Ngaio Marsh - Light Thickens

“Mr. Morten?” Alleyn said. “I was just going to ask if you would come in. Do sit down. This is Inspector Fox.”

“Good evening, sir. May I have your address?” asked Fox, settling his glasses and taking up his pen.

He had not expected this bland reception. He hesitated. He sat down and gave his blameless address as if it was that of an extremely disreputable brothel.

“We are trying to get some sort of pattern into the sequence of events,” Alleyn said. “I was in front tonight which may be a bit of a help but not, I’m afraid, very much. Your performance really is wonderful: that fight! I was in a cold sweat. You must be remarkably fit, if I may say so. How long did it take you both to bring it up to this form?”

“Five weeks’ hard rehearsal and we’ve still —” He stopped. “Oh, God!” he said. “I actually forgot what has happened — I mean that—” He put his hands over his face. “It’s so incredible. I mean —” He dropped his hands and said: “I’m your prime suspect, aren’t I?”

“To be that,” said Alleyn, “you would have to have pulled off the dummy head and used the claidheamh-mor to decapitate the victim. He would have to have waited there and suffered his own execution without raising a finger to stop you. Indeed, he would have obligingly stooped over so that you could take a fair swipe at him. You would have dragged the body to the extreme corner and put the dummy head on it. Then you would have put the real head on the end of the claidheamh-mor and placed them both in position for Gaston Sears to take them up. Without getting blood all over yourself. All in about three minutes.”

Simon stared at him. A faint color crept into his cheeks.

“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” he said.

“No? Well, I may have slipped up somewhere but that’s how it seems to me. Now,” said Alleyn, “when you’ve got over your shock, do you mind telling me exactly what did happen when you chased him off?”

“Yes. Certainly. Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Well, he screamed and fell as usual and I ran out. Then I just hung around with all the others who’d been called until I got my cue and reentered. I said my final speech ending with ‘ Hail, King of Scotland .’ I didn’t turn to look at Seyton carrying — that thing. I just pointed my sword at it while facing upstage. I thought some of them looked and sounded — well — peculiar, but they all shouted and the curtain came down.”

“Couldn’t be clearer. What sort of man was Macdougal?”

“Macdougal? Sir Dougal? Good-looking if you like the type.”

“In himself?”

“Typical leading man, I suppose. He was very good in the part.”

“You didn’t go much for him?”

He shrugged. “He was all right.”

“A bit too much of a good thing?”

“Something like that. But, really, he was all right.”

“ De mortuis nil nisi bonum ?”

“Yes. Well, I didn’t know anything that was not good about him. Not really. He was fabulous in the fight. I never felt in danger. Even Gaston said he was good. You couldn’t fault him. God! I’m the understudy! If it’s decided we go on.”

“Will it be so decided, do you think?”

“I don’t know. I daren’t think.”

“ ‘The show must go on’?”

“Yes, I suppose,” Simon said after a pause, “it may depend on the press.”

“The press ?”

“Yes. If they’ve got a clue as to what happened they could make such a hoo-hah we couldn’t very well go on as if Macbeth was ill or dying or dead or anything of that sort, could we? But if they only get a secondhand account of there having been an ‘accident,’ which is what Bob Masters said in his curtain speech, they may decide it’s not worth a follow-up and do nothing. Tomorrow. One thing is certain,” said Simon, “we don’t need a word of publicity.”

“No. Has it occurred to you,” said Alleyn, “that it might strike someone as a good moment to revive all the superstitious stories about Macbeth ?”

Simon stared at him. “Good God!” he said. “No. No, it hadn’t. But you’re dead right. As a matter of fact — well, never mind about all that. But Perry, our director, had been on at us and the idiot superstitions and not to believe any of it and — and — well, all that.”

“Really? Why?”

“He doesn’t believe in any of it,” said Simon, looking extremely ill at ease.

“Has there been an outbreak of superstitious observances in the cast?”

“Well — Nina Gaythorne rather plugs it.”

“Yes?”

“Perry thinks it’s a bad idea.”

“Have there been any occurrences that seemed to bolster up the superstitions?”

“Well — sort of. If you don’t mind I’d rather not go into details.”

“Why?”

“We said we wouldn’t talk about them. We promised Perry.”

“I’ll ask him to elucidate.”

“Yes. But don’t let him think I blew the gaff, will you?”

“No.”

“If you don’t want me any more, may I go home?” Simon asked wearily.

“No more right now. But wait a bit, if you don’t mind. We can’t let the cast go just yet. Leave your dressing-room key with us. We’ll ask you to sign a typed statement later on.”

“I see. Thank you,” said Simon and got up. “You did mean what you said? About it being impossible for me to have — done it?”

“Yes. Unless some sort of crack appears, I mean it.”

“Thank God for that at least,” said Simon.

He went to the door, hesitated, and spoke.

“If I’d wanted to kill him,” he said, “I could have faked it at any time during the fight. Easily. And been ‘terribly sorry.’ You know?”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “There’s that, too, isn’t there?”

When he had gone, Fox said: “That’s one we can tick off, isn’t it?”

“At this point, Fox.”

“He doesn’t seem to have liked the deceased much, does he?”

“Not madly keen, no. But very honest about it as far as it went. He was on the edge of talking about the superstitions, too.”

“That’s right. So who do you see next?”

“Obviously, Peregrine Jay.”

“He was here twenty years ago, at the time of the former case. Nice young chap he was then.”

“Yes. He’s in conference. Up in the offices,” said Alleyn.

“Shall I pluck him out?”

“Would you? Do.”

Fox removed his spectacles, put them in his breast pocket, and left the room. Alleyn walked about, muttering to himself.

“It must have been then. After the fight. Say, one minute for the pause and the pipe and drums coming nearer, two at the outside. The general entry: say a quarter of a minute, Siward’s dialogue about his son’s death. Another two minutes. Say three to four minutes all told. At the end of the fight Macbeth exited and yelled. Did Macduff say something that made him stoop? No — he did fall forward to give the thud. The man having removed the dummy head, decapitates him, gathers up the real head, and jams it on the claidheamh-mor. That’s what takes the time. Does he wedge the hilt against the scenery and then push the head on? He lugs the body into the darkest corner and stands the claidheamh-mor in its place ready for Gaston to grasp it. He puts the dummy head by the body. Where does he go then? What does he look like?”

He stopped short, closed his eyes, and recalled the fight. The two figures. The exchange of dialogue and Macbeth’s hoarse final curse: “ And damn’d be him that first cries, Hold enough !”

“It must have been done after the fight. There’s no other way. Or is there? Is there? Nonsense.”

The door opened. Fox, Winter Meyer, and Peregrine came in.