Night Must Fall : a Play in Three Acts Part 6

MRS. TERENCE: I've stumbled over bodies in them woods afore now. But they wasn't dead. Oh, no.

MRS. BRAMSON: Say what you know, and don't talk so much.

MRS. TERENCE: Well, I've told 'im all I've seen. A bit o' love now and again. Though 'ow they make do with all them pine-needles beats me.

BELSIZE: Anything else?

MRS. BRAMSON: Miss Grayne's always moping round the woods. Perhaps _she_ can tell you something.

OLIVIA: I haven't seen anything, I'm afraid.... Oh--I saw some men beating the undergrowth--

BELSIZE: Yes, I'm coming to that. But no tramps, for instance?

OLIVIA: N-no, I don't think so.

HUBERT: "Always carry a stick's" my motto. I'd like to see a tramp try anything on with me. Ah-ha! Swish!

MRS. BRAMSON: What's all the fuss about? Has there been a robbery or something?

BELSIZE: There's a lady missing.

MRS. TERENCE: Where from?

BELSIZE: The Tallboys.

MRS. BRAMSON: That Tallboys again--

BELSIZE: A Mrs. Chalfont.

MRS. TERENCE: Chalfont? Oh, yes! Dyed platinum blonde--widow of a colonel, so she says, livin' alone, so she says, always wearin' them faldalaldy openwork stockings. Fond of a drop too. That's 'er.

HUBERT: Why, d'you know her?

MRS. TERENCE: Never set eyes on 'er. But you know how people talk.

Partial to that there, too, I'm told.

MRS. BRAMSON: What's that there?

MRS. TERENCE: Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies.

BELSIZE (_quickly_): Well, anyway ... Mrs. Chalfont left the Tallboys last Friday afternoon, without a hat, went for a walk through the woods in this direction, and has never been seen since.

_He makes his effect_.

MRS. BRAMSON: I expect she was so drunk she fell flat and never came to.

BELSIZE: We've had the woods pretty well thrashed. (_To OLIVIA_) Those would be the men you saw. Now she was ... HUBERT (_taking the floor_): She may have had a brain-storm, you know, and taken a train somewhere. That's not uncommon, you know, among people of her sort.

(_Airing knowledge_) And if what we gather from our friend here's true--and she's both a dipsomaniac _and_ a nymphomaniac--

MRS. BRAMSON: Hark at the walking dictionary!

BELSIZE: We found her bag in her room; and maniacs can't get far without cash ... however dipso or nympho they may be....

HUBERT: Oh.

BELSIZE: She was a very flashy type of wo--she _is_ a flashy type, I should say. At least I hope I should say ...

MRS. BRAMSON: What d'you mean? Why d'you hope?

BELSIZE: Well ...

OLIVIA: You don't mean she may be ... she mayn't be alive?

BELSIZE: It's possible.

MRS. BRAMSON: You'll be saying she's been murdered next!

BELSIZE: That's been known.

MRS. BRAMSON: Lot of stuff and nonsense. From a policeman too.

Anybody'd think you'd been brought up on penny dreadfuls.

OLIVIA _turns and goes to the window._

BELSIZE (_to_ MRS. BRAMSON): Did you see about the fellow being hanged for the Ipswich murder? In last night's papers?

MRS. BRAMSON: I've lived long enough not to believe the papers.

BELSIZE: They occasionally print facts. And murder's occasionally a fact.

HUBERT: Everybody likes a good murder, as the saying goes! Remember those trials in the _Evening Standard_ last year? Jolly interesting.

I followed--

BELSIZE (_rising_): I'd be very grateful if you'd all keep your eyes and ears open, just in case ... (_Shaking hands_) Good morning ... good morning ... good morning, Mrs. Bramson. I must apologise again for intruding--

_He turns to_ OLIVIA, _who is still looking out of the window._

Good morning, Miss ... er ...

_A pause._

OLIVIA (_starting_): I'm so sorry.

BELSIZE: Had you remembered something? OLIVIA: Oh, no....

MRS. BRAMSON: What were you thinking, then?

OLIVIA: Only how ... strange it is.