“Thank you,” said Alleyn. He looked rather sick.

“I’ll get back to the station, sir. Let young Palmer come to me — better than seeing him here. The super will be calling in shortly, I fancy.”

“Have a drink before you go,” suggested Alleyn.

“Now, sir, I was just going to suggest, if you’d give me the pleasure—”

They went down to the bar and had drinks with each other.

Wade departed, and Alleyn, avoiding the unwavering stare with which everybody in the hotel followed his movements, buried himself behind a newspaper until the arrival of Superintendent Nixon. Nixon turned out to be a pleasant and. dignified officer with a nice sense of humour. He was cordial without finding any necessity to indulge in Wade’s exuberant manifestations of friendliness. Alleyn liked him very much and saw that Nixon really welcomed his suggestions, and wished for his co-operation. They discussed the case fully and Nixon stayed until eleven-thirty when he exclaimed at the length of his visit, invited Alleyn to make full use of the local station and its officials, and accepted an invitation to dine the following evening.

When he had gone Alleyn, with the air of facing an unpleasant task, returned to the writing-desk. There were now nine people in the lounge, all ensconced behind newspapers. Six of them frankly folded their journals and turned their gaze on Alleyn. Two peered round the corners of their papers at him. The last, an old lady, lowered her paper until it masked the bottom part of her face like a yashmak, and glared at him unwinkingly over the top. Alleyn himself stared at a blank sheet of paper for minutes. At last he wrote quickly:

He was about to ring for someone to take this note to Carolyn’s room, when he became aware of a sense of release. A rustling and stirring among the nine bold starers informed him of the arrival of a new attraction and, glancing through the glass partition, he saw Hambledon coming downstairs. He went to meet him.

“Hullo, Alleyn. Good morning. I suppose you’ve been up for hours.”

“Not so many hours.”

“Any of our people down yet?”

“I haven’t seen them.”

“Gone to earth,” muttered Hambledon, “like rabbits. But they’ll have to come to light soon. Mason called us for noon at the theatre.”

“I don’t think you’ll get in there, do you know,” said Alleyn.

“Why? Oh — the police. I see. Well, I suppose it’ll be somewhere in the hotel.”

The lift came down and Mason got out of it

“ ’Morning, Hailey. ’Morning Mr. Alleyn.”

“Hullo, George. Where are we meeting?”

“The people, here, have lent us the smoking-room. My God, Hailey, they’re locking us out of our own theatre. Do you know that? Locking us out!”

They gazed palely at each other.

“First time in thirty years experience it’s ever happened to me,” said Mason. “My God, what would Alf have thought! Locked out of our own house. It makes you feel awful, doesn’t it?”

“It’s all pretty awful, George.”

“Did you sleep?”

“Not remarkably well. Did you?”

“Damn’ queer thing, but it’s the first night for months that I haven’t been racked by dyspepsia — first time for months — and I lay there without a gurgle, thinking about Alf at night.” Mason stared solemnly at both of them. “That’s what you call irony,” he said.

“How will you let everybody know about the call for twelve?” asked Hambledon.

“I’ve got hold of Ted and he’s doing it.”

“Do you want Carolyn?”

“Have you seen her? How is she?”

“I haven’t seen her.”

Mason looked surprised.

“Well run up now, like a good fellow, Hailey, and tell her not to bother about this call if she doesn’t feel up to it.”

“All right,” said Hambledon.

“Would you mind giving her this note?” asked Alleyn, suddenly. “It’s just a suggestion that if she’d like to get away from the pub for a bit of fresh air — she’ll explain. Thank you so much.”

“Yes — certainly.” Hambledon looked sharply at Alleyn and then made for the lift.

“This is a difficult situation for you, Mr. Mason,” said Alleyn.

“Difficult! It’s a bit more than difficult. We don’t know what’s to happen. Here we are with the tour booked up — the advance is down in Wellington and has put all the stuff out. We’re due to open there in six days and God knows if the police will let us go, and if they do God knows if Carolyn will be able to play. And without her—!”

“Who’s her understudy.”

“Gaynes. I ask you! Flop! The Australian kid would have to take Gaynes’s bits. Of course if Carolyn does play—”

“But, after this! She’s had a terrible shock.”

“It’s different in the business,” said Mason. “Always has been. The show must go on. Doesn’t mean we’re callous but — well Alf would have felt the same. The show must go on. It’s always been like that.”

“I suppose it has. But surely—”

“I’ve seen people go on who would have been sent off to hospital in any other business. Fact. I was born off-stage twenty minutes after my mother took her last call. It was a costume piece, of course — crinolines. It’s a funny old game, ours.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. Suddenly he was aware of a kind of nostalgia, a feeling of intense sympathy and kinship with the stage. “A drab enough story to have aroused it,” he thought. “A theme that has been thrashed to death in every back-stage plot from Pagliacci downwards. The show must go on!”

“Of course,” Mason was saying, “Carolyn may feel differently. I’m not sure about it myself. The public might not like it. Besides suppose it’s — one of us. Everybody would be wondering which of the cast is a bloody murderer. That’s so, isn’t it?”

“I suppose there would be a certain amount of conjecture.”

“Not the sort of advertisement the Firm wants,” said Mason moodily. “Undignified.”

To this magnificent illustration of a meiosis, Alleyn could only reply: “Quite so.”

Mason muttered on, unhappily: “It’s damn’ difficult and expensive whichever way you look at it. And there’s the funeral. I suppose that will be tomorrow. And the inquest. The papers will be full of us. Publicity! Poor old Alf! He was always a genius on the publicity side. My God, it’s rum, isn’t it? Oh well — see you later. You’re going to give these fellows a hand, aren’t you? Funny, you being a detective. I hear Alf knew all about it. My God, Alleyn, I hope you get him.”

“I hope we shall. Will you have a drink?”

“Me? With my stomach it’d be dynamite. Thanks, all the same. See you later.”

He wandered off, disconsolately.

Alleyn remained in the hall. In a minute or two Hailey Hambledon came down in the lift and joined him.

“Carolyn says she would like to go out. I’m to thank you and say she will be down in ten minutes.”

“I’ll order the car at once. She won’t want to wait down here.”

“With all these rubbernecks? Heavens, no!”

Alleyn went into the telephone-box and rang up the garage. The car would be sent round at once. When he came out Hambledon was waiting for him.

“It’s extraordinarily nice of you, Alleyn, to do this for her.”

“It is a very great pleasure.”

“She’s so much upset,” continued Hambledon. He lowered his voice and glanced at the reception clerk who was leaning out of his window and affecting an anxious concern in the activities of the hall porter. The porter was engaged in a close inspection of the carpet within a six-foot radius from Alleyn and Hambledon. He had the air of a person who is looking for a lost jewel of great worth.

“Porter,” said Alleyn.