‘Which,’ Alleyn said, ‘we are not.’

They were all talking at once: Helena, the doctor, Parry, Gay and Darcey. They were like a disorderly chorus in a verse play. Martyn, who had been watching Alleyn, was terrified. She saw him glance at the constable. Then he stood up.

‘One moment,’ he said. The chorus broke off inconsequently as it had begun.

‘We’ve reached a point,’ Alleyn said, ‘where it’s my duty to tell you I’m by no means satisfied that this is, in fact, a case of suicide.’

Martyn was actually conscious, in some kind, of a sense of relief. She could find no look either of surprise or anger in any of her fellow-players. Their faces were so many white discs and they were motionless and silent. At last Clem Smith said with an indecent lack of conviction: ‘He was horribly careless about things like that—taps—I mean—’ His voice sank to a murmur. They heard the word ‘accident’.

‘Is it not strange,’ Jacko said loudly, ‘how loath one is to pronounce the word that is in all our minds. And truth to tell, it has a soft and ugly character.’ His lips closed over his fantastic teeth. He used the exaggerated articulation of an old actor. ‘Murder,’ he said. ‘So beastly, isn’t it?’

It was at this point that one of the stage-hands, following, no doubt, his routine for the night, pulled up the curtain and exhibited the scene of climax to the deserted auditorium.

CHAPTER EIGHT

After-Piece

WHEN MARTYN considered the company as they sat about their own working stage, bruised by anxiety and fatigue, Jacko’s ugly word sounded not so much frightening as preposterous. It was unthinkable that it could kindle even a bat-light of fear in any of their hearts. ‘And yet,’ thought Martyn, ‘it has done so. There are little points of terror, burning in all of us like match-flames.’

After Jacko had spoken there was a long silence broken at last by Adam Poole who asked temperately: ‘Are we to understand, Alleyn, that you have quite ruled out the possibility of suicide?’

‘By no means,’ Alleyn rejoined. ‘I still hope you may be able, among you, to show that there is at least a clear enough probability of suicide for us to leave the case as it stands until the inquest. But where there are strong indications that it may not be suicide we can’t risk waiting as long as that without a pretty exhaustive look round.’

‘And there are such indications?’

‘There are indeed.’

‘Strong?’

Alleyn waited a moment. ‘Sufficiently strong,’ he said.

‘What are they?’ Dr Rutherford demanded.

‘It must suffice,’ Alleyn quibbled politely, ‘that they are sufficient.’

‘An elegant sufficiency, by God!’

‘But, Mr Alleyn,’ Helena cried out, ‘what can we tell you? Except that we all most sincerely believe that Ben did this himself. Because we know him to have been bitterly unhappy. What else is there for us to say?’