Chapter XII

                   Dame Marigold Hears the
                     Tap of a Woodpecker


Miss Primrose Crabapple's trial was still dragging on,
clogged by all the foolish complications arising from the
legal fiction that had permitted her arrest.  If you
remember, in the eye of the law fairy fruit was regarded as
woven silk, and many days were wasted in a learned
discussion of the various characteristics of gold tissues,
stick tuftaffities, figured satins, wrought grograines, silk
mohair and ferret ribbons.
   Urged partly by curiosity and, perhaps, also by a
subconscious hope that in the comic light of Miss Primrose's
personality recent events might lose something of their
sinister horror, one morning Dame Marigold set out to visit
her old schoolmistress in her captivity.
   It was the first time she had left the house since the
tragedy, and, as she walked down the High Street she held
her head high and smiled a little scornful smile -- just to
show the vulgar herd that even the worst disgrace could not
break the spirit of a Vigil.
   Now, Dame Marigold had very acute senses.  Many a time
she had astonished Master Nathaniel by her quickness in
detecting the faintest whiff of any of the odours she
disliked -- shag, for instance, or onions.
   She was equally quick in psychological matters, and would
detect the existence of a quarrel or love affair long before
they were known to anyone except the parties concerned.  And
as she made her way that morning to the Guildhall she became
conscious in everything that was going on round her of what
one can only call a change of key.
   She could have sworn that the baker's boy with the tray
of loaves on his head was not whistling, that the
maid-servant, leaning out of a window to tend her mistress's
pot-flowers, was not humming the same tune that they would
have been some months ago.
   This, perhaps, was natural enough.  Tunes, like fruit,
have their seasons, and are, besides, ever forming new
species.  But even the voices of the hawkers chanting
"*Yellow Sand!*" or "*Knives and Scissors!*" sounded
disconcertingly different.
   Instinctively, Dame Marigold's delicate nostrils
expanded, and the corners of her mouth turned down in an 
expression of disgust, as if she had caught a whiff of a
disagreeable smell.  
   On reaching the Guildhall, she carried matters with a
high hand; No, no there was no need whatever to disturb his
Worship.  He had given her permission to visit the prisoner,
so would the guardian take her up immediately to her room.
   Dame Marigold was one of those women who, though they
walk blindfold through the fields and woods, if you place
them between four walls have eyes as sharp as a naturalist's
for the objects that surround them.  So, in spite of her
depression, her eyes were very busy as she followed the
guardian up the splendid spiral staircase, and along the
panelled corridors, hung, here and there, with beautiful
bits of tapestry.  She made a mental note to tell Master
Nathaniel that the caretaker had not swept the staircase,
and that some of the panelling was worm-eaten and should be
attended to.  And she would pause to finger a corner of the
tapestry and wonder if she could find some silk just that
powder blue, or just that old rose, for her own embroidery.
   "Why, I do declare, this panel is beginning to go too!"
she murmured, pausing to tap on the wall.
   Then she cried in a voice of surprise, "I do believe it's
hollow here!"
   The guardian smiled indulgently -- "You are just like the
doctor, ma'am -- Doctor Leer.  We used to call him the
Woodpecker, when he was studying the Guildhall for his book,
for he was for ever hopping about and tapping on the walls. 
It was almost as if he were looking for something, we used
to say.  And I'd never be surprised myself to come on a
sliding panel.  They do say as what those old Dukes were a
wild crew, and it might have suited their book very well to
have a secret way out of their place!" and he gave a knowing
wink.
   "Yes, yes, it certainly might," said Dame Marigold,
thoughtfully.
   They had now come to a door padlocked and bolted.  "This
is where we have put the prisoner, ma'am," said the
guardian, unlocking it.  And then he ushered her into the
presence of her old schoolmistress.
   Miss Primrose was sitting bolt upright in a straight
backed old fashioned chair, against a background of fine old
tapestries, faded to the softest loveliest pastel tints --
as incongruous with her grotesque ugliness as had been the
fresh prettiness of the Crabapple Blossoms.
   Dame Marigold stood staring at her for a few seconds in
silent indignation.  Then she sank slowly on to a chair, and
said sternly, "Well, Miss Primrose?  I wonder how you dare
sit there so calmly after the *appalling* thing you have
brought about."
   But Miss Primrose was in one of her most exalted moods --
"On her high hobby-horse," as the Crabapple Blossoms used to
call it.  So she merely glittered at Dame Marigold
contemptuously out of her little eyes, and, with a lordly
wave of her hand, as if to sweep away from her all mundane
trivialities, she exclaimed pityingly, "My poor blind
Marigold!  Perhaps of all the pupils who have passed through
my hands you are the one who are the least worthy of your
noble birthright."  
   Dame Marigold bit her lip, raised her eyebrows, and said
in a low voice of intense irritation, "What *do* you mean,
Miss Primrose?" 
   Miss Primrose cast her eyes up to the ceiling, and, in
her most treacly voice she answered, "The great privilege of
having been born a woooman!"
   Her pupils always maintained that "woman," as pronounced
by Miss Primrose, was the most indecent word in the
language.
   Dame Marigold's eyes flashed: "I may not be a woman, but,
at any rate, I am a mother -- which is more than you are!"
she retorted.
   Then, in a voice that at each word grew more indignant,
she said, "And, Miss Primrose, do you consider that you
yourself have been `worthy of your noble birthright' in
betraying the trust that has been placed in you?  Are vice
and horror and disgrace and breaking the hearts of parents
`true womanliness' I should like to know?  You are worse
than a murderer -- ten times worse.  And there you sit,
gloating over what you have done, as if you were a martyr or
a public benefactor -- as complacent and smug and
misunderstood as a princess from the moon forced to herd
goats!  I do really believe..."
   But Miss Primrose's shrillness screamed down her
low-toned indignation: "Shake me!  Stick pins in me!  Fling
me into the Dapple!" she shrieked.  "I will bear it all with
a smile, and wear my shame like a flower given by *him*!"
   Dame Marigold groaned in exasperation: "Who, on earth, do
you mean by `*him*', Miss Primrose?"
   Then her irrepressible sense of humour broke out in a
dimple, and she added: "Duke Aubrey or Endymion Leer?"
   For, of course, Prunella had told her all the jokes about
the goose and the sage.
   At this question Miss Primrose gave an unmistakable
start; "Duke Aubrey, of course!" she answered, but the look
in her eyes was sly, suspicious, and distinctly scared.
   None of this was lost upon Dame Marigold.  She looked her
slowly up and down with a little mocking smile; and Miss
Primrose began to writhe and to gibber.
   "Hum!" said Dame Marigold, meditatively.
   She had never liked the smell of Endymion Leer's
personality.
   The recent crisis had certainly done him no harm.  It had
doubled his practice, and trebled his influence.
   Besides, it cannot have been Miss Primrose's beauty and
charms that had caused him to pay her recently such marked
attentions.
   At any rate, it could do no harm to draw a bow at a
venture.
   "I am beginning to understand, Miss Primrose," she said
slowly.  "Two... *outsiders*, have put their heads together
to see if they could find a plan for humiliating the stupid,
stuck-up, `*so-called* old families of Lud!'  Oh! don't
protest, Miss Primrose.  You have never taken any pains to
hide your contempt for us.  And I have always realized that
yours was not a forgiving nature.  Nor do I blame you.  We
have laughed at you unmercifully for years -- and you have
resented it.  All the same I think your revenge has been an
unnecessarily violent one; though, I suppose, to `a true
woooman,' nothing is too mean, too spiteful, too base, if it
serves the interests of `*him*'!"
   But Miss Primrose had gone as green as grass, and was
gibbering with terror: "Marigold!  Marigold!" she cried,
wringing her hands, "*How* can you think such things?  The
dear, devoted Doctor!  The best and kindest man in
Lud-in-the-Mist!  Nobody was angrier with me over what he
called my `criminal carelessness' in allowing that
*horrible* stuff to be smuggled into my loft, I assure you
he is quite rabid on the subject of... er... *fruit.*  Why,
when he was a young man at the time of the great drought he
was working day and night trying to stop it, he..."
   But not for nothing was Dame Marigold descended from
generations of judges.  Quick as lightning, she turned on
her: "The great drought?  But that must be forty years
ago... long before Endymion Leer came to Dorimare."
   "Yes, yes, dear... of course... quite so... I was
thinking of what another doctor had told me... since all
this trouble my poor head gets quite muddled," gibbered Miss
Primrose.  And she was shaking from head to foot.
   Dame Marigold rose from her chair, and stood looking down
on her in silence for a few seconds, under half-closed lids,
with a rather cruel little smile.
   Then she said, "Good-bye, Miss Primrose.  You have
provided me with most interesting food for thought."
   And then she left her, sitting there with frightened face
against the faded tapestry.
   That same day, Master Nathaniel received a letter from
Luke Hempen that both perplexed and alarmed him.
   It was as follows:
   
      Your Worship, -- I'd be glad if you'd take Master
   Ranulph away from this farm, because the widow's up to
   mischief, I'm sure of that, and some of the folks about
   here say as what in years gone by she murdered her
   husband, and she and somebody else, though I don't know
   who, seem to have a grudge against Master Ranulph, and,
   if I might take the liberty, I'll just tell your Worship
   what I heard.
      It was this way -- one night, I don't know how it was,
   but I couldn't get to sleep, and thinking that a bite,
   may be, of something would send me off, towards midnight
   I got up from my bed to go and look in the kitchen for a
   bit of bread.  And half-way down the stairs I heard the
   sound of low voices, and someone said, "I fear the
   Chanticleers," so I stood still where I was, and
   listened.  And I peeped down and the kitchen fire was
   nearly out, but there was enough left for me to see the
   widow, and a man wrapped up in a cloak, sitting opposite
   to her with his back to the stairs, so I couldn't see his
   face.  Their talk was low and at first I could only hear
   words here and there, but they kept making mention of the
   Chanticleers, and the man said something like keeping the
   Chanticleers and Master Ambrose Honeysuckle apart,
   because Master Ambrose had had a vision of Duke Aubrey. 
   And if I hadn't known the widow and how she was a deep
   one and as fly as you make them, I'd have thought they
   were two poor daft old gossips, whose talk had turned 
   wild and nasty with old age.  And then the man laid his
   hand on her knee, and his voice was low, but this time it
   was so clear that I could hear it all, and I think I can
   remember every word of it, so I'll write it down for your
   Worship: "*I fear counter orders.  You know the Chief and
   his ways -- at any moment he might betray his agents. 
   Willy Wisp gave young Chanticleer fruit without my
   knowledge.  And I told you how he and that doitered old
   weaver of yours have been putting their heads together,
   and that's what has frightened me most.*"
      And then his voice became too low for me to hear, till
   he said, "*Those who go by the Milky Way often leave
   footprints.  So let him go by the other.*"
      And then he got up to go, and I crept back to my
   room.  But not a wink of sleep did I get that night for
   thinking over what I had heard.  For though it seemed
   gibberish, it gave me the shivers, and that's a fact. 
   And mad folks are often as dangerous as bad ones, so I
   hope your Worship will excuse me writing like this, and
   that you'll favour me with an answer by return, and take
   Master Ranulph away, for I don't like the look in the
   widow's eye when she looks at him, that I don't.
      And hoping this finds your Worship well as it leaves
   me, -- I am, Your Worship's humble obedient servant,
                                                LUKE HEMPEN.
   
   How Master Nathaniel longed to jump on to his horse and
ride post-haste to the farm!  But that was impossible. 
Instead, he immediately despatched a groom with orders to
ride day and night and deliver a letter to Luke Hempen,
which bade him instantly take Ranulph to the farm near
Moongrass (a village that lay some fifteen miles north of
Swan-on-the-Dapple) from which for years he had got his
cheeses.
   Then he sat down and tried to find some meaning in the
mysterious conversation Luke had overheard.
   Ambrose seeing a vision!  An unknown Chief!  Footprints
on the Milky Way!
   Reality was beginning to become very shadowy and
menacing.
   He must find out something about this widow.  Had she not
once appeared in the law-courts?  He decided he must look
her up without a moment's delay.
   He had inherited from his father a fine legal library,
and the book-shelves in his pipe-room were packed with
volumes bound in vellum and old calf of edicts, codes, and
trials.  Some of them belonged to the days before printing
had been introduced into Dorimare, and were written in the
crabbed hand of old town-clerks.
   It made the past very real, and threw a friendly,
humourous light upon the dead, to come upon, when turning
those yellow parchment pages, some personal touch of the old
scribe's, such as a sententious or facetious insertion of
his own -- for instance, "The Law bides her Time, but my
Dinner doesn't!" or the caricature in the margin of some
forgotten judge.  It was just as if one of the grotesque 
plaster heads on the old houses were to give you, suddenly,
a sly wink.
   But it was the criminal trials that, in the past, had
given Master Nathaniel the keenest pleasure.  The dry style
of the Law was such a magnificent medium for narrative.  And
the little details of everyday life, the humble objects of
daily use, became so startlingly vivid, when, like scarlet
geraniums breaking through a thick autumn mist, they blazed
out from that grey style... so vivid, and, often, fraught
with such tragic consequences.
   Great was his astonishment when he discovered from the
index that it was among the criminal trials that he must
look for the widow Gibberty's.  What was more, it was a
trial for murder.
   Surely Endymion Leer had told him, when he was urging him
to send Ranulph to the farm, that it had been a quite
trivial case, concerning an arrear of wages, or something,
due to a discharged servant?
   As a matter of fact, the plaintiff, a labourer of the
name of Diggory Carp, *had* been discharged from the service
of the late Farmer Gibberty.  But the accusation he brought
against the widow was that she had poisoned her husband with
the sap of osiers.
   However, when he had finished the trial, Master Nathaniel
found himself in complete sympathy with the judge's
pronouncement that the widow was innocent, and with his
severe reprimand to the plaintiff, for having brought such a
serious charge against a worthy woman on such slender
grounds.
   But he could not get Luke's letter out of his head, and
he felt that he would not have a moment's peace till the
groom returned with news from the farm.
   As he sat that evening by the parlour fire, wondering for
the hundredth time who the mysterious cloaked stranger could
have been whose back had been seen by Luke, Dame Marigold
suddenly broke the silence by saying, "What do you know
about Endymion Leer, Nat?"
   "What do I know of Endymion Leer?" he repeated absently. 
"Why, that he's a very good leach, with very poor taste in
cravats, and, if possible, worse taste in jokes.  And that,
for some unknown reason, he has a spite against me..."
   He broke off in the middle of his sentence, and muttered
beneath his breath, "By the Sun, Moon and Stars!  Supposing
it should be..."
   Luke's stranger had said he feared the Chanticleers.
   A strange fellow, Leer!  The Note had once sounded in his
voice.  Where did he come from?  Who was he?  Nobody knew in
Lud-in-the-Mist.
   And, then, there were his antiquarian tastes.  They were
generally regarded as a harmless, unprofitable hobby.  And
yet... the past was dim and evil, a heap of rotting leaves. 
The past was silent and belonged to the Silent People... But
Dame Marigold was asking another question, a question that
had no apparent connection with the previous one: "What was
the year of the great drought?" 
   Master Nathaniel answered that it was exactly forty years
ago, and added quizzically, "Why this sudden interest in
history, Marigold?"
   Again she answered by asking him a question.  "And when
did Endymion Leer first arrive in Dorimare?"
   Master Nathaniel began to be interested.  "Let me see,"
he said thoughtfully.  "It was certainly long before we
married.  Yes, I remember, we called him in to a
consultation when my mother had pleurisy, and that was
shortly after his arrival, for he could still only speak
broken Dorimarite... it must be thirty years ago."
   "I see," said Dame Marigold drily.  "But I happen to know
that he was already in Dorimare at the time of the drought."
   And she proceeded to repeat to him her conversation that
morning with Miss Primrose.
   "And," she added, "I've got another idea," and she told
him about the panel in the Guildhall that sounded hollow and
what the guardian had said about the woodpecker ways of
Endymion Leer.  "And if, partly for revenge for our coldness
to him, and partly from a love of power," she went on, "it
is he who has been behind this terrible affair, a secret
passage would be very useful in smuggling, and would explain
how all your precautions have been useless.  And who would
be more likely to know about a secret passage in the
Guildhall than Endymion Leer!"
   "By the Sun, Moon and Stars!" exclaimed Master Nathaniel
excitedly, "I shouldn't be surprised if you were right,
Marigold.  You've got a head on your shoulders with
something in it more useful than porridge!"
   And Dame Marigold gave a little complacent smile.
   Then he sprang from his chair, "I'm off to tell Ambrose!"
he cried eagerly.
   But would he be able to convince the slow and obstinate
mind of Master Ambrose?  Mere suspicions are hard to
communicate.  They are rather like the wines that will not
travel, and have to be drunk on the spot.
   At any rate, he could but try.
   "Have you ever had a vision of Duke Aubrey, Ambrose?" he
cried, bursting into his friend's pipe-room.
   Master Ambrose frowned with annoyance.  "What are you
driving at, Nat?" he said, huffily.
   "Answer my question.  I'm not chaffing you, I'm in deadly
earnest.  Have you ever had a vision of Duke Aubrey?"
   Master Ambrose moved uneasily in his chair.  He was far
from proud of that vision of his.  "Well," he said, gruffly,
"I suppose one might call it that.  It was at the Academy --
the day that wretched girl of mine ran away.  And I was so
upset that there was some excuse for what you call visions."
   "And did you tell anyone about it?"
   "Not I!" said Master Ambrose emphatically; then he caught
himself up and added, "Oh! yes I believe I did though.  I
mentioned it to that spiteful little quack, Endymion Leer. 
I'm sure I wish I hadn't.  Toasted Cheese!  What's the
matter now, Nat?"
   For Master Nathaniel was actually cutting a caper of
triumph and glee. 
   "I was right!  I was right!" he cried joyfully, so elated
by his own acumen that for the moment his anxiety was
forgotten.
   "Read that, Ambrose," and he eagerly thrust into his
hands Luke Hempen's letter.
   "Humph!" said Master Ambrose when he had finished it. 
"Well, what are you so pleased about?"
   "Don't you see, Ambrose!" cried Master Nathaniel
impatiently.  "That mysterious fellow in the cloak must be
Endymion Leer... nobody else knows about your vision."
   "Oh, yes, Nat, blunt though my wits may be I see *that.* 
But I fail to see how the knowledge helps us in any way."
   Then Master Nathaniel told him about Dame Marigold's
theories and discoveries.
   Master Ambrose hummed and hawed, and talked about women's
reasoning, and rash conclusions.  But perhaps he was more
impressed, really, than he chose to let Master Nathaniel
see.  At any rate he grudgingly agreed to go with him by
night to the Guildhall and investigate the hollow panel. 
And, from Master Ambrose, this was a great concession; for
it was not the sort of escapade that suited his dignity.
   "Hurrah, Ambrose!" shouted Master Nathaniel.  "And I'm
ready to bet a Moongrass cheese against a flask of your best
flower-in-amber that we'll find that rascally quack at the
bottom of it all!"
   "You'd always a wonderful eye for a bargain, Nat," said
Master Ambrose with a grim chuckle.  "Do you remember, when
we were youngsters, how you got my pedigree pup out of me
for a stuffed pheasant, so moth-eaten that it had scarcely a
feather to its name, and, let me see, what else?  I think
there was a half a packet of mouldy sugar-candy..."
   "And I threw in a broken musical-box whose works used to
go queer in the middle of "To War, Bold Sons of Dorimare,"
and burr and buzz like a drunk cockchafer," put in Master
Nathaniel proudly.  "It was quite fair -- quantity for
quality."