Ngaio Marsh - Light Thickens

“So do I. Tomorrow. Thank you, Perry.” Peregrine opened the door, sidestepped Mrs. Abrams, and went back to the foyer.

There he found Robin under the photograph of Macbeth. “Oh, hullo,” he said casually when Peregrine reached him. “There’s the second buzz.”

“Where’s Cip?”

Crispin was in the crowd by the bookstall. He was searching his pockets. Peregrine, closely followed by Robin, worked his way over to him.

“I’ve got it all but twenty p.,” said Crispin. He clutched a book called Macbeth Through Four Centuries .

Peregrine produced a five-pound note, and handed it to the clerk. “For the book,” he said. “Come on, boys,” and they returned to their box. The interval ended, the house darkened, and the curtain rose.

On Banquo. Alone and suspicious. Macbeth questions him. He is going out? Riding? He must return. For the party. Does Fleance go with him? Yes to all those questions. There is a terrible smile on Macbeth’s face, the lips stretch back. Farewell .

Seyton is at once sent for the murderers. He has them ready and stands in the doorway and hears the wooing. Macbeth is easier, almost enjoys himself. They are his sort. He caresses them. The bargain is struck; they go off.

Now Lady Macbeth finds him: full of strange hints and of horror. There is the superb invocation to night and he leads her away. And the scene changes. Seyton joins the murderers and Banquo is dispatched.

The banquet. Seyton tells Macbeth that Fleance has escaped.

The bloodied ghost of Banquo appears among the guests.

The play began its inexorable swell toward the appointed ending. After the witches, the apparitions, the equivocal promises, comes the murder of Macduff’s wife and child.

Then Lady Macbeth, asleep and talking in that strange, metallic, nightmare voice. Macbeth again, after a long interval. He has degenerated and shrunk. He beats about him with a kind of hectic frenzy and peers hopelessly into the future. These are the death throes of a monster. Please let Macduff find him and finish it.

Macduff has found him. “ Turn, hell-hound, turn !”

Robin’s hand crept into his father’s and held it fast.

The fight. Leap, clash, sweep; hoarse, snarling voices. Macbeth is beaten backward, Macduff raises his claymore, and they plunge out of sight. A scream. A thud. Silence. Then the distant approach of pipe and drums. Malcolm and his thanes come out on the upper landing. The rest of his troops march on at stage-level and up the steps with old Siward, who receives the news of his son’s death.

Macduff comes on downstage, O.P., followed by Seyton.

Seyton carries his claidheamh-mor and on it, streaming blood, the head of Macbeth. He turns it upstage, facing Malcolm and the troops.

Macduff has not looked at it. He shouts: “ Behold where stands the usurper’s cursed head. Hail, King of Scotland !”

The blood drips onto Seyton’s upturned face.

And being well-trained professional actors, they respond, with stricken faces and shaking lips, “ Hail, King of Scotland !”

The curtain falls.

Cip,” Peregrine said, “you’ll have to get a cab home. Here’s the cash. Take care of Robin, won’t you? Do you know what’s happened?”

“It seems — some sort of accident?”

“Yes. To the Macbeth. I’ve got to stay here. Look, there’s a cab. Get it.”

Crispin darted out and ran toward the taxi, holding up his hand. He jumped back on the platform and the taxi driver drew up. Peregrine said: “In you get, Rob.”

“I thought we were going backstage,” Robin said. His face was pale, his eyes bewildered.

“There’s been an accident. Next time.”

He gave the driver their address and they were gone. Someone tapped his arm. He turned and found it was Roderick Alleyn.

“I’d better come round, hadn’t I?” he said.

“You! Yes… You’ve seen it? It really happened?”

“Yes.”

They found a crowd of people milling about in the alley. “My God,” said Peregrine. “The bloody public.”

“I’ll try and cope.”

Alleyn was very tall. There was a wooden box at the stage door. He made his way to it and stood on it, facing the crowd. “If you please,” he said, and was listened to.

“You are naturally curious. You will learn nothing and you will be very much in the way if you stay here. Nobody of consequence will be leaving the theatre by this door. Please behave reasonably and go.”

He stood there, waiting.

“Who does he think he is?” said a man next to Peregrine.

“He’s Chief Superintendent Alleyn,” said Peregrine. “You’d better do what he says.”

There was a general murmur. A voice said: “Aw, come on. What’s the use.”

They moved away.

The doorkeeper opened the door to the length of the chain, peered out, and saw Peregrine. “Thank Gawd,” he said. “Hold on, sir.” He disengaged the chain and opened the door wide enough to admit them. Peregrine said: “It’s all right. This is Chief Superintendent Alleyn,” and they went in.

To a silent place. The stage was lit. Masking pieces rose up; black masses, through which the passage could be seen running under the landing in front of the door to Duncan’s chamber. At the far end of this passage, strongly lit, was a shrouded object, a bundle, lying on the stage. A dark red puddle had seeped from under it.

They moved around the set and the stage manager came offstage.

“Perry! Thank God,” he said.

“I was in front. So was Superintendent Alleyn. Bob Masters, our stage manager, Mr. Alleyn.”

“Have you rung the Yard?” Alleyn asked.

“Charlie’s doing it,” said Masters, “now. Our A.S.M. He’s having some difficulty getting a line out.”

“I’ll have a word with him,” said Alleyn and went into the Prompt Corner.

“I’m a policeman,” he told Charlie. “Shall I take over?”

“Ah? Are you? Yes. Hullo? Here’s a policeman.” He held out the receiver. Alleyn said: “Superintendent Alleyn. At the Dolphin. Homicide. Decapitation. That’s what I said. I imagine that as I was here I’ll be expected to take it on. Yes. I’ll hold on while you do.” There was a short interval and he said, “Bailey and Thompson. Yes. Ask Inspector Fox to come down. My case is in my room. He’ll bring it. Get the doctor. Right? Good.”

He hung up. “I’ll take a look,” he said and went onstage.

Four stagehands and the Property Master were there, keeping guard.

“Nobody’s gone,” Bob Masters said. “The company are in their dressing-rooms and Peregrine’s gone back to the office. There’s a sort of conference.”

“Good,” said Alleyn.

He walked over to the shrouded bundle. “What happened after the curtain fell?” he asked.

“Scarcely anybody really realized it was — not a dummy. The head. The dummy’s a very good head. Blood and everything. I didn’t realize. The curtain went down. I was getting them ready for the curtain calls. And then Gaston, who carried it on the end of his claidheamh-mor — the great claymore thing he carries throughout the play — that thing —” He pointed at the bundle.

“Yes?”

“He noticed the blood on his gloves and he looked at them. And then he looked up and it dripped on his face and he screamed. The curtain being down.”

“Yes.”

“We all saw, of course. He let the — the head — on the claymore — fall. The house was still applauding. So I — really, I didn’t know what I was doing. I went out through the center break in the curtain and said there’d been an accident and I hoped they’d forgive us not taking the usual calls and would go home. And I came off. By that time,” said Mr. Masters, “panic had broken out in the cast. I ordered them all to their rooms and I covered the head with that cloth — it’s used on the props table, I think. And Props sort of tucked it under. And that’s all.”