They stood. Winter Meyer looked at his watch. The minute seemed interminable. Strange little sounds — sighs, a muffled thump; a telephone bell; a voice, instantly silenced — came and went and nobody really thought of Sir Dougal except Maggie, who fought off tears. Winter Meyer made a definitive movement and there was no more silence.
“Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. Before we break up.”
It was Bruce Barrabell.
“As representative of Equity I would just like to convey the usual messages of sympathy and to say that I will make suitable enquiries on your behalf as to the correct action to be taken in these very unusual circumstances. Thank you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Barrabell,” replied the flustered senior guardian.
He and his colleagues left in a discreet procession by the stage door.
MACBETH
All Personnel
Announcement Extraordinary
Owing to unforeseen and most tragic circumstances this play will, as from now, be closed. The play The Glove by Peregrine Jay will replace it. Four of the leading parts are cast from the existing company. The remainder are open for auditions.
The management thanks the company for its outstanding success and deeply regrets the necessity to close.
Samuel Goodbody, Chairman Dolphin Enterprises
At a respectable distance was a second announcement:
Current Production
The Glove. Auditions: Today and two following days,
11 A.M.- 1 p.m., 2 P.M. - 5 p.m.
Shakespeare: Mr. Simon Morten
Ann Shakespeare: Miss Nina Gaythorne
Hamnet Shakespeare: Master William Smith
The Dark Lady: Miss Margaret Mannering
Dr. Hall
Joan Hart
Mr. W.H.
Burbage
Books of the play obtainable at office.
Peregrine came in and looked at the notices. Then he began to move chairs onto the stage, placing them facing back to back to mark the doorways into Shakespeare’s parlor and leaving a group of six as working props. He brushed against the skeleton still swinging from the gallows and pushed it offstage. Then he went into the stalls and sat down.
I must pull myself together, he thought. I must go on as usual and I must whip up, from somewhere, enthusiasm for my own play.
Bob Masters came onstage and peered into the auditorium.
“Bob,” Peregrine said. “We’ll hold the auditions here in the usual way when everyone comes. Oh, and do put that skeleton somewhere else.”
“Right,” said Bob. “Will do. People will be down in half an hour — Winty is settling the treasury.”
“Okay.”
From the shadows a lonely couple emerged and appeared onstage. William and his mother: she, tidy in a dark gray suit and white blouse, he, also in dark gray — a trouser suit — with white shirt and dark blue tie. He walked over to the board, looked at the notices, and turned to his mother. She joined him and put her hands on his shoulders. “I’m not sure,” he said clearly. “Don’t I have to audition?”
“Hullo, William,” Peregrine called out. “You don’t, really. We’re taking a gamble on you. But I see you’ve got your book. Go and collect your treasury and come back here and we’ll see how you shape up. All right?”
“Yes, thank you, sir.”
“I’ll come back and wait for you outside,” said his mother. She had gone out by the stage door before Peregrine realized what she was up to.
William went through the house to the offices and, for a short time, Peregrine was quite alone. He sat in the stalls and supposed that people like Nina had begun to say that the Dolphin was an unlucky theatre. And suddenly time contracted and the first production of his play seemed to have scarcely completed its run. He could almost hear the voices of the actors…
William came back. He went through the opening scenes and Peregrine thought: I was right. The boy’s an actor.
“You’ll do,” he said. “Go home and learn your lines and come down for rehearsals in a week’s time.”
“Thank you, sir,” said William and went out by the stage door.
“ ‘Yes, sir. No, sir. Three bags full, sir,’ ” said an unmistakable voice. It was Bruce Barrabell, at the back.
Peregrine peered at him. “Barrabell?” he said. “Are you going to audition?”
“I thought so. For Burbage.”
He doesn’t come on until the second act, Peregrine thought. He would be good. And he felt a sudden violent dislike of Barrabell. I don’t want him in the cast, he thought. I can’t have him. I don’t want to hear him audition. I don’t want to speak to him. He thought of what Alleyn had told him, the evening before, of Barabell’s confession, if such it could be called.
The part of Burbage was of a frantically busy man of affairs and an accomplished actor in the supposed Elizabethan manner. Silver-tongued, blast it, thought Peregrine. He’s ideal, of course. Oh, damn and blast!
There was a bustle as the actors began to trickle in from the offices and Mrs. Abrams came down to take notes for Peregrine and say, “Thank you, darling. We’ll let you know.” The Ross auditioned for Dr. Hall. He read it nicely with a good appreciation of the medical man of his day and his anxious and lethal treatment of young Hamnet. The Gentlewoman tried for Joan Hart, the sister who was closest to the poet. That had been Emily’s part and Peregrine tried not to let himself be influenced by this. If he suggested she come back and play it she would say she was too old now.
They plodded on.
At the Yard, Alleyn was going through the statements. He put the regulation conclusion before himself and Mr. Fox, who remained, as it were, anonymous.
“If all reasonable explanations fail, the investigation must consider the explanation which, however outlandish, is not contradicted?”
“And what in this case is the outlandish explanation that is not contradicted?”
“There is not enough time for the murder to be accomplished between the end of the fight and the appearance of Macbeth’s head on the claidheamh-mor, so it must have been done before the fight. But Macbeth spoke during the fight. True, his voice was hoarse and breathless.”
Alleyn took his head in his hands and did his best to listen to the past. “… get thee back, my soul is too much charged with blood of thine already.” Sir Dougal had the slight but unmistakable burr of Scots in his voice. He had given it a little more room for the Thane: “too much changed.” A grievous sound. It drifted through his memory but his recollection held no personality behind it. Just the broken despair of any breathless, beaten fighter.
He must look for a new place in the play where the murder could have been committed. It was Sir Dougal who fought and killed Young Siward. He wore his vizor pushed up, displaying his full face. His speech ended with his desperate recollection of the last of the witches’ equivocal pronouncements: