Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 7: Off With His Head, Singing in the Shrouds, False Scent. Ngaio Marsh

don’t think so.’

      ‘Nor the dolmen?’

      ‘No,’ he said sharply.

      ‘You couldn’t tell me, for instance, exactly what the Guiser did when he slipped down to hide?’

      ‘Disappeared as usual behind the stone, I suppose, and lay doggo.’

      ‘Where were you at that precise moment?’

      ‘I don’t remember exactly.’

      ‘Nowhere near the dolmen?’

      ‘Absolutely. Nowhere near.’

      ‘I see,’ Alleyn said, and was careful not to look at Dr Otterly. ‘And then? After that? What did you do?’

      ‘I just hung around for a bit and then wandered up to the back.’

      ‘What was happening in the arena?’

      ‘The Betty did an act and after that Dan did his solo.’

      ‘What was the Betty’s act?’

      ‘Kind of ad lib. In the old days, they tell me, “she” used to hunt down some bod in the crowd and tuck them under her petticoats. Or she’d come on screeching and, presently, there’d be a great commotion under the crinoline and out would pop some poor type. You can imagine. A high old time was had by all.’

      ‘Mr Stayne didn’t go in for that particular kind of clowning?’

      ‘Who – Ralph? Only very mildly. He’s much too much the gentleman, if you know what I mean.’

      ‘What did he do?’ Alleyn persisted.

      ‘Honest, I’ve forgotten. I didn’t really watch. Matter of fact, I oozed off to the back and had a smoke.’

      ‘When did you begin to watch again?’

      ‘After Dan’s solo. When the last dance began. I came back for that.’

      ‘And then?’

      After that, Simon’s account followed the rest. Alleyn let him finish without interruption and was then silent for so long that the others began to fidget and Simon Begg stood up.

      ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if that’s all –

      ’I’m afraid it’s nothing like all.’

      ‘Hell!’

      ‘Let us consider,’ Alleyn said, ‘your story of your own movements during and immediately after the first dance – this dance that was twice repeated and ended with the mock decapitation. Why do you suppose that your account of it differs radically from all the other accounts we have had?’

      Simon glanced at Dr Otterly and assumed a tough and mulish expression.

      ‘Your guess,’ he said, ‘is as good as mine.’

      ‘We don’t want to guess. We like to know. We’d like to know, for instance, why you say you trotted round on the outskirts of the dance and that you didn’t go near the dancers or the dolmen. Dr Otterly here, and all the other observers we have consulted, say that, as a matter of fact, you went up to the dolmen at the moment of climax and stood motionless behind it.’

      ‘Do they?’ he said. ‘I don’t remember everything I did. Perhaps they don’t either. P’r’aps you’ve been handed a lot of duff gen.’

      ‘If that means,’ Dr Otterly said, ‘that I may have laid false information, I won’t let you get away with it. I am absolutely certain that you stood close behind the dolmen and therefore so close to where the Guiser lay that you couldn’t fail to notice him. Sorry, Alleyn. I’ve butted in.’