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_NIGHT WATCH_
by Lucille Fletcher
directed by Georgette Verdin

_captions made possible with CaptionPoint_captions made possible with CaptionPoint_

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[MUSIC]

---

## WOMAN'S VOICE:

Hello and welcome to Raven Theatre for this afternoon's production of Night Watch, generously sponsored by Stephen Johnson.

---

At this time, please take a moment to ensure your cell phone is completely off or silenced. And be sure to check it again when you come back from intermission.

---

We are thrilled to share this work with you and look forward to you sharing your reactions with us.

---

Here at Raven, authentic reactions to the play are not only accepted but encouraged.

---

If this is your first time at Raven, hello, we hope you have a great first experience.

---

Returning folks and season subscribers, welcome back!

---

If you are interested in how the ticket you purchased can become a subscription, please see a member of the front of house staff during intermission or after the show.

---

Thank you for coming to Raven Theatre and enjoy _Night Watch_.

---

[SOMBER MUSIC]

---

[SILENCE]

---

## ELAINE:
(singing) Frere Jacques...

---

## ELAINE:
Frere Jacques...

---

## ELAINE:

Dormez-vous,

---

## ELAINE:

Dormez-vous...

---

## ELAINE:

Sonnez les matines,

---

[GRANDFATHER CLOCK BEGINS TO CHIME FULL MELODY]

---

## ELAINE:

Sonnez les matines...

---

## ELAINE:

Ding-don-din.

---

[GRANDFATHER CLOCK STRIKES 5AM]

---

[Elaine continues to hum _Frere Jacques_]

---

## JOHN:
Elaine.

---

## JOHN:
For God's sake.

---

## JOHN:
Do you know what time it is?

---

## ELAINE:
Oh, I'm sorry. Did I wake you, dear?

---

## JOHN:
What do you think? It's five o'clock. I wondered where the hell you were.

---

## JOHN:
You smoked a pack. Another one?

---

## JOHN:
What's happening to you, Ellie?

---

## ELAINE:
Nothing, I couldn't sleep.

---

## JOHN:
Come on. It's been three nights in a row.

---

## JOHN:
Cigarette butts air over the place, crossword puzzles...

---

## ELAINE:
It's just my old insomnia. It's inherited.

---

## ELAINE:
Daddy had it. Granddaddy suffered from it. We're night owls, moon people ...

---

## JOHN:
Elie, I've heard all that before.

---

## JOHN:
What's the problem? Me?

---

## ELAINE:
Of course not, darling.

---

## JOHN:
I couldn't make it home any earlier for dinner.

---

## ELAINE:
I understood that, dear.

---

## JOHN:
It isn't Blanche, is it?

---

## ELAINE:
Blanche?

---

## JOHN:
Well, she's beginning to get on my nerves.

---

## ELAINE:
She's been nothing but a darling. l've adored having her.

---

## JOHN:
Then what is it?

---

## JOHN:
Insomnia isn't inherited. You've always had a reason.

---

## JOHN:
Is it Carl? That bastard.

---

## ELAINE:
Carl?

---

## JOHN:
Blanche said you'd been talking about him.

---

## ELAINE:
That's nonsense. She brought him up. I didn't.

---

## ELAINE:
Look. You're a day person and I'm a night person.

---

## ELAINE:
When you go to bed, you fall asleep like that.

---

## ELAINE:
But I, sometimes the very minute my head touches the pillow, the candles light up, the music begins

---

## ELAINE:
And I'm the girl in crinoline standing at the entrance to a gorgeous ballroom.

---

## ELAINE:
But I can't go to a ball obviously--

## JOHN:
Okay ... okay.

---

## JOHN:
Something's got to be done about you, Elie ...

---

## ELAINE:
What? Just bundle me off to Switzerland?

---

## JOHN:
Well, why not try it? Nothing else seems to work. It could be a vacation.

---

[Elaine laughs]

---

## JOHN:
What's so funny?

---

## ELAINE:
You. You need a vacation, darling. Now, Stop prowling around. I'm perfectly all right.

---

## JOHN:
Then what is it?

---

## ELAINE:
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

---

## ELAINE:
Don't make so much of it. I'll end up thinking I'm some sort of freak.

---

## JOHN:
Oh, the hell with it, Ellie . . .

---

## ELAINE:
John. Darling. You're tired. I'm tired.

---

## ELAINE:
But if there's something you want to talk about . . . anything special ...

---

## ELAINE:
then let's just stay down here for a little while together.

---

## ELAINE:
I'll make some coffee, like the old days.

---

## ELAINE:
And I won't smoke. It might help both of us.

---

## JOHN:
I'm sorry, but it's late and I'm hungry, if you don't mind.

---

## JOHN:
That was a pretty lousy dinner Helga cooked up tonight.

---

## ELAINE:
I thought you were dieting.

---

## JOHN:
Care for anything? Glass of milk maybe?

---

## ELAINE:
No thanks.

---

## JOHN:
Well I'm starved.

---

## ELAINE:
John! Hold me . . . please.

---

## JOHN:
Ellie ...

---

## JOHN:
What the hell is the matter with you? You're like ice. You're shaking.

---

## JOHN:
Here, put this over you.

---

## JOHN:
Who the hell's been fooling with this thermostat?

---

[EERIE MUSIC]

---

## ELAINE:
John!

---

## ELAINE:
John, will you come up here, please! Right away, please!

---

## ELAINE:
John! John, will you please come up here? John! John!

---

## JOHN:
Now, what in God's name! What is it? What's the matter?

## ELAINE:
Oh, John, oh John, it's horrible! It's horrible!

---

## JOHN:
What? What is?

---

## ELAINE:
Just look out that window, please. It's-it's hideous!

---

## JOHN:
What in hell are you talking about?

---

## ELAINE:
Right across ... where the shade's up . . .

---

## ELAINE:
oh, my God. They've pulled it down. Did you see it? Didn't you see it?

---

## JOHN:
What?

---

## ELAINE:
A dead man ... He was sitting there with his eyes wide open. Dead. Dead. Dead.

---

## JOHN:
Oh my God. What kind of crazy-

---

## ELAINE:
He was there John. The shade went up just as I was shutting the draperies.

---

## ELAINE:
I saw him. Just sitting there. His head was all loose and wobbly, his eyes were fixed. They had this glassy stare.

---

## ELAINE:
They were looking at me.

---

## JOHN:
Now, wait a minute, wait a minute. This is wild. How do you know the man was dead?

---

## ELAINE:
I've seen dead people before. He was bleeding.

---

## JOHN:
Bleeding? From where?

---

## ELAINE:
His mouth. There was this trickle of blood like a dark snake in the moonlight. I grabbed the draperies...

---

## ELAINE:
I'm going to call the police. We've got to right away.

---

## JOHN:
No, wait a second. Take it easy. Let's not get carried away.

---

## JOHN:
I'm perfectly willing to call, but let's get some things straight.

---

## ELAINE:
John, we can't be like those people in the newspapers who watch people murdered outside their windows.

---

## JOHN:
You're sure he wasn't an illusion? The moonlight or shadows-?

---

## ELAINE:
He was perfectly real! That shade's never moved in all the months we've been here.

---

## ELAINE:
Oh, please, let's call. We're wasting time. Those people will get away.

---

## JOHN:
How old was this man?

---

## ELAINE:
Oh, middle-aged. And his hair looked sort of silvery in the moonlight. He was sitting in a green wing chair.

---

## JOHN:
A wing chair?

---

## ELAINE:
Yes, definitely. I could see the arms and the high curved back. Like that one, sort of, Only not of veleur... some sort of green brocade material.

---

## JOHN:
Green brocade! At that distance?

---

## ELAINE:
It's not that far away. I notice such things. Let's call. Why won't you call?

---

## JOHN:
Okay, okay.

---

---

## JOHN:
Hello. I'm calling to report a body, a dead body. My address? The Kips Bay District. 316 East 30th Street. Manhattan. Wheeler. John Wheeler.

---

## ELAINE:
All slumped down with his head back, staring at me, with those glassy eyes.

---

## JOHN:
Hello. My name is John Wheeler. I'm calling to report... well my wife thinks-

## ELAINE:
Thinks, John! I saw him.

---

## JOHN:

She's just seen a man's dead body in a building opposite the rear of our house.

---

## JOHN:
Look. Can't we get you to deal with it, Sergeant?

---

## ELAINE:
What's he saying?

---

## JOHN:
Ellie, relax. He's getting me Homicide ...

---

## JOHN:
Hello. HELLO. Oh. Sorry. My name is John Wheeler, Lieutenant. 316 East 30th Street. Manhattan.

---

## JOHN:
I'm calling to report what may have been a murder . . . at least my wife says she saw this dead man in a tenement window-an abandoned tenement facing the rear of our house.

---

## JOHN:
He was sitting in a chair.

## ELAINE:
A green wing chair.

---

## JOHN:
A green wing chair. Bleeding from the mouth ... a middle-aged man. What? No, not now.

---

## JOHN:
The shade's down. Yeah. No. My wife said the shade was up, and then it went down. Come on, Lieutenant . . .

---

## JOHN:
That's what my wife says and she's very very sure.

---

## JOHN:
Wheeler. W-H-E-E-L-E-R. 316 East 30th Street. Yes. That'd put it on 29th Street, middle of the block.

---

## JOHN:
Right. I'm on Wall Street. Securities. Securities. What? Yes. Right. got it. Okay, well, thanks a lot.

---

## JOHN:
Sonsabitches.

---

## ELAINE:
Is he sending somebody?

---

## JOHN:
Yes, but you'd think we'd committed a crime ... some cop's coming here to talk to us.

---

## ELAINE:
Here? But it happened over there!

---

## JOHN:
Ellie, I don't run the police department. They send somebody here, they send somebody there. Hell, I'd better get some pants on. Just take it easy, huh?

---

## HELGA:
Madame. A dead man. Gott in Himmel.

---

## ELAINE:
Oh, Helga. You heard? Yes, isn't it horrible?

---

## HELGA:
That's a real disgrace, that building.

---

## ELAINE:
You didn't happen to see him?

---

## HELGA:
Me? I was sleeping like a baby, yah ... till a couple minutes ago. I just got up to-to look at the clock .. .

---

## ELAINE:
Do you know anything about that place at all? Have you ever seen anybody in it-or that shade up?

---

## HELGA:
No, madame. Not since I started working for you. I never saw nothing in that dirty old wreck. But then I got my work to do.

---

## ELAINE:
What does it look like from the front?

---

## HELGA:
You never see it from the front, madame? Why, it's all old junk-heap with a broken down stoop.

---

## HELGA:
Around the corner. In the middle of the block, next to a school.

---

## HELGA:
And on the other side from a delicatessen, with very bad potato salad that fella makes.

---

## ELAINE:
Potato salad?

---

## HELGA:
Yah, I wouldn't go into that store again if they shoot me. It's got stale mayonnaise, It upset my digestion.

---

## HELGA:
And I heard they robbed that store a coupla times already.

---

## ELAINE:
Robbed it? Oh . . . where are the police?

---

## HELGA:
Ach, it's a bad street altogether, that 29th Street, With lotsa saloons and plenty filthy foreigners living there.

---

## HELGA:
And they got garbage cans and furniture stuck out on the sidewalks-

---

[Distant sirens begin.]

---

## HELGA:
It's a wicked city, madame. It's like war.

---

## HELGA:
It's worse than war with peoples robbing you and stabbing you for no reason but they just don't like your looks.

---

## HELGA:
You like I bring you up your morning chocolate? Or some coffee maybe when I'm dressed?

---

## JOHN:
I'd like some coffee. And a Danish, too, if you don't mind. And that sandwich I was making.

---

## HELGA:
Oh-so it was you in my kitchen!

---

## JOHN:
Ellie!

---

## ELAINE:
I'm sorry. But she works hard- I'll speak to her.

---

[The door bell buzzes]

---

## ELAINE:
Here are the police. Will you? Shall I?

---

## JOHN:
No. Let her go! For God's sake!

---

## HELGA:
(Offstage) Who is it?

---

## VANELLI:
(Through the intercom) This the Wheeler residence?

---

## HELGA:
(Offstage) Yah ... Mister Wheeler! It's the cops!

---

## JOHN:
I swear she's got the manners of a storm trooper!

---

## JOHN:
Good morning, Officer. My name is John Wheeler.

---

## VANELLI:
Morning. You the people who reported a body?

---

## JOHN:
Yes, we are. My wife's up here.

---

## VANELLI:
Nice place you got here. You people new in the neighborhood?

---

## JOHN:
We moved in last October. This is Mrs. Wheeler.

---

## VANELLI:
Mrs. Wheeler? I'm Vanelli, Patrolman Vanelli. Say, is that a real Picasso, ma'am?

---

## ELAINE:
Yes, it is. And this is the window where I saw him ... the dead man. Right over there--that second floor window.

---

## ELAINE:
That shade went up for a minute ... is somebody being sent there?

---

## VANELLI:
Sure, lady. The Lieutenant's taking care of it. Nowadays you don't rush any vacant building, unless you're looking to get killed.

---

## VANELLI:
It takes time, ma'am.

---

## ELAINE:
You can see how close we are.

---

## VANELLI:
Yeah. You sure are, I'll say ... in fact, considering you got that wall there on the right and that left hand house jutting out so far,

---

## VANELLI:
it looks like you're the only house on the block can see into those windows.

---

## ELAINE:
Yes ... it's rather a cul-de-sac.

---

## VANELLI:
Yeah? You say this guy was sitting in the window?

---

## ELAINE:
Yes . . . in a big green wing chair.

---

## VANELLI:
Yeah? That's funny. I didn't know there was any furniture left in that old dump.

---

## ELAINE:
That's strange.

---

## VANELLI:
You see, ma'am, around six months ago, they had a fire in there-which practically gutted it. And then the neighborhood kids got in and stole whatever they could lay their hands on.

---

## ELAINE:
Well, I know I saw a big green wing chair-sort of like that . . .

---

## ELAINE:
And the man was slouched down into it, like this.

---

## VANELLI:
Say, that's pretty lifelike.

---

## ELAINE:
With blood trickling down his face. What else can I tell you? Who owns that building?

---

## VANELLI:
God knows, lady, I don't. But it's probably one of those big real-estate combines, they buy up a lotta stuff on... what you call it: speculation. . . .

---

## VANELLI:
Okay. We'll see what the story is.

---

---

## VANELLI:
Excuse me, is that a real Modigliani?

---

## ELAINE:
Yes it is. You seem to know a great deal about paintings.

---

## VANELLI:
Before I came on the Force, I used to be a guard in the Brooklyn Art Museum.

---

## VANELLI:
And I also took a night course on the subject which is more than you can say for most guards, right?

---

## ELAINE:
Right. You will keep us posted?

---

## VANELLI:
Lady, just trust us ... I hope you got insurance on this stuff?

---

## ELAINE:
Yes, we do. My husband also keeps a gun handy.

---

## JOHN:
Elaine!

---

## JOHN:
I have a license for it.

---

## ELAINE:
Thank you, Officer.

---

## VANELLI:
Likewise. It's a pleasure. It's like a museum.

---

---

## JOHN:
Did you have to tell him about that revolver?

---

## ELAINE:
What's wrong with owning one? Particularly now?

---

## ELAINE:
Why aren't they over there? What's taking all this time?

---

## JOHN:
Look, they know what they're doing. You look tired, worn out. Why don't you go upstairs and lie down for awhile?

---

## ELAINE:
Lie down? When all the excitement is starting?

---

## JOHN:
You aren't planning to stay here and run the whole show? Seriously, Elaine. I've never see you look so exhausted.

---

## JOHN:
Three nights without sleep are raising hell with you honey ...

---

## ELAINE:
But I can't help not sleeping, It's not my fault!

---

## HELGA:
This was all we had in the house, Mister Wheeler. There was no Danishes.

---

## JOHN:
Yeah?

---

## HELGA:
Yeah. And I brought for you your morning chocolate, madame.

---

[POLICE SIRENS IN THE DISTANCE]

---

## HELGA:
The cops are there already? Good, that's good.

---

## ELAINE:
Perhaps they are, but I can't see anything. What do you suppose they're doing over there?

---

## JOHN:
Who knows? Where's Mrs. Cooke?

---

## HELGA:
I haven't seen her, heard one peep outta her.

---

## JOHN:
Well, give her a call.

---

## ELAINE:
No, don't wake her up, Helga. Let the poor child sleep. She's having lunch today with Larry.

---

## ELAINE:
Her last date with him... she's breaking it off. And I'm sure she needs all the rest she can get.

---

## ELAINE:
Still no lights. But look at all those people running. Oh, there's that strange-looking man who lives next door.. he just came into our yard.

---

## JOHN:
What's the matter with his own yard?

---

## ELAINE:
He probably couldn't see, with that wall in the way.

---

## ELAINE:
Oh, there's a light. And another.

---

## ELAINE:
Two policemen! Three! They're getting in!

---

## JOHN:
Take it easy.

---

## ELAINE:
Come on. Doesn't it look eerie? Look at that ground floor, those broken beams, those naked iron staircases . . .

---

## JOHN:
That must have been one hell of a fire ...

---

## ELAINE:
They're going up the stairs! Those lights! How haunting! They're coming toward that room!

---

## HELGA:
Ach. I don't like dead peoples.

---

## JOHN:
All right. Come over here, Elaine.

---

## ELAINE:
But why? I've seen him. I'm not scared-

## JOHN:
Come on. Don't try to be so damned courageous. It could throw you into a tailspin. You know what it could do.

---

## JOHN:
I'm getting Blanche down here.

## ELAINE:
Oh, don't be silly. I'm just fine. I'm not going to do anything. I just want to know what happened over there.

---

## ELAINE:
Oh, but why isn't that shade up? Why aren't they letting us see anything?

---

## ELAINE:
It's so haunting ... just shadows . . . lights and shadows moving around behind that yellow shade . . . like some weird shadow ballet.

---

## JOHN:
All right. Come away. You're high as a kite! I'm worried about you!

---

## ELAINE:
What's happened? The lights have gone out.

## JOHN:
I don't know, And I don't care. It's their business.

---

## ELAINE:
But the room is pitch-dark suddenly, And the shade -the shade's still down.

---

## JOHN:
So-they've been there. They've seen everything.

---

## JOHN:
Look, police procedure is police procedure. We'll read about it in the newspapers.

---

## JOHN:

Now sit down and relax. And calm down. Here, drink your chocolate.

---

## ELAINE:
I don't want any, I'm too nervous.

---

## JOHN:
What about? You don't even know him. He's a total stranger.

---

## ELAINE:
He is not a total stranger, he's a human being and my responsibility.

---

## JOHN:
Your responsibility?

---

[POLICE SIRENS]

---

## ELAINE:
Oh, they can't be leaving already.

---

## JOHN:
Why is he your responsibility?

---

## ELAINE:
John. How can you expect me to not care for some pitiful aging man who looked at me with such a terrible expression in his eyes?

---

## ELAINE:
As if somebody had betrayed him.

---

## ELAINE:
Someone did. I know they did.

---

## JOHN:
All right, I'm getting Blanche up!

---

## ELAINE:
John ... don't leave me alone!

---

---

## APPLEBY:
Hello there. Your back door was open. So I took the liberty. I'm Curtis Appleby, from next door.

---

## ELAINE:
Pardon? Who?

---

## APPLEBY:
Appleby, Appleby. The house on your right. I also publish a small weekly newspaper, the Kips Bay Tatler, which I hope you read.

---

## APPLEBY:
I couldn't resist popping in for a few moments. I hear that you're the one who saw the dead man, Mrs. Wheeler.

---

## ELAINE:
How did you know that?

---

## APPLEBY:
From your maid naturally. The fraulein. We speak German together ...

---

## APPLEBY:
My, you've done wonders with this place.

---

## ELAINE:
Thank you.

---

## APPLEBY:
I've been so eager to meet you people. You're the Cantwell heiress, aren't you?

---

## ELAINE:
Yes.

---

## APPLEBY:
Ah, good morning, Mr. Wheeler. Appleby here, the house with the wall. You're in stocks and bonds. I've seen you running off so many mornings with your... attache case.

---

## JOHN:
Yes, I've spotted you.

---

## APPLEBY:
Although, you know, I keep having the feeling that I've met you in some other capacity.

---

## JOHN:
Don't think so-

---

## APPLEBY:
Miami Beach in 1962?

---

## APPLEBY:
Las Vegas ... The Sands?

---

## APPLEBY:
You didn't ever happen to work as a cruise director on the S.S. Caronia?

---

## ELAINE:
My husband has sold sail boats.

---

## JOHN:
Yes. I've been around the sea all my life-

## APPLEBY:
There! I almost hit it on the nose, didn't I?

---

## APPLEBY:
The sea. That salty look. A ship was somewhere in the picture.

---

## APPLEBY:
But tell me about your dead man.

---

## JOHN:
What's this?

---

## ELAINE:
Mr. Appleby's a writer, dear.

---

## APPLEBY:
The Kips Bay Tatler. A local bit of journalese.

---

## ELAINE:
Please we don't want any publicity

## APPLEBY:
Oh, I'll be circumspect, never fear.

---

## ELAINE:
We're interested in what the police find. You were in our garden just now. Did you hear anything or see anything?

---

## APPLEBY:
No, madame. Nothing definitive.

---

## APPLEBY:
I face the school, which is horrid enough with all those unruly young men. But you have a ringside seat, I must say.

---

## APPLEBY:
Did you know I'd put a bid on it last fall?

---

## JOHN:
On what?

---

## APPLEBY:
On this house of yours. I tried to purchase it for a friend of mine--the actor, Boyd Herrick.

---

## APPLEBY:
But YOU outbid us by a mile, sir. Money talked. Touche.

---

## JOHN:
Excuse me. I'll see what's keeping her, she said she'd be down in a second. Blanche! BLANCHE!

---

## APPLEBY:
I do hope I'm not interrupting anything? Do tell me what you saw-just off the record, eh? In that evil old monstrosity?

---

## ELAINE:
Evil? Is it evil?

---

## APPLEBY:
Oh, my dear lady, it's always seemed to me to be the very epitome of sordidness and hidden corruption.

---

## APPLEBY:
Do you believe in the occult, the atmosphere that certain places give off? I do.

---

## APPLEBY:
Think of its history. Did you know two people committed suicide there in 1852?

---

## ELAINE:
No. I didn't.

---

## APPLEBY:
A love-pact. He was a notorious robber-baron, and she his young mistress.

---

## APPLEBY:
And then, it became the abode of sweltering immigrants fleeing the pogroms and famines of Europe to die by the thousands in the sweat-shops of this greedy city.

---

## APPLEBY:
And recently, until the fire gutted it, those stifling little rooms were filled with scum.

---

## APPLEBY:
The seamiest sort of people -- prostitutes, bums, drug addicts. All the tragic people of this world whose one reward for living is an unmarked grave in Potters Field.

---

## ELAINE:
How awful. And now a murder has been committed. Do you mean the evil has never stopped?

---

## APPLEBY:
Well ... something of the sort, I suppose. But what a contrast to look out from this--

---

## APPLEBY:
Into the very face of death.

---

## BLANCHE:
Oh, Elaine!

---

## BLANCHE:
John just told me about the dead man. Isn't that something? How could I have slept through the whole thing?

---

## APPLEBY:
Ah, I've never seen this lady before. May I be introduced?

---

## ELAINE:
Blanche, this is Mr. Appleby from next door.
Mr. Appleby, my very good friend, Mrs. Cooke.

---

## APPLEBY:
How do you do, my dear --

## BLANCHE:
Good morning.

---

## BLANCHE:
Darling, you look so pale and exhausted. John said you were very upset, so I brought your medication.

---

## ELAINE:
Mr. Appleby has just been telling me the wildest things about that building.

---

## ELAINE:
That it's evil, haunted ... drenched with horror.

---

## BLANCHE:
Really? Well I wouldn't worry about it. You know practically the same thing happened to a friend of mine last summer in London.

---

## BLANCHE:
He was living in a hotel, and across the way he kept seeing this beautiful woman, lying in bed, stark naked.

---

## BLANCE:
But she never moved, and the light never went off ... she was dead, of course, but so gorgeous that it broke his heart to notify the police.

---

## APPLEBY:
Indeed.

---

## BLANCHE:
Please take your pill, darling.

---

## APPLEBY:
Well, I must be running along.

---

## APPLEBY:
Do you know you remind me so much of an actress friend of mine from Budapest. Stunning woman. But you're from the Middle West, are you not, Mrs. Cooke?

---

## BLANCHE:
Yes, I am. How did you know--

## APPLEBY:
Instinct.

---

## AAPLEBY:
But you're not in the theater?

---

## BLANCHE:
No. I'm a nurse.

---

## APPLEBY:
A nurse! Well, the two professions are not so very far apart at that.

---

## APPPLEBY:
Stay away from bridges, though. She jumped off one in the end.

---

## APPLEBY:
Head first, smack into the Beautiful Blue Danube.

---

## APPLEBY:
Didn't drown, broke her neck.

---

## APPLEBY:
Ah, there you are again, my friend. So nice to meet you lovely people. And do come to visit me sometime when there's less in the offing.

---

## APPLEBY:
I haven't got a palace, but I do have certain unusual curios from various obscure parts of the globe.

---

## APPLEBY:
And good luck, Mrs. Wheeler. Long may you dwell in Camelot.

---

## JOHN:
Crazy joker.

---

## BLANCHE:
Obviously the neighborhood Peeping-Tom.

---

## BLANCHE:
What's wrong, dear?

---

## ELAINE:
I guess that man depressed me, and I-I-

---

## ELAINE:
Blanche, where did you get that sailboat pin?

---

## BLANCHE:
Do you like it? Lillian gave it to me for Christmas. She thinks I'm nautical, just because that Spaniard in Majorca tried to give me sailing lessons. Is it too gaudy?

---

## ELAINE:
No ... it's beautiful ...

---

## BLANCHE:
It's bothering you. Something is.

---

## ELAINE:
No, it's fine ... John, would you call the police again? We should have heard something by now.

---

## JOHN:
Elaine--

## ELAINE:
Please, call them.

---

## BLANCHE:
She's really not too good.

---

---

## BLANCHE:
Your forehead's just like ice, darling.

---

## JOHN:
Lieutenant Walker, please.

---

## BLANCHE:
This pin is upsetting you. What is it?

---

## ELAINE:
I-I'm over it now. It's just, well... just like the pin Kay Banning wore in the car that day with Carl.

---

## BLANCHE:
Carl! Oh God, Elaine. I'm so sorry.

---

## JOHN:
Well, can I speak to someone else? It's about that murder on 29th Street.

---

[The door bell buzzes.]

---

## BLANCHE:
I'll go.

---

## JOHN:
No, I'll get it. They keep you waiting forever.

---

## BLANCHE:
I'm sorry about the pin. Elaine, I'd no idea what she was wearing. honestly.

---

## ELAINE:
No. Of course not.

---

## BLANCHE:
Why didn't you wake me up when you couldn't sleep? I'd have kept you company, read to you.

---

## BLANCHE:
Then maybe none of this would have happened.

---

## ELAINE:
It still would have happened to that poor man in the window.

---

## ELAINE:
I shouldn't take those pills. They make me groggy.

---

## JOHN:
(Offstage.) Yes? Who is it?

---

## WALKER:
(Through the intercom) Mr. Wheeler? Lieutenant Walker, Homicide.

---

## ELAINE:
It's the police! They scare me. I've never been involved with them before.

---

## BLANCHE:
It's all right. Stop fussing. Your hair looks perfect.

---

## WALKER:
Mrs. Wheeler? Which is Mrs. Wheeler?

---

## ELAINE:
I'm Mrs. Wheeler. Good morning, Lieutenant. Have you any news for us?

---

## WALKER:
Is this the window where yoµ saw what you saw?

---

## ELAINE:
Yes, that's the window. Are there any questions you'd like to ask?

---

## WALKER:
Yes, I have a question, ma'am.

---

## WALKER:
Do you know anything about the crime rate in this city? The increasing crime rate?

---

## WALKER:
The numbers of murders per week we're getting?

---

## ELAINE:
N-no, but I-

## WALKER:
It's a slaughter, that's what it is. That's what's happening nowadays.

---

## JOHN:
Lieutenant-

## WALKER:
Earlier tonight I saw a woman-an elderly woman-in a church basement. She was dead.

---

## WALKER:
She hadn't only been robbed, she'd been mutilated.

---

## WALKER:
That's the kind of stuff we're getting and she's just par for the course.

---

## JOHN:
Please get to the point, Lieutenant. My wife's been up all night, she's very nervous.

---

## WALKER:
Yeah, I can see she is. Usually I can spot these phone calls and handle them right off, nervous ladies like your wife.

---

## WALKER:
But tonight I missed. You made the call.

---

## WALKER:
These ladies, they phone the Bureau and tell us they shot their husbands or some neighbor has hung himself,

---

## WALKER:
but well there isn't one out of a hundred-

## ELAINE:
Excuse me, Lieutenant, are you telling us there wasn't anything in that building?

---

## WALKER:
Sure there was something, ma'am. Biggest, damndest wing chair you ever saw,

---

## WALKER:
sitting in that empty railroad flat, by itself, by the window, in the dark. But that was it.

---

## ELAINE:
But Lieutenant-

## WALKER:
No blood. No dead man. No fingerprints, Not a single sign of violence, dust all over everything.

---

## ELAINE:
Lieutenant! That's impossible. I saw him. That shade went up!

---

## ELAINE:
That chair was there. I'd never seen that chair before. He had to have been in it.

---

## WALKER:
Lady! Two squad cars. Four men.

---

## WALKER:
Half an hour of the department's time and everybody overworked on double shifts, just to look at a green wing chair?

---

## ELAINE:
There was a body in it!

---

## WALKER:
All l know is that old lady in the basement, that's a dead body. Goodnight, ma'am.

---

## ELAINE:
I saw him. He was bleeding.

---

## JOHN:
Ellie

---

## ELAINE:
John! He's wrong I...

---

## JOHN:
Okay. What more can we do?

---

## ELAINE:
Please. Please believe me. I screamed. I tore those draperies.

---

## JOHN:
He was right there, in that window.

---

## JOHN:
Sure...sure...right there.

---

## ELAINE:
Oh-I'm so dizzy.

---

## BLANCHE:
It's only the medication. It's all right.

---

## ELAINE:
You've got to believe me. That shade went up ...and-and there he was . . . sitting in the morning sun.

---

## JOHN:
The sun?

---

## ELAINE:
14127 ... 14127...

---

## JOHN:
What's that, Ellie?

---

## ELAINE:
14127 ... California ... 1964 . . .

---

## ELAINE:
Somebody's doing something!

---

## ELAINE:
He was staring at me ... staring at me ... with this awful look in his eyes ... as though he were trying to tell me something . . .

---

## ELAINE:
something unreal, something--incredible ...

---

[DRAMATIC MUSIC BEGINS QUIETLY]

---

## BLANCHE:
Shall I pull the draperies?

---

## JOHN:
Tight.

---

## JOHN:
Tighter ... Mrs. Cooke.

---

[DRAMATIC MUSIC BUILDS]

---

[Haunting melody of _Frere Jacques_ on piano]

---

[GRANDFATHER CLOCK CHIMES AND STRIKES 5PM]

---

---

## HELGA:
Madame? It's almost night...madame.

---

## HELGA:
Oh, Mr. Wheeler. You got back?

---

## JOHN:
How's she been doing?

---

## HELGA:
Up and down all day. On the phone to that Police Lieutenant. It's a bad city, Mr. Wheeler. It's got nobody you can trust.

---

## JOHN:
Okay, okay.

---

## HELGA:
She hasn't eaten nothing. made some very nice pudding and

## JOHN:
That'll be all, thanks. You can take the evening off.

---

## HELGA:
Off?

---

## JOHN:
We're dining out tonight.

---

---

## JOHN:
Ellie, Ellie, wake up.

---

## ELAINE:
Oh! When did you get home?

---

## JOHN:
Just now. Why aren't you dressed?

---

## ELAINE:
Oh, I've been in sort of a daze ... trailing about the house. That medicine . . . !

---

## JOHN:
Been on the phone, too. Right?

---

## JOHN:
Look, you heard what the Lieutenant said. And there's nothing, absolutely nothing we can do about it.

---

## ELAINE:
Well I'm not satisfied with his attitude.

---

## ELAINE:
I'm not one of his crazy women who imagine they've shot their husbands, or some neighbor has hung himself.

---

## ELAINE:
They found that wing chair, didn't they?

---

## JOHN:
All right. A wing chair. Now look, its after five. Why don't you get dressed?

---

## ELAINE:
I've been waiting all day to talk to you about it. All the Lieutenant does is keep repeating the same old. thing, over and over and over.

---

## JOHN:
Okay, okay. Get some clothes on, and we'll go into it, from stem to stern.

---

## JOHN:
Go along, Ellie. I've got a lot of other things I want to discuss with you.

---

## ELAINE:
Like what?

---

## JOHN:
Ellie, do what I tell you. Please.

---

## JOHN:
We've got a big night ahead of us. Aren't we supposed to be taking Blanche out for some kind of farewell celebration?

---

## ELAINE:
Oh that's right. I almost forgot. Did you make the reservation?

---

## JOHN:
I will. 8:30 okay?

---

## ELAINE:
Fine.

---

---

## JOHN:
Hello. John Wheeler speaking.

---

## JOHN:
Hold on a minute. Well?

---

## HELGA:
Mr. Appleby is here.

---

## JOHN:
We aren't seeing anyone.

---

## HELGA:
He's for madame.

---

## JOHN:
She's dressing, and I said we aren't seeing *anyone.*

---

## HELGA:
All right, all right, I heard you, Mr. Wheeler.

---

## JOHN:
Sorry... It's okay, Set up for this evening.

---

## JOHN:
Don't worry about that. I'm taking care of it...

---

## JOHN:
Fine. Just now... when? ... You have the directions...

---

## JOHN:
Very good. well, thanks... yes.... yes... yes... oh definitely.

---

## JOHN:
I will. Right, right. Thank you....

---

## JOHN:
I thought I told you to take the evening off?

---

## HELGA:
Yeah, I know, Mr. Wheeler. But I'd like to speak to you a minute, please.... I can't speak now with madame. She is too upset.

---

## HELGA:
It's not good what's happening. Things, they are not right.

---

## HELGA:
I don't like it, Mr. Wheeler. it upsets me very much.

---

## JOHN:
What is it, Helga?

---

## HELGA:
I need money. Five hundred dollars.

---

## JOHN:
Oh? For what-if I may ask?

---

## HELGA:
It's not your business. But I'll tell you ...

---

## HELGA:
My mother- she is still living in Germany, Mr. Wheeler. And she's very old, she's very sick. I would like to go back there. Pretty soon.

---

## JOHN:
You would?

---

## HELGA:
So...it costs money. Madame, she's very generous. But I don't want to add to her troubles now.

---

## HELGA:
But you, Mr. Wheeler, you're the boss, okay?

---

## HELGA
I give you plenty of notice.

---

## HELGA:
And I don't tell madame nothing.

---

## JOHN:
Five hundred dollars, Helga? I'll think about it.

---

## HELGA:
Yah. You think about it, Mr. Wheeler.

---

## HELGA:
Here's madame. Ach, so beautiful you are.

---

## ELAINE:
Thank you, Helga. Did Mr. Wheeler give you the evening off?

---

## HELGA:
Yah. Danke.

---

## ELAINE:
Well, how do I look?

---

## JOHN:
Wonderful. Very nice. Something new?

---

## ELAINE:
No. I wore it Monday when we took Blanche to the opera.

---

## JOHN:
Oh, well, it looks great on you. Martini?

---

## ELAINE:
Gin doesn't really mix with tranquilizers... I love this room in winter, don't you, John?

---

## ELAINE:
I will have a sherry.

---

## ELAINE:
It's nice to have this moment alone, isn't it? I adore Blanche, but honestly ...

---

## ELAINE:
Do you realize we haven't had one cocktail hour all to ourselves in weeks?

---

---

## ELAINE:
John, do you remember that big fur rug we used to lie on in Arizona?

---

## ELAINE:
What were all these other things you wanted to talk to me about?

---

## JOHN:
Oh, well ... I don't want to upset you now ...

---

## ELAINE:
Who's upset? That was the only thing upsetting thing.

---

## JOHN:
Elaine. I took a big step forward today.

---

## ELAINE:
Oh?

---

## JOHN:
Look, honey. This afternoon I took it upon myself to call up Mount Sinai Hospital and I spoke to their chief of psychiatry about you.

---

## ELAINE:
Oh. And what did you tell him about me?

---

## JOHN:
I told him all about these bad nights you've been having that you've been plagued with this insomnia most of your life.

---

## JOHN:
I also asked him about that clinic in Switzerland, He recommended it, went overboard.

---

## JOHN:
He says that it has some of the best doctors in Europe, the accomodations are great, it has a wonderful climate--it's not too far from Geneva.

---

## ELAINE:
Geneva is dull.

---

## JOHN:
All right ... if you're not interested, forget it.

---

## JOHN:
But he did think you needed some kind of help.

---

## ELAINE:
Well, I don't need psychiatry!

---

## JOHN:
I'm giving you his opinion.

---

## ELAINE:
I had enough psychiatry eight years ago, and it just mixed me up.

---

## ELAINE:
Darling, don't you see, if I went to a psychiatrist right now, it would mean I doubted my own mind, I doubted that I saw that dead man.

---

## ELAINE:
And I know I saw him. It would mean I was losing control, backsliding. And that's never going to happen again. Never. Ever.

---

## JOHN:
All right, all right, don't get hysterical.

---

## JOHN:
Then I'll just tell her not to come.

---

## ELAINE:
Her?

---

## JOHN:
A woman psychiatrist they recommended at Mount Sinai.

---

## JOHN:
She'd consented to come see you here. I knew you'd never go to her.

---

## ELAINE:
Here? When?

---

## JOHN
Tonight, around six.

---

## ELAINE:
Oh, John! You have been taking giant steps!

---

## BLANCHE:
(Offstage) Helloo ...it's only me.

---

## ELAINE:
Does Blanche know about this?

---

## JOHN:
Blanche? Do you think I discuss our business with Blanche?

---

## BLANCE:
Hello! Oh darling, you're up? How pretty you look. Mmm, my very favorite dress.

---

## BLANCE:
I felt so guilty about leaving you today, but Helga was standing guard like a dragon, and I had a million last-minute things to do . . .

---

## BLANCE:
These are for you. A little get well present.

---

## ELAINE:
How sweet. But you didn't have to.

---

## BLANCHE:
I'm afraid I couldn't afford more than half a dozen at these New York prices.

---

## ELAINE:
Fresias. Ch-charming .

---

## BLANCHE:
Aren't they delicate-like little babies' toes.

---

## BLANCHE:
Now what did I do?

---

## ELAINE:
N-nothing. They're exquisite. Helga! H-how was your luncheon date? I'll just tell Helga to put them in water. Helga, would you come up a minute, please.

---

## BLANCHE:
My luncheon date was flne.

---

## BLANCHE:
What did I say?

---

## JOHN:
Pick up your plane ticket?

---

## BLANCHE:
Yes. I did everything.

---

## JOHN:
Want a drink?

---

## BLANCHE:
Please.

---

## HELGA:
Yes, madame?

---

## ELAINE:
Would you mind putting these into a vase, Helga?

---

## HELGA:
Which vase?

---

## ELAINE:
I don't know. Maybe a small little bowl. And would you arrange them? Put them in the-the front room, on the Pembroke table, please.

---

## BLANCHE:
Good evening, Helga.

---

## HELGA:
Ach, I didn't see you, Mrs. Cooke. How did you get in? I didn't hear no bell ring.

---

## BLANCHE:
I have my own key.

---

## HELGA:
Ach, she has her own key!

---

## JOHN:
Ellie, that does it!

## ELAINE:
I'm terribly sorry, Blanche. I can't imagine what's gotten into her. She's so peculiar lately.

---

## BLANCHE:
Think nothing of it, dear. I'm used to it. All servants are jealous of nurses. Didn't you know that?

---

## ELAINE:
But you're our friend, a guest. And on your lastnight too! Why must you leave us?

---

## ELAINE:
Isn't there some way John and I, could change your mind?

---

## ELAINE:
New York seems just the place for you, with all those lovely clothes, how can you possibiy settle for that remote hospital?

---

## BLANCHE:
Oh, the Mayo Brothers would adore to hear their clinic called remote.

---

## ELAINE:
I just meant it seems so far away.

---

## BLANCHE:
Nothing's far with jets, darling.

---

## BLANCHE:
No, I'm looking forward to it, immensely. It's time I got the feel of a real hospital again and real people

---

## BLANCHE:
I mean all kinds of cases. I'm sick of pushing rich women around-in their wheel-chairs on the Rome to Riviera circuit.

---

## ELAINE:
But Minnesota in the winter time! Why don't you just stay here and marry Larry?

---

## ELAINE:
He sounds perfect for you. Wait until his divorce is final?

---

## BLANCHE:
Darling, you don't know Larry. Getting married again is the last thing on his mind.

---

## BLANCHE:
No, that's over. All washed up. A fling I'd just as soon forget.

---

## BLANCHE:
But let me show you what I bought today. You'll never guess. A brand new me, for my new life.

---

## ELAINE:
Not a wig? But, Blanche, your own hair is so lovely.

---

## BLANCHE:
I'm bored with it. And you know what they say about blondes...

---

## BLANCHE:
Isn't it divine? It's a Super-Scandinavian.

---

## ELAINE:
Oh.

---

## BLANCHE:
What's wrong ith it? Too silly?

---

## ELAINE:
No, it's charming. It really is.

---

## BLANCHE:
Elaine, you hate it. What is wrong?

---

## ELAINE:
Nothing. Try it on. I guess, I just don't like wigs on wig blocks.

---

## ELAINE:
Go ahead, Blanche. It's beautiful.

---

## ELAINE:
And I shouldn't be so hypersensitive. Otherwise, God knows, I will need that psychiatrist.

---

## BLANCHE:
What psychiatrist?

---

## ELAINE:
Some woman John's hired to talk me out of that dead man.

---

## JOHN:
Elaine, that's not the reason.

---

## BLANCHE:
What's her name?

---

## JOHN:
Dr. Lake, Tracey Lake.

---

## BLANCHE:
Tracey Lake?

---

## JOHN:
You've heard of her?

---

## BLANCHE:
Of course. She's an authority on insomnia.

---

## BLANCHE:
Why, she wrote a book, practically a classic, though I can't remember the name, on the neuropathology of sleep patterns.

---

## BLANCHE:
We used it in nursing school. Elaine, how lucky.

---

## ELAINE:
Please.

---

## BLANCHE:
Darling, what's the trouble?

---

## ELAINE:
I can't stand to look at it. Put it away. Get rid of it!

---

## JOHN:
Elaine! What the hell's the matter with you?

---

## ELAINE:
I'm sorry,...Blanche-I apologize. It just looked exactly like. her head.

---

## BLANCHE:
Whose head?

## ELAINE:
Hers. Kay Banning's.

---

## BLANCHE:
Oh God. I'm sorry.

---

## ELAINE:
It's all right. You never saw her.

---

## HELGA:
Mr. Appleby, madame.

---

## APPLEBY:
Good evening. One and all... pray pardon the intrusion.

---

## APPLEBY:
I came to inquire about our good lady's health.

---

## APPLEBY:
Fully recovered, Mrs, Wheeler? What a charming robe-de-style. A little token I whipped up.

---

## ELAINE:
For me? Thank you.

---

## APPLEBY:
Rightfully good for whatever ails you. A Tibetan monk gave me the recipe. I practically live on it.

---

## APPLEBY:
I'm here to offer you my serviceses, as well.

---

## JOHN:
Your services?

---

## APPLEBY:
Murder is my hobby and after this morning, how could I resist?

---

## JOHN:
Now just a minute-

## APPLEBY:
The Gase of the Vanishing Corpse, eh? Now one sees it, presto, it's gone!

---

## APPLEBY:
A classic in fiction ... indeed even commonplace, with certain authors. But where did this one vanish to? What do you think ducky?

---

## BLANCHE:
I don't think.

---

## APPLEBY:
You don't think. Everybody thinks. Even house-guests are allowed to--think ... occasionally...And I can hear those busy little wheels whirring.

---

## JOHN:
Now, look here, Appleby-

## APPLEBY:
Beautiful chess set. Renaissance? Florentine? Yes, where on earth did he go---that sullen, silver-haired stranger?

---

## JOHN:
Do give us your opinion.

---

## APPLEBY:
Down a trap door? Up a chimney?

---

## APPLEBY:
Or was he possibly just chopped up? Marinated in lime?

---

## APPLEBY:
Stuffed under a floor board...crammed into a coal bin?

---

## HELGA:
Gott, dot's terrible!

---

## APPLEBY:
Or was he real at all?

---

## ELAINE:
Oh, yes, Mr. Appleby. He was. He was.

---

## APPLEBY:
I meant not human. A waxwork possibly? A hoax? A dummy ... a grisly arranged spectacle?

---

## JOHN:
Ridiculous.

---

## ELAINE:
Oh no. No. I never even thought of such a thing. Of course not. Who would dream of doing it?

---

## JOHN:
Exactly.

---

## APPLEBY:
The rich attract enemies. What's your opinion friend?

---

## JOHN:
My opinion? I think you don't belong here.

---

## APPLEBY:
Eh? Good Heavens. Well!

---

## APPLEBY:
I thought we were good friends. Neighbors. Well! Good night.

---

## APPLEBY:
I'm due at a cocktail party. Frightful bores, aren't they? Cocktail parties.

---

## APPLEBY:
Keep me apprised though, I'm fascinated. At any hour of the day or night.

---

## JOHN:
That son of a bitch.

---

## BLANCHE:
I hate that man. He's sadistic.

---

## ELAINE:
But you don't suppose-

## JOHN:
Elaine, whatever he told you, put it right out of your head.

---

## ELAINE:
But it might explain something

## JOHN:
Explain what?

---

## ELAINE:
The disappearance, the shade going up and down...I think I'll call the Lieutenant about it.

---

## JOHN:
Now don't be insane.

---

## ELAINE:
But it was just in some ways-like a peep show-a hideous peep show. Put on for my benefit.

---

## ELAINE:
And I did only see him for a minute or two. John, really. Mr. Appleby might have hit on something.

---

## JOHN:
The man's a fool! He's a phoney.

---

## ELAINE:
Then isn't that all the more reason we should talk to the Lieutenant?

---

## JOHN:
Oh, Elaine--

## ELAINE:
Well, he did want to buy this house, didn't he?

---

## JOHN:
Elaine, I don't want you to call him!

---

## ELAINE:
Why not ... darling?

---

## JOHN:
You've called that poor bastard enough today. You're just humiliating yourself.

---

## ELAINE:
Why are you so fierce about it?

---

## JOHN:
Okay. Go right ahead.

---

## ELAINE:
Make a fool out of yourself, but leave me out of it!

---

## ELAINE:
Oh, he's never yelled at me before. And over such a silly little thing ...

---

## ELAINE:
Hello. I'd like to speak to Lieutenant Walker, please. It's Mrs. Wheeler again.

---

## ELAINE:
Lieutenant Walker? Elaine Wheeler speaking.

---

## ELAINE:
I'm terribly sorry to disturb you again, but do you suppose that dead man could have been a hoax?

---

## ELAINE:
Deliberately placed there? Some sort of grisly arranged spectacle to scare me out of my wits, to make us leave this house?

---

## BLANCHE:
I thought she told you to put them in the front room?

---

## ELAINE:
Well, possibly, but not necessarily a dead body ... though l was perfectly sure it looked like one.

---

## ELAINE:
The blood certainly looked real ... I beg your pardon? Enemies? Well, I don't know of any. Though it's true we own some valuable things.

---

## ELAINE:
No, nothing's ever been touched. You will look into it, Lieutenant?

---

## BLANCHE:
Elaine . . .

---

## ELAINE:
Well, thank you very much. I really-

---

## BLANCHE:
He hung up on you?

---

## ELAINE:
No. He seemed fairly interested.

---

## BLANCHE:
Darling, you have no enemies. You've always, been so sweet and generous and good.

---

## BLANCHE:
No, I think what John was trying to say is that your only enemy is yourself your nerves, your insomnia..

---

## ELAINE:
Blanche, that man had nothing to do with my nerves or my insomnia!

---

## BLANCHE:
All right. All right, angel. Oh dear, what can I possibly say then?

---

## BLANCHE:
I want to help, but you won't let me. I see you doing these things, but you won't listen.

---

## BLANCHE:
it's just as though we were going back to that awful time in California.

---

## ELAINE:
What do you mean, Blanche?

---

## BLANCHE:
Darling, I've got to be honest with you. I'm a nurse after all, your nurse, eight years ago.

---

## BLANCHE:
and it-it just strikes me that you're beginning to suffer from the same old depression symptoms.

---

## ELAINE:
Depression symptoms! Blanche! Really!

---

## BLANCHE:
Elaine, I recognize the signs. There's suddenly just this week, the same old excitability, the inability to sleep, and the same fixation on something unimportant.

---

## ELAINE:
Unimportant? Do you call murder unimportant? And then being told there wasn't any murder? What kind of talk is that?

---

## BLANCHE:
You're sure it wasn't just perhaps some sort of quick hallucination?

---

## ELAINE:
Hallucination? That dead man? Blanche, I've never in my life had hallucinations.

---

## BLANCHE:
Oh, darling, don't you remember California?

---

## BLANCHE:
All those nights when you thought you saw Carl standing at the foot of his bed, standing there with his head all bashed in, staring at you?

---

## ELAINE:
No ... those were nightmares.

---

## BLANCHE:
They weren't nightmares. You were wide awake every time... and screaming that Carl was really there.

---

## BLANCHE:
Just as you screamed this morning...and insisted he was sitting...in that window ... in that chair.

---

## ELAINE:
It wasn't Carl

---

## BLANCHE:
These hallucinations have a name. They're called eidetic images.

---

## ELAINE:
What kind of images?

---

## BLANCHE:
Eidetic images. They spring from the subconscious from some deep trauma or anxiety.

---

## ELAINE:
I haven't felt anxiety, and that dead man couldn't have been Carl. He wasn't Carl. You're wrong.

---

## ELAINE:
He couldn't have been. The man in that window was older, middle aged-with gray hair.

---

## ELAINE:
Carl was young and slender . . . blonde.

---

## JOHN:
She's only trying to help you.

---

## ELAINE:
Well, she's not. Eidetic images, Depression symptoms.

---

## ELAINE:
You know I've stopped thinking about Carl. Why rake up Carl?

---

## ELAINE:
What are you looking at? What's that?

---

## JOHN:
Probably-just kids. That place is open territory

---

## ELAINE:
Did you see that shadow? Didn't you see it? Somebody just walked past that shade

---

## JOHN:
Okay.

---

## ELAINE:
And that is not a child ... or a teenager.

---

## JOHN:
All right then. Probably a cop. You've been calling them all day.

---

## ELAINE:
No. Someone's in my building.

---

## JOHN:
Your building?

---

## ELAINE:
I'm beginning to feel it's mine ... John, please call the-Lieutenant.

---

## ELAINE:
Never mind, I'll call-

## JOHN:
No. I'll do it.

---

## ELAINE:
That's no eidetic image, is it? It's real, Blanche, real, there's something sinister going on.

## BLANCHE:
All right, all right, darling. Don't excite yourself.

---

## JOHN:
Lieutenant Walker, please. John Wheeler. If he speaks to me, he's got to be a saint ...

---

## JOHN:
oh, good evening, Lieutenant. This is Wheeler, John Wheeler. I want to apologize, Lieutenant, for giving you one hell of a day.

---

## ELAINE:
Oh, please, John, just tell him the light keeps going on and off.

---

## JOHN:
But this time we think we have something. It's a light in that window-in that 29th Street building-and we've seen a man's shadow moving around behind the shade.

---

## JOHN:
Is it one of your men?

---

## ELAINE:
It's gone off. What's he telling you?

---

## JOHN:
He's checking it out.

---

## JOHN:
Oh, I see. Well, thanks, Lieutenant, she's been upset.

---

## JOHN:
He has no men stationed there. But they're sending a squad car. They'll take care of it.

---

## ELAINE:
John, what are you doing? Please. I want to see.

---

## JOHN:
Dr. Lake is due any minute now.

---

## ELAINE:
Dr. Lake? You didn't phone her? But I thought we'd cleared that up.

---

## ELAINE:
Please, both of you- You saw that light and that shadow over there. And it was real. Real, John, real. Don't shut it out. Please let me look!

---

## JOHN:
It's probably some drunken prowler. Ellie, I'm much more worried about you.

---

## JOHN:
I want you to feel better, and you know you're never going to until you see this doctor and face up to the real thing that's causing all this trouble.

---

[Faint sirens approaching.]

## ELAINE:
What real thing?

---

## JOHN:
Carl. You've never gotten over him.

---

## ELAINE:
That isn't true. It isn't.

---

## JOHN:
Ellie. Even when I met you, two years after it happened, you were still all churned up about Carl.

---

## JOHN:
Why, that first night out there on the beach. We were crazy about each other, wild.

---

## JOHN:
Then you called me by his name. And later you burst out crying. Remember?

---

## JOHN:
Carl was that dead man, wasn't he?

---

## ELAINE:
No. Please. Please. I-I've gotten over him.

---

## JOHN:
Ellie, you don't get over things that easily.

---

## JOHN:
And I'm telling you, Carl's just gone underground ... like those swampy rivers in Florida.

---

## JOHN:
You don't even know they're there. Then one day suddenly they suck you in.

---

## ELAINE:
No, no, no ... no ... NO!

---

## ELAINE:
Somebody is doing something! Oh God ... God help me!

---

## JOHN:
Ellie! Stop it!

---

## ELAINE:
Just look at this match book. Somebody wrote those numbers down.

---

## JOHN:
What? What numbers?

## ELAINE:
There.

---

## JOHN:
1 4 1 2 7. So?

---

## ELAINE:
Carl's license number. I thought nobody in the world knew those numbers except me.

---

## JOHN:
Well, I don't. I can't even remember my own license nunmber. Probably somebody's phone number.

---

## ELAINE:
Somebody's phone number!

---

## JOHN:
Ellie, you can't go all to pieces over every god-damned little thing!

---

## ELAINE:
Little thing? That wig was not a little thing. That dead man or that shadow over there. You saw that shadow and that matchbook.

---

## ELAINE:
John, why can't you believe me? Why are you deserting me?

---

## JOHN:
I'm not deserting you.

---

## ELAINE:
I-I admit I'm on the edge. I'm frightened, scared to death. But I need you.

---

## ELAINE:
And I love you. Say you love me.

---

## JOHN:
Of course I love you.

---

## BLANCHE:
Excuse me. Doctor Lake is here.

---

## ELAINE:
I didn't hear the bell.

---

## BLANCHE:
I saw her car pull up to the curb. So I let her in. Wasn't that all right?

---

## DR. LAKE:
Good evening.

---

## BLANCHE:
Doctor Lake, this is Mrs. Wheeler. And Mr. Wheeler.

---

## DR. LAKE:
How do you do. What a charming home you have.

---

## ELAINE:
Thank you. I'm afraid it isn't very charming at the moment.

---

## JOHN:
So good of you to come, doctor. Would you like to use this room in here? It's more private.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Anywhere you say, Mr. Wheeler.

---

## DR. LAKE:
What a pretty sitting room. So feminine.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Coming, Mrs. Wheeler?

---

## ELAINE:
Blanche, do I have to do this?

## BLANCHE:
Good luck, Elaine.

---

## JOHN:
Let's go, Ellie,

---

## JOHN:
Oh, by the way, doctor, I meant to ask you. Do you know anything about the Rilke Clinic in Switzerland?

---

## DR. LAKE:
The Rilke Clinic? For insomniacs? Yes, indeed. An excellent place.

---

## JOHN:
Well, thank you. That's what they said at Mount Sinai.

---

## BLANCHE:
I think you need another drink.

---

## JOHN:
I thought at lunch today you agreed to leave.

---

## BLANCHE:
Yes?

---

## JOHN:
So--what's with all this sleight of hand-fresias ... wigs?

---

## BLANCHE:
I don't know a thing about them. Honestly. I swear.

---

## BLANCHE:
I wasn't in California at the time of the accident. I don't know what's the matter with her.

---

## BLANCHE:
She's seeing things... imagining things in nothing at all.

---

## JOHN:
Perhaps. All the same I don't want you stirring things up.

---

## BLANCHE:
Who's stirring things up? Did I suggest a psychiatrist?

---

## BLANCHE:
And by the way, John, how did you manage to get the Doctor Lake to make a house call on such short notice?

---

## JOHN:
By phoning her. And offering her a small fortune.

---

[Doorbell rings]

---

## BLANCHE:
I thought she'd be a lot older.

---

## JOHN:
Older? What do you mean?

---

## BLANCHE:
Nothing. Just with her reputation ... you did speak to her yourself, didn't you?

---

## JOHN:
Of. course I did. I spoke to her, again this evening.

---

## JOHN:
Why? You mean you think she isn't Dr. Lake?

---

## HELGA:
(Offstage.) Yes? Hey, wait a minute. Stop that.

---

## HOKE:
(Offstage.) I wanna speak to her.

---

## HOKE:
Where's Mrs. Wheeler? You Mrs. Wheeler?

---

## BLANCHE:
Oh Heavens! Who are you?

---

## JOHN:
What in hell is this?

---

## HELGA:
He's that delicatessen man. He pushed the door open.

---

## HOKE:
Damn right am. Sam Hoke, a respectable citizen, I'm suin' you people, see?

---

## HOKE:
What the hell kinda people are you? Siccin' the cops on me--

## JOHN:
Siccing what cops?

---

## HOKE:
I had a right to go into that building, see? I live next door to it. I own a store next door to it.

---

## HOKE:
You hear a murder's been committed, you don't sit around on your ass all day.

---

## JOHN:
Hey, hey, hey, hey! You, you were the man in the building with the flashlight?

---

## HOKE:
Yeah, yeah.

---

## JOHN:
I see. Well, sorry. Our mistake.

---

## HOKE:
Some mistake! Every time that wife of yours calls the cops and them squad cars come screaming down the street.

---

## HOKE:
Whaddya think that does to my business? It ruins it, that's what.

---

## HOKE:
It scares off the customers. They think another murder's been committed and already I got robbed twice.

---

## HOKE:
So what happens to my property value? What happens to my potato salad, what happens to my chlcken salad, not to mention my roast beef--which happens to be $2.79 a pound wholesale?

---

## HELGA:
What happens to it?

---

## HOKE:
Into the garbage pail!

---

## JOHN:
Okay, okay. I'll make it up to you.

---

## ELAINE:
What's going on? Who's here?

---

## JOHN:
Nothing. Nobody. I'll tell you about it later.

---

## BLANCHE:
It's all right, darling.

---

## ELAINE:
All right? John, call the police. This is incredible! Who's doing this? Who is?

---

## JOHN:
Doing what for God's sake.

---

## ELAINE:
My God, don't you know who that is, John? It's the dead man! The same eyes. The same hair. The same face!

---

## HOKE:
Lady, I never saw you before in my life!

---

## ELAINE:
I saw you in that window... I know that was you!

---

## JOHN:
Ellie!

---

## ELAINE:
Yes. John. Yes!

---

[INTENSE MUSIC]

---

INTERMISSION

_captions made possible by CaptionPoint_

---

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

---

## DR. LAKE:
If we could proceed, Mrs. Wheeler. It might help the situation.

---

## ELAINE:
Doctor, he was that dead man. Believe me. 1 saw him. I'm the one to know ...

---

## DR. LAKE:
Yes... but we've gone into it.

---

## ELAINE:
Please. Just listen for a moment more. Nobody wants to listen. Nobody takes this case seriously.

---

## ELAINE:
Nobody in the world believes that anything strange is going on, but it is, it is.

---

## ELAINE:
I know it is. Somebody's doing something, using that old tenement-

---

## DR. LAKE:
Why? For what purpose?

---

## ELAINE:
I don't know. I don't know why that man would even come here.

---

## ELAINE:
What he hoped to gain . . . why he lied to everyone.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Hmm. Well, let's hope it will work out ultimately.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Mr. Hoke, was that his name? Did look so extraordinarily alive!

---

## DR. LAKE:
I personally found it impossible to imagine him as dead, or seated in any pose, in any chair whatsoever.

---

## ELAINE:
Oh, when people want something they can do almost anything.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Are you cold? Would you like a sweater ...Or perhaps this to slip around you?

---

## DR. LAKE:
Such bitter weather. Vermont weather. I come from Vermont ... the great mountains the deep snow.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Where were you born?

---

## ELAINE:
In San Mateo.

---

## DR. LAKE:
California? My dear husband was a Californian. Interesting. You seem more East Coast.

---

## ELAINE:
My father had a ranch there ...but other houses. Other places. We traveled a good deal.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Did you? Is he still alive?

---

## ELALNE:
I was nineteen when he died. He left me without any warning.

---

## DR. LAKE:
And your mother?

---

## ELAINE:
He never remarried. Oh, my mother? She died when I was born. All he had was me.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Please . . . I'm sure you enjoy them. . . but it tends to distract you.

---

## DR. LAKE:
And I lost someone very dear recently. An inveterate cigar-smoker.

---

## DR. LAKE:
How were you all he had?

---

## ELAINE:
Who?

## DR. LAKE:
Your father, dear.

---

## ELAINE:
Oh ... well, I was an only child, unfortunately, and overly protected, I'm afraid.

---

## ELAINE:
When I was three, he gave me my first Shetland pony.

---

## ELAINE:
And at five he took me to Europe for the first time. Nothing was too much for Daddy's fertile imagination.

---

## ELAINE:
At my debut, just imagine, he even lined our entire driveway with all of his prize cattle Black Angus heifers--and every one of those gorgeous beasts laid a crown of flowers on her head.

---

## ELAINE:
There we were totally in bewilderment. It was like Versailles .. and I danced till dawn-that lovely long-lost night.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Did you suffer from insomnia as a child?

---

## ELAINE:
Yes. I was one of those children who couldn't even manage to take a nap. They tried to make me.

---

## ELAINE:
There was this little Catholic school next door to our house in Paris.

---

## ELAINE:
I'd lie awake every afternoon, day in, day out, listening to the children singing "Frere Jacques"-and then I'd imagine the most impossible stories in which I was always the heroine.

---

## DR. LAKE:
When did this present attack begin?

---

## ELAINE:
I don't have attacks. I just have difficulty sleeping.

---

## ELAINE:
My father couldn't sleep. But he owned oil companies, railroads.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Nothing special was disturbing you?

---

## ELAINE:
No. Nothing. Absolutely nothing . . .

---

## DR. LAKE:
There'd been no change in any of your personal relationships?

---

## ELAINE:
None whatsoever.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Things were going smoothly between you and your husband?

---

## ELAINE:
Yes. Just fine, until that horrible thing happened.

---

## DR. LAKE:
How long have you been married?

---

## ELAINE:
Six years.

---

## DR. LAKE:
It's been a good relationship?

---

## ELAINE:
Of course. We've had our ups and downs. We're very different temperamentally. But I believe in marriage, doctor.

---

## ELAINE:
The ebb and flow . . . giving, sharing. People should adjust to one another, not fly off at the first rainstorm.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Oh, so do I! Yes, that's so true of any intimate relationship.

---

## DR. LAKE:
And that young lady who opened the door? Blanche, is it? She lives here?

---

## ELAINE:
Not exactly.

---

## DR. LAKE:
What position does she occupy?

---

## ELAINE:
Position? Blanche Cooke?

---

## ELAINE:
Why, she's my very best friend. She's just been visiting us, on her way to the Mayo Clinic.

---

## ELAINE:
Why would you bring her up? She's so loyal and devoted.

---

## ELAINE:
She's been so good to me in so many ways. She practically saved my life.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Saved your life?

## ELAINE:
Yes, after my first husband died.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Your husband? Oh, then you've been married before.

---

## ELAINE:
Excuse me, doctor. What are eidetic images? Do they exist?

---

## DR. LAKE:
What happened to your first husband?

---

## ELAINE:
He died and I don't want to talk about it. It doesn't have a thing to do with my insomnia.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Why?

---

## ELAINE:
What's that?

---

## DR. LAKE:
Nothing. I heard nothing. What happened to him?

---

## ELAINE:
But I did . . .

---

## DR. LAKE:
Perhaps it was the wind. Please, what happened to him, dear?

---

## ELAINE:
I know it wasn't the wind. That window can't be opened. Somebody's outside--

## DR. LAKE:
Let's see.

---

## DR. LAKE:
No one. Just the clock. These old houses are so draughty.

---

## DR. LAKE:
No one is listening ... Mrs. Wheeler, I'm a doctor.

---

## DR. LAKE:
And I've learned to keep a secret. It's mandatory in my profession.

---

## DR. LAKE:
And I can assure you there are none I've ever betrayed.

---

## ELAINE:
Betrayed? Are you sure you want to hear this? It's so ghastly-so-

## DR. LAKE:
Ghastliness is what I hear all day.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Who was he? When did all this happen?

---

## ELAINE:
It was eight years...ago...h-his name was C-Carl. He was a very brilliant young lawyer who was going into politics.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Go on.

---

## ELAINE:
I loved him. I looked up to him. After Daddy died he seemed like heaven all over again.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Yes?

---

## ELAINE:
We'd been married bout two years. We lived in Beverly Hills.

---

## ELAINE:
And I was finally expecting a child . . . the only child I've ever been able to conceive.

---

## ELAINE:
And then... could I please have a cigarette?

---

## DR. LAKE:
Yes.

---

## ELAINE:
Thank you. And then one day, one bright day in February.

---

## ELAINE:
February 12th, 1964.

---

## ELAINE:
That shade? It didn't move?

---

## DR. LAKE:
No child. What happened?

---

## ELAINE:
I had just been to the hairdresser's. I was driving back through Coldwater Canyon, listening to the car radio,

---

## ELAINE:
when suddenly I-I rounded this downhill curve--and saw this wrecked car on the road

---

## ELAINE:
People starting to run to it. It looked familiar somehow, the car. A black convertible, with someone at the wheel.

---

## ELAINE:
And then I saw the license plates. 1 4 1 2 7.

---

## ELAINE:
The top was down. Part was hanging over the side of the mountain. Where there were m-masses of s-small white flowers... fresias...

---

## DR. LAKE:
Your first husband was at the wheel?

---

## ELAINE:
With his head all bloddy and his eyes staring... I managed to reach his side. But then- I saw the girl.

---

## ELAINE:
She was lying on the seat beside him, with her neck broken but still smiling at me.

---

## ELAINE:
The twenty year-old blonde from across the street...Kay Banning was her name... and her skirt was up above her thighs...

---

## ELAINE:
his hand was still inside her dress.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Yes...?

---

## ELAINE:
It had been going on for months.

---

## ELAINE:
I lost my baby.

---

## ELAINE:
And then I didn't want to live. I swallowed twenty sleeping pills....

---

## ELAINE:
But that's a long time ago- except-

---

## DR. LAKE:
Except what..?

---

## ELAINE:
He betrayed me. That's the thing I'll never get over... never never...

---

## DR. LAKE:
Oh my dear... my dear... yes... betrayal, as you choose to call it, is extremely painful.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Even to the strongest of us... it diminishes us so...

---

## DR. LAKE:
I would like to speak to you further about this. Would you be willing to come to my office sometime?

---

## ELAINE:
Yes ... I might. I think I'd like to.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Good ... then I'll arrange it with your husband

---

## DR. LAKE:
Meanwhile, please try this medication. Two at bedtime.

---

## ELAINE:
What's the matter?

---

## DR. LAKE:
Nothing. Just a reflection.

---

## DR. LAKE:
You might try closing those curtains at night ...it might prove beneficial.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Goodnight, Mrs. Wheeler.

---

## ELAINE:
Goodnight, doctor.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Sleep well.

---

---

## ELAINE:
John-

---

[Clock starts striking for 7pm]

---

## ELAINE:
Blanche? Helga?

---

## ELAINE:
No ... oh no ... OH, NO!

---

## BLANCHE:
Elaine, what is it? What happened? What's wrong?

---

## DR. LAKE:
What happened?

---

## BLANCHE:
I don't know... I was upstairs.

---

## DR. LAKE:
Mrs. Wheeler? Mrs. Wheeler, what is wrong?

---

## JOHN:
What's going on here?

---

## DR. LAKE:
She seems to be in shock.

---

## JOHN:
Ellie, what is it, Ellie?

---

## ELAINE:
It was ... a woman.

---

## JOHN:
A woman?

---

## ELAINE:
In-in that other window. Dead.

---

## ELAINE:
A blonde woman lying in that other window ... l-like a limp rag doll . . .

---

## JOHN:
Ellie, there couldn't have been anything. Nothing.

---

## ELAINE:
Call the Lieutenant, please. Won't somebody call him? Let me go over there!

---

## DR. LAKE:
We'd better get her up to bed.

---

## ELAINE:
No. Do something. Call him.

---

## ELAINE:
Please, John, let me go...

## JOHN:
Sure, sure. Don't worry. I'll take care of everything.

---

## ELAINE:
(Offstage) Young ... so pretty ... please. .. , please ... help.

---

[Silence]

---

## BLANCHE:
Operator, I'd like to send a telegram. Can you connect me with Western Union, please?

---

## BLANCHE:
Western Union? I'd like to send a telegram and charge it to this number.

---

## BLANCHE:
Murray Hill 306098. To Rochester, Minnesota. The Mayo Brothers Clinic. Nurses Registry.

---

## BLANCHE:
The message reads as follows:

---

## BLANCHE:
"Unavoidably delay due to serious illness in the family. May have to cancel job. Regret inconvenience."

---

## BLANCHE:
Sign it Blanche A. Cooke. Will you read that back fo me, please? Thank you.

---

## JOHN:
You just couldn't wait, could you?

---

## BLANCHE:
John, how could I leave now? When she's in this condition?

---

## JOHN:
You're crazy. Out of your mind, Blanche--

## BLANCHE:
So! What can we do about it? I'm sorry we ever began it.

---

## ELAINE:
(Offstage.) John! JOHN!

---

## JOHN:
Oh God!

---

## BLANCHE:
You'd better go to her. Poor darling. I can't stand the thought of anybody, or anything ever hurting her.

---

## JOHN:
Sure ... you're her best friend.

---

## BLANCHE:
John ... what you need is a nice long vacation in the sun to calm your nerves.

---

## JOHN:
Yeah ... always the nurse, aren't you?

---

## BLANCHE:
Not always.

---

## ELAINE:
(Offstage screams)

---

[MUSIC with _Frere Jacque_ playing eerily]

---

## ELAINE:
May I speak with Lieutenant Walker, please? It's Mrs. Wheeler... he's not? You're sure he isn't?

---

## ELAINE:
Well, if he happens to be there, will you tell him, please, that I'll only take a minute of his time?

---

## ELAINE:
I'm just anxious to know if there's anything new on those two murdered people in that building on 29th Street ...

---

## ELAINE:
There's not? Well, when he does come in, will you ask him to call me anyway?

---

## ELAINE:
I'm leaving the country tonight and may be gone for quite awhile, but I'd love to check with him just one more time.

---

## ELAINE:
I'll be here for the next half hour. Thank you. Thank you so much.

---

## JOHN:
Come on, Elaine. It's been so nice and calm for the last three days. Don't start again.

---

## ELAINE:
But I just can't believe all that murky pap about eidetic images and depression states.

---

## ELAINE:
That woman was nothing like Carl's girlfriend.

---

## JOHN:
What did you say?

---

## ELAINE:
I said she wasn't anything like Carl's girlfriend, Kay Banning.

---

## ELAINE:
She was much prettier ... and older. I can see the poor thing still.

---

## ELAINE:
And she wasn't smiling at me.

---

## ELAINE:
She looked shocked, She had this ghastly look of surprise--

## JOHN:
Okay. Got your passport and travelers checks?

---

## ELAINE:
Yes. They're in my purse.

---

## JOHN:
Fine. Look, there's one more thing I'd like you to do.

---

## JOHN:
I'm sorry to bring it up this late, but those damn lawyers are so slow.

---

## ELAINE:
What lawyers?

---

## JOHN:
Our tax lawyers. They felt and I felt that since you were going away, it might be wise for you to sign this.

---

## JOHN:
So here, Ellie. There where it says "Spouse."

---

## ELAINE:
But, John ... our return isn't due for months, is it? Really!

---

## ELAINE:
Surely I'll be coming back Jong before income tax time.

---

## JOHN:
Of course. I certainly hope so.

---

## JOHN:
But who knows how long it's going to take? You're going over there for a rest and to get well.

---

## JOHN:
Come on. Just sign it, get it over with.

---

## JOHN:
It took a lot of trouble to prepare.

---

## JOHN:
Why won't you take my word for it?

---

## ELAINE:
All right. Should I read any of this?

---

## JOHN:
If you're that interested, of course.

---

## ELAINE:
It looks endless. All these funny names like alphabet soup.

---

## ELAINE:
What does MAXCO. mean? And DIPTICO? I've never heard of them.

---

## JOHN:
Not DIPTICO, dear. DIPCO. D-I-P-C-O.

---

## JOHN:
It's a big real estate firm of ours, and MAXCO's a steel outfit.

---

## HELGA:
May I speak to you a moment, madame?

---

## JOHN:
Later, We're busy.

---

## HELGA:
Madame?

---

## ELAINE:
I'll be with you in a moment, Helga.

---

## HELGA:
Danke.

---

## JOHN:
And now the estimate.

---

## ELAINE:
The estimate? Oh, dear . . . it seems so awfully final.

---

## BLANCHE:
Elaine, darling, excuse me, but could I ask you a favor?

---

## BLANCHE:
I'm having so much trouble packing so could I leave just a few of my things here and send for them later, when I'm settled in Des Moines?

---

## BLANCHE:
Is that all right with you?

---

## ELAINE:
Certainly. And as far as I'm concerned, I don't see why you felt you had to go to Lillian's.

---

## ELAINE:
You're welcome to stay right here.

---

## BLANCHE:
Oh, that's sweet of you, but it wouldn't look right.

---

## ELAINE:
I've been such a nuisance. I've upset so many of your plans.

---

## BLANCHE:
Darling, do you think I'd have gone off and left you, when you needed me that night?

---

## BLANCHE:
I can always get another job.

---

## BLANCHE:
Anywhere. Trained nurses are in great demand.

---

## BLANCHE:
And besides, Lillian's so eager to have me. And I'm sort of curious myself, to see what's happened to Des Moines-who's died, who's gotten married.

---

## ELAINE:
Well, you're still welcome to stay on.

---

## ELAINE:
Oh, Mr. Appleby's in our garden. John, Mr. Appleby's outside!

---

## JOHN:
What?

---

## ELAINE:
Mr. Appleby! Mr. Appleby!

---

## JOHN:
Elaine, have some sense. How did he get through that gate? Elaine, now what in hell

---

## JOHN:
Check that back door.

---

## ELAINE:
But he was looking up at me smiling, and. pointing to those windows. Maybe he's heard something.

---

## JOHN:
What? There's nothing for him to hear.

---

## ELAINE:
There might be.

---

## JOHN:
He's an idiot. Ellie, use your head. You know he just upsets you.

---

## JOHN:
Why do you even bother with a nut like that? We've got a plane to catch.

---

## APPLEBY:
Mrs. Wheeler. You beckoned me?

---

## APPLEBY:
Good Evening, friend. I heard about the second body.

---

## APPLEBY:
A curvaceous blone? How delectable. They're being slaughtered by leaps and bounds.

---

## APPLEBY:
Oh, have you seen the piece I wrote?

---

## JOHN:
What piece?

---

## APPLEBY:
The Kips Bay Tatler. Nothing questionable.

---

## APPLEBY:
Just a vignette of your beautiful home. Your aniques. Your sailing trophies.

---

## APPLEBY:
I hope you'll put it on our house tour some day. I'm on the committee.

---

## APPLEBY:
The money goes to slum beautification... but you're leaving us, I fear.

---

## APPLEBY:
For Switzerland of all places.

---

## JOHN:
Yes. the plane leaves at eleven.

---

## APPLEBY:
Really? A rather odd time.

---

## APPLEBY:
Well I shan't stay more than a second. But Switzerland!

---

## APPLEBY:
That's such a milk chocolate country.

---

## APPLEBY:
A skiing weekend? Business perhaps?

---

## ELAINE:
No Mr. Wheeler isn't going.

---

## APPLEBY:
Isn't he? But of course. Business calls. How has the market been doing lately?

---

## JOHN:
Elaine, the limousine is due in ten minutes.

---

## APPLEBY:
You know he really hasn't one iota of gaiety.

---

## ELAINE:
We've all been under a strain.

---

## APPLEBY:
Oh, of course. I've been absolutely at sea myself.

---

## APPLEBY:
Two murders inless than twenty-four hours.

---

## APPLEBY:
Now that's a peck of grue to hard to swallow, isn't it.

---

## APPLEBY:
I just don't know what to think-how to explain the entire phenomenon.

---

## ELAINE:
You don't believe it could have been a hoax, Mr. Appleby?

---

## APPLEBY:
Eh?

---

## ELAINE:
A grisly, arranged spectacle?

---

## APPLEBY:
Madam. That might have done for one, not two. In the same day?

---

## APPLEBY:
No--two dummies strike me as a trifle--excessive.

---

## ELAINE:
Then what do you think could have happened?

---

## APPLEBY:
Have you ever considered, Mrs. Wheeler, that it might have been, as they say in the vernacular: an inside job?

---

## ELAINE:
No, I'm sorry, Mr. Appleby. Oh no. Oh, certainly not.

---

## ELAINE:
I'm positive that no one in this house could possibly have been involved.

---

## APPLEBY:
Very well, I didn't mean to disturb you. It's just that I'm sincerely interested.

---

## APPLEBY:
And so sorry that you're leaving. This is such an exquisite haven.

---

## APPLEBY:
I shall miss my visits here, brief though they have been.

---

## ELAINE:
Well, thank you, Mr. Appleby.

---

## APPLEBY:
And I'll miss you too, of course. With your great I'm doomed eyes, your haunting look.

---

## APPLEBY:
Do you know, from the moment I first saw you standing at that window in your long white gown or pacing up and down, like some fragile ghost, you intrigued me.

---

## APPLEBY:
You seemed like a jewel in some pastiche setting, an emerald in a cardboard box.

---

## ELAINE:
Oh, Mr. Appleby, I'm not that interesting.

---

## APPLEBY:
Oh, but you are. And that's why I've intruded.

---

## APPLEBY:
When one has time on one's hands . . . is lonely . . . getting on in years ...

---

## APPLEBY:
Well, to tell you the truth, my best friend, my boon companion of twenty years recently left me for a wealthier-and younger individual.

---

## ELAINE:
Oh I'm sorry.

---

## APPLEBY:
No matter, no matter. One can't do a thing about these situations-- ever.

---

## APPLEBY:
Goodbye, lovely lady. My love to the Matterhorn.

---

## APPLEBY:
And luck be with you. Somehow I feel it will be, in this crystal ball of mine.

---

## ELAINE:
Mr. Appleby- Would this be of any help?

---

## APPLEBY:
What, madam?

## ELAINE:
This house.

---

## APPLEBY:
My husband will be leaving shortly, It will be empty for at least a month.

---

## ELAINE:
And if you'd like to use it-

## APPLEBY:
Mrs. Wheeler!

---

## ELAINE:
I'd be delighted if you would.

---

## APPLEBY:
My dear.

---

## ELAINE:
You might even look for clues if you still believe in your theory.

---

## APPLEBY:
Oh, delicious! Thank you. I shall be honored to be the caretaker of Camelot.

---

## ELAINE:
Goodbye, Mr. Appleby.

---

## APPLEBY:
Goodbye.

---

## JOHN:
Let's get going, Elaine.

---

## APPLEBY:
Just leaving, Mr. Wheeler-Dealer.

---

## JOHN:
What? What's that you called me?

---

## APPLEBY:
Mr. Wheeler-Dealer. Oh, where's your sense of humor, Captain? It just tripped off my tongue.

---

## JOHN:
What's this guy been telling you?

---

## APPLEBY:
Fairy tales.

---

## ELAINE:
Are those Blanche's suitcases?

---

## JOHN:
Yes. She's riding with us in the limousine.

---

## JOHN:
Then I'm dropping her off at La Guardia. That okay with you?

---

## ELAINE:
Of course.

---

[Door bell rings]

---

## JOHN:
Now who the hell is that?

---

## ELAINE:
Probably Helga's cab, I should say goodbye to her.

---

## HELGA:
(Offstage.) Yah, come in, please.

---

## HELGA:
Mr. Wheeler! Look who's here. Lieutenant WALKER!

---

## ELAINE:
Lieutenant Walker ... you got my message? You have news fer me?

---

## WALKER:
No, I. wouldn't say I had news for you. I'm here on behalf of your neighbors.

---

## ELAINE:
My neighbors? What neighbors?

---

## WALKER:
The neighborhood, I'm here to ask you to please lay off.

---

## WALKER:
Stop stirring up trouble. Stop ringing my phone all day and all night.

---

## WALKER:
Because as far as I'm concerned, and as far as the police department is concerned, we've marked our investigation CLOSED. Right, Vanelli?

---

## VANELLI:
Right, sir. Right.

---

## ELAINE:
You can't mean that, Lieutenant. How can the case be closed?

---

## ELAINE:
It was only Tuesday that I saw those two people. How can you just dismiss it all in three days?

---

## WALKER:
Well, I'm sorry, ma'am. We did our best.

---

## ELAINE:
You couldn't have. You couldn't have gone into it very deeply

---

## WALKER:
That filthy joint has been thoroughly searched from top to bottom, believe you me.

---

## WALKER:
There never was one shred of evidence. None. Vanelli can tell you.

---

## VANELLI:
Lady, the dust was like a carpet-wall to wall. The rats were running all around.

---

## ELAINE:
I still can't believe it. I can't believe it.

---

## ELAINE:
Are you sure you've gotten all the facts, the information? How about that man I identified-that Mr. Hoke?

---

## WALKER:
Who?

---

## ELAINE:
A big man in his fifties. My husband must have called you about him.

---

## ELAINE:
He calls himself Sam Hoke. But he's the image of that man I saw in the window.

---

## VANELLI:
If you mean Sam Hoke who owns -a delicatessen store.

---

## VANELLI:
Why, I've known him since I was a kid, I used to live here in this neighborhood.

---

## VANELLI:
He makes the lousiest potato salad in New York City. But he's just gone to Fiorida.

---

## ELAINE:
Florida?

---

## VANELLI:
Yeah, his wife died down in Florida. He'd sent her there for the winter.

---

## WALKER:
You've got to realize what these calls do to people. We've got so much real crime in this city, they're scared out of their wits as it is.

---

## WALKER:
Just suppose, for example, you were a little old lady, living all alone in a ralilroad flat, across the street from that vacant building. Or a family with kids.

---

## WALKER:
It would scare the hell out of you just to hear those sirens, hear some rumor that a murder, two murders had taken place there.

---

## WALKER:
Why, you've got women so nervous, ma'am, they won't walk past that building.

---

## WALKER:
Kids- talking about the bogey man.

---

## WALKER:
That's not right, ma'am. It's not fair.

---

## WALKER:
This city's lousy enough. And when people are poor, they're stuck with it.

---

## WALKER:
They haven't any place else to go.

---

## ELAINE:
I still believe I saw those two people.

---

## WALKER:
Okay, Mrs. Wheeler, go on believing it. But don't call us any more.

---

## JOHN:
Mrs. Wheeler's leaving tonight for Switzerland.

---

## WALKER:
Switzerland? She is? Well, why didn't you tell me?

---

## WALKER:
That's a very nice country. Very low crime rate. Then that about wraps it up.

---

## JOHN:
We appreciate your trouble. Thank you, Lieutenant.

---

## JOHN:
Ellie, all the bags are down. I'll just get my coat.

---

## WALKER:
Cheer up, ma'am. You're not the first one or the last this has happened to.

---

## WALKER:
And there's one thing you did accomplish.

---

## ELAINE:
What?

---

## WALKER:
Well, we had so many complaints and phone calls from the neighbors,

---

## WALKER:
that we actually got in touch with the real estate agents and made them board up those lower windows, see?

---

## ELAINE:
Oh. I-I hadn't noticed.

---

## VANELLI:
No way to get in there now without a key

---

## ELAINE:
That's a small comfort, I'm afraid.

---

## HELGA:
Who own that building?

---

## WALKER:
It's owned by something called the DIPCO Corporation.

---

## HELGA:
DIPCO!

---

## WALKER:
Yeah. Big real estate combine.

---

## VANELLI:
Like I told you before.

---

## WALKER:
Bought it for some client of theirs. But they sure let it go to pot.

---

## WALKER:
Goodbye, ma'a.m.

---

## ELAINE:
Goodnight, Lieutenant.

---

## VANELLI:
Great Matiese.

---

## HELGA:
Poor madame. Please don't feel bad, madame. You got a minute?

---

## ELAINE:
Yes, Helga. You're leaving?

---

## HELGA:
Shh . . . I should maybe have spoken to the police just now.

---

## HELGA:
But it's not my place maybe. Did you hear what the Police Lieutenant said about that building?

---

## ELAINE:
Unfortunately every word, Helga.

---

## HELGA:
Owners! DIPCO, madame. Does that name mean anything to you?

---

## ELAINE:
What?

---

## HELGA:
I couldn't help overhearing, madame-when you were signing those papers.

---

## HELGA:
DIPCO, your company . . . it owns that building.

---

## ELAINE:
Oh. That's right. I must speak to Mr. Wheeler about it.

---

## HELGA:
Mr. Wheeler? Gott in Himmel! You should phone that information to the Police Lieutenant.

---

## ELAINE:
The Police Lieutenant? Oh, he's stopped listening to me.

---

## ELAINE:
The case is closed . . . and that's not the real question anyway Helga.

---

## HELGA:

Question? What question? ... Madame, what's happening to you?

---

## HELGA:
It's been too much for you, a shock?

---

## ELAINE:
The question is. ... the question is ...

---

## ELAINE:
what really happened that awful morning.

---

## HELGA:
Why-you saw that shade go up! You saw that dead man, yah.

---

## ELAINE:
I thought I did. But did I? Did I, Helga? Did that shade go up-or was it only me?

---

## HELGA:
Madame! Of course you did. You told me you did. You screamed. You ripped the drapes.

---

## ELAINE:
I don't know anymore. Did it go up at all? That's what I'm asking myself. Or did I somehow make it go up?

---

## HELGA:
Make it? Madame? What for?

---

## ELAINE:
And all those other things... that matchbook folder and that delicatessen man.

---

## ELAINE:
Were they a part of it, too? Were they just innocent things I used for some monstrous purpose?

---

## HELGA:
Madame, I don't know half what you are talking about ... but you did see it go up.

---

## HELGA:
You called the police, Please--don't give up new. Don't throw away your life.

---

## ELAINE:
My life? My life's worth nothing if this is what I did.

---

## ELAINE:
I need help badly. I need to go to Switzerland.

---

[A distant cab horn honks.]

---

## ELAINE:
Oh there's your cab. Don't worry about me. It's a long way out to Staten Island.

---

## HELGA:
Yah-a long way ... Gott! I don't know what to do ...

---

## HELGA:
you're sure you'll be all right? You're not in danger maybe?

---

## ELAINE:
Danger? What could possibly happen?

---

## HELGA:
So ... well- I didn't mean to upset you. I guess. I don't know everything.

---

## HELGA:
Goodbye, madame.

---

## ELAINE:
Wait a minute, Helga ... I think this will be enough for you to go and visit your mother.

---

## HELGA:
Madame! For me, madame? Oh no, it's too much . . .

---

## HELGA:
you knew about my mother?

---

## ELAINE:
Very little escapes me.

---

## HELGA:
Oh, danke, danke. You are a real princess. And danke, much obliged, madame, for all the nice references.

---

## HELGA:
I hope they treat you good over there. A nice plane trip.

---

## HELGA:
Auf wiedersehen, madame.

---

## ELAINE:
Auf wiedersehen, Helga.

---

## BLANCHE:
Here's your pill, dear, for the plane ride.

---

## ELAINE:
How sad it sounds in German, doesn't it? Auf wiedersehen, dear house, dear life, dear everything.

---

## BLANCHE:
Now, darling, you'll be coming back to it soon.

---

## BLANCHE:
Come on, take your medicine. You know how you hate flying.

---

## ELAINE:
is full of echoes. It seemed like such a lucky house when we boµght it . . now suddenly I feel I'll never see it again.

---

## BLANCHE:
Did that busybody say something to upset you?

---

## ELAINE:
No. Helga loved me. Do you love me, Blanche?

---

## BLANCHE:
Elaine. What a thing to say.

---

## BLANCHE:
Of course I love you. I love you. John loves you. You're well-loved.

---

## BLANCHE:
Here. Are you planning to drink this, or shall I flush it down the john?

---

## ELAINE:
No. I'll drink it. Where's the pill?

---

## BLANCHE:
Oh I dissolved it in the water.

---

## ELAINE:
Why? You never did that before.

---

## BLANCHE:
It was a little flaky- the last one in the bottle.

---

## BLANCHE:
So what? Drink it. What's the problem?

---

## ELAINE:
I'm so tired of taking pills, Blanche. I've taken so many in my life.

---

## ELAINE:
And maybe this ... the last one in the bottle . . . should be the one I didn't take.

---

## BLANCHE:
All right. That's up to you. Ready?

---

## ELAINE:
Yes ... there's just one more little thing.

---

## ELAINE:
Blanche, are you really going to Lillian's tonight?

---

## BLANCHE:
Elaine! Of course I am.

---

## ELAINE:
She doesn't seem to be expecting you.

---

## BLANCHE:
What makes you think-?

## ELAINE:
I called her about the sailboat pin to find out where she'd bought it.

---

## BLANCHE:
You called Lillian about the sailboat pin?

---

## ELAINE:
It was such an unusual one. And she said she was leaving today for San Francisco for a visit . . .

---

## ELAINE:
and she hadn't heard a word from you in months.

---

## BLANCHE:
What?

---

## ELAINE:
Of course it's none of my business, Blanche.

---

## ELAINE:
But where are you really going when you leave here tonight?

---

---

## BLANCHE:
It-it is your business, Elaine. And I'm sorry.

---

## BLANCHE:
I've been fibbing about it to you and John.

---

## BLANCHE:
But I thought it might upset you. You've been so sick.

---

## BLANCHE:
I knew it was against your principles.

---

## ELAINE:
What principles?

---

## BLANCHE:
Oh, it's all that Larry's idea. We got together again, and well,

---

## BLANCHE:
he's asked me to go on a little trip with him.

---

## ELAINE:
Oh, really?

---

## BLANCHE:
There! I knew you'd disapprove. Really, Elaine, these things are nothing.

---

## BLANCHE:
They're taken for granted by most people.

---

## ELAINE:
Where are you going?

---

## BLANCHE:
To Nassau some place warm ...

---

## BLANCHE:
Darling, you said yourself I didn't belong in Minnesota!

---

## BLANCHE:
Besides, it's up to me, isn't it? And as far as I'm concerned, life is for living . , . not moping around.

---

## ELAINE:
I see.

---

## BLANCHE:
Oh God. Why did I even tell you?

---

## BLANCHE:
It's such a petty thing to squabble about at the last minute.

---

## BLANCHE:
Darling, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to lie about Lillian ...

---

## BLANCHE:
please don't be angry at me.

---

## ELAINE:
Angry? A lie is such a small betrayal.

---

## BLANCHE:
And don't use words like ''betrayal" either. It's scarcely appropriate.

---

## JOHN:
The limousine's here.

---

## BLANCHE:
I'll get my purse.

---

## JOHN:
Let's put on your coat, Elaine!

---

## ELAINE:
You want me to go to Switzerland very badly, don't you, John?

---

## JOHN:
Yes. Come on. Wrap up.

---

## ELAINE:
It means a great deal to you that I should get on that plane tonight and leave the country, doesn't it?

---

## JOHN:
Of course. It means a great deal to me that you should °get cured. Cured of-

## ELAINE:
Is there any other thing that means a great deal to you? Or anybody?

---

## JOHN:
No, For God's sake. What's the matter with you? Of all the stupid questions

## ELAINE:
John, please, let's be honest.

---

## JOHN:
No. There isn't. Let's get out of here.

---

## ELAINE:
Will I ever see you again?

---

## JOHN:
Ellie, what's gotten into you? Stop all this talk. We've got a plane to catch.

---

## ELAINE:
I know. But- John, I have to know the truth.

---

## ELAINE:
I can't get aboard that plane . . . without . . . without being perfectly sure . . .

---

## ELAINE:
John, are you Larry?

---

## JOHN:
What?

---

## ELAINE:
Larry. Blanche's boyfriend.

---

## JOHN:
Ellie. For God's sake.

---

## ELAINE:
What put that idea in your head? Blanche's boyfriend. Larry.

---

## ELAINE:
Was that the name?

---

## ELAINE:
He's taking her to Nassau.

---

## JOHN:
Nassau? I thought that she was going to Des Moines.

---

## ELAINE:
Well that's a switch ... but God, Elaine ... do you think I'd bother with a dame like Blanche?

---

## ELAINE:
With you around? ... I'd be nuts . . . come on.

---

## ELAINE:
I-just wanted to know ...

---

## JOHN:
Well, now you do know ... let's go

---

## BLAINE:
It-it still seems awfully strange ...

---

## JOHN:
Oh, what's strange?

---

## JOHN:
What in hell is so strange about getting rid of your insomnia ... straightening yourself out, doing something, for once.

---

## ELAINE:
I just meant-

## JOHN:
Well, what you mean-and what I mean-that's two different things-usually.

---

## JOHN:
Right? I say we're going and you say we're not.

---

## JOHN:
I say we have a plane to catch and you want to play twenty questions. Well, I'm warning you, Ellie. I've had it.

---

## ELAINE:
I-I'm not trying to question you ... I never have

---

## JOHN:
That's a joke.

---

## ELAINE:
A joke . . .?

---

## JOHN:
Ellie, you've always been questioning me ... not in words, but in your eyes . . .

---

## JOHN:
watching like I was some kind of wild animal, some wildcat you'd tamed.

---

## ELAINE:
That isn't true ... I-

## JOHN:
But this time I'm not taking it, ya hear?

---

## JOHN:
I'm warning you, I've stuck by you six years. SIX years.

---

## JOHN:
I haven't left. I haven't gone around the corner . . .

---

## JOHN:
but I could hit the road-right now.

---

## ELAINE:
John-don't say that. I love you. I just don't want to do it, say goodbye.

---

## JOHN:
Well, you've got to. Or something's going to explode ...

---

## JOHN:
queers running in and out. Cops coming in and out . . . and you screaming about murder ...

---

## JOHN:
that's sick. It's sick as hell, baby.

---

## ELAINE:
But I'm not sick . . .

---

## JOHN:
Stop resisting. Everything I say.

---

## JOHN:
Nothing I do or say ever pleases you . . .

---

## JOHN:
I get you a psychiatrist. I run my ass off. I listen to that garbage.

---

## JOHN:
Why. WHY. Why won't you do what I say?

---

## ELAINE:
John-John-I will

---

## JOHN:
Who wants a wife who doesn't sleep at night?

---

## JOHN:
Who wants a woman who's in love with her dead father. It's enough to drive you crazy.

---

## JOHN:
Dead bodies, sailboat pins, matchbook folders!

---

## JOHN:
Things that never NEVER were there.

---

## ELAINE:
But they were there

---

## JOHN:
Don't say that. Ever again!

---

## ELAINE:
Then how do you explain this key?

---

## ELAINE:
I found it in this house.

---

## ELAINE:
And it says DIPCO on it. DIPCO, our company . . .

---

## ELAINE:
and this- oh God, I'm sure -is the key to that old wreck.

---

## JOHN:
Ellie, you can't do this.

---

## ELAINE:
I want an explanation, John. I'm not leaving until I get one.

---

## JOHN:
Explain what I-

## ELAINE:
This key, this key! Who uses it? Who owns it?

---

## ELAINE:
Who brought it here? John, don't lie anymore.

---

## JOHN:
This is insane. It's crazy!

---

## ELAINE:
Everything's insane and crazy. Nothing is true or real.

---

## ELAINE:
It's a sea of lies-a quicksand in which I'm sinking ... drowning ...

---

## ELAINE:
Blanche, do you know anything about this?

## BLANCHE:
About what?

---

## ELAINE:
This key, this key!

---

## ELAINE:
oh, I wasn't going to say anything. I promised myself, persuaded myself ...

---

## ELAINE:
because nobody listens ... nobody cares ... I'm the neurotic.

---

## ELAINE:
I'm the crazy lady ... but ... was it you who posed? Not Mr. Potato Salad?

---

## JOHN:
Turn off those lights and close that door!

## BLANCHE:
Calm down- for God's sake.

---

## ELAINE:
And did you run over there later with some sort of blonde wig on?

---

## ELAINE:
You were never in the room when it happened. It isn't far.

---

## ELAINE:
Just through the back door ... in and out the window ... go in and out the window.

---

## BLANCHE:
Please darling ... just relax!

---

## ELAINE:
And Carl was such an easy out, wasn't he?

---

## ELAINE:
Eidetic images. Doctor Lake, she didn't even look professional.

---

## JOHN:
Now listen, Elaine,

## ELAINE:
But you were all I had, darlings.

---

## ELAINE:
All. all, all. Darling,

---

## JOHN:
Now look, Ellie-nobody's done anything. The limousine's here.

---

## JOHN:
And we'll just quiet down now-go quietly . . . that key, give Blanche the key. It might be any key.

---

## BLANCHE:
Yes, darling, I never saw it. Let's go. Look. All dark ...

---

## ELAINE:
Oh what an Angel of Death you are. So bright-so glittering, with your hand eternally on my shoulder,

---

## ELAINE:
standing there admidst your fresias!

---

## BLANCHE:
John, she's sick ...she really is ... I'm going to call a doctor . . .

---

## ELAINE:
No. These will prove who's right. You own that building, John.

---

## ELAINE:
And you put that chair there. And you pulled that shade up ...

---

## ELAINE:
why? Because you hated me, that's why.

---

## ELAINE:
Because you wanted me in there.

---

## JOHN:
SHUT UP.

---

## ELAINE:
Me. Dead. Me. Murdered.

---

## ELAINE:
Boarded up. No Switzerland. Just a little trip across the garden.

---

## ELAINE:
Just a perfect air-tight crime!

---

[Sounds of struggle]

---

## BLANCHE:
JOHN!

## ELAINE:
Come on, John, See if this key fits.

---

## BLANCHE:
We didn't do it. We didn't do it.

---

## BLANCHE:
She's crazy, Leave her alone.

---

## BLANCHE:
Let me call an ambulance, Don't go, John-I'm afraid of what you'll do to her ...

---

## BLANCHE:
I don't want her hurt . . .

---

## JOHN:
The hell you don't!

---

## JOHN:
You bitch! Elaine!

---

## BLANCHE:
John! Oh, my God . . .

---

## BLANCHE:
John! JOHN!

---

[BELLS playing "Frere Jaques" and chiming the time]

---

[A GUNSHOT]

---

[A SECOND GUNSHOT]

---

[A THIRD GUNSHOT]

---

[CLOCK FINISHES STRIKING 10PM]

---

[SILENCE]

---

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC BUILDS]

---

## ELAINE:
Hello. I'd like to speak to Lieutenant Walker, please.

---

## ELAINE:
This is Mrs. Wheeler calling. Yes, Mrs. John Wheeler.

---

## ELAINE:
But it's urgent. Terribly urgent. I must speak to him. I must.

---

## ELAINE:
Lieutenant? This is Mrs. Wheeler. I think there's something you should know ...

---

## ELAINE:
yes, I am. I'm leaving in a few minutes . . . but Lieutenant, there are two dead bodies in that building.

---

## ELAINE:
Yes, there are. And I'm going to tell you why. Just listen to me a minute.

---

## ELAINE:
No, I'm not one of your crazy ladies who think they've shot their husbands.

---

## ELAINE:
Betrayal is a deadly word, Lieutenant- so the minute I knew they were lovers, I bought the building and put the chair there.

---

## ELAINE:
Secretly, of course. And then I started improvising, on all sorts of silly little things . . .

---

## ELAINE:
like wigs and fresias, sailboat pins . . .

---

## ELAINE:
Not one had anything to do with Carl . . .

---

## ELAINE:
I even scribbled down some fake license number ...

---

## ELAINE:
yes, it's true, Lieutenant.

---

## ELAINE:
So they thought I was crazy ... they could sneak off together ...

---

## ELAINE:
It is true. I swear it ...

---

## ELAINE:
but I fooled them. Clever, clever . . .

---

## ELAINE:
and they're right there in that building . . . just as I told you.

---

## ELAINE:
A middle-aged man, a woman. Bleeding. Lop-sided. Dead.

---

## ELAINE:
Please you've got to believe me. Yes, I know you've heard it a million times.

---

## ELAINE:
But this time it's true. I swear to you it's true.

---

## ELAINE:
And they'll be over there forever. Boarded up with all those rats ...if you won't send somebody.

---

## ELAINE:
Please send somebody... one more time to check . . .

---

## ELAINE:
I see. You absolutely refuse then?

---

## ELAINE:
And that's your final decision? Very well, Lieutenant. I'm sorry.

---

## ELAINE:
That's exactly what I always thought you'd say . . .

---

## ELAINE:
From the very beginning.

---

---

## ELAINE:
(singing) Frere Jacques, Frere Jacques . . .

---

## ELAINE:
(singing) Dormez-vous, Dormez-vous...

---

## ELAINE:
(singing) John, are you sleeping?
John, are you sleeping?

---

## ELAINE:
(singing) DING. DONG...

---

## ELAINE:
DIN.

---

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

---

[END]

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