‘Well, I don’t know,’ Destiny rambled on. ‘Who could it be if it’s not Trevor? That’s what we’ve got to ask ourselves. Perhaps, though I’m sure I can’t think why, and say what you like motive is important – ’ She broke off and made an enchanting little grimace at Harry Grove. ‘Now don’t you laugh,’ she said. ‘But for all that just suppose. Just suppose – it was Mr Conducis.’

‘My dear girl –’

‘Destiny, honestly.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, darling –’

‘I know it sounds silly,’ Destiny said, ‘but nobody seems to have any other suggestions and after all he was there.’

III

The silence that followed Destiny’s remark was so profound that Alleyn heard Fox’s pencil skate over a page in his note-book.

He said: ‘You mean, Miss Meade, that Mr Conducis was in the audience? Not backstage?’

‘That’s right. In front. In the upstairs OP box. I noticed him when I made my first entrance. I mentioned it to you, Charles, didn’t I, when you were holding me up. “There’s God” I said, “in the OP box”.’

‘Mr Morris, did you know Mr Conducis was in front?’

‘No, I didn’t. But he’s got the OP box for ever,’ Morris said. ‘It’s his whenever he likes to use it. He lends it to friends and for all I know occasionally slips in himself. He doesn’t let us know if he’s coming. He doesn’t like a fuss.’

‘Nobody saw him come or go?’

‘Not that I know.’

Gertrude Bracey said loudly: ‘I thought our mysterious Mr W. H. was supposed to be particularly favoured by Our Patron. Quite a Shakespearian situation or so one hears. Perhaps he can shed light.’

‘My dear Gertie,’ Harry Grove said cheerfully, ‘you really should try to keep a splenetic fancy within reasonable bounds. Miss Bracey,’ he said, turning to Alleyn, ‘refers, I think, to the undoubted fact that Mr Conducis very kindly recommended me to the management. I did him a slight service once upon a time and he is obliging enough to be obliged. I had no idea he was in front, Gertie dear, until I heard you hissing away about it as you lay on The King Dolphin’s bosom at the end of Act 1.’

‘Mr Knight,’ Alleyn asked, ‘did you know Mr Conducis was there?’

Knight looked straight in front of him and said with exaggerated clarity as if voicing an affront, ‘It became evident.’

Destiny Meade, also looking neither to left or right and speaking clearly, remarked: ‘The less said about that the better.’

‘Undoubtedly,’ Knight savagely agreed.

She laughed.

Winter Morris said: ‘Yes, but – ’ and stopped short. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘As you were.’

‘But in any case it can be of no conceivable significance,’ Jeremy Jones said impatiently. He had been silent for so long that his intervention caused a minor stir.