“Shall I tell you what I believe you to have done last night? After the catastrophe you went to your dressing-room. At first the shock was too great for you to think at all clearly, but after a minute or two you did begin to think. Hambledon had taken you to your dressing-room. In a minute I would like you to tell me what he said to you. Like everyone in the cast but yourself, he had been told about the champagne bottle, and knew how it was to be worked. Whatever he may have said, you sent him away saying that you wanted to be quite alone. I think that almost at once the suspicion came into your mind, the suspicion that Hambledon may have brought about the catastrophe. I know that as you left the stage you heard Gascoigne repeating that there had been foul play, that it could not have been an accident. You have told me that you are familiar with the mechanics of the stage, that very often you have actually helped with the scenery. I wonder if you thought you would go up to the grid and find out for yourself. Everyone else was in the dressing-rooms except Mason, Gascoigne, Dr. Te Pokiha, and myself, and we were still on the stage, hidden behind the walls of the set. Perhaps you were still too shocked and agitated to think very coherently or wisely; but overwhelmed with this dreadful suspicion, scarcely aware of the risk you ran, you may have slipped round to the back of the stage and climbed the ladder to the gallery.”

He paused for a moment, watching her. Her head was bent down and inclined away from him. Her fingers plucked at the fringe of the rug.

“Stop me if I’m wrong,” said Alleyn. “I fancy you climbed up to the grid and saw the end of rope close to the pulley, and perhaps tripped over the weights which had been left on the gallery floor. With your knowledge of stage mechanics you at once realised what had been done. The counterweight had been removed and the bottle had fallen unchecked.”

A strand of the woollen fringe broke in her fingers.

“At this moment we had all moved off the stage into the wings. With some distracted notion of trying to make the whole thing look like an accident you hooked a weight to the ring. While you stooped to pick up the weight, the tiki fell from your dress on to the platform, and lodged between the slats where I found it soon afterwards. Am I right?”

“I—I—would rather not answer.”