“I know,” agreed Gardener, turning to his mirror and dabbing his face with brown powder. “It makes me quite nervous. Do you realise, J. B., that Mr. Alleyn is a kingpin in the C.I.D.?”

“Really?” intoned Mr. Barclay Crammer deeply. He hesitated a moment and then added with rather ponderous gaiety: “Makes me even more nervous as I’m one of the villains of the piece. A very, very minor villain,” he added with unmistakable bitterness.

“Now, don’t tell me you’re the murderer,” said Alleyn. “It would ruin my evening.”

“Nothing so important,” said Barclay Crammer. “A little ‘cameo part,’ the management tells me. And that’s throwing roses at it.”

He uttered a short, scornful noise which Nigel recognized as part of his stock-in-trade.

A voice outside in the passage called:

“Half-hour, please. Half-hour, please.”

“I must be off,” said Mr. Crammer, sighing heavily. “I’m not made up yet and I begin this revolting piece. Pah!” He rose majestically and made a not unimpressive exit.

“Poor old J.B.’s very disgruntled,” said Gardener in an undertone. “He was to play the Beaver and then it was given to Arthur Surbonadier. Great heart-burning, I assure you.” He smiled charmingly. “It’s a rum life, Nigel,” he said.

“You mean they are rum people?” said Nigel.

“Yes — partly. Like children and terribly, terribly like actors. They run too true to type.”

“You were not so critical in our Trinity days.”

“Don’t remind me of my callow youth.”

“Youth!” said Alleyn. “You children amuse me. Twenty years ago next month I came down from Oxford. Ah me! Fie, fie! Out upon it!”

“All the same,” persisted Nigel, “you can’t persuade me, Felix, that you are out of conceit with your job.”

“That’s another matter,” said Felix Gardener.

There was a light tap on the door, which opened far enough to disclose a rather fat face, topped by a check cap and garnished with a red spotted handkerchief. It was accompanied by an unmistakable gust of alcohol, only partially disguised by violet cachous.