‘Do.’

J.G. sat in the leather armchair where Martyn and, in her turn, Gay Gainsford had slept. In the dim light of the greenroom his face looked wan and shadowed. ‘Not the chicken I was,’ he said and it was an admission actors do not love to make.

Alleyn faced him. Fox sat down behind him, flattened his notebook on the table and placed his spectacles across his nose. There was something cosy about Fox when he took notes. Alleyn remembered absently that his wife had once observed that Mr Fox was a cross between a bear and a baby and exhibited the most pleasing traits of both creatures.

The masked light above Jacko’s sketch of Adam Poole shone down upon it and it thus was given considerable emphasis in an otherwise shadowed room.

‘If you want a short statement,’ J.G. said, ‘I can give it to you in a sentence. I hit Ben under the jaw in this room during the second act wait. I didn’t knock him out but he was so astonished he took himself off. I was a handy amateur welter-weight in my young days but it must be twenty years or more since I put up my hands. I must say I rather enjoyed it.’

‘What sort of condition was he in?’

‘Damned unpleasant. Oh, you mean drunk or sober? I should say ugly-drunk. Ben was a soak. I’ve never seen him incapacitated but really I’ve hardly ever seen him stone-cold either. He was in his second degree of drunkenness: offensive, outrageous and incalculable. He’d behaved atrociously throughout the first and second acts.’

‘In what way?’

‘As only a clever actor with too much drink in him can behave. Scoring off other people. Playing for cheap laughs. Doing unrehearsed bits of business that made nonsense of the production. Upon my word,’ said J.G. thoughtfully, ‘I wonder Adam or the doctor or poor little Parry, if he’d had the guts, didn’t get in first and give him what he deserved. A perfectly bloody fellow.’

‘Was it because of his performance that you hit him?’

J.G. looked at his fingernails and seemed to ponder. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘Or not directly. If I thought you’d believe me I’d say yes, but no doubt you’ll talk to her and she’s so upset anyway—’

‘You mean Miss Gainsford?’

‘Yes,’ said J.G. with the oddest air of pride and embarrassment. ‘I mean Gay.’

‘Was it on her account you dotted him one?’

‘It was. He was damned offensive.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Alleyn said, ‘but you’ll realize that we do want to be told a little more than that about it.’

‘I suppose so.’ He clasped his hands and examined his bruised knuckles. ‘Although I find it extremely difficult and unpleasant to go into the wretched business. It’s only because I hope you’ll let Gay off, as far as possible, if you know the whole story. That’s why I asked to see you alone.’ He stewed round and looked discontentedly at Fox.