The Real Inspector Hound and Other Plays Read online

  MOON: I’m sorry——

  BIRDBOOT:—to suggest that my good opinion in a journal of unimpeachable integrity is at the disposal of the first coquette who gives me what I want——

  MOON: Sssssh——

  BIRDBOOT: A ladies’ man!... Why, Myrtle and I have been together now for—Christ!—who’s that?

  (Enter LADY CYNTHIA MULDOON through french windows. A beautiful woman in her thirties. She wears a cocktail dress, is formally coiffured, and carries a tennis racket.)

  (Her effect on BIRDBOOT is also impressive. He half rises and sinks back agape.)

  CYNTHIA (entering): Simon!

  (A dramatic freeze between her and SIMON.)

  MOON: Lady Muldoon.

  BIRDBOOT: No, I mean—who is she?

  SIMON (coming forward): Cynthia!

  CYNTHIA: Don’t say anything for a moment—just hold me.

  (He seizes her and glues his lips to hers, as they say. While their lips are glued——)

  BIRDBOOT: She’s beautiful—a vision of eternal grace, a poem...

  MOON: I think she’s got her mouth open.

  (CYNTHIA breaks away dramatically.)

  CYNTHIA: We can’t go on meeting like this!

  SIMON: We have nothing to be ashamed of!

  CYNTHIA: But darling, this is madness!

  SIMON: Yes!—I am mad with love for you!

  CYNTHIA: Please—remember where we are!

  SIMON: Cynthia, I love you!

  CYNTHIA: Don’t—I love Albert!

  SIMON: He’s dead!(Shaking her.) Do you understand me—Albert’s dead!

  CYNTHIA: No—I’ll never give up hope! Let me go! We are not free!

  SIMON: I don’t care, we were meant for each other—had we but met in time.

  CYNTHIA: You’re a cad, Simon! You will use me and cast me aside as you have cast aside so many others.

  SIMON: No, Cynthia!—you can make me a better person!

  CYNTHIA: You’re ruthless—so strong, so cruel——

  (Ruthlessly he kisses her.)

  MOON: The son she never had, now projected in this handsome stranger and transformed into lover—youth, vigour, the animal, the athlete as aesthete—breaking down the barriers at the deepest level of desire.

  BIRDBOOT: By jove, I think you’re right. Her mouth is open.

  (CYNTHIA breaks away. MRS. DRUDGE has entered.)

  CYNTHIA. Stop—can’t you see you’re making a fool of yourself!

  SIMON: I’ll kill anyone who comes between us!

  CYNTHIA: Yes, what is it, Mrs. Drudge?

  MRS. DRUDGE: Should I close the windows, my lady? The fog is beginning to roll off the sea like a deadly——

  CYNTHIA: Yes, you’d better. It looks as if we’re in for one of those days. Are the cards ready?

  MRS. DRUDGE: Yes, my lady.

  CYNTHIA: Would you tell Miss Cunningham we are waiting.

  MRS. DRUDGE: Yes, my lady.

  CYNTHIA: And fetch the Major down.

  MRS. DRUDGE: I think I hear him coming downstairs now (as she leaves).

  (She does: the sound of a wheelchair approaching down several flights of stairs with landings in between. It arrives bearing MAGNUS at about 15 m.p.h., knocking SIMON over violently.)

  CYNTHIA: Simon!

  MAGNUS (roaring): Never had a chance! Ran under the wheels!

  CYNTHIA: Darling, are you all right?

  MAGNUS: I have witnesses!

  CYNTHIA: Oh, Simon—say something!

  SIMON (sitting up suddenly): I’m most frightfully sorry.

  MAGNUS (shouting yet): How long have you been a pedestrian?

  SIMON: Ever since I could walk.

  CYNTHIA: Can you walk now …?

  (SIMON rises and walks.)

  Thank God! Magnus, this is Simon Gascoyne.

  MAGNUS: What’s he doing here?

  CYNTHIA: He just turned up.

  MAGNUS: Really? How do you like it here?

  SIMON (to CYNTHIA): I could stay for ever.

  (FELICITY enters.)

  FELICITY: So—you’re still here.

  CYNTHIA: Of course he’s still here. We’re going to play cards. There’s no need to introduce you two, is there, for I recall now that you, Simon, met me through Felicity, our mutual friend.

  FELICITY: Yes, Simon is an old friend, though not as old as you, Cynthia dear.

  SIMON: Yes, I haven’t seen Felicity since——

  FELICITY: Last night.

  CYNTHIA: Indeed? Well, you deal, Felicity. Simon, you help me with the sofa. Will you partner Felicity, Magnus, against Simon and me?

  MAGNUS (aside): Will Simon and you always be partnered against me, Cynthia?

  CYNTHIA: What do you mean, Magnus?

  MAGNUS: You are a damned attractive woman, Cynthia.

  CYNTHIA: Please! Please! Remember Albert!

  MAGNUS: Albert’s dead, Cynthia—and you are still young. I’m sure he would have wished that you and I——

  CYNTHIA: No, Magnus, this is not to be!

  MAGNUS: It’s Gascoyne, isn’t it? I’ll kill him if he comes between us!

  CYNTHIA (calling): Simon!

  (The sofa is shoved towards the card table, once more revealing the corpse, though not to the players.)

  BIRDBOOT: Simon’s for the chop all right.

  CYNTHIA: Right! Who starts?

  MAGNUS: I do. No bid.

  CYNTHIA: Did I hear you say you saw Felicity last night, Simon?

  SIMON: Did I?—Ah yes, yes, quite—your turn, Felicity.

  FELICITY: I’ve had my turn, haven’t I, Simon?—now, it seems, it’s Cynthia’s turn.

  CYNTHIA: That’s my trick, Felicity dear.

  FELICITY: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, Simon.

  SIMON: Yes, I’ve heard it said.

  FELICITY: So I hope you have not been cheating, Simon.

  SIMON (standing up and throwing down his cards): No, Felicity, it’s just that I hold the cards!

  CYNTHIA: Well done, Simon!

  (MAGNUS pays SIMON, while CYNTHIA deals)

  FELICITY: Strange how Simon appeared in the neighbourhood from nowhere. We know so little about him.

  SIMON: It doesn’t always pay to show your hand!

  CYNTHIA: Right! Simon, it’s your opening on the minor bid. (SIMON plays.)

  CYNTHIA: Hm, let’s see.... (Plays.)

  FELICITY: I hear there’s a dangerous madman on the loose.

  CYNTHIA: Simon?

  SIMON: Yes—yes—sorry. (Plays.)

  CYNTHIA: I meld.

  FELICITY: Yes—personally, I think he’s been hiding out in the

  deserted cottage (plays) on the cliffs.

  SIMON: Flush!

  CYNTHIA: No! Simon—your luck’s in tonight!

  FELICITY: We shall see—the night is not over yet, Simon

  Gascoyne! (She exits.)

  MAGNUS pays SIMON again.

  SIMON (to MAGNUS): So you’re the crippled half-brother of Lord Muldoon who turned up out of the blue from Canada just the other day, are you? It’s taken you a long time to get here. What did you do—walk? Oh, I say, I’m most frightfully sorry!

  MAGNUS: Care for a spin round the rose garden, Cynthia?

  CYNTHIA: No, Magnus, I must talk to Simon.

  SIMON: My round, I think, Major.

  MAGNUS: You think so?

  SIMON: Yes, Major—I do.

  MAGNUS. There’s an old Canadian proverb handed down from the Bladfoot Indians, which says: He who laughs last laughs longest.

  SIMON: Yes, I’ve heard it said.

  (SIMON turns away to CYNTHIA)

  MAGNUS: Well, I think I’ll go and oil my gun. (He exits.)

  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 un
true 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.

  MAONUS: 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!