Читать книгу Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 7: Off With His Head, Singing in the Shrouds, False Scent - Ngaio Marsh, Stella Duffy - Страница 30

Before they set off for the Green Man, Alleyn asked Dr Otterly if he could arrange for the Guiser’s accommodation in a suitable mortuary.

‘Curtis, the Home Office man, will do the PM,’ Alleyn said, ‘but he’s two hundred odd miles away across country and, the last time I heard of him, he was held up on a tricky case. I don’t know how or when he’ll contrive to get here.’

‘Biddlefast would offer the best facilities. It’s twenty miles away. We’ve a cottage hospital at Yowford where we could fix him up straight away – after a fashion.’

‘Do, will you? Things are very unsatisfactory as they are. Can we get a mortuary van or an ambulance?’

‘The latter. I’ll fix it up.’

‘Look,’ Alleyn said, ‘I want you to do something else, if you will. I’m going, now, to talk to Simon Begg, young Stayne, the German lady and the Guiser’s granddaughter who, I hear, is staying at the pub. Will you sit in on the interviews? Will you tell me if you think anything they may say is contrary to the facts as you observed them? Will you do that, Otterly?’

Dr Otterly stared at the dripping landscape and whistled softly through his teeth. ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last.

‘Don’t you? Tell me, if this is deliberate homicide, do you want the man run in?’

‘I suppose so.’ He pulled out his pipe and opened the door to knock it out on the running-board. When he reappeared he was very red in the face. ‘I may as well tell you,’ he said, ‘that I disapprove strongly and vehemently of the McNaughton Rules and would never voluntarily bring anybody who was a border-line case under their control.’

‘And you look upon Ernie Andersen as such a case.’

‘I do. He’s an epileptic. Petit mal. Very rare attacks but he had one, last night, after he saw what had happened to his father. I won’t fence with you but I tell you that, if I thought Ernie Andersen stood any chance of being hanged for the murder of his father, I wouldn’t utter a syllable that might lead to his arrest.’

‘What would you do?’

‘Bully a couple of brother-medicos into certifying him and have him put away.’

Alleyn said: ‘Why don’t you chaps get together and make a solid medical front against the McNaughton Rules? But, never mind that now. Perhaps if I tell you exactly what I’m looking for in this case, you’ll feel more inclined to sit in. Mind you, I may be looking for something that doesn’t exist. The theory, if it can be graced with the title, is based on such slender evidence that it comes jolly close to being guesswork and, when you find a cop guessing you kick him in the pants. Still, here, for what it’s worth, is the line of country.’

Dr Otterly stuffed his pipe, lit it, threw his head back and listened. When Alleyn had finished, he said: ‘By God, I wonder!’ and then: ‘All right. I’ll sit in.’

‘Good. Shall we set about it?’

It was half past twelve when they reached the pub. Simon and Ralph were eating a snack at the bar. Mrs Bünz and Camilla sat at a table before the parlour fire, faced with a meal that Camilla, for her part, had been quite unable to contemplate with equanimity. Alleyn and Fox went to their private room where they found that cold meat and hot vegetables awaited them. Dr Otterly returned from the telephone to say he had arranged for the ambulance to go to Copse Forge and for his partner to take surgery alone during the early part of the afternoon.

While they ate their meal, Alleyn asked Dr Otterly to tell him something of the history of the Dance of the Five Sons.

‘Like most people who aren’t actively interested in folklore, I’m afraid I’m inclined to associate it with flushed ladies imperfectly braced for violent exercise and bearded gentlemen dressed like the glorious Fourth of June gone elfin. A philistine’s conception, I’m sure.’

‘Yes,’ Dr Otterly said, ‘it is. You’re confusing the “sports” with the true generic strain. If you’re really interested, ask the German lady. Even if you don’t ask, she’ll probably tell you.’

‘Couldn’t you give me a succinct résumé? Just about this particular dance?’

‘Of course I could. I don’t want any encouragement, I assure you, to mount on my hobby horse. And there, by the way, you are! Have you thought how many everyday phrases derive from the folk drama? Mounting one’s hobby-horse! Horseplay! Playing the fool! Cutting capers! Midsummer madness! Very possibly “horn mad”, though I recognize the more generally known application. This pub, the Green Man, gets its name from a variant of the Fool, the Robin Hood, the Jack-in-the-Green.’

‘What does the whole concept of the ritual dance go back to? Frazer’s King of the Sacred Grove?’

‘Certainly. And the Dionysian play about the Titans who killed their old man.’

‘Fertility rite-cum-sacrifice-death-and-resurrection?’

‘That’s it. It’s the oldest manifestation of the urge to survive and the belief in redemption through sacrifice and resurrection. It’s as full of disjointed symbolism as a surrealist’s dream.’

‘Maypoles, corn-babies, ladles – all that?’

‘Exactly. And, being a folk manifestation, the whole thing changes all the time. It’s full of cross-references. The images overlap and the characters swap roles. In the few places in England where it survives in its traditional form, you get, as it were, different bits of the kaleidoscopic pattern. The lock of the swords here, the rabbitcap there, the blackened faces somewhere else. Horns at Abbots Bromley, Old Hoss in Kent and Old Tup in Yorkshire. But always, however much debased and fragmentary, the central idea of the death and resurrection of the Fool who is also the Father, Initiate, Medicine Man, Scapegoat and King. At its lowest, a few scraps of half-remembered jargon. At its highest –’

‘Not – by any chance – Lear?’

‘My dear fellow,’ Dr Otterly cried, and actually seized Alleyn by the hand, ‘you don’t mean to say you’ve spotted that! My dear fellow, I really am delighted with you. You must let me bore you again and at greater length. I realize now is not the time for it. No. No, we must confine ourselves for the moment to the Five Sons.’

‘You’re far from boring me but I’m afraid we must. Surely,’ Alleyn said, ‘this particular dance-drama is unusually rich? Doesn’t it present a remarkable number of elements?’

‘I should damn’ well say it does. Much the richest example we have left in England and, luckily for us, right off the beaten track. Generally speaking, traditional dancing and mumming (such of it as survives) follows the line of the original Danish occupation but here we’re miles off it.’

‘The spelling of the Andersen name, though?’

‘Ah! There you are! In my opinion, they’re a Danish family who, for some reason, drifted across to this part of the world and brought their Winter Solstice ritual with them. Of course, the trade of smith has always been particularly closely associated with folklore.’

‘And, originally, there was an actual sacrifice?’

‘Of some sort, I have no doubt.’

‘Human?’

Dr Otterly said: ‘Possibly.’

‘This lock, or knot, of swords, now. Five swords, you’d expect it to be six.’

‘So it is everywhere else that I know of. Another element that makes the Five Sons unique.’

‘How do they form it?’

‘While they dance. They’ve got two methods. The combination of a cross interwoven with an A or a sort of monogram of an X and an H. Both of them take quite a bit of doing.’

‘And Ernie’s was as sharp as hell.’

‘Absolutely illicit, but it was.’

‘I wonder,’ Alleyn said, ‘if Ernie expected this particular Old Man to resurrect.’

Dr Otterly laid down his knife and fork. ‘After what happened?’ He gave a half laugh. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’

‘What’s their attitude to the dance? All of them? Why do they go on with it, year after year?’

Dr Otterly hesitated. ‘Come to that, Doctor,’ Fox said, ‘why do you?’

‘Me? I suppose I’m a bit of a crank about it. I’ve got theories. Anyway, I enjoy fiddling. My father, and his before him and his before that have been doctors at Yowford and the two Mardians and we’ve all fiddled. Before that, we were yeomen and before that tenant farmers. One in the family has always been a fiddler. I try not to be cranky. The Guiser was a bigger crank in his way than I. I can’t tell you why he was so keen. He just inherited the Five Sons habit. It runs in his blood like poaching does in Old Moley Moon’s up to Yowford Bridge or hunting in Dame Alice Mardian’s, or doctoring, if you like, in mine.’

‘Do you think any of the Andersens pay much attention to the ritualistic side of the thing? Do you think they believe, for instance, that anything tangible comes of the performance?’

‘Ah, now! You’re asking me just how superstitious they are, you know.’ Dr Otterly placed the heels of his well-kept hands against the edge of his plate and delicately pushed it away. ‘Hasn’t every one of us,’ he asked, ‘a little familiar shame-faced superstition?’

‘I dare say,’ Alleyn agreed. ‘Cosseted but reluctantly acknowledged. Like the bastard sons of Shakespearian papas.’

‘Exactly. I know, I’ve got a little Edmund. As a man of science, I scorn it, as a countryman I give it a kind of heart service. It’s a particularly ridiculous notion for a medical man to harbour.’

‘Are we to hear what it is?’

‘If you like. I always feel it’s unlucky to see blood. Not, may I hasten to say, to see it in the course of my professional work, but fortuitously. Someone scratches a finger in my presence, say, or my own nose bleeds. Before I can stop myself I think: “Hallo. Trouble coming.” No doubt it throws back to some childish experience. I don’t let it affect me in the slightest. I don’t believe it. I merely get an emotional reflex. It’s –‘ He stopped short. ‘How very odd,’ he said.

‘Are you reminded that the Guiser cut his hand on Ernie’s sword during your final practice?’

‘I was, yes.’

‘Your hunch wasn’t so far wrong that time,’ Alleyn observed. ‘But what are the Andersens’ superstitious reflexes? Concerning the Five Sons?’

‘I should say pretty well undefined. A feeling that it would be unlucky not to do the dance. A feeling, strong perhaps in the Guiser, that, in doing it, something is placated, some rhythm kept ticking over.’

‘And in Ernie?’

Dr Otterly looked vexed. ‘Any number of crackpot notions, no doubt,’ he said shortly.

‘Like the headless goose on the dolmen?’

‘I am persuaded,’ Dr Otterly said, ‘that he killed the goose accidentally and in a temper and put in on the dolmen as an afterthought.’

‘Blood, as he so tediously insists, for the stone?’

‘If you like. Dame Alice was furious. She’s always been very kind to Ernie, but this time –’this begg

‘He’s killed the goose,’ Fox suggested blandly, ‘that lays the golden eggs?’

‘You’re in a bloody whimsical mood, aren’t you?’ Alleyn inquired idly, and then, after a long silence: ‘What a very disagreeable case this is, to be sure. We’d better get on with it, I suppose.’

‘Do you mind,’ Dr Otterly ventured, ‘my asking if you two are typical CID officers?’

‘I am,’ Alleyn said. ‘Fox is a sport.’

Fox collected their plates, stacked all the crockery neatly on a tray and carried it out into the passage where he was heard to say: ‘A very pleasant meal, thank you, Miss. We’ve done nicely.’

‘Tell me,’ Alleyn asked. ‘Is the Guiser’s granddaughter about eighteen with dark reddish hair cut short and very long fingers? Dressed in black ski-ing trousers and a red sweater?’

‘I really can’t tell you about the fingers, but the other part’s right. Charming child. Going to be an actress.’

‘And is young Stayne about six feet? Dark. Long back. Donegal tweed jacket with a red fleck and brown corduroy bags?’

‘That’s right, I think. He’s got a scar on his cheekbone.’

‘I couldn’t see his face,’ Alleyn said. ‘Or hers.’

‘Oh?’ Dr Otterly murmured. ‘Really?’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Camilla Campion.’

‘Pretty,’ Alleyn said absently. ‘Nice name.’

“Isn’t it?’

‘Her mum was the Guiser’s daughter, was she?’

‘That’s right.’

‘There’s a chap,’ Alleyn ruminated, ‘called Camillo Campion, who’s an authority on Italian primitives. Baronet. Sir Camillo.’

‘Her father. Twenty years ago, his car broke an axle coming too fast down Dame Alice’s drive. He stopped at Copse Forge, saw Bess Andersen, who was a lovely creature, fell like a plummet and married her.’

‘Lor’!’ said Fox mildly, returning from the passage. ‘Sudden!’

‘She had to run away. The Guiser wouldn’t hear of it. He was an inverted snob and a bigoted Nonconformist, and, worst of all, Campion’s a Roman Catholic. ’

‘I thought I remembered some story of that kind,’ Alleyn said. ‘Had he been staying at Mardian Castle?’

‘Yes. Dame Alice was livid because she’d made up her mind he was to marry Dulcie. Indeed, I rather fancy there was an unofficial engagement. She never forgave him and the Guiser never forgave Bess. She died five years ago. Campion and Camilla brought her back here to be buried. The Guiser didn’t say a word to them. The boys, I imagine, didn’t dare. Camilla was thirteen and like enough to her mama at that age to give the old man a pretty sharp jolt.’

‘So he ignored her?’

‘That’s right. We didn’t see her again for five years, and then the other day she turned up, determined to make friends with her mother’s people. She managed to get round him. She’s a dear child, in my opinion.’

‘Let’s have her in,’ said Alleyn.