Volume 3, chapter 74, 'memoirs of a fighting man'.
Dictation begins.
T'was the Eve of battle I address my troops.
"When this battle goes down in history,
"it will be remembered as a bloody massacre.
"Picture bayonets.
"Let them feel a touch of good old cold British steel."
Explosion
Theme music
Last post plays
death march plays
Organ music plays
That's cousin onslow.
All the best, old man.
Have a safe trip. Sniffs
that's uncle Lance.
He inherited a vast number of shares in the distillery
and has been drinking its total output ever since.
Cheerio, uncle.
My uncle, the admiral.
He would have been a great sailor,
only he gets seasick even walking up the plank.
Uncle Angus.
If I just had my pipes on me,
oh man, but I would play you a fine lament.
If he's your uncle, why is he wearing a skirt?
Cousin Roland, Australian branch of the family.
He's a little emotional.
It's my turn.
Don't take it so hard, Roland.
I'm not, it's just that lilies give me terrible hayfever.
Well, there we are, my lord, all done.
May I compliment you on your choice of caskets.
Best English oak, craftsman made, should last a lifetime.
If he complains, you'll be the first to know.
You know, your uncle didn't have a lot of friends, it looks like.
No, he kept himself very much to himself,
especially after his dishonourable discharge from the army.
What happened?
Oh, he broke through the lines of a German supply dump,
blew up three ammunition train, six tanks
and killed or wounded at least 350 Germans.
Did he do that all by himself?
Mm-hm.
Did they give him a medal or anything?
No, no, it was three months after the war ended.
You shouldn't be smoking in here.
It's alright, as long as you're careful with your ashes.
Are all the sinclairs buried here?
No, only the dead ones.
Will you stop fooling around?
There's no time for jokes, I'm serious.
I want to know all about the upper class English way of death.
Come on.
Well, it varies from family to family.
We sinclairs, for example, all end up here.
This is my space. It was reserved for me the day I was born.
Well, you certainly have a nice view.
You shouldn't make jokes here, Daniel.
Oh well.
Come along, we'll have a drink with the Duke
and then I'll drive back to town.
We're just off, Brett,
Roland's giving me a lift back to town.
Nice to have seen you again, onslow. Cousin Roland.
Roland, onslow, pleasure.
Excuse me, your lordship, why don't you go on inside and say goodbye.
Well, I'll be just a moment. Right.
Mm, nice, not Adonis, but nice.
I'm Kate.
Kate sinclair, Brett's cousin.
It's a pleasure to meet you.
Dear Brett has been holding out on me.
No, not really.
Sinclair women are not important.
Male line is all that matters.
I see. What do you do, Kate?
I write detective stories, very good ones,
that's why I'm here.
You see, sir Randolph was murdered.
And I'm very much afraid
that the murderer must have read my second novel.
Oh.
The death scene was exactly the same.
Danny. Yeah, right.
This is my uncle, the Duke of caith.
How do you do, sir? Pleasure to meet you.
How are do you do.
The annoying thing is when there's a death in the family,
the line of succession changes.
All the records have to be altered, the genealogical charts...
Good heavens!
Come inside, uncle.
Danny! That way, the shrubbery.
Now come on, sir, sit down.
I'm perfectly all right I tell you, please stop fussing.
But it was a very near thing.
My own fault, my estate manager has been telling me for years
that balustrade needed attention.
You think it was an accident?
Well, of course it was an accident, what else could it be?
You're not suggesting that someone pushed it, are you?
Kate, my dear, get me a Brandy, would you?
There's a good girl. Certainly.
I could do with one of those too.
I'm going to look for Daniel.
Uncle Lance, where have you been?
I've just been wandering about around the grounds, old boy.
I say what happened out there? It fell.
Nasty, it could have killed somebody.
Ooh. Thank you, my dear. Cheers.
I'll go look for Daniel. I'll come with you.
There you are, uncle Lance. Do save some for the Duke.
Daniel! Daniel.
Danny. Danny.
At least he's alive.
He's got the lump the size of an egg on his head.
I bet the first thing he says is, "where am I?"
Come on. No, it will be "what happened?"
Who hit me?
We're both wrong. Come on, on your feet.
Did you see anything?
No, I didn't see anything.
Are you alright? Yeah.
At least we're on the right track. Yeah, right.
Let's take a look around. Ok.
Can you walk? Yeah, yeah.
Follow me.
Last post plays
death march plays
There are going to be more deaths in the family,
you can count on it.
Kate, you're letting your imagination run away with you.
You have written far too many crime stories.
First sir Randolph, then the admiral,
and that big flower pot could have been two more.
The arm of coincidence may be long, but not that long.
Alright, alright, but what is the motive?
Plot of a book I once wrote.
Distant relative of a titled family
kills off everyone between him and the title.
Finally inherits Duke's lands and fortune, how's that?
Laughs it's ridiculous.
I am next in line
so first they'd have to kill the Duke and then...
Right.
He just got it. No.
Well you must admit it's a possibility, Brett.
No! No, it couldn't be.
Take the people at the funeral today.
Roland. Roland is seventh in line.
Seventh in line,
so he'd have to kill seven people before he got to the title.
He'd have to kill five, sir Randolph and the admiral are dead.
I'm allowing for two.
Onslow would have to kill four
and Lance would only have to knock off three.
Right, just a moment, my memory not being what it used to be,
I will refer to bergs again.
Take third cousin winslow, for instance, he is 137th in line
so he would have to kill 137 people before he got to title.
Oh, Brett. Well, suppose he's an ambitious kid.
Ambition? It wouldn't be ambition, that would be war.
No, there has to be another explanation.
Oh, forget it. Here. Here, kid.
Have it your way.
We're going out for dinner.
You like Chinese? He hates Chinese.
You don't want to come along for Chinese dinner tonight, do you?
You make the invitation sound almost irresistible.
I think I'll skip it.
I thought so.
Your car or mine? Mine, it's got an ejector seat.
The Duke, me... sir Angus.
Sir Randolph, the admiral,
Lance, onslow.
♪ My baby left me
♪ never said a word
♪ no, no, no, she never did now
♪ my baby left me
♪ woo
♪ never said a word. ♪
Coughs
Phone rings
hello? Onslow, it's Brett.
Sorry to worry you,
but when you and Roland left the Duke after the funeral,
were you together all the time?
Yes, Roland gave me a lift home.
You were never out of one another's sight?
No, not for a moment.
We didn't separate until he dropped me off here.
Oh, sorry, no, no, nothing important.
Yes, I'll see you.
Bye.
Thank you.
Mmm.
You've had six pekinese duck dinners.
Do you always eat this much?
Only when I'm happy.
Then you must be very happy, hysterically happy.
Mmm.
Do you have any idea who pushed down that urn?
Not really. Do you?
Those two guys that left early.
Onslow and Roland.
Right. Mmm.
Now they left together. Mmm.
But they could have split up and one of them could have gone back.
Mmm, possible. It's easy enough to check up on.
Oh?
If they both said they were together all the time,
then they're both in the clear.
Right. Mmm.
Where do we find them? That's easy enough.
Onslow lives just around the corner.
We could drop in on him.
Later.
That's it, the basement of the white building.
You wait here.
Shall I come with you? Wait here.
What was all that about?
Onslow had a visitor.
He wasn't kidding.
What was he doing in the flat?
Let's go find out.
Sings to himself
Don't!
Organ music plays
A nice touch, lord sinclair.
Thank you, Ollie. I think onslow would have liked it.
No offence, your lordship, but it pays to be prepared.
Make that two pairs of pants.
Daniel, he's not a tailor.
Well, a pattern seems to be emerging I think.
The Duke is in the clear, right? Yeah.
You're ok. Yes.
What's his name? Sir Angus.
Well, sir Angus must be ok,
because there's no point knocking off anyone below him
in the line of succession.
So, that makes these one, two, three, four potential victims.
You are such a great comfort, Kate.
Right, and three... One, two, three dead.
Which means one of these is the murderer.
We have a fairly wide choice.
One murderer and the rest of us become,
as Kate so quaintly puts it, potential victims.
What you gonna do? Sit around, let the undertaker get rich?
Well, there doesn't seem to be much else we can do.
Go into the private bodyguard business.
Each one of us will take a member of the family,
and we're gonna stick to him like glue.
That's a marvellous idea.
Nobody would dare do anything with all of us watching so closely.
Mm...
Here, you take sir Angus.
I'm gonna take Lance, you take Roland. Great.
What's the matter? Don't you like the idea?
Guarding a likely victim is one thing,
you could be moving in with a murderer.
You can't be serious.
I mean, why should anyone want to murder me?
To eliminate you from the line of inheritance.
What is this?
It's a zulu warrior's club.
But you honestly believe that someone would kill
just to get a title?
Frankly, yes.
But it's not just the title.
It's the family fortune.
The lands and estates.
The houses and everything in them.
It must amount to millions.
I see, when you put it that way I suppose it is quite possible.
Please do be careful, it's very fragile.
It's a sling, isn't it?
Yes, it's quite possibly the one that David killed Goliath with.
I didn't know that you were all so interested
in this sort of thing, Roland.
It all started when I went to Australia.
You know, the aborigines use weapons
that haven't changed since the stone age.
Since then I've become quite an expert on primitive weapons.
Do please be careful.
It's a south American blow dart, they're tipped with poison.
Oh.
I mean the tiniest scratch from this
and you could be death within seconds.
Well, I better go up and unpack. Right, right.
Your room is at the top of stairs. Fine.
Tell me, who else in the family is getting the bodyguard treatment?
Brett is watching uncle Angus, but it's Danny I feel sorry for.
He's stuck with uncle Lance.
Uncle Lance.
This place is built like a fort.
Safe as houses in here, old boy, relax, relax.
Have a drink.
Try this, I made it myself.
I'd like your opinion.
Nice colour.
What do you think?
Mmm!
Certainly has something, could use a little bit more body.
But it's really a nice wine. That's what I do...
Drink. Oh!
In the course of duty.
I make wine. Good for you.
I've spent my life trying to create the great,
the magnificent, the truly perfect wine.
So far, I've failed.
You ought to try grapes.
Mm...
But I think I'm near a breakthrough.
Come and see, come and see.
I've got a batch fermentation here that promises well.
You're not gonna drink that?
Not immediately of course, no.
This has got to mellow, to age.
I shall be touching a drop of that until tomorrow night.
Oh, I think we'd better check the security.
Let me ask you, can we stay down here tonight?
What suspended idea, let's drink to it.
We're trying to protect you, keep you alive.
You've got to cool it with the wine and drinking.
Absolutely right, just the one bottle.
One bottle. Ok.
When.
Bagpipes play
Oh, I think your pipes just died, uncle Angus.
It's a fine, stirring sound.
Do you know I play the pipes every day in life,
but now we must go inside and have our supper.
I've got a special treat for you tonight,
Scotland's greatest delicacy - the haggis.
And when we're finished,
I will be playing you a beautiful selection of highland lament.
More coffee?
Mmm? Coffee, yes, thank you.
She yawns
As I was saying,
I've made a deep study of the drugs and poisons
used by primitive people.
You know, long before western man discovered them,
they made not only poisons
but medicines, salves, painkillers, tonics, sleeping draft.
Mmm. That's very interesting, Roland.
Drink your coffee while it's hot.
I feel so, so tired.
I feel so tired.
Lance, we've had enough wine.
There's no bother, old boy,
you'll like this one if I can find it.
Knock on door master, it's me.
It's my sister. Ok.
Oh, thank you.
May I take the tray?
I think you should. It's awfully heavy.
It's chilly in here.
Lance, dear, I brought you and your friend a little light refreshment,
some of that spam those nice Americans left.
Thank you, Agatha.
Yes, there we are.
Very beautiful, thank you, very, very much.
It's 10:30 precisely.
Deaf as a post. Lady Agatha, Danny wilde.
How do you do? It's a pleasure to meet you.
There's very strong family resemblance.
I beg your pardon? There's a strong family resemblance.
Well I wouldn't know, would I?
I've never met anybody else in your family.
I don't mean my family, I mean your family, Brett.
Brett, your nephew?
Oh, it's the same in our family, you know, isn't it, Lance, dear?
They say our nephew Brett bears a strong resemblance to me.
Thanks for the supper.
I told you it's 10:30, it hasn't really changed since then.
Oh, Lance, Lance, I nearly forgot.
Is there anybody you know called Danny wilde?
That's me.
Why didn't you say so before? You must speak up, laddie.
There's a telephone call for you in the library.
Thanks. The library, follow me.
You stay here, I'm going to lock the door.
Drink your tea before it gets cold now, Lance.
Watch yourself, Lance.
Here somewhere. Oh, that was a bad year.
Hello? Danny, Roland's on the loose.
He tried to drug me.
'Is everything all right with you?'
yes, everything's fine.
Listen, I am sure that Roland is our man.
I tried to follow him, but he fixed the car so I'll have to call a cab.
You ring Brett and warn him, ok. Bye.
Mumbles to himself
possibly, possibly.
No, no, you killed uncle Arthur.
Oh, thank you very much.
That's a nice fellow.
Back a bit, back a bit, will you.
Hey! Ahh!
Help.
Yeah, right.
Ok.
Eureka, that's the one!
I said that wine needed a little more body in it.
Poor uncle Lance.
Went down gurgling.
You know, I am convinced that it's Roland.
What makes you so sure?
Well, everything points to Roland except for one thing.
What's that?
You remember the day of the first funeral? Right.
Roland and onslow were supposed to have driven off together, right?
Mm-hm.
If that is true, how would Roland have pushed that urn off the balcony
or murdered the admiral?
Suppose they didn't drive off together.
Suppose they went off separately
and one of them came back and pushed the urn down.
Nuh-huh. Brett asked onslow, and he said they did drive off together.
Wait a minute, onslow could be lying.
Roland could have told him some kind of story
that convinced onslow,
after all, onslow ain't a brain child, you know.
His car's back.
Here.
I can't change that, sir. Keep it.
That's a blow gun.
Gasps Roland!
The dart.
Dead.
He was writing something when I..
"Kate, I know you won't let me out of your sight
"so I had to give you a mild sedative.
"I think I know who the murderer is,
"but I won't risk your life taking you with me.
"Roland."
Oh, no.
Organ music plays
The way things are going, mr beebee,
it might be more economic if you were to open a branch office here.
I could give you a discount for quantity.
That's exceedingly generous, but I trust the boom is over.
I understand.
We have to take the good with the bad, my lord.
Well, it hardly seems worth leaving.
Yeah, right, well, never say die, you know.
You have a marvellous way with a phrase, Daniel.
Why don't you go on a holiday?
It's an original way of sending a present.
I suppose it is to me.
Get in the car, George.
Oaf, they're probably havanas.
Explosion
havanas?
Well, that convinces me of one thing.
What's that? I'm next on the list.
You're right.
Bangs
who's that out there?
Banging
who is it?
Relax, Brett. Angus is safe in that fortress.
Don't worry.
Bagpipes play
Well Daniel, I never thought I'd be glad to hear that sound again.
Car horn blares
away you go, I'm not letting anybody in.
Horn blows
away you go with your tootings. I'm not letting anybody in here.
Uncle Angus, it's Brett.
I'm here with my friend Danny wilde.
If you are really Brett,
you know what we had for supper the other night.
Haggis, followed by 4.5 hours of pipe music.
Oh, man, you really are Brett.
Wait, I'll let you in.
Thank you.
If the rest of them had been as caution as he is,
they'd be alive today.
What are have you got there? Those are bolts.
Uncle Angus!
Uncle Angus, don't touch the gates! Don't.
Bagpipes drone
poor uncle Angus.
Meanest man I ever met.
Must have been worth millions.
Imagine, all that money and he died flat.
Well, as someone once said,
to lose a relative is misfortune, to lose two is carelessness.
Oscar wilde.
Thank you, but I have lost six,
which is absolute downright negligence.
All right, what's your plan?
Simple. What?
First of all I make sure my life is insurance is paid up.
Then I... Go ahead.
That's as far as I've got.
Then we'll do it my way. Which is?
One of these guys is the murderer.
All we have to do is flush him out, right?
But how do we do that?
We're going to have Brett move in with the Duke,
that way we have the two victims. I'm not going to like this.
And then we set them up as a Mark, right, as an easy target.
Well, I'm definitely not going to like this.
And then when they go after you, we're ready and able, and...
I hope.
Howdy. Is everything ok?
So far.
It's quiet as a grave out there.
I wish I could say the same here.
Snores
Who are you?
Oh, well you nearly frightened the life out of me with that mask.
Well, let's get on with it, shall we?
Well, I'm going back out.
I think I'll come with you. I hate waiting about.
And how do you think I feel?
Now, I told you not to worry.
With me around, what could happen?
Gunshot she gasps
well done, Daniel. See you later.
Are you sure he's a friend of yours?
Shouldn't we stay near the house?
Those two make an awfully good target in that lighted room.
That's the point, we've taken proper precautions though.
Why didn't you tell me? Well, we didn't want to.
I've been thinking a lot about the family.
Particularly about your cousin, whigham Stanton.
What about him? He's 14th in line.
It wouldn't surprise me in the least
if he was at the back of all this.
Cousin whigham?
You must be joking.
He would not say boo to a goose.
He doesn't hunt or shoot.
He never goes with women, spends six months of the year in a monastery.
Exactly, how can you trust a fellow like that?
Ignoring me and then... She imitates gushot
I think the light's on in that crypt.
Well, let's not investigate, shall we?
Come on, come on.
Come on.
Could we just go back?
Stay close and keep quiet.
Gasps I think I heard something.
Well, if it's one of these I'm going to have a heart attack.
Shh.
Danny, let's get out of this place.
Quiet, quiet. I don't like it here.
Shh.
Clattering
Look. It's Roland's -
what? It's Roland's blow pipe.
It's open.
That's the undertaker.
If he's in here, where's Roland?
Roland?
Where's the gun?
I'm a little disappointed.
You don't seem surprised.
After all, it was you who found me dead.
Yeah, and you looked dead.
I mean, nothing was moving. How did you do that? A drug.
It slows down the heart beat, very shallow respiration.
Any close medical examination would reveal life.
So you bribed the doctor to sign a death certificate.
Exactly, and the undertaker.
Unfortunately he got greedy, he wanted to blackmail me.
Only two more and the title's yours, Roland.
No, there would be four more, he's got to get rid of you and me.
And there's no time like the present.
Clicks
gunshot
Danny!
We must keep our priorities right.
The Duke and Brett first
and in a way, you're already taken care of.
Laughs
Danny's overdue.
He said he'd check in every 15 minutes.
I think the time's come to take up our places.
Why didn't that first barrel go off?
I forgot to reload it.
I'm glad.
What did he mean when he said, "we are taken care of"?
I don't know what he was talking about.
We're not going to get out of here with this pen knife,
I'll tell you that.
You know, I had a character in one of my books
who was in exactly the same situation.
Oh yeah? What happened to him?
He burned through the metal with sulphuric acid.
Right, where did he get the sulphuric acid?
He had it in a fountain pen specially designed
that he always carried with him.
Where did he keep his ink? Oh.
Come here with me. Come into my office.
Just come over here.
That's uncle percival.
Sit down, give me your hand.
What for? Just give me your hand.
What's that?
Can you see anything?
I'm not sure.
I thought I saw somebody moving.
I hope you know what you're doing.
Gunpowder from the cartridge.
It's smart.
Do you think this fuse is long enough?
Yeah, it's long enough.
Come on.
Ok. Pour it into the lock. Right. Do you think this will work?
Yeah, I saw Gary Cooper do this once in a movie.
It was called the lives of a bengal lancer.
Oh, yeah, it was a bit before my time.
There.
Well, did he get out?
Ah, they gave him a medal after he was dead.
Just plug up these holes.
Two gunshots
explosion
voila! Laughs
Oh.
Groans
you don't have any sulphuric acid, do you?
What?
It will never suit you, Roland.
It's all I've ever wanted.
Even as a child, it's all I've ever wanted.
You're dead.
How are you going to claim the title?
I was going to disappear for a while
and then apparently arrive from Australia.
And say the man who was murdered wasn't you at all
but an impostor. Yes.
It will work, I know it will work. They'll exhume the body.
There will be no coffin.
No crypt even.
There are 12 sticks of gelignite down there on a time fuse,
that will take care of everything,
including Kate and that interfering friend of yours.
Watch him, uncle! It's too late to stop it now!
We've got nothing to worry about.
When Brett sets that trap for Roland,
we'll have nothing to worry about. What if that trap doesn't work?
Then we've got something to worry about.
Daniel, hey.
You got the key? You have to get out of here.
What? I don't know where it is.
All I know it's going off any second.
What? The time bomb down here.
What?! We've got something to worry about.
You take this side, I'll take the other. Ok.
It's not in there.
If I, if I try to leave,
I mean, would you... Would you really shoot me?
Kill a blood relative? Being related didn't slow you down.
Why should it me?
I don't think you would, you know.
I wouldn't try, my boy.
It's no good, I can't shift it.
Don't move!
Have you found the thing yet?
Danny, there's something ticking.
Ticking?
Listen.
Ticking
here, hold this.
I got it.
Well, bring it here! You can let him go now.
I got it.
Don't jolt it.
What are you doing?
Look, will you stop clowning around!
Here, give it to me.
Run like the wind!
I told you we had nothing to worry about.
She groans
I haven't been out with a woman for years.
What do I say to her? You'll know when the time comes.
Yes, but I really feel a bit old for blind dates,
that's what you call them, isn't it?
Just remember one thing, sir, you are a sinclair.
And Sophie is a lovely, lovely person,
you're going to like her, believe me.
I'll show her in.
Wait, a button hole.
What do I take to her about?
I mean, what are her interests? Does she ride hounds?
No, they don't have riding the hounds in the Bronx.
But they have other things you'll have in common, believe me.
Everybody's dying to meet you, mrs Schwartz.
Hello.
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