Light Thickens (22 page)

“Was anyone following you?”

“The other two witches. We were in a bunch.”

“Anyone else?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Sure?”

“Yes,” said Rangi firmly. “Quite sure. We were last.”

He read it carefully and signed it. As he returned it to Alleyn he said: “It doesn’t do to meddle with these things. They are wasps’ nests that are better left alone.”

“We can’t leave a murder alone, Rangi.”

“I suppose not. All the same. He made fun of things that are
tapu
— forbidden. My great-grandfather knew how to deal with that.”

“Oh?”

“He cut off the man’s head,” said Rangi cheerfully. “And ate him.”

The tannoy broke the silence that followed. “Members of the company are requested to assemble in the greenroom for a managerial announcement. Thank you,” it said.

Alleyn found Fox in the greenroom. “Finished?” he asked. “I’ve got all the statements. Except, of course, your lot. They’re not conspicuously helpful. There’s one item that the King noticed. He says — hold on a jiffy — here we are. He says he noticed that Sears was wheezing while he waited with them before the final entry. He said something about it and Sears tapped his own chest and frowned. He made a solemn thing with his eyebrows. ‘Asthma, dear boy, asthma. No matter.’ Can’t you see him doing it?”

“Yes. Vincent Crummies stuff. He must have found that massive claidheamh-mor a bit of a burden lumping it around with him.”

“What I thought. Poor devil. Here comes the management. We’ll hand over.”

They put the statements in a briefcase and settled themselves inconspicuously at the back of the room.

The management came through the auditorium and onstage by way of the Prompt box and from thence to the greenroom. They looked preternaturally solemn. The senior guardian was in the middle and Winter Meyer at the far end. They sat down behind the table, watching the company file in.

“I’m afraid,” said the senior guardian, “there are not enough chairs for everybody but please use the ones that are available. Oh, here are some more.”

Stagehands brought chairs from the dressing-rooms. There was a certain amount of politeness. Three ladies occupied the sofa. Simon Morten stood behind Maggie. She turned to speak to him. He put his hand on her shoulder and leaned over her with a possessive air. Gaston Sears stood apart with folded arms and pale face and dark suit, like a phony figurehead got up for the occasion. Bruce Barrabell occupied an armchair. Rangi and his girls were together by the doorway.

And in the back of the room, quietly, side by side, sat Alleyn and Fox, who sooner or later, it must be assumed, would remove one of the company, having charged him with the murder by decapitation of their leading man.

The senior guardian said his piece. He would not keep them long. They were all deeply shocked. It was right that they should know as soon as possible what had been decided by the management. The usual procedure of the understudy taking over the leading role would not be followed. It was felt that the continued presentation of the play would be too great a strain on actors and on audiences. This was a difficult decision to take when the production was such a wonderful success. However, after much anxious consideration it had been decided to revive
The Glove
. The principals had been cast. If they looked at the board they would see the names of the actors. There were four good parts still uncast and Mr. Jay would be pleased to audition anyone who wished to apply. Rehearsals would begin next week. Mr. Meyer would be glad to settle
Macbeth
salaries tomorrow morning if the actors would kindly call at the office. He thanked them all for being so patient and said he would ask them to stand in silence for one minute in remembrance of Sir Dougal Macdougal.

They stood. Winter Meyer looked at his watch. The minute seemed interminable. Strange little sounds — sighs, a muffled thump; a telephone bell; a voice, instantly silenced — came and went and nobody really thought of Sir Dougal except Maggie, who fought off tears. Winter Meyer made a definitive movement and there was no more silence.

“Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. Before we break up.”

It was Bruce Barrabell.

“As representative of Equity I would just like to convey the usual messages of sympathy and to say that I will make suitable enquiries on your behalf as to the correct action to be taken in these very unusual circumstances. Thank you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Barrabell,” replied the flustered senior guardian.

He and his colleagues left in a discreet procession by the stage door.

At a respectable distance was a second announcement:

Peregrine came in and looked at the notices. Then he began to move chairs onto the stage, placing them facing back to back to mark the doorways into Shakespeare’s parlor and leaving a group of six as working props. He brushed against the skeleton still swinging from the gallows and pushed it offstage. Then he went into the stalls and sat down.

I must pull myself together, he thought. I must go on as usual and I must whip up, from somewhere, enthusiasm for my own play.

Bob Masters came onstage and peered into the auditorium.

“Bob,” Peregrine said. “We’ll hold the auditions here in the usual way when everyone comes. Oh, and do put that skeleton somewhere else.”

“Right,” said Bob. “Will do. People will be down in half an hour — Winty is settling the treasury.”

“Okay.”

From the shadows a lonely couple emerged and appeared onstage. William and his mother: she, tidy in a dark gray suit and white blouse, he, also in dark gray — a trouser suit — with white shirt and dark blue tie. He walked over to the board, looked at the notices, and turned to his mother. She joined him and put her hands on his shoulders. “I’m not sure,” he said clearly. “Don’t I have to audition?”

“Hullo, William,” Peregrine called out. “You don’t, really. We’re taking a gamble on you. But I see you’ve got your book. Go and collect your treasury and come back here and we’ll see how you shape up. All right?”

“Yes, thank you, sir.”

“I’ll come back and wait for you outside,” said his mother. She had gone out by the stage door before Peregrine realized what she was up to.

William went through the house to the offices and, for a short time, Peregrine was quite alone. He sat in the stalls and supposed that people like Nina had begun to say that the Dolphin was an unlucky theatre. And suddenly time contracted and the first production of his play seemed to have scarcely completed its run. He could almost hear the voices of the actors…

William came back. He went through the opening scenes and Peregrine thought: I was right. The boy’s an actor.

“You’ll do,” he said. “Go home and learn your lines and come down for rehearsals in a week’s time.”

“Thank you, sir,” said William and went out by the stage door.

“ ‘Yes, sir. No, sir. Three bags full, sir,’ ” said an unmistakable voice. It was Bruce Barrabell, at the back.

Peregrine peered at him. “Barrabell?” he said. “Are you going to audition?”

“I thought so. For Burbage.”

He doesn’t come on until the second act, Peregrine thought. He would be good. And he felt a sudden violent dislike of Barrabell. I don’t want him in the cast, he thought. I can’t have him. I don’t want to hear him audition. I don’t want to speak to him. He thought of what Alleyn had told him, the evening before, of Barabell’s confession, if such it could be called.

The part of Burbage was of a frantically busy man of affairs and an accomplished actor in the supposed Elizabethan manner. Silver-tongued, blast it, thought Peregrine. He’s ideal, of course. Oh, damn and blast!

There was a bustle as the actors began to trickle in from the offices and Mrs. Abrams came down to take notes for Peregrine and say, “Thank you, darling. We’ll let you know.” The Ross auditioned for Dr. Hall. He read it nicely with a good appreciation of the medical man of his day and his anxious and lethal treatment of young Hamnet. The Gentlewoman tried for Joan Hart, the sister who was closest to the poet. That had been Emily’s part and Peregrine tried not to let himself be influenced by this. If he suggested she come back and play it she would say she was too old now.

They plodded on.

At the Yard, Alleyn was going through the statements. He put the regulation conclusion before himself and Mr. Fox, who remained, as it were, anonymous.

“If all reasonable explanations fail, the investigation must consider the explanation which, however outlandish, is not contradicted?”

“And what in this case is the outlandish explanation that is not contradicted?”

“There is not enough time for the murder to be accomplished between the end of the fight and the appearance of Macbeth’s head on the claidheamh-mor, so it must have been done before the fight. But Macbeth spoke during the fight. True, his voice was hoarse and breathless.”

Alleyn took his head in his hands and did his best to listen to the past. “…
get thee back, my soul is too much charged with blood of thine already
.” Sir Dougal had the slight but unmistakable burr of Scots in his voice. He had given it a little more room for the Thane: “
too much changed
.” A grievous sound. It drifted through his memory but his recollection held no personality behind it. Just the broken despair of any breathless, beaten fighter.

He must look for a new place in the play where the murder could have been committed. It was Sir Dougal who fought and killed Young Siward. He wore his vizor pushed up, displaying his full face. His speech ended with his desperate recollection of the last of the witches’ equivocal pronouncements:

and there, suddenly, in his imagination, stood the actor. Up went the gauntleted hand and down came the vizor. He went off into the O.P. corner — and was murdered? Macduff came on. He had a soliloquy, broken by skirmishes and determined searches. Outbursts of fighting occurred, now here, now there. The Macbeth faction was dressed alike: black, gauntleted, some masked, others not. The effect was nightmarish. What if Macduff encountered a man uniformed like Macbeth — but not Macbeth? Pipes. Malcolm, with a group of soldiers, marched on. Old Siward greeted him and welcomed him to the castle. He made a ceremonial entry with pipes and drums. Cheering within. The masked “Macbeth” entered. Macduff came on. Saw him. Challenged him. They fought.

“Yes,” Alleyn said, “It’s possible. It’s perfectly possible but does it throw a spanner in all our calculations and alibis? None of the ‘corpses’ are in position for the curtain call then. The Macduff, Simon Morten, could
just
, I suppose, have done it, but he’d have got a nasty shock when the dead man turned up to fight him. On the other hand, as Macbeth’s understudy he would know the fight. But he was already engaged in the fight himself. Damn. Barrabell? Gaston? Props? Rangi? All possible. But, wait a bit; all but one impossible. Unless we entertain the idea of a collaborator who understood the fight. Hold on. Let’s take any one of them regardless and see how it works out. Rangi.”

“Rangi,” said Fox without enthusiasm.

“He would do the murder at the earlier time. He’d wait till the last minute, then rush around to Gaston and say Sir Dougal’s fainted and he, Gaston, will have to go on for the fight with Macduff. All right so far?”

“It’s all right,” said Fox, “as far as you’ve got. Motive, though?”

“Ah. Motive. His great-grandfather knew how to deal with this sort of nonsense. He told me in the nicest way imaginable. He cut off the other chap’s head and ate him.”

“
Really
!” said Fox primly. “How very unpleasant. But I suppose he could have done a return to his greatgrandfather’s state of mind and killed Macbeth. You know, reverted to the Stone Age, sort of.”

“Any of the others could have done the same thing.”

“You don’t mean —”

“I don’t mean the chopper and cooking-pot bit, and I’ll thank you not to be silly. I mean, could have gone to Gaston at the last moment and asked him to fight. The catch in that is, it’d be a damnable bit of evidence against him, later on.”

“Yerse,” said Mr. Fox. “And whoever he was, he didn’t do it.”

“I
know
he didn’t do it. I’m simply trying to find a way out, Fox. I’m trying to eliminate and I
have
eliminated.”

“Yes, Mr. Alleyn. You have. When do we book the gentleman?”

“I doubt if we’ve got a tight enough case, you know.”

“Do you?”

“Blast the whole boiling of them,” said Alleyn. He got up and walked about the room. “Do you know what they’re doing now? At this precise moment? Holding auditions for the replacement. A good play by Jay built around the death of Shakespeare’s young son and the arrival of the Dark Lady. So far they haven’t cast the murderer but there’s no guarantee they won’t. What’s more it’s the play they were doing with great success when this theatre reopened. There was a mess then. Remember?”

“I remember,” said Fox. “Proper turn-up for the books, that one was.”