The theatre had become very silent. Far away in the front of the house a door slammed and immediately afterwards they heard a clock strike. Eleven. Twenty minutes ago the dead man under the length of brocade had been vigorous and alert; the echo of his voice had scarcely died away. To Nigel it seemed more like two hours.

"Alleyn," he said suddenly, "you don't think it was Felix, do you?"

"Bless the boy, I'm not a medium. I haven't the foggiest idea who it was, but he's no likelier than any of the others. He didn't load the revolver. The fact of his pulling the trigger doesn't appear to be particularly relevant. I say it doesn't appear to be. He may have to answer a technical charge of manslaughter. I don't know. Don't understand law."

"Bosh."

"Don't say bosh to me, child. Can you write shorthand?"

"Yes."

"Then take this notebook, sit on the other side of the scenery, and write down the ensuing conversations. Do it quietly. Your finger on your lips and all that."

"I don't want your notebook. Got one of my own."

"As you please. Here comes Simpson. Skedaddle."

Nigel slipped out of the upstage entrance, leaving the door ajar. In the half-light offstage he saw a large round footstool of the type known as a "pouf." He pulled it quietly towards the entrance, sat down, and took out his scribbling pad and stylo. He heard someone come down the dressing-room passage and walk on to the stage at the prompt corner. From behind the scene flat, and quite close to him, Alleyn spoke.

"Oh, here you are, Mr. Simpson. Frightfully sorry to keep you all hanging about like this, but I want to do as much as I can before the scent, if there is a scent, grows cold. Do sit down."

There was a gentle sound of a soft impact, and the rustle of a silk cushion. Then Simpson spoke. "Of course—anything I can do to help."

"I want you to tell me 'in your own words,' as leading counsel loves to say, the exact procedure that took place every evening, and particularly this evening, in regard to the ammunition used in the revolver. As I remember, Mr. Surbonadier loaded the revolver with cartridges that he took from a drawer in a writing-desk during the first scene in the last act. Who put those cartridges there?"

"The murderer."

"I see," said Alleyn good-humouredly, "that you take my point. I should have said: Who put the dummy cartridges there?"

"I did," said George Simpson.

CHAPTER FIVE

Statement of the Stage Manager

NIGEL EXPERIENCED a slight thrill in taking down Simpson's last statement—a thrill that was at once tempered by the reflection that the placing of the dummy cartridges was of little importance in tracing the deadly ones. Alleyn went on easily:

"You did. Splendid. Now, when exactly did you put the dummies in that drawer?"