‘I have told you. I am responsible. You might – ’ Mr Conducis’s voice faded but his lips soundlessly completed the sentence: ‘ – have been drowned.’

‘But honestly, sir!’ Peregrine launched himself on his little speech. ‘You’ve saved my life, you know. I would have just hung on by my fingers until they gave out and then – and then – well, finally and disgustingly drowned as you say.’

Almost soundlessly Mr Conducis said: ‘I should have blamed myself.’

‘But why on earth! For a hole in The Dolphin stage?’

‘It is my property.’

‘Oh,’ Peregrine ejaculated before he could stop himself, ‘how splendid!’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘I mean: how splendid to own it. It’s such an adorable little playhouse.’

Mr Conducis looked at him without expression. ‘Indeed?’ he said. ‘Splendid? Adorable? You make a study of theatres, perhaps?’

‘Not really. I mean I’m not an expert. Good lord, no! But I earn my living in theatres and I am enormously attracted by old ones.’

‘Yes. Will you join me in a drink?’ Mr Conducis said in his wooden manner. ‘I am sure you will.’ He moved to a tray on a sidetable.

‘Your man has already given me a very strong and wonderfully restoring hot rum and lemon.’

‘I am sure that you will have another. The ingredients are here.’

‘A very small one, please,’ Peregrine said. There was a singing sensation in his veins and a slight thrumming in his ears but he still felt wonderful. Mr Conducis busied himself at the tray. He returned with a steaming and aromatic tumbler for Peregrine and something that he had poured out of a jug for himself. Could it be barley water?

‘Shall we sit down,’ he suggested. When they had done so he gave Peregrine a hurried, blank glance and said: ‘You wonder why I was at the theatre, perhaps. There is some question of demolishing it and building on the site. An idea that I have been turning over for some time. I wanted to refresh my memory. The agents told my man you were there.’ He put two fingers in a waistcoat pocket and Peregrine saw his own card had been withdrawn. It looked incredibly grubby.

‘You – you’re going to pull it down?’ he said and heard a horribly false jauntiness in his own unsteady voice. He took a pull at his rum. It was extremely strong.

‘You dislike the proposal,’ Mr Conducis observed, making it a statement rather than a question. ‘Have you any reason other than a general interest in such buildings?’

If Peregrine had been absolutely sober and dressed in his own clothes it is probable that he would have mumbled something ineffectual and somehow or another made an exit from Mr Conducis’s house and from all further congress with its owner. He was a little removed however from his surroundings and the garments in which he found himself.