Quarter Past Murder
Midnight (or just past) upon the terrace of an English country house. A body has been discovered. And nobody knows quite what to do next.
Scene: the terrace of a country house just after midnight. A row of French windows opens on the terrace; at both stage right and stage left a bit of balustrade with an urn on the end may be seen. At center stage down a BODY is lying on the terrace.
A clock in the neighboring village chimes the quarter hour, and taking that as his cue, REGINALD enters upstage left and discovers the BODY. He examines it for signs of life and finds none, and stands for a moment considering what to do. At this moment LAURA enters upstage right, and they catch sight of each other with a start of dismay.
REGINALD: Oh, dash it, now you’ve spoiled everything. Now you’ll have to do the bit where you glimpse me bending over the corpse and think I’m the murderer.
LAURA: Must I? I’d much rather be the one to find the body and run off without telling anyone because I’m afraid they’ll suspect me.
REGINALD: Can’t be done, old girl. Now that we’ve actually seen and spoken to each other there’s no help for it.
LAURA (shivering at the quarter-past-midnight chill): Being afraid you did it always gives me such indigestion. And they’ve got such a marvelous chef at this house too. The last country house I was a suspect at was full of postwar shortages.
REGINALD (absently): I prefer the interwar stuff myself. The autos are much snazzier. (Looking up) Did you say a chef? Maybe we’ll get something different and he’ll be the murderer this time.
LAURA: They never like to pin it on the servants. It’s so undemocratic.
REGINALD (murmuring): Democracy, what crimes have been committed in thy name. (Looking up toward where the first-floor windows of the house must be) No doubt entirely the wrong person has already seen us together, too—it’s that sort of a night. Probably that meddlesome spinster. She’ll merely tell the Inspector—I like being blackmailed better; more possibilities in it.
LAURA: You don’t strike me as the type to submit to being blackmailed.
REGINALD: Well, I’m not. Last time I actually bumped off my blackmailer, but since I wasn’t the murderer it spoiled the whole story and we had to start all over again. But even if one plays the game there are possibilities. (Thinks for a minute) I’ve got it—I could be blackmailed by someone who saw you with the body and thinks I’ll pay to keep their mouth shut to protect you.
LAURA: But that’s all nonsense: you said yourself we’ve already spoken to each other and know neither of us did it. Besides, would you really let yourself be blackmailed to protect me?
REGINALD: If I adored you I might.
LAURA: If you thought I was a murderess and went on adoring me I’d refuse you for a sheer idiot.
REGINALD (annoyed) Well, I don’t adore you, and I don’t think you’re a murderess.
LAURA: Not so loud! If you wake up the Colonel the police will have to be called at once, and I don’t want to sit up half the night in my dressing-gown with those other frightful women suspects waiting to be questioned.
REGINALD (looking curiously at LAURA’S tweed skirt and wool sweater): They would make you change into a dressing-gown?
LAURA: You wouldn’t believe the things we’re made to do in the first draft. The editor may catch it later, but that’s small comfort for the inconvenience in the present.
REGINALD: Oh, wouldn’t I! I once had an alibi that required me to drive from Hampstead to Victoria Station in two and a half minutes. I also had to go about for half a chapter saying my brother’s name was Oliver when it was really Frederick.
LAURA: Never mind all that now. If you want some blackmail in the story, we’d better think of something fast before someone else comes along and takes the plot out of our hands. I’ve heard the chauffeur wants a red-herring role, and I wouldn’t put it past him to be lurking in the garden trying to get a place in the alibi timetable.
REGINALD: All right. Blackmail…I say, suppose we try something original and I blackmail you?
LAURA: Good heavens, no. You make an even less convincing cad than you do a love interest.
REGINALD (slightly stung): Well, you make a rotten accomplice. You haven’t suggested anything remotely original to do with this body yet.
LAURA: And you’re so busy trying to be original that you overlook basic facts—like the fact that you found the body before you saw me come onto the terrace. What sensible person is going to let himself be blackmailed for something he knows didn’t happen?
REGINALD: You might have been returning to the scene of the crime.
LAURA: Delicately-nurtured heroines never return to the scene of the crime—it just isn’t done.
REGINALD (snapping his fingers): I’ve got it. The murder wasn’t committed here on the terrace. We’ll say I’d just got through moving it here, but you can tell the Inspector you saw me just discovering it and foul up everybody’s alibis gloriously.
LAURA: Oh, Reggie, that is clever. And let’s go one better and say that I know it wasn’t committed here because I already found the body in the other place, and I’m most dreadfully puzzled over what to tell the Inspector.
REGINALD: Because you don’t want to admit you were the first to find it because you’re afraid of being suspected!
LAURA: It solves everything!
REGINALD: Simple, isn’t it!
LAURA: When are you going to rouse the household?
REGINALD: You’d better do the honors. We’ve been palavering here over the body a good five minutes, that has to fit somehow; so I’ll stay here with the poor chap while you go and knock on the Colonel’s door.
LAURA: All right. I say, Reggie, who is the victim? I’ll have to tell them who’s been killed.
REGINALD: I don’t know. It’s a very early draft, after all.
LAURA: Is he someone who’s been staying in the house?
REGINALD: Haven’t the foggiest. Tell you what, you just nip along and tell the Colonel we’ve found a murdered man on the terrace and let him figure out the next bit. He’ll have to identify him.
LAURA starts toward the house, but at this moment two French windows fly open simultaneously and COLONEL WHITTINGTON, wearing a purple dressing-gown, tasseled nightcap, and carrying a shotgun, emerges from right window, and MISS MINIVER, her gray hair in curlers and a fluffy pink shawl over her shoulders, from left window. They catch sight first of each other, and then of LAURA and REGINALD, and glare at each other in exasperation.
COLONEL WHITTINGTON: Dash it all, I was only supposed to be taking a turn about the place because I thought I heard a prowler! What are the lot of you doing out here already? How is a man supposed to establish a lack of alibi with half the household milling about on the terrace?
REGINALD: I don’t know what timetable you’re following, but I was supposed to discover the body here when the clock chimed a quarter past, and I hit my mark all right, as Laura can tell you.
COL. WHITTINGTON: Quarter past one, my boy, quarter past one. Whoever heard of a murder taking place before midnight?
(A stately BUTLER materializes from the middle window and stands impassively observing the scene)
REGINALD: Good heavens, are we editing already?
COL. WHITTINGTON: Well, of course we are. (To BUTLER) Isn’t that right, Higgins?
BUTLER: I believe there have been some ad hoc revisions, sir.
REGINALD groans. LAURA edges around so she is not in line with the COLONEL’s shotgun, which was loaded in the last story.
MISS MINIVER (fretfully): Really, this is too unkind! How can I be in possession of an important piece of evidence known only to myself if half the suspects in the case are flitting about the garden witnessing things? It is very unfair and quite implausible, and I believe you are purposely attempting to keep me from enjoying my rightful role in the plot.
COL. WHITTINGTON: If you’d been paying attention when you were supposed to be sitting by your window looking out earlier, ma’am, you’d have nothing to complain about. I believe you were in the hall listening at doors, trying to gather material for a subplot. But I won’t have you dragging my wife into it, d’you hear?
MISS MINIVER (drawing herself up): And what right have you to dictate to me, sir?
COL. WHITTINGTON: When a murder takes place in a man’s own grounds he has every right to dictate!
REGINALD (who has sat down beside the BODY to wait out the interruption): This isn’t getting us anywhere.
MISS MINIVER: I was only trying to do my duty. In the last plot I was hardly permitted to speak at all, and the lack of proper subplots was scandalous.
COL. WHITTINGTON: Well, we’ve got a proper mess on our hands now. What on earth is supposed to happen next?
REGINALD: Don’t ask me. If the timetable’s been changed I’m not responsible.
LAURA (resignedly): I suppose you had better telephone for the police, Higgins. You know what to say better than any of us by now, anyway. Let the Inspector make what he can of it.
BUTLER: Very good, miss. (Bows and exits through the middle window)