In a bed-sitting room in a fashionable quarter of London a
lady sits at her dressing-table, with her maid combing her hair.
It is late. and the electric lamps are glowing. Apparently the
room is bedless, but there stands against the opposite wall to
that at which the dressing-table is placed a piece of furniture
that suggests a bookcase without carrying conviction. On the same
side is a chest of drawers of that disastrous kind which,
recalcitrant to the opener until she is provoked to violence,
then suddenly come wholly out and defy all her efforts to fit
them in again. Opposite this chest of drawers, on the lady's side
of the room, is a cupboard. The presence of a row of gentleman's
boots beside the chest of drawers proclaims that the lady is
married. Her own boots are beside the cupboard. The third wall is
pierced midway by the door, above which is a cuckoo clock. Near
the door a pedestal bears a portrait bust of the lady in plaster.
There is a fan on the dressing-table, a hatbox and rug strap on
the chest of drawers, an umbrella and a bootjack against the wall
near the bed. The general impression is one of brightness,
beauty, and social ambition, damped by somewhat inadequate means.
A certain air of theatricality is produced by the fact that
though the room is rectangular it has only three walls. Not a
sound is heard except the overture and the crackling of the
lady's hair as the maid's brush draws electric sparks from it in
the dry air of the London midsummer. The cuckoo clock strikes
sixteen.THE LADY. How much did the clock
strike, Phyllis?
PHYLLIS. Sixteen, my lady.
THE LADY. That means eleven o'clock, does it not?
PHYLLIS. Eleven at night, my lady. In the morning it means
half-past two; so if you hear it strike sixteen during your
slumbers, do not rise.
THE LADY. I will not, Phyllis. Phyllis: I am weary. I will go to
bed. Prepare my couch.
Phyllis crosses the room to the bookcase and touches a
button. The front of the bookcase falls out with a crash and
becomes a bed. A roll of distant thunder echoes the crash.PHYLLIS
[shuddering] It is a terrible night Heaven help all poor
mariners at sea! My master is late. I trust nothing has happened to
him. Your bed is ready, my lady.
THE LADY. Thank you, Phyllis.
[She rises and approaches the bed.] Goodnight.
PHYLLIS. Will your ladyship not undress?
THE LADY. Not tonight, Phyllis.
[Glancing through where the fourth wall is missing] Not
under the circumstances.
PHYLLIS
[impulsively throwing herself on her knees by her mistress's
side, and clasping her round the waist]
Oh, my beloved mistress, I know not why or how; but I feel
that I shall never see you alive again. There is murder in the
air.
[Thunder.] Hark!
THE LADY. Strange! As I sat there methought I heard angels
singing. "Oh, wont you come home. Bill Bailey?" Why should angels
call me Bill Bailey? My name is Magnesia Fitztollemache.
PHYLLIS
[emphasizing the title] Lady Magnesia Fitztollemache.
LADY MAGNESIA. In case we should never again meet in this world,
let us take a last farewell.
PHYLLIS
[embracing her with tears] My poor murdered angel
mistress!
LADY MAGNESIA. In case we should meet again, call me at
half-past eleven.
PHYLLIS. I will, I will.
Phyllis withdraws, overcome by emotion. Lady Magnesia
switches off the electric light, and immediately hears the angels
quite distinctly. They sing Bill Bailey so sweetly that she can
attend to nothing else and forgets to remove even her boots as
she draws the coverlet over herself and sinks to sleep, lulled by
celestial harmony. A white radiance plays on her pillow, and
lights up her beautiful face. But the thunder growls again, and a
lurid red glow concentrates itself on the door, which is
presently flung open, revealing a saturnine figure in evening
dress, partially concealed by a crimson cloak. As he steals
towards the bed the unnatural glare in his eyes and the
broad-bladed dagger nervously gripped in his right hand bode ill
for the sleeping lady. Providentially she sneezes on the very
brink of eternity, and the tension of the murderer's nerves is
such that he bolts precipitately under the bed at the sudden and
startling
Atscha! A dull, heavy, rhythmic thumping-the
beating of his heart-betrays his whereabouts. Soon he emerges
cautiously and raises his head above the bed coverlet level.THE MURDERER. I can no longer cower here listening to the
agonized thumpings of my own heart She but snoze in her sleep. I'll
do't.
[He again raises the dagger. The angels sing again. He
cowers] What is this? Has that tune reached Heaven?
LADY MAGNESIA.
[waking and sitting up] My husband!
[All the colors of the rainbow chase one another up his face
with ghastly brilliancy.] Why do you change color? And what on
earth are you doing with that dagger?
FITZ
[affecting unconcern, hut unhinged] It is a present for
you: a present from mother. Pretty. Isnt it?
[he displays it fatuously].
LADY MAGNESIA. But she promised me a fish slice.
FITZ. This is a combination fish slice and dagger. One day you
have salmon for dinner. The next you have a murder to commit.
See?
LADY MAGNESIA. My sweet mother-in-law!
[Someone knocks at the door.] That is Adolphus's knock.
[Fitz's face turns a dazzling green.] What has happened to
your complexion? You have turned green. Now I think of it, you
always do when Adolphus is mentioned. Arnt you going to let him
in?
FITZ. Certainly not.
[He goes to the door.] Adolphus: you cannot enter. My wife
is undressed and in bed.
LADY MAGNESIA.
[rising] I am not Come in, Adolphus.
[she switches on the electric light.]
ADOLPHUS.
[without] Something most important has happened. I must
come in for a moment.
FITZ.
[calling to Adolphus] Something important happened? What
is it?
ADOLPHUS
[without] My new clothes have come home.
FITZ. He says his new clothes have come home.
LADY MAGNESIA
[running to the door and opening it] Oh, come in, come in.
Let me see.
Adolphus Bastable enters. He is in evening dress, made in the
latest fashion, with the right half of the coat and the left half
of the trousers yellow and the other halves black. His
silver-spangled waistcoat has a crimson handkerchief stuck
between it and his shirt front.ADOLPHUS. What do you think of it?
LADY MAGNESIA. It is a dream! a creation!
[she turns him about to admire him.]
ADOLPHUS
[proudly] I shall never be mistaken for a waiter
again.
FITZ. A drink, Adolphus?
ADOLPHUS. Thanks.
Fitztollemache goes to the cupboard and takes out a tray with
tumblers and a bottle of whisky. He puts them an the dressing-table.
FITZ. Is the gazogene full?
LADY MAGNESIA. Yes: you put in the powders yourself today.
FITZ.
[sardonically] So I did. The special powders! Hal ha! ha!
ha! ha!
[His face Is again strangely variegated.]
LADY MAGNESIA. Your complexion is really going to pieces. Why do
you laugh in that silly way at nothing?
FITZ. Nothing! Ha, ha! Nothing! Ha, ha, ha!
ADOLPHUS. I hope, Mr Fitztollemache, you are not laughing at my
dothes. I warn you that I am an Englishman. You may laugh at my
manners, at my brains, at my national institutions; but if you
laugh at my clothes, one of us must die.
Thunder.FITZ. I laughed but at the irony of Fate.
[He takes a gazogene from the cupboard.]
ADOLPHUS.
[satisfied] Oh, that! Oh, yes, of course!
FITZ. Let us drown all unkindness in a loving cup.
[He puts the gazogene on the floor in the middle of the
room.] Pardon the absence of a table: we found it in the way
and pawned it.
[He takes the whisky bottle from the dressing-table.]
LADY MAGNESIA. We picnic at home now. It is delightful.
[She takes three tumblers from the dressing-table and sits on
the floor, presiding over the gazogene, with Fitz and Adolphus
squatting on her left and right respectively. Fitz pours whisky
into the tumblers.]
FITZ.
[as Magnesia is about to squirt soda into his tumbler]
Stay! No soda for me. Let Adolphus have it all-all. I will take
mine neat.
LADY MAGNESIA
[proffering tumbler to Adolphus] Pledge me, Adolphus.
FITZ. Kiss the cup, Magnesia. Pledge her, man. Drink deep.
ADOLPHUS. To Magnesia!
FITZ. To Magnesia!
[The two men drink.] It is done.
[Scrambling to his feet] Adolphus: you have but ten
minutes to live-if so long.
ADOLPHUS. What mean you?
MAGNESIA.
[rising] My mind misgives me. I have a strange feeling
here.
[touching her heart]
ADOLPHUS. So have I, but lower down.
[touching his stomach] That gazogene is disagreeing with
me.
FITZ. It was poisoned!
Sensation.ADOLPHUS
[rising] Help! Police!
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