Is there a connection or isn’t there? he asked himself. Did the perpetrator of these nasty practical jokes have anything to do with the beheading of an apparently harmless star actor or was he practising along his own beastly self-indulgent lines? Who is he? Bruce Barrabell? Why are his fellow actors and – well, Peregrine Jay – so sure he’s the trickster? Simply because they don’t like him and he seems to be the only person in the company capable of such murky actions? But why would he do it? I’d better take a pot-shot and try to find out. He looked at his notes. Red Fellowship. H’m. Silly little outfit but they’re on the lists and so’s he, so here goes.

He walked down the dressing-room corridor until he came to the one shared by Barrabell and Morten. He paused and listened. Not a sound. He knocked and a splendid voice said ‘Come’. They always made such a histrionic thing of it when they left out the ‘in’, Alleyn thought.

Bruce Barrabell was seated in front of his looking glass. The lights were switched on and provided an unmotivated brilliance to the dead room. The make-up had all been laid by in the old cigar-box fastened by two rubber bands and put into a suitcase. The dirty grease-cloths were neatly rolled up in a paper bag, the dull red dressing gown folded and in the bottom of the same battered suitcase with Russian labels stuck on it. On the top of his belongings was a programme, several review pages and a small collection of cards and telegrams. Crumpled tissues lay about the dressing table.

Simon Morten’s possessions were all packed away in his heavily labelled suitcase which was shut and waited on the floor, inside the door. The indescribable smell of greasepaint still hung on the air and the room was desolate.

‘Ah. Mr Alleyn!’ said Barrabell expansively. ‘Good evening to you. Can I be of any help? I’m just tidying up, as you see.’ He waved his hand at the disconsolate room. ‘Do sit down,’ he invited.

‘Thank you,’ said Alleyn. He took the other chair and opened his file. ‘I’m checking all your statements,’ he said.

‘Ah yes. Mine is quite in order, I hope?’

‘I hope so, too,’ Alleyn said. He turned the papers slowly until he came to Mr Barrabell’s statement. He looked at his man and saw two men. The silver-voiced Banquo saying so beautifully, ‘There’s husbandry in Heaven. Their candles are all out,’ and the unnaturally pale actor with light eyes whose hands trembled a little as he lit a cigarette.

‘I’m sorry. Do you?’ Barrabell asked winningly and offered his cigarettes.

‘No, thank you. I don’t. About these tricks that have been played during the rehearsal period. I see you called them “schoolboy hoaxes” when we asked you about them.’