“Exactly. Well now, while that was going on, I fancy our gentleman was up here and very busy. He came up under cover of all the hoo-hah on the stage some time after the event. He was just going to put things straight, when he heard me climbin’ up de golden stair, as you might say. That must have given him a queasy turn. He took cover somewhere up here in the dark and as soon as I went down again he did what he had to do. Then, when you were safely on the stage and shut off by the walls of the scenery, down he came, pussy-foot, by the back-stage ladder, and mixed himself up with the crowd. Conjecture, perhaps—”

“I’ve just been reading your views on conjecture, sir,” said Wade.

“For the Lord’s sake, Wade, don’t bring my own burblings up against me, or I shall look the most unutterable ass. Conjecture or not, I think you’ll find traces of this performance if you look round up here.”

“Come on, then, sir. Let’s go to it.”

“Right you are. Tread warily, I would. Damn’—it’s slatted.”

The gallery turned out to be a narrow stretch of steel-slatted platform extending from the prompt corner to the back wall, round the back wall, and along the opposite side of the O.P. corner. It was guarded by a rail to which the ropes that raised the scenic cloths were made fast. They began to work their way round, hugging the wall and taking long steps on the tips of their toes.

“There’s plenty of dust in these regions,” said Alleyn. “I had a case that hung on just such another spot. Hung, by the way, is the right word. The homicide swung his victim from the grid.”

“You mean the Gardener case, sir? I’ve read about that.”

“Bless me, Inspector, if you’re not better up in my cases than I am myself. Stop a moment.”

They had moved out of the area of light, and switched on their torches. Alleyn swung his towards the rail.

“Here, you see, we are opposite the pulley. Now when I came up here before, a piece of cord had been passed round the batten on which the pulley is rigged. That beam, there. The rope to the beam stopped it from slipping and it was made fast to this cleat on the rail here. The effect was to drag the pulley eighteen inches or so this way.”

“What for, though?” asked Wade.

“In order that the jeroboam of fizz should fall, not into the nest of ferns and fairy lights, but on to the naked pate of poor Alfred Meyer.”

“Geeze!”

“And here, I think, I very much suspect, is the piece of cord. Neatly rolled round the cleat. Clever fellow, this. Keeps his head. What? Shall we move on?”