‘All right,’ Alleyn said, ‘I’m off.’

He went to the Yard, treating himself to coffee and bacon and eggs on the way.

Fox, he was told, had come in. He arrived in Alleyn’s office looking, as always, neat, reasonable, solid and extremely clean. He made a succinct report. Jobbins appeared to have no near relations but the landlady at The Wharfinger’s Friend had heard him mention a cousin who was a lock-keeper near Marlow. The stage-crew and front-of-house people had been checked and were out of the picture. The routine search before locking up seemed to have been extremely thorough.

Bailey and Thompson had finished at the theatre where nothing of much significance had emerged. The dressing-rooms had yielded little beyond a note from Harry Grove that Destiny Meade had carelessly tucked into her make-up box.

‘Very frank affair,’ Mr Fox said primly.

‘Frank about what?’

‘Sex.’

‘Oh. No joy for us?’

‘Not in the way you mean, Mr Alleyn.’

‘What about the boy’s room?’

‘He shares with Mr Charles Random. A lot of horror comics including some of the American type that come within the meaning of the act respecting the importation of juvenile reading. One strip was about a well-developed female character called Slash who’s really a vampire. She carves up Olympic athletes and leaves her mark on them – “Slash”, in blood. It seems the lad was quite struck with this. He’s scrawled “Slash” across the dressing-room looking-glass with red greasepaint and we found the same thing on the front-of-house lavatory mirrors and on the wall of one of the upstairs boxes. The one on the audience’s left.’

‘Poor little swine.’

‘The landlady at The Wharfinger’s Friend reckons he’ll come to no good and blames the mother who plays the steel guitar at that strip-tease joint behind Magpie Alley. Half the time she doesn’t pick the kid up after his show and he gets left, hanging round the place till all hours, Mrs Jancy says.’

‘Mrs – ?’

‘Jancy. The landlady. Nice woman. The Blewitts don’t live far off as it happens. Somewhere behind Tabard Street at the back of the Borough.’

‘Anything more?’

‘Well – dabs. Nothing very startling. Bailey’s been able to pick up some nice, clean, control specimens from the dressing-rooms. The top of the pedestal’s a mess of the public’s prints, half dusted off by the cleaners.’

‘Nothing to the purpose?’

‘Not really. And you would expect,’ Fox said with his customary air of placid good sense, ‘if the boy acted vindictively, to find his dabs – two palms together where he pushed the thing over. Nothing of the kind, however, nice shiny surface and all. The carpet’s hopeless, of course. Our chaps have taken up the soiled area. Is anything the matter, Mr Alleyn?’

‘Nothing, Br’er Fox, except the word “soiled”.’

‘It’s not too strong,’ Fox said, contemplating it with surprise.

‘No. It’s dreadfully moderate.’

‘Well,’ Fox said, after a moment’s consideration, ‘you have a feeling for words, of course.’