Free Death of a Fool by Ngaio Marsh

arm.
    “We’re a bit above ourselves, Miss Mardian,” he said. “We take ourselves very seriously over this little show tonight.”
    Ernie laughed and Dulcie said, “Do you?” not understanding Simon’s playful use of the first person plural. He lowered his voice and said, “Poor old Ernie! Ernie was my batman in the old days, Miss Mardian. Weren’t you, Corp? How about seeing if you can help those girls, Ernie?”
    Ernie, proud of being the subject of his hero’s attention, threw one of his crashing salutes and backed away. “It’s pathetic, really,” Simon said, “he follows me round Like a dog. God knows why. I do what I can for him.”
    Dulcie repeated, “Do you?” even more vaguely and drifted away. Dan called his brothers together, thanked Dame Alice and began to shepherd them out.
    “Here!” Dame Alice shouted. “Wait a bit. I thought you were goin’ to clear away those brambles out there.”
    “So we are, ma-am,” Dan said. “Ernie do be comin’ up along after dinner with your slasher.”
    “Mind he does. How’s your father?”
    “Not feeling too clever to-day, ma-am, but he reckons he’ll be right again for to-night.”
    “What’ll you do if he can’t dance?”
    Ernie said instantly, “I can do Fool. I can do Fool’s act better nor him. If he’s not able, I am. Able and willing.”
    His brothers broke into their habitual conciliatory chorus. They eased Ernie out of the room and into the courtyard. Simon made rather a thing of his goodbye to Dame Alice and thanked her elaborately. She distressed him by replying, “Not ’tall, Begg. Shop doin’ well, I hope? Compliments to your father.”
    He recovered sufficiently to look with tact at Dulcie, who said, “Old Mr. Begg’s dead, Aunt Akky. Somebody else has got the shop.”
    Dame Alice said, “Oh? I’d forgotten,” nodded to Simon and toddled rapidly away.
    She and Dulcie went to their luncheon. They saw Simon’s van surrounded by infuriated geese go past the window with all the Andersens on board.
    The courtyard was now laid bare of snow. At its centre the Mardian dolmen awaited the coming of the Five Sons. Many brambles and thistles were still uncut. By three o’clock Ernie had not returned with the slasher and the afternoon had begun to darken. It was at half-past four that Dulcie, fatigued by preparation and staring out of the drawing-room window, suddenly ejaculated, “Aunt Akky! Aunt Akky, they’ve left something on the stone.”
    But Dame Alice had fallen into a doze and only muttered indistinguishably.
    Dulcie peered and speculated and at last went into the hall and flung an old coat over her shoulders. She let herself out and ran across the courtyard to the stone. On its slightly tilted surface which, in the times before recorded history, may have been used for sacrifice, there was a dead goose, decapitated.
    By eight o’clock almost all the village was assembled in the courtyard. On Sword Wednesday, Dame Alice always invited some of her neighbours in the county to Mardian, but this year, with the lanes deep in snow, they had all preferred to stay at home. They were unable to ring her up and apologize as there had been a major breakdown in the telephone lines. They told each other, rather nervously, that Dame Alice would “understand.” She not only understood but rejoiced.
    So it was entirely a village affair attended by not more than fifty onlookers. Following an established custom, Dr. Otterly had dined at the castle and so had Ralph and his father. The Honorable and Reverend Samuel Stayne was Dame Alice’s great-nephew-in-law. Twenty-eight years ago he had had the temerity to fall in love with Dulcie Mardian’s elder sister, then staying at the castle, and, subsequently, to marry her. He was a gentle, unwordy man who attempted to follow the teaching of the Gospels literally and was despised by Dame Alice not because he couldn’t afford, but because he didn’t care, to ride to hounds.
    After dinner, which