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 visor up, displaying his full face. His speech ended with his desperate recollection of the last of the witches’ equivocal pronouncements:

‘– weapons laugh to scorn,

Brandished by man that’s of a woman born’

and there, suddenly, in his imagination, stood the actor. Up went the gauntleted hand and down came the visor. He went off into the OP corner – and was murdered? Macduff came on. He had a soliloquy, broken by skirmishes and determined searches. Outbursts of fighting occurred now here, now there. The Macbeth faction were dressed alike: black, gauntleted, some masked, others not. The effect was nightmarish. What if Macduff encountered a man uniformed like Macbeth but not Macbeth? Pipes. Malcolm with a group of soldiers marched on. Old Siward greeted him and welcomed him to the castle. He made a ceremonial entry. Cheering within. The masked ‘Macbeth’ entered. Macduff came on. Saw him. Challenged him. They fought.

‘Yes,’ Alleyn said, ‘it’s possible. It’s perfectly possible but does it throw a spanner in all our calculations and alibis! None of the “corpses” are in position for the curtain call. The Macduff, Simon Morten, could just have done it, but he’d have got a nasty shock when the dead man turned up to fight him. On the other hand, as Macbeth’s understudy he would know the fight. But he was already engaged in the fight himself. Damn. Barrabell? Gaston? Props? Rangi? All possible. But wait a bit: all but one impossible. Unless we entertain the idea of a collaborator who understood the fight. Let’s take any one of them regardless and see how it works out. Rangi.’

‘Rangi,’ said Fox without enthusiasm.

‘He would do the murder at the earlier time. He’d wait till the last minute. Then rush round to Gaston and say Sir Dougal’s fainted and he, Gaston, will have to go on for the fight with Macduff. All right so far?’

‘It’s all right,’ said Fox, ‘as far as you’ve got. Motive, though?’

‘Ah, motive. His great-grandfather knew how to deal with this sort of nonsense. He told me in the nicest way imaginable. He cut off the other chap’s head and ate him.’

‘Really!’ said Fox primly. ‘How very unpleasant. But I suppose he could have done a return to his great-grandfather’s state of mind and killed Macbeth. You know, reverted to the Stone Age, sort of.’

‘Any of the others could have done the same thing.’

‘You don’t mean – ‘

‘I don’t mean the chopper and cooking-pot bit, and I’ll thank you not to be silly. I mean could have gone to Gaston at the last moment and asked him to fight. The catch in that is, it’d be a damnable bit of evidence against him, later on.’