“Catch him!” implored a strangely muffled voice while Cass redoubled his activities. “Go after the…little…Get me out of this! Gawd! Get me out of it.”

Alleyn and Wade flew to the demented creature. Wade produced a torch, and by its light they saw what ailed the sergeant. His head and his enormous shoulders were wedged between the wall of the bicycle shed and that of a closely adjoining building. His helmet had slipped over his face like a sort of extinguisher, his fat arms were clamped to his sides. He could neither go forward nor back and he had already begun to swell.

“Get me out,” he ordered. “Leave me alone. Go after ’im. Go after the…Gawd, get me out!”

“Go after who?” asked Wade. “What sort of game do you think you’re up to, Sergeant Cass?”

“Never mind what I’m up to, Mr. Wade. That young bleeder’s run orf behind this shed and it’s that narrer I can’t foller. Gawd knows where he is by this time!”

“By cripey, you’re a corker, you are,” said Wade hotly. “Here!”

He seized the sergeant’s belt and turned to Alleyn. “Do you mind giving a hand, sir?”

Alleyn was doubled up in ecstasy of silent laughter, but he managed to pull himself together and, after a closer look at the prisoner, he hunted in the wooden shed, unearthed a length of timber which they jammed between the two walls and thus eased the pressure a little. Cass was pried and hauled out, sweating vigorously. Alleyn slipped into the passage and round to the rear of the shed. Here he found another path running back towards the theatre. He darted along this alley between a ramshackle fence and the brick wall of the property-room. The path led to the rear of the theatre, past a closed door, and finally to a narrow back street. Here Alleyn paused. Back in the stage-door yard he could hear one of the distracted officials blowing a police whistle. The little street was quite deserted, but in a moment or two a police officer appeared from the far end. Alleyn shouted to him and he broke into a run.

“What’s all this? Who’s blowing that whistle?”

“Inspector Wade and Sergeant Cass,” said Alleyn. “They’re in the theatre yard. Has a young man in evening dress passed you during the last few minutes?”

“Yes. Up at the corner. What about him?”

“He’s given us the slip. Which way?”

“Towards the Middleton Hotel. Here, you hold steady, sir. Where are you off to? You wait a bit.”

“Ask Wade,” said Alleyn. He sidestepped neatly and sprinted down the street.

It led him into a main thoroughfare. In the distance he recognized the familiar bulk of the Middleton Hotel. Three minutes later he was talking to the night porter.

“Has Mr. Gordon Palmer returned yet?”