“I told him he was shining with sweat,” said Jacko. “And he went into his room.”

“Alone?” Alleyn asked.

“I just looked in to make sure he had heard me. I told him again he needed powder and then went at once to this Infant.”

“Miss Tarne, can you remember anything else Mr. Bennington said?”

“Not really. I’m afraid I was rather in a haze myself just then.”

“The great adventure?”

“Yes,” said Martyn gratefully. “I’ve an idea he said something about my performance. Perhaps I should explain that I knew he must be very disappointed and upset about my going on instead of Miss Gainsford, but his manner was not unfriendly and I have the impression that he meant to say he didn’t bear for me, personally, any kind of resentment. But that’s putting it too definitely. I’m not at all sure what he said, except for that one sentence. Of that I’m quite positive.”

“Good,” Alleyn said. “Thank you. Did you hear this remark, Mr. Doré?”

Jacko said promptly: “But certainly. I was already in the passage and he spoke loudly as I came up.”

“Did you form any opinion as to what he meant?”

“I was busy and very pleased with this Infant and I did not concern myself. If I thought at all it was to wonder if he was going to make a scene because the niece had not played. He had a talent for scenes. It appears to be a family trait. I thought perhaps he meant that this Infant would not be included in some scene he planned to make or be scolded for her success.”

“Did he seem to you to be upset?”

“Oh, yes. Yes. Upset. Yes.”

“Very much distressed, would you say?”

“All his visage wann’d?” inquired a voice in the background. “Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect?”

Alleyn moved his position until he could look past Gay and Darcey at the recumbent Doctor. “Or even,” he said, “his whole function suiting with forms to his conceit?”

“Hah!” The Doctor ejaculated and sat up. “Upon my soul, the whirligig of time brings in his revenges. Even to the point where dull detection apes at artifice, inspectors echo with informed breath their pasteboard prototypes of fancy wrought. I am amazed and know not what to say.” He helped himself to snuff and fell back into a recumbent position.

“Please don’t mind him,” Helena said, smiling at Alleyn. “He is a very foolish vain old man and has read somewhere that it’s clever to quote in a muddled sort of way from the better known bits of the Bard.”

“We encourage him too much,” Jacko added gloomily.

“We have become too friendly with him,” said Poole.

“And figo for thy friendship,” said Dr. Rutherford.

Parry Percival sighed ostentatiously and Darcey said: “Couldn’t we get on?” Alleyn looked good-humouredly at Jacko and said: “Yes, Mr. Doré?”

“I would agree,” Jacko said, “that Ben was very much upset, but that was an almost chronic condition of late with poor Ben. I believe now with Miss Hamilton that he had decided there was little further enjoyment to be found in observing the dissolution of his own character and was about to take the foolproof way of ending it. He wished to assure Martyn that the decision had nothing to do with chagrin over Martyn’s success or the failure of his niece. And that, if I am right, was nice of Ben.”

“I don’t think we need use the word ‘failure,’ ” J.G. objected. “Gay was quite unable to go on.”

“I hope you are better now, Miss Gainsford,” Alleyn said.

Gay made an eloquent gesture with both hands and let them fall in her lap. “What does it matter?” she said. “Better? Oh, yes, I’m better.” And with the closest possible imitation of Helena Hamilton’s familiar gesture she extended her hand, without looking at him, to J.G. Darcey. He took it anxiously. “Much better,” he said, patting it.

Martyn thought: “Oh, dear, he is in love with her. Poor J.G.!”

Alleyn looked thoughtfully at them for a moment and then turned to the others.

“There’s a general suggestion,” he said, “that none of you was very surprised by this event. May I just — sort of tally-up the general opinion as far as I’ve heard it? It helps to keep things tidy, I find. Miss Hamilton, you tell us that your husband had a curious, an almost morbid interest in the Jupiter case. You and Mr. Doré agree that Mr. Bennington had decided to take his life because he couldn’t face the ‘dissolution of his character.’ Miss Gainsford, if I understand her, believes he was deeply disturbed by the mise-en-scéne and also by her inability to go on to-night for this part. Miss Tarne’s account of what was probably the last statement he made suggests that he wanted her to understand that some action he had in mind had nothing to do with her. Mr. Doré supports this interpretation and confirms the actual words that were used. This, as far as it goes, is the only tangible bit of evidence as to intention that we have.”

Poole lifted his head. His face was very white and a lock of black hair had fallen over his forehead, turning him momentarily into the likeness, Martyn thought inconsequently, of Michelangelo’s Adam. He said: “There’s the fact itself, Alleyn. There’s what he did.”

Alleyn said carefully: “There’s an interval of perhaps eight minutes between what he said and when he was found.”

“Look here—” Parry Percival began, and then relapsed. “Let it pass,” he said. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Pipe up, Narcissus,” Dr. Rutherford adjured him, “the Inspector won’t bite you.”

“Oh, shut up!” Parry shouted, and was awarded a complete and astonished silence. He rose and addressed himself to the players. “You’re all being so bloody frank and sensible about this suicide,” he said, “You’re so anxious to show everybody how honest you are. The Doctor’s so unconcerned he can even spare a moment to indulge in his favourite pastime of me-baiting. I know what the Doctor thinks about me and it doesn’t say much for his talents as a diagnostician. But if it’s queer to feel desperately sorry for a man who was miserable enough to choke himself to death at a gas jet, if it’s queer to be physically and mentally sick at the thought of it, then, by God, I’d rather be queer than normal. Now!”

There followed a silence broken only by the faint whisper of the young constable’s pencil.

Dr. Rutherford struggled to his feet and lumbered down to Parry.

“Your argument, my young coxcomb,” he said thoughtfully, “is as sea-worthy as a sieve. As for my diagnosis, if you’re the normal man you’d have me believe, why the hell don’t you show like one? You exhibit the stigmata of that water-fly whom it is a vice to know, and fly into a fit when the inevitable conclusion is drawn.” He took Parry by the elbow and addressed himself to the company in the manner of a lecturer. “A phenomenon,” he said, “that is not without its dim interest. I invite your attention. Here is an alleged actor who, an hour or two since, was made a public and egregious figure of fun by the deceased. Who was roasted by the deceased before an audience of a thousand whinnying nincompoops. Who allowed his performance to be prostituted by the deceased before this audience. Who before his final and most welcome exit suffered himself to be tripped up contemptuously by the deceased, and who fell on his painted face before this audience. Here is this phenomenon, ladies and gents, who now proposes himself as Exhibit A in the Compassion Stakes. I invite your—”

Poole said “Quiet!” and when Dr. Rutherford grinned at him added: “I meant it, John. You will be quiet if you please.”

Parry wrenched himself free from the Doctor and turned on Alleyn. “You’re supposed to be in charge here—” he began, and Poole said quickly: “Yes, Alleyn, I really do think that this discussion is getting quite fantastically out of hand. If we’re all satisfied that this is a case of suicide—”

“Which,” Alleyn said, “we are not.”

They were all talking at once: Helena, the Doctor, Parry, Gay and Darcey. They were like a disorderly chorus in a verse-play. Martyn, who had been watching Alleyn, was terrified. She saw him glance at the constable. Then he stood up.