Light Thickens

“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 ta

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.”