He was deadly tired. He had thought the fresh air would revive him but he was beyond that point. He walked quickly but his legs were like logs and each stride took an intense mental effort. Not a soul about and St James’s Street a thousand miles away. Big Ben tolled three. The Thames slapped against the embankment. A taxi came out of a side street.

‘Taxi! Taxi!’

It wasn’t going to stop. ‘Taxi!’ cried Simon in despair.

He forced himself to run. It pulled in to the kerb.

‘Oh, thank God,’ he said. He got into it and gave the address. ‘I’m stone-cold sober,’ he said, ‘but, my God, I’m tired.’

Bruce Barrabell fastened his awful overcoat and pulled on his black beret.

He was going to drop Nina on his way home. She was coming to the Red Fellowship meeting next Sunday and would probably become a member. Not much of a catch but he supposed it was something to have a person from the Dolphin company. He must try to keep her off her wretched superstitious rigmaroles, poor girl.

He lit a cigarette and began to think of the killing of Dougal Macdougal. Just how good was this Alleyn? A hangover from the old school tie days, of course, but probably efficient in his own way. He looked in his drawer and removed a paper. After a moment’s hesitation he burnt it with his lighter over an ashtray and then emptied the ash into the wastepaper tin.

We shall see, thought Barrabell. He went along to Nina’s dressing-room. She was alone in it, dressed and ready to go.

‘This is so kind of you, Bruce,’ she said. ‘I don’t really know quite what’s happened to me. It’s knocked the stuffing out of me, this awful business. I mean, one keeps asking oneself why. Why poor Sir Dougal, I mean, who was so friendly and nice and full of fun always. Who would want to do it? And one thinks it must be someone possessed of a devil. Truly, a devil. That’s what I think, what I firmly believe. A devil.’

‘Come on, I’ll take you home. You’ll feel better when you’ve had a sleep. We all will.’

‘Yes. Perhaps we will. We don’t know what the Management will do, do we? You go on and I’ll lock up.’

He went out. Nina scrabbled in her handbag and extracted a key.

‘We were told to give our keys to those policemen.’

‘That’s right. I’ll hand yours in with mine, if you like.’

She gave it to him. They went out to the desolate stage. The massive Mr Fox sat writing at a little prompter’s table. Alleyn wandered about with his hands in his pockets.

‘Hullo, Miss Gaythorne,’ he said. ‘You’re late getting away, aren’t you? Will you be all right?’