Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 7: Off With His Head, Singing in the Shrouds, False Scent. Ngaio Marsh
was a drum for their dancing. They made their ring of steel, each holding another’s sword by its red ribbon and they wove their knot and held it up before the Fool who peered at it as if it were a looking-glass. ‘Crack’ edged closer. Then the Fool made his undramatic gesture and broke the knot.
‘Ernie’s doing quite well,’ said the Rector.
The dance and its sequel were twice repeated. On the first repetition, the Fool made as if he wrote something and then offered what he had written to his Sons. On the second repetition, ‘Crack’ and the Betty came forward. They stood to the left and right of the Fool, who, this time, was behind the Mardian Dolmen. The Sons, in front of it, again held up their knot of locked swords. The Fool leant across the stone and put his head within the knot. The Hobby Horse moved in behind him and stood motionless, looking in that flickering light, like some monstrous idol. The fiddling stopped dead. The onlookers were very still. Beyond the wall the bonfire crackled.
Then the Sons drew their swords suddenly with a great crash. Horridly the rabbit’s head dropped on the stone. A girl in the crowd screamed. The Fool slithered down behind the stone and was hidden.
‘Really,’ Dulcie said, ‘it makes one feel quite odd, don’t you think, Aunt Akky?’
A kind of interlude followed. The Betty went round with an object like a ladle into which everybody dropped a coin.
‘Where’s it goin’?’ Dame Alice asked.
‘The belfry roof, this year,’ the Rector replied, and such is the comfortable attitude of the Church towards the remnants of fertility ritual-dancing in England that neither he nor anybody else thought this at all remarkable.
Ralph, uplifted perhaps by his encounter with Camilla, completed his collection and began a spirited impromptu. He flirted his vast crinoline and made up to several yokels in his audience. He chucked one under the chin, tried to get another to dance with him and threw his crinoline over a third. He was a natural comedian and his antics raised a great roar of laughter. With an elaborate pantomime, laying his finger on his lips, he tiptoed up behind the Whiffler, who stood swinging his sword by its red ribbon. Suddenly Ralph snatched it away. The Hobby Horse, who was behind the dolmen, gave a shrill squeak and went off. The Betty ran and the Whiffler gave chase. These two grotesques darted here and there, disappeared behind piles of stones and flickered uncertainly through the torchlight. Ralph gave a series of falsetto screams, dodged and feinted, and finally hid behind a broken-down buttress near the rear entrance. The Whiffler plunged past him and out into the dark. One of the remaining Sons now came forward and danced a short formal solo with great exactness and spirit. ‘That’ll be Dan,’ said Dulcie Mardian.
‘He cuts a very pretty caper,’ said the Rector.
From behind the battlemented wail at the back a great flare suddenly burst upwards with a roar and a crackle.
‘They’re throwin’ turpentine on the fire,’ Dame Alice said. ‘Or somethin’.’
‘Very naughty,’ said the Rector.
Ralph, who had slipped out by the back entrance, now returned through an archway near the house, having evidently run round behind the battlements. Presently, the Whiffler, again carrying his sword, reappeared through the back entrance and joined his brothers. The solo completed, the Five Sons then performed their final dance. ‘Crack’ and the Betty circled in the background, now approaching and now retreating from the Mardian Dolmen.
‘This,’ said Dulcie, ‘is where the Old Man rises from the dead. Isn’t it, Sam?’
‘Ah – yes. Yes. Very strange,’ said the Rector, broadmindedly.
‘Exciting.’
‘Well –’ he said uneasily.
The Five Sons ended their dance with a decisive stamp. They stood with their backs to their audience pointing their swords at the Mardian Dolmen. The audience clapped vociferously.
‘He rises up from behind the stone, doesn’t he, Aunt Akky?’
But nobody rose up from behind the Mardian Dolmen. Instead, there was an interminable pause. The swords wavered, the dancers shuffled awkwardly and at last lowered their weapons. The jigging tune had petered out.
‘Look, Aunt Akky. Something’s gone wrong.’
‘Dulcie, for God’s sake hold your tongue.’
‘My dear Aunt Akky.’
‘Be quiet, Sam.’
One of the Sons, the soloist, moved away from his fellows. He walked alone to the Mardian Dolmen and round it. He stood quite still and looked down. Then he jerked his head. The brothers moved in, They formed a semi-circle and they, too, looked down: five glistening and contemplative blackamoors. At last their faces lifted and turned, their eyeballs showed white and they stared at Dr Otterly.
His footfall was loud and solitary in the quietude that had come upon the courtyard.
The Sons made way for him. He stooped, knelt, and in so doing disappeared behind the stone. Thus, when he spoke, his voice seemed disembodied like that of an echo.
‘Get back! All of you. Stand away!’
The five Sons shuffled back. The Hobby Horse and the Betty, a monstrous couple, were motionless.
Dr Otterly rose from behind the stone and walked forward. He looked at Dame Alice where she sat enthroned. He was like an actor coming out to bow to the Royal Box, but he trembled and his face was livid. When he had advanced almost to the steps he said loudly:
‘Everyone must go. At once. There has been an accident.’ The crowd behind him stirred and murmured.
‘What’s up?’ Dame Alice demanded. ‘What accident? Where’s the Guiser?’
‘Miss Mardian, will you take your aunt indoors? I’ll follow as soon as I can.’
‘I will if she’ll come,’ said Dulcie, practically.
‘Please, Dame Alice.’
‘I want to know what’s up.’
‘And so you shall.’
‘Who is it?’
‘The Guiser. William Andersen.’
‘But he wasn’t dancing,’ Dulcie said foolishly. ‘He’s ill.’
‘Is he dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wait a bit.’
Dame Alice extended her arm and was at once hauled up by Dulcie. She addressed herself to her guests.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Must ’pologize for askin’ you to leave, but as you’ve heard there’s bin trouble. Glad if you’ll just go. Now. Quietly. Thankee. Sam, I don’t want you.’
She turned away and without another word went indoors, followed by Dulcie.
The Rector murmured, ‘But what a shocking thing to happen! And so dreadful for his sons. I’ll just go to them, shall I? I suppose it was his heart, poor old boy.’
‘Do you?’ Dr Otterly asked.
The Rector stared at him. ‘You look dreadfully ill,’ he said, and then: ‘What’s happened?’
Dr Otterly opened his mouth but seemed to have some difficulty in speaking.
He and the Rector stared at each other. Villagers still moved across the courtyard and the dancers were still suspended in immobility. It was as if something they all anticipated had not quite happened.
Then it happened.
The Whiffler was on the Mardian Dolmen. He had jumped on the stone and stood there, fantastic against the snow. He paddled his feet in ecstasy. His mouth was redly open and he yelled