‘You don’t want to start them off with broken legs, do you?’ asked somebody’s voice in the dark.

There was an awkward pause.

‘Well – no. Put on the light in the passage,’ said Peregrine in a voice that was a shade too off-hand. ‘No,’ he shouted. ‘Bring down the curtain again, Jeremy. We’ll do it properly.’

The stage door was opened and more voices were heard, two women’s and a man’s. They came in exclaiming at the dark.

‘All right, all right,’ Peregrine called out cheerfully. ‘Stay where you are. Lights, Jeremy, would you? Just while people are coming in. Thank you. Come down in front, everybody. Watch how you go. Splendid.’

They came down. Margaret Mannering first, complaining about the stairs in her wonderful warm voice with little breaks of laughter, saying she knew she was unfashionably punctual. Peregrine hurried to meet her. ‘Maggie, darling! It’s all meant to start us off with a bang, but I do apologize. No more steps. Here we are. Sit down in the front row. Nina! Are you all right? Come and sit down, love. Bruce! Welcome, indeed. I’m so glad you managed to fit us in with television.’

I’m putting it on a bit thick, he thought. Nerves! Here they all come. Steady now.

They arrived singly and in pairs, having met at the door. They greeted Peregrine and one another extravagantly or facetiously and all of them asked why they were sitting in front and not on stage or in the rehearsal room. Peregrine kept count of heads. When they got to seventeen and then to nineteen he knew they were waiting for only one: the Thane.

He began again, counting them off. Simon Morten – Macduff. A magnificent figure, six foot two. Dark. Black eyes with a glitter. Thick black hair that sprang in short-clipped curls from his skull. A smooth physique not yet running to fat and a wonderful voice. Almost too good to be true. Bruce Barrabell – Banquo. Slight. Five foot ten inches tall. Fair to sandy hair. Beautiful voice. And the King? Almost automatic casting – he’d played every Shakespearean king in the canon except Lear and Claudius, and played them all well if a little less than perfectly. The great thing about him was, above all, his royalty. He was more royal than any of the remaining crowned heads of Europe and his name was actually King: Norman King. The Malcolm was, in real life, his son – a young man of nineteen – and the resemblance was striking.

There was Lennox, the sardonic man. Nina Gaythorne, the Lady Macduff, who was talking very earnestly with the Doctor. And I don’t mind betting it’s all superstition, thought Peregrine uneasily. He looked at his watch: twenty minutes late. I’ve half a mind to start without him, so I have.

A loud and lovely voice and the bang of the stage door.