“Up to East Mardian, sir. The Chief Constable thought you’d like to be as near as possible to the scene of the crime. They’ve got rooms for you at the Green Man. It’s a case of two rooms for four men, seeing there’s a couple of lodgers there already. But as they might be witnesses, we didn’t reckon to turn them out.”

“Fair enough. Where’s your station, then?”

“Up to Yowford. Matter of two mile. The Chief Constable’s sent you this car with his compliments. I’ve only got a motor-bike at the station. He axed me to say he’d have come hisself but is bedbound with influenza. We’re anxious to help, of course. Every way we can.”

“Everything seems to be laid on like central heating,” Alleyn was careful to observe. He pointed to the building on the skyline that they had seen from the train. “What’s that, up there?”

“Mardian Castle, Mr. Alleyn. Scene of crime.”

“It looks like a ruin.”

“So ’tis, then, in parts. Present residence is on ’tother side of those walls. Now, sir, shall I begin, to the best of my ability, to make my report or shall we wait till we’re stationary in the pub? A matter of a few minutes only and I can then give my full attention to my duty and refer in order to my notes.”

Alleyn agreed that this would be much the best course, particularly as the chains were making a great noise and the driver’s task was evidently an exacting one. They churned along a deep lane, turned a corner and looked down on South Mardian: squat, unpicturesque, unremarkable and as small as a village could be. As they approached, Alleyn saw that, apart from its church and parsonage, it contained only one building that was not a cottage. This was a minute shop. Beggs for Everything was painted vain-gloriously in faded blue letters across the front. They drove past the gateway to Mardian Castle. A police constable with his motor-bicycle nearby stood in front of it.

“Guarding,” explained Carey, “against sight-seers,” and he waved his arm at the barren landscape.

As they approached the group of trees at the far end of the village, Carey pointed it out. “The Copse,” he said, “and a parcel further on behind it, Copse Forge, where the deceased is assembled, Mr. Alleyn, in a lean-to shed, it being his own property.”

“I see.”

“We turn right, however, which I will now do, to the hamlet of East Mardian. There, sir, is your pub, ahead and on the right.”

As they drove up, Alleyn glanced at the sign, a pleasant affair painted with a foliated green face.

“That’s an old one, isn’t it?” he said. “Although it looks as if it’s been rather cleverly touched up.”

“So it has, then. By a lady at present resident in the pub by the name of Buns.”

“Mrs. Buns, the baker’s wife,” Alleyn murmured involuntarily.

“No, sir. Foreign. And requiring, by all ’counts, to be looked into.”

“Dear me!” said Alleyn mildly.

They went into the pub leaving Bailey and Thompson to deal with their luggage. Superintendent Carey had arranged for a small room behind the private bar to be put at their disposal. “Used to be the missus’s parlour,” he explained, “but she’s no further use for it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Dead these five years.”

“Fair enough,” said Alleyn.

Trixie was there. She had lit a roaring fire and now put a dish of bacon and eggs, a plate of bread and cheese and a bottle of pickled onions on the table.

“Hour and a half till dinner,” she said, “and you’m no doubt starved for a bite after travelling all night. Will you take something?”

They took three pints, which were increased to five on the arrival of Bailey and Thompson. They helped themselves to the hunks of food and settled down, finally, to Superintendent Carey’s report.

It was admirably succinct.

Carey, it appeared, had been present at the Dance of the Five Sons. He had walked over from Yowford, more out of habit than enthusiasm and not uninfluenced, Alleyn gathered, by the promise of Dame Alice’s Sword Wednesday Punch.

Like everybody else, he had heard rumours of the Guiser’s indisposition and had supposed that the Fool was played by Ernie. When he heard Dr. Otterly’s announcement, he concluded that the Guiser had, after all, performed his part and that on his mock decapitation, which Mr. Carey described vividly, he had died of a heart attack.

When, however, the Whiffler (now clearly recognizable as Ernie) had made his appalling announcement from the Mardian dolmen, Carey had gone forward and spoken to Dr. Otterly and the Rector. At the same time, Ernie’s brothers had hauled him off the stone. He then, without warning, collapsed into a fit from which he was recovered by Dr. Otterly and, from then onwards, refused to speak to anybody.

After a word with the Doctor, Carey had ordered the stragglers off the place and had then, and not till then, walked round the dolmen and seen what lay on the ground beyond it.

At this point Carey, quite obviously, had to take a grip of himself. He finished his pint and squared his shoulders.

“I’ve seen things, mind,” he said. “I had five years of it on active service and I didn’t reckon to be flustered. But this flustered me, proper. Partly, no doubt, it was the way he was got up. Like a clown with the tunic thing pulled up. It’d have been over his head if — well, never mind. He didn’t paint his face but he had one of these masks. It ties on like a bag and it hadn’t fallen off. So he looked, if you can follow me, gentlemen, like a kind of doll that the head had come off of. There was the body, sort of doubled up, and there was the head two feet away, grinning, which was right nasty, until Rector took the bag off, which he did, saying it wasn’t decent. And there was Old Guiser’s face. And Rector put, as you may say, the pieces together, and said a prayer over them. I beg pardon, Mr. Alleyn?”

“Nothing. Go on.”

“Now, Ernie Andersen had made this statement, which I have repeated to the best of my memory, about the German lady having ‘done it.’ I came out from behind where the remains was and there, to my surprise, the German lady stood. Kind of bewildered, if you can understand, she seemed to be, and axing me what had happened. ‘What is it? What has happened? Is he ill?’ she said.

“Now, Mr. Alleyn, this chap, Ernie Andersen, is not what you’d call right smart. He’s a bit touched. Not simple exactly but not right. Takes funny turns. He was in a terrible state, kind of half frightened and half pleased with himself. Why he said what he did about Mrs. Buns, I can’t make out, but how a lady of, say, fifty-seven or so could step out of the crowd and cut the head off a chap at one blow in full view of everybody and step back again without being noticed takes a bit of explaining. Still, there it was. I took a statement from her. She was very much put about.”

“Well she might be.”

“Just so. Denied knowing anything about it, of course. It seems she was latish getting to the castle. She’s bought a new car from Simmy-Dick Begg up to Yowford and couldn’t start it at first. Over-choked would be my bet. Everybody in the pub had gone early, Trixie, the barmaid, and the potboy having offered to help the Dame’s maids. Well, Mrs. Buns started her car at last and, when she gets to the corner, who should she see but Old Guiser himself.”

“Old Guiser?”

“That’s what we called William Andersen hereabouts. There he was, seemingly, standing in the middle of the lane shaking his fist and swearing something ghastly. Mrs. Buns stops and offers a lift. He accepts, but with a bad grace, because, as everybody knows, he’s taken a great unliking for Mrs. Buns.”

“Why?”

“On account of her axing questions about Sword Wednesday. The man was in mortal dread of it getting made kind of public and fretted accordingly.”

“A purist, was he?”

“That may be the word for it. He doan’t pass a remark of any kind going up to the castle and, when she gets there, he bolts out of the car and goes round behind the ruins to where the others was getting ready to begin. She says she just walked in and stood in the crowd, which, to my mind, is no doubt what the woman did. I noticed her there myself, I remember, during the performance!”