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before lunch-time, urged the cast on to greater efforts. And Rick Landor, still looking ghastly, did all the right things with a kind of nerveless deliberation. Deep down, though, both of them seemed to have lost the will to continue.
    Charles was only involved in a couple of scenes on the set of Stanislas Braid’s study. Both followed the usual pattern of their encounters, in which the gifted amateur ran circles around the ponderous professional. The second scene seemed only to have been inserted in the script to plant the pair of candlesticks on Stanislas Braid’s mantelpiece, the candlesticks that he was to use so brilliantly to re-enact the murderer’s crime at the episode’s denouement. The denouement itself they could not record. The character of Christina was so integral to that scene that it would require from Will not a quick bit of carpentry but a major act of cabinet-making.
    Charles went listlessly through the motions, vowing throughout the morning that he would never touch another drop of alcohol and, after a couple of drinks at lunch-time, thinking throughout the afternoon that his morning’s vows had been perhaps a little rash. He dutifully did all that he was instructed to do, lifting and putting down the candlesticks endlessly while Rick Landor tried to frame his shots against the bored barracking of Russell Bentley.
    By five o’clock they had run out of scenes that they could even pretend were worth doing, and Will made it clear in no uncertain terms that there was no chance of his having done the monumental rewriting required by the following morning. So Ben Docherty, whose customary early-afternoon belligerence had by now given way to a sleepy acquiescence, was forced to recognise the inevitable. The following day’s studio would have to be scrapped. Reluctantly, knowing the effect it would have on his budget, he told the assembled company that they would not be called for Friday and instructed Mort Verdon to ring round the remainder of the cast and give them the news.
    Charles Paris changed more slowly this time. He was not after a Personal Best now, merely trying to eke out the time until the bar opened at half past five. His morning headache had returned; he was determined not to drink as much that evening. But then Charles Paris’s life was a long catalogue of such determinations.
    Changing out of costume and punctiliously scouring the last speck of makeup off his face only lasted him till twenty past five, so he took an atypically long route to the bar. He went through the Studio A control gallery, vaguely looking for Rick Landor, but the only person he found there was Mort Verdon, pressing down the buttons of the telephone after another of his calls to the cast.
    â€˜Rick around, Mort?’
    â€˜No, boofle. Editing. Suite three. He was booked from six, but he managed to move it since we broke early.’
    â€˜Hmm. He seemed quite cut up about Sippy dying,’ Charles hazarded.
    â€˜Yes, well, he would be. I think he and Miss Wooden might have been rather close.’
    â€˜How close?’
    â€˜Close enough to get splinters,’ said Mort Verdon archly. ‘And close enough for Rick to get the teeniest bit tetchy when Jimmy Sheet started switching on the charm.’
    â€˜When did that happen? I didn’t notice anything.’
    â€˜No, takes a trained eye.’
    â€˜What happened? What did your trained eye see?’
    â€˜Well, didn’t really see anything while we were in rehearsal or filming. But I happened to see them together in Stringfellow’s on Tuesday night.’
    â€˜Stringfellow’s? I didn’t know that was your scene, Mort.’
    â€˜Lot of things you don’t know about me, Charles Paris.’ The stage manager winked at him slyly. ‘Mind you, anytime you want to find out more . . . you have only to ask.’
    Charles had one large Bell’s in the bar before setting off to find Rick. As he