Next to Ackroyd sat Liversidge, with an empty chair beside him. Valerie Gaynes had moved out of it when Carolyn called her. Alleyn was a little surprised to see how shaken Liversidge seemed to be. His too full, too obviously handsome face was very white. He was unable to sit still, and when he lit one cigarette from the butt of another, his hands shook so much that he could scarcely control them.

Young Courtney Broadhead, on the other hand, looked solemn, but much less unhappy than he had appeared to be that night in the train. “They have changed their roles,” thought Alleyn. For in the train Broadhead had stood huddled in his overcoat on the little iron platform, speaking to nobody; while Liversidge had shouted and shown himself off. Alleyn’s thoughts returned persistently to the night in the train.

Ted Gascoigne had joined young Gordon Palmer and his cousin, Geoffrey Weston. The stage-manager was describing the mechanism of the pulley and the bottle. Gordon listened avidly, bit his nails, and asked innumerable questions. Weston said very little.

The stage-hands stood in an awkward and silent group at the far end of the room.

Alleyn had not been long in the room before he realised that the members of the company felt themselves constrained and embarrassed by the presence of Carolyn, and perhaps of Hambledon. Through their conversation ran a chain of sidelong glances, of half-spoken phrases. This, he told himself, was natural enough, since they must assume that they were in the presence of grief, and there is nothing more embarrassing than other people’s sorrow. “But not to these people,” thought Alleyn, “since they have histrionic precedents for dealing with sorrow. They are embarrassed for some other reason.”

Under cover of the general conversation he turned to Carolyn and said quietly: “I am plagued with a horrible feeling that you may think I have brought misfortune to you.”

“You?” She looked at him in bewilderment. “How should I think that?”

“By my gift.”

“You mean — the green figurine — the tiki?”

She glanced swiftly at Hambledon and away again.

“I wish you would return it to me and let me replace it by another gift,” said Alleyn.

Carolyn looked fixedly at him. Her hand went to her breast.

“What do you mean, Mr. Alleyn?” she asked hurriedly.

“Is it in your bag?”

“I — yes. No.” She opened her bag and turned it out on her lap. “No. Of course it’s not. I haven’t had it since — since before supper. Somebody took it from me — they were all looking at it. I remember distinctly that I did not have it.”

“May I ask who has it now?”

“Of course — if you want to.”

Alleyn raised his voice.

“Who’s got Miss Dacres’s tiki, please? She would like to have it.”

Dead silence. He looked from one figure to another. They all looked bewildered and a little scandalised, as though Carolyn, by asking for her little tiki, had stepped outside the correct rendering of her part of tragic wife.

“It must be on the stage,” said Courtney Broadhead.

“Sure none of you has it?” pursued Alleyn.

The men felt in their pockets.

“I remember handing it on to you,” said Brandon Vernon to Ackroyd.

“Somebody took it from me,” said Ackroyd. “You did, Frankie.”

“I?” said Liversidge. “Did I? I haven’t got it now. As a matter of fact, I think I gave it to—” he hesitated and glanced at Carolyn.

“Yes?” asked Alleyn.

“—to Mr. Meyer,” said Liversidge uncomfortably.

“Oh!” Carolyn drew in her breath swiftly. Old Susan looked directly at Alleyn with a curious expression that he could not read. Suddenly Valerie Gaynes cried out:

“It’s unlucky — I thought at the time it looked unlucky. Something seemed to tell me. I’ve got a queer intuition about things—”

“I am quite sure,” said Carolyn steadily, “that my tiki is not unlucky. And I know Alfie hadn’t got it when we sat down to supper.”

“How do you know that, Miss Dacres?” asked Alleyn.

“Because he asked me for it. He wanted to look at it again. And I hadn’t got it, either.”

“But I say—”

Alleyn turned swiftly. Young Gordon Palmer stood with his mouth half open and a curiously startled look on his face.

“Yes, Mr. Palmer?” asked Alleyn.

“Oh, nothing.” And at that moment Packer opened the door and said:

“Inspector Wade would like to speak to Mrs. Meyer, please.”

“I’m coming,” said Carolyn. Her long graceful stride took her quickly to the door. Hambledon got there before her.

“May I take Miss Dacres to the office?” he asked. “I’ll come straight back.”

“Well, sir—” said Packer uncomfortably. He looked for a fraction of a second at Alleyn, who gave him the ghost of a nod.

“I’ll just inquire,” said Packer. He went outside and closed the door. They could hear him talking to Sergeant Cass. He returned in a moment.

“If you would care to go along with Sergeant Cass and Mrs. Mey — beg pardon — Miss Dacres, sir, that’ll be all right. Sergeant Cass will come back with you.”

Alleyn strolled over to the door.

“I really cannot understand, officer,” he said, “why I should be kept hanging about here. I’ve nothing whatever to do with this miserable business.” He added swiftly, under his breath: “Keep Mr. Hambledon talking outside the door if he returns.” And to Hambledon: “Stay outside if you can.”

Hambledon stared, but Packer said loudly:

“Now that’ll be quite enough from you, Mr. Alleyn. We’re only doing our duty, as you ought to realise. You go back to your chair, if you please, sir. Everything will be quite all right.”

“Oh, excellent Packer!” thought Alleyn and returned churlishly to his upturned case.

Carolyn and Hambledon went out with Packer, who shut the door.

At once the others seemed to relax. There was a slight movement from all of them. Courtney Broadhead said.

“I simply can’t take it in. It’s so horrible. So horrible.”

“That’s how you feel about it, is it?” said Liversidge.

“I should think that’s how everybody feels about it,” said old Susan Max. “It’s been a terrible experience. I shan’t forget it in a hurry.”

“He looked so awful.” Valerie Gaynes’s voice rose hysterically. “I’ll see it all my life. I’ll be haunted by it. His head — all that mess!”

“My God!” choked George Mason suddenly, “I’ve got to get out of this. I’m going to be sick. Here — let me out.”

He rushed to the door, his handkerchief clapped to his mouth, and his eyes rolling lamentably. “Let me out!”

Packer opened the door, cast one glance at Mason’s face, and let him through. Unpleasant noises were followed by the bang of a door.

“He’s been slowly turning green ever since we came in here,” said Ackroyd. “Damned unpleasant sight, it was. Why the devil does he have to turn queasy.”

“It’s his stomach, dear,” said Susan. “George suffers from dyspepsia, Mr. Alleyn. Martyr to it.”

“You had to finish him off, Val,” Brandon Vernon pointed out, “by talking about the mess. Why did you have to bring that up?”

“Don’t talk about bringing things up, for God’s sake,” complained Liversidge.

“You look as if you were going on for Hamlet senior yourself, Frankie,” sneered Ackroyd.

“Oh, shut up,” said Liversidge violently.

“Well, nobody could feel iller than I do. I feel terrible,” said Valerie. “Do you know that? I feel terrible.”

Nobody paid the slightest attention.

“What’ll happen to the Firm?” asked Ackroyd of no one in particular. They all stirred uneasily. Gascoigne paused in his dissertation on counterweights and swung round.

“The Firm?” he said. “The Firm will go on.”

“Do you mean Incorporated Playhouses?” asked Gordon Palmer eagerly.

“No,” snapped Ackroyd rudely, “he means Wirth’s Circus.”

“We always call Incorporated Playhouses ‘the Firm,’ ” explained Susan good-naturedly.

“The great firm of Inky-R,” rumbled old Vernon.