Macduff comes on downstage, O.P., followed by Seyton.
Seyton carries his claidheamh-mor and on it, streaming blood, the head of Macbeth. He turns it upstage, facing Malcolm and the troops.
Macduff has not looked at it. He shouts: “Behold where stands the usurper’s cursed head. Hail, King of Scotland!”
The blood drips onto Seyton’s upturned face.
And being well-trained professional actors, they respond, with stricken faces and shaking lips, “Hail, King of Scotland!”
The curtain falls.
Cip,” Peregrine said, “you’ll have to get a cab home. Here’s the cash. Take care of Robin, won’t you? Do you know what’s happened?”
“It seems — some sort of accident?”
“Yes. To the Macbeth. I’ve got to stay here. Look, there’s a cab. Get it.”
Crispin darted out and ran toward the taxi, holding up his hand. He jumped back on the platform and the taxi driver drew up. Peregrine said: “In you get, Rob.”
“I thought we were going backstage,” Robin said. His face was pale, his eyes bewildered.
“There’s been an accident. Next time.”
He gave the driver their address and they were gone. Someone tapped his arm. He turned and found it was Roderick Alleyn.
“I’d better come round, hadn’t I?” he said.
“You! Yes… You’ve seen it? It really happened?”
“Yes.”
They found a crowd of people milling about in the alley. “My God,” said Peregrine. “The bloody public.”
“I’ll try and cope.”
Alleyn was very tall. There was a wooden box at the stage door. He made his way to it and stood on it, facing the crowd. “If you please,” he said, and was listened to.
“You are naturally curious. You will learn nothing and you will be very much in the way if you stay here. Nobody of consequence will be leaving the theatre by this door. Please behave reasonably and go.”
He stood there, waiting.
“Who does he think he is?” said a man next to Peregrine.
“He’s Chief Superintendent Alleyn,” said Peregrine. “You’d better do what he says.”
There was a general murmur. A voice said: “Aw, come on. What’s the use.”
They moved away.
The doorkeeper opened the door to the length of the chain, peered out, and saw Peregrine. “Thank Gawd,” he said. “Hold on, sir.” He disengaged the chain and opened the door wide enough to admit them. Peregrine said: “It’s all right. This is Chief Superintendent Alleyn,” and they went in.
To a silent place. The stage was lit. Masking pieces rose up; black masses, through which the passage could be seen running under the landing in front of the door to Duncan’s chamber. At the far end of this passage, strongly lit, was a shrouded object, a bundle, lying on the stage. A dark red puddle had seeped from under it.
They moved around the set and the stage manager came offstage.
“Perry! Thank God,” he said.
“I was in front. So was Superintendent Alleyn. Bob Masters, our stage manager, Mr. Alleyn.”
“Have you rung the Yard?” Alleyn asked.
“Charlie’s doing it,” said Masters, “now. Our A.S.M. He’s having some difficulty getting a line out.”
“I’ll have a word with him,” said Alleyn and went into the Prompt Corner.
“I’m a policeman,” he told Charlie. “Shall I take over?”
“Ah? Are you? Yes. Hullo? Here’s a policeman.” He held out the receiver. Alleyn said: “Superintendent Alleyn. At the Dolphin. Homicide. Decapitation. That’s what I said. I imagine that as I was here I’ll be expected to take it on. Yes. I’ll hold on while you do.” There was a short interval and he said, “Bailey and Thompson. Yes. Ask Inspector Fox to come down. My case is in my room. He’ll bring it. Get the doctor. Right? Good.”
He hung up. “I’ll take a look,” he said and went onstage.
Four stagehands and the Property Master were there, keeping guard.
“Nobody’s gone,” Bob Masters said. “The company are in their dressing-rooms and Peregrine’s gone back to the office. There’s a sort of conference.”
“Good,” said Alleyn.
He walked over to the shrouded bundle. “What happened after the curtain fell?” he asked.
“Scarcely anybody really realized it was — not a dummy. The head. The dummy’s a very good head. Blood and everything. I didn’t realize. The curtain went down. I was getting them ready for the curtain calls. And then Gaston, who carried it on the end of his claidheamh-mor — the great claymore thing he carries throughout the play — that thing —” He pointed at the bundle.
“Yes?”
“He noticed the blood on his gloves and he looked at them. And then he looked up and it dripped on his face and he screamed. The curtain being down.”
“Yes.”
“We all saw, of course. He let the — the head — on the claymore — fall. The house was still applauding. So I — really, I didn’t know what I was doing. I went out through the center break in the curtain and said there’d been an accident and I hoped they’d forgive us not taking the usual calls and would go home. And I came off. By that time,” said Mr. Masters, “panic had broken out in the cast. I ordered them all to their rooms and I covered the head with that cloth — it’s used on the props table, I think. And Props sort of tucked it under. And that’s all.”
“It’s very clear indeed. Thank you, Mr. Masters. I think I’ll look at the head now, if you please. I can manage for myself.”
“I’d be glad not to.”
“Yes, of course,” said Alleyn.
He squatted down, keeping clear of the puddle. He took hold of the cloth and turned it back.
Sir Dougal stared up at him through the slits in his mask. The eyes were set and glazed. The steel guard over his mouth had fallen away and the mouth stretched in a clown’s grin. Alleyn saw that he had been struck from behind: the wound was clean and the margin turned outward. He covered the face.
“The weapon?” he said.
“We think it must be this,” Masters said. “At least, I do.”
“This is the weapon carried by Seyton?”
“Yes.”
“It’s bloodied, of course.”
“Yes. It would be anyway. And with false blood too. There’s false blood over everything. But” — Masters shuddered — “they’re mixed.”
“Where’s the false head?”
“The false —? I don’t know. We haven’t looked.”
Alleyn walked into the O.P. corner. It was encircled with scenery masking pieces and very dark. He waited for his sight to adapt. In the darkest corner, behind one of the pieces, a man’s form slowly assembled itself, its head facedown. Its head!
He moved toward it, stooped down, and touched the head. It shifted under his fingers. It was the dummy. He touched the body. It was flesh — and blood. And dead. And headless.
Alleyn moved back and returned to the stage.
There was a loud knocking on the stage door.
“I’ll go,” said Masters.
It was the Yard. Inspector Fox and Sergeants Bailey and Thompson. Fox was the regular, old-style, plainclothesman: grizzled, amiable and implacable.
He said: “Visiting your old haunts, are you, sir?”
“Over twenty years ago, isn’t it, Br’er Fox? And you two. I want you to give the full treatment, photos, prints, the lot, to that head onstage there, covered up, and the headless body in the dark corner over there. They parted company just before the final curtain. All right? And the dummy head in the corner. The assumed weapon is the claymore on which the real head’s fixed, so include that in the party. Any more staff coming?”
“Couple of uniformed coppers. Any moment now.”
“Good. Front doors and stage door for them. On guard.”