Light Thickens

“I forgot about you,” he said and took it out and stared at it for a moment.

“May I have him back?” asked Robin. He took the ma

“Whom are you ringing up?” asked Peregrine.

“A boy.”

He consulted the list and dialed the number. “Hullo, Horrible,” he said. “What d’you think I’ve got? Three guesses. No… No… Yes. Hooray. Clever old you. What are you doing?… Oh, Daddy’s play? Well, I thought you’d like to know we’re going back to school today so we’ll be half-starved. Oh, well. Bung-ho.”

He hung up and immediately dialed again.

“It’s me again,” he said. “I forgot to mention that I knew all along the fighter wasn’t Macbeth. I’ll give you three guesses who… One. No… Two. No… Three. No. I’ll give you till next Sunday.” He replaced the receiver.

“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,” muttered Peregrine. “Robin! Come here. You must tell me. How did you know?”

Robin looked at his father and saw that he meant business. He adopted a defiant attitude: feet apart, hands on hips, slightly nervous smile. “Three guesses?” he invited.

But Peregrine needed only one.

He rang up Alleyn at the Yard.

The company of Dolphins at the Swan was diminished but Rangi and Ross and Le

“We start rehearsals tomorrow,” said Ross. “Thank God, without the ineffable Sears or dreary old Banquo. The whole tragedy as far as the Dolphin’s concerned is finished.” He made a dismissive gesture with both hands.

“It won’t be finished, my dear chap,” said Le

“No,” said Rangi. “The stigma remains. It must.”

“I looked in this morning. It’s as clean as a whistle and smells of disinfectant everywhere.”

“No policemen?”

“Not then, no. Just the offices clicking over merrily. There’s a big notice out in front saying people can use their tickets for the new play or get their money back at the box office. And a board with nothing but rave notices from the former production of The Glove.”

“Any reasons given?”

“There’s a piece in the papers. I suppose you saw.”

Le

“I haven’t seen the papers,” said Rangi.

“It just says that Dougal died on Saturday night very suddenly in the theatre. And there’s the usual obituary: half a column and photographs. The Macbeth one’s very good,” said Ross.

“It said that ‘as a mark of respect’ the theatre would be dark for three weeks,” Ross added.

“It’s been an honor to play in it. It’ll be remembered,” said Le

“Yes,” said Ross.

Rangi said, as if the words were dragged out of him, “It’s tapu. We are all tapu and will be until the murderer is found. And who will whakamana?”

There was an awkward silence.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Le

“Better that you don’t,” said Rangi. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Understand what?” asked Le

“Maoritanga. ”

“Maori how much?”

“Shut up, old boy,” said Ross and kicked him underneath the table.

“Why?” Le

“Not at all,” said Rangi. He stood up. “I must get back. I’m late. Excuse me.”

He went to the counter, paid his bill, and left.

“What’s biting him?” Le

“Lord knows. Something to do with the case, I imagine. He’ll get over it, whatever it is.”

After a pause Le

“Perhaps you said something that upset his mana.”

“Oh, to hell with him and his mana. Where did you pick up that word, anyway?”

“In conversation with him. It means all sorts of things but pride is the principal one.”

They ate their lunch in silence. Rangi had left a copy of The Stage on the bench. Ross looked at it. A small paragraph at the bottom of the page caught his eye. “Hi,” he said. “This would interest Barrabell. This is the lot he went abroad with. Take a look.”

Le

“The Leftist Players are repeating their successful tour of Soviet Russia. They are now about to go into rehearsal with three contemporary plays. Ring club number for auditions.”

“That’s the gang he went with before,” said Ross.

“He wouldn’t be let go. Not while nobody’s been caught.”

“I suppose not.”

“I wonder if he’s seen this,” said Ross without interest.

They finished their lunch without much conversation.

Barrabell had seen it. He read it carefully and consulted his notebook for the club number.

His bed-sitting room carried the absolute negation of any personal characteristics whatever. It was on the large side, tidy and clean. Its two windows looked across an alley at the third-story shutters of an equally anonymous building.

He opened his wardrobe and took out the battered suitcase with the old Russian airways labels on it. Opened, some tidily folded garments — pajamas, underclothes and shirts — were revealed and under these a package of press cuttings and the glossy photograph of a good-looking young woman.

The press cuttings were mainly of productions that he had appeared in, but there were also relics of the trial of Harcourt-Smith. A photograph of the man himself, handcuffed between two policemen, entering the Old Bailey and looking blankly at nothing. Another, of Mr. Justice Swithering, and a third, of William and his mother, taken in the street. There were accounts of the trial.

Barrabell read the cuttings and looked at the photographs. He then put them one by one into the dead fireplace and burned them to ashes. He went to the bathroom on his landing and washed his hands. Then he replaced all the theatrical reviews in the suitcase and looked for a long time at the glossy photograph, which was signed “Muriel.” His hands trembled. He put it under the reviews and shut and locked the case.

Now he consulted his copy of The Stage and rang the number given for inquiries about auditions.

He made a quick calculation, arrived at the amount he owed his landlady, and put it in a used envelope with a cellophane window. He wrote her name on the front and added: “Called away very unexpectedly. B.B.”

Whistling almost inaudibly, he reopened the case and packed into it everything else in the room that he owned. He double-checked every drawer and shelf, put his passport in the breast pocket of his jacket, and, after a final look around, picked up his case and left the room. The landlady’s office was locked. He pushed the envelope under the door and walked out.

He was on a direct route for his destination and waited at the bus stop, dumping his case on the ground until the right bus came along. He climbed aboard, sat near the door, tucked his case under his legs, and paid his fare.

The man who had been behind him in the queue heard him give the address and gave the same one.

Shortly thereafter a message came through to Alleyn.

“Subject left lodging-house carrying suitcase with old Russian labels. Followed to address suggested and is still there.”

To which he replied: “Keep obbo. No arrest but don’t lose him.”

It’s one thing,” said Alleyn, “to have the whole case wrapped up in the copper’s mind and to be absolutely sure, as I am, who’s responsible; and it’s an entirely different cup of tea to get a jury to believe it. God knows it’s a tangle and can’t you hear counsel for the defense? ‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have listened very patiently to this impudent tarradiddle — ’ and so on and so on. I’ve been hoping for something more to break — the man himself, perhaps — but nothing — nothing.”