“How long were you in the passage?”

Bob screwed his face into a labyrinth of lines and thought for a moment.

“Well, sir, I rolled a fag and smoked it and I rolled another.”

“Whistling a bit, in between times?”

“That’s the ticket, sir. I’m a great hand at whistling. My old Dad learnt me that forty years ago. He was a vordervil artist, ‘Pip Parsons, the ’Uman Hedgesparrer,’ and he trained me for a Child Wonder. Made me whistle for me tucker. All day he kept me at it. ‘Pipe up,’ he’d say, ‘there’s only one place where you can’t rehearse your stuff, and that’s the dressing-room.’ It grew a habit and when I took on this business I had to unlearn it a good deal faster than I got it. Never do, you see, sir. Unlucky. Whistling people out of their jobs. When I first started dressing I was always being sent out to knock and come in again, to break the bad luck.”

“I see. Miss Dacres told me about this superstition.”

“Miss Carolyn’s a fair terror on it, sir. Well I usually tunes up when I gets outside the door. Once through ‘A Bird in a Gilded Cage’ while I roll me fag. That’s what I did last night with the falsetto encore. Then I lights up.”

“How long does ‘A Bird in a Gilded Cage’ take?”

“Well — can’t say exactly, sir.”

“Look here — will you whistle it through now?”

“Pleased to oblige,” said Bob briskly.

Alleyn took out his stop-watch. Bob fixed his eyes on a picture of two horses being struck by lightning, assumed an expression of agonised intensity, moistened and pursed his lips. A singularly sweet roulade, in a high key, came through them.

“Just to tune up. Count it in, sir. Always do it.” His eyes glazed and he broke into the Victorian ballad, saccharine, long drawn out, and embellished with many stylish trills. The refrain was repeated an octave higher, ending on a top note that seemed to impinge on the outer rim of human hearing.

“Three minutes,” said Alleyn. “Thank you, Bob, it’s a grand bit of whistling, that.”

“Used to go big in the old days, sir.”

“Yes, I can believe it did. By the time it was finished you had rolled your cigarette, and you lit it, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Suppose you repeat the performance.”

Bob took a dilapidated tin from his pocket and from it produced a hand-made cigarette.

“Always keep some by me,” he said, and lit up. Alleyn glanced again at his watch.

“The next thing,” he said, “is to remember who came past you from the dressing-room to the stage.”

Bob looked him straight in the eyes.

“I get the idea, sir. Watch me step here. If in doubt say so.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, when I first went out, some of them were still on the stage after the last curtain. Mr. Hambledon always goes straight to his room. Mr. Funny Ackroyd came along first and then old ‘I-Played-It-Well-Laddie,’ with young Broadhead.”

“Mr. Vernon?”

“Yes, sir. The boys on the staff called him ‘I-Played-It-Well-Laddie’ after his favourite remark. The last two were Mr. Liversidge and Miss Gaynes. They stood talking on the stage — couldn’t hear what they said— and then went past me to their rooms. I’d got to the falsetto repeat then, I remember.” Bob sucked his teeth meditatively. “Well, sir, they was all stowed away be that time.”

“Parsons, you’re a witness after my own heart. Now for when they came out.”

“Yes. Have to do a bit of thinking now. Take it easy, sir, it’s on the way. Yes.” Bob shut his eyes and took a vigorous pull at his cigarette. “The four gents was first. Mr. Comedy Ackroyd, Mr. Vernon, Mr. Broadhead and Mr. Liversidge, all come out together and they stands there chaffing me and asking why I wasn’t wearing a tailcoat and a white tie. Ackroyd was that funny I nearly burst out crying. Footpath comedian!”

“You don’t care for Mr. Ackroyd?”

“Not so’s you’d make a sky-sign of it. We’re human, sir, even if we do earn our treasury dressing up the great ‘hactors.’ Mr. Ackroyd doesn’t seem to have thought that out for himself. I got Mr. Ackroyd’s number a long while back. So did my gentleman, and my gentleman is a gentleman, sir.”

“Mr. Hambledon?”

“Ah! The genu-ine ticket. He knows all about Mr. Saint John Ackroyd and so did the guv’nor.”

Bob re-lit his cigarette and looked significantly at Alleyn.

“Why?” asked Alleyn. “How do you mean?”

“It’s an old yarn now, sir. Ackroyd forgot ’imself one evening when we was at the Cri. He’s very partial to ’is glass of whisky at times, and ’e don’t break ’is heart if there’s not much water with it. This night he’d ’ad just that much too much, and he comes into Miss Carolyn’s dressing-room without so much as knocking and ’e starts up on the funny business. ’Struth! What a scene! She tells ’im orf a treat and Mr. Hambledon, ’e comes along and ’e tells ’im orf a snorter, and then the guv’nor ’e gets wind of it and ’e comes along and ’e tells ’im orf fit to suffercate. Laugh! I was outside the door when ’e comes out, and to see ’is face! Not so blooming comic and as red as a stick of carmine. Laugh! Next day ’e ’as to apologise. ’E’d ’ave got ’is notice if it hadn’t been that piece, I do believe, but ’e was playing a big part and ’is understudy was not too classy. So the show went on, but since then Mr. Funny Ackroyd ’as blooming well kept ’is place. Well now, where was we? Ah, I’ve got it. Mr. Broadhead and Played-It-Well, and Mr. Liversidge and Ackroyd, they all come out in a bunch. They ’as their spot of comedy with yours truly, and then I rather fancy Ackroyd goes orf to the stage-door. Not for long though. ’E comes back and joins the others, and then they all goes on the stage, and froo the Prompt entrance to the set, see? And they never comes orf again while I’m there.”

“Sure of that?”

“Yes, sir. Sure as s’help me. Tell you for why. I could hear them telling Mr. Gascoigne what a lark they’d ’ad with me and how I was too shy to come to the party. Very funny, they was.”

Bob paused, his face a painful crimson.

“They sound thoroughly objectionable,” said Alleyn.

“Oh, well, there you are,” said Bob, dismissing them. “Well, sir. After that lot, Miss Valerie Gaynes came out. She was on the look-out for Mr. Liversidge as per usual, and I think she heard his voice on the stage. Anyway she made a bee-line for the door and went on. It was about that time the visitors from the front began to come in. I see you come with the guv’nor, sir, and that young Palmer and so forth. Mr. Gascoigne stood by the door looking out for them— the door on the set I mean. Then Miss Max came out and stood talking to me for a while. Always got a pleasant word for everybody. Then Minna come along and starts telling me orf for not ’aving changed me clobber. She’s a one, old Minna. We chy-ikes a bit and I says I’ll come along in me own time, see, and Minna goes back to doll ’erself up. Yes, that’s right, that’s ’ow she went.”

Bob paused.

“And then you joined the party, perhaps?”

“Nah! I felt kind of awkward, sir, and that’s the truth. The boys — the stage-staff, you know, sir — they was all on, be that time, see? They’d been fixing the stage, see? Else I’d ’ave mucked in with them. Well, blimey, sir, it was all posh-like. Wasn’t as if there was a door over on the O.P. I could of slipped froo on the Q.T. if there had of been, but there was only the one door, see? So I kind of hung fire and made another fag.”

He glanced shyly at Alleyn.

“I know. It’s a bit of a facer making an entrance, isn’t it?”

“That’s right, sir. Then, after a bit, my gentleman comes out — Mr. Hambledon — and he says, ‘Hullo Bob,’ ’e says, ‘waiting for something?’ And ’e seems to tip I’m feeling silly-like and ’e says: ‘Come on,’ ’e says, ‘and we’ll make a big entrance, Bob,’ ’e says. Look, ’e’s all right, sir, my gentleman. ’E’s very nice. But— ’struth, I couldn’t go on with ’im, sir. Wouldn’t be the right thing would it, now? So I says I’m waiting for Minna, and he smiles and cracks a joke, pleasant-like, and ’e goes across to the door where Mr. Gascoigne is still standing. I see him say something to Mr. Gascoigne and look across at me, smiling, and then ’e goes in and Mr. Gascoigne shuts the door and comes over to me and says: ‘We’re waiting for you and Minna,’ and then Minna comes along, and I puts out me second fag and we all goes acrost together and nobody notices nothing. And in about two shakes Miss Carolyn comes in and after you give ’er that ’eathen image we all sits down to supper and — and my Gawd, sir, then we know what happened, don’t we?”