“Merely that it is lost and we should like to recover it.”

“Well if it’s lost, she did the losing. She had it last.”

“Is that so!” exclaimed Wade.

“Certainly. Branny put it down on the table and she picked it up and slipped it inside her dress. I’ll swear to that in six different positions. Cheerio!”

And, like a good actor, on this effective line he made his exit.

“He’s a hard case, that one,” said Wade appreciatively. “I reckon he’s a real shrewdy.”

“Yes,” agreed Alleyn, “he’s shrewd.”

“I’d like to know how much there is in that stuff about Hambledon. ‘Would you marry me if Alf was dead.’ And she said she would. I’d like to know just how he said it. And, by gum, I’d like to know if there’s a free passage from the top of Miss Dacres’s dress downwards.”

“And I,” said Alleyn, “would like to know when Miss Dacres found occasion to snub Mr. Ackroyd, and why?”

“Hullo!” said Wade. “Where d’you get that notion, sir?”

“From the funny gentleman’s behaviour. He radiated a peculiar malevolence that I associate with snubs from the opposite sex.”

“Still, sir, he’d hardly want to involve her in a murder charge, now, would he? And that statement about the tiki — well.”

“It is Hambledon, I fancy, whom he would like to involve.”

Wade chewed this over, eyeing Alleyn with a sort of guarded curiosity.

“Well,” he said at last, “we’d better get on. Let’s see: there’s that old lady, Miss Max, and Miss Gaynes, Mr. Liversidge, Mr. Weston, who’s not a member of the company, his cousin, young Palmer (ditto), and Mr. Brandon Vernon. Suppose we see the old girl first, Cass.”

Cass went off.

“Miss Max is an old acquaintance of mine,” said Alleyn; “she was in the Felix Gardener show.”

“Is that so, sir? Well, now, perhaps you would talk to her. I’d like to listen to your methods, sir. We’ve got our own little ideas here about interviews and it’d be very interesting to compare them.”

“Bless me, Wade, I’m afraid you won’t find much to analyse in my remarks, especially to Miss Max. I’ll talk to her if you like, only don’t, for the Lord’s sake, expect fire-works. Here she comes.”

In came old Susan Max. Her roundabout figure was neat in its velveteen evening dress. Her faded blonde hair had been carefully dressed for the party, her round honest face with its peculiar pallor, induced by years of grease-paint, had been delicately powdered but not made-up. She looked what she was, an actress of the old school. She waddled forward, her face lighting as she saw Alleyn.

“Well, Miss Max,” said Alleyn, pushing a chair up to the fire, “I’m afraid you’ve had a long wait in the wardrobe-room. Sit down by the fire and cheer us up.”

“Me cheer you up,” said Susan. “I like that.”

She gave a cackle of laughter, but when she looked up at him her faded blue eyes were anxious.

“I never thought we’d meet again — like this,” said old Susan.

“I know,” said Alleyn. “It’s strange, isn’t it?”

“They’ll be calling me a Jonah,” she said. The pudgy old hands moved restlessly in her lap.

“You a Jonah! Not a bit of it. You’ve met Inspector Wade, haven’t you?”

Susan gave Wade a grand nod.

“He’s asked me to have a talk with you about this beastly affair. Do the others still think I’m a harmless civilian?”

“Would you credit it, dear,” said Susan indignantly, “that just before I came along here that girl blurted it all out!”

“Miss Valerie Gaynes?”

“Little idiot. I’ve no patience. Doing her emotional act all over the room. What business is it of hers?”

“None at all, I should have thought,” said Alleyn comfortably. “Have a cigarette and tell me some scandal. How did she get her job?”

“Who? Gaynes? My dear, through influence, like everybody else nowadays. Her father’s a lessor of our theatre in Town. The girl knows nothing about the business. No poise. No charm. No personality. You were in front, weren’t you? Well! What a naughty performance.”

“I wonder Miss Dacres puts up with it.”

“My dear, she has to. Some leading women don’t mind poor supports, of course. Selfish. But Carolyn Dacres is an artist. Different type altogether,” said Susan, settling her chins.

“Anything between Liversidge and Valerie Gaynes?” asked Alleyn.

“Somebody ought to tell that girl to look after herself,” said Susan darkly. “Not that they’d get any thanks for it. I’ve known Frankie Liversidge a good many years and I wouldn’t care for any daughter of mine to be on those terms with him.”

“Anything in particular wrong with him?” asked Alleyn.

“Well, dear, he’s not — not quite straight, shall we say, especially where women are concerned. But I mustn’t sit here gossiping. It’s all hours of the night as it is. What can I tell you?”

Alleyn asked her about her movements before and after the catastrophe. Like everyone else, she had spent the two significant periods in her dressing-room. At the end of the play she had gone straight there, removed her make-up and changed her dress. Miss Dacres’s dresser had, at old Susan’s invitation, also used the room to smarten herself up for the party.

“She’s a nice woman — been with Miss Dacres for years, and she helped me with my change. The dress I wear in the last act is a beast to get out of. I was only just ready when the last of the guests arrived.”

After the catastrophe Susan had gone to the door of the star-room with Carolyn Dacres and had offered to go in with her.

“She said she’d rather be by herself, so I went on to my own room, dear. Minna — the dresser, you know — came in a little later. Miss Dacres had sent her away too. After a little while Minna said she couldn’t bear to think of her there alone so she went back, and in a minute or two she came for me. The poor child — I mean Miss Dacres, dear, for to me she seems a child — had thought she would like my company. She was sitting there quite quietly, staring in front of her. Shock. Couldn’t talk about it or weep or do anything to ease her mind. Then she suddenly said she’d like to see you. Hailey Hambledon had come in and went to fetch you.”

“How long had he been there, Miss Max?”

“Let me see. He came in soon after I did. About ten minutes, I should say.”

“Ah,” said Alleyn with a sort of satisfied grunt. After a moment he leant forward.

“What sort of a fellow was Alfred Meyer?” he asked.

“One of the very best,” said Susan energetically. “The right type of manager, and there aren’t many of them left in the business. Always the same to everybody. Devoted to her.”

Alleyn remembered the pale commonplace little man, who had been so quiet in the ship and so frightened on the train.

“And she to him?” he asked.

Old Susan glanced at Cass and Wade.

“Very,” she said dryly.

“We’ve got to learn the truth, you know,” said Alleyn gently. “We’ll have to pry and pry. It’s one of the most revolting aspects of a murder-case, and the victim is sometimes the greatest sufferer.”

“Then it is murder?”

“I’m afraid so.”

There was a long silence.

“Well,” said old Susan at last, “it’s no good making mysteries where there are none. She was very fond of Meyer. Not perhaps in a romantic fashion, exactly. He wasn’t a figure for romance. But she was fond of him. You might say she felt safe with him.”

“And Hambledon?” asked Alleyn quietly.

Susan squared her fat shoulders and stared straight in front of her.

“If you mean anything scandalous, my dear, there’s not a word of truth in it. Not a morsel. Mind, I don’t say Hailey isn’t devoted to her. He is, and has been for years, and he makes no bones about it. I’ve been with the Firm off and on for a long time and I know. But there’s been no funny business between them, and don’t let anybody tell you there has.”

“They’ve been trying,” said Alleyn. Susan suddenly slapped her hands on her lap.