I'm not exactly sure when this scene falls in the order, but it comes after Tom is accosted by one Officer John Crier when he arrives for his appointment at Loring's End. Crier is investigating Emma's death, and has so far treated Tom very rudely and suspiciously. But when someone tries to break into Loring's End and they both try to catch him, they get to talking and sharing some of their thoughts on this strange business.
(Soft rustling.)
CONSTANCE: What was that?
EDMUND: What was what?
(Soft rustling.)
CONSTANCE: Don’t you hear that?
EDMUND: I don’t hear anything, Constance.
ALICE: I’m afraid I don’t either.
EDMUND: Try and calm yourself, dear. Now, shall we return to—?
(Soft rustling.)
CONSTANCE: There it is again!
EDMUND: I swear, Constance, what is the trouble with—
MRS. WARREN: Mr. Danbury!
EDMUND: Mrs. Warren?
(MRS. WARREN hurries in, breathless.)
MRS. WARREN: Mr. Danbury, there’s a strange man in the house!
CONSTANCE: Oh, God!
EDMUND: Call for the watchmen!
(Sound of a chair crashing to the floor as it is knocked over.)
CONSTANCE: (Screams)
TOM: Where is he?
MRS. WARREN: In the study!
(TOM runs over.)
TOM: Stop right there! Stop!
(The man cries out in shock. He knocks over more furniture, then throws open the window and climbs out of it.)
ALICE: Tom! Be careful, Tom!
(TOM follows him out of the window, lands on the ground and runs after the burglar. The man’s breath comes heavily. He clambers up the wrought iron gate with Tom on his heels.)
TOM: Stop! Come back here!
(TOM grabs onto him, but the man kicks him. TOM stumbles back down onto the ground and the man gets over the fence, jumps down the ground, and stumbles away.)
TOM: No, no!
CRIER: Stop, thief!
(TOM gasps as CRIER knocks him to the ground with a thump.)
TOM: Officer Crier!?
CRIER: You again!
TOM: Get off me, you ass! You missed him, he’s already gone!
CRIER: I would have nabbed him if you hadn’t gotten in my way! What are you doing here, Barrows?
TOM: I had come to by to speak to Alice! I heard the burglar and went after him, same as you!
CRIER: Well, fat lot of good that did.
TOM: What about you, where did you come from?
CRIER: I was examining the perimeter of the property for anything out of the ordinary!
TOM: Well, seems you did a bang-up job, you missed the man breaking into the house!
CRIER: You shut your mouth, boy!
TOM: Wait a minute— what are you still looking for? I thought you fellows decided Miss Emma did herself in.
CRIER: That’s what a lot of the boys are thinking.
TOM: Don’t you think so?
CRIER: Well… I’m not so sure we’ve got the whole story.
TOM: That so? Do you think there might have been some passers-by you didn’t harangue that day?
CRIER: Hear me out a minute! Sure, it could have been an accident. Wouldn’t be the first lady to overdo it with the tincture if the pain won’t go.
TOM: I suppose so.
CRIER: But an educated woman like Miss Loring… she’d likely know what she was on about, right? And nobody can think of any reason why she’d need a dose like that. So I don’t believe it was something she would have done to herself by accident or on purpose.
TOM: I see.
CRIER: Now a lot of the boys think she might have been down enough to do it. That family sure wouldn’t care to talk about it, but I could believe it. She didn’t go out in society so much lately, she’d pulled away from the family business...
TOM: And they sure had their fair share of hard times.
CRIER: Sure they did. But here’s the trouble— why now? After all that, what could have pushed her to it now?
TOM: Well. Her old man finally went a few months ago. Could have been the last straw.
CRIER: Could have been. I wouldn’t expect so, he was about seventy and that was nothing unexpected. But I suppose I can’t stab at how a maiden aunt might see it.
TOM: Then what makes you so sure somebody killed her?
CRIER: Just this— for a distraught lady who was half a shut-in, it seems she was awful busy.
TOM: Busy with what?
CRIER: You aren’t the only one saying Miss Loring was going about some odd business just before she died.
TOM: Yeah?
CRIER: Yeah. She was seen more in town in the weeks before she died than she had been in years. She was up to something just before this happened. Coming out and about for the first time in ages—that’s not the act of a woman with no reason to go on.
TOM: No, I wouldn’t think so.
CRIER: So you see what I mean?
TOM: I think I do.
CRIER: Now I could very well be on a lot of nonsense here, but I have to say, if now there are strange men breaking in to have a poke around the house, well… I think there has to be something more going on, wouldn’t you say?
TOM: I think you might be on to something, Crier.
CRIER: Well. It’s just a notion of mine. But I’m looking into it all the same. I mean to find out just what she was doing in town, see what that might tell me.
TOM: That’s decent of you to go to the trouble.
CRIER: Just doing my job. Tell me something, Barrows— what’s got you so tied up in this? Beg your pardon for saying, but doesn’t seem like you’d be their kind of people.
TOM: Miss Alice isn’t like that.
CRIER: Hm. That’d make her a rare sort of girl.
TOM: I want to help that girl. And I think Miss Emma came to me because I’m tangled up in this somehow too. I mean to find out how.
CRIER: I hear you. Still. This is police business, understand? Try not to get in the way.
TOM: I’ll do my best.
CRIER: Right then. Well. Carry on, Barrows.
TOM: Carry on, Crier.
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