‘I’ll put it brutally. If she’d demanded that you sign no more contracts with, say, Mr Gantry or Mr Saracen or Miss Cavendish, would you have had to toe the line?’

‘I would have talked softly and expected her to calm down.’

‘But if she’d stuck to it?’ Alleyn waited for a moment and then took his risk. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘She did issue an ultimatum this afternoon.’

Saracen scrambled to his feet. ‘There!’ he shouted. ‘What did I tell you! Somebody’s blown the beastly gaff and now we’re to suffer for it. I said we should talk first, ourselves, and be frank and forthcoming and see how right I was!’

Gantry said: ‘For God’s sake hold your tongue, Bertie.’

‘What do we get for holding our tongues?’ He pointed to Warrender. ‘We get an outsider giving the whole thing away with both hands. I bet you, Timmy. I bet you anything you like.’

‘Utter balderdash!’ Warrender exclaimed. ‘I don’t know what you think you’re talking about, Saracen.’

‘Oh, pooh! You’ve told the Inspector or Commander or Great Panjandrum or whatever he is. You’ve told him.’

‘On the contrary,’ Gantry said, ‘you’ve told him yourself. You fool, Bertie.’

Pinky Cavendish, in what seemed to be an agony of exasperation, cried out: ‘Oh, why, for God’s sake, can’t we all admit we’re no good at this sort of hedging! I can! Freely and without prejudice to the rest of you, if that’s what you’re all afraid of. And what’s more, I’m going to. Look here, Mr Alleyn, this is what happened to me in the conservatory. Mary accused me of conspiring against her and told Monty it was either her or me as far as The Management was concerned. Just that. And if it really came to the point I can assure you it’d be her and not me. You know, Monty, and we all know, that with her name and star-ranking, Mary was worth a damn’ sight more than me at the box office and in the firm. All right! This very morning you’d handed me my first real opportunity with The Management. She was well able, if she felt like it, to cook my goose. But I’m no more capable of murdering her than I am of taking her place with her own particular public. And when you hear an actress admit that kind of thing,’ Pinky added, turning to Alleyn, ‘you can bet your bottom dollar she’s talking turkey.’

Alleyn said: ‘Produce this sort of integrity on the stage, Miss Cavendish, and nobody will be able to cook your goose for you.’ He looked round at Pinky’s deeply perturbed audience. ‘Has anybody got anything to add to this?’ he asked.