Death of a Fool by Ngaio Marsh

you?”
    She began in a terrific hurry to explain that all European mumming had a common origin: that it was only reasonable to expect a little dialogue.
    “We’re not meant to talk out of school,” Simon muttered. “I think it’s all pretty corny, mind. Well, childish, really. After all, what the heck’s it matter?”
    “I
assure
you, I
beg
you to rest assured of my discretion. There is dialogue, no?”
    “The Guiser sort of natters at the others.”
    Mrs. Bünz, clutching frantically at straws of intelligence on a high wind of slang, flung out her fat little hands at him.
    “Ach, my good, kind young motor-salesman,” she pleaded, reminding him of her potential as a customer, “of your great generosity,
tell
me what are the words he natters to the ozzers?”
    “Honest, Mrs. Buns,” he said with evident regret, “I don’t know. Honest! It’s what he’s always said. Seems all round the bend to me. I doubt if the boys themselves know. P’raps it’s foreign or something.”
    Mrs. Bünz looked like a cover-picture for a magazine called
Frustration
. “If it is foreign I would understand. I speak six European languages.
Gott in Himmel
, Mr. Begg —
What is it
?”
    His attention had wandered to the racing edition on the table before him. His face lit up and he jabbed at the paper with his finger.
    “Look at this!” he said. “Here’s a turn-up! Could you beat it?”
    “I have not on my glasses.”
    “Running next Thursday,” he read aloud, “in the one-thirty. ‘Teutonic Dancer by Subsidize out of Substitution’! Laugh that off.”
    “I do not understand you.”
    “It’s a horse,” he explained. “A race horse. Talk about coincidence! Talk about omens!”
    “An omen?” she asked, catching at a familiar word.
    “Good enough for me anyway. You’re Teutonic, aren’t you, Mrs. Buns?”
    “Yes,” she said patiently. “I am Teuton, yes.”
    “And we’ve been talking about
dancers
, haven’t we? And I’ve suggested you
substitute
another car for the one you’ve got? And if you have the little job I’ve been telling you about, well, I’ll be sort of
subsidized
, won’t I? Look, it’s uncanny.”
    Mrs. Bünz rummaged in her pockets and produced her spectacles.
    “Ach, I understand. You will bet upon this horse?”
    “You can say that again.”
    “ ‘Teutonic Dancer by Subsidize out of Substitution,’ ” she read slowly and an odd look came over her face. “You are right, Mr. Begg, it is strange. It may, as you say, be an omen.”
    On the Sunday before Sword Wednesday, Camilla went after church to call upon her grandfather at Copse Forge. As she trudged through the snow she sang until the cold in her throat made her cough and then whistled until the frost on her lips made them too stiff. All through the week she had worked steadily at a part she was to play in next term’s showing and had done all her exercises every day. She had seen Ralph in church. They had smiled at each other, after which the organist, who was also the village postman, might have been the progeny of Orpheus and Saint Cecilia, so heavenly sweet did his piping sound to Camilla. Ralph had kept his promise not to come near her, but she hurried away from church because she had the feeling that he might wait for her if he left before she did. And until she got her emotions properly sorted out, thought Camilla, that would never do.
    The sun came out. She met a robin redbreast, two sparrows and a magpie. From somewhere beyond the woods came the distant unalarming plop of a shot-gun. As she plodded down the lane she saw the spiral of smoke that even on Sundays wavered up over the copse from the hidden forge.
    Her grandfather and his two unmarried sons would be home from chapel-going in the nearby village of Yowford.
    There was a footpath through the copse making a short cut from the road to the smithy. Camilla decided to take it, and had gone only a little way into the trees when she heard a sound that is always most