“Was it this you were wanting to tell me, Mr. Ackroyd?” pursued Wade.

“Oh God, no. At least, it’s something to do with it. I was going to keep it under my hat, but Alf Meyer was a white man, and if he’s been murdered—” He paused.

“That’s right,” encouraged Wade. Alleyn was conscious of an illogical distaste for both of them.

“Well, it’s like this,” said Ackroyd. “The morning we got here I came down to the theatre. We had a call at ten-thirty. I got here early and went to my dressing-room. It’s round the corner of the passage and up a right-angled one, so that actually it backs on to the star dressing-room. Well in these wooden buildings of yours you can hear each other thinking. The walls are only thin partitions in this show. I was getting my stuff out when I heard Hailey and the Great Actress talking in the star-room.”

“Mr. Hambledon and Miss Dacres?”

“None other. Hailey was in the devil of a temper, trying to get her to say she’d leave with him at the end of this tour. Fact! And she said she wouldn’t because she’s a Catholic and doesn’t believe in divorce. She was doing her ‘little devil’ stuff. Seemed to go big with Hailey—he got all he-man and violent. Ttff! Then he said something like: ‘Would you marry me if Alf was dead?’ And the Great Actress said she would. That took her off. She went out on the stage, and a minute later I heard her give her opening line.”

“Yes,” said Wade after a moment “Thanks, Mr. Ackroyd. Doesn’t sound exactly as if she was Hambledon’s mistress, though, do you reckon?”

“God knows what she is. She’ll be his wife before long, I don’t mind betting you. Well, that’s that. Probably nothing in it. I’ll be off.”

“If you don’t mind waiting a minute longer, sir, there are one or two formal questions.”

Wade asked Ackroyd what he did after the final curtain. He went straight to his dressing-room, it seemed. He was alone there until he came out for the party. He looked in at Liversidge’s room and they then joined Vernon and Broadhead and went along to the party. After the catastrophe he left the stage with the others, went to his dressing-room, had a stiff nip and then joined the rest of the company in the wardrobe-room. On both these occasions he had repeatedly called out to the others from his own room. Asked about the train journey he said he slept solidly for at least an hour before they got to Ohakune, and had not the remotest idea who entered or left the carriage.