“Have you taken a sleeper?” asked the tall man.

“No,” said Hambledon. “I should not sleep and I should probably be sick.”

“That’s how I feel about it, too.”

“Carolyn and Meyer have gone to theirs. They are the only other members of the company who have risked it. That young woman has just got to be expensive. Valerie, I mean.”

“I noticed that in the ship. Who is she? Any relation of old Pomfret Gaynes, the shipping man?”

“Daughter.” Hambledon leant forward again. “Academy of Dramatic Art, Lord knows how big an allowance, an insatiable desire for the footlights and adores the word ‘actress’ on her passport.”

“Is she a good actress?”

“Dire.”

“Then how—?”

“Pomfret,” said Hambledon, “and push.”

“It seems a little unjust in an overcrowded profession.”

“That’s how it goes,” said Hambledon with a shrug. “The whole business is riddled with preferment nowadays. It’s just one of those things.”

Susan Max’s head lolled to one side. Hambledon took her travelling cushion and slipped it between her cheek and the wall. She was fast asleep.

“There’s your real honest-to-God actress,” he said, leaning forward again. “Her father was an actor-manager in Australia and started life as a child-performer in his father’s stock company. Susan has trouped for forty-five years. It’s in her blood. She can play anything from grande dame to trollop, and play it well.”

“What about Miss Dacres? Or should I say Mrs. Meyer? I never know with married stars.”

“She’s Carolyn Dacres all the time. Except in hotel registers, of course. Carolyn is a great actress. Please don’t think I’m using the word ‘great’ carelessly. She is a great actress. Her father was a country parson, but there’s a streak of the stage in her mother’s family, I believe. Carolyn joined a touring company when she was seventeen. She was up and down the provinces for eight years before she got her chance in London. Then she never looked back.” Hambledon paused and glanced apologetically at his companion. “In a moment you will accuse me of talking shop.” ‘