Pageant of Murder

“That remains to be seen.” She repeated the fiction she had outlined to the Inspector. Then she added, “Anyway, the police are pleased to have it, and I am to give you half-a-crown each for finding it. The Inspector says you’re three very smart lads.”

“If it belongs to Old Batsy, will ’e give the coppers anythink for giving it back to ’im?” asked one child.

“I don’t think so. It’s their duty to return stolen property,” said Laura, deducing, from the use of his nickname, that Colonel Batty-Faudrey was not the most popular landowner in the district. She drove the boys back to the recreation ground, where she parted from them on excellent terms, and then returned to Dame Beatrice, who professed herself enthralled by the tale of (in Laura’s words) the hunch that had paid dividends.

“The police don’t think there’s any doubt about whose head it is,” Laura added. “I’m thankful I didn’t have to see it, though. The Inspector has gentlemanly instincts and dealt with the bundle out of my sight.”

“I am glad of that. Horrid sights have a way of remaining in the mind’s eye. I wonder how Mr Perse is getting on with the preparations for his pageant?”

They soon knew. On the following morning Laura received a letter. Might Julian send along his ideas for the pageant to Aunt Laura? His aunt had told him that she—might he go on calling her simply Laura?—that she was an authority on Eng. Lit., and therefore he would be eternally grateful if she would not mind just glancing over the beastly thing and giving it her O.K. (or not, as the case might be) and if she thought it foul beyond words, could she—would she—offer some constructive criticisms? Julian was sorry if he was being a nuisance, but, etc., etc.

“Oh, Lord!” said Laura, dismayed. She handed the epistle to Dame Beatrice. “He doesn’t really want criticism, constructive or otherwise; he wants me to tell him how wonderfully clever he is, and I suppose I’ll have to do it. I can’t throw the poor youth down, whatever his stuff is like—and I don’t mind betting it’s gosh-awful.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Second Pageant, Part One

‘We must now turn to the records of more recent events and devote a little space to the remarkable proceedings…in the town.”

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When Laura read Mr Perse’s manuscript—or, rather, typescript—she was constrained to admit that his ideas were anything but gosh-awful. The young man, in fact, had made a lively and intelligent plan for his projected pageant, and Laura was considerably impressed by it and rang up Kitty to say so.

There was only one fly in her nephew’s ointment, Kitty replied. All the parts were to be taken by schoolboys. The girls’ school, mindful of the recent feud, had declined to allow itself to be involved.

“He’ll be much better off with a complete cast of boys,” said Laura to Dame Beatrice, reporting the telephone conversation. “For one thing, there won’t be any nonsense of the wrong sort, and, for another, there is no doubt that, called on to impersonate girls, apart from a mad determination to pad their chests until they look like double- fronted pouter pigeons, boys make up better as girls than girls do as boys. Don’t you agree?”

Dame Beatrice, who had always thought growing boys, apart from an unfortunate tendency towards spottiness, were infinitely more attractive than growing girls, agreed wholeheartedly and wondered aloud how soon Mr Perse would be able to stage his pageant. This proved to be during the week of the school’s half-term holiday at the end of October.

“Hope it keeps fine for him,” said Laura, when she was given the date. “Personally, I’d think twice about putting on an open-air show at that time of year.”

“Not all of it is to be given out-of-doors, though, is it?” Dame Beatrice enquired.

“Well, quite enough of it to make a fiasco if the weather turns really wet. There’s a good deal of actual ground to be covered,” Laura explained. “He’s doing the Roman bit—Aulus Plautius and company—at the end of Ferry Lane. They’re supposed to have landed there, having crossed the river with elephants on board.”

“Surely Mr Perse is not proposing to introduce elephants?”

“Well, if he isn’t, it’s not for want of trying. Kitty tells me that he got in touch with a circus, but I expect they would want a lot more money than he’d be prepared to pay. He’s leaving out Offa of Mercia—which is a pity—and also the Danes, the first because he doesn’t think Offa’s activities in Brayne were sufficiently dramatic to interest his boys, and the Danes because he thinks the said boys might be a bit too enthusiastic in ravaging the town.”

“It sounds as though he has given up the thought of having the boys to dance round the sacred oak. That would have to come before the Romans, I think.”

“Yes, it would, and he has. The school captain led a deputation.”

“Really? To object to the revels?”

“Well, honestly, I can’t say I blame the boys. It’s different if you belong to the Folk Song and Dance Society, but, if you don’t, to dance Sellenger’s Round or Mage on a Cree round an oak tree for the benefit of the local yobs is something quite other, so he’s starting at the ferry and then the whole procession, on foot, is going to Squire’s Acre to enact a chunk of Domesday Book.”

“It is very good of the Colonel to lend his grounds once more.”

“He didn’t really want to, so Kitty tells me, but he’s not very popular in Brayne and he didn’t want any adverse comment in the school magazine or the local paper, and I understand that Julian Perse, who never seems averse to sticking his neck out, rather threatened him with both if he wouldn’t play ball. Squire’s Acre was part of the original Manor of Brayne, you see, so Julian felt strongly that the Batty-Faudreys must lend it.”

“I see. And is the populace to be admitted?”

“No. Only the friends and relations of the boys taking part. That was the stipulation, and Julian made no objection. He told Kitty that the Domesday Book must be included, as Brayne is actually mentioned in it, but that the episode would be far too dull to appeal to the general public. I agree with him. Personally, I couldn’t care less