Death of a Fool Read Free Page B

said nothing. The smith, apparently, did not see her. His branch-like arms, ugly and graphic, continued their thrifty gestures. He glittered with sweat and his hair stuck to his forehead in a white fringe. After perhaps half a dozen blows the young man held up his hand and the other stopped, his chest heaving. They exchanged roles. The young giant struck easily and with a noble movement that enraptured Mrs. Bünz.
    She waited. The shoe was laid to the hoof and the smith in his classic pose crouched over the final task. The man in the background was motionless.
    “Dad, you’re wanted,” the smith’s mate said. The smith glanced at her and made a movement of his head. “Yes, ma-am?” asked the son.
    “I come with a message,” Mrs. Bünz began gaily. “From Dame Alice Mardian. The boiler at the castle has burst.”
    They were silent. “Thank you, then, ma-am,” the son said at last. He had come towards her but she felt that the movement was designed to keep her out of the smithy. It was as if he used his great torso as a screen for something behind it.
    She beamed into his face. “May I come in?” she asked. “What a wonderful smithy.”
    “Nobbut old scarecrow of a place. Nothing to see.”
    “Ach!” she cried jocularly, “but that’s just what I like. Old things are by way of being my business, you see. You’d be —” she made a gesture that included the old smith and the motionless figure in the background—“you’d
all
be surprised to hear how much I know about blackschmidts.”
    “Ar, yes, ma-am?”
    “For example,” Mrs. Bünz continued, growing quite desperately arch, “I know
all
about those spiral irons on your lovely old walls there. They’re fire charms, are they not? And, of course, there’s a horseshoe above your door. And I see by your beautiful printed little notice that you are Andersen, not Anderson, and that tells me so exactly just what I want to know. Everywhere, there are evidences for me to read. Inside, I daresay —” she stood on tiptoe and coyly dodged her large head from side to side, peeping round him and making a mocking face as she did so — “I daresay there are all sorts of things —”
    “
No, there bean’t then.
”
    The old smith had spoken. Out of his little body had issued a great roaring voice. His son half turned and Mrs. Bünz, with a merry laugh, nipped past him into the shop.
    “It’s Mr. Andersen, Senior,” she cried, “is it not? It is — dare I? — the Old Guiser himself? Now I
know
you don’t mean what you’ve just said. You are much too modest about your beautiful schmiddy. And so handsome a horse! Is he a hunter?”
    “Keep off. ’Er be a mortal savage kicker. See that naow,” he shouted as the mare made a plunging movement with the near hind leg which he held cradled in his lap. “She’s fair moidered already. Keep off of it. Keep aout. There’s nobbut’s men’s business yur.”
    “And I had heard so much,” Mrs. Bünz said gently, “of the spirit of hospitality in this part of England. Zo! I was misinformed it seems. I have driven over two hundred —”
    “Blow up, there, you, Chris. Blow up! Whole passel’s gone cold while she’ve been nattering. Blow up, boy.”
    The man in the background applied himself to the bellows. A vivid glow pulsed up from the furnace and illuminated the forge. Farm implements, bits of harness, awards won at fairs flashed up. The man stepped a little aside and, in doing so, he dislodged the piece of sacking he had thrown over his work. Mrs. Bünz cried out in German. The smith swore vividly in English. Grinning out of the shadows was an iron face, half-bird, half-monster, brilliantly painted, sardonic, disturbing and, in that light, strangely alive.
    Mrs. Bünz gave a scream of ecstasy.
    “The Horse!” she cried, clapping her hands like a madwoman. “The Old Hoss. The Hooded Horse. I have found it.
Gott sei Dank
, what joy is mine!”
    The third man had covered it again. She looked at their