Death of a Fool by Ngaio Marsh Read Free Book Online

barrel with that very snappy little job you introduced to us to-night, Guiser.”
    Ernie guffawed and was instantly slapped down by his father. “You hold your noise. No way to conduct yourself when the maid’s your niece. You should be all fiery hot in ’er defence.”
    “Yes, indeed,” Ralph said quietly.
    Begg looked curiously at him. “Sorry, old man,” he said. “No offence. Only a passing thought and all that. Let’s change the subject: when are you going to let us have that smithy, Guiser?”
    “Never. And you might as well make up your mind to it. Never.”
    “Obstinate old dog, isn’t he?” Begg said at large.
    Dan, Chris and the twins glanced uncomfortably at their father.
    Dan said, “Us chaps are favourable disposed as we’re mentioned, Simmy-Dick, but the Dad won’t listen to us, no more than to you.”
    “Look, Dad,” Chris said earnestly, “it’d be in the family still. We know there’s a main road going through in the near future. We know a service station’d be a little gold mine yur on the cross-roads. We know the company’d be behind us. I’ve seen the letters that’s been wrote. We can still
have
the smithy. Simmy-Dick can run the servicing side on his own to begin with. Ernie can help. Look, it’s cast-iron — certain-sure.” He turned to Ralph. Isn’t it?
Isn’t it
?”
    Before Ralph could answer, Ernie paused in his whiffling and suddenly roared out, “I’d let you ’ave it, Wing-Commander, sir. So I would, too.”
    The Guiser opened his mouth in anger, but, before he could speak, Dan said, “We here to practice or not? Come on, chaps. One more dash at the last figure. Strike up for us, Dad.”
    The five brothers moved out into the middle of the floor. The Guiser, muttering to himself, laid the fiddle across his knees and scraped a preliminary call-in.
    In a moment they were at it again. Down thumped their boots striking at the floor and up bounced the clouds of dust.
    And outside in the snow, tied up with scarves, her hand-woven cloak enveloping her, head and all, Mrs. Bünz peered through a little cobwebby window, ecstatically noting the steps and taking down the tunes.

Chapter III
Preparation
    All through the following week snow and frost kept up their antiphonal ceremony. The two Mardians were mentioned in the press and on the air as being the coldest spots in England.
    Up at the castle, Dame Alice gave some hot-tempered orders to what remained nowadays of her staff: a cook, a house parlourmaid, a cleaning woman, a truculent gardener and his boy. All of them except the boy were extremely old. Preparations were to be put in hand for the first Wednesday evening following the twenty-first of December. A sort of hot-cider punch must be brewed in the boiler house. Cakes of a traditional kind must be baked. The snow must be cleared away in the courtyard and stakes planted to which torches would subsequently be tied. A bonfire must be built. Her servants made a show of listening to Dame Alice and then set about these preparations in their own fashion. Miss Mardian sighed and may have thought all the disturbance a bit of a bore but took it, as did everybody else in the village, as a complete matter of course. “Sword Wednesday,” as the date of the Dance of the Five Sons was sometimes called, made very little more stir than Harvest Festival in the two Mardians.
    Mrs. Bünz and Camilla Campion stayed on at the Green Man. Camilla was seen to speak in a friendly fashion to Mrs. Bünz, towards whom Trixie also maintained an agreeable manner. The landlord, an easy man, was understood to be glad enough of her custom, and to be charging her a pretty tidy sum for it. It was learned that her car had broken down and the roads were too bad for it to be towed to Simon Begg’s garage, an establishment that advertised itself as “Simmy-Dick’s Service Station.” It was situated at Yowford, a mile beyond East Mardian, and was believed to be doing not too well. It was common