Light Thickens (18 page)

“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.”