‘Can I have my snuff back?’ Dr Rutherford asked with something of the shamefaced air of a small boy wanting a favour.

‘I think we might let you do that,’ Alleyn said. ‘Fox, will you give Dr Rutherford his snuff-box?’

Dr Rutherford lumbered uncertainly to the door. He stood there with his chin on his chest and his hands in his pockets.

‘See here, Alleyn,’ he said, looking from under his eyebrows at him. ‘Suppose I told you it was I who gave Ben that wallop on his mug. What then?’

‘Why,’ Alleyn said, ‘I shouldn’t believe you, you know.’

CHAPTER TEN

Summing Up

ALLEYN SAW HELENA HAMILTON in her dressing-room. It was an oddly exotic setting. The scent of banked flowers, of tobacco smoke and of cosmetics was exceedingly heavy, the air hot and exhausted. She had changed into her street clothes and sat in an armchair that had been turned with its back to the door so that when he entered he saw nothing of her but her right hand trailing near the floor with a cigarette between her fingers. She called: ‘Come in, Mr Alleyn,’ in a warm voice as if he was an especially welcome visitor. He would not have guessed from this greeting that when he faced her he would find her looking so desperately tired.

As if she read his thoughts she put her hands to her eyes and said: ‘My goodness, this is a long night, isn’t it?’

‘I hope that for you, at least, it is nearing its end,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to tell you that we are ready to take him away.’

‘Does that mean I ought to—to look at him?’

‘Only if you feel you want to. I can see no absolute need at all; if I may say so.’

‘I don’t want to,’ she whispered and added in a stronger voice: ‘It would be a pretence. I have no real sorrow and I have never seen the dead. I should only be frightened and confused.’

Alleyn went to the door and looked into the passage where Fox waited with Gibson. He shook his head and Fox went away. When Alleyn came back to her she looked up at him and said: ‘What else?’

‘A question or two. Have you ever known or heard of a man called Otto Brod?’

Her eyes widened. ‘But what a strange question!’ she said. ‘Otto Brod? Yes. He’s a Czech or an Austrian, I don’t remember which. An intellectual. We met him three years ago when we did a tour of the Continent. He had written a play and asked my husband to read it. It was in German and Ben’s German wasn’t up to it. The idea was that he should get someone over here to look at it but he was dreadfully bad at keeping those sorts of promises and I don’t think he ever did anything about it.’