“Tell me,” Alleyn said, “why did you say the German lady killed your father?”
Chris Andersen had come into the smithy doorway. Ernie and Simon had their backs turned to him.
Ernie said, “I never. What I said, she done it.”
“Ah, for Pete’s sake!” Simon ejaculated. “Go on! Go right ahead. I daresay he knows, and, anyway, it couldn’t matter less. Go on.”
But Ernie seemed to have been struck by another thought. “Wummen!” he observed. “It’s them that’s the trouble, all through, just like what the Guiser reckoned. Look at our Chris.”
The figure standing in the over-dramatic light from the smithy turned its head, stirred a little and was still again.
“What about him?” Alleyn asked very quietly and lifted a warning finger at Simon.
Ernie assumed a lordly off-hand expression. “You can’t,” he said, “tell me nothing I don’t know about them two,” and incontinently began to giggle.
Fox suddenly said, “Is that so? Fancy!”
Ernie glanced at him. “Ar! That’s right. Him and Trix.”
“And the Guiser?” Alleyn suggested under his breath.
Ernie gave a long affirmative whistle.
Chris moved down towards them and neither Simon nor Ernie heard him. Alleyn stamped in the snow as if to warm his feet, keeping time with Chris.
Simon appealed to Alleyn. “Honest to God,” he said, “I don’t know what this one’s about. Honest to God.”
“What’s it all about, Corp?” Simon began obediently. “Where did the Guiser come into it? What’s the gen? Come on.”
Ernie, always more reasonable with Simon than with anyone else, said at once, “Beg pardon, sir. I was meaning about Trix and what I told the Guiser I seen. You know. Her and Mr. Ralph.”
Simon said, “Hell!” and to Alleyn, “I can’t see this is of any interest to you, you know.”
Chris was close behind his brother.
“Was there a row about it?” Alleyn asked Ernie. “On Sunday?”
Ernie whistled again, piercingly.
Chris’s hand closed on his brother’s arm. He twisted Ernie round to face him.
“What did I tell you?” he said, and slapped him across the face.
Ernie made a curious sound, half whimper, half giggle. Simon, suddenly very tough indeed, shouldered between them.
“Was that necessary?” he asked Chris.
“You mind your own bloody business,” Chris rejoined. He turned on his heel and went back into the smithy. Fox, after a glance at Alleyn, followed him.
“By God!” Simon said thoughtfully. He put his arm across Ernie’s shoulders.
“Forget it, Corp,” he said. “It’s like what I said: nobody argues with the dumb. You talk too much, Corp.” He looked at Alleyn. “Give him a break, sir,” Simon said. “Can’t you?”
But Ernie burst out in loud lamentation. “Wummen!” he declared. “There you are! Like what the old man said. They’re all the same, that lot. Look what the fureigness done on us. Look what she done.”
“All right,” Alleyn said. “What did she do?”
“Easy on, easy, now, Corp. What did I tell you?” Simon urged very anxiously and looked appealingly at Alleyn. “Have a heart,” he begged. He moved towards Ernie and checked abruptly. He stared at something beyond the rear of Alleyn’s car.
Out of range of the light from the smithy, but visible against the background of snow and faintly illuminated by a hurricane lanthorn that one of them carried, were three figures. They came forward slowly into the light and were revealed.
Dr. Otterly, Mrs. Bünz and Ralph Stayne.
Mrs. Bünz’s voice sounded lonely and small on the night air and had no more endurance than the jets of frozen breath that accompanied it. It was like the voice of an invalid.
“What is he saying about me? He is speaking lies. You must not believe what he tells you. It is because I was a German. They are in league against me. They think of me as an enemy, still.”
“Go on, Ernie,” Alleyn said.
“No!” Ralph Stayne shouted, and then, with an air that seemed to be strangely compounded of sheepishness and defiance, added:
“She’s right. It’s not fair.”
Dr. Otterly said, “I really do think, Alleyn —”
Mrs. Bünz gabbled, “I thank you. I thank you, gentlemen.” She moved forward.
“You keep out of yur,” Ernie said and backed away from her. “Don’t you go and overlook us’ns.”
He actually threw up his forearm as if to protect himself, turned aside and spat noisily.
“There you are!” Simon said angrily to Alleyn. “That’s what that all adds up to.”
“All right, all right,” Alleyn said.
He looked past Simon at the smithy. Fox had come out and was massively at hand. Behind him stood the rest of the Andersen brothers, fitfully illuminated. Fox and one of the other men had torches and, whether by accident or design, their shafts of light reached out like fingers to Mrs. Bünz’s face.
It was worth looking at. As the image from a lantern slide that is being withdrawn may be momentarily overlaid by its successor, so alarm modulated into fanaticism in Mrs. Bünz’s face. Her lips moved. Out came another little jet of breath. She whispered, “Wunderbar!” She advanced a pace towards Ernie, who at once retired upon his brothers. She clasped her hands and became lyrical.
“It is incredible,” Mrs. Bünz whispered, “and it is very, very interesting and important. He believes me to have the Evil Eye. It is remarkable.”
Without a word, the five brothers turned away and went back into the smithy.
“You are determined, all of you,” Alleyn said with unusual vehemence, “to muck up the course of justice, aren’t you? What are you three doing here?”
They had walked down from the pub, it appeared. Mrs. Bünz wished to send a telegram and to buy some eucalyptus from the village shop, which she had been told would be open. Ralph was on his way home. Dr. Otterly had punctured a tyre and was looking for an Andersen to change the wheel for him.
“I’m meant to be dining with you at the castle,” he said. “Two nights running, I may tell you, which is an acid test, metaphorically and clinically, for any elderly stomach. I’ll be damn’ late if I don’t get moving.”
“I’ll drive you up.”
“Like me to change your wheel, Doc?” Simon offered.
“I didn’t expect you’d be here. Yes, will you, Begg? And do the repair? I’ll pick the car up on my way back and collect the wheel from your garage to-morrow.”
“Okey-doke, sir,” Simon said. “I’ll get cracking, then.” He tramped off, whistling self-consciously.
“Well,” Ralph Stayne said from out of the shadows behind Alleyn’s car, “I’ll be off, too, I think. Good-night.”
They heard the snow squeak under his boots as he walked away.
“I also,” said Mrs. Bünz.
“Mrs. Bünz,” Alleyn said, “do you really believe it was only the look in your eye that made Ernie say what he did about you?”
“But yes. It is one of the oldest European superstitions. It is fascinating to find it. The expression ‘overlooking’ proves it. I am immensely interested,” Mrs. Bünz said rather breathlessly.
“Go and send your telegram,” Alleyn rejoined crossly. “You are behaving foolishly, Mrs. Bünz. Nobody, least of all the police, wants to bully you or dragoon you or brain-wash you, or whatever you’re frightened of. Go and get your eucalyptus and snuff it up and let us hope it clears your head for you. Guten Abend, Mrs. Bünz.”
He walked quickly up the path to Fox.
“I’ll hand you all that on a plate, Fox,” he said. “Keep the tabs on Ernie. If necessary, we’ll have to lock him up. What a party! All right?”