CAST
HERCULE
POIROT – a famous Belgian detective
LORD
RAGLAN – a bully
LADY
RAGLAN – a snob
DICKIE
TODD – a bounder
DUCHESS
OF BASKERVILLE – a wealthy widow
JAMES THE
BUTLER – a servant
ACT I
SCENE 1
The dining room of a grand castle in the Home
Counties. The décor is early 1930s. LORD and LADY RAGLAN, DICKIE TODD and THE
DUCHESS are seated at a dining table dressed in tuxedos (the men that is, not
the table nor the women) while the ladies wear ravishing gowns. They have just
finished their candle-lit dinner.
LORD R (Reaches
for a bottle on the table.)
Snifter
of vintage absinthe, anyone?
LADY R Not after last time, darling.
LORD R You’re such a bore, dahhhhling. Right-o, let’s be
responsible. I’ll ring for James to bring some coke.
(LORD R rings a bell. Enter immediately: JAMES THE
BUTLER.)
LORD R Lazy blighter. What took you so long?
BUTLER Begging your pardon, me Lord, but some jumped-up
little Froggy busybody by the name of Hercules Poy-rot is here to see you. He
insists …
(Enter Poirot, brushing past the butler.)
POIROT Premièrement, I am Belgian and, deuxièmement,
it is pronounced er-KYOOL pwa-ROH.
DICKIE By Jove! You’re the famous detective!
POIROT Précisément. And you are Dickie Todd, the
Wimbledon tennis champion and ladies’ man.
DICKIE I say, Poirot, that’s a rum
accusation!
POIROT Merely an observation. I noticed the washing
instructions tag of the Duchess’s silk lingerie protruding above your belt. You
and she obviously dressed in a hurry after your pre-dinner assignation.
DICKIE (Glancing
down.)
I thought this
underwear was a tad tight in the family jewels department.
DUCHESS Look here, you ghastly little Bulgarian!
POIROT Belgian. And, as you British say: keep
your knickers on. Or, in your case, Duchess, perhaps not. Your affair with
Monsieur Todd is hardly a secret. Even your late husband knew of it when he
hired me.
DUCHESS Tommy rot! He’d never hire a fruity foreigner.
POIROT He feared for his life, correctly as it
turned out. He was stabbed, beaten, garrotted, poisoned and shot.
LORD R Dash it, man. It could’ve been suicide.
POIROT (Tap side of forehead with forefinger) My little grey cells say: “Non.”
(POIROT strolls to a large painting on the wall: a naked
woman standing on a sunlit terrace is painted demurely from the rear.)
POIROT Ah, Lady Raglan, I would recognise you
anywhere.
LADY R Flattery will …
POIROT I was referring to the fact you were
painted on the terrace of your pied-à-terre in Antibes where you regularly met
the Duke of Baskerville for a bit of, how you say, humpty dumpty.
DICKIE Speak English: it’s “rumpy pumpy”.
POIROT And who better to correct me? A man who
has not only slept, if that is the euphemism, with the Duchess but also with
Lady Raglan …
BUTLER (Clears
throat.)
Ahem …
POIROT And, bien sûr, with the butler. The
butler who, as Lady Raglan discovered, was also a paramour of the Duke of
Baskerville.
LORD R (Glares
at LADY RAGLAN.)
Both James and you were bonking
Baskerville? I’d expect it of a manservant and now you can’t be trusted either!
POIROT A family trait, non, Lord Raglan? It
was you
who convinced my client …
DICKIE Who was your client, again? I’m
getting a bit lost.
POIROT The Duke of Baskerville – Lord Raglan’s
business partner in a South African gold mine. Just last month, Lord Raglan
convinced the Duke to sign an agreement that, if one of them died, the other
would take full control of the mine.
LADY R (Looks
at her watch.)
Time’s up, Poy-rot. James,
show him the door.
POIROT (Holds
up a finger.)
Une minute. First I
must summarise, then name the culprit.
(Pause) Who had a motive? Everyone. Lord
Raglan was greedy, Lady Raglan was humiliated by her lover the Duke’s affair
with her butler, and the Duchess wanted her husband out of the way so she could
marry Dickie. Dickie simply wanted the Duchess’s money. Meanwhile, the butler
knew that the Duke had left him a generous endowment in a will.
LORD R If we all had a motive. Who was the
murderer?
POIROT All of you. It was on a night such as
tonight. With one exception. There was a fifth guest: the Duke of Baskerville. You
gathered. You ate. You argued. You drank absinthe – the pre-War variety made
with hallucinogenic wormwood. A drink that, justement, has been banned for more
than 15 years! Even the butler had a swig while carrying it up from the cellar.
Driven momentarily mad by The Green Fairy as it was known, you killed the Duke
as a group. You will all hang for the crime.
DUCHESS Personally, I’m not a great fan of capital
punishment. So, you can wipe that smug smile off your Balkan …
POIROT Belgian.
DUCHESS … face. If we’re all guilty, that means you
are alone in this castle with cold blooded killers – and that’s not just because of
the lack of decent heating.
POIROT Planning is everything. The castle is
surrounded by police. I only have to blow on a whistle to summon them.
(POIROT pats his pockets. He can’t find the whistle.)
BUTLER (Clears
throat. Holds up whistle.)
Ahem … I believe you
dropped this when you brushed past me.
(The butler steps towards Poirot. The other characters menacingly
push back their chairs.)
POIROT Mon Dieu, I perceive a petit flaw in my
planning.
CURTAIN FALLS
Copyright 2017 GREG FLYNN
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