Dead of Night Page #2

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There's something

sort of soothing about you.

- You'll not leave me, will you?

- I won't.

- Promise?

- If you promise to go quietly to sleep.

Anything you say...

'From then on, my temperature

began to slide back to normal.

'It was a grand job of nursing

on Joyce's part.'

Tell me frankly, darling.

Am I out of the wood yet?

Well, you've stopped being delirious.

At least, I think so.

It's hard to tell,

you talk such nonsense!

- I still have awful bad nightmares.

- Nightmares?

I thought you said

you always dreamt about me.

So I do. I dream you turn me down

and get married to Dr Albury instead.

You needn't worry.

He has a wife and three children.

Oh, good for him.

It's a lovely night.

Quarter to ten.

Long past your bedtime.

Darling, I put it to you.

Only one way to cure me permanently,

and that's to marry me!

- It's your professional duty.

- You've got a hope!

- Good night.

- Good night, darling.

Just room for one inside, sir!

It couldn't have been a dream.

I hadn't had time to fall asleep.

Nurse had only just left me.

You checked the time,

it was no more than five minutes.

- Does that mean I'm going crackers?

- My dear chap, of course not.

In the split second

before your car crashed,

you were firmly convinced you were

going to be killed, weren't you?

- Yes. Yes, I was.

- That fear has remained with you.

I wasn't conscious of it.

You mean my subconscious mind?

You'd already passed

the purely physical crisis.

That apparition of death is what

we call the psychological crisis.

Yes, maybe.

But suppose I go on seeing things?

You won't.

I'll lay you 2 to 1 in pounds,

we'll have you out of here in a week.

It's a bet. If I lose, I win.

'As a matter of fact, I won.

That is, I lost, if you see what I mean.

'Albury was right,

I made marvellous headway,

'and was able to leave the nursing

home before the week was over.'

Excuse me,

can you tell me the time?

- Yes, it's quarter past four.

- Thanks.

Just room for one inside, sir.

So you see, if I hadn't seen

that man driving the hearse,

I wouldn't be alive to tell the tale.

Bit sick for the passengers on the bus.

Yes, the hearse driver

might've tipped them off, too!

Perhaps he did,

but perhaps they were all Doubting

Thomases like Dr Van Straaten.

This time you have got

your evidence, Doctor.

Mr Grainger told the specialist

about the hearse

before he went to catch the bus.

I'm afraid that does not prove

the bus conductor had

the features of the hearse driver

or that he said,

"Just room for one inside."

But he had and he did.

Nothing will ever shake me.

That hearse driver was sent to me

as a warning.

I agree. Otherwise,

why didn't he board the bus?

- Exactly.

- He hadn't recovered completely yet.

Your were still obsessed by your crash.

It made you reluctant to board

any kind of vehicle, didn't it?

- Sorry, Doctor, I'll not buy that one.

- Well, maybe it's as well.

You cling to your belief, my boy,

that providence is specially

concerned about your survival.

No use, Grainger. We're both in the

same boat. We'll never convince him.

What Dr Van Straaten wants

is genuine first-hand evidence.

The kind that would satisfy

judge and jury.

And neither of us has been

able to produce that... yet.

Darling, where on earth

did you spring from?

Brenda suddenly changed her mind

about staying up in town.

Would you pay the taxi?

I spent my last penny on the train fare.

- Hello, Eliot.

- Hello, Joyce.

Oh, your penniless brunette.

All right, I'll pay the taxi.

...I made a dash

for Charing Cross and caught the 3:15.

A delightful surprise, my dear.

Though no surprise to Mr Craig.

Let me introduce you.

Mr Craig, Mrs Grainger,

your dream come true.

Yes, she's the sixth person.

Sixth person? Are you playing

some sort of a game?

Well, not exactly a game,

my dear.

Mr Craig has been dreaming

about you for years.

Not only you darling, all of us.

Come upstairs and take your things off.

It's all perfectly simple really.

- Just like your husband's hearse.

- Oh?

I don't mean his hearse,

I mean the one he saw

when he was in your nursing home.

Or the one Dr Van Straaten said

he didn't see.

Oh, dear,

I think I'd better start again.

Mr Craig has been having

the most frightful dreams...

Penniless brunette

laid on according to plan.

- How's that for evidence, Doctor?

- You'll say it's a pure coincidence.

- You can't say that, Doctor.

- The odds are a million to one against.

I am a little indignant.

I am driven to the conclusion it's all part

of a very carefully prearranged plan.

An extraordinarily elaborate

practical joke at my expense.

- Oh, really!

- You think we cooked the whole thing up?

As an explanation, it's not any more

farfetched than Mr Craig's.

The jokes on me, too,

for I didn't know anything about it.

A funny sort of practical joke.

It isn't funny.

What conceivable motive do you

think we possibly could've had?

No doubt you thought

it would be very amusing

to watch my cherished disbeliefs

being shattered.

Very clever of us, I must say.

I wonder if we have any more

surprises up our sleeves?

- That's it! Your glasses.

- What about my glasses?

It's later on,

we're having drinks,

you break those glasses of yours,

and then, quite suddenly,

the room goes dark.

Then, Foley, you say something,

something about the death of a man

I've never heard of.

And that's where my dream

becomes a nightmare,

a nightmare of horror.

Horror? What sort of horror?

I feel my will power draining away.

I feel I'm in the grip of a force

that's driving me

towards something unspeakably evil.

It shows that you have some heavy

weight on your conscience.

Now, in my opinion...

I'm no longer interested

in your opinion, Doctor.

You shook me at first

with your ingenious theories.

I thought perhaps

the whole thing was a delusion.

But Mrs Grainger's arrival

has altered all that.

I have been here before

in my dream.

For some reason, I was given

foreknowledge of the future.

Why? I don't know.

I want to know. I must know.

Sally, dear, I think perhaps it's time

you were going off home now.

Mother means she wouldn't want

your infant mind warped, my pretty.

I'm sorry, Sally. I didn't mean

my fear to frighten you.

It's all right, Mr Craig, it didn't.

All the same, I'll go, if you like.

But it seems rather silly to me,

considering I've had some myself.

- Some what?

- Subconscious thingamajigs.

Or whatever Dr Van Straaten

makes out they are.

I had an absolutely staggering one

last year.

Save it up for the school magazine.

Run along home.

Thanks for the nice tea, Eliot,

and for calling me a liar.

- Good afternoon.

- Please let her stay, Mrs Foley.

I should like to hear about

your subconscious thingamajigs.

You would?

Not that it'll cut any ice with you.

Well, we were spending Christmas

down in Somerset.

I'd been asked over to a party by

an old school friend of my mother's.

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