‘Nor do I. Except that he was a far from subtle funster and Bruce came in for his share of the ragging. He was forever making snide references to leftish groups and so on.’

‘Hardly enough to make Bruce cut his head off.’

‘Not if we were dealing with anything like normal people. I’m beginning to believe there’s a stepped-up abnormality about the whole thing, Fox. As if the actors had become motivated by the play. That leads one to the proposition that no play should be as compulsive as Macbeth. Which is ridiculous.’

‘All right. So what, to get down to our weekly pay packet, do we do to earn it?’

‘Find a conclusive reason that will give us the time of the murder as being immediately after “brandished by man that’s of a woman born”. Find alibis for all but one of the company at that time and then face him with it. That’s the ideal, of course.’

‘Yes. All right. Let’s tackle the alibis and see if we can do it with both feet on the ground. Now, the troops and all the extras and doubles are already engaged in battle: all the thanes; the Doctor, disguised as one of Macbeth’s soldiers; Malcolm; Siward. That leaves Rangi, Gaston and Banquo. Macduff’s out. The King. Where was Props?’

‘In and out of the OP corner fixing the claidheamh-mor. And that’s all,’ said Fox.

‘We can cut out the King.’

‘Why?’

‘Too silly,’ said Alleyn. ‘And too elderly.’

‘All right. No King. How about Props? Any motive at all?’

‘Not unless something turns up. In a way he’s tempting, though. Nobody would pay any attention to him slipping into or out of the OP corner. He’d be there with the naked claidheamh-mor when Macbeth came off and could kill him and put his head on it.’

‘Like Rangi, he’d have to give the phoney message to Gaston, but I think it would hold up,’ said Fox. ‘Gaston’s hanging about there and Props says to him, “For Gawd’s sake, sir, he’s fainted. You’ve got this one speech of Macduff’s and the fight. You know it. You can do it.” And later on when the body’s found he says it was so dark he just saw it lying there and, realizing there was only a matter of minutes before Macbeth’s entrance for the fight, he rushed out, found Gaston and asked him. It hangs together. Except – ‘

‘No motive? Bloody hell, Fox,’ shouted Alleyn. ‘We’ve lost our touch. We’ve gone to pieces. Gaston being told Macduff’s fainted doesn’t work. It doesn’t work with anyone asking him to do it. He’d have told us. Of course he would. Back to square one.’

There was a long silence.

‘No,’ said Alleyn at last. ‘There’s only one answer. We’d better get a warrant, old chap.’