‘No. I’m reading.’ His eye lit on Gertrude Bracey’s parcel. ‘Might as well look it over,’ he said and unwrapped a tie. ‘Where’d she dig that up?’ he wondered and returned to his comic.

‘You are a young toad, aren’t you?’ Alleyn remarked. ‘How old are you, in heaven’s name?’

‘Eleven and three months,’ Trevor said. He was helping himself to a crystallized plum.

A slight rumpus broke out in the passage. Peregrine put his head round the door. ‘Marco and Harry are both here,’ he said and cast up his eyes.

When Alleyn joined him at the door he muttered: ‘Marco won’t wait. He didn’t want to come. And Harry says he got here first. He’s up to his usual game,’ Peregrine said, ‘Knight-baiting.’

‘Tell him to shut up and wait or I’ll run him in.’

‘I wish to heaven you would, at that.’

‘Ask Knight to come along.’

‘Yes. All right.’

‘No sign of Conducis as yet?’

‘No.’

When Marcus Knight came in he did not exhibit his usual signs of emotional disturbance: the flashing eye, the empurpled cheek, the throbbing pulse and the ringing tone. On the contrary he was pale and as near to being subdued, Alleyn felt, as he could be. He laid his offering upon the now filled-to-capacity bed-tray. Fruit: in season and a gilded basket. He brusquely ran his fingers through Trevor’s curls and Trevor immediately responded with a look that successfully combined Young Hamnet and Paul Dombey.

‘Oh, Mr Knight,’ he said, ‘you honestly shouldn’t. You are kind. Grapes! How fab!’

A rather stilted bedside conversation followed during which Knight gave at least half his uneasy attention to Alleyn. Presently Trevor complained that he had slipped down in his bed and asked his illustrious guest to help him up. When Knight with an ill grace bent over him, Trevor gazed admiringly into his face and wreathed his arm round his neck. ‘Just like the end of Act I come true,’ he said, ‘isn’t it, Mr Knight? I ought to be wearing a glove.’

Knight hurriedly extricated himself. A look of doubt crossed Trevor’s face. ‘The glove,’ he repeated. ‘There’s something about the real one – isn’t there? Something?’

Knight looked a question at Alleyn who said: ‘Trevor doesn’t recall the latter part of his adventures in the theatre on Saturday night. I think Jay has explained that we hope one of you may help to restore his memory.’

‘I am remembering more,’ Trevor said importantly. ‘I remember hearing Mr Knight in the office with Mr Morris.’

Marcus Knight stiffened. ‘I believe you are aware, Alleyn, that I left with Morris at about eleven.’

‘He has told us so,’ Alleyn said.