The stage door-keeper of the Unicorn glanced up at the grimy face of the clock—7.10. All the artists were snug in their dressing-rooms now. All, that was, except old Susan Max, who played an insignificant part in the last act and was given a bit of licence by the stage manager. Susan usually came in about eight.

Footsteps sounded in the alley outside. Old Blair uttered a kind of groaning sigh peculiar to himself, got creakily off his stool, and peered out into the warmish air. In a moment two men in evening dress stepped into the pool of uncertain light cast by the stage door lamp. Blair moved into the doorway and looked at them in silence.

“Good evening,” said the shorter of the two men.

“ ‘Evening, sir,” said Blair, and waited.

“Can we see Mr. Gardener, do you think? He’s expecting us. Mr. Bathgate.” He opened a cigarette-case and produced a card. Old Blair took it and shifted his gaze to the taller of the two visitors. “Mr. Alleyn is with me,” said Nigel Bathgate.

“Will you wait a moment, please?” said Blair, and holding the card in the palm of his hand as if he were rather ashamed of it, he walked off down the passage.

“That old gentleman had a good look at you,” said Nigel Bathgate. He offered his cigarette-case.

“Perhaps he knew me,” said Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn. “I’m as famous as anything, you know.”

“Are you, now? Too famous, perhaps, to be amused at this sort of thing?” Nigel waved his cigarette in the direction of the passage.

“Not a bit. I’m as simple as I am clever — a lovable trait in my character. An actor in his dressing-room will thrill me to mincemeat. I shall sit and goggle at him, I promise you.”

“Felix is more likely to goggle at you. When he gave me a couple of stalls for to-night I told him Angela couldn’t come and — I mean,” said Nigel hurriedly, “I said I’d ask you, and he was quite startled by the importance of me.”