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“Woman,” he observed. “In the lane. Looks familiar. Dogs.”
“It’s Miss Dulcie Mardian.”
“Fu
“What?”
“Go for walks with dogs.”
“She’s coming into the pub.”
“All that fatuous tarradiddle,” Dr. Otterly suddenly fulminated, “about where he was during the triple sword-dance! Saying he didn’t go behind the dolmen. Sink me, he stood there and squealed like a colt when he saw Ralph grab the sword. I don’t understand it and I don’t like it. Lies.”
Alleyn said, “I don’t think Simon lied.”
“What!”
“He says that during the first dance, the triple sword-dance, he was nowhere near the dolmen. I believe that to be perfectly true.”
“But, rot my soul, Alleyn — I swear —”
“Equally, I believe that he didn’t see Ralph Stayne grab Ernest Andersen’s sword.”
“Now, look here—”
Alleyn turned to Dr. Otterly. “Of course he wasn’t. He was well away from the scene of action. He’d gone offstage to keep a date with a lady-friend.”
“A date? What lady-friend, for pity’s sake?”
Trixie came in.
“Miss Dulcie Mardian,” she said, “to see Mr. Alleyn, if you please.”
Chapter IX
Question of Fancy
Alleyn found it a little hard to decide quite how addlepated Dulcie Mardian was. She had a strange vague smile and a terribly inconsequent ma
She waited for him in the tiny entrance hall of the Green Man. She wore a hat that had been mercilessly sat upon, an old hacking waterproof and a pair of down-at-heel Newmarket boots. She carried a stick. Her dogs, a bull-terrier and a spaniel, were on leashes and had wound them round her to such an extent that she was tied up like a parcel.
“How do you do,” she said. “I won’t come in. Aunt Akky asked me to say she’d be delighted if you’d dine to-night. Quarter past eight for half past and don’t dress if it’s a bother. Oh, yes, I nearly forgot. She’s sorry it’s such short notice. I hope you’ll come because she gets awfully cross if people don’t, when they’re asked. Goodbye.”
She plunged a little but was held firmly pinioned by her dogs and Alleyn was able to say, “Thank you very much,” collect his thoughts and accept.
“And I’m afraid I can’t change,” he added.
“I’ll tell her. Don’t, dogs.”
“May I —?”
“It’s all right, thank you. Ill kick them a little.”
She kicked the bull-terrier, who rather half-heartedly snapped back at her.
“I suppose,” Dulcie said, “you ran away to be a policeman when you were a boy.”
“Not exactly.”
“Isn’t it awful about old William? Aunt Akky’s furious. She was in a bad mood anyway because of Ralph and this has put her out more than ever.”
Trixie came through the passage and went into the public bar.
“Which reminds me,” Dulcie said, but didn’t elucidate which reminded her of what. It was much too public a place for Alleyn to pursue the conversation to any professional advantage, if there was any to be had. He asked her if she’d come into their improvised office for a few minutes and she treated the suggestion as if it were an improper advance.
“No, thank you,” she said, attempting to draw herself up but greatly hampered by her dogs. “Quite impossible, I’m afraid.”
Alleyn said, “There are one or two points about this case that we’d like to discuss with you. Perhaps, if I come a little early tonight? Or if Dame Alice goes to bed early, I might —”
“I go up at the same time as my aunt. We shall be an early party, I’m afraid,” Dulcie said, stiffly. “Aunt Akky is sure you’ll understand.”
“Of course, yes. But if I might have a word or two with you in private—”
He stopped, noticing her agitation.
Perhaps her involuntary bondage to the bull-terrier and the spaniel had put into Dulcie’s head some strange fantasy of jeopardized maidenhood. A look of terrified bravado appeared on her face. There was even a trace of gratification.
“You don’t,” Dulcie astoundingly informed him, “follow with the South Mardian and Adjacent Hunts without learning how to look after yourself. No, by Jove!”
The bull-terrier and the spaniel had begun to fight each other. Dulcie beat them impartially and was forced to accept Alleyn’s help in extricating herself from a now quite untenable position.
“Hands off,” she ordered him brusquely as soon as it was remotely possible for him to leave her to her own devices. “Behave yourself,” she advised him, and was suddenly jerked from his presence by the dogs.
Alleyn was left rubbing his nose.
When he rejoined the others, he asked Dr. Otterly how irresponsible he considered Miss Mardian to be.
“Dulcie?” Dr. Otterly said. “Well—”
“In confidence.”
“Not certifiable. No. Eccentric, yes. Lot of in-breeding there. She took a bad toss in the hunting-field about twenty years ago. Kicked on the head. Never ridden since. She’s odd, certainly.”
“She talked as if she rode to hounds every day of the week.”
“Did she? Odd, yes. Did she behave as if you were going to make improper proposals?”
“Yes.”
“She does that occasionally. Typical spinster’s hallucination. Dame Alice thinks she waxes and wanes emotionally with the moon. I’d give it a more clinical classification, but you can take your choice. And now, if you don’t mind, Alleyn, I really am ru
“Yes, of course.”
“I won’t ask you for an explanation of your extraordinary pronouncement just now. Um?”
“Won’t you? That’s jolly big of you.”
“You go to hell,” Dr. Otterly said without much rancour and took himself off.
Fox said, “Bailey and Thompson have rigged up a workroom somewhere in the barn and got cracking on dabs. Carey saw the gardener’s boy from the castle. He went down yesterday with the note from the gardener himself about the slasher. He didn’t see the Guiser. Ernie took the note in to him and came back and said the Guiser would do the job if he could.”
“I thought as much.”
“Carey’s talked to the lad who was to stand in for Ernie: Dan’s boy, he is. He says his grand-dad arrived on the scene at the last moment. Ernie was dressed up in the Guiser’s clothes and this boy was wearing Ernie’s. The Guiser didn’t say much. He grabbed Ernie and tried to drag the clothes off of him. Nobody explained anything. They just changed over and did the show.”
“Yes, I see. Let’s take another dollop of fresh air, Fox, and then I think I’ll have a word with the child of nature.”
“Who? Trixie?”
“That, as Mr. Begg would say, is the little number. A fine, cheerful job straight out of the romps of Milkwood. Where’s the side door?”
They found it and walked out into the back yard.
“And there,” Alleyn said, “is the barn. They rehearsed in here. Let’s have a look, shall we?”
They walked down the brick path and found themselves by a little window in the rear of the barn. A raincoat had been hung over it on the inside. “Bailey’s,” Alleyn said. “They’ll be hard at it.”
He stood there, filling his pipe and looking absently at the small window. “Somebody’s cleaned a peephole on the outside,” he said. “Or it looks like a peephole.”
He stooped down while Fox watched him indulgently. Between the brick path and the wall of the barn there was a strip of un-melted snow.
“Look,” Alleyn said and pointed.
Mrs. Bünz had worn rubber overboots with heels. Night after night she had stood there and, on the last night, the impressions she made had frozen into the fresh fall of snow. It was a bitterly cold, sheltered spot and the thaw had not yet reached it. There they were, pointing to the wall, under the window: two neat footprints over the ghosts of many others.