“Yes,” said Alleyn.
“Then there’s Carolyn Dacres. Same motive. Same opportunity. She was the last to appear for the party and she asked to be left alone after the fatality. I don’t know whether she’d be up to thinking out the mechanics of the thing but—”
“One should also remember,” said Alleyn, “that she was the one member of the party from whom the champagne stunt had been kept a secret.”
“By gum, yes. Unless she’d got wind of it somehow. Ye-ers. Well, that’s her. Now George Mason. Motive — he comes in for a fortune if the money’s still there. Opportunity — not so good. Before the show he was in this room. The stage-doorkeeper remembers Mason running out and warning him about the guests and returning here. Te Pokiha saw him here. You remember him coming out when you arrived. To get behind, between those times, he’d have had to pass the doorkeeper and would have been seen by anybody who happened to be about.”
“Is there a pass-door through the proscenium from the stalls?”
“Eh? No. No, there’s not. No, I don’t see how he could have done it. After the murder he came back with Te Pokiha and I saw him in the office here as I passed the door. We’ll check up just when Te Pokiha left him, but it doesn’t look too likely.”
“It does not. It looks impossible, Wade.”
“I hate to say so,” admitted Wade. “Next comes young Courtney Broadhead. If he stole the money and Meyer knew, that’s motive. Or if he doped it out he’d say Meyer had lent it to him — that’s another motive. There’s that business on the train—”
“Always remembering,” said Alleyn, “that the train attempt took place before Miss Gaynes discovered the theft of the money.”
“Aw, blast!” said Wade. “It just won’t make sense. Well — Liversidge. Motive. If he took the money and Meyer knew, and he knew Meyer knew — good enough. Opportunity. Each time he was the last to leave the stage. He could have done it. There you are, and where the bloody hell are you?”
“I weep with you,” said Alleyn. “I deeply sympathise. Isn’t Master Palmer taking rather a long time?”
He had scarcely asked his question before the most extraordinary rumpus broke out in the yard. There was a sudden scurry of running feet on asphalt, a startled bellow, and a crash, followed by a burst of lurid invective.
Alleyn, with Wade behind him, ran to the door, threw it open, and darted out into the yard. A full moon shone upon cold roofs and damp pavements, and upon the posterior view of Detective-Sergeant Cass. His head and shoulders were lost in shadow and he seemed, to their astonished eyes, to be attempting to batter his brains out against the wall of a bicycle shed. He was also kicking backwards with the brisk action of a terrier, this impression being enhanced by spurts of earth and gravel which shot out from beneath his flying boots.
“Here, ’ere, ’ere,” said Wade, “what’s all this!”
“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?”
“Yes, sir. He came in a minute ago and went up to his room — No. 51. Anything wrong, sir?” asked the night porter gazing at Alleyn’s filthy shirt-front.
“Nothing in the wide world. I shall follow his example.”
He left the man gaping and ran upstairs. No. 51 was on the second landing. Alleyn tapped at the door. There was no answer, so he walked in and turned up the light.
Gordon Palmer sat on the edge of his bed. He was still dressed. In his hand was a tumbler.
“Drinking in the dark?” asked Alleyn.
Gordon opened his mouth once or twice but failed to speak.
“Really,” said Alleyn, “you are altogether too much of a fool. Do you want to get yourself locked up?”
“You get to hell out of this.”
“I shall certainly go as quickly as I can. You reek of whisky, and you look revolting. Now listen to me. As you’ve heard already, I’m an officer of Scotland Yard. I shall be taking over certain matters in connection with this case. One of my duties will be to write to your father. Precisely what I put in my letter depends on our subsequent conversation. It’s much too late and we’re too busy to talk to you now. So I shall lock you in your room and leave you to think out a reasonable attitude. There’s a fifty-foot drop from your window to the pavement. Good morning.”
Chapter XV
SIX A.M. FIRST ACT CURTAIN
Alleyn longed for his bed. He was dirty and tired, and a dull lugging pain reminded him that he was supposed to be taking things easily after a big operation. He went into his room, washed, and changed quickly into grey flannels and a sweater. Then he went downstairs.
The night porter gazed reproachfully and suspiciously at him.
“Are you going out again, sir?”
“Oh yes, rather. It’s my night to howl.”
“Beg pardon, sir?”
“You’ll hear all about it,” said Alleyn, “very shortly. There’s something to keep out the cold.”
Back at the theatre he found Wade and Cass closeted with Mr, Geoffrey Weston. There was an enormous tear in Cass’s tunic and a grimy smudge across his face. He sat at the desk taking notes. Evidently his uncomfortable predicament had upset his digestion for he rumbled lamentably and at each uncontrollable gurgitation he assumed an air of huffy grandeur. Wade appeared to be irritable and Weston stolid. The office looked inexpressibly squalid and smelt beastly.