‘Actors live in a world of gossip,’ said Paul, ‘and news travels like lightning. If anyone could find out the victim’s name, I knew it would be Simeon Howlett. He’s a veritable oasis of gossip.’

‘So this fellow earned a living in the theatre, did he?’

‘That was his intention, Captain, but he failed abysmally. However good they are, most actors are out of work at various periods of their life. It’s unavoidable. In the case of Orsino Price, it was not merely an occasional setback. He seems to have been permanently unemployed.’

‘What effect would that have had on his character?’

‘It would have been very lowering. Imagine how a soldier would feel if he were never allowed to go into combat.’

‘I can think of some who’d have been delighted,’ said Golightly with a dry laugh, ‘but I take your point. When the profession he loved so much spurned him, iron must have entered this man’s soul.’

‘That would have made him vulnerable to other offers.’

‘You think he’d stoop to murder?’

‘No,’ said Paul, ‘I doubt that very much. The killer needed to be invisible. Price would never settle for that. Even in the middle of a crowd, he’d want to preen. There were dozens of others doing exactly the same thing outside the stage door.’

‘In that case, he must have been there simply to assist.’

‘We don’t know that. It may be that Orsino Price was nowhere near Covent Garden on that fateful night. If I was an unemployed actor, I’d never go within a mile of a theatre at a time when crowds were pouring into it to watch people deemed to be better actors than me. It would remind me that I was an abject failure.’

‘You’re quite right,’ said Golightly. ‘We’re jumping to conclusions again.’

‘We’re concentrating on the killer when the person or persons we really need to find are those who devised the plot in the first place. I think that I should take a second look at Oswald Ferriday.’

‘What about Hugh Denley?’

‘Another word with him wouldn’t come amiss,’ said Paul, ‘and I ought to speak to his estranged wife once more. During our first conversation, a great deal was left unsaid.’

‘Mrs Denley got closer to Sir Roger than anyone else.’

‘She was still dazed at the news of his murder when I met her.’

‘Then a second visit might be productive.’

‘We can but hope.’

‘You seem to have a way of extracting sensitive information out of people.’

‘I just listen, that’s all.’

‘Ferriday, Denley and his wife … that leaves Sir Marcus Brough.’

‘The only thing I managed to extract out him was a lot of bluster.’

‘That could just be a smokescreen.’

‘Of all the people I talked to, Ferriday was the prickliest.’

‘Don’t let that deter you,’ said Golightly.

‘I won’t.’

‘Thorns have to be grasped sometimes.’