“Oh Christmas!” he said. “I suppose so.”

“You’re a fool, Bertie,” Timon Gantry said angrily. “These things can’t be controlled. You don’t know where you’ll fetch up.”

“But then you see, Timmy dear, I never do,” Bertie rejoined with a sad little giggle.

Gantry rounded on Pinky Cavendish. “You might care to remember that other people are involved.”

“I don’t forget, Timmy, I promise you.” She turned to Alleyn. “This morning’s row,” she said, “was because I told Mary I was going to play the lead in a new play. She felt I was deserting her. Later on, during the party when we were all”—she indicated the conservatory—“in there, she brought it up again.”

“And was still very angry?”

Pinky looked unhappily at Charles. “It was pretty hot while it lasted. Those sorts of dusts-up always were, with Mary.”

“And you were involved, Mr. Saracen?”

“Not ’alf!” Bertie said and explained why.

“And you, Mr. Gantry?”

“Very well — yes. In so far as I am to produce the comedy.”

“But you copped it both ways, Timmy,” Bertie pointed out with some relish. “You were involved in the other one, too. About Dicky’s ‘different’ play and Anelida being asked to do the lead. She was angrier about that than anything. She was livid.”

“Mr. Alleyn knows,” Anelida said and they looked uneasily at her.

“Never mind, dear,” Gantry said rather bossily. “None of this need concern you. Don’t get involved.”

“She is involved,” Richard said, looking at her. “With me. Permanently, I hope.”

“Really?” Pinky cried out in her warmest voice and beamed at Anelida. “How lovely! Bertie! Timmy! Isn’t that lovely! Dicky, darling! Anelida!”

They made enthusiastic noises. It was impossible, Anelida found, not to be moved by their friendliness, but it struck her as quite extraordinary that they could switch so readily to this congratulatory vein. She caught a look of-what? Surprise? Resignation? in Alleyn’s eye and was astounded when he gave her the faintest shadow of a wink.

“Delightful though it is to refresh ourselves with this news,” he said, “I’m afraid I must bring you back to the matter in hand. How did the row in the conservatory arise?”

Pinky and Bertie gave him a look in which astonishment mingled with reproach.

Richard said quickly, “Mary came into the conservatory while we were discussing the casting of my play, Husbandry in Heaven. I should have told her — warned her. I didn’t and she felt I hadn’t been frank about it.”

“I’m sorry, but I shall have to ask you exactly what she said.”

He saw at once that Pinky, Saracen and Gantry were going to refuse. They looked quickly at one another and Gantry said rather off-handedly, “I imagine none of us remembers in any detail. When Mary threw a temperament she said all sorts of things that everybody knew she didn’t mean.”

“Did she, for instance, make threats of any sort?”

Gantry stood up. “For the last time,” he said, “I warn you all that you’re asking for every sort of trouble if you let yourselves be led into making ill-considered statements about matters that are entirely beside the point. For the last time I suggest that you consider your obligations to your profession and your careers. Keep your tongues behind your teeth or, by God, you’ll regret it.”

Bertie, looking frightened, said to Pinky, “He’s right, you know. Or isn’t he?”

“I suppose so,” she agreed unhappily. “There is a limit — I suppose. All the same…”

“If ever you’ve trusted yourselves to my direction,” Gantry said, “you do so now.”

“All right.” She looked at Alleyn. “Sorry.”

Alleyn said, “Then I must ask Colonel Warrender and Mr. Templeton. Did Miss Bellamy utter threats of any sort?”

Warrender said, “In my opinion, Charles, this may be a case for a solicitor. One doesn’t know what turn things may take. Meantime, wait and see, isn’t it?”

“Very well,” Charles said. “Very well.”

“Mr. Dakers?” Alleyn asked.

“I’m bound by the general decision,” Richard said, and Anelida, after a troubled look at him, added reluctantly:

“And I by yours.”

“In that case,” Alleyn said, “there’s only one thing to be done. We must appeal to the sole remaining witness.”

“Who the hell’s that!” Warrender barked out.

“Will you see if you can get him, Fox? Mr. Montague Marchant,” said Alleyn.

On Pinky and Bertie’s part little attempt was made to disguise their consternation. It was obvious that they desired, more than anything else, an opportunity to consult together. Gantry, however, merely folded his arms, lay back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. He might have been waiting to rise in protest at a conference of Actors’ Unity. Warrender, for his part, resembled a senior member at a club committee meeting. Charles fetched a heavy sigh and rested his head on his hand.

Fox went out of the room. As he opened the door into the hall a grandfather clock at the foot of the stairs was striking eleven. It provoked an involuntary exclamation from the persons Alleyn had brought together round the table. Several of them glanced in despair at their watches.

“In the meantime,” Alleyn said, “shall we try to clear up the position of Mr. Richard Dakers?”

Anelida’s heart suddenly thudded against her ribs as if drawing attention to its disregarded sovereignty. She had time to think: “I’m involved, almost without warning, in a monstrous situation. I’m committed, absolutely, to a man of whom I know next to nothing. It’s a kind of dedication and I’m not prepared for it.” She turned to look at Richard and, at once, knew that her allegiance, active or helpless, was irrevocable. “So this,” Anelida thought in astonishment, “is what it’s like to be in love.”

Alleyn, aware of the immediate reactions, saw Old Ninn’s hands move convulsively in her lap. He saw Florence look at her with a flash of something that might have been triumph and he saw the colour fade unevenly from Warrender’s heavy face.

He went over the ground again up to the time of Richard’s final return to the house.

“As you will see,” he said, “there are blank passages. We don’t know what passed between Mr. Dakers and Miss Bellamy in her room. We do know that, whatever it was, it seemed to distress him. We know he then went out and walked about Chelsea. We know he returned. We don’t know why.”

“I wanted,” Richard said, “to pick up a copy of my play.”

“Good. Why didn’t you say so before?”

“I clean forgot,” he said and looked astonished.

“Do you now remember what else you did?”

“I went up to my old study to get it.”

“And did you do anything else while you were there?”

There was no answer. Alleyn said, “You wrote a letter, didn’t you?”

Richard stared at him with a sort of horror. “How do you — why should you…?” He made a small desperate gesture and petered out.

“To whom?”

“It was private. I prefer not to say.”

“Where is it now? You’ve had no opportunity to post it.”

“I — haven’t got it.”

“What have you done with it?”

“I got rid of it.” Richard raised his voice. “I hope it’s destroyed. It had nothing whatever to do with all this. I’ve told you it was private.”

“If that’s true I can promise you it will remain so. Will you tell me — in private — what it was about?”

Richard looked at him, hesitated, and then said, “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

Alleyn drew a folded paper from his pocket. “Will you read this, if you please? Perhaps you would rather take it to the light.”

“I can… All right,” Richard said. He took the paper, left the table and moved over to a wall lamp. The paper rustled as he opened it. He glanced at it, crushed it in his hand, strode to the far end of the table and flung it down in front of Warrender.

“Did you have to do this?” he said. “My God, what sort of a man are you!” He went back to his place beside Anelida.