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 Muldoon?
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.
MAONUS: 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!
CYNIHIA: 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’J body, CYNTHIA appears 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——
MOON: Faced as we are with such ubiquitous obliquity, it is hard, it is hard indeed, and therefore I will not attempt, to refrain from invoking the names of Kafka, Sartre, Shakespeare, St. Paul, Beckett, Birkett, Pinero, Pirandello, Dante and Dorothy L. Sayers.
BIRDBOOT: A rattling good evening out. I was held.
(The phone starts to ring on the empty stage, MOON tries to ignore it.)
MOON: Harder still——Harder still if possible——Harder still if it is possible to be——Neither do I find it easy——Dante and Dorothy L. Sayers. Harder still——
BIRDBOOT: Others taking part included—Moon!
(For MOON has lost patience and is bearing down on the ringing phone. He is frankly irritated.)
MOON (picking up phone, barks): Hel-lo!(Pause, turns to BIRDBOOT, quietly.) It’s for you. (Pause.)
(BIRDBOOT gets up. He approaches cautiously, MOON gives him the phone and moves back to his seat, BIRDBOOT watches him go. He looks round and smiles weakly, expiating himself.)
BIRDBOOT (into phone): Hello … (Explosion.) Oh, for God’s sake, Myrtle!—I’ve told you never to phone me at work! (He is naturally embarrassed, looking about with surreptitious fury.) What? Last night? Good God, woman, this is hardly the time to—I assure you, Myrtle, there is absolutely nothing going on between me and—I took her to dinner simply by way of keeping au fait with the world of the paint and the motley——Yes, I promise——Yes, I do—Yes, I said yes—I do—and you are mine too, Myrtle—darling—I can’t—(whispers) I’m not alone—(up). No, she’s not!—(he looks around furtively, licks his lips and mumbles). All right! I love your little pink ears and you are my own fluffy bunny-boo——Now for God’s sake——Good-bye, Myrtle —(puts down phone).
(BIRDBOOT mops his brow with his handkerchief. As he turns, a tennis ball bounces into through the french windows, followed by FELICITY, as before, in tennis outfit. The lighting is as it was. Everything is as it was. It is, let us say, the same moment of time.)
FELICITY (calling): Out! (She catches sight of BIRDBOOT and is amazed.) You!
BIRDBOOT: Er, yes—hello again.
FELICITY: What are you doing here?!
BIRDBOOT: Well, I...
FELICITY: Honestly, darling, you really are extraordinary——
BIRDBOOT: Yes, well, here I am. (He looks round sheepishly.)
FELICITY: You must have been desperate to see me—I mean, I’m flattered, but couldn’t it wait till I got back?
BIRDBOOT: No, no, you’ve got it all wrong——
FELICITY: What is it?
BIRDBOOT: And about last night—perhaps I gave you the wrong impression—got carried away a bit, perhaps——
FELICITY (stiffly): What are you trying to say?
BIRDBOOT: I want to call it off.
FELICITY: I see.
BIRDBOOT: I didn’t promise anything—and the fact is, I have my reputation—people do talk——
FELICITY: You don’t have to say any more——
BIRDBOOT: And my wife, too—I don’t know how she got to hear of it, but——
FELICITY: Of all the never! To march in here and——
BIRDBOOT: I’m sorry you had to find out like this—the fact is I didn’t mean it this way——
FELICITY: You philandering coward!
BIRDBOOT: I’m sorry—but I want you to know that I meant those things I said—oh yes—shows brilliant promise—I shall say so——
FELICITY: I’ll kill you for this, Simon Gascoyne!
(She leaves in tears, passing MRS. DRUDGE who has entered In time to overhear her last remark.)
BIRDBOOT (wide-eyed): Good God....
MRS. DRUDGE: I have come to set up the card table, sir.
BIRDBOOT (wildly): I can’t stay for a game of cards!
MRS. DRUDGE: Oh, Lady Muldoon will be disappointed.
BIRDBOOT: You mean … you mean, she wants to meet me...?
MRS. DRUDGE: Oh yes, sir, I just told her and it put her in quite a tizzy.
BIRDBOOT: Really? Yes, well, a man of my influence is not to be sneezed at—I think I have some small name for the making of reputations!—mmm, yes, quite a tizzy, you say?
(MRS. DRUDGE is busied with the card table, BIRDBOOT stands marooned and bemused for a moment.)
MOON (from his seat): Birdboot!—(a tense whisper). Birdboot!
(BIRDBOOT looks round vaguely.)
What the hell are you doing?
BIRDBOOT: Nothing.
MOON: Stop making an ass of yourself. Come back.
BIRDBOOT: Oh, I know what you’re thinking—but the fact is I genuinely consider her performance to be one of the summits——
(CYNTHIA enters as before. MRS. DRUDGE has gone.)
CYNTHIA: Darling!
BIRDBOOT: Ah, good evening—may I say that I genuinely consider——
CYNTHIA: Don’t say anything for a moment—just hold me. (She falls into his arms.)
BIRDBOOT: All right! (They kiss.) My God!—she does have her mouth open! Dear lady, from the first moment I saw you, I felt my whole life changing——
CYNTHIA (breaking free): We can’t go on meeting like this!
BIRDBOOT: I am not ashamed to proclaim nightly my love for
you!—but fortunately that will not be necessary——I know of a very good hotel, discreet—run by a man of the world——
CYNTHA: But darling, this is madness!
BIRDBOOT: Yes! I am mad with love.
CYNTHIA: Please!—remember where we are!
B
IRDBOOT: I don’t care! Let them think what they like, I love you!