“Get me out,” he ordered. “Leave me alone. Go after ’im. Go after the…! Gawd, get me out!”

“Go after who?” asked Wade. “What sort of game do you think you’re up to, Sergeant Cass?”

“Never mind what I’m up to, Mr. Wade. That young bleeder’s run orf behind this shed and it’s that narrer I can’t foller. Gawd knows where he is by this time!”

“By cripey, you’re a corker, you are,” said Wade hotly. “Here!”

He seized the sergeant’s belt and turned to Alleyn.

“Do you mind giving a hand, sir?”

Alleyn was doubled up in ecstasy of silent laughter, but he managed to pull himself together and, after a closer look at the prisoner, he hunted in the wooden shed, unearthed a length of timber which they jammed between the two walls and thus eased the pressure a little. Cass was pried and hauled out, sweating vigorously. Alleyn slipped into the passage and round to the rear of the shed. Here he found another path running back towards the theatre. He darted along this alley between a ramshackle fence and the brick wall of the property-room. The path led to the rear of the theatre, past a closed door, and finally to a narrow back street. Here Alleyn paused. Back in the stage-door yard he could hear one of the distracted officials blowing a police whistle. The little street was quite deserted, but in a moment or two a police officer appeared from the far end. Alleyn shouted to him and he broke into a run.

“What’s all this? Who’s blowing that whistle?”

“Inspector Wade and Sergeant Cass,” said Alleyn. “They’re in the theatre yard. Has a young man in evening dress passed you during the last few minutes?”

“Yes. Up at the corner. What about him?”

“He’s given us the slip. Which way?”

“Towards the Middleton Hotel. Here, you hold steady, sir. Where are you off to? You wait a bit.”

“Ask Wade,” said Alleyn. He sidestepped neatly and sprinted down the street.

It led him into a main thoroughfare. In the distance he recognized the familiar bulk of the Middleton Hotel. Three minutes later he was talking to the night porter.

“Has Mr. Gordon Palmer returned yet?”

“Yes, sir. He came in a minute ago and went up to his room — No. 51. Anything wrong, sir?” asked the night porter gazing at Alleyn’s filthy shirt-front.

“Nothing in the wide world. I shall follow his example.”

He left the man gaping and ran upstairs. No. 51 was on the second landing. Alleyn tapped at the door. There was no answer, so he walked in and turned up the light.

Gordon Palmer sat on the edge of his bed. He was still dressed. In his hand was a tumbler.

“Drinking in the dark?” asked Alleyn.

Gordon opened his mouth once or twice but failed to speak.

“Really,” said Alleyn, “you are altogether too much of a fool. Do you want to get yourself locked up?”

“You get to hell out of this.”

“I shall certainly go as quickly as I can. You reek of whisky, and you look revolting. Now listen to me. As you’ve heard already, I’m an officer of Scotland Yard. I shall be taking over certain matters in connection with this case. One of my duties will be to write to your father. Precisely what I put in my letter depends on our subsequent conversation. It’s much too late and we’re too busy to talk to you now. So I shall lock you in your room and leave you to think out a reasonable attitude. There’s a fifty-foot drop from your window to the pavement. Good morning.”

Chapter XV

SIX A.M. FIRST ACT CURTAIN

Alleyn longed for his bed. He was dirty and tired, and a dull lugging pain reminded him that he was supposed to be taking things easily after a big operation. He went into his room, washed, and changed quickly into grey flannels and a sweater. Then he went downstairs.

The night porter gazed reproachfully and suspiciously at him.

“Are you going out again, sir?”

“Oh yes, rather. It’s my night to howl.”

“Beg pardon, sir?”

“You’ll hear all about it,” said Alleyn, “very shortly. There’s something to keep out the cold.”

Back at the theatre he found Wade and Cass closeted with Mr, Geoffrey Weston. There was an enormous tear in Cass’s tunic and a grimy smudge across his face. He sat at the desk taking notes. Evidently his uncomfortable predicament had upset his digestion for he rumbled lamentably and at each uncontrollable gurgitation he assumed an air of huffy grandeur. Wade appeared to be irritable and Weston stolid. The office looked inexpressibly squalid and smelt beastly.

“I thought I’d better come back and report,” said Alleyn. “I’ve locked up your darling little imp for what’s left of the night, Mr. Weston.”

“So he did go back to the pub,” grunted Weston disinterestedly. “I told you he would, you know.”

“That’s right, Mr. Weston,” said Wade.

“I suppose the P.C. I met in the lane told you what I was up to,” said Alleyn.

“Yes, sir, he did, and very surprised he was when he heard who you were. I sent him after you, Mr. Alleyn, and he saw you go into the Middleton so we left you to it. I’ve just been asking Mr. Weston if he could give us an idea why Mr. Palmer slipped up on us.” And Wade glanced uncomfortably at Weston, edged round behind him, and made an eloquent grimace at Alleyn.

Alleyn thought he had never seen any face that expressed as little as Geoffrey Weston’s. It was an example of the dead norm in faces. It was neither good-looking nor plain, it had no distinguishing feature and no marked characteristic. It would be impossible to remember it with any degree of sharpness. It was simply a face.

“And why did he bolt, do you suppose?” asked Alleyn.

“Because he’s a fool,” said Mr. Weston.

“Oh, rather,” agreed Alleyn. “No end of a fool; but even fools have motives. Why did he bolt? What was he afraid of?”

“He’s run away from disagreeable duties,” said Weston, with unexpected emphasis, “ever since he could toddle. He ran away from three schools. He’s got no guts.”

“He displayed a good deal of mistaken effrontery in the wardrobe-room, when he as good as accused Courtney Broadhead of theft.”

“Egged on,” said Weston.

“By Liversidge?”

“Of course.”

“Do you believe the story about Broadhead, Mr. Weston?”

“Not interested.”

“Did you speak of it to Mr. Palmer?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“In the wardrobe-room, after you’d gone.”

“You must have been very quiet about it.”

“I was.”

“What did you say?” pursued Alleyn, and to himself he murmured: “Oyster, oyster, oyster! Open you shall.”

“Told him he’d be locked up for defamation of character.”

“Splendid. Did it frighten him?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think he bolted to avoid further questioning?”

“Yes.”

“It’s all so simple,” said Alleyn pleasantly, “when you understand.”

Weston merely stared at his boots.

“I suppose,” continued Alleyn, “that you had heard all about the arrangements for the champagne business?”

“Knew nothing about it.”

“Mr. Palmer?”

“No.”

“Can you help us about the missing tiki?”

“Afraid I can’t.”

“Ah, well,” said Alleyn, “that’s about all, I fancy. Unless you’ve anything further, Inspector?”

“No, sir, I have not,” said Wade, with a certain amount of emphasis. “We’ll see the young gentleman in the morning.”

“That all?” asked Weston, getting to his feet.

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Weston.”

“I’ll push off. Good night.”

He walked out and they heard his footsteps die away before any of them spoke.

“He’s a fair nark, that chap,” said Wade. “Close! Gosh!”

“Not exactly come-toish,” agreed Alleyn.

“Blooming oyster! Well, that’s the whole boiling of ’em now, sir.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn thankfully.

But they stayed on talking. A kind of perverseness kept them wedded to their discomfort. They grew more and more wakeful and their ideas seemed to grow sharper. Their thoughts cleared. Alleyn spoke for a long time and the other two listened to him eagerly. Quite suddenly he stopped and shivered. The virtue went out of them. They felt dirty, and dog-tired. Wade began to gather up his papers.