I thought I would post what I have of Episode 2 of The Tailor of Riddling Way. This includes a couple of sections already posted, now just in context. All of Episode 1 is present in pieces by scene, but with some effort and focus I managed to get the majority of the second part written in time for the read through. Here it is now in case you would like to read it. There will likely be at least one more scene to it, which I am currently working on and will post when I finish.
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Episode 2:
House Full of Secrets
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SCENE 2.1Episode 2:
House Full of Secrets
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SETTING: Loring’s End
ALICE: Thank you for coming tonight, Tom.
TOM: No trouble. How are things here?
ALICE: Much the same. I hardly know where we’re going to start.
TOM: Well… tell me what it’s like here. How things have been leading up to this.
ALICE: I… well, I hadn’t really thought about it before, but I suppose with all the… the sad things that happened, ever since it was sort of a sad place. But you’d never know if you didn’t live in the house. Grandfather didn’t want people to see us that way.
TOM: Sounds like a hard place to grow up. If you’ll pardon my saying.
ALICE: Well, I didn’t really grow up here. My mother passed when I was a girl, and I was sent away to boarding school. But that’s all right. There weren’t many other children to play with here.
TOM: Was that your grandfather’s doing too?
ALICE: Yes. He was the head of the family without my father, so he saw to my upbringing. You’ve heard of him?
TOM: I don’t think there’s anyone in town who didn’t know Reginald Loring. He was a councilman for years.
ALICE: Yes, he got into politics after the war, but he made his money shipping textiles all over the world. All through the rationing, even during the slump. People always need cloth, I suppose. My uncle Edmund runs things now, but Grandfather worked right up until he passed a few months ago. I heard Aunt Emma used to do quite a lot to help him, but... that all ended when everything else happened.
TOM: She took it all hard, didn’t she?
ALICE: I think everyone did. But Grandfather didn’t like us talking about it. So after a while, nobody mentioned it anymore.
TOM: Jesus Christ.
ALICE: We mostly did things the way Grandfather wanted them. He used to tell me what a grand thing it was to be a Loring, what a great name it was, so we all had to do our best to live up to it. And so we still do. Everyone’s barely speaking and trying to pretend like nothing’s wrong. Aunt Constance hasn’t said a word to me except to tell me we’re having petit fours for my coming out ball. I can’t believe we’re still having that stupid old party with everything that’s happened.
(Sound of footsteps as MRS. WARREN approaches.)
MRS. WARREN: Mr. Barrows? Back again?
ALICE: Yes, Mrs. Warren, I invited him.
MRS. WARREN: To the house? In the evening?
TOM: This is the earliest I could come, ma’am.
MRS. WARREN: Miss Alice, you can’t just have strange young men coming over. Begging your pardon, Tom.
ALICE: He’s helping me!
MRS. WARREN: It’s not done.
TOM: I assure you, Mrs. Warren, you don’t need to worry over me.
ALICE: How could you think such a thing?
MRS. WARREN: It’s not what I think, miss! What will your aunt and uncle say?
EDMUND: Oh, for God’s sake! Mrs. Warren!
MRS. WARREN: Oh, my…
EDMUND: Mrs. Warren, where the devil are my reading glasses?
MRS. WARREN: I’ll go and fetch them.
EDMUND: Now hurry, Constance! Alice? Who’s this? What are you doing here with my niece?
ALICE: Uncle! This is Mr. Barrows, don’t you remember?
TOM: Ah, I’m here about the ball gowns, sir.
EDMUND: Ball gowns? I beg your pardon?
TOM: I understand Miss Loring here will be having her coming out party soon?
EDMUND: Yes, I believe so.
TOM: Miss Emma engaged me. Before she passed. To make party dress for the ladies of this house. Miss Alice, Mrs. Danbury…
EDMUND: Hmm. I see. For the coming out party, of course.
CONSTANCE: Edmund?
EDMUND: What is it, dear?
CONSTANCE: I hear someone.
EDMUND: It’s just the dressmaker Emma hired.
CONSTANCE: No! Not that. In the guest bedroom. Or the study.
EDMUND: Constance, there’s no one in there.
CONSTANCE: I heard something.
EDMUND: (Sigh) Well, you will have to consult with my wife another time, she is indisposed at the moment.
(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.
(Soft rattling.)
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 lock being rattled and forced. 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!
(Sound of the lock breaking. 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: Boy yourself! 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?
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 think so, 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? You think somebody killed her?
CRIER: Might be I do.
TOM: What makes you so sure?
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 gathering up old papers nobody had looked at in years. She was up to something, damn it. That’s not 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. I suppose I have statements to collect from the members of the household. Carry on, Barrows.
TOM: Carry on, Crier.
SCENE 2.2
SETTING: Loring’s End
TOM: Alice? Where are you?
ALICE: In the study. I’m helping Mrs. Warren straighten up. Are you all right?
TOM: Well, that was a bust.
ALICE: What happened? Who was that?
TOM: I didn’t get a good look at him. He shook off me and Officer Crier both.
MRS. WARREN: That was very brave of you, Tom.
TOM: Thank you. For all the good it did.
MRS. WARREN: Well, you chased him off at least. Who knows what he might have done if you hadn’t?
TOM: What was he doing here?
MRS. WARREN: He just tore everything apart! I don’t think anything was stolen…
ALICE: Look at this. First Aunt Emma, then strange men start breaking into the house. How can anyone think there’s nothing going on here?
TOM: For what it’s worth, it seems Officer Crier agrees with you. He thinks Emma was up to something.
ALICE: He does? Perhaps he’s cleverer than he seems. Nobody else will see it.
TOM: There has to be a way to find what happened here. Surely someone knows.
ALICE: How? This house has always been full of secrets.
MRS. WARREN: Oh, Miss Alice.
ALICE: You know! You’ve been with our family for years now.
MRS. WARREN: Yes. But I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.
ALICE: But you’ve seen it! God knows what’s happened here that no one’s ever talked about.
MRS. WARREN: That’s no business of mine.
ALICE: There has to be something. It could be why Emma died. You’ve been here, surely you remember!
MRS. WARREN: Oh, I don’t know, Miss Alice.
ALICE: Please, Mrs. Warren… I just… please…
TOM: Alice, leave her be.
ALICE: Tom!
TOM: She doesn’t want to speak ill of anyone.
MRS. WARREN: No, sir. Least of all of any Loring. You’ve been very good to me.
TOM: It’s very good you, Mrs. Warren. Susan Warren, isn’t it?
MRS. WARREN: Yes, it is.
TOM: Are you by any chance a relation of Robbie Warren over on Deer Hill?
MRS. WARREN: Why, yes! He’s my nephew. Do you know him?
TOM: Him and my big brother used to be thick as thieves.
MRS. WARREN: Your brother is Luke Barrows? He and Robbie used to steal pies off my windowsill!
TOM: They always were rascals.
MRS. WARREN: How is Luke nowadays?
TOM: Very well; after the war he decided to stay in Europe. He’s got a nice English wife and a fine fat baby boy.
MRS. WARREN: Ah, God bless him. Lots of good young men never made it through that war.
ALICE: Like my father.
MRS. WARREN: Yes, miss. A true gentleman.
ALICE: He was a great hero.
MRS. WARREN: (Hesitantly) He was indeed, miss…
TOM: Yes? What is it?
MRS. WARREN: It’s just… everyone thought so well of Master Rowan, doing his duty by the country and all.
TOM: Of course. The family must have been proud of him.
MRS. WARREN: That’s just it. That’s what they said to everyone… but when he was shipping out, Mister Reginald didn’t want to let him go.
TOM: I suppose it’s natural for a man to be afraid for his son going off to war.
MRS. WARREN: Yes, but it wasn’t just like that.
ALICE: How do you know?
MRS. WARREN: Because… I heard them one night. It must have been the night that Master Rowan told his father he was enlisting. I was clearing the table after dinner. They were in Mr. Loring’s study, but I could hear them shouting, and soon they were moving through the house.
(Flashback effect.)
REGINALD: You will not, sir! I forbid it!
ROWAN: I am a grown man, Father, you can forbid me nothing. Besides, it’s already done. I am an enlisted man. I ship out for France by the end of the month.
REGINALD: Have you lost your mind?
ROWAN: Have you lost yours? Do you know what it is you’ve done? You have made a deal with the devil!
REGINALD: You are being a naïve fool, Rowan. This is for the best interests of the family. Would you see us in ruins?
ROWAN: Some things are worth more than that, Father.
REGINALD: So you’ll throw your life away in some godforsaken trench, for what? For principle? To teach me a Sunday school lesson?
ROWAN: Someone must do the right thing. If it will not be you, then it will be me.
REGINALD: This is madness! You are not some unoccupied gutter trash, you have responsibilities here!
ROWAN: I will have none of any obligations to you.
REGINALD: You have a child on the way!
ROWAN: I will not have that child growing up ashamed of the family it came from! There will be one Loring man that will not disgrace the name.
REGINALD: Come off this nonsense. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Everything is well in hand.
ROWAN: Don’t be so certain. You’ll have to make good on your devil’s bargain soon enough.
REGINALD: What do you mean?
ROWAN: Just that we reap what we sow, dear Father.
REGINALD: If you think for a moment that you are going to—
ROWAN: And when that time comes, I will not be paying along with you. Oh, good evening, Mrs. Warren.
MRS. WARREN: Excuse me, sirs.
ROWAN: Not at all, Mrs. Warren. If you would be so good, I’ll be needing my train cases cleaned. I shall soon have some packing to do.
MRS. WARREN: Of course, Master Rowan.
ROWAN: Many thanks, madam. And now— goodnight, Father.
REGINALD: This is not over, boy—
ROWAN: I said, goodnight.
(Flashback effect.)
TOM: And that’s all you heard?
MRS. WARREN: That’s all, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.
ALICE: But… what had Grandfather done?
MRS. WARREN: I don’t know that he did anything.
ALICE: It must have been something, if Father was so upset with him!
MRS. WARREN: They could have just disagreed on something.
ALICE: No one calls a disagreement a deal with the devil! It must have been terrible.
MRS. WARREN: It’s not for me to pass judgment on any Loring. And I never heard them speak of it again. Oh, heavens. They were both good men, Miss Alice, and smart too. I’m sure whatever they were at odds about, they both had very good reasons for it.
(Pause.)
MRS. WARREN: I’m sorry. I’ve said things out of turn.
ALICE: Not at all, Mrs. Warren.
MRS. WARREN: Well. I should go back to putting this room in order.
ALICE: That’s all right. I’ll finish up here.
MRS. WARREN: Are you certain, miss?
ALICE: It’s no trouble.
MRS. WARREN: All right. I guess I’ll be off, then.
ALICE: Thank you.
MRS. WARREN: For what?
ALICE: For talking to me.
SCENE 2.3
SETTING: Loring’s End
(Sound of a drawer sliding back into its slot and a chair being clicked back into place.)
ALICE: Well, I suppose that’s taken care of.
TOM: But why did this happen? If nothing was stolen, he probably wasn’t here to rob the place.
(Pause.)
TOM: Are you all right?
ALICE: I can’t stop thinking about Father and Grandfather.
TOM: You don’t have any idea what that was about?
ALICE: No. No one was ever supposed to see any strife within the family. And you know, they must have fought just before all the trouble started!
TOM: You think they had something to do with one another?
ALICE: I… I don’t know. It’s just that with everything else... I don’t know what to think.
TOM: We’ve got to figure out what Emma was doing. Then we’ll have something to go on, at least.
ALICE: How can we do that?
TOM: I… wait a minute. Officer Crier said something else to me just now…
ALICE: What?
TOM: Something about Emma… gathering up old papers. He mentioned that it made him think she was up to something.
ALICE: Old papers? All her papers were kept in this study.
TOM: Have you found any yet?
ALICE: Nothing out of the ordinary… oh, Tom. Look at the roll top. The lock’s been sprung.
TOM: The burglar must have been trying to break it open.
ALICE: Aunt Emma always kept this locked, it was where she did her work. Will it open?
TOM: Let me try it.
(Rattling of forcing the roll top open.)
TOM: (Sound of exertion.) There! Alice… look at this.
ALICE: What are these? Newspaper clippings, letters, envelopes…
(Rustling of paper.)
TOM: She’s got them all laid out…
ALICE: Oh, Tom. These are all about Bethany. Look! About the night of her death… about the investigation after…
TOM: This was what Emma was up to. This must have been why the burglar broke in, to find these things!
ALICE: My God, it must have been!
TOM: Look at all this. This one here, with the hole cut in it… this must where the picture of her in the gown came from.
ALICE: And look what’s written here. This is my aunt’s writing.
EMMA: Never met with K all night…
ALICE: They’re notes.
EMMA: Last saw her at the bonfire, around nine-forty-five…
TOM: What do they mean?
EMMA: Who could have been there with her?
ALICE: I don’t know. Oh, what else is here?
(Opening of paper folders.)
ALICE: These are just a lot of old business papers of my Grandfather’s.
TOM: That seal’s freshly broken. They must not have been touched in years.
(Opening of paper folders.)
TOM: This one came by messenger from the police station. It’s the police report from the night Bethany died! Alice, do you see what all this is?
ALICE: She was looking into Bethany’s death.
TOM: There’s not much here… the party had already gone into the night when she disappeared. They looked for her for an hour, until some of the guests found her lying in the garden. Her neck was broken.
ALICE: Oh, God.
TOM: They spoke to all the guests but nobody knew how she got there. It looked like she fell and hit her head, but they never figured out what really happened. Emma wrote in the margins here too.
EMMA: Someone did this.
ALICE: She thinks Bethany was murdered.
TOM: There’s something else. What’s that folded up there?
(Unfolding of old paper.)
ALICE: It’s a letter. To Aunt Emma from my father!
TOM: What does it say?
ROWAN: May 15th, 1917. To my dear sister Emma. In this, the last letter I may write before I ship out to meet my fortune in the war, a brother ought to send a fond and affectionate farewell to his closest and most stalwart sister. But I fear I must instead speak to you of matters that we must deal with. It concerns, as so many things do now, our father’s current course. I told him he would have to pay the piper he’s been dancing to, but even I didn’t dream it would happen like this. He meant to keep it secret until the deed was done, but I trust him with nothing anymore, so with some careful digging I have unearthed it. The payment he offers is Bethany, to sell her to that wretched man like a cow at market. He intends to marry her off and see her shipped halfway across the world whether she will or no to protect his vile scheme. His own daughter, and a child at that. Emma, we cannot let him see this through. Something must be done, but I shall be leaving for the front too soon to handle this alone… which is why I must write to you, dear sister. It tears me that I can do nothing for Bethany myself, but I discovered this too late; I am due at my assignment within the week, and I must be there to meet the ship. Therefore it is you that must act where I cannot. Poor Constance is too starved for Father’s approval to defy him in anything, and dear Bethany is bright and brave but still too much a child to escape this on her own. There is no one else, Emma. You must get her away somehow, out of Father’s grasp, and safe from the man he wants to sell her to. I cannot say I approve of the man that Bethany prefers instead, but we cannot allow her to be married off against her will. I wish to God I had time to make some arrangement or plan, but I fear all I have to give is this warning. Forgive me, dear Emma, that I lay this burden on you and can be of no more help to you than that. Forewarned is forearmed, they say, so I hope I’ve given you that small advantage at least. But please, for our sweet little sister’s sake, do what you can to spare her being spent like coin to pay our father’s debt. I know I can trust you with this above any other, as I would trust you with my own daughter. Farewell, and Godspeed to you both. Signed, your loving brother, Rowan.
TOM: My God.
ALICE: That settles it. Grandfather was doing something terrible.
TOM: Emma knew about it too.
ALICE: And it did have something to do with Bethany! He was marrying her to somebody awful…. They all said he was a good man. But Papa hated him.
(Pause.)
ALICE: How long has she been doing this?
TOM: Crier said she started gathering these up in the last few months. The police report is postmarked two weeks ago. And those business documents she must have had to take out of storage.
ALICE: But I don’t understand. Why now, after all this time? What happened to make Emma look back at all this after seventeen years?
TOM: Alice…
ALICE: What?
TOM: She was waiting. She had to.
ALICE: Waiting? Why?
TOM: She had to wait until your grandfather died.
ALICE: Oh, my God. Tom… what happened that night?
(Flashback effect.)
(Sounds of a party going softly in the background. Sound of high heels clicking on gravel.)
BETHANY: Hello?
(Pause.)
BETHANY: It’s me. It’s Bethany! Who’s there?
(Someone else, indistinctly.)
BETHANY: Oh, no. Please, you don’t understand, just let me go!
(Someone else, indistinctly. Cracking sound.)
BETHANY: (Gasps in pain.) Oh, God, no. Please, God, no!
(BETHANY’s heels clatter on the walkway. She falls back with a thump, followed by the crunch of her neck as the back of her skull hits the ground.)
SCENE 2.4
SETTING: Road into town
(Sound of crickets and night birds. Footsteps as TOM walks along the path on his way home.)
KENNETH: You’re out late, aren’t you?
TOM: Hello? Who’s there?
KENNETH: I remember you. You’re that tailor fellow.
(Sound of KENNETH taking a drink.)
TOM: Who is that?
KENNETH: Nobody. Just me.
TOM: Kenneth? From Della’s pub?
KENNETH: Ah, good memory on you. So where you headed?
TOM: Just on my way home.
KENNETH: I thought only reprobates like myself were out at this hour. What brings you out of your cozy little place?
TOM: Had to pay a visit to a friend.
KENNETH: Ah, sounds nice. Good thing to have somebody to keep you from drinking alone.
(Sound of KENNETH taking a drink.)
TOM: Maybe you should ease up on that.
KENNETH: It steadies the nerves. Never know what might be out there in the dark. Not too many nice fellows like you. Don’t know what would take you out of town— why, you were up the Lorings’ way, weren’t you?
TOM: What business is that of yours?
KENNETH: If you had any sense, you’d get yourself well away and not wrap yourself up in any of their trouble.
TOM: What do you know about that?
KENNETH: What does anybody know about what goes on up there? Hidden away in their big house where they all behave just right.
TOM: I beg your pardon?
KENNETH: What are they going to do with you anyway? Ahhhhh, it’s that girl, isn’t it? Pretty little thing.
TOM: I’m just trying to help.
KENNETH: Ah, yeah. Pretty little things from up there can use all the help they can get.
TOM: Do you… do you know something?
KENNETH: Just that you’re going to regret digging yourself into that mess.
TOM: But what do you—
(Sound of crash as KENNETH smashes his bottle on the ground.)
KENNETH: So stay safe, little tailor.
(Sound of KENNETH walking unsteadily off.)
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