‘In the dock then. Shut these doors and open the outer ones.’

Kneeling by Helena Hamilton and holding her hand, Martyn heard the doors roll back and the shambling steps go into the dock. The doors crashed behind them.

Martyn said: ‘They’re giving him respiration, Dr Rutherford’s there.’

Helena nodded with an air of sagacity. Her face was quite without expression, and she was shivering.

‘I’ll get your coat,’ Martyn said. It was in the improvised dressing-room on the OP side. She was back in a moment and put Helena into it as if she was a child, guiding her arms and wrapping the fur about her.

A voice off-stage—J. G. Darcey’s—said: ‘Where’s Gay? Is Gay still in the greenroom?’

Martyn was astonished when Helena, behind the mask that had become her face, said loudly: ‘Yes. She’s there. In the greenroom.’

There was a moment’s silence and then J.G. said: ‘She mustn’t stay there. Good God—’

They heard him go away.

Parry Percival’s voice announced abruptly that he was going to be sick. ‘But where?’ he cried distractedly. ‘Where?’

‘In your dressing-room for Pete’s sake,’ Clem Smith said.

‘It’ll be full of gas. Oh, really!’ There was an agonized and not quite silent interval. ‘I couldn’t be more sorry,’ Percival said weakly.

‘I want,’ Helena said, ‘to know what happened. I want to see Adam. Ask him to come, please.’

Martyn made for the door but before she reached it Dr Rutherford came in, followed by Poole. Rutherford had taken off his coat and was a fantastic sight in boiled shirt, black trousers and red braces.

‘Well, Ella,’ he said, ‘this is not a nice business. We’re doing everything that can be done. I’m getting a new oxygen thing in as quickly as possible. There have been some remarkable saves in these cases. But I think you ought to know it’s a thinnish chance. There’s no pulse and so on.’

‘I want,’ she said, holding out her hand to Poole, ‘to know what happened.’

Poole said gently: ‘All right, Ella, you shall. It looks as if Ben locked himself in after his exit and then turned the gas-fire off—and on again. When Clem unlocked the door and went in he found Ben on the floor. His head was near the fire and a coat over both. He could only have been like that for quite a short time.’

‘This theatre,’ she said. ‘This awful theatre.’

Poole looked as if he would make some kind of protest but after a moment’s hesitation he said: ‘All right, Ella. Perhaps it did suggest the means but if he had made up his mind he would, in any case, have found the means.’

‘Why?’ she said. ‘Why has he done it?’