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face away from the wall until he had completed his descent. Then he swung round slowly.
    Bailey moved forward and seized his arm.
    “Now then — you,” he said.
    “Don’t you act old-fashioned at me,” snarled the man.
    “Just a minute, Bailey,” said Alleyn. Bailey stared indignantly round.
    “You’re the property master,” said Alleyn. The man stood with his heels together and his hands held tidily at the seams of his trousers. His face was long, thin, and white; with eyebrows that grew together. He looked fixedly at a spot on the scenery above the inspector’s head.
    “Yessir,” he said.
    “Been at this job long?”
    “Ever since I was demobbed.”
    “In the Brigade of Guards, weren’t you?”
    “Yessir. Grenadiers, sir. King’s Company.”
    “You made the dummy cartridges for this show?”
    “Yessir.”
    “Where are they?”
    “I gave them to Mr. Simpson.”
    “The dummy cartridges. Are you sure of that?”
    “Yessir.”
    “How are you so sure? They might have been the real thing.”
    “No, sir.” The man swallowed. “I was looking at them. I dropped a cartridge, and the bullet was loose, sir.”
    “Where are they now?”
    “I dunno, sir.”
    “How did you come to drop that chandelier?”
    Silence.
    “How is it fixed up there?”
    “On a pulley.”
    “And the rope turned round a piece of wood or something, to make it fast?”
    “Yessir.”
    “Did the rope break or did you unwind it?”
    “I can’t say, sir.”
    “Very well. Sergeant Bailey, go up and have a look at the rope there, will you? Now, Props, you go up to the switch-board and give us some light behind the scenes.”
    Props turned smartly and did as he was told. In a moment, light flooded the back-stage harshly while, with the facial expression popularly attributed to a boot, Bailey climbed the ladder.
    “Now come back.” Props returned.
    Alleyn had moved over to the desk which stood a little way out from the wings. Nigel, Fox, and the property master followed him. He drew out a pocket-knife and slipped the front of the blade under the top left-hand drawer and pulled it out.
    “That’s where Surbonadier got the cartridges,” he said. “It’s empty. Bailey had better get to work on it, but he’ll only find stage hands’ prints and Surbonadier’s, I expect. Now then.”
    Using the very greatest care to avoid touching the surface, Alleyn next drew out the second drawer with the point of his blade.
    “And here we are,” he said brightly.
    The others bent forward. Lying in the drawer were six cartridges.
    “By gum,” said Fox, “you’ve got ’em.”
    With one accord he and Nigel turned to look at the property master. He was standing in his ridiculous posture of attention, staring, as usual, above their heads. Alleyn, still bent over the drawer, addressed him mildly.
    “Look into that drawer. Don’t touch anything. Are those the dummies you made?”
    Props craned his long neck and bent forward stiffly.
    “Well?”
    “Yessir.”
    “Yes. And there — look — is the loose one. There is a grain or two of sand fallen out. You made a job of them. Why didn’t you want me to find them?”
    Props gave another exhibition of masterly silence.
    “You bore me,” said Alleyn. “And you behave oddly, and rather like an ass. You knew those dummies were in the drawer; you heard me say I was going to look for them. You were listening up there in the dark. So you cheerfully dropped half a ton of candelabrum on the stage, first warning us of its arrival, as apparently you weren’t keen on staging another murder to-night. I suppose you hoped for a scene of general confusion, during which you would shin down the ladder and remove the dummies. It was a ridiculous manoeuvre. The obvious inference is that you dumped the damn’ things there yourself, and took to the rigging when the murder came off.”
    “That’s right, sir,” said Props surprisingly. “It looks that way, but I never.”
    “You are, as I have said, an