She looked piteously at him. She was rubbing her wrists where he had gripped them. As if on an impulse, she held out her hand.

"Can't you believe me—and pity me?" she whispered.

A silence fell between them. For some seconds neither moved or spoke, and then he was beside her, her hand held close between both of his. He raised it, her fingers threaded through his own. He had bent his head and stood in what seemed to be a posture of profound meditation.

"You've won," he said at last.

She leant forward and touched her face against his fingers, and then, with her free hand, she pulled aside the eiderdown quilt and let it slide to the floor.

"Last night I thought you were going to kiss my hand," she said.

"To-night—" He kissed it deliberately. In the silence that followed they heard someone come at a brisk walk down the narrow street. The sound of footsteps seemed to bring her back to earth. She drew her hand away and stood up.

"I congratulate you," she said.

"On what?"

"On your intelligence. You would have made a bad gaffe if you had arrested me. Will you let me go away now?"

"If you must."

"Indeed I must. Tell me—what made you first suspect me?"

"Your cosmetic was on the cartridges."

She turned away to the window and looked into the street.

"But how extraordinary," she said quietly. "That bottle was overturned on my table. Arthur himself knocked it over." She seemed to ponder this for a moment and then she said quickly: "That means whoever did it was in my room?"

"Yes. Your room was empty just before it happened. You were talking to Gardener next door."

"No, no. That's all wrong. At least he may have gone in there. No, he didn't. He was on the stage by that time. Arthur knocked the bottle over. He was splashed with the stuff. When he put the cartridges in the drawer, there was some on his hands. Probably there was still some more of it on his thumb when he loaded the revolver. He realised it was all up with him, and he wanted Felix accused of murder. Or me. He may have deliberately used my wet-white. It would have been like him."

"Would it? You poor child!"

"Yes. Oh, I know that's it. "

"I wonder if you can be right," said Alleyn.

"I'm sure I am."

"I'll approach it again from that angle," he said, but he scarcely seemed aware of what he said. He looked at her hungrily, as though he would never be satisfied with looking.

"I must go now. May I take—the letters—or must they come out?"

"You may have them."

He went into the next room and got the letters. When he came back with them she looked them through carefully.

"But there's one missing," she said.

"I don't think so."