Light Thickens

by Ngaio Marsh

‘He has,’ shrieked Nina. ‘Dougal has.’

  ‘Has what?’

  ‘Lost his head. I’m telling you. Lost his head.’

  And while Maggie took in the full enormity of this, Nina broke into an extraordinary diatribe.

  ‘I told you. I told lots of you. You wouldn’t listen. It’s the Macbeth curse, I said. If you make a nonsense of it, it’ll strike back. If Perry had listened to me, this wouldn’t have happened. You ask Bruce Barrabell, he’ll tell you. He knows. Those tricks with heads. They were warnings. And now – look.’

  Maggie went to her little drinks cupboard. She was an abstemious woman and it was stocked for visitors rather than herself, but she felt she now needed something, actually to prevent her fainting. The room was unsteady. She poured out two large brandies and gave one to Nina. Both their hands were shaking horridly.

  They drank quickly, shuddered and drank again.

  Nanny returned. She took one look at them and said: ‘I see you know.’

  ‘Sort of,’ said Maggie. ‘Only what’s happened. Not how, or why or anything else.’

  ‘I saw Mr Masters. The first anybody knew was the head carried on by Mr Sears. Mr Masters said that was absolutely all and he’s coming to see you as soon as he can. While we were talking a very distinguished-looking gent came up who said he was the Yard. And that’s all I know,’ said Nanny. ‘Except that Mr Masters said I could give them your telephone number and after a word with Mr Masters the gentleman said I could take you home. So we’ll go home, love, won’t we?’

  ‘Yes. What about you, Nina? You could ask to go and I could take you.’

  ‘I said I’d go with Bruce. I’m on his way and he’ll drop me. I’ve finished my drink, thank you all the same, dear Maggie, and I feel better.’

  ‘Come on, then. So do I. I think,’ said Maggie. ‘Lock up, Nanny. We’ll go home. They want our keys, don’t they?’

  They left their key with Mr Fox. Masters was in deep conference with Alleyn but he saw Maggie and hurried towards her.

  ‘Miss Mannering, I am so sorry. I was coming. Did Nanny explain? Is your car here? This is appalling, isn’t it?’

  He went out with them. Their car was waiting and there was still a small crowd in the alleyway. Maggie turned up her collar but was recognized.

  ‘It’s Margaret Mannering,’ shouted a man. ‘What’s happened? What was the accident? Hi!’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. Nanny scrambled in beside her and the driver sounded his horn.

  The car began to back down the alleyway. Greedy faces at the windows. Impudent faces. Curious, grinning faces. A prolonged hooting and they were in Wharfingers Lane and picking up speed.

  ‘Horrible people,’ she said. ‘And I thought I loved them.’

  She began, helplessly, to cry.

  Gaston Sears walked up the path to his front door and let himself in. He was, by habit, a night owl and a lonely bird, too. Would it have been pleasant to have been welcomed home by a tender little woman who would ask him how the day, or rather, the night had gone? And would it have been a natural and admirable thing to have told her? He went into his workroom and switched on the light. The armed Japanese warrior, grimacing savagely, leapt up, menacing him, but he was not alarmed. He found, as he expected, the supper tray left by his Chinese housekeeper. Crab salad and a bottle of a good white wine.

  He switched on his heater and sat down to it.

  He was hungry but worried. What would be done to his claidheamh-mor? The distinguished-looking policeman had assured him that great care would be taken of it but although he called it by its correct name he did not, he could not, understand. After all, he himself did not fully understand. As things had turned out it had fulfilled its true function but there was no telling, really, if it was satisfied.

  He had enjoyed playing Macbeth for the police. He had a most phenomenal memory and years ago had understudied the part. And of course, once memorized, it was never forgotten. It struck him, not for the first time, that if they decided to go on they might ask him to play the part instead of the understudy. He would have played it well.

  By Heaven! he thought. They will offer it to me! It would be a good solution. I could wear my own basic Macbeth clothes for the garments. Any personable extra can go on for Seyton. And I invented and know the fight. It went well in their reconstruction. I would have been a success. But it would not be a gracious thing to do. It would be an error in taste. I shall tell them so.

  He fell to his crab salad with an appetite and filled his Waterford glass to the brim.

  Simon Morten lived in Fulham on the borders of Chelsea. He thought he would walk to St James’s and on by way of Westminster where he would probably pick up a cab.

  Mentally he went over the fight. Gaston played it all out and backed into the OP. He yelled and fell with a plop. I couldn’t have done it, thought Simon. Not in the time. Found the claith-something. Removed the dummy head. Placed it by the body. Two-handed grip on the pommel. Swing it up and what’s he doing all the time? For Gaston had gone. He walked off and found him standing with Nina Gaythorne and the King and William. He waited for his reentrance. Gaston came down and followed him on.

  There was the repeat and then the Yard men with their notes and inaudible discussions and then they were told they could all go home.

  In a way Simon was actually sorry. There hadn’t been time to think coherently. He went to Maggie’s dressing-room but she was gone. He went to his own room and found Bruce Barrabell there, putting on his rather dreary overcoat.

  ‘We have to suppose these Yard people think they know what they’re doing,’ he said. ‘I take leave to doubt it.’

  Simon got his own coat and put it on.

  ‘Our Mr Sears had himself a marvellous party, didn’t he?’

  ‘I thought he was very good.’

  ‘Oh yes. Marvellous. If you were in the mood.’

  ‘Of course. Good night.’

  ‘Good night, Morten,’ said Barrabell and Simon took himself off.

  He was deadly tired. He had thought the fresh air would revive him but he was beyond that point. He walked quickly but his legs were like logs and each stride took an intense mental effort. Not a soul about and St James’s Street a thousand miles away. Big Ben tolled three. The Thames slapped against the embankment. A taxi came out of a side street.

  ‘Taxi! Taxi!’

  It wasn’t going to stop. ‘Taxi!’ cried Simon in despair.

  He forced himself to run. It pulled in to the kerb.

  ‘Oh, thank God,’ he said. He got into it and gave the address. ‘I’m stone-cold sober,’ he said, ‘but, my God, I’m tired.’

  Bruce Barrabell fastened his awful overcoat and pulled on his black beret.

  He was going to drop Nina on his way home. She was coming to the Red Fellowship meeting next Sunday and would probably become a member. Not much of a catch but he supposed it was something to have a person from the Dolphin company. He must try to keep her off her wretched superstitious rigmaroles, poor girl.

  He lit a cigarette and began to think of the killing of Dougal Macdougal. Just how good was this Alleyn? A hangover from the old school tie days, of course, but probably efficient in his own way. He looked in his drawer and removed a paper. After a moment’s hesitation he burnt it with his lighter over an ashtray and then emptied the ash into the wastepaper tin.

  We shall see, thought Barrabell. He went along to Nina’s dressing-room. She was alone in it, dressed and ready to go.

  ‘This is so kind of you, Bruce,’ she said. ‘I don’t really know quite what’s happened to me. It’s knocked the stuffing out of me, this awful business. I mean, one keeps asking oneself why. Why poor Sir Dougal, I mean, who was so friendly and nice and full of fun always. Who would want to do it? And one thinks it must be someone possessed of a devil. Truly, a devil. That’s what I think, what I firmly believe. A devil.’

  ‘Come on, I’ll take you home. You’ll feel better when you’ve had a sleep. We all wi
ll.’

  ‘Yes. Perhaps we will. We don’t know what the Management will do, do we? You go on and I’ll lock up.’

  He went out. Nina scrabbled in her handbag and extracted a key.

  ‘We were told to give our keys to those policemen.’

  ‘That’s right. I’ll hand yours in with mine, if you like.’

  She gave it to him. They went out to the desolate stage. The massive Mr Fox sat writing at a little prompter’s table. Alleyn wandered about with his hands in his pockets.

  ‘Hullo, Miss Gaythorne,’ he said. ‘You’re late getting away, aren’t you? Will you be all right?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. Mr Barrabell is very kindly dropping me. I’m on his way home.’

  ‘Ah yes. I’m afraid all this has been very tiring and confusing for you. The Scots play coming home with a vengeance, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, if only you believed it! There’s so much, so many indications. It’s so clearly that. You know?’ she asked. ‘They none of them want to face up to it. But I know. Sign after sign. Warning after warning. All to do with heads. If only they’d listened to me.’

  Barrabell was behind her. He put his head on one side and made a long comic face. ‘Come along, dear,’ he said, ‘you’ll feel better when you’ve had a nice sleep, won’t you?’

  ‘How do I know I’ll get a nice sleep? I’m terrified.’

  ‘Do you live alone, Miss Gaythorne?’ Alleyn asked.

  ‘Yes, I do. Quite alone.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you what to do. When you get home have a very hot bath, make yourself a very hot drink with lots of alcohol in it, get into bed and take two aspirins. Start to write an account of all the warning signs in their right order and exact time and place and I bet you a pound you’ll drop off before you’ve finished. Do you take me?’

  She looked at him with a kind of dim relish.

  ‘You’re not much like a copper, are you?’ she said doubtfully, and then: ‘I always enjoy a little flutter. Yes. I take you.’

  ‘Splendid. Fox is our witness. Away you go. Good night and God bless.’

  ‘Oh! Thank you. God bless,’ she said carefully.

  ‘Here we go!’ said Barrabell in his beautiful voice. He put their keys on the table and then his arm round Nina. ‘Come along, Ninie,’ he fluted and for the first time he sounded well off-key. ‘Beddy-byes.’

  The stage door closed behind them.

  ‘That’s the last of them, isn’t it, Fox?’ Alleyn asked.

  ‘The last,’ said Mr Fox.

  ‘What’s emerged definitely from it all?’

  They opened their notebooks. Alleyn also opened his programme.

  ‘We can wipe out most of the smaller parts,’ he said. ‘They were too active. All the fighting men. When they were offstage they were yelling and bashing away at each other like nobody’s business.’

  ‘I stood over by the dark corner and I’ll take my oath none of them got within coo-ee of it,’ Fox said.

  ‘Yes. They were very well-drilled and supposing one of them got out-of-step-on-purpose, the others would have known and been down on him at once. It may have looked like an Irishman’s picnic but they were worked out in inches.’

  ‘You can scratch the lot,’ said Fox.

  ‘Gladly,’ said Alleyn, and did so.

  ‘Who’s left?’ he asked.

  ‘Speaking parts. It’s easier than it looks. The old Colonel Blimpish chap and his son. Never had a chance. The son was “dead” and lying on the stage, hidden from the audience, and the old boy was stiff-upper-lipping on the stairs while the murder was done.’

  ‘So much for the Siwards. And Malcolm was on stage and speaking. Now I’m going to reiterate. Not for the first and I’m afraid not for the last time. Gaston Sears was offstage at the crucial moment and talking in a whisper to the King and Miss Gaythorne. Young William was with them.

  ‘The witches had come on for the curtain call and were waiting upstage on the rostrum. Macduff, now. Let’s look a bit closer at Macduff. At first glance he seemed a possibility. He’s a man with a temper and there’s been some sort of trouble between him and Macbeth. He ended the fight by chasing Macbeth off. His story is that Macbeth screamed and fell down as usual and he went straight off and was seen to do so by various actors. Confirmed by the actors. By which time Macbeth was dead. I tried it out with you, Br’er Fox, and I was well over four minutes. We played the scene with Gaston as Macbeth and the cast and it was three. Moreover, Morten – Macduff – would have had to get the dummy head off the claidheamh-mor before killing Macbeth with it while Macbeth – I’ve said this ad nauseam – stood or lay there waiting to be beheaded. It does not, Br’er Fox, make sense. As Macduff himself pointed out, it would have been a whole lot easier for him to have done a Lizzie Borden on Macbeth during their fight and afterwards say he didn’t know how he’d gone wrong.’

  ‘His weapon’s blunt.’

  ‘It weighs enough for a whack on the head to fix Macbeth.’

  ‘Yerse. But it didn’t.’

  ‘No. We’ll move on. Banquo. Banquo is a very rum fellow. He’s devious, is Banquo, and he was “dead” all this long time and free, up to the second curtain call, to go wherever he liked. He could have gone into the OP corner and waited there in the dark with the claidheamh-mor when Gaston left it there for the stagehand to put the dummy head on it. The stagehand did put it there. Banquo removed it and did the deed. There’s no motive that I can see but he’s a possibility.’

  ‘And are you going to tell me that Banquo is the perpetrator of the funny business with the dummy heads? And the typed message?’

  ‘I rather think so. I’m far from happy with the idea, all the same.’

  ‘Humph,’ said Fox.

  ‘We’ll knock off now and go home.’ He looked into the dark house. ‘It was a wonderful production, Fox,’ he said. ‘The best I’ve seen. Almost too good. I don’t think they can carry on.’

  ‘What do you suppose they’ll do in its place?’

  ‘Lord knows. Something quite different. Getting Gertie’s Garter,’ said Alleyn angrily.

  II

  ‘I wonder,’ said Emily, ‘what the Smiths are doing.’

  ‘The Smiths?’ asked Crispin. ‘What Smiths? Oh, you mean William and his mum,’ he said, and returned to his book.

  ‘Yes. Your father sent him home as soon as he realized what had happened. I think he just said there’d been an accident. He may have said: “to Sir Dougal”. There’s nothing they could have read in the Sunday papers. It’ll be an awful shock for them.’

  ‘How old is he?’ asked Robin, who lay on his back on the windowseat, vaguely kicking his feet in the air.

  ‘Who? William?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nine.’

  ‘Same as me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is he silly and wet?’

  ‘He’s certainly not silly and I don’t know what you mean by “wet”.’

  ‘Behind the ears. Like a baby.’

  ‘Not at all like that. He can fight. He’s learning karate and he’s a good gymnast.’

  ‘Does he swear?’

  ‘I haven’t heard him but I dare say he does.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Robin, bicycling madly, ‘he’s very busy on Sundays.’

  ‘I’ve no information. Shall I ask him to come to lunch? You could go over in a taxi to Lambeth where he lives and fetch him. Only an idea,’ said Emily very casually.

  ‘Oh yes. You could do that,’ shouted Robin and leapt to his feet. ‘Please ask him. Thrice three and double three. Two for you and three for me. Please.’

  ‘Right you are.’

  Emily consulted the cast list that Peregrine kept pinned up by the telephone and dialled a number.

  ‘Mrs Smith? It’s Emily Jay. I’ve got two sons home for half-term and we wondered if by any chance William would like to pay us a visit today. Robin, who’s William’s age, could come and collect him for lunch and we’d promise to return him
after an early supper here…Yes…Yes, would you?’

  She heard Mrs Smith’s cool voice repeating the invitation: ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ she added and William’s voice: ‘I think so. Yes. Thank you.’

  ‘Yes, he’d like to come, thank you very much.’

  ‘Robin will be there in about half an hour depending on a cab…Lovely…Mrs Smith, I suppose William told you what happened last night at the theatre?…Yes…Yes, I see. I’m afraid they were all in a great state. It’s Sir Dougal. He’s died…Yes, a fearful blow to us all…I don’t know. They’ll tell the company what’s been decided at four this afternoon. I don’t think William need go down. He’ll be here and we’ll tell him…Yes, tragic. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?…Yes. Goodbye.’

  She hung up and said to Robin, ‘Go and get ready,’ and to Crispin: ‘Do you want to go, Cip? Not if you don’t.’

  ‘I think I’d like to.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Yes. I can see the infant’s on his best behaviour, can’t I?’ Robin from the doorway gave a complicated derisory noise and left the room.

  ‘There’s always that,’ said their mother. ‘There’s just one thing, Cip. Do you know what happened last night? Sir Dougal died – yes. But how? What happened? Did you see? Have you thought?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I saw – it. The head. Full-face but only for a split second.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Lots of people in the audience saw it but I think they just thought it was an awfully good dummy, and lots didn’t see it at all, it was so quick.’

  ‘Did Robin?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I don’t think he’s sure either but he doesn’t say. He doesn’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘The thing is, young William didn’t see anything. He was waiting offstage. He only knows Macbeth is dead. So don’t say anything to upset that, will you? If you can, keep right off the whole subject. OK?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s fine. Here he comes.’

  Crispin went out to the hall and Emily thought: He’s a nice boy. Old for his years but that’s rather nice too. She went up to the ex-nursery and hunted out a game of Chinese Checkers, one of Monopoly, a couple of memo pads.