Ngaio Marsh - Light Thickens

“It’s very clear indeed. Thank you, Mr. Masters. I think I’ll look at the head now, if you please. I can manage for myself.”

“I’d be glad not to.”

“Yes, of course,” said Alleyn.

He squatted down, keeping clear of the puddle. He took hold of the cloth and turned it back.

Sir Dougal stared up at him through the slits in his mask. The eyes were set and glazed. The steel guard over his mouth had fallen away and the mouth stretched in a clown’s grin. Alleyn saw that he had been struck from behind: the wound was clean and the margin turned outward. He covered the face.

“The weapon?” he said.

“We think it must be this,” Masters said. “At least, I do.”

“This is the weapon carried by Seyton?”

“Yes.”

“It’s bloodied, of course.”

“Yes. It would be anyway. And with false blood too. There’s false blood over everything. But” — Masters shuddered — “they’re mixed.”

“Where’s the false head?”

“The false —? I don’t know. We haven’t looked.”

Alleyn walked into the O.P. corner. It was encircled with scenery masking pieces and very dark. He waited for his sight to adapt. In the darkest corner, behind one of the pieces, a man’s form slowly assembled itself, its head facedown. Its head !

He moved toward it, stooped down, and touched the head. It shifted under his fingers. It was the dummy. He touched the body. It was flesh — and blood. And dead. And headless.

Alleyn moved back and returned to the stage.

There was a loud knocking on the stage door.

“I’ll go,” said Masters.

It was the Yard. Inspector Fox and Sergeants Bailey and Thompson. Fox was the regular, old-style, plainclothesman: grizzled, amiable and implacable.

He said: “Visiting your old haunts, are you, sir?”

“Over twenty years ago, isn’t it, Br’er Fox? And you two. I want you to give the full treatment, photos, prints, the lot, to that head onstage there, covered up, and the headless body in the dark corner over there. They parted company just before the final curtain. All right? And the dummy head in the corner. The assumed weapon is the claymore on which the real head’s fixed, so include that in the party. Any more staff coming?”

“Couple of uniformed coppers. Any moment now.”

“Good. Front doors and stage door for them. On guard.”

He turned to Masters. “We’ll need to know whom to inform. Can you help?”

“There’s his divorced wife. No children. Winty may know. Mr. Winter Meyer.”

“He’s still here?” Alleyn exclaimed.

“In the office. With Peregrine Jay discussing what we’re to do.”

“Ah, yes. You’ve got tomorrow, Sunday, to make up your minds.”

He looked at the stage crew. “You’ve had a bit of a job. Which of you is responsible for the properties?”

Props made an awkward movement.

“You are? I’m afraid I must ask you to wait a little longer. The foreman? I’m sorry, but you and you three men will have to wait, too. There’s no need for you to remain onstage any longer. Thank you.” The men moved off into the shadows.

Bailey and Thompson assembled their gear.

“You’ll want the lights man, won’t you?” Alleyn said. “Is he here?”

“Here,” said the lights man, who was with Charlie, the assistant stage manager.

“Right! I’ll leave you to it. Don’t touch anything.” And to Masters: “Where does Mr. Gaston Sears dress?”

“I’ll show you,” said Masters.

He led Alleyn into the world of dressing-rooms. They walked down a passage with doors on either side and the occupants’ names on them. It was very, very quiet.

Gaston’s room was not much more than a cubicle at the end of the passage. Masters tapped on the door and the deep voice boomed: “Come in.” Masters opened the door.

“These two gentlemen would like a word with you, Gaston,” he said and made his way back quickly.

There was only just room for Alleyn and Fox. They edged in and with difficulty shut the door.

Gaston had changed into a black dressing-gown and had removed his makeup. He was sheet-white but perfectly composed. He gave his name and address before being asked to do so.

Alleyn exclaimed: “Ah, I was right. You won’t remember me but I called on you several years ago, Mr. Sears, and asked you to give us the date and value of a claidheamh-mor, part of a burglar’s haul we had recovered.”

“I remember it very well. It was of no great antiquity but it was, as far as that went, not a fake.”

“That’s the one. Tragically enough, it’s about a claidheamh-mor that I’d like to ask you a few questions now.”

“I shall be glad to offer an opinion, particularly as you use the correct term correctly pronounced. It is my own property and it is a perfectly authentic example of the thirteenth-century fighting tool of the Scottish nobleman. In our production I carry it on all ceremonial occasions. It weighs…”

He sailed off into a catalogue of details and symbolic significance and from thence into a list of previous owners. The further he retreated into history the murkier did his anecdotes become. Alleyn and Fox stood jammed together. Fox had with difficulty drawn his notebook from his breast pocket and had opened it in readiness, when Alleyn nudged him, to record anything that seemed to be of interest.

“…as with many other such tools — Excalibur is one — there has grown up, with the centuries, the belief that the weapon — its name — I translate ‘Gut-ravager’ — engraved in a Celtic device on the hilts — is said to be possessed with magic powers. Be that as it may —” He paused to draw breath and take thought.

“You would not wish to let it out of your grasp,” Alleyn cut in and nudged Fox. “Naturally.”

“Naturally. But also I was obliged to do so. Twice. When I joined the murderers of Banquo and when I came off in the last scene. After Macbeth said, a time for such a word , the property man took it from me in order to affix the head on it. I made the head. I could be thought to have the ability to place it on the claidheamh-mor but unfortunately when I did so the first time, I made a childish error and the weapon, which is extremely sharp, pierced the top of the head and it swung about in a ludicrous fashion. So it was thought better to mend the hole and let Props fix it. He had to ladle blood on it.”

“And he returned it to you?”

“He put it in the O.P. corner, on the left as you go in. Nobody else was allowed to go into the corner because of Macbeth and Macduff coming off after their fight, straight into it. I should have said, perhaps, that it is not pitch-dark all the time. It was made so for the end of the fight to guard against anyone in front at the extreme right or in the Prompt boxes seeing Macbeth recover himself. A curtain, upstage of it, was closed by a stagehand as soon as their fight was engaged.”

“Yes. I’ve got that.”

“Props put the claidheamh-mor in the corner sometime before the end of the fight. I took it up at the last moment before Macduff and I reentered.”

“So Macbeth came off, screamed, and was decapitated by the claidheamh-mor from which the dummy’s head had been pulled. The real head now replaced it.”

“I — yes, I confess I had not worked it out so carefully but — yes, I suppose so. I think there would be time.”

“And room? To swing the weapon?”

“There is always room. I invented the fight. I know the moves. Macduff, under my instruction, swung his weapon up while still in view of the audience and brought it down when he was just out of view in the O.P. corner. There was room. I was up at the back talking to the King and Props and others. The little boy, William. I saw Macduff come off. I have grown more and more certain,” said Gaston, “that there was a malign influence at work, that the claidheamh-mor has a secret life of its own. It is satisfied now. We hope. We hope.”