“Shall we go back?” he asked gently.

“First tell me: Can you — do you understand how certain I am of Hailey’s innocence? Does what I have said count at all?”

“Yes. It has impressed me very deeply. I am quite sure that you have told me what you believe to be the truth.”

“But you — what do you believe?”

“You must remember that I am a policeman. I attach a great deal of importance to what you have told me, but I would like very much to establish an alibi for the period before the supper-party.”

“For Hailey?”

“For Hambledon, certainly.”

He looked at her. “Has she got no thought at all for herself?” he wondered. “Can’t she see? Or is she, after all, very, very clever?”

“Hailey was in his dressing-room,” said Carolyn. “It is next to mine. I heard him send his dresser away. Wait! Wait! Let me think. Last night when that detective asked me questions I could only think about the other time. Wait! When he told Bob — that’s his dresser — that he could go, I said to Minna, my maid, that I could manage without her. She helped me off with my dress and then she went out, and she and Bob were talking in the passage. I called out to her to hurry and get ready, and she went off, I think to Susie’s room. Then — yes, I called out to Hailey through the wall and he answered. He answered.”

“What did you say?”

“Something about — what was it! — Yes. I said: ‘Hailey — I’ve just remembered. I’ve asked the Woods to the party and nobody knows. How awful!’ And he called back: ‘Not Woods — Forrest.’ I always call people by their wrong names, you see. Then I asked him to go and tell someone about the Forrests and he said he would as soon as he had taken off his make-up. He said he had got grease-paint on his collar and would have to put on a clean one. We had to shout to hear each other. Someone else will have heard. Who is on the other side of Hailey?”

“We’ll find out. Go on, please. After that?”

She held her head between her hands.

“After that? Wait. Bob was outside in the passage, whistling. I remember thinking: ‘It’s in the passage so it doesn’t matter’.”

“But — what do you mean?”

“It’s unlucky to whistle in the dressing-room. Bob stood there — he must have been just inside the doorway to the stage, because I heard him call out every now and then to the stage-hands. I remember thinking that he was evidently not going to bother about tidying himself for the party. He is a great ‘character’ and has been with us for years.”

“Yes, yes,” said Alleyn quickly. “Go on. Let me have the whole story — give me a clear picture of everything. You are all in your rooms, taking off the make-up. Bob is just outside your door, in the entrance from the stage to the passage. You hear him chaffing the stage-hands. How long was he there? Can you tell me that?”

She glanced at him in surprise.

“I don’t know. Why — yes — yes — oh!” Suddenly her whole face was flooded with a kind of tragic thankfulness.

“Listen — listen. Bob was still there when Hailey went out. I heard Hailey say something about why wasn’t he on stage with the party. Bob said: ‘I don’t like butting in, sir. Not my place,’ and I heard Hailey say: ‘Nonsense, you’re all invited. Come along with me, and we’ll make an entrance together.’ That was like Hailey — he’s always considerate with the staff, and nice to them. But Bob was shy and hung back. I heard him say he would wait for Minna. He stayed there. So, don’t you see, if Hailey had gone out before, and come back, Bob would have seen him, and when he did go he asked Bob to go with him. Don’t you see it means Hailey could not have thought of going up to the grid. Why didn’t I remember it before — oh, why didn’t I!”

“I wish very much that you had. Never mind. How much longer did Bob stay there?”

“I heard the others speak to him as they went past. I don’t know how many of them. That was before Hailey went out. But that doesn’t matter. It’s Hailey that matters — he would never have asked Bob to go with him if he meant to go up into the grid, and besides, I am sure it was too late then. If he had done it he would have gone out before, and Bob would have seen him.”

“Was Bob there when you went out?”

“I don’t think so. Hailey and George and — and Alfie came for me. We met in the passage.”

“Tell me,” said Alleyn, “why did you stay so long in your room?”

Something — the faintest shadow — of the old mischievous look, returned to Carolyn’s face. He was reminded of that night in the train when she had looked out of one eye at him.

“I wanted to come on last,” she said. “It was my party.”

“You deliberately delayed your entrance?”

“Of course I did. I remember wishing Bob would go. I heard Minna come along and they stood there talking. I wanted everybody—but everybody—to be on stage.” She stared thoughtfully at Alleyn. “It seems so incredible now, me waiting there to make a big entrance, but you see I am Carolyn Dacres. I don’t suppose you understand.”

“Yes, yes, I do,” cried Alleyn with sudden exasperation, “but can’t you see, you divine donkey, that I want to get your alibi established!”

“Mine?” She caught her breath and then said softly: “Yes, I do see. For a moment I had forgotten to be frightened about — me.”

“I hope that you will have no need to be frightened. I must see Bob, at once. Come on — get up. We’re going back.”

He stood up and held out his hands.

She gave him hers and rose lightly to her feet. They stood for a moment facing each other, hand-fasted as though they were lovers. Her fingers tightened round his. He thought:

“Damn! She is attractive.”

She said: “I hope for only one thing, Mr. Alleyn— that you will soon believe us innocent and then I shall be able to be sorrowful.”

“I understand that.”

“It is so strange. I keep thinking ‘Pooh will tell me how to get out of this fix!’ I only realise with my mind — not yet with my heart. Perhaps that sounds rather trite and affected but I can’t find other words.”

“Indeed, I understand.” She still held his hands.

“Somehow at these sorts of times, after one has had a great shock, I mean, one speaks one’s thoughts openly. I do feel, in the most strange way, that we are friends.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn.

She gave him a candid and gentle smile and withdrew her hands.

“Come along then. Let us return to — everything.”

He collected the rug and basket and they walked together to the car, the voice of the creek growing fainter as they drew away from it. The sun was near the edge of the warm hill and soon their little gully would slip into the shade of afternoon. Carolyn paused and looked back.

“It is a lovely place,” she said. “In spite of everything I shall think of it with pleasure. The painfulness of all this does not seem to have touched it at all.”

“No,” said Alleyn, “it is very remote. We were interlopers but vaguely welcome, don’t you think?”

“Yes. It is a friendly place, really.”

“Are you very tired?”

“I believe I am.”

“No sleep last night?”

“No.”

They got into the car which smelt of hot leather and petrol, and bumped over the rough up to the road.

On the way home they were both silent, Alleyn thinking to himself: “I really believe her. I believe her story. I believe she feels just what she said — a kind of friendliness for me, no more. Was she quite unaware that she attracted me so vividly for those few moments, or was she using her charm deliberately? Is she in love with Hambledon? Probably.”

With an effort he screwed his thoughts round to the case. If this story about Bob was true, and if Bob turned out to be an intelligent fellow, they should be able to check movements of the actors with much more accuracy than Alleyn had thought possible. As soon as he got back, he would look again at his plan of the theatre. He was practically certain that the passage was the only source of exit from the dressing-rooms to the stage, therefore anyone of the company who went from the dressing-rooms to the ladder, would have to go past Bob as he stood in the narrow entry. If Bob could only tell him exactly how long he had stood there!