‘You’re very perceptive. I’m damned if I know why I should want to tell you this but I do. Just out of earshot behind these two walls are two women. Of my relation with the one, you seem to have heard. I imagine it’s pretty generally known. I’ve tried to suggest that it has come to its end as simply, if that’s not too fancy a way of putting it, as a flower relinquishes its petals. For a time I’ve pretended their colour had not faded and I’ve watched them fall with regret. But from the beginning we both knew it was that sort of affair. She didn’t pretend at all. She’s quite above any of the usual subterfuges and it’s some weeks ago that she let me know it was almost over for her. I think we both kept it up out of politeness more than anything else. When she told me of Ben’s unspeakable behaviour yesterday, I felt as one must feel about an outrage to a woman whom one knows very well and likes very much. I was appalled to discover in myself no stronger emotion than this. It was precisely this discovery that told me the last petal had indeed fallen and now—’ He lifted his hands. ‘Now, Ben gets himself murdered, you say, and I’ve run out of the appropriate emotions.’

Alleyn said: ‘We are creatures of convention and like our tragedies to take a recognizable form.’

‘I’m afraid this is not even a tragedy. Unless—’ He turned his head and looked at the other wall. ‘I haven’t seen Martyn,’ he said, ‘since you spoke to her. She’s all right, isn’t she?’ Before Alleyn could answer he went on: ‘I suppose she’s told you about herself—her arrival out of a clear sky and all the rest of it?’

‘Everything, I think.’

‘I hope to God—I want to see her, Alleyn. She’s alone in there. She may be frightened. I don’t suppose you understand.’

‘She’s told me of the relationship between you.’

‘The relationship—’ he said quickly. ‘You mean—’

‘She’s told me you are related. It’s natural that you should be concerned about her.’

Poole stared at him. ‘My good ass,’ he said, ‘I’m eighteen years her senior and I love her like a boy of her own age.’

‘In that case,’ Alleyn remarked. ‘You can not be said to have run out of the appropriate emotions.’

He grinned at Poole in a friendly manner, and accompanied by Fox, went to his final interview—with Jacques Doré.

It took place on the stage. Dr Rutherford elected to retire into the office to effect, he had told Fox, a few paltry adjustments of his costume. The players, too, were all in their several rooms and Clem Smith had been wakened, re-examined by Fox, and allowed to go home.