We rejoin the quintet in much the same place we left them: Still in darkness, gathered around the murdered Judith.
PROF: Well, somebody turn on a light.
HUTTER: Right.
Hutter begins feeling around for a light switch. He nearly trips over the body.
PROF: Hurry up, man! Every moment that passes in darkness, we grow even more vulnerable!
HUTTER: I’m trying! Just let me… Here!
Lights up. Nat wails at the sight of Judith’s body.
PROF: For God’s sake, woman!
HUTTER: Natassja, try the front door.
She gets up from the floor and rattles the door. It doesn’t budge. She sobs.
NAT: It’s locked! Jean, it’s locked!
HUTTER: Then we are trapped. And we know absolutely nothing. How horrible.
PROF: Let me inspect her – the body, I mean. I once shared an office with a forensic biologist, and one does pick up these things.
He kneels beside Judith and examines her, particularly the wound in her chest. His fear instantly seems to vanish, replaced by professional curiosity.
PROF: Hmm…
HUTTER: What is it?
PROF: This woman was not stabbed!
Everyone looks at him like he is insane.
PROF: That is to say, she wasn’t stabbed to death. The stabbing happened afterwards. She was already dead.
HUTTER: So what did kill her? PROF: I don’t… know. It’s difficult to say precisely. It may have been a fast-acting poison, perhaps administered through the tea… Hutter!
HUTTER: Hm?
PROF: Did you have milk?
HUTTER: Milk in tea is an abomination.
PROF: Ah-HA! Neither of us take our tea with milk, but Judith does – ah – did.
NAT: So we’re looking for a… milk poisoner?
PROF: Potentially. This is only a working theory. Hutter, help me move her into the dining room. Something feels… undignified about a dead body in the entrance hall.
Nat is horrified by their casualness as the Professor and Hutter begin dragging Judith offstage. As they pull her away, the phone – an old-fashioned rotary kind – begins to ring. Philip picks it up, notes that the wire is disconnected, and puts the receiver to his ear.
NAT: Jean! Jean, don’t leave me!
Philip holds out the phone to Hutter, who accepts it.
HUTTER: Hello?
He is suddenly shaken by the voice on the other end of the line.
NAT: Who is it?
Hutter hands her the phone.
JUDITH (Over loudspeaker): Hello? Are you there, Hutter?
Nat gasps, barely able to stand, overcome with terror.
NAT: It’s… it’s her!
Hutter takes the phone and puts it to his ear, leaving Philip to pick up dragging the body with the Professor. He carries on as if in conversation, though we don’t hear Judith’s side any more.
HUTTER: What do you want?… Who did this to you?…
A long pause. Nat fidgets uncomfortably.
HUTTER: What do you mean? Where?…
NAT: What’s she saying? What happened?
HUTTER: Shh! Where? Which book?
He starts to walk towards the stairs up to the first floor. Nat grabs his arm.
NAT: Jean, wait! Whatever stabbed her-
HUTTER: Natassja, please! This is important! If this is real, then it’s our only chance!
NAT: And if it isn’t? What if it’s a lure to get you away from me and the others?
He softens, caresses her face.
HUTTER: I’m sorry. I’ll be back in no time. I’ll be safe. No time at all. And I wouldn’t put so much trust in them – if the professor is right, then didn’t he just admit to administering the poison himself?
He kisses her forehead and disappears into the darkness. Nat backs away from the door that the Professor and Philip left through, looking very small and alone on the stage.
Philip returns after a moment. He approaches Nat, who shrinks away to his confusion. He retreats to a safe distance.
PHILIP: Hutter?
Nat points upstairs. Philip nods, needing no further explanation.
NAT: Do you know whose house this is? It isn’t the Archivist’s address. Not the one in the phone book anyway. Whoever it is, they have some serious explaining to do. I just met Judith for the first time. I don’t know anything about her. Did she have a family? Parents? Oh, God…
She starts to pace the length of the hall.
NAT: It’s selfish in a way, but all I want in the world is to see my mother now. To pass through this stupid locked door and leave this house behind forever. I guess to you this is all material for your next book.
PHILIP: If I survive.
NAT: Of course you will. We will. I’m being silly. Maybe the milk was poisoned. Maybe it was a random act of evil, like those drug poisonings in the eighties. There’s nobody else in the house, is there? There can’t be. We’d hear them moving around. Wouldn’t we?
The professor opens the door and enters, wiping sweat from his brow. He looks between the two of them.
PROF: He went upstairs alone?
Nat nods.
PROF: You didn’t go with him?
NAT: I can’t go up there.
PROF: Can’t? Preposterous!
He hops up the first few steps and looks down on her.
PROF: Won’t is the word, miss Natassja. Have you never heard the saying: “The coward dies a hundred deaths, while the brave man tastes of death but once?” It refers not to a literal death, of course, but the self-abnegation required to shy from danger. Danger is how the human race survives, my dear. How it propagates. Life on a perpetual knife-edge, a hair’s breadth from annihiliation. Cowardice is a genetic abomination.
There is a loud BUMP upstairs. The professor JUMPS OUT OF HIS SKIN.
PROF: Oh lord!
NAT: Genetic abomination? What kind of professor are you?
PROF: The kind who gets “controversial” appended to his name in so-called reputable publications, my dear. Well, let them keep their peer review, and choke on it. Ahah.
He turns around and looks up the stairs.
PROF: My word, but it is dark up there. Let me see if I can see. Hutter! I say, Hutter!
He disappears up the stairs. Philip turns and grabs Nat by the shoulders suddenly.
PHILIP: Nat, you mustn’t trust him, do you hear me? You’ll be in danger if you trust him.
NAT: The professor? I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could-
The professor comes back down the stairs rapidly, puffing out of breath.
PROF: It really is very dark up there. (Notices Philip and Nat) Philip, unhand her, or I shall have to tell Hutter. Ehh, once he comes back downstairs. (He laughs) You see, nothing to worry about!
Philip releases Nat, glancing downwards.
NAT: It’s alright, Professor. Philip was just explaining to me-
PROF: I can see very well what he was explaining to you. It’s none of my business what you choose to do, either of you. But remember why we’re here.
NAT: Why are we here? Jean never explained anything about this Archivist, or what all this was about. He said he would on the way…
PROF: This gathering concerns a very secret bequest of his. That is all I can reveal to you, Natassja. With respect, you are not named in his terms. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have admitted you or that Judith girl. She shouldn’t have been here. She was… much too young. Didn’t know what she was getting into.
NAT: Getting into? Did you know something was going to happen today?
She advances on him, fists balled. He backs off, sensing her building anger.
PROF: Nothing like this! Nothing! The Archivist had… particularities. I suspected there might have been more to this than met the eye. But a killing! Never.
NAT: Even if Judith was poisoned, someone must have stabbed her afterwards. To make it look like a stabbing.
PROF: Not necessarily. She may have fallen on the knife and then managed to pull it out, losing it under furniture.
Nat scans her eyes over the floor.
NAT: I don’t see it. And where would she have gotten a knife that would do that to her?
PROF: Well, it was only a hypothesis. Yes, the likelihood is somebody did stab her. And all of us were in the sitting-room.
He GROANS.
PROF: I should have stayed home and worked on my grant proposal. The American Phrenology Institute offices are opening up again soon.
PHILIP: I always hated Old Dark House movies.
Nat runs to the base of the stairs. NAT: Jean! Jean, please come down!
She pauses, then points at the professor.
NAT: Give me something to swing with, I’m going up there after him.
PROF: Something to-
NAT: Don’t argue! Give me that!
She grabs an umbrella out of the stand by the door and begins to ascend the stairs slowly.
PROF: Natassja?
She turns around.
NAT: What is it now?
The professor hurriedly beckons her down. PROF: You may want to… reconsider that course of action…
Behind Nat, a dark figure brandishing a shiny knife steps into view. It’s HUTTER. Nat turns, screams, blackout.
END OF ACT ONE