Mr Greenslade, looking, in his unshaven state, strangely unlike himself, spread his hands and threw himself back in Winter Morris’s chair. Peregrine sat behind his own desk and Alleyn and Fox in two of the modish seats reserved for visitors. The time was twelve minutes past three and the air stale with the aftermath of managerial cigarettes and drinks.

‘You say nothing,’ Mr Greenslade observed. ‘You disagree?’

Alleyn said: ‘As an open-and-shut theory it has its attractions. It’s tidy. It’s simple. It means that we all sit back and hope for the boy to recover consciousness and health so that we can send him to the Juvenile Court for manslaughter.’

‘What I can’t quite see –’ Peregrine began and then said, ‘Sorry.’

‘No. Go on,’ Alleyn said.

‘I can’t see why the boy, having got the documents and glove, should come out to the circle foyer where he’d be sure to be seen by Jobbins on the half-landing. Why didn’t he go down through the circle by the box, stairs, and pass-door to the stage and let himself out by the stage-door?’

‘He might have wanted to show off. He might have – I am persuaded,’ Mr Greenslade said crossly, ‘that your objections can be met.’

‘There’s another thing,’ Peregrine said, ‘and I should have thought of it before. At midnight, Jobbins had to make a routine report to police and fire-station. He’d do it from the open telephone in the downstairs foyer.’

‘Very well,’ said Greenslade. ‘That would give the boy his opportunity. What do you say, Alleyn?’

‘As an investigating officer I’m supposed to say nothing,’ Alleyn said lightly. ‘But since the people at the bistro up the lane and the wretched Hawkins all put Jay out of the picture as a suspect and you yourself appear to have been some thirty miles away –’

‘Well, I must say!’