"Can you all find somewhere to sit?" asked Gardener. He seated himself in front of his dressing-table. Alleyn and Nigel found a couple of arm-chairs.

The room was a blaze of lights and extremely warm. A gas jet protected by an open cage bubbled above the dressing-table, on which stood a mirror and all the paraphernalia of make-up. The room smelt of grease paint. Near the mirror lay a revolver and a pipe. A full-length glass hung on the right-hand wall by a wash-basin. On the left-hand wall a looped-up sheet half covered a collection of suits. Through the wall came the sound of women's voices in the star room.

"So glad you've both come, Nigel," said Gardener. "I never see you nowadays. You journalists are devilish hard to get hold of."

"Not more elusive than you actors," rejoined Nigel, "and not half as slippery as the police. I may tell you it's rather a feather in my cap producing Alleyn to-night."

"I know," agreed Gardener, turning to his mirror and dabbing his face with brown powder. "It makes me quite nervous. Do you realise, J. B., that Mr. Alleyn is a kingpin in the C.I.D.?"

"Really?" intoned Mr. Barclay Crammer deeply. He hesitated a moment and then added with rather ponderous gaiety: "Makes me even more nervous as I'm one of the villains of the piece. A very, very minor villain," he added with unmistakable bitterness.

"Now, don't tell me you're the murderer," said Alleyn. "It would ruin my evening."

"Nothing so important," said Barclay Crammer. "A little 'cameo part,' the management tells me. And that's throwing roses at it."

He uttered a short, scornful noise which Nigel recognised as part of his stock-in-trade.

A voice outside in the passage called:

"Half-hour, please. Half-hour, please."

"I must be off," said Mr. Crammer, sighing heavily. "I'm not made up yet and I begin this revolting piece. Pah!" He rose majestically and made a not unimpressive exit.

"Poor old J. B.'s very disgruntled," said Gardener in an undertone. "He was to play the Beaver and then it was given to Arthur Surbonadier. Great heart-burning, I assure you." He smiled charmingly. "It's a rum life, Nigel," he said.

"You mean they are rum people?" said Nigel.

"Yes—partly. Like children and terribly, terribly like actors. They run too true to type."

"You were not so critical in our Trinity days."

"Don't remind me of my callow youth."

"Youth!" said Alleyn. "You children amuse me. Twenty years ago next month I came down from Oxford. Ah me! Fie, fie! Out upon it!"

"All the same," persisted Nigel, "you can't persuade me, Felix, that you are out of conceit with your job."

"That's another matter," said Felix Gardener.