Death of a Fool

And young Bill, for his part, as if to clear his head, first shook it, then lowered it and finally dived at Simon and began to pummel his chest with both fists.

Simon shouted, “Hey! What the hell!” and grabbed the boy’s wrists.

Simultaneously Ernie came plunging through the archway from the arena.

“Where is ’e?” Ernie bawled. “Where the hell is the bastard?”

He saw Simon with the Fool’s figure in his grip. A terrible stillness came upon them all.

Then Ernie opened his mouth indecently wide and yelled, “Let ’im have it, then. I’ll finish ’im.”

Simon loosed his hold as if to free himself rather than his captive.

The boy in Fool’s clothing fell to the ground and lay there, mask upwards.

Ernie stumbled towards him. Alleyn and the three Yard men moved in.

“Leave ’im to me!” Ernie said.

“You clot,” Simon said. “Shut your great trap, you bloody clot. Corp! Do you hear me? Corp!”

Ernie looked at his own hands.

“I’ve lost my whiffler. Where’s ’tother job?”

He turned to the wall and saw the charred slasher. “Ar!” he said. “There she is.” He grabbed it, turned and swung it up. Alleyn and one of his men held him.

“Lemme go,” he said, struggling. “I got my orders. Lemme go.”

Mrs. Bünz screamed briefly and shockingly.

“What orders?”

“My Wing-Commander’s orders. Will I do it again, sir? Will I do it, like you told me? Again?”

Looking larger than human in the smoke of the bonfire, five men moved forward. They closed in about Simon.

Alleyn stood in front of him.

“Simon Richard Begg,” he said, “I am going to ask you for a statement, but before I do so I must warn you —”

Simon’s hand flashed. Alleyn caught the blow on his forearm instead of on his throat. “Not again,” he said.

It was well that there were five men to tackle Simon. He was experienced in unarmed combat and he was a natural killer.

Chapter XIII

The Swords Go In

“He’s a natural killer,” Alleyn said. “This is the first time, as far as we know, that it’s happened since he left off being a professional. If it is the first time it’s because until last Wednesday nobody had happened to a

“Yes, but fancy!” Dulcie said, coming in with a steaming grog tray. “He had such a good war record. You know he came down in a parachute and killed quantities of Germans with his bare hands all at once and escaped and got decorated.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said drily, “he’s had lots of practice. He told us about that. That was the last time.”

“D’you meantersay,” Dame Alice asked, handing Alleyn a bottle of rum and a corkscrew, “that he killed Will’m Andersen out of temper and nothin’ else?”

“Out of an accumulation of spleen and frustrated ambition and on a snap assessment of the main chance.”

“Draw that cork and begin at the begi

“Aunt Akky, shouldn’t you have a rest —”

“No.”

Alleyn drew the cork. Dame Alice poured rum and boiling water into a saucepan and began to grind up nutmeg. “Slice the lemons,” she ordered Fox.

Dr. Otterly said, “Frustrated ambition because of Copse Forge and the filling station?”

“That’s it.”

“Otters, don’t interrupt.”

“I daresay,” Alleyn said, “he’d thought often enough that if he could hand the old type the big chop, and get by, he’d give it a go. The boys were in favour of his scheme, remember, and he wanted money very badly.”

“But he didn’t plan this thing?” Dr. Otterly interjected and added, “Sorry, Dame Alice.”

“No, no. He only pla

“Completely. No almost about it,” Dame Alice said. “I couldn’t see her feet.”

“No. But you would have seen them if you’d lain down in a shallow depression in the ground a few inches away from her. As the Guiser did.”

“Hold the pot over the fire for a bit, one of you. Go on.”

“The Guiser, from his worm’s viewpoint, recognized her. There she was, looming over him, with ‘Crack’s’ carcass probably covering the groove where he lay and her rubber overshoes and hairy skirts showing every time she moved. He reached up and grabbed her. She screamed at the top of her voice and you all thought it was Begg trying to neigh. The Guiser was a very small man and a very strong one. He pinioned her arms to her body, kept his head down and ran her off.”

“That was when Ralph pinched Ernie’s sword?” Dr. Otterly ventured.

“That’s it. Once offstage, while he was still, as it were, tented up with her, the Guiser hauled her out of ‘Crack’s’ harness. He was gibbering with temper. As soon as he was free, a matter of seconds, he turned on Begg, who, of course, was waiting there for her. The Guiser went for Begg like a fury. It was over in a flash. Mrs. Bünz saw Begg hit him across the throat. It’s a well-known blow in unarmed combat, and it’s deadly. She also saw Ernie come charging offstage without his whiffler and in a roaring rage himself. Then she bolted.

“What happened after that, Ernie demonstrated for us to-night. He saw his god fell the Guiser. Ernie was in a typical epileptic’s rage and, as usual, the focal point of his rage was his father — the Old Man, who had killed his dog, frustrated his god’s plans and snatched the role of Fool away from Ernie himself at the last moment. He was additionally inflamed by the loss of his sword.

“But the slasher was there. He’d sharpened it and brought it up himself and he grabbed it as soon as he saw it.

“He said to-night that he was under orders and I’m sure he was. Begg saw a quick way out. He said something like this: ‘He tried to kill me. Get him, Corp!’ And Ernie, his mind seething with a welter of emotions and superstitions, did what he’d done to the aggressive gander earlier that day.”

“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.”