"I've a good mind to have you turfed out at the end of a boot," continued Alleyn. He looked seriously at Nigel. "However, I won't do that. I will merely return my card with an additional memorandum. If you still want to stay here you may."

He wrote something on the back of the card and flipped it across the orchestra well.

Nigel caught it and held it to the light. Inspector Alleyn wrote in tiny but exceedingly clear characters, yet, though there were only seven words on the card, Nigel appeared to take an unconscionable time deciphering them. At last he raised his head and he and Alleyn looked at each other.

"It's a mistake," said Nigel.

"No."

"But——" He stopped short and wetted his lips. "No motive," said Nigel at last.

"Every motive."

"I'll stay," said Nigel.

"Very well. House lights, please, Mr. Simpson."

Once again the front of the house was dark.

"I think they are all here now, Inspector Alleyn," said Simpson nervously.

"Ask them to come here, will you, Watkins?" said Alleyn.

The company of The Rat and the Beaver reassembled for the last time on the stage of the Unicorn. They came down the passage in single file. Susan Max and Stephanie Vaughan appeared first. Then came Janet Emerald walking with the gait she used in the provinces for the last act of Madam X. Dulcie Deamer followed, expressing tragic bewilderment. Next came Felix Gardener, very white-faced and alone. Howard Melville and J. Barclay Crammer delayed their entrance and made it arm-in-arm with heads held high, like French aristocrats approaching the tumbrels.

"Everybody on the stage, please," said George Simpson.

The players walked through the wings and stood quietly in a semi-circle. They looked attentive and businesslike. It was almost as though they had needed the stage and the lights to give them full solidity. They no longer seemed preposterous or even artificial. They were in their right environment and had become real.

Alleyn stood down by the float, facing the stage. From the auditorium, with the full stage lighting behind him, it was he who now looked a strange shadow, but for the actors there was no suggestion of this; to them he was in the accustomed place of the producer, and they watched him attentively.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Alleyn, "I have asked you to come here this morning in order that we may stage a reconstruction of the first scene in the last act of The Rat and the Beaver. In that scene, as you know, the deceased man, Mr. Arthur Surbonadier, loaded the revolver by which he was subsequently shot. You are all aware that Mr. Jacob Saint is under arrest. He will not be present. Otherwise, with the exception of the deceased, whose part will be read by Mr. Simpson, we are all here."

He paused for a moment. The stage manager looked as though he wanted to say something.

"Yes, Mr. Simpson?"