CYNTHIA: I think Magnus suspects something. And Felicity … Simon, was there anything between you and Felicity?
SIMON: No, no—it’s over between her and me, Cynthia—it was a mere passing fleeting thing we had—but now that I have found you——
CYNTHIA: If I find that you have been untrue to me—if I find that you have falsely seduced me from my dear husband Albert —I will kill you, Simon Gascoyne!
(MRS. DRUDGE has entered silently to witness this. On this tableau, pregnant with significance, the act ends, the body still undiscovered. Perfunctory applause.)
(MOON and BIRDFOOT seem to be completely preoccupied, becoming audible, as it were.)
MOON: Camps it around the Old Vic in his opera cloak and passes me the tat.
BIRDBOOT: Do you believe in love at first sight?
MOON: It’s not that I think I’m a better critic——
BIRDBOOT: I feel my whole life changing——
MOON: I am but it’s not that.
BIRDBOOT: Oh, the world will laugh at me, I know….
MOON: It is not that they are much in the way of shoes to step into….
BIRDBOOT: … call me an infatuated old fool….
MOON:… They are not.
BIRDBOOT: … condemn me….
MOON: He is standing in my light, that is all.
BIRDBOOT: … betrayer of my class …
MOON: … an almost continuous eclipse, interrupted by the phenomenon of moonlight.
BIRDBOOT: I don’t care, I’m a gonner.
MOON: And I dream….
BIRDBOOT: The Blue Angel all over again.
MOON: … of the day his temperature climbs through the top of his head….
BIRDBOOT: Ah, the sweet madness of love …
MOON: … of the spasm on the stairs….
BIRDBOOT: Myrtle, farewell …
MOON: … dreaming of the stair he’ll never reach——
BIRDBOOT: … for I only live but once….
MOON: Sometimes I dream that I’ve killed him.
BIRDBOOT: What?
MOON: What?
(They pull themselves together.)
BIRDBOOT: Yes … yes…. A beautiful performance, a collector’s piece. I shall say so.
MOON: A very promising debut. I’ll put in a good word.
BIRDBOOT: It would be as hypocritical of me to withhold praise on grounds of personal feelings, as to withhold censure.
MOON: You’re right. Courageous.
BIRDBOOT: Oh, I know what people will say—— There goes Birdboot buttering up his latest——
MOON: Ignore them——
BIRDBOOT: But I rise above that—— The fact is I genuinely believe her performance to be one of the summits in the range of contemporary theatre.
MOON: Trim-buttocked, that’s the word for her.
BIRDBOOT:—the radiance, the inner sadness——
MOON: Does she actually come across with it?
BIRDBOOT: The part as written is a mere cypher but she manages to make Cynthia a real person——
MOON: Cynthia?
BIRDBOOT: And should she, as a result, care to meet me over a drink, simply by way of er—thanking me, as it were——
MOON: Well, you fickle old bastard!
BIRDBOOT (aggressively): Are you suggesting …?
(BIRDBOOT shudders to a halt and clears his throat.)
BIRDBOOT: Well now—shaping up quite nicely, wouldn’t you say?
MOON: Oh yes, yes. A nice trichotomy of forces. One must reserve judgement of course, until the confrontation, but I think it’s pretty clear where we’re heading.
BIRDBOOT: I agree. It’s Magnus a mile off.
(Small pause.)
MOON: What’s Magnus a mile off?
BIRDBOOT: If we knew that we wouldn’t be here.
MOON (clears throat): Let me at once say that it has élan while at the same time avoiding éclat. Having said that, and I think it must be said, I am bound to ask—does this play know where it is going?
BIRDBOOT: Well, it seems open and shut to me, Moon—Magnus is not what he pretends to be and he’s got his next victim marked down——
MOON: Does it, I repeat, declare its affiliations? There are moments, and I would not begrudge it this, when the play, if we can call it that, and I think on balance we can, aligns itself uncompromisingly on the side of life. Je suis, it seems to be saying, ergo sum. But is that enough? I think we are entitled to ask. For what in fact is this play concerned with? It is my belief that here we are concerned with what I have referred to elsewhere as the nature of identity. I think we are entitled to ask—and here one is irresistibly reminded of Voltaire’s cry. “Voila!”—I think we are entitled to ask—Where is God?
BIRDBOOT (stunned): Who?
MOON: Go-od.
BIRDBOOT (peeping furtively into his programme): God?
MOON: I think we are entitled to ask.
(The phone rings.)
(The set re-illumines to reveal CYNTHIA, FELICITY and MAGNUS about to take coffee, which is being taken round by MRS. DRUDGE. SIMON is missing. The body lies in position.)
MRS. DRUDGE (into phone): The same, half an hour later? … No, I’m sorry—there’s no one of that name here. (She replaces phone and goes round with coffee. To CYNTHIA): Black or white, my lady?
CYNTHIA: White please.
(MRS. DRUDGE pours.)
MRS. DRUDGE (to FELICITY): Black or white, miss?
FELICITY: White please.
(MRS. DRUDGE pours.)
MRS. DRUDGE (to MAGNUS): Black or white, Major?
MAGNUS: White please.
(Ditto.)
MRS. DRUDGE (to CYNTHIA): Sugar, my lady?
CYNTHIA: Yes please.
(Puts sugar in.)
MRS. DRUDGE (to FELICITY): Sugar, miss?
FELICITY: Yes please.
(Ditto.)
MRS. DRUDGE (to MAGNUS): Sugar, Major?
MAGNUS: Yes please.
(Ditto.)
MRS. DRUDGE (to CYNTHIA): Biscuit, my lady?
CYNTHIA: No thank you.
BIRDBOOT (writing elaborately in his notebook): The second act, however, fails to fulfil the promise….
FELICITY: If you ask me, there’s something funny going on.
(MRS. DRUDGE’s approach to FELICITY makes FELICITY jump to her feet in impatience. She goes to the radio while MAGNUS declines his biscuit, and MRS. DRUDGE leaves.)
RADIO: We interrupt our programme for a special police message. The search for the dangerous madman who is on the loose in Essex has now narrowed to the immediate vicinity of Muldoon Manor. Police are hampered by the deadly swamps and the fog, but believe that the madman spent last night in a deserted cottage on the cliffs. The public is advised to stick together and make sure none of their number is missing. That is the end of the police message.
(FELICITY turns off the radio nervously. Pause.)
CYNTHIA: Where’s Simon?
FELICITY: Who?
CYNTHIA: Simon. Have you seen him?
FELICITY: No.
CYNTHIA: Have you, Magnus?
MAGNUS: No.
CYNTHIA: Oh.
FELICITY: Yes, there’s something foreboding in the air, it is as if one of us——
CYNTHIA: Oh, Felicity, the house is locked up tight—no one can get in—and the police are practically on the doorstep.
FELICITY: I don’t know—it’s just a feeling.
CYNTHIA: It’s only the fog.
MAGNUS: Hound will never get through on a day like this.
CYNTHIA (shouting at him): Fog!
FELICITY: He means the Inspector.
CYNTHIA: Is he bringing a dog?
FELICITY: Not that I know of.
MAGNUS: —never get through the swamps. Yes, I’m afraid the madman can show his hand in safety now.
(A mournful baying hooting is heard in the distance, scary.)
CYNTHIA: What’s that?!
FELICITY (tensely): It sounded like the cry
of a gigantic hound!
MAGNUS: Poor devil!
CYNTHIA: Ssssh!
(They listen. The sound is repeated, nearer.)
FELICITY: There it is again!
CYNTHIA: It’s coming this way—it’s right outside the house!
(MRS. DRUDGE enters.)
MRS. DRUDGE: Inspector Hound!
CYNTHIA: A police dog?
(Enter INSPECTOR HOUND. On his feet are his swamp boots. These are two inflatable—and inflated—pontoons with flat bottoms about two feet across. He carries a foghorn.)
HOUND: Lady Nfuldoon?
CYNTHIA: Yes.
HOUND: I came as soon as I could.. Where shall I put my foghorn and my swamp boots?
CYNTHIA: Mrs. Drudge will take them out. Be prepared, as the Force’s motto has it, eh, Inspector? How very resourceful!
HOUND (divesting himself of boots and foghorn): It takes more than a bit of weather to keep a policeman from his duty.
(MRS. DRUDGE leaves with chattels. A pause.)
CYNTHIA: Oh—er, Inspector Hound—Felicity Cunningham, Major Magnus Muldoon.
HOUND: Good evening.
(He and CYNTHIA continue to look expectantly at each other.)
CYNTHIA AND HOUND (together): Well?—Sorry——
CYNTHIA: No, do go on.
HOUND: Thank you. Well, tell me about it in your own words—take your time, begin at the beginning and don’t leave anything out
CYNTHIA: I beg your pardon?
HOUND: Fear nothing. You are in safe hands now. I hope you haven’t touched anything.
CYNTHIA: I’m afraid I don’t understand.
HOUND: I’m Inspector Hound.
CYNTHIA: Yes.
HOUND: Well, what’s it all about?
CYNTHIA: I really have no idea.
HOUND: How did it begin?
CYNTHIA: What?
HOUND: The … thing.
CYNTHIA: What thing?
HOUND (rapidly losing confidence but exasperated): The trouble!
CYNTHIA: There hasn’t been any trouble!
HOUND: Didn’t you phone the police?
CYNTHIA: No.
FELICITY: I didn’t.
MAGNUS: What for?
HOUND: I see. (Pause.) This puts me in a very difficult position.
(A steady pause.) Well, I’ll be getting along, then. (He moves towards the door.)
CYNTHIA: I’m terribly sorry.
HOUND (stiffly): That’s perfectly all right.
CYNTHIA: Thank you so much for coming.
HOUND: Not at all. You never know, there might have been a serious matter.
CYNTHIA: Drink?
HOUND: More serious than that, even.
CYNTHIA (correcting): Drink before you go?
HOUND: No thank you. (Leaves.)
CYNTHIA (through the door): I do hope you find him.
HOUND (reappearing at once): Find who, Madam?—out with it!
CYNTHIA: I thought you were looking for the lunatic.
HOUND: And what do you know about that?
CYNTHIA: It was on the radio.
HOUND: Was it, indeed? Well, that’s what I’m here about, really. I didn’t want to mention it because I didn’t know how much you knew. No point in causing unnecessary panic, even with a murderer in our midst.
FELICITY: Murderer, did you say?
HOUND: Ah—so that was not on the radio?
CYNTHIA: Whom has he murdered, Inspector?
HOUND: Perhaps no one—yet. Let us hope we are in time.
MAGNUS: You believe he is in our midst, Inspector?
HOUND: I do. If anyone of you have recently encountered a youngish good-looking fellow in a smart suit, white shirt, hatless, well-spoken—someone possibly claiming to have just moved into the neighbourhood, someone who on the surface seems as sane as you or I, then now is the time to speak!
FELICITY: I——
HOUND: Don’t interrupt!
FELICITY: Inspector——
HOUND: Very well.
CYNTHIA: No. Felicity!
HOUND: Please, Lady Cynthia, we are all in this together. I must ask you to put yourself completely in my hands.
CYNTHIA: Don’t, Inspector. I love Albert.
HOUND: I don’t think you quite grasp my meaning.
MAGNUS: Is one of us in danger, Inspector?
HOUND: Didn’t it strike you as odd that on his escape the madman made a beeline for Muldoon Manor? It is my guess that he bears a deep-seated grudge against someone in this very house! Lady Muldoon—where is your husband?
CYNTHIA: My husband?—you don’t mean——?
HOUND: I don’t know—but I have a reason to believe that one of you is the real McCoy!
FELICITY: The real what?
HOUND: William Herbert McCoy who as a young man, meeting the madman in the street and being solicited for sixpence for a cup of tea, replied, “Why don’t you do a decent day’s work, you shifty old bag of horse manure,” in Canada all those many years ago and went on to make his fortune. (He starts to pace intensely.) The madman was a mere boy at the time but he never forgot that moment, and thenceforth carried in his heart the promise of revenge! (At which point he finds himself standing on top of the corpse. He looks down carefully.)
HOUND: Is there anything you have forgotten to tell me?
(They all see the corpse for the first time.)
FELICITY: So the madman has struck!
CYNTHIA: Oh—it’s horrible—horrible——
HOUND: Yes, just as I feared. Now you see the sort of man you are protecting.
CYNTHIA: I can’t believe it!
FELICITY: I’ll have to tell him, Cynthia—Inspector, a stranger of that description has indeed appeared in our midst—Simon Gascoyne. Oh, he had charm, I’ll give you that, and he took me in completely. I’m afraid I made a fool of myself over him, and so did Cynthia.
HOUND: Where is he now?
MAGNUS: He must be around the house—he couldn’t get away in these conditions.
HOUND: You’re right. Fear naught, Lady Muldoon—I shall apprehend the man who killed your husband.
CYNTHIA: My husband? I don’t understand.
HOUND: Everything points to Gascoyne.
CYNTHIA: But who’s that? (The corpse.)
HOUND: Your husband.
CYNTHIA: No, it’s not.
HOUND: Yes, it is.
CYNTHIA: I tell you it’s not.
HOUND: I’m in charge of this case!
CYNTHIA: But that’s not my husband.
HOUND: Are you sure?
CYNTHIA: For goodness sake!
HOUND: Then who is it?
CYNTHIA: I don’t know.
HOUND: Anybody?
FELICITY: I’ve never seen him before.
MAGNUS: Quite unlike anybody I’ve ever met.
HOUND: This case is becoming an utter shambles.
CYNTHIA: But what are we going to do?
HOUND (snatching the phone): I’ll phone the police!
CYNTHIA: But you are the police!
HOUND: Thank God I’m here—the lines have been cut!
CYNTHIA: You mean——?
HOUND: Yes!—we’re on our own, cut off from the world and in grave danger!
FELICITY: You mean——?
HOUND: Yes!—I think the killer will strike again!
MAGNUS: You mean——?
HOUND: Yes! One of us ordinary mortals thrown together by fate and cut off by the elements, is the murderer! He must be found—search the house!
(All depart speedily in different directions leaving a momentarily empty stage. SIMON strolls on.)
SIMON (entering, calling): Anyone about?—funny….
(He notices the corpse and is surprised. He approaches it and turns it over. He stands up and looks about in alarm.)
BIRDBOOT: This is where Simon gets the chop.
(There is a shot. SIMON falls dead.)
(INSPECTOR HOUND runs on and crouches down by SIMON’s body. CYNTHIA appe
ars at the french windows. She stops there and stares.)
CYNTHIA: What happened, Inspector?!
(HOUND turns to face her.)
HOUND: He’s dead…. Simon Gascoyne, I presume. Rough justice even for a killer—unless—unless—We assumed that the body could not have been lying there before Simon Gascoyne entered the house … but … (he slides the sofa over the body) there’s your answer. And now—who killed Simon Gascoyne? And why?
(“Curtain”, freeze, applause, exeunt.)
MOON: Why not?
BIRDBOOT: Exactly. Good riddance.
MOON: Yes, getting away with murder must be quite easy provided that one’s motive is sufficiently inscrutable.
BIRDBOOT. Fickle young pup! He was deceiving her right, left and centre.
MOON (thoughtfully): Of course. I’d still have Puckeridge behind me——
BIRDBOOT: She needs someone steadier, more mature——
MOON: —And if I could, so could he——
BIRDBOOT: Yes, I know of this rather nice hotel, very discreet, run by a man of the world——
MOON: Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
BIRDBOOT: Breakfast served in one’s room and no questions asked,
MOON: Does Puckeridge dream of me?
BIRDBOOT (pause): Hello—what’s happened?
MOON: What? Oh yes—what do you make of it, so far?
BIRDBOOT (clears throat): It is at this point that the play for me comes alive. The groundwork has been well and truly laid, and the author has taken the trouble to learn from the masters of the genre. He has created a real situation, and few will doubt his ability to resolve it with a startling denouement. Certainly that is what it so far lacks, but it has a beginning, a middle and I have no doubt it will prove to have an end. For this let us give thanks, and double thanks for a good clean show without a trace of smut. But perhaps even all this would be for nothing were it not for a performance which I consider to be one of the summits in the range of contemporary theatre. In what is possibly the finest Cynthia since the war——
MOON: If we examine this more closely, and I think close examination is the least tribute that this play deserves, I think we will find that within the austere framework of what is seen to be on one level a country-house week-end, and what a useful symbol that is, the author has given us—yes, I will go so far—he has given us the human condition——
BIRDBOOT: More talent in her little finger——
MOON: An uncanny ear that might belonged to a Van Gogh——
BIRDBOOT: —a public scandal that the Birthday Honours to date have neglected——