‘It will help, you know, when we get a clear picture of what you were all doing and where you were between the time he left the stage and the time he was found. Inspector Fox is checking now with the stage-staff. I propose to do so with the players.’

‘I see,’ she said. She leant forward and her air of reasonableness and attention was beautifully executed. ‘You want to find out which of us had the opportunity to murder Ben?’

Gay Gainsford and Parry began an outcry but Helena raised her hand and they were quiet. ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ Alleyn said, ‘that really is it. I fancy you would rather be spared the stock evasions about routine inquiries and all the rest of it.’

‘Much rather.’

‘I was sure of it,’ Alleyn said. ‘Then shall we start with you, if you please?’

‘I was on the stage for the whole of that time, Mr Alleyn. There’s a scene, before Ben’s exit between J.G.—that’s Mr Darcey, over there—Parry, Adam, Ben and myself. Then J.G. and Parry go off and Ben follows a moment later. Adam and I finish the play.’

‘So you, too,’ Alleyn said to Poole, ‘were here, on the stage, for the whole of this period?’

‘I go off for a moment after his exit. It’s a strange, rather horridly strange, coincidence that in the play he—the character he played, I mean—does commit suicide offstage. He shoots himself. When I hear the shot I go off. The two other men have already made their exits. They remain off but I come on again almost immediately. I wait outside the door on the left from a position where I could watch Miss Hamilton and I re-enter on a “business” cue from her.’

‘How long would this take?’

‘Shall we show you?’ Helena suggested. She got up and moved to the centre of the stage. She raised her clasped hands to her mouth and stood motionless. She was another woman.

As if Clem had called: ‘Clear stage,’ and indeed he looked about him with an air of authority, Martyn, Jacko and Gay moved into the wings. Parry and J.G. went to the foot of the stairs and Poole crossed to above Helena. They placed themselves thus in the business-like manner of a rehearsal. The doctor however remained prone on his sofa breathing deeply and completely disregarded by everybody. Helena glanced at Clem Smith who went to the book.

‘From Ben’s exit, Clem,’ Poole said and after a moment Helena turned and addressed herself to the empty stage on her left.

‘I’ve only one thing to say, but it’s between the three of us.’ She turned to Parry and Darcey. ‘Do you mind?’ she asked them.

Parry said: ‘I don’t understand and I’m past minding.’

Darcey said: ‘My head is buzzing with a sense of my own inadequacy. I shall be glad to be alone.’