this morning around three o'clock

FADE IN to
INT.  Brian Cameron home - Day


Cameron at a table, having coffee, and drawing on a tablet of paper.


CLOSE-UP of his drawing, or map, shows he's figuring Thornton Square -- all the houses there, and the space behind them.  He has drawn an alley, and numbered the rectangles that represent the homes:  No. 5, No. 7, No. 9...


KNOCK - KNOCK


The Thornton square beat patrolman enters.


CAMERON:  Williams!  Come in, you're early -- sit down.  Make yourself comfortable.


WILLIAMS:  Thank you, sir.


CAMERON:  Well?




WILLIAMS:  I don't know what it means, but this morning around 3:00 -- I was standing on the corner of Thornton Square, looking both ways-like, and suddenly -- who should I see turning up out of the fog, but our friend again.  Coming out of the mews, it looked like.




CAMERON:  Yes?


WILLIAMS:  I got a good look at him under the lamppost.  I tell you, that man had been up to something.


CAMERON:  What?


WILLIAMS:  I wouldn't undertake to say what exactly.  But he was kind of in a mess.  Clothes untidy, tie all on one side.  Dirt and dust all over, even on his face.


CAMERON:  Had he been in a fight?


WILLIAMS:  He didn't look like that, sir.  More as though he'd been digging in a cellar or something.


CAMERON:  Have some coffee.


WILLIAMS:  Thank you, sir.  I've had my breakfast already.  Had it in the kitchen at Number 9, as a matter of fact.




CAMERON:  Nancy tell you anything this morning?




WILLIAMS:  If you ask me, Nancy's getting ideas above her station.  Seems the master told her that her mistress might be goin' away for quite a long time -- and that he wanted her to stay -- and look after him.


CAMERON:  The master told her her mistress might be going away?


~~  That's right, sir.


~~  A long time, you said?


~~  Yes sir.  What do you think that means?


CAMERON:  From all you've told me these last weeks, I should say it could mean -- any one of a number -- of quite unpleasant things. 
I've got to get into that house tonight.


WILLIAMS:  Not while he's there.


CAMERON:  He goes out every evening?


WILLIAMS:  Right, sir.


~~  Tonight after dinner.


WILLIAMS:  Nancy says he's told her not to let her mistress see anyone.




CAMERON:  Then you'll have to see that Nancy isn't home tonight.









WILLIAMS:  Any little thing I can do for the Yard, sir.


CAMERON:  I thought you wouldn't mind.


_________________________________


{Gaslight, 1944.  MGM; Cukor.}


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