Hambledon had moved away from Carolyn and sat opposite her and beside George Mason. They were both very pale and silent. Mason’s indistinguished face was blotched, as if he had been crying. He looked apprehensive and miserable and rather ill. Hambledon’s magnificent head was bent forward. He held one long-fingered hand over his eyes, as though the light bothered him. Old Brandon Vernon sat with his arms folded and his heavy eyebrows drawn down. He had the peculiar raffish look of a certain type of elderly actor. His face was pale, as if it had taken on the texture of grease-paint, his mobile mouth seemed always about to widen into a sardonic grin; his eyes, lack-lustre, had an impertinent look. There were traces of No. 9 in the hair on his temples and his chin was blueish. He played polished old men-of-the-world with great skill. When Alleyn came in Vernon was deep in conversation with little Ackroyd, with whom he seemed to be annoyed. Ackroyd, whose amusing face was so untrustworthy a guide to his character, listened irritably. He grimaced and fidgeted, glancing under his eyelids at Carolyn.

Next to Ackroyd sat Liversidge, with an empty chair beside him. Valerie Gaynes had moved out of it when Carolyn called her. Alleyn was a little surprised to see how shaken Liversidge seemed to be. His too full, too obviously handsome face was very white. He was unable to sit still, and when he lit one cigarette from the butt of another, his hands shook so much that he could scarcely control them.

Young Courtney Broadhead, on the other hand, looked solemn, but much less unhappy than he had appeared to be that night in the train. “They have changed their roles,” thought Alleyn. For in the train Broadhead had stood huddled in his overcoat on the little iron platform, speaking to nobody; while Liversidge had shouted and shown himself off. Alleyn’s thoughts returned persistently to the night in the train.

Ted Gascoigne had joined young Gordon Palmer and his cousin, Geoffrey Weston. The stage-manager was describing the mechanism of the pulley and the bottle. Gordon listened avidly, bit his nails, and asked innumerable questions. Weston said very little.

The stage-hands stood in an awkward and silent group at the far end of the room.

Alleyn had not been long in the room before he realised that the members of the company felt themselves constrained and embarrassed by the presence of Carolyn, and perhaps of Hambledon. Through their conversation ran a chain of side-long glances, of half-spoken phrases. This, he told himself, was natural enough, since they must assume that they were in the presence of grief, and there is nothing more embarrassing than other people’s sorrow. “But not to these people,” thought Alleyn, “since they have histrionic precedents for dealing with sorrow. They are embarrassed for some other reason.”