Fox said, “May we inquire where you’ll be yourself, Mr. Alleyn?”
“Oh,” Alleyn said, “here and there, Br’er Fox. Roaring up and down as a raging lion seeking whom I may devour. To begin with, in the Royal Box with the nobs, I daresay.”
“On the steps with Dame Alice Mardian?”
“That’s it. Now, one word more.” Alleyn looked from Fox, Bailey and Thompson to the five newcomers. “I suggest that each of us marks one particular man and marks him well. Suppose you, Fox, take Ernie Andersen. Bailey takes Simon Begg as ‘Crack,’ the Hobby. Thompson takes Ralph Stayne as the Betty, and the rest of you parcel out among you the boy in his grandfather’s role as the Fool and the other four sons as the four remaining dancers. That’ll be one each for us, won’t it? A neat fit.”
One of the newcomers, a Sergeant Yardley, said, “Er — beg pardon.”
“Yes, Yardley?”
“I must have lost count, sir. There’s nine of us, counting yourself, and I understood there’s only eight characters in this play affair, or dance, or whatever it is.”
“Eight characters,” Alleyn said, “is right. Our contention will be that there were nine performers; however.”
“Sorry, sir. Of course.”
“I,” Alleyn said blandly, “hope to keep my eye on the ninth.”
Young Bill Andersen might have sat to the late George Clauson for one of his bucolic portraits. He had a shock of tow-coloured hair, cheeks like apples and eyes as blue as periwinkles. His mouth stretched itself into the broadest grin imaginable and his teeth were big, white and far apart.
Carey brought him back on the pillion of his motor-bicycle and produced him to Alleyn as if he was one of the natural curiosities of the region.
“Young Bill,” Carey said, exhibiting him. “I’ve told him what he’s wanted for and how he’ll need to hold his tongue and be right smart for the job, and he says he’s able and willing. Come on,” he added, giving the boy a business-like shove. “That’s right, isn’t it? Speak up for yourself.”
“Ar,” said young Bill. He looked at Alleyn through his thick white lashes and grinned. “I’d like it,” he said.
“Good. Now, look here, Bill. What we want you to do is quite a tricky bit of work. It’s got to be cleverly done. It’s important. One of us would do it, actually, but we’re all too tall for the job, as you can see for yourself. You’re the right size. The thing is: do you know your stuff?”
“I know the Five Sons, sir, like the back of me yand.”
“You do? You know the Fool’s act, do you? Your grandfather’s act?”
“Certain-sure.”
“You watched it on Wednesday night, didn’t you?”
“So I did, then.”
“And you remember exactly what he did?”
“Ya-as.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Bill scratched his head. “Reckon I watched him, seeing what a terrible rage he was in. After what happened, like. And what was said.”
“What did happen?”
Bill very readily gave an account of the Guiser’s arrival and the furious change-over: “I ’ad to strip off Uncle Ern’s clothes and he ’ad to strip off Grandfer’s. Terrible quick.”
“And what was said?”
“Uncle Ern reckoned it’d be the death of Granfer, dancing. So did Uncle Chris. He’ll kill himself, Uncle Chris says, if he goes capering in the great heat of his rages. The silly old bastard’ll fall down dead, he says. So I was watching Granfer to see.”
Bill passed the tip of his tongue round his lips. “Terrible queer,” he muttered, “as it turned out, because so ’e did, like. Terrible queer.”
Alleyn said, “Sure you don’t mind doing this for us, Bill?”
The boy looked at him. “I don’t mind,” he declared and sounded rather surprised. “Suits me, all right.”
“And you’ll keep it as a dead secret between us? Not a word to anybody: top security.”
“Ya-as,” Bill said. “Surely.” A thought seemed to strike him.
“Yes?” Alleyn said. “What’s up?”
“Do I have to dress up in them bloody clothes of his’n?”
“No,” Alleyn said after a pause.
“Nor wear his ma-ask?”
“No.”
“I wouldn’t fancy thik.”
“There’s no need. We’ll fix you up with something light-coloured to wear and something over your face to look like a mask.”
He nodded, perfectly satisfied. The strange and innocent cruelty of his age and sex was upon him.
“Reckon I can fix that,” he said. “I’ll get me a set of pyjammers and I got a ma-ask of me own. Proper clown’s ma-ask.”
And then, with an uncanny echo of his Uncle Ernie, he said, “Reckon I can make proper old Fool of myself.”
“Good. And now, young Bill, you lay your ears back and listen to me. There’s something else we’ll ask you to do. It’s something pretty tricky, it may be rather frightening and the case for the police may hang on it. How do you feel about that?”
“Bettn’t I know what ’tis first?”
“Fair enough,” Alleyn said and looked pleased. “Hold tight, then, and I’ll tell you.”
He told young Bill what he wanted.
The blue eyes opened wider and wider. Alleyn waited for an expostulation, but none came. Young Bill was thirteen. He kept his family feeling, his compassion and his enthusiasms in separate compartments. An immense grin converted his face into the likeness of a bucolic Puck. He began to rub the palms of his hands together.
Evidently he was, as Superintendent Carey had indicated, a smart enough lad for the purpose.
Chapter XII
The Swords Again
The afternoon had begun to darken when the persons concerned in the Sword Wednesday Morris of the Five Sons returned to Mardian Castle.
Dr. Otterly came early and went indoors to present his compliments to Dame Alice and find out how she felt after last night’s carousal. He found the Rector and Alleyn were there already, while Fox and his assistants were to be seen in and about the courtyard.
At four o’clock the Andersens, with Sergeant Obby in attendance, drove up the hill in their station-waggon, from which they unloaded torches and a fresh drum of tar.
Superintendent Carey arrived on his motor-bike.
Simon appeared in his breakdown van with a new load of brushwood for the bonfire.
Ralph Stayne and his father walked up the hill and were harried by the geese, who had become hysterical.
Trixie and her father drove up with Camilla, looking rather white and strained, as their passenger.
Mrs. Bünz, alone this time, got her new car half-way up the drive and was stopped by one of Alleyn’s men, who asked her to leave the car where it was until further orders and come the rest of the way on foot. This she did quite amenably.
From the drawing-room window Alleyn saw her trudge into the courtyard. Behind him Dame Alice sat in her bucket chair. Dulcie and the Rector stood further back in the room. All of them watched the courtyard.
The preparations were almost complete. Under the bland scrutiny of Mr. Fox and his subordinates, the Andersens had re-erected the eight torches: four on each side of the dolmen.
“It looks just like it did on Sword Wednesday,” Dulcie pointed out, “doesn’t it, Aunt Akky? Fancy!”
Dame Alice made a slight contemptuous noise.