“I hardly think so,” Martyn whispered, and tried to make nothing of his lips against her palm.

“Will you believe, Kate, that I am not in the habit of making passes at young ladies in my company?”

Martyn found herself looking at the back of Helena’s chair.

“Oh yes,” Poole said. “There’s that, too. I make no bones about that. It’s another and a long and a fading story. On both parts. Fading on both parts, Kate. I have been very much honoured.”

“I can’t help feeling this scene is being played at the wrong time, in the wrong place and before the wrong audience. And I doubt,” Martyn said, not looking at him, “if it should be played at all.”

“But I can’t be mistaken. It has happened for us, Martyn. Hasn’t it? Suddenly, preposterously, almost at first sight we blinked and looked again and there we were. Tell me it’s happened. The bird under your wrist is so wildly agitated. Is that only because you are frightened?”

“I am frightened. I wanted to ask your advice and now you make it impossible.”

“I’ll give you my advice. There. Now you are alone again. But for the sake of the law’s peace of mind as well as my own you must take a firm line about your blushing.”

“It was something he said to me that morning,” she murmured in the lowest voice she could command.

“Do you mean the morning when I first saw you?”

“I mean,” Martyn said desperately, “the morning the photographs were taken. I had to go to his dressing-room.”

“I remember very well. You came to mine too.”

“He said something, then. He was very odd in his manner. They’ve asked us to try and remember anything at all unusual.”

“Are you going to tell me what it was?”

In a few words and under her breath she did so.

Poole said: “Perhaps you should tell them. Yes, I think you should. In a moment I’ll do something about it, but there’s one thing more I must say to you. Do you know I’m glad this scene has been played so awkwardly — inaudible, huddled up, inauspicious and uneffective. Technically altogether bad. It gives it a kind of authority, I hope. Martyn, are you very much surprised? Please look at me.”

She did as he asked and discovered an expression of such doubt and anxiety in his face that to her own astonishment she put her hand against his cheek and he held it there for a second. “God,” he said, “what a thing to happen!” He got up abruptly and crossed the stage.

“Inspector,” he said, “Miss Tarne has remembered an incident three days old which we both think might possibly be of some help. What should we do about it?” The others stirred a little. J.G. opened his eyes. Fox got up. “Thank you very much, sir,” he said. “When Mr. Alleyn is disengaged I’m sure he’ll— Yes? What is it?”

P. C. Lamprey had come in. He delivered a message that the dressing-rooms were now open for the use of their occupants. At the sound of his brisk and loudish voice they all stirred. Helena and Darcey got to their feet Jacko sat up. Clem, Gay and Dr. Rutherford opened their eyes, listened to the announcement and went to sleep again.

Fox said: “You can take this young lady along to the Chief in three minutes, Lamprey. Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you’d care to go to your rooms.”

He shepherded Helena and Darcey through the door and looked back at Poole. “What about you, sir?”

Poole, with his eyes on Martyn, said: “Yes, I’m coming.” Fox waited stolidly at the door for him and, after a moment’s hesitation, Poole followed the others. Fox went with them.

Mike Lamprey said: “We’ll let them get settled, Miss Tarne, and then I’ll take you along to Mr. Alleyn. You must be getting very bored with all this hanging about.” Martyns whose emotional processes were in a state of chaos, replied with a vague smile. She wondered disjointedly if constables of P. C. Lamprey’s class were a commonplace in the English Force. He glanced good-humouredly at Gay and the three dozing men and evidently felt obliged to make further conversation.

“I heard someone say,” he began, “that you are a New Zealander. I was out there as a small boy.”

“Were you, really?” Martyn said, and wondered confusedly if he could have been the son of a former governor-general.

“We had a place out there on a mountain. Mount Silver, it was. Would that be anywhere near your part of the world?”

Something clicked in Martyn’s memory. “Oh yes!” she said. “I’ve heard about the Lampreys of Mount Silver, I’m sure, and—” Her recollection clarified a little. “Yes, indeed,” she added lamely.

“No doubt,” said Mike with a cheerful laugh, “a legend of lunacy has survived us. We came Home when I was about eight, and soon afterwards my uncle happened to get murdered in our flat and Mr. Alleyn handled the case. I thought at the time I’d like to go into the Force and the idea sort of persisted. And there you are, you know. Potted autobiography. Shall we go along and see if he’s free?”

He escorted her down the passage to the Greenroom door, past Sergeant Gibson, who seemed to be on guard there. Mike chatted freely as they went, rather as if he were taking her into supper after a successful dance. The star-bemused Martyn found herself brightly chatting back at him.

This social atmosphere was not entirely dispelled, she felt, by Alleyn himself, who received her rather as a distinguished surgeon might greet a patient.

“Come in, Miss Tarne,” he said cordially. “I hear you’ve thought of something to tell us about this wretched business. Do sit down.”

She sat in her old chair, facing the gas fire and with her back to the table. Only when she looked up involuntarily at the sketch of Adam Poole did she realize that young Lamprey had settled himself at the table and taken out a note-book. She could see his image reflected in the glass.

Inspector Fox came in and went quietly to the far end of the room, where he sat in a shadowed corner and appeared to consult his own note-book.

“Well,” Alleyn said, “what’s it all about?”

“You’ll probably think it’s about nothing,” Martyn began, “and if you do I shall be sorry I’ve bothered you with it. But I thought — just in case—”

“You were perfectly right. Believe me, we are ‘conditioned,’ if that’s the beastly word, to blind alleys. Let’s have it.”

“On my first morning in this theatre,” Martyn said, “which was the day before yesterday… no, if it’s past midnight, the day before that.”

“Tuesday?”

“Yes. On that morning I went to Mr. Bennington’s room to fetch Miss Hamilton’s cigarette case. He was rather strange in his manner, but at first I thought that was because — I thought he’d noticed my likeness to Mr. Poole. He couldn’t find the case and in hunting through the pockets of a jacket, he dropped a letter to the floor. I picked it up and he drew my attention to it in the oddest sort of way. I’d describe his manner almost as triumphant. He said something about autographs. I think he asked me if I collected autographs or autographed letters. He pointed to the envelope, which I still had in my hand, and said there was somebody who’d give a hell of a lot for that one. Those, I’m almost sure, were his exact words.”

“Did you look at the letter?”

“Yes, I did, because of what he said. It was addressed to him and it had a foreign stamp on it. The writing was very bold and it seemed to me foreign-looking. I put it on the shelf face downwards and he drew my attention to it again by stabbing at it with his finger. The name of the sender was written on the back.”

“Do you remember it?”

“Yes, I do, because of his insistence.”

“Good girl,” said Alleyn quietly.

“It was Otto Brod and the address was a theatre in Prague. I’m afraid I don’t remember the name of the theatre or the street. I ought to remember the theatre. It was a French name, Théâtre de — something. Why can’t I remember!”

“You haven’t done badly. Was there something in the envelope?”