Light Thickens ra-32

by Ngaio Marsh

  The stage, every inch of it, was scrubbed and smelled of disinfectant. In front-of-house, advertisements for the new play replaced the old Macbeth posters and in the foyer the giant photograph frames were empty. The life-size photograph of Sir Dougal was rolled up and slid into a cardboard cylinder. It disappeared into the basement.

  The bookstall had its display for the most part taken down and stacked in cartons; the programmes had been cleared out and stuffed into rubbish bags that awaited the collectors.

  Going, going, gone, thought Winter Meyer. It was a lovely show.

  The dressing-rooms were empty and scrubbed. All except the star room, which was locked and untouched, except by the police, since Sir Dougal Macdougal had walked out of it for the last time. His solicitors had given notice of sending persons in to collect his possessions. His name had been removed from the door.

  Nina in her diminutive flat told herself that the malign influence of Macbeth was now satisfied and made a solemn promise to herself that she would not talk about it inside the theatre. She was greatly distressed, of course, and she wondered avidly who had done the murder, but she was sustained and even excited by being so overwhelmingly right in all her pronouncements.

  They’ve not got a leg to stand on, she thought triumphantly.

  Simon Morten rang up Maggie Mannering and asked her to lunch with him at the Wig and Piglet. She said she would and invited him to come early for her so that they could have a good talk in private. He arrived at noon.

  “Maggie,” he said holding her hands. “I wanted to ask you last night but you’ve been so remote, darling. I thought perhaps — I didn’t know how you felt or — well, I even thought you might have your doubts about me. And I thought that I’d better find out, one way or another. And so — here I am.”

  Maggie stared at him. “Do you mean,” she said, “that you thought I wondered if you decapitated Dougal? Is that it?”

  “Well — I know it’s idiotic but — well, yes. Don’t laugh at me, Maggie, please. I’ve been in hell.”

  “I’ll try not to,” she said. “I’m sure you have. But why? Why would I think you’d done it? What motive could you have had for it?”

  “I was still so horribly jealous,” he muttered, turning dark red. “And you did the sex thing with him so awfully well. Just looking at you and listening — I — well, I’m sorry.”

  “Now, just you look here, Simon,” said Maggie vigorously. “We’re both going to play in The Glove. You’re going to be tormented by me and it is not going to be all muddled up with the real thing: that way it’ll go wrong. The audience will sense there’s another reality intruding on the dramatic reality and they’ll feel uncomfortable. Won’t they?”

  “I know how you feel about the mask an actor wears,” he said.

  “Yes, I do. And you take yours off at your peril. Right?”

  “All right.”

  “Shake?” she said holding out her hand.

  “All right, shake,” he said and took it.

  “Now we can go and have our blameless luncheon,” said Maggie. “Come on. For the first time since it happened, I’m nervous. Let’s talk about The Bard in love.”

  So they went to the Wig and Piglet.

  To everyone’s relief Gaston retired to his own premises, presumably to lick his incomprehensible wounds. But he renewed his assault on the Yard. Mr. Fox was called to the telephone, which was switched through to Alleyn’s room. “Hullo?” he said.

  “First of all,” roared the intemperate man, “I intimated that I wished to communicate with Chief Superintendent Alleyn. You do not sound like the Chief Superintendent.”

  “This is his room, sir, but I am not the Chief Superintendent. He is unable to come to the telephone and authorizes me to speak for him. What seems to be the trouble, sir?”

  “Nothing seems to be the trouble. The trouble is. I demand — repeat demand — the instant return of my claidheamh-mor under police armed guard, to my personal address. Today. Now.”

  “If you’ll hold on for a minute, sir, I’ll just write a note to that effect and leave it here in a prominent position on his desk.”

  Fox clapped his enormous paw over the receiver and said: “Sears.”

  “So I supposed.”

  “Here we are, sir. What was the message?”

  “Odds bodkins, fellow —”

  “I beg your pardon, sir?”

  A stream of abuse, or what seemed to be abuse, followed by a deathly silence and then a high-pitched female voice.

  “Master not velly well, please. Sank you. Good-bye,” and the telephone was disconnected.

  The Jay boys were returning to school. Crispin left by train in a dignified manner with a number of young men of equal status, an array of noisy smaller boys, and a little group of white-faced new ones. Robin and Richard behaved with the eccentricity that the household had come to expect of them on these occasions, even though they frequently returned home on Sundays and gorged themselves. Peregrine came to bid them good-bye. Fishing in his pocket for some coins to give them for spending money, he found the toy crusader, which Alleyn had returned to him.

  “I forgot about you,” he said and took it out and stared at it for a moment.

  “May I have him back?” asked Robin. He took the mannikin and went to the telephone.

  “Whom are you ringing up?” asked Peregrine.

  “A boy.”

  He consulted the list and dialed the number. “Hullo, Horrible,” he said. “What d’you think I’ve got? Three guesses. No… No… Yes. Hooray. Clever old you. What are you doing?… Oh, Daddy’s play? Well, I thought you’d like to know we’re going back to school today so we’ll be half-starved. Oh, well. Bung-ho.”

  He hung up and immediately dialed again.

  “It’s me again,” he said. “I forgot to mention that I knew all along the fighter wasn’t Macbeth. I’ll give you three guesses who… One. No… Two. No… Three. No. I’ll give you till next Sunday.” He replaced the receiver.

  “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,” muttered Peregrine. “Robin! Come here. You must tell me. How did you know?”

  Robin looked at his father and saw that he meant business. He adopted a defiant attitude: feet apart, hands on hips, slightly nervous smile. “Three guesses?” he invited.

  But Peregrine needed only one.

  He rang up Alleyn at the Yard.

  The company of Dolphins at the Swan was diminished but Rangi and Ross and Lennox were still regulars and they met there for lunch. Rangi was quiet and withdrawn. His dark eyes and brilliant teeth dominated his face and it struck the others that he looked more “native” than he had before. But he was pleased with his new part, Mr. W.H., an ambiguous gentleman from Italy, overdressed and wearing a single earring.

  “We start rehearsals tomorrow,” said Ross. “Thank God, without the ineffable Sears or dreary old Banquo. The whole tragedy as far as the Dolphin’s concerned is finished.” He made a dismissive gesture with both hands.

  “It won’t be finished, my dear chap,” said Lennox, “until somebody’s under lock and key. Well, ask yourself. Will it?”

  “No,” said Rangi. “The stigma remains. It must.”

  “I looked in this morning. It’s as clean as a whistle and smells of disinfectant everywhere.”

  “No policemen?”

  “Not then, no. Just the offices clicking over merrily. There’s a big notice out in front saying people can use their tickets for the new play or get their money back at the box office. And a board with nothing but rave notices from the former production of The Glove.”

  “Any reasons given?”

  “There’s a piece in the papers. I suppose you saw.”

  Lennox said yes, he had read it.

  “I haven’t seen the papers,” said Rangi.

  “It just says that Dougal died on Saturday night very suddenly in the theatre. And there’s the usual obituary: half a column and photographs. The Macbeth one’s very good,” said Ross.r />
  “It said that ‘as a mark of respect’ the theatre would be dark for three weeks,” Ross added.

  “It’s been an honor to play in it. It’ll be remembered,” said Lennox.

  “Yes,” said Ross.

  Rangi said, as if the words were dragged out of him, “It’s tapu. We are all tapu and will be until the murderer is found. And who will whakamana?”

  There was an awkward silence.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Lennox said.

  “Better that you don’t,” said Rangi. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Understand what?” asked Lennox.

  “Maoritanga. ”

  “Maori how much?”

  “Shut up, old boy,” said Ross and kicked him underneath the table.

  “Why?” Lennox looked at Rangi and found something in his face that made him say hurriedly: “Sorry. Didn’t mean to pry.”

  “Not at all,” said Rangi. He stood up. “I must get back. I’m late. Excuse me.”

  He went to the counter, paid his bill, and left.

  “What’s biting him?” Lennox said.

  “Lord knows. Something to do with the case, I imagine. He’ll get over it, whatever it is.”

  After a pause Lennox muttered, “I didn’t mean to be rude or anything. Well, I wasn’t, was I? I apologized.”

  “Perhaps you said something that upset his mana.”

  “Oh, to hell with him and his mana. Where did you pick up that word, anyway?”

  “In conversation with him. It means all sorts of things but pride is the principal one.”

  They ate their lunch in silence. Rangi had left a copy of The Stage on the bench. Ross looked at it. A small paragraph at the bottom of the page caught his eye. “Hi,” he said. “This would interest Barrabell. This is the lot he went abroad with. Take a look.”

  Lennox bent over the table. He read:

  “The Leftist Players are repeating their successful tour of Soviet Russia. They are now about to go into rehearsal with three contemporary plays. Ring club number for auditions.”

  “That’s the gang he went with before,” said Ross.

  “He wouldn’t be let go. Not while nobody’s been caught.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “I wonder if he’s seen this,” said Ross without interest.

  They finished their lunch without much conversation.

  Barrabell had seen it. He read it carefully and consulted his notebook for the club number.

  His bed-sitting room carried the absolute negation of any personal characteristics whatever. It was on the large side, tidy and clean. Its two windows looked across an alley at the third-story shutters of an equally anonymous building.

  He opened his wardrobe and took out the battered suitcase with the old Russian airways labels on it. Opened, some tidily folded garments — pajamas, underclothes and shirts — were revealed and under these a package of press cuttings and the glossy photograph of a good-looking young woman.

  The press cuttings were mainly of productions that he had appeared in, but there were also relics of the trial of Harcourt-Smith. A photograph of the man himself, handcuffed between two policemen, entering the Old Bailey and looking blankly at nothing. Another, of Mr. Justice Swithering, and a third, of William and his mother, taken in the street. There were accounts of the trial.

  Barrabell read the cuttings and looked at the photographs. He then put them one by one into the dead fireplace and burned them to ashes. He went to the bathroom on his landing and washed his hands. Then he replaced all the theatrical reviews in the suitcase and looked for a long time at the glossy photograph, which was signed “Muriel.” His hands trembled. He put it under the reviews and shut and locked the case.

  Now he consulted his copy of The Stage and rang the number given for inquiries about auditions.

  He made a quick calculation, arrived at the amount he owed his landlady, and put it in a used envelope with a cellophane window. He wrote her name on the front and added: “Called away very unexpectedly. B.B.”

  Whistling almost inaudibly, he reopened the case and packed into it everything else in the room that he owned. He double-checked every drawer and shelf, put his passport in the breast pocket of his jacket, and, after a final look around, picked up his case and left the room. The landlady’s office was locked. He pushed the envelope under the door and walked out.

  He was on a direct route for his destination and waited at the bus stop, dumping his case on the ground until the right bus came along. He climbed aboard, sat near the door, tucked his case under his legs, and paid his fare.

  The man who had been behind him in the queue heard him give the address and gave the same one.

  Shortly thereafter a message came through to Alleyn.

  “Subject left lodging-house carrying suitcase with old Russian labels. Followed to address suggested and is still there.”

  To which he replied: “Keep obbo. No arrest but don’t lose him.”

  It’s one thing,” said Alleyn, “to have the whole case wrapped up in the copper’s mind and to be absolutely sure, as I am, who’s responsible; and it’s an entirely different cup of tea to get a jury to believe it. God knows it’s a tangle and can’t you hear counsel for the defense? ‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have listened very patiently to this impudent tarradiddle — ’ and so on and so on. I’ve been hoping for something more to break — the man himself, perhaps — but nothing — nothing.”

  Fox made a long sympathetic rumbling sound.

  “I’ve read and reread the whole case from the beginning, and to me it’s as plain as the nose on your old face, Br’er Fox, but I’m damned if it will be for anybody else. It’s too far removed from simple, short statements, although, God knows, they are there. I don’t know. You’ve got the warrant. Shall we walk in and feel his collar or shan’t we?”

  “We’re not likely to pick up anything else if we don’t.”

  “No. No, we’re not, I suppose.”

  His telephone rang. It was Peregrine.

  As Alleyn listened and made notes, his face cleared.

  “Thank you,” he said, “I think so. I freely confess I didn’t notice… It may be considerable… I see. Thank you, Peregrine,” he said again and hung up, pushing the paper over to Fox, who had assumed his spectacles in preparation. “This helps,” he said.

  “Certainly does,” Fox agreed.

  “I never noticed,” said Alleyn.

  “You didn’t know there was going to be a murder.”

  “Well, no. All the same — nor did young Robin. Lay on a car and a couple of coppers, will you, Fox?”

  He took a pair of handcuffs from a drawer in his desk.

  “Think he’ll turn ugly?” asked Fox.

  “I don’t know. He might. Come on.”

  They went down in the lift.

  It was a warm early summer evening. The car was waiting for them and Alleyn gave the address to the driver. He and Fox sat in front and the two uniformed police in the back.

  “It’s an arrest,” Alleyn said. “I don’t expect much trouble but you never know. The Macbeth murder.”

  The traffic streamed past in a world of lights, hurrying figures, incalculable urgencies proclaiming the warmth and excitability of London at night. In the suburbs the traffic thinned out and presently they slowed down and pulled up. It was a dark entry with no lights in the front of the house. A man was waiting for them and came up to the car.

  “Hullo,” said Alleyn. “Nobody stirring?”

  “He hasn’t left the place, sir. There’s another of our chaps by the back entrance.”

  “Right. Ready?”

  “Yes, sir.” The other three men spread out behind him.

  Alleyn pressed a bell. Footsteps. A dim light behind glass panels and a fine voice, actor-trained, called out: “I’ll go.” Footsteps sounded and the clank of a chain and turn of a key.

  The door opened. The tall figure was silhouetted against the dimly lit hal
l.

  “I was expecting you,” the man said. “Come in.”

  Alleyn went in, followed by Fox. The two constables followed. One of them locked the door and pocketed the key.

  “Gaston Sears,” said Alleyn, “I am about to charge you with the murder of Dougal Macdougal. Do you wish to say anything? You are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so but whatever you say will be taken down and may be given in evidence.”

  “Thank you. I wish to say a great deal.”

  Fox took out his notebook and uncapped his pen. Alleyn said: “I will search you, if you please, before you begin.”

  Gaston turned and placed his hands against the wall.

  He wore his black cloak. There were letters and papers of all kinds in every pocket. Alleyn handed them to Fox, who noted their contents and tied them together. They seemed for the most part to be concerned with ancient weaponry and in particular with the claidheamh-mor.

  “Please do not lose them,” Gaston said. “They are extremely valuable.”

  “They will be perfectly safe.”

  “I am relieved to receive your assurance, sir. Where is my claidheamh-mor?”

  “Locked up at the Yard.”

  “Locked up? Locked up? Do you know what you are saying? Do you realize that I, I who know more about the latent power of the claidheamh-mor than anyone living, have so disastrously aroused it and am brought to this pass by its ferocity alone? Do you know —”

  On and on went the great voice. Ancient documents, the rune on the hilt, the history of bloodshed, formal executions, decapitation in battle, what happened to the thief of the sixteenth century (decapitation), its effect on people who handled it (lunacy). “I, in my pride, in my arrogance, supposed myself exempt. Then came the fool, Macdougal, and his idiot remarks. I felt it swell in my hands.

  “And what, do you suppose, inspired the practical joker? Decapitated heads. How do you account for them? You cannot. I could not until I discovered Barrabell’s wife had suffered decapitation at the hands of the so-called Hampstead Chopper. Wherever the claidheamh-mor turns up, it is associated with decapitation. And I, its demented agent, I, in my vanity —”

  Gaston stopped, wiped his brow, said he was rather warm, and asked for a glass of water, which the Chinese woman brought.