Off With His Head. Ngaio Marsh

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       CHAPTER 1

       Winter Solstice

      Over that part of England the Winter Solstice came down with a bitter antiphony of snow and frost. Trees, minutely articulate, shuddered in the north wind. By four o’clock in the afternoon the people of South Mardian were all indoors.

      It was at four o’clock that a small dogged-looking car appeared on a rise above the village and began to sidle and curvet down the frozen lane. Its driver, her vision distracted by wisps of grey hair escaping from a headscarf, peered through the fan-shaped clearing on her windscreen. Her woolly paws clutched rather than commanded the wheel. She wore, in addition to several scarves of immense length, a handspun cloak. Her booted feet tramped about over brake and clutch-pedal, her lips moved soundlessly and from time to time twitched into conciliatory smiles. Thus she arrived in South Mardian and bumped to a standstill before a pair of gigantic gates.

      They were of wrought-iron and beautiful but they were tied together with a confusion of shopkeeper’s twine. Through them, less than a quarter of a mile away, she saw on a white hillside, the shell of a Norman castle, theatrically erected against a leaden sky. Partly encircled by this ruin was a hideous Victorian mansion.

      The traveller consulted her map. There could be no doubt about it. This was Mardian Castle. It took some time in that deadly cold to untangle the string. Snow had mounted up the far side and she had to shove hard before she could open the gates wide enough to admit her car. Having succeeded and driven through, she climbed out again to shut them.

      ‘“St Agnes Eve, ach bitter chill it was!”’ she quoted in a faintly Teutonic accent. Occasionally, when fatigued or agitated, she turned her short o’s into long ones and transposed her v’s and w’s.

      ‘But I see no sign,’ she added to herself, ‘of hare nor owl, nor of any living creature, godamercy.’ She was pleased with this improvisation. Her intimate circle had lately adopted ‘godamercy’ as an amusing expletive.

      There arose from behind some nearby bushes a shrill cachinnation and out waddled a gaggle of purposeful geese. They advanced upon her, screaming angrily. She bundled herself into the car, slammed the door almost on their beaks, engaged her bottom gear and ploughed on, watched from the hillside by a pair of bulls. Her face was pale and calm and she hummed the air (from her Playford album) of ‘Sellinger’s Round.’

      As the traveller drew near the Victorian house she saw that it was built of the same stone as the ruin that partly encircled it. ‘That is something, at least,’ she thought. She crammed her car up the final icy slope, through the remains of a Norman archway and into a courtyard. There she drew in her breath in a series of gratified little gasps.

      The courtyard was a semi-circle bounded by the curve of old battlemented walls and cut off by the new house. It was littered with heaps of rubble and overgrown with weeds. In the centre, puddled in snow, was a rectangular slab supported by two pillars of stone. ‘Eureka!’ cried the traveller.

      For luck she groped under her scarves and fingered her special necklace of red silk. Thus fortified, she climbed a flight of steps that led to the front door.

      It was immense and had been transferred, she decided with satisfaction, from the ruin. There was no push-button, but a vast bell, demonstrably phoney and set about with cast-iron pixies, was bolted to the wall. She tugged at its chain and it let loose a terrifying rumpus. The geese, which had reappeared at close quarters, threw back their heads, screamed derisively and made for her at a rapid waddle.

      With her back to the door she faced them. One or two made unsuccessful attempts to mount and she tried to quell them, collectively, with an imperious glare. Such was the din they raised that she did not hear the door open.

      ‘You are in trouble!’ said a voice behind her. ‘Nip in, won’t you, while I shut the door. Be off, birds.’

      The visitor was grasped, turned about and smartly pulled across the threshold. The door slammed behind her and she found herself face to face with a thin, ginger-haired lady who stared at her in watery surprise.

      ‘Yes?’ said the lady. ‘Yes, well, I don’t think – and in any case, what weather!’

      ‘Dame Alice Mardian?’

      ‘My great-aunt. She’s ninety-four and I don’t think –’

      With an important gesture the visitor threw back her cloak, explored an inner pocket and produced a card.

      ‘This is, of course, a surprise,’ she said. ‘Perhaps I should have written first but I must tell you – frankly, frankly – that I was so transported with curiosity – no, not that, not curiosity – rather with the zest of the hunter, that I could not contain myself. Not for another day, another hour even!’ She checked. Her chin trembled. ‘If you will glance at the card,’ she said. Dimly, the other did so.

      ‘Mrs Anna Bünz,’ she read.

      FRIENDS OF BRITISH FOLKLORE

      GUILD OF ANCIENT CUSTOMS

      THE HOBBY HORSES

       Morisco Croft, Bapple-under-Baccomb, Warwickshire

      ‘Oh dear!’ said the ginger-haired lady, and added: ‘But in any case, come in, of course.’ СКАЧАТЬ