Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 7: Off With His Head, Singing in the Shrouds, False Scent. Ngaio Marsh

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СКАЧАТЬ putting away. They used to call Grandfather an old jackdaw.’

      ‘Did you, in fact, frame a draft on those lines?’ Alleyn asked Ralph.

      ‘No. It was only two days ago. I was a bit worried about the whole thing.’

      ‘Sweetest Ralph, why didn’t you ask me?’

      ‘Darling (a) because you’d refused to see me at all and (b) because it would have been grossly unprofessional.’

      ‘Fair enough,’ said Camilla.

      ‘But you already knew, of course,’ Alleyn pointed out, ‘that your grandfather was considering this step?’

      ‘I told you. We had a row about it.’

      ‘And you didn’t know he’d gone to Biddlefast on Tuesday?’

      ‘No,’ she said, ‘I didn’t go down to the forge on Tuesday. I didn’t know.’

      ‘All right,’ Alleyn said and got up. ‘Now I want to have a word or two with your young man, if I’m allowed to call him that. There’s no real reason why you should leave us, except that I seem to get rather less than two-fifths of his attention while you are anywhere within hail.’ He walked to the door and opened it. ‘If you see Inspector Fox and Dr Otterly,’ he said, ‘would you be very kind and ask them to come back?’

      Camilla rose and walked beautifully to the door.

      ‘Don’t you want to discover Ralph’s major preoccupation?’ she asked and fluttered her eyelashes.

      ‘It declares itself abundantly. Run along and render love’s awakening. Or don’t you have that one at your drama school?’

      ‘How did you know I went to drama school?’

      ‘I can’t imagine. Star quality, or something.’

      ‘What a heavenly remark!’ she said.

      He looked at Camilla. There she was; loving, beloved, full of the positivism of youth, immensely vulnerable, immensely resilient. ‘Get along with you,’ he said. No more than a passing awareness of something beyond her field of observation seemed to visit Camilla. For a moment she looked puzzled. ‘Stick to your own preoccupation,’ Alleyn advised her, and gently propelled her out of the room.

      Fox and Dr Otterly appeared at the far end of the passage. They stood aside for Camilla who, with great charm, said: ‘Please, I was to say you’re wanted.’

      She passed them. Dr Otterly gave her an amiable buffet. ‘All right, Cordelia?’ he asked. She smiled brilliantly at him. ‘As well as can be expected, thank you,’ said Camilla.

      When they had rejoined Alleyn, Dr Otterly said: ‘An infallible sign of old age is a growing inability to understand the toughness of the young. I mean toughness in the nicest sense,’ he added, catching sight of Ralph.

      ‘Camilla,’ Ralph said, ‘is quite fantastically sensitive.’

      ‘My dear chap, no doubt. She is a perfectly enchanting girl in every possible respect. What I’m talking about is a purely physiological matter. Her perfectly enchanting little inside mechanisms react youthfully to shock. My old machine is in a different case. That’s all, I assure you.’

      Ralph thought to himself how unamusing old people were when they generalized about youth. ‘Do you still want me, sir?’ he asked Alleyn.

      ‘Please. I want your second-to-second account of the Dance of the Five Sons. Fox will take notes and Dr Otterly will tell us afterwards whether your account tallies with his own impressions.’

      ‘I see,’ Ralph said, and looked sharply at Dr Otterly.

      Alleyn led him along the now familiar train of events and at no point did his account differ from the others. He was able to elaborate a little. When the Guiser ducked down after the mock beheading, Ralph was quite close to him. He saw the old man stoop, squat and then ease himself cautiously down into the depression. ‘There was nothing wrong with him,’ Ralph said. ‘He saw me and made a signal with his hand and I made an answering one, and then went off to take up the collection. He’d planned to lie in the hollow because he thought he would be out of sight there.’

      ‘Was anybody else as close to him as you were?’

      ‘Yes, “Crack” – Begg, you know. He was my opposite number just before the breaking of the knot. And after that he stood behind the dolmen for a bit and –‘ Ralph stopped.

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘It’s just that – no, really, it’s nothing.’

      ‘May I butt in?’ Dr Otterly said quickly from the fireside. ‘I think perhaps I know what Ralph is thinking. When we rehearsed, “Crack” and the Betty – Ralph – stood one on each side of the dolmen and then while Ralph took up the collection, “Crack” was meant to cavort round the edge of the crowd, repeating his girl-scaring act. He didn’t do that last night. Did he, Ralph?’

      ‘I don’t think so,’ Ralph said, and looked very disturbed. ‘I don’t, of course, know which way your mind’s working, but the best thing we can do is to say that, wearing the harness he does, it’d be quite impossible for Begg to do – well, to do what must have been done. Wouldn’t it, Dr Otterly?’

      ‘Impossible. He can’t so much as see his own hands. They’re under the canvas body of the horse. Moreover, I was watching him and he stood quite still.’

      ‘When did he move?’

      ‘When Ralph stole Ernie Andersen’s sword. Begg squeaked like a neighing filly and jogged out by the rear exit.’

      ‘Was it in order for him to go off then?’

      ‘Could be,’ Ralph said. ‘The whole of that part of the show’s an improvisation. Begg probably thought Ernie’s and my bit of fooling would do well enough for him to take time off. That harness is damned uncomfortable. Mine’s bad enough.’

      ‘You, yourself, went out through the back exit a little later, didn’t you?’

      ‘That’s right,’ Ralph agreed very readily. ‘Ernie chased me, you know, and I hid. In full view of the audience. He went charging off by the back exit, hunting me. I thought to myself, Ernie being Ernie, that the joke had probably gone far enough, so I went out, too, to find him.’

      ‘What did you find, out there? Behind the wall?’

      ‘What you’d expect. “Crack” squatting there like a great clucky hen. Ernie looking absolutely furious. I gave him back his sword and he said –’ Ralph scratched his head.

      ‘What did he say?’

      ‘I think he said something about it being too late to be any use. He was pretty bloody-minded. I suppose it was rather a mistake to bait him but it went down well with the audience.’

      ‘Did Begg say anything?’

      ‘Yes. СКАЧАТЬ