Light Thickens

Chapter 6 FULL HOUSE

It had been running to full houses for two weeks. There had been no more silly tricks and the actors had settled down to the successful run of the play. Peregrine no longer came down to every performance but on this Saturday night he was bringing his two older boys, home for half-term. He had a meeting with the management about how long the season should run and whether, for the actors’ sakes, after six months they should make a change and, if so, what that change should be.

“We don’t need to worry about it if we decide to have a Shakespeare rep. season: say Twelfth Night and Measure for Measure. With Macbeth,” said Peregrine, “We’ll just keep it in mind. You never know what may turn up, do you?”

They said no, you didn’t, and the discussion ended.

The day turned out to be unseasonably muggy and exhausting. Not a breath of wind, the sky overcast, and a suggestion of thunder. “On the left,” said Gaston as he prepared to supervise the morning’s fight. “Thunder on the left meant trouble in Roman times. The gods rumbling, you know.”

“They ought to have heard you,” said Dougal rudely. “That would have pulled them up in their tracks.”

“Come on,” said Simon. “Let’s press on with it. We’ve got a matinee, remember.”

Wearily, they took their places and fought.

“You are dragging. Dragging!” Gaston shouted. “Stop. It is worse than not doing it at all. Again, from the beginning.”

“Have a heart, Gaston. It’s a deadly day for these capers,” said Simon.

“I am merciless. Come. Begin. A tempo. Er — one —”

“No!” Dougal said in an access of irritability. “It’s too hot and this is needless and I will — not — do — it.” He flung down his claymore and stomped off.

Gaston, for once silent, picked up the claymore.

“Now see what your damn gods have rumbled,” said Simon crossly and went off after Dougal.

Peregrine was taking Crispin and Robin, aged fifteen and nine, to the evening performance. Richard, being thought a little young, at seven, for Macbeth, was going to a farce with his mother.

“Is it bloody?” Richard asked ruefully.

“Very,” Peregrine replied firmly.

“Extra special bloody?”

“It is.”

“I’d like that. Is it going to run a long time?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps I’ll grow up into it.”

“Perhaps you will.”

Emily took a taxi and she and Richard sailed off together, looking excited. Peregrine and the two older boys took their car. Crispin’s form at school was working on Macbeth and he asked a great many questions that Peregrine supposed were necessary and that he answered to the best of his ability. Presently, Crispin said: “Old Perky says you ought to feel a great weight’s been shifted off your shoulders at the end. When Macduff sort of actually lifts Macbeth’s head off and young Malcolm comes in for king.”

“I hope you’ll feel like that.”

“Does the lights man have to allow an exact time lag be-tween cue and performance?” asked Robin, who at the moment wanted to become an electrical engineer.

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“I’ve forgotten. About one second, I think.”

“Cripes.”

“I’m not sure. We can go round after the play and you can ask our lighting man.”

“Right!” said Robin happily.

Peregrine turned into the theatre private car park and they got out and locked the car. The foyer was crowded and the House Full notice displayed.

“We’re in a box,” said Peregrine. “Come on. Up the stairs.”

“Super,” said the boys. The usher at the door into the circle said: “Good evening, sir,” and smiled at them. He wagged his head. Peregrine and the boys left the queue and slipped behind him into the circle.

They passed around the back of the circle into the middle box. Peregrine bought them a programme each. The programme girl smiled upon them. The house was almost full. A tall man, alone, came down the center aisle and made for a management seat in the stalls. He looked up, saw Peregrine, and waved his programme. Peregrine answered.

“Who are you waving to, Pop?”

“Do you see that very tall man just sitting down, in the third row?”

“Yes. He looks super,” said Crispin. “Who is he?”

“Chief Superintendent Alleyn. C.I.D. He was here on our opening night.”

“Why’s he come again?” asked Robin.

“Presumably because he likes the play.”

“Oh.”

“Actually he didn’t get an uninterrupted view on the first night. There were Royals. He was helping the police look after them.”

“So he had to sit watching the audience and not the actors?”

“Yes.”

A persistent buzzer began sounding in the foyer. Peregrine looked at his watch. “We’re ten minutes over time,” he said. “Give them five minutes more and then the latecomers’ll have to wait until Scene Two. No. It’s okay. Here we go.”

The house lights dimmed very slowly and the audience was silent. Now it was dark. The flash of lightning, the distant roll of thunder, the faint sound of wind. The curtain went up and the witches were at their unholy work on the gallows.

The play flowed on. Peregrine, sitting between his sons, glanced at them and wondered what was going on in their heads. He had been careful not to rub their noses into the plays and had left it to them whether or not they would read them. As far as he could make out, Mr. Perkins was not sickening Crispin with overinsistence on notes and disputed passages but had interested him first in the play itself and in the magic and strength of its language.

Robin at six years old had seen a performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream and enjoyed it for all the wrong reasons. The chief comic character, in his opinion, was Hippolyta, and he laughed very heartily at all her entrances. When Emily asked why, he said: “At her legs.” He thought Bottom a very good actor and the “audience” extremely rude to laugh at him. At nine years old he would be less surprising in his judgments.

Now, they were both very still and attentive. When Banquo and Fleance came in for their little night scene, Robin turned and looked at Peregrine. He bent down. “Nice,” Robin whispered and they nodded to each other. But later, when Macbeth began to climb the stairs, Robin’s hand felt for his father’s. Peregrine held it tightly until the end of the scene when the Porter came on. Both the boys laughed loudly at the bawdy-looking pieces of driftwood and the Porter’s description of the aggravating effects of drinking too much.

Peregrine had not seen the play for almost a week, having been in Manchester on business with the touring company. He thought the Thane had begun to cherish his lines and slow up a bit, and reminded himself to speak to him. Otherwise all was well.

In the interval, Robin visited the lavatories. Crispin said he might as well stay with him while their father had a drink with the management. They arranged to meet in the foyer, under the photo of Macbeth.

Winter Meyer came out to welcome him. They went into his office. “Still goes on,” Winty said. “Booked solid for the next six months.”

“Odd,” said Peregrine, “when you think of the superstitions. There’s a record of good business and catastrophe going back hand in hand for literally centuries.”

“Not for us, old boy.”

“Touch wood.”

“You too?” asked Winty, giving him his drink.

“No. No way. But it’s rife in the company.”

“Really?”

“Old Nina’s got the bug very badly. Her dressing-table’s like a secondhand charm shop.”

“No signs of catastrophe, though,” Winty said. “Are there?” And when Peregrine didn’t answer at once, he said sharply: “Are there?”

“There have been signs of some halfwit planting them. Whoever it is hasn’t got the results he may have hoped for. But it’s very annoying for all that. Or was. They seem to have died out.”

Winty said, after a moment: “Something rather odd happened in our office, too. It was a week before we opened. I haven’t mentioned it to anybody. Except Mrs. Abrams. And she doesn’t know what was typed and anyway she’s a clam of clams. But since you’ve brought it up —”

There was a knock at the door and at the same time the warning buzzer sounded.

“I’m sorry,” said Peregrine. “I’ll have to go. I promised my younger son. He’ll be having kittens. Thank you, Winty. I’ll come in tomorrow morning. I think we’d better have a talk about this and the other things.”

“So do I. Tomorrow. Thank you, Perry.” Peregrine opened the door, sidestepped Mrs. Abrams, and went back to the foyer.

There he found Robin under the photograph of Macbeth. “Oh, hullo,” he said casually when Peregrine reached him. “There’s the second buzz.”

“Where’s Cip?”

Crispin was in the crowd by the bookstall. He was searching his pockets. Peregrine, closely followed by Robin, worked his way over to him.

“I’ve got it all but twenty p.,” said Crispin. He clutched a book called Macbeth Through Four Centuries.

Peregrine produced a five-pound note, and handed it to the clerk. “For the book,” he said. “Come on, boys,” and they returned to their box. The interval ended, the house darkened, and the curtain rose.

On Banquo. Alone and suspicious. Macbeth questions him. He is going out? Riding? He must return. For the party. Does Fleance go with him? Yes to all those questions. There is a terrible smile on Macbeth’s face, the lips stretch back. Farewell.

Seyton is at once sent for the murderers. He has them ready and stands in the doorway and hears the wooing. Macbeth is easier, almost enjoys himself. They are his sort. He caresses them. The bargain is struck; they go off.

Now Lady Macbeth finds him: full of strange hints and of horror. There is the superb invocation to night and he leads her away. And the scene changes. Seyton joins the murderers and Banquo is dispatched.

The banquet. Seyton tells Macbeth that Fleance has escaped.

The bloodied ghost of Banquo appears among the guests.

The play began its inexorable swell toward the appointed ending. After the witches, the apparitions, the equivocal promises, comes the murder of Macduff’s wife and child.

Then Lady Macbeth, asleep and talking in that strange, metallic, nightmare voice. Macbeth again, after a long interval. He has degenerated and shrunk. He beats about him with a kind of hectic frenzy and peers hopelessly into the future. These are the death throes of a monster. Please let Macduff find him and finish it.

Macduff has found him. “Turn, hell-hound, turn!”

Robin’s hand crept into his father’s and held it fast.

The fight. Leap, clash, sweep; hoarse, snarling voices. Macbeth is beaten backward, Macduff raises his claymore, and they plunge out of sight. A scream. A thud. Silence. Then the distant approach of pipe and drums. Malcolm and his thanes come out on the upper landing. The rest of his troops march on at stage-level and up the steps with old Siward, who receives the news of his son’s death.

Macduff comes on downstage, O.P., followed by Seyton.

Seyton carries his claidheamh-mor and on it, streaming blood, the head of Macbeth. He turns it upstage, facing Malcolm and the troops.

Macduff has not looked at it. He shouts: “Behold where stands the usurper’s cursed head. Hail, King of Scotland!”

The blood drips onto Seyton’s upturned face.

And being well-trained professional actors, they respond, with stricken faces and shaking lips, “Hail, King of Scotland!”

The curtain falls.

Cip,” Peregrine said, “you’ll have to get a cab home. Here’s the cash. Take care of Robin, won’t you? Do you know what’s happened?”

“It seems — some sort of accident?”

“Yes. To the Macbeth. I’ve got to stay here. Look, there’s a cab. Get it.”

Crispin darted out and ran toward the taxi, holding up his hand. He jumped back on the platform and the taxi driver drew up. Peregrine said: “In you get, Rob.”

“I thought we were going backstage,” Robin said. His face was pale, his eyes bewildered.

“There’s been an accident. Next time.”

He gave the driver their address and they were gone. Someone tapped his arm. He turned and found it was Roderick Alleyn.

“I’d better come round, hadn’t I?” he said.

“You! Yes… You’ve seen it? It really happened?”

“Yes.”

They found a crowd of people milling about in the alley. “My God,” said Peregrine. “The bloody public.”

“I’ll try and cope.”

Alleyn was very tall. There was a wooden box at the stage door. He made his way to it and stood on it, facing the crowd. “If you please,” he said, and was listened to.

“You are naturally curious. You will learn nothing and you will be very much in the way if you stay here. Nobody of consequence will be leaving the theatre by this door. Please behave reasonably and go.”

He stood there, waiting.

“Who does he think he is?” said a man next to Peregrine.

“He’s Chief Superintendent Alleyn,” said Peregrine. “You’d better do what he says.”

There was a general murmur. A voice said: “Aw, come on. What’s the use.”

They moved away.

The doorkeeper opened the door to the length of the chain, peered out, and saw Peregrine. “Thank Gawd,” he said. “Hold on, sir.” He disengaged the chain and opened the door wide enough to admit them. Peregrine said: “It’s all right. This is Chief Superintendent Alleyn,” and they went in.

To a silent place. The stage was lit. Masking pieces rose up; black masses, through which the passage could be seen running under the landing in front of the door to Duncan’s chamber. At the far end of this passage, strongly lit, was a shrouded object, a bundle, lying on the stage. A dark red puddle had seeped from under it.

They moved around the set and the stage manager came offstage.

“Perry! Thank God,” he said.

“I was in front. So was Superintendent Alleyn. Bob Masters, our stage manager, Mr. Alleyn.”

“Have you rung the Yard?” Alleyn asked.

“Charlie’s doing it,” said Masters, “now. Our A.S.M. He’s having some difficulty getting a line out.”

“I’ll have a word with him,” said Alleyn and went into the Prompt Corner.

“I’m a policeman,” he told Charlie. “Shall I take over?”

“Ah? Are you? Yes. Hullo? Here’s a policeman.” He held out the receiver. Alleyn said: “Superintendent Alleyn. At the Dolphin. Homicide. Decapitation. That’s what I said. I imagine that as I was here I’ll be expected to take it on. Yes. I’ll hold on while you do.” There was a short interval and he said, “Bailey and Thompson. Yes. Ask Inspector Fox to come down. My case is in my room. He’ll bring it. Get the doctor. Right? Good.”

He hung up. “I’ll take a look,” he said and went onstage.

Four stagehands and the Property Master were there, keeping guard.

“Nobody’s gone,” Bob Masters said. “The company are in their dressing-rooms and Peregrine’s gone back to the office. There’s a sort of conference.”

“Good,” said Alleyn.

He walked over to the shrouded bundle. “What happened after the curtain fell?” he asked.

“Scarcely anybody really realized it was — not a dummy. The head. The dummy’s a very good head. Blood and everything. I didn’t realize. The curtain went down. I was getting them ready for the curtain calls. And then Gaston, who carried it on the end of his claidheamh-mor — the great claymore thing he carries throughout the play — that thing —” He pointed at the bundle.

“Yes?”

“He noticed the blood on his gloves and he looked at them. And then he looked up and it dripped on his face and he screamed. The curtain being down.”

“Yes.”

“We all saw, of course. He let the — the head — on the claymore — fall. The house was still applauding. So I — really, I didn’t know what I was doing. I went out through the center break in the curtain and said there’d been an accident and I hoped they’d forgive us not taking the usual calls and would go home. And I came off. By that time,” said Mr. Masters, “panic had broken out in the cast. I ordered them all to their rooms and I covered the head with that cloth — it’s used on the props table, I think. And Props sort of tucked it under. And that’s all.”

“It’s very clear indeed. Thank you, Mr. Masters. I think I’ll look at the head now, if you please. I can manage for myself.”

“I’d be glad not to.”

“Yes, of course,” said Alleyn.

He squatted down, keeping clear of the puddle. He took hold of the cloth and turned it back.

Sir Dougal stared up at him through the slits in his mask. The eyes were set and glazed. The steel guard over his mouth had fallen away and the mouth stretched in a clown’s grin. Alleyn saw that he had been struck from behind: the wound was clean and the margin turned outward. He covered the face.

“The weapon?” he said.

“We think it must be this,” Masters said. “At least, I do.”

“This is the weapon carried by Seyton?”

“Yes.”

“It’s bloodied, of course.”

“Yes. It would be anyway. And with false blood too. There’s false blood over everything. But” — Masters shuddered — “they’re mixed.”

“Where’s the false head?”

“The false —? I don’t know. We haven’t looked.”

Alleyn walked into the O.P. corner. It was encircled with scenery masking pieces and very dark. He waited for his sight to adapt. In the darkest corner, behind one of the pieces, a man’s form slowly assembled itself, its head facedown. Its head!

He moved toward it, stooped down, and touched the head. It shifted under his fingers. It was the dummy. He touched the body. It was flesh — and blood. And dead. And headless.

Alleyn moved back and returned to the stage.

There was a loud knocking on the stage door.

“I’ll go,” said Masters.

It was the Yard. Inspector Fox and Sergeants Bailey and Thompson. Fox was the regular, old-style, plainclothesman: grizzled, amiable and implacable.

He said: “Visiting your old haunts, are you, sir?”

“Over twenty years ago, isn’t it, Br’er Fox? And you two. I want you to give the full treatment, photos, prints, the lot, to that head onstage there, covered up, and the headless body in the dark corner over there. They parted company just before the final curtain. All right? And the dummy head in the corner. The assumed weapon is the claymore on which the real head’s fixed, so include that in the party. Any more staff coming?”

“Couple of uniformed coppers. Any moment now.”

“Good. Front doors and stage door for them. On guard.”

He turned to Masters. “We’ll need to know whom to inform. Can you help?”

“There’s his divorced wife. No children. Winty may know. Mr. Winter Meyer.”

“He’s still here?” Alleyn exclaimed.

“In the office. With Peregrine Jay discussing what we’re to do.”

“Ah, yes. You’ve got tomorrow, Sunday, to make up your minds.”

He looked at the stage crew. “You’ve had a bit of a job. Which of you is responsible for the properties?”

Props made an awkward movement.

“You are? I’m afraid I must ask you to wait a little longer. The foreman? I’m sorry, but you and you three men will have to wait, too. There’s no need for you to remain onstage any longer. Thank you.” The men moved off into the shadows.

Bailey and Thompson assembled their gear.

“You’ll want the lights man, won’t you?” Alleyn said. “Is he here?”

“Here,” said the lights man, who was with Charlie, the assistant stage manager.

“Right! I’ll leave you to it. Don’t touch anything.” And to Masters: “Where does Mr. Gaston Sears dress?”

“I’ll show you,” said Masters.

He led Alleyn into the world of dressing-rooms. They walked down a passage with doors on either side and the occupants’ names on them. It was very, very quiet.

Gaston’s room was not much more than a cubicle at the end of the passage. Masters tapped on the door and the deep voice boomed: “Come in.” Masters opened the door.

“These two gentlemen would like a word with you, Gaston,” he said and made his way back quickly.

There was only just room for Alleyn and Fox. They edged in and with difficulty shut the door.

Gaston had changed into a black dressing-gown and had removed his makeup. He was sheet-white but perfectly composed. He gave his name and address before being asked to do so.

Alleyn exclaimed: “Ah, I was right. You won’t remember me but I called on you several years ago, Mr. Sears, and asked you to give us the date and value of a claidheamh-mor, part of a burglar’s haul we had recovered.”

“I remember it very well. It was of no great antiquity but it was, as far as that went, not a fake.”

“That’s the one. Tragically enough, it’s about a claidheamh-mor that I’d like to ask you a few questions now.”

“I shall be glad to offer an opinion, particularly as you use the correct term correctly pronounced. It is my own property and it is a perfectly authentic example of the thirteenth-century fighting tool of the Scottish nobleman. In our production I carry it on all ceremonial occasions. It weighs…”

He sailed off into a catalogue of details and symbolic significance and from thence into a list of previous owners. The further he retreated into history the murkier did his anecdotes become. Alleyn and Fox stood jammed together. Fox had with difficulty drawn his notebook from his breast pocket and had opened it in readiness, when Alleyn nudged him, to record anything that seemed to be of interest.

“…as with many other such tools — Excalibur is one — there has grown up, with the centuries, the belief that the weapon — its name — I translate ‘Gut-ravager’ — engraved in a Celtic device on the hilts — is said to be possessed with magic powers. Be that as it may —” He paused to draw breath and take thought.

“You would not wish to let it out of your grasp,” Alleyn cut in and nudged Fox. “Naturally.”

“Naturally. But also I was obliged to do so. Twice. When I joined the murderers of Banquo and when I came off in the last scene. After Macbeth said, a time for such a word, the property man took it from me in order to affix the head on it. I made the head. I could be thought to have the ability to place it on the claidheamh-mor but unfortunately when I did so the first time, I made a childish error and the weapon, which is extremely sharp, pierced the top of the head and it swung about in a ludicrous fashion. So it was thought better to mend the hole and let Props fix it. He had to ladle blood on it.”

“And he returned it to you?”

“He put it in the O.P. corner, on the left as you go in. Nobody else was allowed to go into the corner because of Macbeth and Macduff coming off after their fight, straight into it. I should have said, perhaps, that it is not pitch-dark all the time. It was made so for the end of the fight to guard against anyone in front at the extreme right or in the Prompt boxes seeing Macbeth recover himself. A curtain, upstage of it, was closed by a stagehand as soon as their fight was engaged.”

“Yes. I’ve got that.”

“Props put the claidheamh-mor in the corner sometime before the end of the fight. I took it up at the last moment before Macduff and I reentered.”

“So Macbeth came off, screamed, and was decapitated by the claidheamh-mor from which the dummy’s head had been pulled. The real head now replaced it.”

“I — yes, I confess I had not worked it out so carefully but — yes, I suppose so. I think there would be time.”

“And room? To swing the weapon?”

“There is always room. I invented the fight. I know the moves. Macduff, under my instruction, swung his weapon up while still in view of the audience and brought it down when he was just out of view in the O.P. corner. There was room. I was up at the back talking to the King and Props and others. The little boy, William. I saw Macduff come off. I have grown more and more certain,” said Gaston, “that there was a malign influence at work, that the claidheamh-mor has a secret life of its own. It is satisfied now. We hope. We hope.”

He gazed at Alleyn. “I am extremely tired,” he said. “It has been an alarming experience. Horrifying, really. It must be something I have done. I didn’t look up at first. It was dark. I took it and engaged the hilts in my harness and entered behind Macduff. And when I looked up it dropped blood on my face. What have I done? How have I, who bought and treasured it, committed an offense? Is it because I have allowed it to be used in a public display? True, I have done so. I have carried it.” His piercing eyes brightened. He reassumed his commanding posture. “Can it have been the accolade?“ he asked.”Was I being admitted to some esoteric comradeship and baptized with blood?” He made a helpless gesture. “I am confused,” he said.

“We won’t worry you any more just now, Mr. Sears. You’ve been very helpful.”

They found their way back to the stage, where Bailey and Thompson squatted, absorbed, over their unspeakable tasks.

“Not much doubt about the weapon, Mr. Alleyn,” said Bailey. “It’s this thing it’s stuck on. Sharp! Like a razor. And there’s the marks, see. Done from the back when the victim’s bending over. Clean as a whistle.”

“Yes, I see. Prints?”

“He was wearing gloves. Gauntlets. Whoever he was. They all were.”

“Thompson, have you got all the shots you want?”

“Yes, thanks. Close-up. All around. The whole thing.”

The sound of the stage door being opened and a quick, incisive voice. “All right. Dark, isn’t it. Where’s the body?”

“Sir James,” Alleyn called. “Here!”

“Hullo, Rory. Up to your old games, are you?”

Sir James Curtis appeared, immaculate in dinner jacket and black overcoat and carrying his bag. “I was at a party at Saint Thomas’s. What have you got — good God, what is all this?”

“All yours at the moment,” said Alleyn.

Bailey and Thompson had stepped aside. Macdougal’s head on the end of the claidheamh-mor stared up at the pathologist. “Where’s the body?” he asked.

“In the dark corner over there. We haven’t touched it.”

“What’s the story?”

Alleyn told him. “I was in front,” he said.

“Extraordinary. I’ll look at the body.”

It lay on its front as Alleyn had found it. The blood-soaked Macbeth tartan was wrapped closely around the body. Sir James pulled it away and looked at the wound. The lip was turned in and a piece of the collar was sliced across it into the gash.

“One blow,” he said. He bent over the body. “Better get the remains to the mortuary,” he said. “If your men have finished.”

They went back onstage.

“You may separate them,” said Alleyn.

Bailey produced a large polyethylene bag. He then took hold of the head. Thompson with both hands on the hilt grasped the claidheamh-mor. They faced each other, their feet apart and the blade parallel with the stage: a parody of artisans sweating it out in hell.

“Right?”

“Right.”

“Go.”

The sound was the worst part of it. It resembled the drawing of an enormous cork. It was effective. Bailey put the head in the bag, wrote on a label, and tied it up. He put the bag in a canvas container. “I’ll stow this away,” he said and went out to the police car with it.

“What about the weapon?” asked Thompson.

“Put some cardboard around it,” said Alleyn. “It’ll lie flat on the back seat or on the floor. Then the body and the dummy head. You’ll go straight to the mortuary, I suppose?”

“Yes. And you’ll be here for some time to come?” said Sir James.

“Yes.”

“I’ll ring you if anything turns up.”

“Thanks.”

The ambulance men came in and put the body into another polyethylene bag and the bag on a stretcher and covered it. They carried it out and drove away. Sir James got into his car and followed them.

Alleyn said, “Come on, Fox. We’ll find the property man.”

Masters was waiting offstage for them.

“I thought you might use the greenroom as an office,” he said. “I’ll show you where it is.”

“That’s very thoughtful. I’ll see the property man there.”

The greenroom was a comfortable place with armchairs, books, a solid table, and framed photographs and pictures on the walls. They settled themselves at the table.

“Hullo, Props,” said Alleyn when he came in. “We don’t know your name, I’m afraid. What is it?”

“Ernest James, sir.”

“Ernest James. We won’t keep you long, I hope. This is a pretty grim business, isn’t it?”

“Bloody awful.”

“You’ve been on the staff for a long time, haven’t you?”

“Fifteen year.”

“Long as that? Sit down, why don’t you.”

“Aw. Ta,” said Ernie and sat.

“We’re trying at the moment to sort out when the crime was committed and then when the heads were changed. Macbeth’s last words are Hold, enough. He and Macduff then fight and a marvelous fight it was. He exits and we assume was killed at once. There’s a pause. Then pipe and drums coming nearer and nearer. Then a prolonged entry of everyone left alive in the cast. Then dialogue between Malcolm and Old Siward. Macduff comes in with Gaston Sears following him, the head on his giant weapon.”

“Was you in front, then, guv’nor?”

“Yes, as it happened.”

“Gawd, it was awful. Awful.”

“It was indeed. Tell me, Props. When did you put the dummy head on the claymore and when did you put them in the O.P. corner?”

“Me? Yeah, well. I got hold of the bloody weapon — it’s as sharp as hell — off ’is ’Igh-and-Mightiness when he came off after the Chief said, There’d ’ave been a time for such a word, whatever that may mean. I took it up to the props table, see, and I put the dummy on it. That took a bit of time and handling, like. What with the sharpness and the length, it was awkward. The ’ead’s stuffed full of plaster except for a narrer channel and I had to fit it into the channel and shove it home. It kind of locked. And then I doused it with ‘blood’ rahnd the neck and put it in the corner.”

“When?”

“I got faster with practice. Took me about three minutes, I’d say. Simon Morten was shouting, Make all our trumpets speak. Round about then.”

“And there it remained until Gaston collected it and took it on — with a different head — at the very end.”

“Correct.”

“Right. We’ll ask you to sign a statement to that effect, later on. Can you think of anything at all that could help us? Anything out of the ordinary? Superstitions, for instance?”

“Nuffink,” he said quickly.

“Sure of that?”

“Yer.”

“Thank you, Ernie.”

“Fanks, guv. Can I go home?”

“Where do you live?”

“Five Jobbins Lane. Five minutes’ walk.”

“Yes. All right.” Alleyn wrote on a card: “Ernest James. Permission to leave. R. Alleyn.”

“Here you are. Show it to the man at the door.”

“You’re a gent, guv. Fanks,” Ernie repeated and took it. But he did not go. He shuffled toward the door and stood there, looking from Alleyn to Fox, who had put on his steel-rimmed glasses and now contemplated him over the tops.

“Is there something else?” Alleyn asked.

“I don’t fink so. No.”

“Sure?”

“Yes,” said Ernie and was gone.

“There was something else,” Fox observed tranquilly.

“Yes. We’ll leave him to simmer.”

There was a sharp rap at the door.

“Come in,” Alleyn called. And Simon Morten came in.

He had changed, of course, into his street clothes. Alleyn wondered if he was dramatically and habitually pale or if the shock of the appalling event had whitened him out of all semblance to normality.

“Mr. Morten?” Alleyn said. “I was just going to ask if you would come in. Do sit down. This is Inspector Fox.”

“Good evening, sir. May I have your address?” asked Fox, settling his glasses and taking up his pen.

He had not expected this bland reception. He hesitated. He sat down and gave his blameless address as if it was that of an extremely disreputable brothel.

“We are trying to get some sort of pattern into the sequence of events,” Alleyn said. “I was in front tonight which may be a bit of a help but not, I’m afraid, very much. Your performance really is wonderful: that fight! I was in a cold sweat. You must be remarkably fit, if I may say so. How long did it take you both to bring it up to this form?”

“Five weeks’ hard rehearsal and we’ve still —” He stopped. “Oh, God!” he said. “I actually forgot what has happened — I mean that—” He put his hands over his face. “It’s so incredible. I mean —” He dropped his hands and said: “I’m your prime suspect, aren’t I?”

“To be that,” said Alleyn, “you would have to have pulled off the dummy head and used the claidheamh-mor to decapitate the victim. He would have to have waited there and suffered his own execution without raising a finger to stop you. Indeed, he would have obligingly stooped over so that you could take a fair swipe at him. You would have dragged the body to the extreme corner and put the dummy head on it. Then you would have put the real head on the end of the claidheamh-mor and placed them both in position for Gaston Sears to take them up. Without getting blood all over yourself. All in about three minutes.”

Simon stared at him. A faint color crept into his cheeks.

“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” he said.

“No? Well, I may have slipped up somewhere but that’s how it seems to me. Now,” said Alleyn, “when you’ve got over your shock, do you mind telling me exactly what did happen when you chased him off?”

“Yes. Certainly. Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Well, he screamed and fell as usual and I ran out. Then I just hung around with all the others who’d been called until I got my cue and reentered. I said my final speech ending with ‘Hail, King of Scotland.’ I didn’t turn to look at Seyton carrying — that thing. I just pointed my sword at it while facing upstage. I thought some of them looked and sounded — well — peculiar, but they all shouted and the curtain came down.”

“Couldn’t be clearer. What sort of man was Macdougal?”

“Macdougal? Sir Dougal? Good-looking if you like the type.”

“In himself?”

“Typical leading man, I suppose. He was very good in the part.”

“You didn’t go much for him?”

He shrugged. “He was all right.”

“A bit too much of a good thing?”

“Something like that. But, really, he was all right.”

“De mortuis nil nisi bonum?”

“Yes. Well, I didn’t know anything that was not good about him. Not really. He was fabulous in the fight. I never felt in danger. Even Gaston said he was good. You couldn’t fault him. God! I’m the understudy! If it’s decided we go on.”

“Will it be so decided, do you think?”

“I don’t know. I daren’t think.”

“ ‘The show must go on’?”

“Yes, I suppose,” Simon said after a pause, “it may depend on the press.”

“The press?”

“Yes. If they’ve got a clue as to what happened they could make such a hoo-hah we couldn’t very well go on as if Macbeth was ill or dying or dead or anything of that sort, could we? But if they only get a secondhand account of there having been an ‘accident,’ which is what Bob Masters said in his curtain speech, they may decide it’s not worth a follow-up and do nothing. Tomorrow. One thing is certain,” said Simon, “we don’t need a word of publicity.”

“No. Has it occurred to you,” said Alleyn, “that it might strike someone as a good moment to revive all the superstitious stories about Macbeth?”

Simon stared at him. “Good God!” he said. “No. No, it hadn’t. But you’re dead right. As a matter of fact — well, never mind about all that. But Perry, our director, had been on at us and the idiot superstitions and not to believe any of it and — and — well, all that.”

“Really? Why?”

“He doesn’t believe in any of it,” said Simon, looking extremely ill at ease.

“Has there been an outbreak of superstitious observances in the cast?”

“Well — Nina Gaythorne rather plugs it.”

“Yes?”

“Perry thinks it’s a bad idea.”

“Have there been any occurrences that seemed to bolster up the superstitions?”

“Well — sort of. If you don’t mind I’d rather not go into details.”

“Why?”

“We said we wouldn’t talk about them. We promised Perry.”

“I’ll ask him to elucidate.”

“Yes. But don’t let him think I blew the gaff, will you?”

“No.”

“If you don’t want me any more, may I go home?” Simon asked wearily.

“No more right now. But wait a bit, if you don’t mind. We can’t let the cast go just yet. Leave your dressing-room key with us. We’ll ask you to sign a typed statement later on.”

“I see. Thank you,” said Simon and got up. “You did mean what you said? About it being impossible for me to have — done it?”

“Yes. Unless some sort of crack appears, I mean it.”

“Thank God for that at least,” said Simon.

He went to the door, hesitated, and spoke.

“If I’d wanted to kill him,” he said, “I could have faked it at any time during the fight. Easily. And been ‘terribly sorry.’ You know?”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “There’s that, too, isn’t there?”

When he had gone, Fox said: “That’s one we can tick off, isn’t it?”

“At this point, Fox.”

“He doesn’t seem to have liked the deceased much, does he?”

“Not madly keen, no. But very honest about it as far as it went. He was on the edge of talking about the superstitions, too.”

“That’s right. So who do you see next?”

“Obviously, Peregrine Jay.”

“He was here twenty years ago, at the time of the former case. Nice young chap he was then.”

“Yes. He’s in conference. Up in the offices,” said Alleyn.

“Shall I pluck him out?”

“Would you? Do.”

Fox removed his spectacles, put them in his breast pocket, and left the room. Alleyn walked about, muttering to himself.

“It must have been then. After the fight. Say, one minute for the pause and the pipe and drums coming nearer, two at the outside. The general entry: say a quarter of a minute, Siward’s dialogue about his son’s death. Another two minutes. Say three to four minutes all told. At the end of the fight Macbeth exited and yelled. Did Macduff say something that made him stoop? No — he did fall forward to give the thud. The man having removed the dummy head, decapitates him, gathers up the real head, and jams it on the claidheamh-mor. That’s what takes the time. Does he wedge the hilt against the scenery and then push the head on? He lugs the body into the darkest corner and stands the claidheamh-mor in its place ready for Gaston to grasp it. He puts the dummy head by the body. Where does he go then? What does he look like?”

He stopped short, closed his eyes, and recalled the fight. The two figures. The exchange of dialogue and Macbeth’s hoarse final curse: “And damn’d be him that first cries, Hold enough!”

“It must have been done after the fight. There’s no other way. Or is there? Is there? Nonsense.”

The door opened. Fox, Winter Meyer, and Peregrine came in.

“I’m sorry to drag you away,” said Alleyn.

“It’s all right. We’d come to a deadlock. To go on or not. He — was so right in the part.”

“A difficult decision.”

“Yes. It’s hard to imagine the play without him. It’s hard to imagine anything, right now,” said Peregrine.

“How will the actors feel?”

“About going on? Not very happy but they’ll do it.”

“And the new casting?”

“There’s the rub,” said Peregrine. “Simon Morten is Macbeth’s understudy and the Ross is Simon’s. We’ll have to knock up a new, very simple fight, a new Macduff can’t possible manage the present one. Simon’s good and ready. He’ll give a reasonable show, but the whole thing’s pretty dicey.”

“Yes. What sort of actor is Gaston Sears?”

Peregrine stared at him. “Gaston? Gaston.”

“He knows — he invented — the fight. He’s an arresting figure. It’s a very farfetched notion but I wondered.”

“It’s — it’s a frightening thought. I haven’t seen much of his acting but I’m told he was good in an unpredictable sort of way. He’s a very predictable person. A bit on the dotty side, some of them think. It — it certainly would solve a lot of problems. We’d only need to find a new Seyton and he’s a tiny part as far as lines go. He’s only got to look impressive. My God, I wonder… No. No,” he repeated. And then: “We may decide to cut our losses and rehearse a new play. Probably the best solution.”

“Yes. I think I should remind you that — it’s a dazzling glimpse of the obvious — the murderer, and who he is I’ve not the faintest notion, will turn out to be one of your actors or else a stagehand. If the latter, I suppose you can go ahead but if the former — well, the mind boggles, doesn’t it?”

“I can feel mine boggling, anyway.”

“In the meantime I’d like to know what the story is, about the Macbeth superstitions and why Props and Simon Morten go all peculiar when I ask them.”

“It doesn’t matter now. I’d asked them not to talk to each other or to anyone else about these — happenings. You’ve got to consider the general atmosphere.”

And he told Alleyn sparingly about the dummy heads and the rat’s head in Rangi’s marketing bag.

“Have you any idea who the practical joker was?”

“None. Nor do I know if there is or is not any link with the subsequent horror.”

“It sounds like an unpleasant schoolboy’s nonsense.”

“It certainly isn’t our young William’s nonsense,” said Peregrine quickly. “He was scared as hell at the head on the banquet table. He’s a very nice small boy.”

“He’d have to be an infant Goliath to lift the claidheamh-mor two inches.”

“Yes. He would, wouldn’t he?”

“Where is he?”

“Bob Masters sent him home. Straight away. He didn’t want him to see it. Gaston dropped the claidheamh-mor and head on the stage. The boy was waiting to go on for the curtain call. Bob told him there’d been a hitch and there wasn’t a call and to get into his own clothes quick and catch an early bus home.”

“Yes. William Smith, Fox. In case we want him. Has he got a telephone number?”

“Yes,” said Peregrine. “We’ve got it. Shall I —?”

“I don’t think we want it tonight. We’ll ask the King and Props to confirm that Gaston Sears stood with the boy offstage. And that Macduff came straight off. If this is so, it completely clears Macduff. And Gaston, of course.”

“Yes,” said Peregrine.

“Now,” went on Alleyn, “suppose you tell me how the actors backstage positioned themselves, from the fight scene onward.”

“During the fight, Malcolm and Old Siward with Ross and Caithness assembled on the Prompt upper landing, out of sight, waiting for their final entrance. The rest of the forces waited on the O.P. side. The ‘dead’ characters — the King, Banquo, Lady Macduff, and her son — were also waiting O.P. for the curtain call. The witches were alone upstage.”

“Macbeth was alive and speaking up to the fight and through it?” asked Alleyn.

“Yes.”

“Therefore he must have been decapitated in the interval between his and Macduff’s exit, fighting, and Macduff’s and Gaston’s reentry with his head.”

“Yes,” said Peregrine wearily. “And it’s three and a half minutes at the most.”

“We’ll now summon the entire company and get them, if they can, to give each other alibis for that period.”

“Shall I call them?”

“In here, if you would. I don’t want them onstage just yet. Nor, I think, do they want it. Thank you, Jay. It’ll be a squash but never mind.”

Peregrine went out. Winter Meyer, who had stood inside the door without speaking, came to Alleyn’s table and put a folded paper on it.

“I think you should see this,” he said. “Perry agrees.”

Alleyn opened it.

The tannoy boomed out: “Everyone in the greenroom, please. Company and staff call. Everyone in the greenroom.”

Alleyn read the typed message: “murderers son in your co.”

“When did you get it? And how?” Winty told him.

“Is it true?”

“Yes,” said Winty miserably.

“Does anyone else know?”

“Perry thinks Barrabell does. The Banquo.”

“Spiteful character?”

“Yes.”

“It refers, I am quite sure, to the little Macduff boy, William Smith. I represented the police in the case,” Alleyn said. “He was a little chap of six then, but now I’ve seen the play twice, I recognize him. He’s got a very distinctive face. We didn’t call him. One of the victims was named Barrabell. Bank clerk. She was beheaded,” said Alleyn. “Here come the actors.”

By using a considered routine they managed to extract the information wanted in reasonable time.

Gaston Sears’s, Props’s, and Macduff’s alibis were secured. Alleyn read the names out from his programme and each in turn was remembered as being offstage in the group of waiting actors. The King and Nina Gaythorne were whispering to Gaston. Her dress was caught up.

“I want you to be very sure how you answer the next question. Does anyone remember any movement among you all that could have meant someone had slipped into the O.P. corner after Macduff came out?”

“We were too far upstage to do it,” said Barrabell. “All of us.”

“And does anyone remember Macbeth not coming off?”

There was a pause and then Nina Gaythorne said: “William said, ‘Where’s Sir Dougal? He’s still in there.’ Or something like that. Nobody paid much attention. Our cue was coming and we were getting into position to go on for the call.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “Now, I wonder if you would all go to your rooms and come out when you are called, as far as you can remember, exactly in the order you observed tonight. From the final fight scenes until the end I want you all to do exactly what you did then. Is that understood?”

“Not very pleasant,” said Barrabell.

“Murder and its consequences are never very pleasant, I’m afraid. Mr. Sears, will you read Macbeth’s lines, if you please?”

“Certainly. I know them, I think, by heart.”

“Good. You had better have a look, though. The timing must be exact.”

“Very well.”

“Do you know the moves?”

“Certainly. I also,” he said loftily, “know the fight.”

“Good. Are we ready? Will those of you who were in their dressing-rooms please go to them?”

They trooped off. Alleyn said to Peregrine: “You take over cuing, will you? From: Blow, wind! come, wrack! At least we’ll die with harness on our back. We’ll go out onstage. It’s tidied up, I hope.”

“I hope so,” said Peregrine devoutly.

“Come on, then. Fox, you watch the stage. The O.P. side in particular, will you?”

“Right.”

“Is the effects man here? He is. With his assistants? I think mechanical effects were overlaid by live voices. Good. We want the whole thing exactly timed as for performance. Right? Can you manage?”

They walked down the dressing-room passages and suddenly the theatre was alive with the presence of actors waiting behind closed doors for the play to begin. Thompson and Bailey had been tidy. They had left the patch of stage where the bundle had been covered over with a mackintosh sheet weighted down. In the O.P. corner, they had outlined the body in chalk before removing it. There was a bucket of “blood” beside it.

“Right,” said Alleyn, who had moved into the house front. Peregrine called: “Macbeth. Macduff. Young Siward. You’re on, please. Malcolm, Old Siward, and the Forces. Called and waiting.” There was the sound of movements offstage.

Gaston entered and spoke. His fatigue had vanished and he was good.

“At least we’ll die with harness on our back,” he ended and went off into the O.P. area and through it. He waited offstage.

They played through the battle scenes to the point where Macbeth entered on the platform O.P. and Macduff entered from the Prompt corner.

“Turn, hell-hound, turn!”

The fight. Gaston was perfect. Macduff, who looked exhausted and tried to go through it at token speed, was forced to respond fully.

Exeunt. Macbeth’s scream, cut off. Macduff ran straight through and out. Alleyn set his stopwatch.

The long triumphant entry and final scene with Old Siward. Macduff reentered from the O.P. corner. Gaston, reverted to Seyton, came on behind him, without the claidheahm-mor. He proclaimed in his natural tones: “I assume my claidheamh-mor is not to be found. I presume it has been seized by the police. I take this opportunity,” he went on, pitching his considerable voice into the auditorium, “of warning them that they do so at their peril. There is strength in the weapon.”

“The claidheamh-mor is perfectly safe in our keeping,” said Alleyn. He had stopped the watch. Three minutes.

“It may be, and doubtless is, safe. It is the police who should be trembling.”

Before addressing the actors Alleyn allowed himself a moment to envisage Inspector Fox and himself trembling with fear from head to foot.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” Alleyn said. “It was asking a lot of all of you to reenact the last scene but I think I can tell you that you have really helped us. Now, if you will do the same thing again, from Brandish’d by man that’s of a woman born up to Enter, sir, the castle, I think you will then be free to go home. It’s Macduff’s soliloquy. I want you all in your given places. With offstage action and noises, please. Jay, would you?”

Peregrine said: “It’s where the group of Macduff’s soldiers run across and upstairs. Right? Simon?”

“Oh, God. Yes. All right,” said the exhausted Simon.

“Ready, everybody. Brandish’d by man that’s of a woman born.”

The speech was broken by offstage entries, excursions, and alarums. Alleyn timed it. Three minutes. Macbeth entered on O.P. rostrum.

“Right. Thank you very much, Mr. Morten. And Mr. Sears. We’ve not established your own movements, Mr. Sears, as you’ve been kind enough to impersonate Macbeth’s. Can you now tell us where you were over this period?”

“Certainly. On the O.P. side but not in the darkened corner. I remained there throughout, keeping out of the way of the soldiers who entered and exited in some disorder. I may say their attempts at soldierly techniques during these exercises were pitiful. However, I was not consulted and I kept my opinions to myself. I spoke, I believe, to several fellow players during this period. Those who were called for the final curtain. Miss Gaythorne, I recollect, advanced some astonishing claptrap about garlic as a protection against bad luck. Duncan was one. Banquo was another. He complained, I recall, that he was called too soon.”

Duncan and Banquo agreed. Several other actors remembered seeing Gaston there, earlier in the action.

“Thank you very much,” said Alleyn. “That’s all, ladies and gentlemen. You may go home. Leave your dressing-room keys with us. We’d be grateful if you would arrange to be within telephone call. Good-night.”

They said good-night and left the theatre in ones and twos. Gaston wore his black cloak clutched histrionically above his chest in an actor’s hand. He bowed to Alleyn and said: “Good-night, sir.”

“Good-night, Mr. Sears. I’m afraid the fight was a severe ordeal. You are still breathless. You shouldn’t have been so enthusiastic.”

“No, no! A touch of asthma. It is nothing.” He waved his hand and made an exit.

The stagehands went at once and all together. At last there were only Nina Gaythorne and one man left, a pale, faintly ginger, badly dressed man with a beautiful voice.

“Good-night, Superintendent,” he said.

“Good-night, Mr. Barrabell,” Alleyn returned and became immersed in his notebook.

“A very interesting treatment, if I may say so.”

“Thank you.”

“If I may say so, there was no need, really, to revive anything before Macbeth’s exit and from then up to the appearance of his head. About four minutes, during which time he was decapitated.”

“Quite so.”

“So I wondered.”

“Did you?”

“Poor dotty old Gaston,” said the beautiful voice, “having to labor through that fight. Why?”

Alleyn said to Fox: “Just make sure the rooms are all locked, will you, Mr. Fox?”

“Certainly, sir,” said Fox. He walked past Barrabell as if he were not there, and disappeared.

“One of the old type,” said Barrabell. “We don’t see many of them nowadays, do we?”

Alleyn looked up from his notebook. “I’m very busy,” he said.

“Of course. Young Macduff is not with us, I see.”

“No, Mr. Barrabell. They sent him home. Good-night to you.”

“You know who he is, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Oh? Oh, well, good-night,” said Barrabell. He walked away with his head up and a painful smile on his face. Nina went with him.

“Br’er Fox,” said Alleyn when that officer returned. “Let us consider. Is it possible for the murder to have been performed after the fight?”

“Just possible. Only just. But it was.”

“Shall we try? I’ll be the murderer. You be Macbeth. Run into the corner. Scream and drop down. Hold on.” He went into the dark area O.P. “We’ll imagine the Macduff. He runs after you and goes straight on and away. Ready? I’m using my stopwatch. Three, two, one, zero, go.”

Mr. Fox was surprisingly agile. He imitated sword-play, backed offstage, yelled, and fell at Alleyn’s feet. Alleyn had removed the imaginary dummy head from the imaginary claidheamh-mor. He raised the latter above his shoulder. It swept down. Alleyn let go, stooped, and seized the imaginary head. He fixed it on the point of the claymore and rammed it home. He propped it in its corner, dragged the body (Mr. Fox weighing fourteen stone) into the darkest corner, wrapped an imaginary cloak around it, and clapped the dummy head down by it. And looked at his watch.

“Four and a third minutes,” he panted. “And the cast made it in three. It’s impossible.”

“You don’t seem as disappointed as I’d of expected,” said Fox.

“Don’t I? I–I’m not sure. I may be going dotty,” Alleyn muttered. “I am going dotty. Let’s check the possibles, Fox. Which is Number One?”

“Macduff? He killed Macbeth as we were meant to think. Duel. Chased him off. Killed him. Fixed the head on the weapon and came on with Seyton carrying it behind him. Sounds simple.”

“But isn’t. What was Macbeth doing? Macduff chased him off and then had to dodge about, take the dummy head off the claidheamh-mor, and raise it and do the fell deed.”

“Yerse.”

“Did Macbeth lie there and allow him to get on with it?” Alleyn asked. “And how about the time? If I couldn’t do it in three minutes nobody else could.”

“Well, no. No.”

“Next?”

“Banquo.” Fox suggested.

“He could have done it. He was hanging about in that region after he was called. He could have slipped in and removed the dummy head. Waited there for the end of the duel. Done it. Fixed the head. And walked out in plenty of time for the curtain call. He was wearing his bloodied cloak, which would have accounted for any awkward stains. Next.”

“Duncan and/or one of his sons. Well,” said Fox apologetically. “It’s silly, I know, but they could have. If nobody was watching them. And they could have come out just when nobody was there. If it wasn’t so beastly it would be funny. The old boy rolling up his sleeves and settling his crown and wading in. And, by the way, if there were two of them the time thing vanishes. The King beheads him and drags the body over and puts the dummy by it while his son puts the head on the weapon and places them in the corner. However,” said Mr. Fox, “it is silly. How about one of the witches? The man-witch?”

“Rangi? Partly Maori. He was wonderful. Those grimaces and the dance. He was possessed. He was also with his girls — and you noted it — all through the crucial time.”

“All right, then. The other obvious one. Gaston,” said Fox moodily.

“But why obvious? Well, because he’s a bit dotty — but that’s not enough. Or is it? And again: time. We’ve got to face it, Fox. For all of them. Except for the Royal Family, Banquo, and the witches — time! Rangi could have taken a girl in to do the head on the claidheamh-mor and thus saved about a minute. It’s impossible to imagine anybody collaborating with the exuberant Gaston.”

“Anyway,” said Fox. “We’ve got to face it. They were all too busy fighting and on-going.”

“It’s all approximate. Counsel for the defense, whatever the defense might be, would make mincemeat of it.”

“They talked during the fight. Here —” He flattened out his Penguin copy of the play. “I got this out of a dressing-room,” he said. “Here. Look. Macbeth gets the last word. And damn’d,” quoted Mr. Fox, who read laboriously through his specs, be him that first cries, Hold, enough! and with that they set to again. And within the next three minutes, whoever did it, his head was off his shoulders and on the stick.”

“Our case in a nutshell, Br’er Fox.”

“Yerse.”

“And now, if you will, let us examine what may or may not be the side-kicks in evidence. Where’s Peregrine Jay? Has he gone with the others?”

“No,” said Peregrine, “I’ve been here all the time.” And he came down the center aisle into the light. “Here I am,” he said. “Not as bright as a button, I fear, but here.”

“Sit down. Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes. I’m glad you said it. I’m going to break my own rule and tell you more fully of what may be, as you’ve hinted, side-kicks.”

“I’ll be glad to hear you.”

Peregrine went on. He described the unsettling effect of the tales of ill luck that had grown up around the play of Macbeth and his own stern injunctions to the company that they ignore them.

“The ones most committed, of course, like Nina Gaythorne, didn’t obey me but I think, though I can’t be sure, that on the whole they more or less obeyed. For a time, at any rate. And then it began. With the Banquo mask in the King’s room.”

He described it. “It was extraordinarily — well, effective. Glaring there in the shadow. It’s like all Gaston’s work, extremely macabre. You remember the procession of Banquo’s in the witches’ scene?”

“I do indeed.”

“Well, to come upon one suddenly! I was warned, but even then — horrid!”

“Yes.”

“I examined it and I found an arrangement of string connected with the slate-colored poncho. The head itself was fixed on a coat hanger and the poncho hung from that. The long end of string reached down to the stage. There is a strut in the wall above the head. The string passed over it and down, to stage-level. Now it seemed to me, it still seems to me, that if I’m on the right track this meant that the cloak was pulled up to cover the head and the cord fastened down below. I’ve had a look and there’s a cross-piece in the back of the scenery in exactly the right place.”

“It could be lowered from stage-level?”

“Yes. The intention being that it remained hidden until Macduff went in. Macduff saw it first. He tried to warn Macbeth.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I called Props and wrapped it up in its cloak and told him to put it with its mates on the property table.”

“And then?”

“The next thing that happened was a servant at the banquet swept off the dish-cover and there, underneath was the man’s head again. Grinning at Macbeth. It was — well, awful. You know?”

“What did you do?”

“I addressed the actors. All of them. I said — the expected things, I suppose. That these were rather disgusting tricks but as none of them was prepared to own up to being the perpetrator I thought the best thing we could do was to ignore them. Something like that.”

“Yes. It must have thrown a spanner in your work, didn’t it?”

“Of course. But we rose above. Actors are resilient, you know. They react to something with violence and they talk a great deal but they go on. Nobody walked out on us but there was a nasty feeling in the air. But I really think Rangi’s rat’s head was the worst.”

“Rangi’s rat’s head?” Alleyn repeated.

“Well, it was the head that mattered. In his marketing bag. That’s what we called their bags — a sort of joke. For the things they collected for their spell, you know. Some of them off the corpse on the gallows. Did you know the items they enumerate are really authentic?”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Well, they are. For a charm of powerful trouble. There’s no mention of a rat’s head, though.”

“Have you got your own ideas about the author of these tricks?”

“I have, yes. But they are not supported by any firm evidence. Merely unsecured ideas. They couldn’t be vaguer. They arise from a personal distaste.”

“Can we hear them? We won’t attach too much importance to them. I promise.”

Peregrine hesitated. Mr. Fox completed his notes and looked benevolently at him, his vast hand poised over the notebook.

“Have you spoken to Barrabell? The Banquo?”

“Not really,” said Alleyn. “Only to get his name and address and a very few bits of information about the other people’s positions.”

“He’s a strange one. Beautiful voice, well managed. A mischief-maker. He belongs to some way-out society, the Red Fellowship, I think it’s called. He enjoys making sneaky little underhand jokes about other actors. I find myself thinking of him as a ‘sea-lawyer.’ He’s always making objections to ‘business’ in the play which doesn’t endear him to me, of course.”

“Of course not.”

“I think he knows about young William.”

Alleyn took the folded paper from his pocket, opened it, and showed it to Peregrine.

“This was left in Winter Meyer’s office and typed on the machine there?”

Peregrine looked at it. “Yes,” he said. “Winty told me.”

“Did you guess who did it?”

“Yes. I thought so. Barrabell. It was only a guess but he was about. In the theatre at that time. The sort of thing he’d do, I thought.”

“Did you say so to Meyer?”

“I did, yes. Winty says he went to the loo. It was the only time the room was free. About eight minutes. There’s a window into the foyer. Anybody there could look in, see it was empty, and — do it.”

“One of the Harcourt-Smith victims was called Barrabell. Muriel Barrabell. A bank clerk. She was beheaded.”

“Do you think —?”

“We’ll have to find out,” Alleyn said. “Even so, it doesn’t give him a motive to kill Macbeth.”

“And there’s absolutely no connection that we know of with poor Sir Dougal.”

“No.”

“Whereas with Simon Morten —” Perry stopped.

“Yes?”

“Nothing. That sounds as if I was hiding something. I was only going to say Simon’s got a hot temper and he suspected Dougal of making passes at the Lady. She put that right with him.”

“He hadn’t got the opportunity to do it. He must have chased Macbeth off with his own blunt weapon raised. He’d have to change his weapon for the claidheamh-mor from which he’d have to remove the dummy head while his victim looked on, did nothing, and then obligingly stooped over to receive the stroke.”

“And Gaston?”

“First of all, time. I’ve just done it in dumb show myself, all out and way over the time. And what’s even more convincing, Gaston was seen by the King and Nina Gaythorne by people going on for the call. He actually spoke to them. This was while the murder was taking place. He went into the O.P. corner and collected the claidheamh-mor at the last moment when Macduff came around and he followed him on.”

Peregrine raised his arms and let them drop. “Exit Gaston Sears,” he said. “I don’t think I ever really thought he’d done it but I’m glad to have it confirmed. Who’s left?”

“Without an alibi? Barrabell. The stagehands. Various thanes. Lady Macbeth. Old Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all.”

“I’d better go back to the boys in the office. They’re trying to make up their minds.”

Alleyn looked at his watch. “It’s ten past two,” he said. “If they haven’t made up their minds I suggest they sleep on it. Are the actors called?”

“For four o’clock this afternoon, poor dears.”

“It’s none of my business, of course, but I don’t think you should go on with Macbeth.”

“No?”

“It’s only a matter of time before the truth is known. A very short time probably. You’ll get a sort of horror-reaction, a great deal of morbid speculation, and, I should think, the kind of publicity that will be an insult to a beautiful production.”

“Oh.”

“There will be a trial. We hope. Your actors will be pestered by the press. Quite possibly the Harcourt-Smith case will be revived and young William cornered by the News of the World and awful remarks put into his reactions. He and his mother will be hunted remorselessly.”

“This may happen whatever we do,” said Peregrine unhappily.

“Certainly. But to nothing like the same extent if you don’t do this play.”

“No. No, nothing like.” Peregrine got up and walked to the door.

“I’ll speak to them,” he said. “Along those lines. Goodnight, Alleyn.”

“Good-night, my dear chap.”

The stage door closed behind him.

“Br’er Fox, what’s emerged definitely from it all?” Alleyn asked.

They opened their notebooks. Alleyn also opened his programme.

“We can wipe out most of the smaller parts,” he said. “They were too active. All the fighting men. When they were offstage they were yelling and bashing away at each other like nobody’s business.”

“I stood over by the dark corner and I’ll take my oath none of them got within cooee of it,” Fox said.

“Yes. They were very well drilled and supposing one of them got out of step on purpose, the others would have known and been down on him at once. It may have looked like an Irishman’s picnic but they were worked out in inches.”

“You can scratch the lot,” said Fox.

“Gladly,” said Alleyn and did so. “And who’s left?” he asked.

“Speaking parts. It’s easier than it looks. The old Colonel Blimpish chap and his son. Never had a chance. The son was ‘dead’ and lying on the stage, hidden from the audience, and the old boy was stiff-upper-lipping on the stairs while the murder was done.”

“So much for the Siwards. And Malcolm was onstage and speaking. Now I’m going to reiterate. Not for the first and, I’m afraid, not for the last time. Gaston Sears was offstage of the crucial moment and talking in a whisper to the King and Miss Gaythorne. Young William was with them.

“The witches had come on for the curtain call and were waiting upstage on the rostrum. Now, Macduff,” said Alleyn. “Let’s look a bit closer at Macduff. He’s a man with a temper and now we know there’s been some sort of trouble between him and Macbeth. He ended the fight by chasing Macbeth off. His story is that Macbeth screamed and fell down as usual and he went straight off and was seen to do so by various actors. Confirmed by the actors. By which time Macbeth was dead. I tried it out with you, Br’er Fox, and I was four and a third minutes. We played the scene with Gaston as Macbeth and the cast and it was three. Moreover, Morton — Macduff — would have had to get the dummy head off the claidheamh-mor before killing Macbeth with it while Macbeth — I’ve said this ad nauseam — stood or lay there waiting to be beheaded. It does not, Br’er Fox, make sense. Moreover, as Macduff himself pointed out, it would have been a whole lot easier for him to have done a Lizzie Borden on Macbeth during their fight and afterward say he didn’t know how he’d gone wrong.”

“His weapon’s as blunt as old boots.”

“It weighs enough for a whack on the head to fix Macbeth.”

“Yerse. But it didn’t.”

“No. We’ll move on. Banquo. Banquo, we find, is a very rum fellow. He’s devious, is Banquo, and he was ‘dead’ all this long time and free, up to the second curtain call to go wherever he liked. He could have gone into the O.P. corner and waited there in the dark with the claidheamh-mor when Gaston left it there for the stagehand to put the dummy head on it. The stagehand did put it there. Banquo removed it and did the deed. There’s no motive that I can see but he’s a possibility.”

“And are you going to tell me that Banquo is the perpetrator of the funny business with the dummy heads? And the typed message?”

“I rather think so. I’m far from happy with the idea, all the same.”

“Humph,” said Fox.

“We’ll knock off now for a while.” He looked into the dark house. “It was a wonderful production, Fox,” he said. “The best I’ve seen. Almost too good. I don’t think they can carry on.”

“What do you suppose they’ll do in its place?”

“Lord knows. Something quite different. Getting Gertie’s Garter,” said Alleyn angrily.