‘I want you to be very sure how you answer the next question. Does anyone remember any movement among you all that could have meant someone had slipped into the OP corner after Macduff came out?’

‘We were too far upstage to do it,’ said Simon. ‘All of us.’

‘And does anyone remember Macbeth not coming off?’

There was a pause and then Nina Gaythorne said: ‘William said: “Where’s Sir Dougal? He’s still in there.” Or something like that. Nobody paid much attention. Our cue was coming and we were getting into position to go on for the second call.’

‘Yes,’ Alleyn said. ‘Now, I wonder if you would all go to your rooms and come out when you are called, as far as you can remember, exactly in the order you observed tonight. From the start of the fight until the end I want you all to do exactly what you did then. Is that understood?’

‘Not very pleasant,’ said Barrabell.

‘Murder and its consequences are never very pleasant, I’m afraid. Mr Sears, will you read Macbeth’s lines, if you please?’

‘Certainly. I know them, I think, by heart.’

‘Good. You had better have a look, though. The timing must be exact.’

‘Very well.’

‘There’s a book on the prompt table.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Do you know the moves?’

‘Certainly. I also,’ he said loftily, ‘know the fight.’

‘Good. Are we ready? Will those of you who were in their dressing rooms please go to them?’

They trooped off. Alleyn said to Peregrine: ‘You take over, will you?’

‘Very well.’ He raised his voice: ‘From:

‘“Blow wind, come wrack,

At least we’ll die with harness on our back.”’

‘We’ll go out on stage. It’s tidied up, I hope,’ Alleyn said.

‘I hope so,’ said Peregrine devoutly.

‘Come on, then. Fox, you watch the stage. The OP side in particular, will you?’

‘Right.’

‘Is the effects man here? He is. With his assistants? I think mechanical effects were overlaid by live voices. Good. We want the whole thing exactly timed as for performance. Right? Can you manage?’

They walked down the dressing-room passages and suddenly the theatre was alive with the presence of actors waiting behind closed doors for the play to begin. Thompson and Bailey had been tidy. They left the patch of stage where the bundle had been covered over with a mackintosh sheet weighted down. In the OP corner, they had outlined the body in chalk before removing it. There was a bucket of ‘blood’ beside it.

‘Right,’ said Alleyn who had moved into the house front. Peregrine called: ‘Macbeth. Macduff. Young Siward. You’re on, please. Malcolm, Old Siward and the Forces. Called and waiting.’ There was the sound of movements offstage. Malcolm and Siward spoke and went off.

Gaston entered and spoke. The others had given their lines auto-matically and not played up to performance pitch but he went the whole hog. His fatigue vanished and he was good.