‘He was upset,’ she said sulkily, ‘because I was ill and couldn’t play.’

‘Hardly an occasion for hitting him.’

‘J.G. is very sensitive about me. He treats me like a piece of china.’

‘Which is more than he did for your uncle, it seems.’

‘Uncle Ben talked rather wildly.’ Miss Gainsford seemed to grope for her poise and made a half-hearted return to her brittle manner. ‘Let’s face it,’ she said, ‘he was stinking, poor pet.’

‘You mean he was drunk?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘And abusive?’

‘I didn’t care. I understood him.’

‘Did he talk about Miss Hamilton?’

‘Obviously J.G.’s already told you he did, so why ask me?’

‘We like to get confirmation of statements.’

‘Well, you tell me what he said and I’ll see about confirming it.’

For the first time Alleyn looked at her. She wore an expression of rather frightened impertinence. ‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘that won’t quite do. I’m sure you’re very anxious to get away from the theatre, Miss Gainsford, and we’ve still a lot of work before us. If you will give me your account of this conversation I shall be glad to hear it; if you prefer so to do I’ll take note of your refusal and keep you no longer.’

She gaped slightly, attempted a laugh and seemed to gather up the rags of her impersonation.

‘Oh, but I’ll tell you,’ she said. ‘Why not? It’s only that there’s so pathetically little to tell. I can’t help feeling darling auntie—she likes me to call her Ella—was too Pinero and Galsworthy about it. It appears that poorest Uncle Ben came in from his club and found her in a suitable setting and—well, there you are, and—well, really even after all these years of segregation you couldn’t call it a seduction. Or could you? Anyway she chose to treat it as such and raised the most piercing hue and cry and he went all primitive and when he came in here he was evidently in the throes of a sort of hangover and seeing J.G. was being rather sweet to me put a sinister interpretation on it and described the whole incident and was rather rude about women generally and me and auntie in particular. And J.G. took a gloomy view of his attitude and hit him. And, I mean, taking it by and large, one couldn’t help feeling: what a song and dance about nothing in particular. Is that all you wanted to know?’

‘Do you think any other members of the company know of all this?’