Light Thickens ra-32 Read online

  “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.
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  “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.”
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  “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.”