“Well,” said Susan Max roundly, “it may have been a steward or it may have been the captain of the ship, but it wasn’t Courtney Broadhead, and only a fool or a rogue would suggest that it was.”

“Quite a champion of—ah—good causes tonight, aren’t you, Susie?” said Liversidge winningly.

“For God’s sake,” said George Mason, “can’t you cut out all this stuff about Miss Gaynes’s money and Courtney’s money. We’re up against a terrible tragedy and, my God, you all start selling a lot of cross-talk. What’s going to happen to the show? That’s what I’d like to know. What’s going to happen to the show?”

And as if he had indeed sounded the very bottom of their trouble they at once became silent and anxious.

“The show!” said Gordon Palmer shrilly. “You are an extraordinary crowd. The show doesn’t matter—what’s going to happen to us?”

At this protest from outside they all seemed to draw together. They looked anxiously at each other, ignoring Gordon.

“You don’t seem to realise a man’s been murdered,” he went on. His voice, trying to be compelling and indignant, was boyishly lame.

“Shut up,” said Geoffrey Weston.

“I won’t. There’s poor Mr. Meyer—” The voice wobbled uncertainly.

“If Alfred Meyer can think at all where he’s gone,” said little George Mason surprisingly, “he’s thinking about the show. The Firm came first with Alfred—always.”

There was a short silence.

“I’m very sorry it happened, ladies and gentlemen,” added Mason, “very sorry for your sakes, I mean. We’ve brought you all this way. I—I can assure you you’ll be—looked after. My partner wouldn’t have wanted it otherwise. We’re old friends, all of us. I can’t just sort things out in my own mind but—if I’ve got anything to do with it there’ll be no difference.”

He looked solemnly at his company. There was a little stir among them as if they were touched by his sudden assumption of formality, and by the illusion of security that his words had given to them. And, as he watched them, it seemed to Alleyn that of all things security is most desired by actors since it is the one boon that is never granted them. Even when they are in great demand and command absurdly large salaries, he reflected, few of them contrive to save much money. It is almost as though they were under the compulsion of some ancient rule of their guild, never to know security but often to desire it. And he fell to thinking of their strange life and of the inglorious and pathetic old age to which so many of them drifted.

Packer came in, interrupting his thoughts.