“About half-past ten,” she replied.
“You’re playing in ‘The Dead Flower,’ aren’t you?”
She nodded.
“Then you must have left before the show was over.”
“Yes,” she said, “I had a frightful headache. The day’s excitement, I suppose.”
Her eyes turned to De Medici.
“I proposed to Miss Ballau today,” he explained, “and our engagement was to have been announced tonight at the supper.”
“Yes,” the girl went on, and De Medici caught a grateful glint in her eyes, “I couldn’t go on with the play. I felt I’d forget my lines and I asked the stage manager to let my understudy take my place. I came home.”
“About ten-thirty,” repeated the detective.
Florence nodded.