Light Thickens

Chapter 8 DEVELOPMENT

“I suppose I ought to be feeling all glowing and grateful,” said Peregrine, “but I’m afraid I don’t. They are nice old boys, all of them, but they’re dab hands at passing the buck and making it look like a compliment.”

“You’ve been given a completely free hand and if it turns out a dead failure you’ll find yourself out on a limb and all of them saying, ever so delicately, that they felt at the time the decision was a mistaken one,” Alleyn observed.

“That’s right.”

“If it’s any comfort, which it isn’t, I’m familiar with these tactics.”

“Why don’t we leave them to make the decision? Why don’t I say I feel it would be better, under the circumstances, for somebody less intimately concerned with the Dolphin to produce the next show? God knows it’d be true.”

“Yes?”

“But I’d feel I was ratting.” He dug his hands into his pockets. “I’m fond of them. We’ve taken a journey together and come out on the golden sands. We’ve found Macbeth. It’s a marvelous feeling. Or was. Are you any further on?”

“A little, I think. Not enough, not anything like enough to even think of an arrest.”

Peregrine’s fingers had been playing with something in his pocket. They closed around it and fetched it out, a dilapidated little figure, jet black, flourishing a bent weapon.

“Where did you find that?” Alleyn asked.

“It’s one of my boy’s toy soldiers — a crusader. William found it.”

“William?”

“Smith. He spent the day with us. He’s the same age as young Robin. They got on like a house on fire playing with the boys’ electric train. This thing was a passenger, picked up at Crewe. He said he was hurt but he had to get to the theatre at seven. It gave me quite a shock — all black and with a claymorish thing — like Sir Dougal. Only they called him Sears. Extraordinary, how children behave. You know? William didn’t know what had happened in the theatre, only that Sir Dougal was dead. Robin didn’t know or wasn’t certain about the decapitation, but he’d been very much upset when it happened. I’d realized that, but he didn’t ask any questions and now there he was, making a sort of game of it.”

“Extraordinary,” said Alleyn. “May I have it? The crusader? I’ll take great care of him.”

“All right,” said Peregrine and handed it over. “It might be Sir Dougal or Barrabell or Sears or nobody,” he said. “It doesn’t look tall enough for Simon Morten. It’s masked, of course.”

“He wasn’t masked. And in any case —”

“No. In any case the whole thing’s a muddle and a coincidence. William fished this thing out of a box full of battered toys.”

“And called it — what? Sears?”

“Not exactly. I mean, it became Sears. They picked him up at Crewe. Before that, William — being Sears at the moment when he used the telephone — rang up the station for an emergency stop. He said — what the hell did he say? That he was hurt and had to get to the Dolphin by seven. That’s when William took this thing from the box and they put it in the train. It was a muddle. They hooted and whistled and shouted and changed the plot. William gasped and panted a lot.”

“Panted? As if he’d been running?” Alleyn asked.

“Yes. Sort of. I think he said something about trying not to. I’m not sure. He said it was asthma but Sears wouldn’t let on because he was an actor. One thing I am sure about, though.”

“What’s that?”

“They got rid of whatever feelings they had about the real event by turning it all into a game.”

“That sounds like good psychology to me,” said Alleyn. “But then I’m not a psychologist. I can understand Robin calling this thing Sears, though.”

“Why?”

“He was here, wasn’t he? In the theatre. He saw the real Sears carry the head on. Associated images.”

“I think I see what you mean,” said Peregrine doubtfully. “Well. I had better go back to the offices and tell them my decision and get audition notices typed out. What about you?”

“We’ll see them out of here,” said Alleyn.

“Good luck to you,” said Peregrine. He vaulted down into the orchestra well and walked away up the center aisle. The doors opened and shut behind him.

Alleyn went over his notes.

“Is there a connection or isn’t there?” he asked himself. “Did the perpetrator of these nasty practical jokes have anything to do with the beheading of an apparently harmless star actor or was he practicing along his own beastly self-indulgent lines? Who is he? Bruce Barrabell? Why are his fellow actors and — well, Peregrine Jay — so sure he’s the trickster? Simply because they don’t like him and he seems to be the only person in the company capable of such murky actions? But why would he do it? I’d better take a potshot and try to find out.” He looked at his notes. “Red Fellowship. Hmm. Silly little outfit, but they’re on the lists and so’s he. Here goes.”

He walked down the dressing-room corridor until he came to the one shared by Barrabell and Morten. He paused and listened. Not a sound. He knocked and a splendid voice said, “Come.” They always make such a histrionic thing of it when they leave out the “in,” Alleyn thought.

Bruce Barrabell was seated in front of his looking-glass. The lights were switched on and provided an unmotivated brilliance to the dead room. The makeup had all been laid by in an old cigar box fastened by two rubber bands. The dirty grease-cloths were neatly rolled up in a paper bag, which was next to a battered suitcase with Russian labels stuck on it. On the top of his belongings was a programme, several review pages, and a small collection of cards and telegrams. Crumpled tissues lay about the dressing-table.

Simon Morten’s possessions were all packed away in his heavily labeled suitcase, which was shut and waited on the floor, inside the door. The indescribable smell of greasepaint still hung on the air and the room was desolate.

“Ah. Mr. Alleyn!” said Barrabell expansively. “Good evening to you. Can I be of any help? I’m just tidying up, as you see.” He waved his hand at the disconsolate room. “Do sit down,” he invited.

“Thank you,” said Alleyn. He took the other chair and opened his file. “I’m checking all your statements,” he said.

“Ah yes. Mine is quite in order, I hope?”

“I hope so, too,” Alleyn said. He turned the papers slowly until he came to Mr. Barrabell’s statement. He looked at his man and saw two men. The silver-voiced Banquo saying, so beautifully: “There’s husbandry in Heaven; their candles are all out,” and the unnaturally pale actor, with light eyes, whose hands trembled a little as he lit a cigarette.

“I’m sorry. Do you?” Barrabell asked winningly and offered his cigarettes.

“No, thank you. I don’t. About these tricks that have been played during the rehearsal period. I see you called them ‘schoolboy hoaxes’ when we asked you about them.”

“Did I? I don’t remember. It’s what they were, I suppose. Isn’t it?”

“Two extremely realistic severed heads? A pretty case-hardened schoolboy. Had you one in mind?”

“Oh no. No.”

“Not the one in Mr. Winter Meyer’s ‘co,’ for instance?”

There was a pause. Barrabell’s lips moved, repeating the words, but no sound came from them. He slightly shook his head. “There was somebody,” Alleyn went on, “a victim, in the Harcourt-Smith case. Her name was Muriel Barrabell, a bank clerk.” He waited. Somewhere along the corridor a door banged and man’s voice called out. “In the greenroom, dear.”

“Was she your sister?”

Silence.

“Your wife?”

“No comment.”

“Did you want the boy to get the sack?”

“No comment.”

“He was supposed to have perpetrated these tricks. And all to do with severed heads. Like his father’s crimes. Even the rat’s head. A mad boy, we were meant to think. Like his father. Get rid of him, he’s mad, like his father. It’s inherited.”

There was another long silence.

“She was my wife,” said Barrabell. “I never knew at the time what happened. I didn’t get their letter. He was charged with another woman’s murder. Caught red-handed. I was doing a long tour of Russia with the Leftist Players. It was all over when I got back. She was so beautiful, you can’t think. And he did that to her. I made them tell me. They didn’t want to but I kept on and on until they did.”

“And you took it out on this perfectly sane small boy?”

“How do you know he’s perfectly sane? Could you expect me to be in the same company with him? I wanted this part. I wanted to work for the Dolphin. But do you imagine I could do so with that murderer’s brat in the cast? Not bloody likely,” said Barrabell and contrived a sort of laugh.

“So you came to the crisis. All the elaborate attempts to incriminate young William came to nothing. And then, suddenly, inexplicably, there is the real, the horrible crime of Sir Dougal’s decapitation. How do you explain that?”

“I don’t,” he said at once. “I know nothing about it. Nothing. Apart from his vanity and his accepting that silly title, he was harmless enough. A typical bourgeois hero, which maybe is why he excelled as Macbeth.”

“You see the play as an antiheroic exposure of the bourgeois way of life, do you? Is that it? Can that be it?”

“Certainly. If you choose to put it like that. It’s the Macbeths’ motive. Their final desperate gesture. And they both break under the strain.”

“You really believe that, don’t you?”

“Certainly,” he repeated. “Of course, our reading was, as usual, idiotic. Take the ending: Hail, King of Scotland! In other words, ‘Hail to the old acceptable standards. The old rewards and the old dishing out of cash and titles.’ We cut all that, of course. And the bloody head of Macbeth stared the young Malcolm in the face. Curtain,” said Barrabell.

“Have you discussed the play with your political chums at the Red Fellowship meetings?”

“Yes. Not in detail. More as a joke, really.”

“A joke,” Alleyn exclaimed. “Did you say a joke?”

“A bit on the macabre side, certainly. There’s a meeting every Sunday morning. You ought to come. I’ll bring you in on my ticket.”

“Did you talk about the murder?”

“Oh yes. Whodunit talk. You know.”

“Who did do it?”

“Don’t ask me. I don’t know, do I?”

Alleyn thought: He’s not so frightened, now. He’s being impudent.

“Have you thought about the future, Mr. Barrabell? What do you think of doing?”

“I haven’t considered it. There’s talk of another Leftist Players tour but of course I thought I was settled for a long season here.”

“Of course. Would you read this statement and if it’s correct, sign it? Pay particular attention to this point, will you?”

The forefinger pointed to the typescript.

“You were asked where you were between Macbeth’s last speech and Old Siward’s epitaph for his son. It just says, ‘Dressing-room and O.P. center waiting for a call.’ Could you be a little more specific?”Alleyn asked.

“I really don’t see quite how.”

“When did you leave the dressing-room?”

“Oh. We were called on the tannoy. They’ll give you the time. I pulled on my ghost’s head and the cloak and went out.”

“Did you meet anybody in the passage?‘

“Meet anyone? Not precisely. I followed the old King and the Macduffs, mother and son, I remember. I don’t know if anyone followed me. Any of the other ‘corpses.’ ”

“And you were alone in the dressing-room?”

“Yes, my dear Chief Superintendent. Absolutely alone.”

“Thank you.” Alleyn made an addition and offered his own pen. “Will you read and sign it, please? There.”

Barrabell read it. Alleyn had written: “Corroborative evidence. None.”

He signed it.

“Thank you,” Alleyn said and left him.

In the passage he ran into Rangi. “Hullo,” he said, “I’m getting statements signed. Would it suit you to do yours now?”

“Good as gold.”

“Where’s your room?”

“Along here.”

He led the way to where the passage turned left and the rooms were larger.

“I’ve got Ross and Lennox and Angus in with me,” Rangi said. He came to the correct door and opened it. “Nobody here. It’s a bit of a muddle, I’m afraid,” he said.

“Doesn’t matter. You’ve packed up, I see.”

He cleared a chair for Alleyn and took one himself.

“Yours was a wonderful performance,” said Alleyn. “It was a brilliant decision to use those antipodean postures: the whole body working evil.”

“I’ve been wondering if I should have done it. I don’t know what my elders would say: the strict ones. It seemed to be right for the play. Mr. Sears approved of it. I thought maybe he would think it all nonsense but he said there are strong links throughout the world in esoteric beliefs. He said all or anyway most of the ingredients in the spell are correct.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Alleyn said. He saw that around his neck on a flax cord Rangi wore a tiki, a greenstone effigy of a human fetus. “Is that a protection?” Alleyn asked.

“In my family for generations.” The brown fingers caressed it.

“Really? You’re a Christian, aren’t you? Forgive me; it’s rather confusing —”

“It is, really. Yes. I suppose I am. The Mormon Church. It’s very popular with my people. They don’t ‘mormonize,’ you know, only one wife at a time, and they’re not all that fussy about our old beliefs. I suppose I’m more pakeha than Maori in ordinary day-to-day things. But when it comes to this — what’s happened here — it — well, it all comes rolling in, like the Pacific, in huge waves, and I’m Maori, through and through.”

“That I understand. Well, all I want is your signature to this statement. You weren’t asked many questions but I wonder if you can give me any help over this one. The actual killing took place between Macbeth’s exit fighting and Malcolm’s entrance. Those of you who were not onstage came out of your dressing-rooms. There were you three witches and the dead Macduffs and the King and the Banquo under his ghost mask and cloak. Is that correct?”

Rangi shut his large eyes. “Yes,” he said. “That’s right. And Mr. Sears. He was with the rest of us but as the cue got nearer he moved away into the O.P. corner with Macduff, ready for their final entrance.”

“Was anyone following you?”

“The other two witches. We were in a bunch.”

“Anyone else?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Sure?”

“Yes,” said Rangi firmly. “Quite sure. We were last.”

He read it carefully and signed it. As he returned it to Alleyn he said: “It doesn’t do to meddle with these things. They are wasps’ nests that are better left alone.”

“We can’t leave a murder alone, Rangi.”

“I suppose not. All the same. He made fun of things that are tapu — forbidden. My great-grandfather knew how to deal with that.”

“Oh?”

“He cut off the man’s head,” said Rangi cheerfully. “And ate him.”

The tannoy broke the silence that followed. “Members of the company are requested to assemble in the greenroom for a managerial announcement. Thank you,” it said.

Alleyn found Fox in the greenroom. “Finished?” he asked. “I’ve got all the statements. Except, of course, your lot. They’re not conspicuously helpful. There’s one item that the King noticed. He says — hold on a jiffy — here we are. He says he noticed that Sears was wheezing while he waited with them before the final entry. He said something about it and Sears tapped his own chest and frowned. He made a solemn thing with his eyebrows. ‘Asthma, dear boy, asthma. No matter.’ Can’t you see him doing it?”

“Yes. Vincent Crummies stuff. He must have found that massive claidheamh-mor a bit of a burden lumping it around with him.”

“What I thought. Poor devil. Here comes the management. We’ll hand over.”

They put the statements in a briefcase and settled themselves inconspicuously at the back of the room.

The management came through the auditorium and onstage by way of the Prompt box and from thence to the greenroom. They looked preternaturally solemn. The senior guardian was in the middle and Winter Meyer at the far end. They sat down behind the table, watching the company file in.

“I’m afraid,” said the senior guardian, “there are not enough chairs for everybody but please use the ones that are available. Oh, here are some more.”

Stagehands brought chairs from the dressing-rooms. There was a certain amount of politeness. Three ladies occupied the sofa. Simon Morten stood behind Maggie. She turned to speak to him. He put his hand on her shoulder and leaned over her with a possessive air. Gaston Sears stood apart with folded arms and pale face and dark suit, like a phony figurehead got up for the occasion. Bruce Barrabell occupied an armchair. Rangi and his girls were together by the doorway.

And in the back of the room, quietly, side by side, sat Alleyn and Fox, who sooner or later, it must be assumed, would remove one of the company, having charged him with the murder by decapitation of their leading man.

The senior guardian said his piece. He would not keep them long. They were all deeply shocked. It was right that they should know as soon as possible what had been decided by the management. The usual procedure of the understudy taking over the leading role would not be followed. It was felt that the continued presentation of the play would be too great a strain on actors and on audiences. This was a difficult decision to take when the production was such a wonderful success. However, after much anxious consideration it had been decided to revive The Glove. The principals had been cast. If they looked at the board they would see the names of the actors. There were four good parts still uncast and Mr. Jay would be pleased to audition anyone who wished to apply. Rehearsals would begin next week. Mr. Meyer would be glad to settle Macbeth salaries tomorrow morning if the actors would kindly call at the office. He thanked them all for being so patient and said he would ask them to stand in silence for one minute in remembrance of Sir Dougal Macdougal.

They stood. Winter Meyer looked at his watch. The minute seemed interminable. Strange little sounds — sighs, a muffled thump; a telephone bell; a voice, instantly silenced — came and went and nobody really thought of Sir Dougal except Maggie, who fought off tears. Winter Meyer made a definitive movement and there was no more silence.

“Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. Before we break up.”

It was Bruce Barrabell.

“As representative of Equity I would just like to convey the usual messages of sympathy and to say that I will make suitable enquiries on your behalf as to the correct action to be taken in these very unusual circumstances. Thank you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Barrabell,” replied the flustered senior guardian.

He and his colleagues left in a discreet procession by the stage door.

At a respectable distance was a second announcement:

Peregrine came in and looked at the notices. Then he began to move chairs onto the stage, placing them facing back to back to mark the doorways into Shakespeare’s parlor and leaving a group of six as working props. He brushed against the skeleton still swinging from the gallows and pushed it offstage. Then he went into the stalls and sat down.

I must pull myself together, he thought. I must go on as usual and I must whip up, from somewhere, enthusiasm for my own play.

Bob Masters came onstage and peered into the auditorium.

“Bob,” Peregrine said. “We’ll hold the auditions here in the usual way when everyone comes. Oh, and do put that skeleton somewhere else.”

“Right,” said Bob. “Will do. People will be down in half an hour — Winty is settling the treasury.”

“Okay.”

From the shadows a lonely couple emerged and appeared onstage. William and his mother: she, tidy in a dark gray suit and white blouse, he, also in dark gray — a trouser suit — with white shirt and dark blue tie. He walked over to the board, looked at the notices, and turned to his mother. She joined him and put her hands on his shoulders. “I’m not sure,” he said clearly. “Don’t I have to audition?”

“Hullo, William,” Peregrine called out. “You don’t, really. We’re taking a gamble on you. But I see you’ve got your book. Go and collect your treasury and come back here and we’ll see how you shape up. All right?”

“Yes, thank you, sir.”

“I’ll come back and wait for you outside,” said his mother. She had gone out by the stage door before Peregrine realized what she was up to.

William went through the house to the offices and, for a short time, Peregrine was quite alone. He sat in the stalls and supposed that people like Nina had begun to say that the Dolphin was an unlucky theatre. And suddenly time contracted and the first production of his play seemed to have scarcely completed its run. He could almost hear the voices of the actors…

William came back. He went through the opening scenes and Peregrine thought: I was right. The boy’s an actor.

“You’ll do,” he said. “Go home and learn your lines and come down for rehearsals in a week’s time.”

“Thank you, sir,” said William and went out by the stage door.

“ ‘Yes, sir. No, sir. Three bags full, sir,’ ” said an unmistakable voice. It was Bruce Barrabell, at the back.

Peregrine peered at him. “Barrabell?” he said. “Are you going to audition?”

“I thought so. For Burbage.”

He doesn’t come on until the second act, Peregrine thought. He would be good. And he felt a sudden violent dislike of Barrabell. I don’t want him in the cast, he thought. I can’t have him. I don’t want to hear him audition. I don’t want to speak to him. He thought of what Alleyn had told him, the evening before, of Barabell’s confession, if such it could be called.

The part of Burbage was of a frantically busy man of affairs and an accomplished actor in the supposed Elizabethan manner. Silver-tongued, blast it, thought Peregrine. He’s ideal, of course. Oh, damn and blast!

There was a bustle as the actors began to trickle in from the offices and Mrs. Abrams came down to take notes for Peregrine and say, “Thank you, darling. We’ll let you know.” The Ross auditioned for Dr. Hall. He read it nicely with a good appreciation of the medical man of his day and his anxious and lethal treatment of young Hamnet. The Gentlewoman tried for Joan Hart, the sister who was closest to the poet. That had been Emily’s part and Peregrine tried not to let himself be influenced by this. If he suggested she come back and play it she would say she was too old now.

They plodded on.

At the Yard, Alleyn was going through the statements. He put the regulation conclusion before himself and Mr. Fox, who remained, as it were, anonymous.

“If all reasonable explanations fail, the investigation must consider the explanation which, however outlandish, is not contradicted?”

“And what in this case is the outlandish explanation that is not contradicted?”

“There is not enough time for the murder to be accomplished between the end of the fight and the appearance of Macbeth’s head on the claidheamh-mor, so it must have been done before the fight. But Macbeth spoke during the fight. True, his voice was hoarse and breathless.”

Alleyn took his head in his hands and did his best to listen to the past. “… get thee back, my soul is too much charged with blood of thine already.” Sir Dougal had the slight but unmistakable burr of Scots in his voice. He had given it a little more room for the Thane: “too much changed.” A grievous sound. It drifted through his memory but his recollection held no personality behind it. Just the broken despair of any breathless, beaten fighter.

He must look for a new place in the play where the murder could have been committed. It was Sir Dougal who fought and killed Young Siward. He wore his vizor pushed up, displaying his full face. His speech ended with his desperate recollection of the last of the witches’ equivocal pronouncements:

and there, suddenly, in his imagination, stood the actor. Up went the gauntleted hand and down came the vizor. He went off into the O.P. corner — and was murdered? Macduff came on. He had a soliloquy, broken by skirmishes and determined searches. Outbursts of fighting occurred, now here, now there. The Macbeth faction was dressed alike: black, gauntleted, some masked, others not. The effect was nightmarish. What if Macduff encountered a man uniformed like Macbeth — but not Macbeth? Pipes. Malcolm, with a group of soldiers, marched on. Old Siward greeted him and welcomed him to the castle. He made a ceremonial entry with pipes and drums. Cheering within. The masked “Macbeth” entered. Macduff came on. Saw him. Challenged him. They fought.

“Yes,” Alleyn said, “It’s possible. It’s perfectly possible but does it throw a spanner in all our calculations and alibis? None of the ‘corpses’ are in position for the curtain call then. The Macduff, Simon Morten, could just, I suppose, have done it, but he’d have got a nasty shock when the dead man turned up to fight him. On the other hand, as Macbeth’s understudy he would know the fight. But he was already engaged in the fight himself. Damn. Barrabell? Gaston? Props? Rangi? All possible. But, wait a bit; all but one impossible. Unless we entertain the idea of a collaborator who understood the fight. Hold on. Let’s take any one of them regardless and see how it works out. Rangi.”

“Rangi,” said Fox without enthusiasm.

“He would do the murder at the earlier time. He’d wait till the last minute, then rush around to Gaston and say Sir Dougal’s fainted and he, Gaston, will have to go on for the fight with Macduff. All right so far?”

“It’s all right,” said Fox, “as far as you’ve got. Motive, though?”

“Ah. Motive. His great-grandfather knew how to deal with this sort of nonsense. He told me in the nicest way imaginable. He cut off the other chap’s head and ate him.”

“Really!” said Fox primly. “How very unpleasant. But I suppose he could have done a return to his greatgrandfather’s state of mind and killed Macbeth. You know, reverted to the Stone Age, sort of.”

“Any of the others could have done the same thing.”

“You don’t mean —”

“I don’t mean the chopper and cooking-pot bit, and I’ll thank you not to be silly. I mean, could have gone to Gaston at the last moment and asked him to fight. The catch in that is, it’d be a damnable bit of evidence against him, later on.”

“Yerse,” said Mr. Fox. “And whoever he was, he didn’t do it.”

“I know he didn’t do it. I’m simply trying to find a way out, Fox. I’m trying to eliminate and I have eliminated.”

“Yes, Mr. Alleyn. You have. When do we book the gentleman?”

“I doubt if we’ve got a tight enough case, you know.”

“Do you?”

“Blast the whole boiling of them,” said Alleyn. He got up and walked about the room. “Do you know what they’re doing now? At this precise moment? Holding auditions for the replacement. A good play by Jay built around the death of Shakespeare’s young son and the arrival of the Dark Lady. So far they haven’t cast the murderer but there’s no guarantee they won’t. What’s more it’s the play they were doing with great success when this theatre reopened. There was a mess then. Remember?”

“I remember,” said Fox. “Proper turn-up for the books, that one was.”

“And a right proper young monster the boy was. This is altogether a different story. D’you know who this kid is?”

“No. Ought I to? Not anything in our line of business, I suppose.”

“No — well, that’s not quite true. He’s a nice, well-brought-up little chap and he’s the son of the Hampstead Chopper. He doesn’t know that and I’m extremely anxious that he won’t find out, Fox.”

“Harcourt-Smith, wasn’t it?”

“It was. His mother dropped the Harcourt. He knows his father’s in a loony-bin but not why.”

“Broadmoor?”

“Yes. A lifer.”

“Fancy that, now,” Fox said shaking his head.

“One of his father’s earlier victims was a Mrs. Barrabell.”

“You’re not telling me —”

“Yes, I am. Wife. Barrabell put those practical jokes together. He hoped the management would think the boy was responsible and give him the sack.”

“Has he told you? Barrabell?”

“Not in so many words but as-good-as.”

“He’s a member of some potty little way-out group, isn’t he?”

“The Red Fellowship. Yes.”

“What do we know about them?”

“The usual. Meeting once a week on Sunday mornings. Genuine enough. No real understanding of the extraordinary and extremely complicated in-fighting that goes on at sub-diplomatic levels. A bit dotty. He and his mates iron everything out to a few axioms and turn a blind eye to all that doesn’t fit. The terrible reality of Bruce Barrabell rests in the fact that his wife was beheaded by a maniac. I think he believes, or has brooded himself into believing, that the child has inherited the father’s madness and that sooner or later it’ll emerge and then it’ll be too late.”

“I still don’t know where Sir Dougal fits in. If he does.”

“Nor do I. Except that he was a far from subtle funster and Bruce came in for his share of the ragging. He was forever making snide references to leftish groups and so on.”

“Hardly enough to make Bruce cut his head off.”

“Not if we were dealing with anything like normal people. I’m beginning to believe there’s a stepped-up abnormality about the whole thing, Fox. As if the actors had become motivated by the play. That leads one to the proposition that no play should be as compulsive as Macbeth. Which is ridiculous.”

“All right. So what, to get down to our weekly pay packet, do we do to earn it?”

“Find a conclusive reason that will give us the time, as being immediately after Brandish’d by man that’s of a woman born. Find alibis for all but one of the company at that time and then face him with it. That’s the ideal, of course. Let’s tackle the alibis and see if we can do it with both feet on the ground. Now, the troops and all the extras and doubles are already engaged in battle. All the thanes; the doctor, disguised as one of Macbeth’s soldiers; Malcolm; Siward. Macduff’s out. That leaves Rangi, Gaston, and Banquo. The King. Props.”

“He was in and out of the O.P. corner fixing the claidheamh-mor. And that’s all,” said Fox.

“And we can cut out the King, I imagine.”

“Why?”

“Too silly,” said Alleyn. “And too elderly.”

“All right. No King. How about Props? Any motive at all?”

“Not unless something turns up. In a way he’s tempting, though. Nobody would pay any attention to him slipping into or out of the O.P. corner. He’d be there with the naked claidheamh-mor when Macbeth came off and could kill him and put his head on it.”

“He’d have to give the phony message to Gaston, but I think it would hold up,” said Fox. “Gaston’s hanging about there and Props says to him, ‘For Gawd’s sake, sir, he’s fainted. You’ve got this one speech and the fight. You know it. You can do it.’ And later on when the body’s found he says it was so dark he just saw it lying there and realizing there was only a matter of minutes before Macbeth’s entrance for the fight he rushed out, found Gaston, and asked him. It hangs together. Except —”

“No motive? Bloody hell, Fox,” shouted Alleyn, “we’ve lost our touch. We’ve gone to pieces. Gaston being told Macbeth’s fainted doesn’t work. It doesn’t work with anyone asking him to do it. He’d have told us. Of course he would. Back to square one.”

There was a long silence.

“No,” said Alleyn at last. “There’s only one answer.”

“I suppose so,” said Fox heavily.

The auditions were nearly over and the play almost fully cast from the present company. In the office, announcements for the press were being telephoned and Peregrine actually felt better. Whatever the outcome and whoever was arrested, they were doing their own thing. In their own theatre. They were doing what they were meant to do: getting on with a new piece.

The discordant note was sounded, needless to say, by Gaston. He had not, of course, auditioned but there he was at the theatre. No sooner had an audition finished than he began. He buttonholed one nervous actor after another and his subject was the claidheamh-mor. He wanted it back. Urgently. They tried to shut him up, but he kept recurring like a decimal and complaining in an audible rumble that he would not be held responsible for anything that happened to anyone into whose care it had been consigned.

He asked to see Alleyn and was told he and Fox were not at the theatre. Where had they gone? Nobody knew.

At last Peregrine stopped Rangi’s audition and said he could not allow Gaston into the auditorium while they were working. What did he want?

“My claidheamh-mor,” he roared. “How often must I say it! Are you an idiot, have you not been given sufficient evidence of what it can do if a desecrating hand is laid upon it? It is my fault,” he shouted. “I allowed it to become involved in this sanguinary play. I released its power. You have only to study its history to realize —”

“Gaston! Stop! We are busy and it is no affair of ours. We have no time to listen to your diatribe and it is not within my sphere of activities to demand the thing’s return. In any case I wouldn’t get it. Do pipe down like a good chap. The weapon is perfectly safe in police custody and will be returned in due course.”

“Safe!” he cried swinging his arms about alarmingly. “Safe! You will drive me demented.”

“Not far to go,” remarked a splendid voice in the back stalls.

“Who made that repulsive observation?”

“I did,” said Barrabell. “In my opinion you’re certifiable. In any correctly ordered state —”

“Shut up, both of you,” Peregrine cried. “Good Lord! Haven’t we had enough to put up with! If you can’t pipe down both of you go out of earshot and get on with it in the yard.”

“I shall bring this up with Equity. It is not the first time I have been insulted in this theatre —”

“— my claidheamh-mor. I implore you to consider —”

“Gaston! Answer me. Are you here to audition? Yes or no.”

“I am here… no.”

“Barrabell, are you here to audition?”

“I was. I now see that it would be useless.”

“In that case neither of you has any right to stay. I must ask you both to go. Go, for pity’s sake, both of you.”

The doors into the foyer opened. Winty Meyer’s voice said: “Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize —”

“Mr. Meyer, wait! I must speak with you. My claidheamh-mor! Mr. Meyer! Please!”

Gaston hurried down the aisle and out into the foyer. The doors swung to behind him and he became a distant rumpus.

Peregrine said: “I’m extremely sorry, Rangi. We’ll go on when I’ve settled this idiotic affair. Now then, Bruce.”

He took Barrabell’s elbow and led him aside. “My dear chap,” he said and forced his voice into a warmth he did not feel. “Alleyn has told me of your tragedy. I couldn’t be sorrier for you. But I must ask you this. Don’t you feel that with young William in the company you would be most unhappy? I do. I —”

Barrabell turned deadly white. He stared at Peregrine.

“You little rat,” he said. He turned on his heel and left the theatre.

“Whew!” said Peregrine. “Okay, Rangi. We’ll have an audition.”