Crispin said: “I daresay, William, you are wondering what ‘sonky-polly-lobby’ means. It’s a family thing and it means ‘happy with yourself.’ And a bit self-conscious, too.”
“Oh.”
The little boys returned to their train. Emily and Crispin waited. When he came back Peregrine looked disturbed.
“Gaston,” he said, “has had the same idea as we have. He thinks that if we did decide to go on with Macbeth, he would be good in the name part, but would have to decline, out of feelings of delicacy. He said it would be an error in taste if he accepted. He said he knew we all thought him a heartless kind of fellow, but he was not. He felt we should be told at once of this decision.”
“He — oh, dear! He took it as a matter of course he would be cast?”
“Yes. And he was perfectly right. He would have been.”
“What did you say?”
“That we have for many reasons almost decided against it but that, had the many reasons not existed, I agreed. I thought he would have been good. So did the management. With reservations that I didn’t mention.”
“And he took it?”
“He said, ‘So be it,’ in a grand voice and hung up. Poor old boy. He would be good, I do believe, but an awful nuisance nevertheless.”
“I’m sure you’re right, Perry.”
“Hoo, hoo,” shouted William. “Clear the line. The midnight express is coming straight through.”
Emily looked at him and then at Peregrine, who gave her a thumbs-up signal. “Very much so,” he said.
“Really? That’s quite something.”
“All aboard. All aboard,” said Robin. “All seats, please.”
He blew a piercing blast on a tin whistle. William rang the minute station bell and pressed a button. The toy train lit up and moved out of the station.
“Now, I take over till we reach Crewe,” said Robin. He and William changed places. The train increased its speed. William answered a toy telephone.
“Midnight express. Urgent call. Yes?” He panted and blew. “Gaston Sears speaks,” he gasped. “Stop the train at Crewe. He’s hurt and he’s due at the theatre at seven.”
“Hooooo. Clackity-bang. Coming into Crewe. Clear the line.”
William produced a white van with a red cross and placed it on a sideline. “Ready for Mr. Sears,” he said.
“Where’s Sears?”
William emptied out a box of toy soldiers: army, navy, Highlanders, crusaders. He cried out triumphantly and displayed a battered crusader with an enormous sword and full mask and black cloak. “Look! Perfect,” he cried. “In every detail.”
“Hooray. Put him in the van.”
The game proceeded with the preposterous ill-logic of a child’s dream and several changes of plot. The train arrived conveniently at Waterloo Station. “Gaston Sears” was pushed onto a battered car and, remarking that he’d got his “second wind,” was sent to the Dolphin Theatre. End of game.
“That was fun,” said Robin, “wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” his father agreed. “Why did you have Gaston Sears in it?”
“Why not?” Robin replied with a shrug. He walked away, no longer interested.
“Because he was breathless?” William suggested vaguely. “He said it was asthma but he pretends it isn’t now he’s an actor again.”
“I see,” Peregrine lied. “Show it to me. The toy Sears.”
William took the battered little figure out of the car. A shrewd whack in some past contest had disposed of the cross on its cloak. The sword bent but intact, was raised above its shrouded head in gloved hands. It was completely black and in its disreputable way, quite baleful.
“Thank you,” said Peregrine. He put it in his pocket.
“Have you finished with the train?” asked Emily.
“We might want it later,” said Robin quickly.
“I don’t think you will. It’s ‘The Duke’ on telly in a quarter of an hour and then tea-time.”
“Oh, Mummy!”
The train was carefully put away and the toy soldiers swept into their box pell-mell, all except the “Mr. Sears,” which was still in Peregrine’s pocket when he looked at his watch and prepared to leave.
“I must be off,” he said. “I don’t know when I’ll get home, my love. Cip says he’ll come down with me and walk back so I’ll leave you to take William home. Okay? Good evening, William. Come again soon, won’t you? We’ve enjoyed having you here.”
“Thank you, sir,” said William, shaking hands. “It’s been a lovely day. The nicest day I’ve ever had.”
“Good. Cip! Ready?”
“Coming.”
They banged the front door and ran down the steps to the car.
“Pop,” said Crispin when they got going, “that book you paid for last night. About Macbeth.”
“Yes?”
“It’s jolly good. It’s got quite a lot about the superstitions. If you don’t mind I would like just to ask if you totally dismiss that aspect of the play.”
“I think,” said Peregrine very carefully, “that the people that do so put the cart before the horse. Call a play ‘unlucky’ and take any mishap that befalls the rehearsals or performances, onstage or in the dressing-rooms or offices, and immediately everyone says: ‘There you are. Unlucky play.’ If the same sort of troubles occur with other plays nobody counts them up or says anything about them. Until, perhaps, there are rather more misfortunes than with other contemporary shows and someone like poor maddening Nina says: ‘It’s an unlucky piece, you know,’ and it’s got the label tied round its neck for keeps.”
“Yes, I see that. But in this instance — I mean that business with the heads. It’s a bit thick, isn’t it?”
“There you go! Cart before the horse. They may have been planted to make us believe in the unlucky play story.”
“I see what you mean, of course. But you can’t say it applies to this final tragedy. Nobody in his right senses is going to cut off a harmless actor’s head — that’s what happened, Pop, isn’t it? — just to support the unlucky play theory?”
“Of course not. No. And the only person who might be described as being a bit dotty, apart from Nina, is old Gaston, who was chatting away to the King and William and Nina and several others at the time the murder was committed.”
There was a longish silence. “I see,” said Crispin at last.
“I don’t want you to — to —”
“Get involved?”
“Certainly not.”
“Well, I won’t. But I can’t help wondering,” said Crispin. “Seeing you’re my father and seeing the book I’m reading. Can I?”
“I suppose not.”
“Are you going on with Macbeth?”
“I don’t think so. I think it’ll probably be a revival of my own play.”
“The Glove?”
“Yes.”
“That will be fun. With William, of course?”
“He gave a very promising reading.”
“A talented child,” said Crispin.
They crossed Blackfriars Bridge and turned left and left again into Wharfingers Lane. There were three cars ahead of them.
“Winty’s car and two of the board. As usual I don’t know when I’ll be home. Good-bye, old boy.”
“ ’Bye, Pop.”
Peregrine watched him walk away up Wharfingers Lane. He went in by the stage door.
Most of the cast were there in groups of three or four. The stage had been scrubbed down and looked the same as usual. He wondered what would be its future. The skeleton hung from the gallows and swung in the draft. Bob Masters and Charlie greeted him and so did a number of the actors. They gathered around him.