Death of a Fool by Ngaio Marsh Page A

him to be it. We’ve eight chaps ready to swear he dressed himself up for it and went out with the rest.”
    “And stayed there in full view until —”
    Mr. Carey took a long pull at his tankard, set it down, wiped his mouth and clapped his palm on the table.
    “There you are!” he declaimed. “Until they made out in their dance, or play, or whatever you like to call it, that they were cutting his head off. Cripes!” Mr. Carey added in a changed voice, “I can see him as if it was now. Silly clown’s mask sticking through the knot of swords and then — k-r-r-ring — they’ve drawn their swords. Down drops the rabbit’s head and down goes Guiser, out of sight behind the stone. You wouldn’t credit it, would you? In full view of up to sixty persons.”
    “Are you suggesting —? No,” Alleyn said, “you can’t be.”
    “I was going to ask you, Super,” Fox said. “You don’t mean to say you think they may actually have beheaded the old chap then and there!”
    “How could they!” Carey demanded angrily, as if Fox and Alleyn had themselves advanced this theory. “Ask yourself, Mr. Fox. The idea’s comical. Of course they didn’t. The thing is: when did they? If they did.”
    “They?” Alleyn asked.
    “Well, now, no. No. It was done, so the Doctor says, and so a chap can see for himself if he’s got the stomach to look, by one weapon with one stroke by one man.”
    “What about their swords? I’ll see them, of course, but what are they like?”
    “Straight. About two foot long. Wooden handle one end and a hole ’tother through which they stick a silly-looking bit of red cord.”
    “Sharp?”
    “Blunt as a backside, all but one.”
    “Which one?” asked Fox.
    “Ernie’s,” Alleyn said. “I’ll bet.”
    “And you’re dead right, sir. Ernie’s it is and so sharp’s a razor still, never mind how he whiffled down the thistles.”
    “So we are forced to ask ourselves if Ernie could have whiffled his old man’s head off?”
    “
And
we answer ourselves, no, he danged well couldn’t of. For why? For because, after his old man dropped behind the stone, there was Ernie doing a comic act with the Betty: that is, Mr. Ralph Stayne, as I was telling you. Mr. Ralph, having taken up a collection, snatched Ernie’s sword and they had a sort of chase round the courtyard and in and out through the gaps in the back wall. Ernie didn’t get his sword back till Mr. Ralph give it him. After that, Dan Andersen did a turn on his own. He always does. You could tell it was Dan anyway on account of him being bowlegged. Then the Five Sons did another dance and that was when the Old Man should have risen up and didn’t and there we are.”
    “What was the Hobby-Horse doing all this time?”
    “Cavorting round chasing the maids. Off and on.”
    “And this affair,” Fox said, “this man-woman-what-have-you-Betty, who was the clergyman’s son, he’d collared the sharp sword, had he?”
    “Yes, Mr. Fox, he had. And was swiping it round and playing the goat with it.”
    “Did he go near the stone?” Alleyn asked.
    “Well — yes, I reckon he did. When Ernie was chasing him. No doubt of it. But further than that — well, it’s just not believable,” said Carey and added, “He must have given the sword back to Ernie because, later on, Ernie had got it again. There’s nothing at all on the sword but smears of sap from the plants Ernie swiped off. Which seems to show it hadn’t been wiped on anything.”
    “Certainly,” said Alleyn. “Jolly well observed, Carey.”
    Mr. Carey gave a faint simper.
    “Did any of them look behind the stone after the old man had fallen down?” Alleyn asked.
    “Mr. Ralph — that’s the Betty — was standing close up when he fell behind it and reckons he just slid down and lay. There’s a kind of hollow there, as you’ll see, and it was no doubt in shadow. Two of them came prancing back to the stone during the last dance — first Simmy-Dick and then Mr. Ralph