They stumbled into the wings, where they were all met by Inspector Fox who had run agitatedly from the wardrobe-room. They all peered up the wall of the stage. An iron ladder ran aloft into the shadows. Soft footsteps padded up there in the dark, and presently among the shadows a darker shape could be seen. The iron ladder vibrated very faintly. Somebody was coming down.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Props

THE SHADOWY FIGURE came very deliberately down the ladder. Nigel, Alleyn and Bailey did not speak, but fell back a little. Nigel was still shaken by his escape from the chandelier. He felt bewildered, and watched, without thinking, the rubber soles of a pair of dilapidated tennis shoes come down, rung by rung. The man did not turn his face away from the wall until he had completed his descent. Then he swung round slowly.

Bailey moved forward and seized his arm.

"Now then—you," he said.

"Don't you act old-fashioned at me," snarled the man.

"Just a minute, Bailey," said Alleyn. Bailey stared indignantly round.

"You're the property master," said Alleyn. The man stood with his heels together and his hands held tidily at the seams of his trousers. His face was long, thin, and white; with eyebrows that grew together. He looked fixedly at a spot on the scenery above the inspector's head.

"Yessir," he said.

"Been at this job long?"

"Ever since I was demobbed."

"In the Brigade of Guards, weren't you?"

"Yessir. Grenadiers, sir. King's Company."

"You made the dummy cartridges for this show?"

"Yessir."

"Where are they?"

"I gave them to Mr. Simpson."

"The dummy cartridges. Are you sure of that?"

"Yessir."

"How are you so sure? They might have been the real thing."

"No, sir." The man swallowed. "I was looking at them. I dropped a cartridge, and the bullet was loose, sir."

"Where are they now?"

"I dunno, sir."

"How did you come to drop that chandelier?

Silence.

"How is it fixed up there?"

"On a pulley."

"And the rope turned round a piece of wood or something, to make it fast?"

"Yessir."

"Did the rope break or did you unwind it?"

"I can't say, sir."

"Very well. Sergeant Bailey, go up and have a look at the rope there, will you? Now, Props, you go up to the switchboard and give us some light behind the scenes."

Props turned smartly and did as he was told. In a moment, light flooded the back-stage harshly while, with the facial expression popularly attributed to a boot, Bailey climbed the ladder.

"Now come back." Props returned.

Alleyn had moved over to the desk which stood a little way out from the wings. Nigel, Fox, and the property master followed him. He drew out a pocket-knife and slipped the front of the blade under the top left-hand drawer and pulled it out.