Light Thickens

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 fu

“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 co