Ngaio Marsh - Light Thickens

“Macduff? He killed Macbeth as we were meant to think. Duel. Chased him off. Killed him. Fixed the head on the weapon and came on with Seyton carrying it behind him. Sounds simple.”

“But isn’t. What was Macbeth doing? Macduff chased him off and then had to dodge about, take the dummy head off the claidheamh-mor, and raise it and do the fell deed.”

“Yerse.”

“Did Macbeth lie there and allow him to get on with it?” Alleyn asked. “And how about the time? If I couldn’t do it in three minutes nobody else could.”

“Well, no. No.”

“Next?”

“Banquo.” Fox suggested.

“He could have done it. He was hanging about in that region after he was called. He could have slipped in and removed the dummy head. Waited there for the end of the duel. Done it. Fixed the head. And walked out in plenty of time for the curtain call. He was wearing his bloodied cloak, which would have accounted for any awkward stains. Next.”

“Duncan and/or one of his sons. Well,” said Fox apologetically. “It’s silly, I know, but they could have. If nobody was watching them. And they could have come out just when nobody was there. If it wasn’t so beastly it would be funny. The old boy rolling up his sleeves and settling his crown and wading in. And , by the way, if there were two of them the time thing vanishes. The King beheads him and drags the body over and puts the dummy by it while his son puts the head on the weapon and places them in the corner. However,” said Mr. Fox, “it is silly. How about one of the witches? The man-witch?”

“Rangi? Partly Maori. He was wonderful. Those grimaces and the dance. He was possessed. He was also with his girls — and you noted it — all through the crucial time.”

“All right, then. The other obvious one. Gaston,” said Fox moodily.

“But why obvious? Well, because he’s a bit dotty — but that’s not enough. Or is it? And again: time. We’ve got to face it, Fox. For all of them. Except for the Royal Family, Banquo, and the witches — time! Rangi could have taken a girl in to do the head on the claidheamh-mor and thus saved about a minute. It’s impossible to imagine anybody collaborating with the exuberant Gaston.”

“Anyway,” said Fox. “We’ve got to face it. They were all too busy fighting and on-going.”

“It’s all approximate. Counsel for the defense, whatever the defense might be, would make mincemeat of it.”

“They talked during the fight. Here —” He flattened out his Penguin copy of the play. “I got this out of a dressing-room,” he said. “Here. Look. Macbeth gets the last word. And damn’d ,” quoted Mr. Fox, who read laboriously through his specs, be him that first cries, Hold, enough ! and with that they set to again. And within the next three minutes, whoever did it, his head was off his shoulders and on the stick.”

“Our case in a nutshell, Br’er Fox.”

“Yerse.”

“And now, if you will, let us examine what may or may not be the side-kicks in evidence. Where’s Peregrine Jay? Has he gone with the others?”

“No,” said Peregrine, “I’ve been here all the time.” And he came down the center aisle into the light. “Here I am,” he said. “Not as bright as a button, I fear, but here.”

“Sit down. Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes. I’m glad you said it. I’m going to break my own rule and tell you more fully of what may be, as you’ve hinted, side-kicks.”

“I’ll be glad to hear you.”

Peregrine went on. He described the unsettling effect of the tales of ill luck that had grown up around the play of Macbeth and his own stern injunctions to the company that they ignore them.

“The ones most committed, of course, like Nina Gaythorne, didn’t obey me but I think, though I can’t be sure, that on the whole they more or less obeyed. For a time, at any rate. And then it began. With the Banquo mask in the King’s room.”

He described it. “It was extraordinarily — well, effective. Glaring there in the shadow. It’s like all Gaston’s work, extremely macabre. You remember the procession of Banquo’s in the witches’ scene?”

“I do indeed.”

“Well, to come upon one suddenly! I was warned, but even then — horrid!”

“Yes.”

“I examined it and I found an arrangement of string connected with the slate-colored poncho. The head itself was fixed on a coat hanger and the poncho hung from that. The long end of string reached down to the stage. There is a strut in the wall above the head. The string passed over it and down, to stage-level. Now it seemed to me, it still seems to me, that if I’m on the right track this meant that the cloak was pulled up to cover the head and the cord fastened down below. I’ve had a look and there’s a cross-piece in the back of the scenery in exactly the right place.”

“It could be lowered from stage-level?”

“Yes. The intention being that it remained hidden until Macduff went in. Macduff saw it first. He tried to warn Macbeth.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I called Props and wrapped it up in its cloak and told him to put it with its mates on the property table.”

“And then?”

“The next thing that happened was a servant at the banquet swept off the dish-cover and there, underneath was the man’s head again. Grinning at Macbeth. It was — well, awful . You know?”

“What did you do?”

“I addressed the actors. All of them. I said — the expected things, I suppose. That these were rather disgusting tricks but as none of them was prepared to own up to being the perpetrator I thought the best thing we could do was to ignore them. Something like that.”

“Yes. It must have thrown a spanner in your work, didn’t it?”

“Of course. But we rose above. Actors are resilient, you know. They react to something with violence and they talk a great deal but they go on. Nobody walked out on us but there was a nasty feeling in the air. But I really think Rangi’s rat’s head was the worst.”

“Rangi’s rat’s head?” Alleyn repeated.

“Well, it was the head that mattered. In his marketing bag. That’s what we called their bags — a sort of joke. For the things they collected for their spell, you know. Some of them off the corpse on the gallows. Did you know the items they enumerate are really authentic?”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Well, they are. For a charm of powerful trouble . There’s no mention of a rat’s head, though.”

“Have you got your own ideas about the author of these tricks?”

“I have, yes. But they are not supported by any firm evidence. Merely unsecured ideas. They couldn’t be vaguer. They arise from a personal distaste.”

“Can we hear them? We won’t attach too much importance to them. I promise.”

Peregrine hesitated. Mr. Fox completed his notes and looked benevolently at him, his vast hand poised over the notebook.

“Have you spoken to Barrabell? The Banquo?”

“Not really,” said Alleyn. “Only to get his name and address and a very few bits of information about the other people’s positions.”

“He’s a strange one. Beautiful voice, well managed. A mischief-maker. He belongs to some way-out society, the Red Fellowship, I think it’s called. He enjoys making sneaky little underhand jokes about other actors. I find myself thinking of him as a ‘sea-lawyer.’ He’s always making objections to ‘business’ in the play which doesn’t endear him to me, of course.”

“Of course not.”

“I think he knows about young William.”

Alleyn took the folded paper from his pocket, opened it, and showed it to Peregrine.

“This was left in Winter Meyer’s office and typed on the machine there?”