“Extraordinary. I’ll look at the body.”
It lay on its front as Alleyn had found it. The blood-soaked Macbeth tartan was wrapped closely around the body. Sir James pulled it away and looked at the wound. The lip was turned in and a piece of the collar was sliced across it into the gash.
“One blow,” he said. He bent over the body. “Better get the remains to the mortuary,” he said. “If your men have finished.”
They went back onstage.
“You may separate them,” said Alleyn.
Bailey produced a large polyethylene bag. He then took hold of the head. Thompson with both hands on the hilt grasped the claidheamh-mor. They faced each other, their feet apart and the blade parallel with the stage: a parody of artisans sweating it out in hell.
“Right?”
“Right.”
“Go.”
The sound was the worst part of it. It resembled the drawing of an enormous cork. It was effective. Bailey put the head in the bag, wrote on a label, and tied it up. He put the bag in a canvas container. “I’ll stow this away,” he said and went out to the police car with it.
“What about the weapon?” asked Thompson.
“Put some cardboard around it,” said Alleyn. “It’ll lie flat on the back seat or on the floor. Then the body and the dummy head. You’ll go straight to the mortuary, I suppose?”
“Yes. And you’ll be here for some time to come?” said Sir James.
“Yes.”
“I’ll ring you if anything turns up.”
“Thanks.”
The ambulance men came in and put the body into another polyethylene bag and the bag on a stretcher and covered it. They carried it out and drove away. Sir James got into his car and followed them.
Alleyn said, “Come on, Fox. We’ll find the property man.”
Masters was waiting offstage for them.
“I thought you might use the greenroom as an office,” he said. “I’ll show you where it is.”
“That’s very thoughtful. I’ll see the property man there.”
The greenroom was a comfortable place with armchairs, books, a solid table, and framed photographs and pictures on the walls. They settled themselves at the table.
“Hullo, Props,” said Alleyn when he came in. “We don’t know your name, I’m afraid. What is it?”
“Ernest James, sir.”
“Ernest James. We won’t keep you long, I hope. This is a pretty grim business, isn’t it?”
“Bloody awful.”
“You’ve been on the staff for a long time, haven’t you?”
“Fifteen year.”
“Long as that? Sit down, why don’t you.”
“Aw. Ta,” said Ernie and sat.
“We’re trying at the moment to sort out when the crime was committed and then when the heads were changed. Macbeth’s last words are Hold, enough. He and Macduff then fight and a marvelous fight it was. He exits and we assume was killed at once. There’s a pause. Then pipe and drums coming nearer and nearer. Then a prolonged entry of everyone left alive in the cast. Then dialogue between Malcolm and Old Siward. Macduff comes in with Gaston Sears following him, the head on his giant weapon.”
“Was you in front, then, guv’nor?”
“Yes, as it happened.”
“Gawd, it was awful. Awful.”
“It was indeed. Tell me, Props. When did you put the dummy head on the claymore and when did you put them in the O.P. corner?”
“Me? Yeah, well. I got hold of the bloody weapon — it’s as sharp as hell — off ’is ’Igh-and-Mightiness when he came off after the Chief said, There’d ’ave been a time for such a word, whatever that may mean. I took it up to the props table, see, and I put the dummy on it. That took a bit of time and handling, like. What with the sharpness and the length, it was awkward. The ’ead’s stuffed full of plaster except for a narrer channel and I had to fit it into the channel and shove it home. It kind of locked. And then I doused it with ‘blood’ rahnd the neck and put it in the corner.”
“When?”
“I got faster with practice. Took me about three minutes, I’d say. Simon Morten was shouting, Make all our trumpets speak. Round about then.”
“And there it remained until Gaston collected it and took it on — with a different head — at the very end.”
“Correct.”
“Right. We’ll ask you to sign a statement to that effect, later on. Can you think of anything at all that could help us? Anything out of the ordinary? Superstitions, for instance?”
“Nuffink,” he said quickly.
“Sure of that?”
“Yer.”
“Thank you, Ernie.”
“Fanks, guv. Can I go home?”
“Where do you live?”
“Five Jobbins Lane. Five minutes’ walk.”
“Yes. All right.” Alleyn wrote on a card: “Ernest James. Permission to leave. R. Alleyn.”
“Here you are. Show it to the man at the door.”
“You’re a gent, guv. Fanks,” Ernie repeated and took it. But he did not go. He shuffled toward the door and stood there, looking from Alleyn to Fox, who had put on his steel-rimmed glasses and now contemplated him over the tops.
“Is there something else?” Alleyn asked.
“I don’t fink so. No.”
“Sure?”
“Yes,” said Ernie and was gone.
“There was something else,” Fox observed tranquilly.
“Yes. We’ll leave him to simmer.”
There was a sharp rap at the door.
“Come in,” Alleyn called. And Simon Morten came in.
He had changed, of course, into his street clothes. Alleyn wondered if he was dramatically and habitually pale or if the shock of the appalling event had whitened him out of all semblance to normality.
“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 wonderfuclass="underline" 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.”