Light Thickens

“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 ru

“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 co

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 u

“I’m sorry. Do you?” Barrabell asked wi

“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?”