"Do!" Alleyn took a small bottle and a rag from his bag and thoroughly cleaned the hare's foot. He then began to use it as a tiny broom, sweeping up what appeared to be dust from the floor, into a little phial out of the bag. "What have you found, Bailey?" he asked.

"Prints from Props's rubber shoes, and Simpson's evening ones. Nobody else has stood right inside the prompt box."

"Well, I've got enough sand to be conclusive, if it tallies with what's in the blanks, and I think it will. Gosh, it's getting late!"

"Why the sand?" asked Nigel.

"Think. Think. Think."

"Oh, I see. If it's sand out of the cartridge case, it means Props did bring the dummies to Simpson and they must have been changed during the black-out."

"Stop laughing," said Alleyn to an imaginary audience. "The child's quite right. Now Bailey, will you get what you can in the way of prints from the revolver and the desk. Oh, lummie, what a muddle it all is! Let's have a look at the cartridges in the revolver."

The revolver, held delicately by the extreme end of the barrel, was laid on a table. Bailey, using the insufflator, tested it for fingerprints and, referring to those he had already got, disclosed sufficiently clear evidence of Gardener, Surbonadier, and the dresser having handled it. They broke it open and Bailey turned his attention to the butt ends of the shells. The revolver was a Smith and Wesson and the cartridges ordinary.455. The ends yielded no prints, except Surbonadier's, neither did any other part of the cartridges nor the empty shell.

"Blast!" said Bailey.

"Couldn't expect anything else," said Alleyn philosophically. "Hullo—what's this?"

He picked up one cartridge and held it under a stage lamp. Nigel followed him hopefully. He took out his magnifying glass and looked through it at the shell. He did this with all the other cartridges.

"What is it?" asked Nigel.

Alleyn handed him the glass and he in turn examined the cartridges.

Alleyn waited.

"There's—there's a kind of whitish look," ventured Nigel, "on all of them. It's very faint on most, but here's one where it looks clearer. It looks almost like paint."

"Smell it."

"I can smell nothing but brass."

"Put your cigarette out. Blow your nose. Now smell."

"There is something else. It reminds me of something. What is it?"

"It looks like one person. It smells like another."

"What on earth do you mean?"

"It looks like cosmetic and it smells like Jacob Saint."

CHAPTER EIGHT

Felix Gardener

"WHAT'S THE TIME?" said Alleyn, yawning.

"Nearly two o'clock and a dirty night."

"Oh, horror! I loathe late hours."

"Two's not late."

"Not for a journalist, perhaps. Hullo, here come the mummers."