‘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.

‘Inspector Fox,’ Alleyn said, ‘is almost pathologically discreet.’

‘Glad to hear it. Well, as you’ve heard, I’d managed to get hold of a bottle of aspirins and I brought them to her, here, in the second interval. Gay was sitting in this chair. She was still terribly upset. Crying. I don’t know if you’ve realized why she didn’t go on for the part?’

‘No. I’d be glad to have the whole story.’

J.G. embarked on it with obvious reluctance but as he talked his hesitancy lessened and he even seemed to find some kind of ease in speaking. He described Gay’s part and her struggle at rehearsals. It was clear that, however unwillingly, he shared the general opinion of her limited talent. ‘She’d have given a reasonable show,’ he said, ‘if she’d been given a reasonable chance but from the beginning the part got her down. She’s a natural ingénue and this thing’s really “character”. It was bad casting. Adam kept the doctor at bay as much as possible but she knew what he thought. She didn’t want the part. She was happy where she was in repertory but Ben dragged her in. He saw himself as a sort of fairy-godfather-uncle and when she found the part difficult he turned obstinate and wouldn’t let her throw it in. Out of vanity really. He was very vain. She’s a frail little thing, you know, all heart and sensitivity, and between them they’ve brought her to the edge of a breakdown. It didn’t help matters when Miss Martyn Tarne appeared out of a clear sky, first as Helena Hamilton’s dresser and then as Gay’s understudy and then—mysteriously as some of the cast, Ben in particular, thought—as Adam’s distant cousin. You noticed the uncanny resemblance but you may not know the part in the play requires it. That was the last straw for Gay. She’d been ill with nerves and fright and tonight she cracked up completely and wouldn’t—couldn’t go on. When I saw her in the first interval she was a bit quieter but in the second act little Miss Tarne did very well indeed. Quite startling, it was. Incidentally, I suppose her success infuriated Ben. And Gay heard everybody raving about her as they came off. Naturally that upset her again. So she was in tears when I came in.’