“Looks as if it’s a crack less wide open, sir, when you get at it like that. Now, when I talked to Mason, he said he was in the box-office during the last act. When the people began to come away, he went to his own office—this room we’re in now—to have a word with the deceased. He says deceased left him here, saying he was going round to the stage. Mason says he then made a note of the night’s takings and did one or two jobs here. He went out once, ran along to tell the old chap who stage-door-keeps to show all the guests straight to the stage but to be sure and check up their names in order to keep off any hangers-on who hadn’t been invited. I’ve spoken to old Singleton, the doorkeeper, and he remembers Mason running along the alley to give him this message. He says Mason came back here. So does Mason. The old chap stood by the stage-door looking after him. And to make it a bit tighter, the old bloke says he strolled along to the office a bit later to ask about something, and Mason was there at his desk. Dr. Te Pokiha says he looked in before going to the party—he’d met Mason before—and stayed there yarning for a while, leaving Mason in the office. Now, Mr. Alleyn, the only way Mason could have got behind the scenes without Singleton seeing him is by going through this door into the box-office, out at the front entrance where someone might have seen him, and round the block to the back of the theatre. The door at the back is locked on the inside. Even if he had the key he couldn’t have done it in the time. He couldn’t have got back before Singleton walked across, which he says was about five or six minutes later. That’s that. Mason said he stayed on here—looking up his papers and so on—for a while—not long—and then joined the party. Singleton remembers Mason coming back and swears he didn’t go behind the scenes until the last of the guests were in.”

“I was among the last of the guests,” said Alleyn, “and I overtook Mr. Mason at the stage-door.”

“Did you, sir? Did you, now! Well, I suppose you might say that’s a pretty fair alibi for Mr. Mason. Would he have time to go up aloft after he went in with you, now?”

“Plenty of time,” said Alleyn sadly, “but he didn’t do it. I remember perfectly well that he was on the stage all the time. He stood near me and I talked to him and to Hambledon.”