Ngaio Marsh - Light Thickens

He gazed at Alleyn. “I am extremely tired,” he said. “It has been an alarming experience. Horrifying, really. It must be something I have done. I didn’t look up at first. It was dark. I took it and engaged the hilts in my harness and entered behind Macduff. And when I looked up it dropped blood on my face. What have I done? How have I, who bought and treasured it, committed an offense? Is it because I have allowed it to be used in a public display? True, I have done so. I have carried it.” His piercing eyes brightened. He reassumed his commanding posture. “Can it have been the accolade?“ he asked.”Was I being admitted to some esoteric comradeship and baptized with blood?” He made a helpless gesture. “I am confused,” he said.

“We won’t worry you any more just now, Mr. Sears. You’ve been very helpful.”

They found their way back to the stage, where Bailey and Thompson squatted, absorbed, over their unspeakable tasks.

“Not much doubt about the weapon, Mr. Alleyn,” said Bailey. “It’s this thing it’s stuck on. Sharp! Like a razor. And there’s the marks, see. Done from the back when the victim’s bending over. Clean as a whistle.”

“Yes, I see. Prints?”

“He was wearing gloves. Gauntlets. Whoever he was. They all were.”

“Thompson, have you got all the shots you want?”

“Yes, thanks. Close-up. All around. The whole thing.”

The sound of the stage door being opened and a quick, incisive voice. “All right. Dark, isn’t it. Where’s the body?”

“Sir James,” Alleyn called. “Here!”

“Hullo, Rory. Up to your old games, are you?”

Sir James Curtis appeared, immaculate in dinner jacket and black overcoat and carrying his bag. “I was at a party at Saint Thomas’s. What have you got — good God, what is all this?”

“All yours at the moment,” said Alleyn.

Bailey and Thompson had stepped aside. Macdougal’s head on the end of the claidheamh-mor stared up at the pathologist. “Where’s the body?” he asked.

“In the dark corner over there. We haven’t touched it.”

“What’s the story?”

Alleyn told him. “I was in front,” he said.

“Extraordinary. I’ll look at the body.”

It lay on its front as Alleyn had found it. The blood-soaked Macbeth tartan was wrapped closely around the body. Sir James pulled it away and looked at the wound. The lip was turned in and a piece of the collar was sliced across it into the gash.

“One blow,” he said. He bent over the body. “Better get the remains to the mortuary,” he said. “If your men have finished.”

They went back onstage.

“You may separate them,” said Alleyn.

Bailey produced a large polyethylene bag. He then took hold of the head. Thompson with both hands on the hilt grasped the claidheamh-mor. They faced each other, their feet apart and the blade parallel with the stage: a parody of artisans sweating it out in hell.

“Right?”

“Right.”

“Go.”

The sound was the worst part of it. It resembled the drawing of an enormous cork. It was effective. Bailey put the head in the bag, wrote on a label, and tied it up. He put the bag in a canvas container. “I’ll stow this away,” he said and went out to the police car with it.

“What about the weapon?” asked Thompson.

“Put some cardboard around it,” said Alleyn. “It’ll lie flat on the back seat or on the floor. Then the body and the dummy head. You’ll go straight to the mortuary, I suppose?”

“Yes. And you’ll be here for some time to come?” said Sir James.

“Yes.”

“I’ll ring you if anything turns up.”

“Thanks.”

The ambulance men came in and put the body into another polyethylene bag and the bag on a stretcher and covered it. They carried it out and drove away. Sir James got into his car and followed them.

Alleyn said, “Come on, Fox. We’ll find the property man.”

Masters was waiting offstage for them.

“I thought you might use the greenroom as an office,” he said. “I’ll show you where it is.”

“That’s very thoughtful. I’ll see the property man there.”

The greenroom was a comfortable place with armchairs, books, a solid table, and framed photographs and pictures on the walls. They settled themselves at the table.

“Hullo, Props,” said Alleyn when he came in. “We don’t know your name, I’m afraid. What is it?”

“Ernest James, sir.”

“Ernest James. We won’t keep you long, I hope. This is a pretty grim business, isn’t it?”

“Bloody awful.”

“You’ve been on the staff for a long time, haven’t you?”

“Fifteen year.”

“Long as that? Sit down, why don’t you.”

“Aw. Ta,” said Ernie and sat.

“We’re trying at the moment to sort out when the crime was committed and then when the heads were changed. Macbeth’s last words are Hold, enough . He and Macduff then fight and a marvelous fight it was. He exits and we assume was killed at once. There’s a pause. Then pipe and drums coming nearer and nearer. Then a prolonged entry of everyone left alive in the cast. Then dialogue between Malcolm and Old Siward. Macduff comes in with Gaston Sears following him, the head on his giant weapon.”

“Was you in front, then, guv’nor?”

“Yes, as it happened.”

“Gawd, it was awful. Awful.”

“It was indeed. Tell me, Props. When did you put the dummy head on the claymore and when did you put them in the O.P. corner?”

“Me? Yeah, well. I got hold of the bloody weapon — it’s as sharp as hell — off ’is ’Igh-and-Mightiness when he came off after the Chief said, There’d ’ave been a time for such a word , whatever that may mean. I took it up to the props table, see, and I put the dummy on it. That took a bit of time and handling, like. What with the sharpness and the length, it was awkward. The ’ead’s stuffed full of plaster except for a narrer channel and I had to fit it into the channel and shove it home. It kind of locked. And then I doused it with ‘blood’ rahnd the neck and put it in the corner.”

“When?”

“I got faster with practice. Took me about three minutes, I’d say. Simon Morten was shouting, Make all our trumpets speak . Round about then.”

“And there it remained until Gaston collected it and took it on — with a different head — at the very end.”

“Correct.”

“Right. We’ll ask you to sign a statement to that effect, later on. Can you think of anything at all that could help us? Anything out of the ordinary? Superstitions, for instance?”

“Nuffink,” he said quickly.

“Sure of that?”

“Yer.”

“Thank you, Ernie.”

“Fanks, guv. Can I go home?”

“Where do you live?”

“Five Jobbins Lane. Five minutes’ walk.”

“Yes. All right.” Alleyn wrote on a card: “Ernest James. Permission to leave. R. Alleyn.”

“Here you are. Show it to the man at the door.”

“You’re a gent, guv. Fanks,” Ernie repeated and took it. But he did not go. He shuffled toward the door and stood there, looking from Alleyn to Fox, who had put on his steel-rimmed glasses and now contemplated him over the tops.

“Is there something else?” Alleyn asked.

“I don’t fink so. No.”

“Sure?”

“Yes,” said Ernie and was gone.

“There was something else,” Fox observed tranquilly.

“Yes. We’ll leave him to simmer.”

There was a sharp rap at the door.

“Come in,” Alleyn called. And Simon Morten came in.

He had changed, of course, into his street clothes. Alleyn wondered if he was dramatically and habitually pale or if the shock of the appalling event had whitened him out of all semblance to normality.