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the
good
notices, Inspector Becker? Show me a tour that could survive on notices like these. The good ones are in somebody’s press book. These are the leftovers that no performer would care to remember.”
    “Of course, sir. Now I understand.”
    “You’re turning out to be not a bad little detective, though. I credit you for it, Becker.”
    “I credit my teacher.”
    Turner-Smith considered the pages for a moment longer. Then with the aid of his stick, he rose to his feet.
    “I shall act upon this,” he said. “Where is the company now?”
    Sebastian had already made inquiry of the Lyric’s management, and had confirmed the information by telegraph.
    “In Lancashire,” he said. “At the Prince of Wales Theatre in Salford.”
    “I’ll spare you Salford,” Turner-Smith said with a smile, “and I shall pursue this myself. But do not worry. I’ll ensure you get full credit for your insight here.”
    “I do not doubt it. Take care up there, sir.”
    Turner-Smith raised his walking stick and, holding it horizontally between them, gave it a twist and pulled so that the shaft separated into two halves. The action revealed part of the sword blade that lay hidden within it.
    “Have no fears for me,” Turner-Smith said. “I know Liverpool Street of old.”

TEN
    T he Prince of Wales Theatre ran a variety bill, and
The Purple Diamond
had been brought in to provide the second half of it. The first part of the program included Felix’s troupe of Siberian Wolf Hounds, Nelly Farrell, the Glittering Star of Erin, Medley the Mimic, and “musical wonders” The Avolo Boys. They were short of a second-spot comedian, so Gulliford had seized the chance to resurrect his old act and the baggy suit he performed it in. To his dismay, the suit was no longer quite so baggy as it once had been. But he went over well at the first matinee, so the management engaged him to double up his jobs for the rest of the run.
    Friday night brought the best house of the week. Doors opened at six and the entertainment began at six-thirty. There was little for Sayers to do once the play was settled into a new venue, but he would always stand ready to give a correcting hand to any problem that might arise. Sometimes, when everything was running smoothly backstage, he would go around to the rear of the auditorium and watch the show for a while.
    As Bram Stoker had so astutely remembered, Sayers had been a performer once. When injury had cut short his sporting career, he had taken to the stage in a sketch dramatizing the events surrounding his most famous bout. Although he was hardly a born actor, he was at least up to the challenge of representing his own history. He’d been a popular fighter, and now found enough success on the Halls to square his debts and discover a new living.
    Having managed his own troupe, he now managed others. While he sometimes felt a pang of envy for those to whom the limelight seemed a natural home, he knew that his dramatic talent had already been exploited to its limit.
    Sayers stood at the back of the house and watched as Nelly Farrell sang of how one black sheep shall never spoil the flock. She was a strong-featured, short-haired, can-belto performer of Irish comic songs, and Louise Porter’s opposite in almost every way.
    He listened to a couple of her verses, and then turned and wandered through into the bar where a smaller crowd, drinks in hand, watched the stage through the auditorium pillars.
    Sayers felt restless this evening. He often did, when everything was in order and there was little left to occupy him. Without the usual mass of practical detail to engage his thoughts, they tended to turn inward and there, they found uncomfortable issues to fasten upon.
    Like, this present occupation of his—how long would it last? Old boxers seemed to fall into two classes: those who’d succeeded and sank their prize money into some enterprise like a small hotel or a beerhouse, and those eternal contenders who stayed