‘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 just like to ask if you totally dismiss that aspect of the play.’

‘I think,’ said Peregrine very carefully, ‘that the people who do so put the cart before the horse. Call a play “unlucky” and take any mishap that befalls the rehearsals or performances, on stage 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 old 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 papa 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.’

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,’ Peregrine noted. ‘As usual, I don’t know when I’ll be home. Goodbye, old boy.’

‘’Bye, Pop.’

Peregrine watched him walk away up Wharfingers Lane. He went in by the stage door.