Summaries

Synopsis

In a village late at night there is a sudden scream, and the noise of banging on a door. People look out from their bedroom windows, and a woman, Doucie Markham, sees a policeman in the street; but a moment later he has gone.

Eventually a different policeman comes. The door of the house where the action had taken place is opened to him, and several people burst in with him. There is a woman Edna Druce, lying dead on the floor, and another woman Diana Baring who seems to be in a sort of trance. Some of the people are in a theatrical group playing locally. The landlady says that Diana Baring is a lodger, and Miss Druce had supper with her tonight. There is a bloody fire poker on the floor near Diana.

The policeman asks for some brandy for the injured woman, and the Diana Baring says that there is some in a flask on the table. But the flask proves to be empty.

The theatrical people were lodgers and the landlady sets about making tea; one of the women in the company, Doucie Markham, goes to the kitchen with her, and talks non-stop.

The kettle has boiled and the tea is ready, but as the two women go in to the sitting room, the policeman is just taking Diana Baring away, to the police station.

The next evening we see the queue of people paying to go in to the theatre; there is a notice saying that due to the indisposition of Diana Baring and Edna Druce, their roles will be played by understudies. But at the police station, Diana Baring is in a cell.

At the theatre, Edna Baring's understudy is going on stage; the police inspector has arrived and wants to ask questions. Tom Drewitt is an actor about to go on; the inspector asks him if he saw Mrs Druce and Miss Baring leave the theatre together last night. Drewitt pauses to think very theatrically, and then says that the did; he remarked at the time to Fane, the leading man. But then Drewitt hears his cue to go on, and does so. Someone else comes off; it turns out to be Handel Fane, in a drag costume.

Fane confirms that he saw the two women leave together; he went to his digs, but Ion Stewart went with him; he wanted to borrow some cigarettes. The action on stage continues and the inspector asks questions as best he can; Doucie Markham is waiting to go on and says that everyone knew about Edna and Ion Stewart carrying on .

The action now moves to the law courts; Diana is on trial for murder. We see a brief selection of statements by a witness and counsel, but the facts of the case are so simple they do not seem to need elaboration. We now go to the jury room.

A man takes it on himself to be the foreman and summarises the facts. There isn't much doubt that "the girl" (Diana Baring) did it, but the defence doctor suggested that she was in some kind of trance when the act took place, and was not responsible for her actions.

The foreman asks everyone to write on a piece of paper their view of guilty or not guilty; it comes out as 7 to 3. One man abstained because he was uncomfortable with the responsibility of possibly condemning someone to death. But he then concedes that his opinion is guilty. Another man has failed to put in an opinion, and he seems not to understand the basic facts of the matter, but he too is persuaded to indicate guilty.

One of the jurors who voted not guilty explains that she thinks Diana Baring was in a trance and not responsible for her actions at all, nor aware of them. Another woman points out that if they find her not guilty, that condition could re-appear and she could commit further violent crimes; the blood would be the hands of the jury. The woman reluctantly changes her verdict.

Another man explains that he voted not guilty because Diana was a nice young woman; the sort that one would like for a daughter. The man now becomes embarrassed and changes his view too.

Now only Sir John Menier, a famous actor, is left. He puts forward some inconclusive points in favour of not guilty, but everyone else gangs up on him and after some time he gives up and agrees to guilty.

Sentence of death is passed on Diana.

Now we see Sir John Menier in his flat; he is full of remorse about the verdict; he is convinced that Diana was innocent. He determines to get hold of the members of the touring theatrical company, and cancels his own acting engagements in the meantime. We see that Edward Markham and Doucebell Dear have advertised in The Stage periodical that they are "disengaged" (that is, out of work). Sir John sends them a telegram, asking Markham to come to his residence later that day. The chaotic hand-to-mouth existence of the Markhams is fully on display at this stage, but Markham goes. Sir John patronises him heavily, but eventually asks him about the "inner history" of the case. Markham's wife Doucie is brought in as well. Sir John shows excessive respect to the Markhams, and their social inferiority is heavily underlined.

Doucie recalls that when they were woken on the evening of the murder, she saw a policeman in the street, and he then disappeared. Sir John goes with them to their house and the three of them spend some time looking out of the bedroom window in an attempt to recreate the atmosphere of the night. Then there is a commotion at the house where the murder took place and they go there. The lady of the house lets them in and they see where the murdered woman lay.

Could anyone have got in the house at the back? Well only someone who knew the house well, Miss Mitcham, the householder then reels off a list of friends of the murdered woman who had called. She also recounts how she heard women's voices at the moment the body was found: definitely not a man. Sir John goes int the other room and calls Miss Mitcham in a falsetto female voice; she is completely misled and for a minute is certain it was a woman calling. In Diana's bedroom there is a framed photograph of Sir John himself.

They go to the theatre, and it emerges that the wash basin in one of the dressing rooms was broken when the company was there; and a cigarette case was left behind. Markham takes the cigarette case and they all look at the dressing room, which was used by Fane and Stewart. The basin is below a window that looks out on the houses "round the corner", where they have just been visiting.

That night Sir John lodges in a local house; in the morning the lady of the house enters while he is still asleep, and several small children come with her and create mayhem, which Sir John tolerates with forbearance. But then Markham arrives and says that Doucei recognized the cigarettte case as belonging to Stewart, and that it has blood on it.

The question of the policeman who Doucie saw is still worrying Sir John. He asks who dressed as a policeman in the play that was being performed; the answer is both Fane and Stewart.

Sir John goes to the prison to talk to Diana; he wants to know the identity of a man who Diana had said was involved, but she has refused to name him. She continues to refuse now, but lets slip that he is a half-caste". He shows her the cigarette case and she recognizes it, but says that it is not Stewart's.

Now Sir John and Markham have tracked down Handel Fane; he has gone back to his old work as a trapeze artiste; we are at a circus watching him perform. Markham says that it is definitely him; he was always good at female impersonation.

Back at Sir John's chambers, Handel Fane calls; he has been asked there by Sir John, lured by the promise of a good part in a play he has supposedly written. Sir John pretends that he is merely being auditioned for the part, but he then says that the play is about the inner history of the case of the murder of Edna Druce. He asks him to say a few lines, but first he sets the scene; in fact it is exactly as happened on the night, and Fane looks increasingly uneasy. Sir John encourages him to read the script that he has prepared. Fane does so, but when he turns a page the next page is blank; Sir John had intended Fane to fill in with what he did that night, but he stops, and excuses himself, and leaves.

Now Sir John and Markham go to the circus where Fane is working, and burst in to his dressing room; he is only partly dressed. Sir John observes that he drinks brandy to steady his nerves. But Fane is on in a moment (although he doesn't seem to be in costume or made up yet) and Sir John and Markham leave, to return after Fane's performance.

In the next scene, Fane goes into the circus ring, having quickly got into costume; he is dressed as a showgirl, with a massive ostrich feather headdress and a satin gown. His attendants take the gown from him and he is a leotard and tights, although his body figure is not at all feminine. He slowly climbs a rope ladder to a high trapeze. He performs some moves, but then visibly becoming distraught, he makes a noose out of a rope and puts it round his neck, and leaps off and dies.

He has left a note for Sir John, detailing how he carried out the murder; he used the policeman's costume to make good his escape and climbed into the dressing room through the window ... that explains the broken sink. He had been in love with Diana, and this was the secret she kept; that he was a half-caste.