The Deadly Affair Page #5

I mean, wouldn't want to get mixed up

in nothing shady, would we?

- Not when jolly old England is gonna suffer.

- Shut up, you sodden old hypocrite!

Hello, love.

- You eat that nice egg I boiled you?

- Yes.

- I gave some to Alice.

- Did you?

- She's dying.

- Is she?

We'll have to go buy you a new doll then,

won't we?

I took the liberty of telling Mr Scarr

that you were dying.

Oh? Did he cough up?

He coughed. The car was hired

by the man that followed you.

No name, no address,

only a nickname, "Blondie."

An emergency telephone number

that was never used.

I traced it to

the East European Steel Mission.

No reply.

What do you know about this mission, Bill?

Pure as the driven snow,

on the surface anyway.

Four blameless secretaries and a watchdog.

- Who's the watchdog?

- I'll find out.

If you could get a photograph?

You never said that.

Alternatively, I never heard you.

Well, I must go now.

If there is a photograph,

I'll snitch it from files.

I want to live to see the Adviser

eating his own vomit.

Dr Avers, please. Dr Avers.

Fog's coming up.

Mendel, I'm going to theorise.

I like facts myself, but go ahead.

Let us assume, what is by no means proven,

that the murder of Fennan

and the attempted murder of me

are interrelated.

So, what circumstances

connected me with Fennan

before Fennan's death?

One:
Before the interview

on Tuesday, January 3rd,

Fennan and I had never met.

Two:
The Foreign Office

arranged the interview,

but did not, did not, repeat,

know in advance

who would conduct the interview.

So Fennan had no prior knowledge

of my identity,

nor had anybody

outside my own department.

My own department.

Three:
I met Fennan in his office.

And then we went into the park

where anybody could have seen us.

So a possible conclusion

is that somebody did see us.

Somebody who was so violently opposed

to our association

that he did what Blondie did to me.

Mendel, who is Blondie? Mendel.

Were you on a job, Charles?

No, you're not to worry.

They're letting me out tomorrow.

- Dieter said he thought you might be.

- No, I've resigned.

Then what were you doing

at the pub in Battersea, of all places?

Getting drunk.

Because you couldn't get drunk at home.

You can come home, Charles.

I'm trying to tell you if you're really all right,

I'm clearing out, too, for a bit.

I think it's better.

Where to?

- Switzerland?

- Zurich.

Is he going back?

He will be, in a day or two.

Would it upset you very much

if I gave you a kiss?

Yes, I think it would.

Don't fly if there's a fog.

- Double, double...

- Double, double...

...toil and trouble.

...toil and trouble.

- Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

- Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf.

Witches' mummy, maw and gulf

Of the ravin'd salt sea shark.

Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark.

Liver of blaspheming Jew,

Gall of goat and slips of yew,

Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse...

Slivered!

Slivered in the moon's eclipse,

Nose of Turk

and Tartar's lips.

Finger of birth-strangled babe

Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,

Make our gruel thick and slab:

Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,

For the ingredients of our cauldron!

- Double, double...

- Double, double...

...toil and trouble.

...toil and trouble.

- Fire burn.

- And cauldron bubble!

Terry, I presume that

when Shakespeare wrote,

"And cauldron bubble,"

he intended the cauldron to bubble.

And it would help me considerably

to play this scene from the heart,

if the cauldron were allowed

to blow even one itsy-bitsy little bubble!

Yes, yes, all right. Okay. Virgin!

- Let's have that dry ice, shall we?

- Sorry.

That one's your best bet.

She's the local solicitor's

stage-struck daughter.

You know, it's all the kinky boots

and "get me if you can."

Daddy pays the tuition fees, so we put her

in charge of props and advance bookings.

- Sorry.

- Virgin!

- Where have you been?

- At the butcher's.

Buying the tiger's chaudron.

I looked up chaudron

and it means guts. Sorry.

It's calves' liver.

Well, you said you wanted something

that went "plop."

Mummy can keep it in the fridge

till tomorrow night.

All right, witches!

Let's take it

from the second "Double, double," please.

And Bert, let's have some thunder

and lightning.

Now, come on everybody,

put some back into it.

All right. One, "Double..."

Double, double toil and trouble!

- Bend your knees as you go round.

- Fire, burn.

The fire's gone out.

That does it. That's it.

Virgin.

Come over here.

Now look, ducky,

it's not very plausible

that if the cauldron bubbles,

the bloody fire doesn't burn.

Well, the lightning blew a fuse,

we're mending it. Sorry.

All right. Bijou coffee break, everybody.

Bert, I want to run through

some of those sound effects for level,

that's the owl's scream, cricket's cry, cat...

Not you, Virgin. There's a fan over here

who wants your autograph.

You're back in five minutes, everybody.

- Miss...

- Bumpus.

Sorry. Oh!

Can I give you a hand or anything?

Take a rock.

Bert, it's "Thrice the brinded cat

hath mew'd!"

We've only got it twice.

Well, tell the first witch to say,

"Twice the brinded cat hath mew'd."

My name's Savage.

I'm a private investigator. A divorce agent.

Oh, gosh, what have I done?

Nothing, apart from being able to help me

on a matter of seat booking.

I've a client who wants to check

on the movements of a Mrs Elsa Fennan

on the night of Tuesday, January the 3rd.

- Oh, that's easy. She was here as usual.

- As usual?

Yes, she has this standing order

for two stalls,

every first and third Tuesday of the month.

Was Mrs Fennan, would you say,

on intimate terms

with the occupant of the other stalls?

Well, gosh, yes, I should think so.

I mean, he's her husband, isn't he?

- Is he?

- Oh, yes. I know they arrive separately,

but he's foreign, too,

and they're both madly musical.

Musical?

Well, he has this music case just like hers,

and they leave them in the cloakroom and

then they pick them up again after the show.

- Could you describe him to me?

- Oh, gosh, yes!

He's big and madly foreign,

and sort of gold crew-cut hair.

I thought he's super.

I was livid when he didn't turn up.

Didn't turn up? When?

Oh, last Tuesday.

It's the first time his seat was empty.

I thought he must have flu or something.

Well, thank you, Miss Bumpus.

"What is that noise?

It is the cry of women, my good Lord."

One of them was me.

Very good, too.

Good morning, sir.

Would you care for an aperitif?

A large dry sherry?

Yes, please.

- And a lager for me.

- Certainly, sir.

How did it really happen?

Didn't Ann tell you?

She said you pretended to be robbed.

I didn't want her to be worried.

Are you worried?

Is it the Fennan case?

Look, this isn't what I wanted

to speak about.

Oh, Charles, please!

In any other country,

we shouldn't even be on speaking terms.

- This is a ridiculously British scene.

- Is it?

Well, I've never played it before.

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