"I'd risk the unhappiness," he muttered. "I want you so much." He pressed his face into her neck. She shivered a little. Unseen by him her face expressed a kind of exultant disgust. Her hands were on his hair. Suddenly she thrust him away.

"No, no, no," she said. "Don't! Leave me alone. Can't you see I'm sick of it all? Leave me alone."

In all the "bad men" parts he had played Surbonadier had never looked quite so evil as he did at that moment.

"I'm damned if I'll leave you alone," he said. "I'm not going to be kicked out. I don't care if you hate me. I want you, and by God I'll have you."

He took her by the wrists. She did not attempt to resist him. They stared, full of antagonism, into each other's faces.

Distantly an electric bell sounded and at once her moment of surrender, if it had been a moment of surrender, was past.

"That's the front door," she said. "Let me go, Arthur." She had to struggle before she could break away from him, and he was still beside her, in a state of rather blatant agitation, when Felix Gardener walked into the room.

CHAPTER TWO

"Overture and Beginners, Please"

THE STAGE door-keeper of the Unicorn glanced up at the grimy face of the clock—7.10. All the artists were snug in their dressing rooms now. All, that was, except old Susan Max, who played an insignificant part in the last act and was given a bit of license by the stage manager. Susan usually came in about eight.

Footsteps sounded in the alley outside. Old Blair uttered a kind of groaning sigh peculiar to himself, got creakily off his stool, and peered out into the warmish air. In a moment two men in evening dress stepped into the pool of uncertain light cast by the stage door lamp. Blair moved into the doorway and looked at them in silence.

"Good evening," said the shorter of the two men.

"'Evening, sir," said Blair, and waited.

"Can we see Mr. Gardener, do you think? He's expecting us. Mr. Bathgate." He opened a cigarette-case and produced a card. Old Blair took it and shifted his gaze to the taller of the two visitors. "Mr. Alleyn is with me," said Nigel Bathgate.

"Will you wait a moment, please?" said Blair, and holding the card in the palm of his hand as if he were rather ashamed of it, he walked off down the passage.

"That old gentleman had a good look at you," said Nigel Bathgate. He offered his cigarette-case.

"Perhaps he knew me," said Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn. "I'm as famous as anything, you know."

"Are you, now? Too famous, perhaps, to be amused at this sort of thing?" Nigel waved his cigarette in the direction of the passage.