Surbonadier, in his character of the Beaver, was standing in the upstage entrance facing the audience. With one hand he held on to the door and with the other he fumbled with his spotted neckerchief below his scrubby beard. His mouth was half open and he seemed to be short of breath.

At last he spoke. So complete was the duplication of the scene in the dressing-room that Nigel expected to hear him repeat: "Quite a jolly little party," and got another shock when he said very softly:

"So the Rat's in his hole at last!"

"Beaver!" whispered Felix Gardener. It was a line that most actors would have played for a laugh. Few actors could have played it otherwise, but Felix Gardener did. He made it sound horrible.

The Beaver came downstage. His right hand now held a revolver. "You're not a killer, Rat," he said. "I am. Put 'em up."

Gardener's hands went slowly above his head. Surbonadier patted him all over, still covering him with the gun. Then he backed away. He began to arraign Gardener. The intensity of his fury, repressed and controlled apparently by the most stringent effort, touched the audience like venom. The emotional contact between the players and the house was tightened to an almost unendurable tension. Nigel felt profoundly uncomfortable. It seemed to him that this was no fustian scene between the Rat and the Beaver, but a development of the antagonism of two men, indecently played out in public. "Carruthers, the Rat" was his friend Felix Gardener, and the "Beaver" was Arthur Surbonadier, who hated him. The whole business was beastly and he would have liked to look away from it, but for the life of him he couldn't do so.

"Round every corner, Rat, you've waited for me," Surbonadier was saying now. "Every job I've done this last year you've bitched for me, Rat—Rat. You've mucked round my girl." His voice rose hysterically. "I've had enough. I'm through—I've come to finish it and, by God, I've come to finish you!"

"Not this evening, Beaver. It's a lovely little plan and I hate to spoil your party, but you see we're not alone."

"What are you saying?"

"We're not alone." Gardener spoke with the exasperating facetiousness of the popular hero. "There's a good angel watching over you, Beaver. You're covered, my Beaver."

"Do I look easy?"

"You look lovely, my Beaver, but if you don't believe me take a step to your right and glance in the mirror behind me, and I think you'll see the image of the angel that's watching you."

Surbonadier moved upstage. His right hand still held the revolver levelled at Gardener, but for a second he shifted his gaze to the mirror above Gardener's head. Then slowly he turned and stared at the upstage entrance. A moment, and Stephanie Vaughan stood in the doorway. She too held a revolver, pointed at Surbonadier.