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There the entry for Sword Wednesday ended.
“Extraordinarily interesting,” Alleyn said. “Thank you.” He shut the book and turned to Dr. Otterly. “Did the Guiser speak any of this verse?”
“I believe he did, but he was very cagey about it. He certainly used to mutter something at those points in the dance, but he wouldn’t tell anybody what it was. The boys were near enough to hear, but they don’t like talking about it, either. Damn’ ridiculous when you come to think of it,” Dr. Otterly said, slightly ru
“Did he ever see this diary, Dame Alice?”
“I showed it to him. One of the times when he’d come to mend the boiler. He put on a cu
“Would you think these lines, particularly the last four, are used in other places where folk dancing thrives?”
“Definitely not,” Dr. Otterly said, perhaps rather more loudly than he had intended. “They’re not in the Revesby text nor anywhere else in British ritual mumming. Purely local. Take the word ‘lover’ used as a verb. You still heard it hereabouts when I was a boy, but I doubt if it’s ever been found elsewhere in England. Certainly not in that context.”
Alleyn put his hand on the book and turned to his hostess. “Clever of you,” he said, “to think of showing me this. I congratulate you.” He got up and stood looking at her. She turned her Mrs. Noah’s face up to him and blinked like a lizard.
“Not goin’, are yer?”
“Isn’t it your bedtime?”
“Most certainly it is,” said Dr. Otterly, waving his cigar.
“Aunt Akky, it’s after ten.”
“Fiddlededee. Let’s have some brandy. Where’s the grog-tray? Ring the bell, Otters.”
The elderly parlour-maid answered the bell at once, like a servant in a fairy-tale, ready-armed with a tray, brandy-glasses and a bottle of fabulous cognac.
“I ’fer it at this stage,” Dame Alice said, “to havin’ it with the coffee. Papa used to say, ’When di
It was eleven o’clock when they left Mardian Castle.
Fox, ru
“You’re later than I expected, sir,” said Fox. “Shall I order you a pint?”
“Not unless you feel like carrying me up to bed after it. I’ve been carousing with the Dame of Mardian Castle. She may be ninety-four, Fox, but she carries her wine like a two-year-old, does that one.”
“God bless my soul! Sit down, Mr. Alleyn.”
“I’m all right. I must say I wonder how old Otterly’s managing under his own steam. He was singing the ‘Jewel Song’ from Faust in a rousing falsetto when we parted.”
“What did you have for di
“Ernie’s victim and sodden Brussels sprouts. The wine, however, was something out of this world. Laid down by one of the gods in the shape of Dame Alice’s papa. But the pièce de résistance, Br’er Fox, the wonder of the evening, handed to me, as it were, on a plate by Dame Alice herself, was — what do you suppose?”
“I don’t suppose, sir,” Fox said, smiling sedately.
‘The little odd golden morsel of information that clicks down into the pattern and pulls it together. The key to the whole damn’ set-up, my boy. Don’t look scandalized, Br’er Fox, I’m not so tight that I don’t know a crucial bit of evidence when it’s shoved under my nose. Have you heard the weather report?”
Mr. Fox began to look really disturbed. He cleared his throat and said warmer and finer weather had been predicted.
“Good,” Alleyn cried and clapped him on the back. “Excellent. You’re in for a treat.”
“What sort of treat,” Mr. Fox said, “for Heaven’s sake?”
“A touch of the sword and fiddle, Br’er Fox. A bit of hey-no
“Eh?”
“We’re in for a reconstruction, my boy, and I’ll tell you why. Now, listen.”
The mid-winter sun smiled faint as an invalid over South and East Mardian on the Friday after Sword Wednesday. It glinted on the breakfast tables of the Reverend Mr. Samuel Stayne and of his great-aunt, Dame Alice Mardian. It touched up the cruet-stand and the brita
Trixie sang and the potboy whistled louder but less sweetly than Simon. Camilla brushed her short hair before her open window and repeated a voice-control exercise. “Bibby bobby bounced a ball against the wall.” She thought how deeply she was in love and, like Simon, told herself it wasn’t appropriate to be so obviously uplifted. Then the memory of her grandfather’s death suddenly flooded her thoughts and her heart was filled with a vast pity and love, not only for him but for all the world. Camilla was eighteen and a darling.
Dame Alice woke from a light doze and felt for a moment quite desperately old. She saw a robin on her windowsill. Sharp as a thorn were its bright eyes and quick as thought the turn of its sun-polished head. Down below, the geese were in full scream. Dulcie would be pottering about in the dining-room. The wave of depression receded. Dame Alice was aware of her release but not, for a moment, of its cause. Then she remembered her di
“Breakfast,” she thought and jerked at the tapestry bell-pull by her bed.
Dulcie in the dining-room heard the bell jangling away in the servant’s hall. She roused herself, took the appropriate dishes off the hot plate and put them on the great silver tray. Porridge. Kedgeree. Toast. Marmalade. Coffee. The elderly parlour-maid came in and took the tray up to Dame Alice.
Dulcie was left to push crumbs about the tablecloth and hope that the police wouldn’t find the murderer too soon. Because, if they did, Mr. Alleyn, to whom she had shown herself as a woman of the world, would go somewhere else.
Ralph Stayne looked down the table at his father, who had, he noticed, eaten no breakfast.
“You’re looking a bit poorly, Pop,” he said. “Anything wrong?”
His father stared at him in pale bewilderment.
“My dear chap,” he said, “no. Not with me. But the — the events of the night before last—”
“Oh!” Ralph said, “that! Yes, of course. As long as it’s only that — I mean,” he went on hurriedly, answering the look in his father’s eye, “as long as it’s not anything actually wrong with you. Yes, I know it was ghastly about the poor Old Guiser. It was quite frightful.”