“It looks rather like it, I’m afraid.”

“Um,” rumbled old Vernon. “I wonder why.”

“To be frank, so do we.”

“And I suppose we’re all suspect. Lord, I’ve played in a good many mystery dramas but I never expected to appear in the genuine thing. Let me see, I suppose you’re going to ask me what I was doing before and after the crime, eh?”

“That’s the idea,” agreed Alleyn smiling.

“Fire ahead, then,” said old Vernon.

Alleyn put the now familiar questions to him. He corroborated the account Liversidge and Broadhead had given of his movements. At the close of the play and after the catastrophe, he had gone straight to his dressing-room, where the other two afterwards joined him.

“I don’t know if that constitutes an alibi,” he said, rolling his eyes round at Wade. “If it doesn’t I understand I am almost certain to be innocent.”

“So the detective books tell us,” said Alleyn, “and they ought to know. As a matter of fact I think it does give you a pretty well cast-iron alibi.”

Vernon grimaced. “Not so good. I must watch my step.”

“You’ve been with the firm of Incorporated Playhouses a good time, haven’t you, Mr. Vernon?”

“Let me see. I started with Double Knock at the old Curtain.” He pondered. “Ten years. Ten years with Inky-P. Long time to work with one management, ten years.”

“You must be the senior member of the club?”

“Pretty well. Susie runs me close, but she left us for The Rat and the Beaver, two years ago.”

“Ah, yes. You must have known Mr. Meyer very well?”

“Yes, I did. As well as an actor ever knows his manager, and that’s very thoroughly in some ways and not at all in others.”

“Did you like him?”

“Yes, I did. He was honest. Very fair with his actors. Never paid colossal salaries — not as they go nowadays — but you always got good money.”

“Mr. Vernon, do you know of any incident in the past or present that could throw any light on this business?”

“I don’t.”

“The Firm is all right, I suppose? Financially, I mean?”

“I believe so,” answered Vernon. There was an overtone in his voice that suggested a kind of guardedness.

“Any doubt at all about that?” asked Alleyn.

“There are always rumours about managements like ours. I have heard a certain amount of gossip about some of the touring companies. They are supposed to have dropped money for the Firm. Then there was Time Payment. That did a flop. Still, Inky-P. has stood a flop or two in its time.”

“Were all Mr. Meyer’s interests bound up in the Firm, do you know?”

“I don’t know anything about it. George Mason could tell you that, probably. Alfred was a very shrewd business man and he and Carolyn are not the social spotlight hunters that most of ’em are nowadays. They lived very quietly. The theatre before everything. I should say Alfred had saved money. Only a guess, you know.”

“I know. It’ll all appear now, of course.”

“What puzzles me, Mr. Alleyn, is who on earth would want to do in Alfred Meyer. None of us, you’d have thought. Shops aren’t found so easily that we can afford to kill off the managers.” He paused and rolled his eyes round. “I wonder,” he said, “if that accident on Friday morning gave anybody the big idea.”

“What accident?” asked Alleyn sharply.

“The morning we got here. Didn’t you hear about it? One of the staff was up in the flies fixing the weight for the mast. The head mechanist and Ted Gascoigne were down below on the stage, having an argument. Suddenly the gentleman in the flies got all careless and dropped the weight. It fell plumb between the two men and crashed half through the stage. Ted Gascoigne raved at the poor swine for about ten minutes, and Fred — the head mechanist— nearly ate him. We all rushed out to see the fun. God, they were a sight! White as paper and making faces at each other.”

“Good Lord!” said Alleyn.

“Yes. It would have laid him out for keeps if it had hit one of ’em. Great leaden thing like an enormous sash-weight and as heavy—”

“As heavy, very nearly, as a jeroboam of champagne,” finished Alleyn. “It was used, afterwards, as a counterweight for the bottle.”

“Was it really!” exclaimed Vernon.

“Didn’t you know how they fixed the gear for the bottle?”

“I heard poor old Alfred holding forth on the subject, of course, but I’m afraid I didn’t pay much attention.”

“You all knew about the mishap with the counterweight?”

“Oh God, yes. Everyone came out helter-skelter. It shook the building. George ran along from the office, Val Gaynes flew out of her dressing-room in a pair of scanties. The two Australians nearly threw in their parts and returned to Sydney. It was a nine days’ wonder.”

“I see,” said Alleyn. He turned to Wade. “Anything else you’d like to ask Mr. Vernon, Inspector?”

“Well now,” said Wade genially, “I don’t know that there’s much left to ask, sir. I was wondering, Mr. Vernon, you having been so long with the company, if you could give us a little idea about the domestic side of the picture, as you might say.”

Old Vernon swung round in his chair and looked at Wade without enthusiasm.

“Afraid I don’t follow you,” he said.

“Well now, Mr. Vernon, you’ll understand we have to make certain inquiries in our line. You might say we have to get a bit curious. It’s our job, you understand, and we may fancy it as little as other folk do, but we’ve got to do it. Now, Mr. Vernon, would you describe Mr. and Mrs. Meyer as being a happy couple, if you know what I mean?”

“I can understand most common words of one or two syllables,” said Vernon, “and I do know what you mean. Yes, I should.”

“No differences of any sort?”

“None.”

“Good-oh, sir. That’s straight enough. So I suppose all this talk about her and Mr. Hambledon is so much hot air?”

“All what talk? Who’s been talking?”

“Now don’t you worry about that, Mr. Vernon. That’ll be quite all right, sir.”

“What the hell d’you mean? What’ll be quite all right? Who’s been talking about Miss Dacres and Mr. Hambledon?”

“Now never you mind about that, sir. We just want to hear—”

“If it’s that damned little footpath comedian,” continued Vernon, glaring angrily at Wade, “you can take it from me he’s about as dependable as a cockroach. He’s a very nasty little person, is Mr. St. John Ackroyd, né Albert Biggs, a thoroughly unpleasant piece of bluff and brass. And what a naughty actor!”

“Né Biggs?” murmured Alleyn.

“Certainly. And the sooner he goes back to his hairdresser’s shop in St. Helens the better for all concerned.”

“I gather,” said Alleyn mildly, “that he has already spoken to you about the conversation he overheard in his dressing-room.”

“Oh, yes,” said old Vernon, with a particular air of elaborate irony that Alleyn had begun to associate with actors’ conversation. “Oh, yes. I was told all about it as soon as he had a chance to speak his bit. Mr. Ackroyd came in well on his cue with the odd bit of dirt, you may be quite sure.”

Alleyn smiled: “And it’s as true as most gossip of that sort, I suppose?”

“I don’t know what Ackroyd told you, but I’d swear till it snowed pink that Carolyn Dacres hasn’t gone in for the funny business. Hailey may have talked a bit wildly. He may be very attracted. I don’t say anything about that, but on her side — well, I can’t believe it. She’s one of the rare samples of the sort that stay put.”

And Vernon puffed out his cheeks and uttered a low growl.

“That’s just what we wanted to know,” said Wade. “Just wanted your opinion, you see, sir.”

“Well, you’ve got it. And the same opinion goes for anything Mr. Ackroyd may have told you, including his little bit of dirt about George Mason. Anything else?”

“We’ll get you to sign a statement about your own movements later on, if you don’t mind,” said Wade.