‘I think,’ Alleyn said, ‘we’d better, both of us, remind ourselves about actors.’

‘You do? What about them?’

‘One must always remember that they’re trained to convey emotion. On or off the stage, they make the most of everything they feel. Now this means they express their feelings up to saturation point. When you and I and all the rest of the non-actors do our damndest to understate and be ironical about our emotional reflexes, the actor, even when he underplays them, does so with such expertise that he convinces us laymen that he’s in extremis. He isn’t. He’s only being professionally articulate about something that happens off-stage instead of in front of an official audience.’

‘How does all this apply to Mr Knight, then?’

‘When he turns purple and roars anathemas against Grove it means, A, that he’s hot-tempered, pathologically vain and going through a momentary hell and B, that he’s letting you know up to the nth degree just how angry and dangerous he’s feeling. It doesn’t necessarily mean that once his present emotion has subsided he will do anything further about it, and nor does it mean that he’s superficial or a hypocrite. It’s his job to take the micky out of an audience and even in the throes of a completely genuine emotional crisis, he does just that thing if it’s only an audience of one.’

‘Is this what they call being an extrovert?’

‘Yes, Br’er Fox, I expect it is. But the interesting thing about Knight, I thought, was that when it came to Conducis he turned uncommunicative and cagey.’

‘Fancied himself slighted over something, it seemed. Do you reckon Knight believes all that about Grove? Being a homicidal type? All that stuff about pale eyes etcetera. Because,’ Fox said with great emphasis, ‘it’s all poppycock: there aren’t any facial characteristics for murder. What’s that you’re always quoting about there being no art to find the mind’s construction in the face? I reckon it’s fair enough where homicide’s concerned. Although,’ Fox added opening his own eyes very wide, ‘I always fancy there’s a kind of look about sex offenders of a certain type. That I will allow.’

‘Be that as it may it doesn’t get us much further along our present road. No news from the hospital?’

‘No. They’d ring through at once if there was.’

‘I know. I know.’

‘What do we do about Mr Jeremy Jones?’

‘Oh, blast! What indeed! I think we take delivery of the glove and documents, give him hell and go no further. I’ll talk to the AC about him and I rather think I’ll have to tell Conducis as soon as possible. Who’ve we got left here? Only little Morris. Ask him into his own office, Br’er Fox. We needn’t keep him long, I think.’