“All right. I daresay not. You said, just now, I think, that Miss Campion had refused to see you. Does that mean you haven’t spoken to each other since you’ve been in South Mardian?”
“I really fail to understand —”
“I’m sure you don’t. See here, now. Here’s an old man with his head off, lying on the ground behind a sacrificial stone. Go back a bit in time. Here are eight men, including the old man, who performed a sort of play-dance as old as sin. Eight men,” Alleyn repeated and vexedly rubbed his nose. “Why do I keep wanting to say ‘nine’? Never mind. On the face of it, the old man never leaves the arena, or dance-floor, or stage, or whatever the hell you like to call it. On the face of it, nobody offered him any violence. He dances in full view. He has his head cut off in pantomime and in what, for want of a better word, we must call fun. But it isn’t really cut off. You exchanged signals with him after the fun, so we know it isn’t. He hides in a low depression. Eight minutes later, when he’s meant to resurrect and doesn’t, he is found to be genuinely decapitated. That’s the story everybody gives us. Now, as a reasonably intelligent chap and a solicitor into the bargain, don’t you think that we want to know every damn’ thing we can find out about those eight men and anybody connected with them?”
“You mean — just empirically. Hoping something will emerge?”
“Exactly. You know very well that where nothing apropos does emerge, nothing will be made public.”
“Oh, no, no, no,” Ralph ejaculated irritably. “I suppose I’m being tiresome. What was this blasted question? Have I spoken to Camilla since we both came to South Mardian? All right, I have. After church on Sunday. She’d asked me not to, but I did because the sight of her in church was too much for me.”
“That was your only reason?”
“She was upset. She’d come across Ernie howling over a dead dog in the copse.”
“Bless my soul!” Alleyn ejaculated. “What next in South Mardian? Was the dog called Keeper?”
Ralph grinned. “I suppose it is all a bit Brontë. The Guiser had shot it because he said it wasn’t healthy, which was no more than God’s truth. But Ernie cut up uncommonly rough and it upset Camilla.”
“Where did you meet her?”
“Near the forge. Coming out of the copse.”
“Did you see the Guiser on this occasion?”
After a very long pause, Ralph said, “Yes. He came up.”
“Did he realize that you wanted to marry his grand-daughter?”
“Yes.”
“And what was his reaction?”
Ralph said, “Unfavourable.”
“Did he hold the same views that she does?”
“More or less.”
“You discussed it there and then?”
“He sent Camilla away first.”
“Will you tell me exactly all that was said?”
“No. It was nothing to do with his death. Our conversation was entirely private.”
Fox contemplated the point of his pencil and Dr. Otterly cleared his throat.
“Tell me,” Alleyn said abruptly, “this thing you wear as the Betty — it’s a kind of Stone Age crinoline to look at, isn’t it?”
Ralph said nothing.
“Am I dreaming it, or did someone tell me that it’s sometimes used as a sort of extinguisher? Popped over a girl so that she can be carried off unseen? Origin,” he suggested facetiously, “of the phrase ‘undercover girl’? Or ‘undercover man,’ of course.”
Ralph said quickly and easily, “They used to get up to some such capers, I believe, but I can’t see how they managed to carry anybody away. My arms are outside the skirt thing, you know.”
“I thought I noticed openings at the sides.”
“Well — yes. But with the struggle that would go on —”
“Perhaps,” Alleyn said, “the victim didn’t struggle.”
The door opened and Trixie staggered in with two great buckets of coal.
“Axcuse me, sir,” she said. “You-all must be starved with cold. Boy’s never handy when wanted.”
Ralph had made a movement towards her as if to take her load, but had checked awkwardly.
Alleyn said, “That’s much too heavy for you. Give them to me.”
“Let be, sir,” she said, “no need.”
She was too quick for him. She set one bucket on the hearth and, with a sturdy economy of movement, shot half the contents of the other on the fire. The knot of reddish hair shone on the nape of her neck. Alleyn was reminded of a Brueghel peasant. She straightened herself easily and turned. Her face, blunt and acquiescent, held, he thought, its own secrets and, in its mode, was attractive.
She glanced at Ralph and her mouth widened.
“You don’t look too clever yourself, then, Mr. Ralph,” she said. “Last night’s ghastly business has overset us all, I reckon.”
“I’m all right,” Ralph muttered.
“Will there be anything, sir?” Trixie asked Alleyn pleasantly.
“Nothing at the moment, thank you. Later on in the day sometime, when you’re not too busy, I might ask for two words with you.”
“Just ax,” she said. “I’m willing if wanted.”
She smiled quite broadly at Ralph Stayne. “Bean’t I, Mr. Ralph?” she asked placidly and went away, swinging her empty bucket.
“Oh, God!” Ralph burst out, and, before any of them could speak, he was gone, slamming the door behind him.
“Shall I —?” Fox said and got to his feet.
“Let him be.”
They heard an outer door slam.
“Well!” Dr. Otterly exclaimed with mild concern, “I must say I’d never thought of that!”
“And nor, you may depend upon it,” Alleyn said, “has Camilla.”
Chapter VIII
Question of Fact
When afternoon closing-time came, Trixie pulled down the bar shutters and locked them. Simon Begg went into the Private. There was a telephone in the passage outside the Private and he had put a call through to his bookmaker. He wanted, if he could, to get the results of the 1.30 at Sandown. Teutonic Dancer was a rank outsider. He’d backed it both ways for a great deal more than he could afford to lose and had already begun to feel that, if he did lose, it would in some vague way be Mrs. Bünz’s fault. This was both ungracious and illogical.
For many reasons, Mrs. Bünz was the last person he wanted to see and, for an equal number of contradictory ones, she was the first. And there she was, the picture of uncertainty and alarm, huddled, snuffling, over the parlour fire with her dreadful cold and her eternal notebooks.
She had bought a car from Simon, she might be his inspiration in a smashing win. One way and another, they had done business together. He produced a wan echo of his usual manner.
“Hullo-’llo! And how’s Mrs. B. today?” asked Simon.
“Unwell. I have caught a severe cold in the head. Also, I have received a great shawk. Last night in the pawk was a terrible, terrible shawk.”
“You can say that again,” he agreed glumly, and applied himself to the Sporting News.
Suddenly, they both said together, “As a matter of fact—” and stopped, astonished and disconcerted.
“Ladies first,” said Simon.
“Thank you. I was about to say that, as a matter of fact, I would suggest that our little transaction — Ach! How shall I say it? — should remain, perhaps —”
“Confidential?” he ventured eagerly.
“That is the word for which I sought. Confidential.”
“I’m all for it, Mrs. B. I was going to make the same suggestion myself. Suits me.”
“I am immensely relieved. Immensely. I thank you, Wing-Commander. I trust, at the same time — you do not think — it would be so shawkink — if—”
“Eh?” He looked up from his paper to stare at her. “What’s that? No, no, no, Mrs. B. Not to worry. Not a chance. The idea’s laughable.”
“To me it is not amusink but I am glad you find it so,” Mrs. Bünz said stuffily. “You read something of interest, perhaps, in your newspaper?”
“I’m waiting. Teutonic Dancer. Get me? The one-thirty?”
Mrs. Bünz shuddered.
“Oh, well!” he said. “There you are. I follow the form as a general thing. Don’t go much for gimmicks. Still! Talk about coincidence! You couldn’t go past it, really, could you?” He raised an admonitory finger. The telephone had begun to ring in the passage. “My call,” he said. “This is it. Keep your fingers crossed, Mrs. B.”