...and then across the roof

PAULA:  No.  No-o...





BRIAN CAMERON:  Are you sure you don't?


PAULA (fighting an inner battle of beliefs, loyalties, emotions) -- No.  No.  How could he be?


CAMERON:  There's an alley behind these houses.  He goes in the back of Number 5, that's the empty one -- and then across the roof.





PAULA:  Why?  (pause)  Why?


CAMERON:  You said there's old furniture up there.


PAULA:  My aunt's.  And her clothes, stage costumes, trunks, all of her things.


CAMERON:  All of her things?


[A little cascade of muffled thumps, bumps, taps, like they're coming from inside the wall]


Cameron looks around, and up, and walks swiftly through the hallway to the staircase leading up to the top, boarded-up floor.  He goes silently up three steps, and turns back to look in Paula's direction, but when he speaks, it's as if he's musing to himself:  "And they said the case was dead."




INT.  Top floor


The room is crowded with things.  Shadows crowd the walls. 


From the right, the haughty silhouette of Gregory Anton in the half-light, moves into view. 


We see his dark form move through part of the room; we see his hands snatching at items, tossing them aside, searching, searching....




Costumes, dresses, a drawer removed from its stand, ransacked, broken, dropped to move on to something else; a knife taken out of a drawer in another dresser, and used to stab, stab, cut, slice downward in the upholstery on the back of an elegant carved chair. 


SLICE! - CUT! -- nothing.




CLOSE SHOT -- Gregory Anton




He looks impatient, aggravated, and continuously, eagerly focused.




INT.  Hallway on the floor below


Paula is sitting down on a dainty loveseat beneath a painting.  Brian Cameron stands beside her.


CAMERON:  Tell me, has he any weapons in the house?


PAULA:  He has a revolver. -- Why shouldn't he?


CAMERON:  Do you know where he keeps it?





____________________________


{Gaslight - MGM}


-30-