They walked out of The Younger Dolphin into a deluge.

Neither of them had a mackintosh or an umbrella. They huddled in the entrance and discussed the likelihood of raising a cab. Peregrine went back and telephoned a radio taxi number to be told nothing would be available for at least twenty minutes. When he rejoined Emily the rain had eased off a little.

‘I tell you what,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a gamp and a mac in the office. Let’s run down the hill, beat Jobbins up and collect them. Look, it’s almost stopped.’

‘Come on, then.’

‘Mind you don’t slip.’

Hand in hand they ran wildly and noisily down Wharfingers Lane. They reached the turning at the bottom, rounded the corner and pulled up outside The Dolphin. They laughed and were exhilarated.

‘Listen!’ Emily exclaimed, ‘Peregrine, listen. Somebody else is running in the rain.’

‘It’s someone in the stage-door alley.’

‘So it is.’

The other runner’s footsteps rang out louder and louder on the wet cobblestones. He came out of the alley into the lane and his face was open-mouthed like a gargoyle.

He saw them and he flung himself upon Peregrine, pawed at his coat and jabbered into his face. It was the night-watchman who relieved Jobbins.

‘For Gawsake!’ he said. ‘Oh, my Gawd, Mr Jay, for Gawsake.’

‘What the devil’s the matter? What is it? What’s happened!’

‘Murder,’ the man said, and his lips flabbered over the word. ‘That’s what’s happened, Mr Jay. Murder.’

CHAPTER 6
Disaster

While he let them in at the stage-door the man – he was called Hawkins – said over and over again in a shrill whine that it wasn’t his fault if he was late getting down to the theatre. Nobody, he said, could blame him. He turned queer, as was well-known, at the sight of blood. It was as much as Peregrine could do to get the victim’s name out of him. He had gone completely to pieces.

They went through the stage-door into the dark house, and up the aisle and so to the foyer. It was as if they had never left the theatre.

Peregrine said to Emily: ‘Wait here. By the box-office. Don’t come any farther.’

‘I’ll come if you want me.’

‘O Gawd no. O Gawd no, Miss.’

‘Stay here, Emily. Or wait in front. Yes. Just wait in front.’ He opened the doors into the stalls and fastened them back. She went in. ‘Now, Hawkins,’ Peregrine said.

‘You go, Mr Jay. Up there. I don’t ’ave to go. I can’t do nothing. I’d vomit. Honest I would.’

Peregrine ran up the graceful stairway towards the sunken landing: under the treasure where both flights emerged. It was dark up there but he had a torch and used it. The beam shot out and found an object.