“One moment,” he said. The chorus broke off as inconsequently as it had begun.

“We’ve reached a point,” Alleyn said, “where it’s my duty to tell you I’m by no means satisfied that this is, in fact, a case of suicide.”

Martyn was actually conscious, in some kind, of a sense of relief. She could find no look either of surprise or of anger in any of her fellow-players. Their faces were so many white discs and they were motionless and silent. At last Clem Smith said with an indecent lack of conviction: “He was horribly careless about things like that — taps, I mean—” His voice sank to a murmur. They heard the word “accident.”

“Is it not strange,” Jacko said loudly, “how loath one is to pronounce the word that is in all our minds. And truth to tell, it has a soft and ugly character.” His lips closed over his fantastic teeth. He used the exaggerated articulation of an old actor. “Murder,” he said. “So beastly, isn’t it?”

It was at this point that one of the stage-hands, following, no doubt, his routine for the night, pulled up the curtain and exhibited the scene of climax to the deserted auditorium.

Chapter VIII

AFTERPIECE

From this time onward, through the watches of that night, it seemed to Martyn that a second play was acted out in the Vulcan: a play that wrote itself as it went along, with many excursions into irrelevance, with countless longueurs and with occasional unanticipated scenes of climax. She was unable to dismiss the sense of an audience that watched in the shrouded seats, or the notion that the theatre itself was attentive to the action on its stage.

This illusion was in some sort created by the players, for it seemed to Martyn that each of them was acting a part. She was not on this account repelled by any of them, but rather felt drawn towards them all as one is to people with whom one shares a common danger. They were of one guild. Even Gay Gainsford’s excesses were at first a cause only of resigned irritation, and Parry Percival’s outburst, Martyn felt, was understandable. On the whole she thought the better of him for it.

When she considered them all as they sat about their own working-stage, bruised by anxiety and fatigue, Jacko’s ugly word sounded not so much frightening as preposterous. It was unthinkable that it could kindle even a bat-light of fear in any of their hearts. “And yet,” thought Martyn, “it has done so. There are little points of terror burning in all of us like match-flames.”

After Jacko had spoken there was a long silence, broken at last by Adam Poole, who asked temperately: “Are we to understand, Alleyn, that you have quite ruled out the possibility of suicide?”

“By no means,” Alleyn rejoined. “I still hope you may be able, among you, to show that there is at least a clear enough probability of suicide for us to leave the case as it stands until the inquest. But where there are strong indications that it may not be suicide we can’t risk waiting as long as that without a pretty exhaustive look round.”

“And there are such indications?”

“There are indeed.”

“Strong?”

Alleyn waited a moment. “Sufficiently strong,” he said.

“What are they?” Dr. Rutherford demanded.

“It must suffice,” Alleyn quibbled politely, “that they are sufficient.”

“An elegant sufficiency, by-God!”

“But, Mr. Alleyn,” Helena cried out, “what can we tell you. Except that we all most sincerely believe that Ben did this himself. Because we know him to have been bitterly unhappy. What else is there for us to say?”

“It will help, you know, when we get a clear picture of what you were all doing and where you were between the time he left the stage and the time he was found. Inspector Fox is checking now with the stage-staff. I propose to do so with the players.”

“I see,” she said. She leant forward and her air of reasonableness and attention was beautifully executed. “You want to find out which of us had the opportunity to murder Ben.”

Gay Gainsford and Parry began an outcry, but Helena raised her hand and they were quiet. “That’s it, isn’t it?” she said.

“Yes,” Alleyn said, “that really is it. I fancy you would rather be spared the stock evasions about routine enquiries and all the rest of it.”

“Much rather.”

“I was sure of it,” Alleyn said. “Then shall we start with you, if you please?”

“I was on the stage for the whole of that time, Mr. Alleyn. There’s a scene, before Ben’s exit, between J.G. — that’s Mr. Darcey over there — Parry, Adam, Ben and myself. First Parry and then J.G. goes off and Ben follows a moment later. Adam and I finish the play.”

“So you, too,” Alleyn said to Poole, “were here, on the stage, for the whole of this period?”

“I go off for a moment after his exit. It’s a strange, rather horridly strange, coincidence that in the play he — the character he played, I mean — does commit suicide off-stage. He shoots himself. When I hear the shot I go off. The two other men have already made their exits. They remain off but I come on again almost immediately. I wait outside the door on the left from a position where I can watch Miss Hamilton, and I re-enter on a ‘business’ cue from her.”

“How long would this take?”

“Shall we show you?” Helena suggested. She got up and moved to the centre of the stage. She raised her clasped hands to her mouth and stood motionless. She was another woman.

As if Clem had called “Clear stage”—and indeed he looked about him with an air of authority — Martyn, Jacko and Gay moved into the wings. Parry and J.G. went to the foot of the stairs and Poole crossed to above Helena. They placed themselves thus in the businesslike manner of a rehearsal. The Doctor, however, remained prone on his sofa, breathing deeply and completely disregarded by everybody. Helena glanced at Clem Smith, who went to the book.

“From Ben’s exit, Clem,” Poole said, and after a moment Helena turned and addressed herself to the empty stage on her left.

“I’ve only one thing to say, but it’s between the three of us.” She turned to Parry and Darcey. “Do you mind?” she asked them.

Parry said: “I don’t understand and I’m past minding.”

Darcey said: “My head is buzzing with a sense of my own inadequacy. I shall be glad to be alone.”

They went out, each on his own line, leaving Helena, Adam, and the ghost of Bennington on the stage.

Helena spoke again to vacancy. “It must be clear to you, now. It’s the end, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Clem’s voice said. “I understand you perfectly. Good-bye, my dear.”

They watched the door on the left. Alleyn took out his watch. Helena made a quick movement as if to prevent the departure of an unseen person and Poole laid his hand on her arm. They brought dead Ben back to the stage by their mime and dismissed him as vividly. It seemed that the door must open and shut for him as he went out.

Poole said: “And now I must speak to you alone.” There followed a short passage of dialogue which he and Helena played a tempo but with muted voices. Jacko, in the wings, clapped his hands and the report was as startling as a gun-shot. Poole ran out through the left-hand door.

Helena traced a series of movements about the stage. Her gestures were made in the manner of an exercise but the shadow of their significance was reflected in her face. Finally she moved into the window and seemed to compel herself to look out. Poole re-entered.

“Thank you,” Alleyn said, shutting his watch. “Fifty seconds. Will you all come on again, if you please?”

When they had assembled in their old positions, he said: “Did anyone notice Mr. Poole as he waited by the door for his re-entry?”

“The door’s recessed,” Poole said. “I was more or less screened.”

“Someone off-stage may have noticed, however.” He looked from Darcey to Percival.