Death of a Fool by Ngaio Marsh Page B

face was white and he looked, she couldn’t help feeling, wonderfully determined and romantic.
    “Ralph!” she said, “you mustn’t! You promised. Go away, quickly.”
    “I won’t. I can’t, Camilla. I saw you go into the copse, so I hurried up and came round the other way to meet you. I’m sorry, Camilla. I just couldn’t help myself, and, anyway, I’ve decided it’s too damn silly not to. What’s more, there’s something I’ve got to say.”
    His expression changed. “Hi!” he said. “Darling, what’s up? I haven’t frightened you, have I? You look frightened.”
    Camilla said with a little wavering laugh, “I know it sounds the purest corn, but I’ve just seen something beastly in the copse and it’s made me feel sick.”
    He took her hands in his. She would have dearly liked to put her head on his chest. “What did you see, poorest?” asked Ralph.
    “Ernie,” she said, “with a dead dog and talking about death.”
    She looked up at him and helplessly began to cry. He gave an inarticulate cry and gathered her into his arms.
    A figure clad in decent blacks came out of the smithy and stood transfixed with astonishment and rage. It was the Guiser.
    On the day before Sword Wednesday, Dame Alice ordered her septuagenarian gardener to take his slasher and cut down a forest of dead thistles and briar that poked up through the snow where the Dance of the Five Sons was to be performed. The gardener, a fearless Scot with a will of iron and a sour disposition, at once informed her that the slasher had been ruined by unorthodox usage. “Dame,” he said, for this was the way he chose to address his mistress, “it canna be. I’ll no soil ma hands nor scald ma temper nor lay waste ma bodily health wi’ any such matter.”
    “You can sharpen your slasher, man.”
    “It should fetch the blush of shame to your countenance to ask it.”
    “Send it down to William Andersen.”
    “And get insultit for ma pains? Yon godless old devil’s altogether sunkit in heathen clamjamperies.”
    “If you’re talkin’ about Sword Wednesday, MacGlashan, you’re talkin’ bosh. Send down your slasher to the forge. If William’s too busy one of the sons will do it.”
    “I’ll hae nane but the smith lay hands on ma slasher. They’d ruin it. Moreover, they are as deep sunk in depravity as their auld mon.”
    “Don’t you have sword dances in North Britain?”
    “I didna come oot here in the caud at the risk o’ ma ane demise to be insultit.”
    “Send the slasher to the forge and get the courtyard cleared. That will do, MacGlashan.”
    In the end, the slasher was taken down by Dulcie Mardian, who came back with the news that the Guiser was away for the day. She had given the slasher to Ernie with strict instructions that his father, and nobody else, was to sharpen it.
    “Fancy, Aunt Akky, it’s the first time for twenty years that William has been to Biddlefast. He got Dan Andersen to drive him to the bus. Everyone in the village is talking about it and wondering if he’s gone to see Stayne and Stayne about his Will. I suppose Ralph would know.”
    “He’s lucky to have somethin’ to leave. I haven’t and you might as well know it, Dulcie.”
    “Of course, Aunt Akky. But everybody says old William is really rich as possible. He hides it away, they say, like a miser. Fancy!”
    “I call it shockin’ low form, Dulcie, listenin’ to village gossip.”
    “And, Aunt Akky, that German woman is still at the Green Man. She tries to pump everybody about the Five Sons.”
    “She’ll be nosin’ up here to see it. Next thing she’ll be startin’ some beastly guild. She’s one of those stoopid women who turn odd and all that in their fifties. She’ll make a noosance of herself.”
    “That’s what the Old Guiser says, according to Chris.”
    “He’s perfectly right. William Andersen is a sensible fellow.”
    “Could you turn her away, Aunt Akky, if she comes?”
    Dame Alice merely gave an angry snap of