Off with His Head

  ‘Look at it how you like,’ Andy said, ‘it’s fair fantastical.’

  There was a strong smell of stale tobacco smoke in the room. Alleyn threw his pouch and a packet of cigarettes on the table. ‘Let’s take our pipes to it,’ he said. ‘Help yourselves.’

  After a proper show of deprecation they did so: Ernie alone preferred a cigarette and rolled his own. He grimaced over the job, working his mouth and eyebrows. While they were still busy with their pipes and tobacco, Alleyn began to talk to them.

  ‘Before we can even begin to help,’ he said, ‘we’ll have to get as clear an account of yesterday’s happenings as all of you can give us. Now, Superintendent Carey has already talked to you and he’s given me a damn’ good report on what was said. I just want to take up one or two of his points and see if we can carry them a bit further. Let’s go back, shall we, to yesterday evening. About half an hour before the Dance of the Five Sons was due to start. All right?’

  They were lighting their pipes now. They looked up at him guardedly and waited.

  ‘I understand,’ Alleyn went on, ‘that would be about half past eight. The performers were already at Mardian Castle with the exception of Mr William Andersen himself and his youngest son, Mr Ernest Andersen. That right?’

  Silence. Then Dan, who looked like becoming the spokesman, said: ‘Right enough.’

  ‘Mr William Andersen—may I for distinction use the name by which I’m told he was universally known—the Guiser? That means “The Mummer”, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Literally,’ Dr Otterly said from the sofa, ‘it means “The Disguised One”.’

  ‘Lord, yes! Of course. Well, the Guiser, at half past eight, was still down here at the forge. And Mr Ernest Andersen was either here, too, or shortly to return here, because he was to drive his father up to the castle. Stop me if I go wrong.’

  Silence.

  ‘Good. The Guiser was resting in a room that opens off the smithy itself. When did he go there, if you please?’

  ‘I can answer that one,’ Dr Otterly said. ‘I looked in at midday to see how he was and he wasn’t feeling too good. I told him that, if he wanted to appear at all, he’d have to take the day off—I said I’d come back later on and have another look at him. Unfortunately, I got called out on an urgent case and found myself running late. I dined at the castle and it doesn’t do to be late there. I’d had a word with the boys about the Guiser and arranged to have a look at him when he arrived and—’

  ‘Yes,’ Alleyn said. ‘Thank you so much. Can we just take it from there. So he rested all day in his room. Any of you go and see how he was getting on?’

  ‘Not us!’ Chris said. ‘He wouldn’t have nobody anigh him when he was laying-by. Told us all to keep off.’

  ‘So you went up to the castle without seeing him?’

  Dan said: ‘I knocked on the door and says “We’re off then,” and “hoping to see you later,” and Dad sings out “Send Ern back at half-past. I’ll be there.” So we all went up along and Ern drove back at half past like he’d said.’

  ‘Right.’ Alleyn turned to Ernie and found him leaning back in his chair with his cigarette in his mouth and his hands clasped behind his neck. There was something so strained in this attitude that it suggested a kind of clumsy affectation. ‘Now, will you tell us just what happened when you came back for your father?’

  ‘A-a-a-aw!’ Ernie drawled, without looking at him. ‘I dunno. Nuthin.”

  ‘Naow, naow, naow!’ counselled his brothers anxiously.

  ‘Was he still in his room?’

  ‘Reckon so. Must of been,’ Ernie said and laughed.

  ‘Did you speak to him?’

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  Nat said: ‘Ernie seen the message—’

  ‘Wait a bit,’ Alleyn said. ‘I think we’ll have it from him, if we may. What did you do, Ernie? What happened? You went into the forge, did you—and what?’

  ‘He’d no call,’ Ernie shouted astonishingly without changing his posture or shifting his gaze, ‘he’d no call to treat me like ’e done. Old sod.’

  ‘Answer what you’re axed, you damned young fool,’ Chris burst out, ‘and don’t talk silly.’ The brothers all began to tell Alleyn that Ernie didn’t mean what he said.

  Alleyn held up his hand and they stopped. ‘Tell me what happened,’ he said to Ernie. ‘You went into the forge and what did you see?’

  ‘Ar?’ He turned his head and looked briefly at Alleyn. ‘Like Nat says. I seen the message pinned to his door.’

  Alleyn drew from his coat pocket the copper-plate billhead with its pencilled message. It had been mounted between two sheets of glass by Bailey. He said: ‘Look at this, will you? Is this the message?’

  Ernie took it in his hand and gave a great laugh. Fox took it away from him.

  ‘What did you do then?’ Alleyn asked.

  ‘Me? Like what it says. “Young Ern,” that’s me, “will have to.” There was his things hanging up ready: mask, clothes and old rabbity cap. So I puts ’em on; quick.’

  ‘Were you already dressed as the whiffling son?’

  ‘Didn’t matter. I put ’em on over. Quiet like. ’Case he heard and changed his mind. Out and away, quick. Into old bus and up the road. Whee-ee-ee!’ Ernie gave a small boy’s illustration of excessive speed. ‘I bet I looked right clever. I was the Fool I was. Driving fast to the dance. Whee-ee-ee!’

  Dan suddenly buried his face in his hands. ‘’Tain’t decent,’ he said.

  Alleyn took them through the scene after Ernie’s arrival. They said they had passed round the note and then sent it in to Dr Otterly by Dan’s young son, Bill, who was then dressed and black-faced in his role as understudy. Dr Otterly came out. The brothers added some last-minute instructions to the boy. When the clock struck nine, Dr Otterly went into the courtyard with his fiddle. It was at that moment they all heard Mrs Bünz’s car hooting and labouring up the drive. As they waited for their entrance music, the car appeared round the outer curve of the old wall with the Guiser rampant in the passenger’s seat. Dr Otterly heard the subsequent rumpus and went back to see what had happened.

  It appeared that, during the late afternoon, the Guiser had fallen deeply asleep and had woken refreshed and fighting fit, only to hear his son driving away without him. Speechless with rage, he had been obliged to accept a hitch-hike from his enemy, Mrs Bünz.

  ‘He was jibbering when he got to us,’ Otterly said, ‘and pretty well incoherent. He grabbed Ernie and began hauling his Fool’s clothes off him.’

  ‘And how,’ Alleyn said to Ernie, ‘did you enjoy that?’

  Ernie, to the evident perturbation of his brothers, flew into a retrospective rage. As far as Alleyn could make out, he had attempted to defy his father but had been hurriedly quelled by his brothers.

  ‘Ern didn’t want to whiffle,’ Dan said and they all confirmed this eagerly. Ernie had refused to dance if he couldn’t dance the Fool. Simon Begg had finally prevailed on him.

  ‘I done it for the Wing-Commander and not for another soul. He axed me and I done it. I went out and whiffled.’

  From here, what they had to tell followed without addition the account Alleyn had already heard from Carey. None of the five sons had, at any stage of their performance, gone behind the dolmen to the spot where their father lay hidden. They were all positive the Guiser could neither have left the courtyard nor returned to it, alive or dead. They were equally and mulishly positive that no act of violence could have been done upon him during the period begun by his mock fall and terminated by the discovery of his decapitated body. They stuck to this, loudly repeating their argument and banging down their great palms on the table. It was impossible.

  ‘I take it,’ said Mr Fox during a pause, ‘that we don’t believe in fairies.’ He looked mildly round the table.

  ‘Not at the bottom of this garden, anyway,’ Alleyn muttered.

  ‘My Dad did, then,’ Ernie shouted.

&n
bsp; ‘Did what?’ Alleyn asked patiently.

  ‘Believe in fairies.’

  Fox sighed heavily and made a note.

  ‘Did he,’ Alleyn continued, ‘believe in sacrifices too?’

  The Guiser’s five sons fidgeted and said nothing.

  ‘The old idea,’ Alleyn said. ‘I may have got it wrong but in the earliest times, didn’t they sacrifice something—a bird, wasn’t it—on some of these old stones? At certain times of the year?’

  After a further and protracted silence, Dr Otterly said: ‘No doubt they did.’

  ‘I take it that this Morris dance—cum-sword-dance-cum-mumming play—forgive me if I’ve got the terms muddled—is a survival of some such practice?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Dr Otterly said impatiently, and yet with the air of a man whose hobby horse is at the mounting-block. ‘Immeasurably the richest survival we have.’

  ‘Really? The ritual death of the Fool is the old mystery of sacrifice, isn’t it, with the promise of renewal behind it?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And, at one time, there would have been actual bloodshed? Or well might have been?’

  To this there was no answer.

  ‘Who,’ Alleyn asked, ‘killed Dame Alice’s goose yesterday afternoon and put it on the dolmen?’

  Through the pipe-smoke that now hung thick over the table he looked round the circle of reddened faces. ‘Ernie,’ he said. ‘Was it you?’

  A slow grin stretched Ernie’s mouth until he looked remarkably like a bucolic Fool himself.

  ‘I whiffled ’un,’ he said.

  III

  As Ernie was not concerned to extend this statement and returned very foolish answers to any further questions, Alleyn was obliged to listen to his brothers who were eager in explanation.

  Throughout yesterday morning, they said, while they erected the torches and prepared the bonfire, they had suffered a number of painful and determined assaults from Dame Alice’s geese. One male, in particular, repeatedly placing himself in the van, had come hissing down upon them. Damaging stabs and sidelong slashes had been administered, particularly upon Ernie, who had greatly resented them. He had been sent up again in the afternoon with the garden-er’s slasher which he had himself sharpened, and had been told to cut down the brambles on the dancing area. In the dusk, the gander had made a final assault and an extremely painful one. Irked beyond endurance, Ernie had swiped at him with the slasher. When they arrived in the evening the brothers were confronted with the corpse and taken to task by Miss Mardian. Subsequently, they had got the whole story out of Ernie. He now listened to their recital with a maddening air of complacency.

  ‘Do you agree that is what happened?’ Alleyn asked him and he clasped his hands behind his head, rocked to and fro and chuckled. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘I whiffled ’im proper.’

  ‘Why did you leave the bird on the dolmen?’

  Ernie said conceitedly: ‘You foreign chaps wouldn’t rightly catch on. I know what for I done it.’

  ‘Was it blood for the stone?’

  He ducked his head low between his shoulders and looked sideways at Alleyn. ‘Happen it was, then. And happen ’twasn’t enough, however.’

  ‘Wanted more?’ Alleyn asked and mentally crossed his thumbs.

  ‘Wanted and got it, then.’

  (‘Naow, naow, naow!’)

  Ernie unclasped his hands and brought them down on the table. He gripped the edge so hard that the table quivered. ‘His own fault,’ he gabbled, ‘and not a soul else’s. Blood axes for blood and always will. I told him. Look what he done on me, Sunday. Murdered my dog, he did, murdered my dog on me when my back was turned. What he done Sunday come home on him Wednesday, and not a soul to answer for it but himself. Bloody murderer, he was, and paid in his own coin.’

  Chris Anderson reached out and gripped his brother’s arm. ‘Shut your mouth,’ he said.

  Dan said: ‘You won’t stop him that fashion. Take thought for yourself, Ernie. You’re not right smart in the head, boy. Your silly ways is well known: no blame to you if you’re not so clear-minded as the rest of us. Keep quiet then or, in your foolishness, you’ll bring shame on the family.’ His brothers broke into a confused chorus of approval.

  Alleyn listened, hoping to glean something from the general rumpus, but the brothers merely reiterated their views with increased volume, no variation, and little sense.

  Ernie suddenly jabbed his forefinger at Chris. ‘You can’t talk, Chrissie,’ he roared. ‘What about what happened yesterday? What about what you said you’d give ’im if he crossed you over you know—what—’

  There was an immediate uproar. Chris and his three elder brothers shouted in unison and banged their fists down on the table.

  Alleyn stood up. This unexpected movement brought about an instant quiet.

  ‘I’m sorry, men,’ he said, ‘but from the way things are shaping there can be no point in my keeping you round this table. You will stay either here or hereabouts, if you please, and we shall in due course see each of you alone. Your father’s body will be taken to the nearest mortuary for an examination which will be made by the Home Office pathologist. As soon as we can allow the funeral to take place you will be told all about it. There will, of course, be an inquest which you’ll be asked to attend. If you think it wise to do so, you may be legally represented, individually or as a family.’ He stopped, looked at each of them in turn and then said: ‘I’m going to do something that is unorthodox. Before I do so, however, I warn you that to conspire—that is, to act together and in collaboration for the purpose of withholding vital evidence in a case of murder—can be an extremely serious offence. I may be wrong, but I believe there is some such intention in your minds. You will do well to give it up. Now. Before more harm can come of it.’

  He waited but they said nothing.

  ‘All right,’ said Alleyn, ‘we’ll get on with it.’ He turned to Ernie. ‘Last night, after your father’s body had been found, I’m told you leapt on the stone where earlier in the day you had put the dead gander. I’m told you pointed your sword at the German lady who was standing not very far away and you said, “Ask her. She’s the one that did it.” Did you do this?’

  A half smile touched Ernie’s mouth, but he said nothing. ‘Did you?’ Alleyn insisted.

  ‘Ernie took a queer turn,’ Andy said. ‘He can’t rightly remember after his turns.’

  ‘Let him answer for himself. Did you do this, Ernie?’

  ‘I might and I might not. If they say so, I might of.’

  ‘Do you think the German lady killed your father?’

  ‘’Course she didn’t,’ Chris said angrily. ‘She couldn’t.’

  ‘I asked Ernie if he thought she did.’

  ‘I dunno,’ Ernie muttered and laughed.

  ‘Very well then,’ Alleyn said and decided suddenly to treat them to a rich helping of ham. ‘Here, in the presence of you all—you five sons of a murdered father—I ask you, Ernest Andersen, if you cut off that father’s head.’

  Ernie looked at Alleyn, blinked and opened his mouth: but whether to speak or horridly to laugh again would never be known. A shadow had fallen across the little room. A voice from the doorway said:

  ‘I’d keep my mouth shut on that one if I were you, Corp.’

  It was Simon Begg.

  IV

  He came forward easily. His eyes were bright as if he enjoyed the effect he had made. His manner was very quietly tough.

  ‘Sorry if I intrude,’ Simon said, ‘I’m on my way to the pub to be grilled by the cops and thought I’d look in. But perhaps you are the cops. Are you?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Alleyn said. ‘And you, I think, must be Mr Simon Begg.’

  ‘He’s my Wing-Commander, he is,’ Ernie cut in. ‘We was in the same crowd, him and me.’

  ‘OK, boy, OK,’ Simon said and, passing round the table, put his hand on Ernie’s shoulder. ‘You talk such a lot,’ he said good-naturedly. ‘Keep yo
ur great trap shut, Corp, and you’ll come to no harm.’ He cuffed Ernie lightly over the head and looked brightly at Alleyn. ‘The Corp,’ he said, ‘is just a great big baby: not quite with us, shall we say. Maybe you like them that way. Anything I can do for you?’

  Alleyn said: ‘If you’ll go ahead we’ll be glad to see you at the Green Man. Or—can we give you a lift?’

  ‘Thanks, I’ve got my heap out there.’

  ‘We’ll be hard on your heels, then.’

  Begg went through the motion of whistling.

  ‘Don’t wait for me,’ he said, ‘I’ll follow you.’

  ‘No,’ Alleyn said very coolly, ‘you won’t. You’ll go straight on, if you please.’

  ‘Is that an order or a threat, Mr—I’m afraid I don’t know your rank.’

  ‘We’re not allowed to threaten. My rank couldn’t matter less. Off you go.’

  Simon looked at him, raised his eyebrows, said, with a light laugh, ‘Well, really!’ and walked out. They heard him start up his engine. Alleyn briefly surveyed the brothers Andersen.

  ‘You chaps,’ he said, ‘had better reconsider your position a bit. Obviously you’ve talked things over. Now, you’d do well to think them over and jolly carefully at that. In the meantime, if any of you feel like making a sensible statement about this business, I’ll be glad to hear what it is.’ He moved to the door, where he was joined by Fox and Carey.

  ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘we shall have to find out the terms of your father’s will, if he made one.’

  Dan, a picture of misery and indecision, scratched his head and gazed at Alleyn.

  Andy burst out: ‘We was right fond of the old man. Stood together, us did, father and sons, so firm as a rock.’

  ‘A united family?’

  ‘So we was, then,’ Nat protested. Chris added: ‘And so we are.’

  ‘I believe you,’ Alleyn said.

  ‘As for his will,’ Dan went on with great simplicity, ‘we can’t tell you, sir, what we don’t know our own selves. Maybe he made one and maybe not.’

  Carey said: ‘You haven’t taken a look round the place at all, then?’