Pageant of Murder

“Good thing I booked a table for four, then.”

“Four? Who else is coming?”

“Young Julian Perse, our nevvy, of course.”

Kitty shuddered.

“He’s the one who let me in for this pageant thing,” she confided to Laura. “I’ve cut him out of my will. Anyway, I’ve had my revenge. He wanted to be Henry VIII with all six wives, but I made the sub-committee put him in a car, like the Mayor and Mayoress and all the other Councillors.”

“But how cruel!” said Laura, with a leer which would have done credit to her formidable employer.

“Well, he is a Councillor,” retorted Kitty, “so he can go by car like the other Councillors. What’s the matter with that? So, in revenge, he’s not going to show up at the Town Hall in the evening—though I don’t really think it’s revenge.”

“He may think himself lucky in the end,” said Laura, not knowing with what authority she spoke.

Dinner was gay and amusing and, allowing (as Laura tactfully did) for a certain amount of youthful arrogance and cocksureness on his part, young Mr Perse acquitted himself with distinction and proved to be a pleasant addition to the party. He took to Laura immediately, made himself extremely charming to her in a discreetly flirtatious manner, gently teased his aunt, talked seriously and well to his uncle, and when dinner was over offered to run Laura round Brayne in his car, so that she could see what she was letting herself in for. This offer was flatly turned down by Kitty, who objected to the project on the grounds that she wanted Laura all in one piece for the next day’s rehearsals.

“Of course, lots of people won’t be able to turn up for the afternoon stint because they’ll be at work,” she explained to Laura, when, young Mr Perse having been sent back to Brayne, the others had returned from the restaurant to the flat, “but so long as two or three in each party know the drill, it ought to be all right, I should think. Anyway, the schools have all promised that we can have the children, so that’s quite something, isn’t it?”

The schools were as good as their word. At two o’clock in the afternoon the youngest members of the pageant were brought in motor coaches to Colonel Batty-Faudrey’s grounds, but as it was a troublesome and expensive business to transport five maypoles with their attendant ribbons (added to the fact that the Colonel was not anxious to have his beautiful lawn torn up more than once), the children were merely given their places and were told to “dance round teacher”, which they solemnly proceeded to do.

The Colonel and his wife came out to oversee the revels and keep an eye on the turf. All went well, however. Each small child was in plimsolls, so were the older boys. The older girls went one better and performed their dances and their exercises barefoot. Kitty introduced Laura to the Batty-Faudrey couple, and the four stood watching from a paved enclosure just outside the garden door of the house. Giles Faudrey, Mr Perse’s bete noire, did not watch the rehearsal.

“Well, that went off all right,” said Kitty, after she had thanked the teachers—a gesture which appeared to surprise them—and had seen the motor coaches drive off. “Now for Toc H. Three of them promised to turn up. One’s got an early-closing day, another’s a road-sweeper and said he could “look in as part of the job”, and the third one runs a bingo hall and it’s his free afternoon. So that’s all right, so long as there’s no trouble about the armour.”

“The armour?”

“Oh, Dog, you know how men fuss when you want them to dress up!”

“Oh, ah, yes. They’re to be Crusaders, I think you said. What about the Mounties?”

“The Colonel has stuck his feet in about the pony club. They’ve got to perform in his paddock. It’s an awful bore, because you know how an audience stampedes if it has to move from one place to another. Still, he’s willing to do the dressage show in the paddock, too, so it will only mean one upset, thank goodness.”

The three Crusaders arrived separately and at intervals. None of them had tried on the armour. Kitty showed them where their float would finish up and seemed relieved when they took themselves off. Nobody else turned up at all.

“Oh, well,” said Kitty philosophically, “I shall just have to tell them on the day, that’s all. It doesn’t really matter. The pony club can’t do any harm in the paddock, the dressage people can do their own rehearsing, and the rest, being more or less disciplined and under control, must just go where they’re told. We’ve ordered half-a-dozen policemen to keep the lorries off the lawn, so there shouldn’t be any difficulty there. It’s this evening I’m really looking forward to, when we rehearse at the Town Hall. Under cover and with chairs to sit on, thank goodness!”

“Oh, The Merry Wives. Yes, of course.”

“In costume, with lighting and prompter, if all goes as arranged, but you know what some of these amateur companies can be like. I’d had other plans for this one, as a matter of fact. I wanted them to do the death-bed of Edward III.”

“Whatever for?”

“I was going to pinch for myself the fat part of Alice Perrers.”

“Alice Perrers? Never heard of her.”

“Oh, Dog! And you took Advanced History at college!”

“It didn’t include anybody called Alice Perrers. What did she do?”

“She was the king’s mistress and she winkled the rings off his fingers as he lay dying. Anyway, the company kicked up rough, so I had to abandon the idea. That’s the worst of amateurs. You’ve no hold over them, you see. Then I tried Shelley. He went to some sort of prep. school in the neighbourhood of Brayne before he was pushed off to Eton. I’d chosen the most beautiful little boy for Shelley—all golden hair and far-away grey eyes…”

“Blimey! I bet he was a thug!”

“Well, actually, I had to sack him because he did bite one of the other kids whose father happens to be on the Council, and, of course, I must admit he had one of those hoarse, foggy, dock-side voices, with only one vowel-