know, I actually yelled. Wasn’t it shaming? In front of all those village oafs.” She checked herself. “I don’t mean that. I’m half village myself and I daresay that’s why I yelled. Anyway, I did.”

“And then?”

“Well,” Camilla said, half laughing, “well, then I kind of made a bee-line for the Betty, and that was all right because it was Ralph Stayne, who’s not at all frightening.”

“Good,” Alleyn said, smiling at her. “And he coped with the situation, did he?”

“He was just the job. Masterful type: or he would have been if he hadn’t looked so low-comedy. Anyway, I took refuge in his bombazine bosom and ‘Crack’ sort of sloped off.”

“Where to?”

“He went sort of cavorting and frisking out at the back and everybody laughed. Actually, Begg does get pretty well into the skin of that character,” Camilla said with owlish professionalism.

Alleyn led her through the rest of the evening and was told nothing that he hadn’t already heard from Dr. Otterly. It was oddly touching to see how Camilla’s natural sprightliness faltered as she approached the moment of violence in her narrative. It seemed to Alleyn she was still so young that her spirit danced away from any but the most immediate and direct shock. “She’s vulnerable only to greenstick fracture of the emotion,” he thought. But, as they reached the point when her grandfather failed to re-appear and terror came upon the five sons, Camilla turned pale and pressed her hands together between her knees.

“I didn’t know in the slightest what had happened, of course. It was queer. One sort of felt there was something very much amiss and yet one didn’t exactly know, one felt it. Even when Dan called them and they all went and looked I — it was so silly, but I think I sort of wondered if he’d just gone away.”

“Ah!” Alleyn said quickly. “So he could have gone away during the dance and you mightn’t have noticed?”

Dr. Otterly sighed ostentatiously.

“Well — no,” Camilla said. “No, I’m sure he couldn’t. It would have been quite impossible. I was standing right over on the far side and rather towards the back of the stage. About O.P. second entrance, if you know where that is.”

Alleyn said he did. “So you actually could see behind the stone?”

“Sort of,” Camilla agreed and added in a worried voice, “I must stop saying ‘sort of.’ Ralph says I do it all the time. Yes, I could see behind the stone.”

“You could see him lying there?”

She hesitated, frowning. “I saw him crouch down after the end of the dance. He sat there for a moment, and then lay down. When he lay down, he sort — I mean, I really couldn’t see him. I expect that was the idea. He meant to hide. I think he must have been in a bit of a hollow. So I’d have noticed like anything if he’d got up.”

“Or, for the sake of argument, if anybody had offered him any kind of violence?”

“Good Heavens, yes!” she said, as if he’d suggested the ridiculous. “Of course.”

“What happened immediately after he sank out of sight? At the end of the dance?”

“They made a stage picture. The Sons had drawn their swords out of the lock. ‘Crack’ stood behind the stone looking like a sort of idol. Ralph stood on the prompt side and the Sons separated. Two of them stood on one side, near me, and two on the other and the fifth, the Whiffler — I knew afterwards it was Ernie — wandered away by himself. Ralph went round with the collecting thing and then Ralph snatched Ernie’s sword away and they had a chase. Ralph’s got rather a nice sense of comedy, actually. He quite stole the show. I remember ‘Crack’ was behind the dolmen about then so he ought to be able to tell you if there was anything — anything — wrong —”

“Yes. What did he do while he was there?”

“Nothing. He just stood. Anyway,” Camilla said rapidly, “he couldn’t do anything much, could he, in that harness? Nothing — nothing that would—”

“No,” Alleyn said, “he couldn’t. What did he do, in fact?”

“Well, he sort of played up to Ralph and Ernie. He gave a kind of falsetto scream — meant to be a neigh, I expect — and he went off at the back.”

“Yes? And then?”

“Then Ralph pretended to hide. He crouched down behind a heap of rubble and he’d still got Ernie’s sword. And Ernie went offstage looking for him.”

“You’re sure all this is in the right order?”

“I think so. One looked at it in terms of theatre,” said Camilla. “So, of course, one wouldn’t forget.”

“No,” Alleyn agreed with careful gravity, “one wouldn’t, would one? And then?”

“Then Uncle Dan did his solo and I rather think that was when the bonfire flared up.” She looked at Dr. Otterly. “Do you?”

“It was then. I was playing ‘Lord Mardian’s Fancy,’ which is Dan’s tune.”

“Yes. And Ralph came out of his hiding place and went off at the back. He must have returned his sword to Ernie and walked round behind the wall because he came on at the O.P. entrance. I call it ‘O.P.’ ”