Parish got to his feet and moved restlessly about the room. Alleyn had dealt with people of the theatre before. He had learnt that their movements were habitually a little larger than life, and he knew that in many cases this staginess was the result of training and instinct and that it was a mistake to put it down to deliberate artifice. He knew that, in forming an opinion of the emotional integrity of actors, it was almost impossible to decide whether their outward-seeming was conscious or instinctive; whether it expressed their sensibility or merely their sense of theatre. Parish moved restlessly as though some dramatist had instructed him to do so. But he may not, thought Alleyn, know at this moment how beautifully he moves.

‘I begin to see it,’ said Parish suddenly. ‘Really it’s rather as if I tried to recall a dream, and a very bad dream, at that. You see the lights kept fading and wobbling, and then one had drunk rather a lot, and then afterwards all that happened makes it even more confused. I’m trying to think about it as a scene on the stage, a scene of which I’ve had to memorize the positions.’

‘That’s a very good idea,’ said Alleyn.

The door opened and a tall man with an untidy head looked in.

‘I beg your pardon. Sorry!’ murmured this man.

‘Mr Cubitt?’ asked Alleyn. Parish had turned quickly. ‘Do come in, please.’

Cubitt came in and put down a small canvas with its face to the wall. Parish introduced him.

‘I’d be glad if you’d stay,’ said Alleyn. ‘Mr Parish is going to try and recall for us the scene that followed the injury to Mr Watchman’s hand.’

‘Oh,’ said Cubitt and gave a lopsided grin. ‘All right. Go ahead, Seb. Sorry I cut in.’

He sat on a low chair near the fireplace and wound one thin leg mysteriously round the other. ‘Go ahead,’ he repeated.

Parish, at first, seemed a little disconcerted, but he soon became fortified by his own words.

‘Luke,’ he said, ‘is lying on the settle. The settle against the left-hand wall.’

‘Actors’ left or audience’s left?’ asked Cubitt.

‘Audience’s left. I’m deliberately seeing it as a stage setting, Norman.’

‘So I understand.’