The Real Inspector Hound and Other Plays (17 page)

WITHENSHAW
: Right. Bloody smart alec. Still, least said soonest mended. (
He tosses the note, which is on white paper the size of an old-fashioned £5 note, on to
MADDIE’S
desk.)
Now then, I think you have received prior copies of my draft report,
and we’ll go through it paragraph by paragraph in the usual way——

MCTEAZLE
: Excuse me. Are we now in session?

WITHENSHAW
: What’s quorum Miss Gotobed?

MADDIE
: Is it a specified number of——

CHAMBERLAIN
(
hurriedly
): Four, Mr. Chairman.

WITHENSHAW
: Then we’ll kick off. Get your pencil out, lass.

MADDIE: DO I
have to write down what you say?

WITHENSHAW: I
can see you know your way around these committees, Miss Gotobed. You do speedwriting I suppose?

MADDIE
: Yes, if I’m given enough time.

WITHENSHAW
: That’s all right. You just tell us if we’re going too fast. Here’s a copy of my draft report, and appendix A, B, C, and D … (
He is giving her these things out of his brief case, into which he puts the envelope containing his pants.)
… so it’ll just be a matter of keeping a record of amendments, if any.

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: Excuse me, Withenshaw, but isn’t it rather unusual to have a report by a Select Committee before the Committee has had the advantage of considering the evidence?

WITHENSHAW
: Yes, it is unusual, Mr. Cocklebury-Smythe, but this is an unusual situation. As you know sexual immorality unites all parties. This Committee isn’t here to play politics. You’ll have your chance with amendments, for which you can have all the time in the world. In fact the P.M. insists on it—he doesn’t want us to rush into print, he wants a thorough job which he can present to the House the day before the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, along with trade figures.

MCTEAZLE
: Isn’t that going to cause rather a lot of flak in the 1922 Committee and the P.L.P.?

WITHENSHAW
: Very likely, but by that time, I’m happy to say, I’m going to be well out of it in the Lords—life peerage for services to arts.

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: Services to the
arts?

WITHENSHAW
: I’ll have you bloody know Mrs. Withenshaw and I have personally donated the Botticelli-style painted ceiling in the Free Church Assembly Hall. I’ve bought and paid
for more naked bums than you’ve had hot dinners.

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: I’m glad to say I’ve had more hot dinners.

WITHEKSHAW
: I speak sub-cathedra of course—no one else knows except Mrs. Withenshaw, and I shouldn’t have told her—she’s taken to wearing white gloves up to elbows to greyhounds. Anyway, what the P.M. wants is a unanimous report, if possible declaring—(
as if remembering
)—that there is no evidence that Members have engaged in scandalous conduct above the national average, or alternatively that they may have done in isolated cases, but are we going to judge grown responsible men in this day and age by the standards of Mrs. Grundy—whoever she may be—is it that old bag from Chorleywood South?

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: But what’s the report based on if we aren’t going to call any witnesses?

WITHENSHAW
: What witnesses do you want to call?

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: Well… I personally wouldn’t wish to call any——

MCTEAZLE
: Hear, hear!

CHAMBERLAIN
: Absolutely!

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: I’ve no time for stool pigeons admittedly——

MCTEAZLE
: Hear, hear!

CHAMBERLAIN
: Absolutely!

WITHENSHAW
: There aren’t any bloody witnesses. No one has seen anything. It’s all bloody innuendo to sell newspapers in slack period.

ALL
: Hear, hear!

WITHENSHAW
: What with all the giant killers knocked out of Cup, and Ceylon versus Bangladesh—I don’t call
that
a bloody test match—the papers naturally resort to sticking their noses into upper reaches of top drawers looking for hankie panties, etcetera. …

ALL
: Hear, hear!

WITHENSHAW
: I tell you, if those bloody pandas had got stuck in and produced a cuddly black and white nipper for London Zoo, it wouldn’t be
us
in spotlight——

ALL
: Hear, hear!

WITHENSHAW
: Or Mark and Anne for that matter.

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: Steady on, Malcolm.

WITHENSHAW
: I don’t mean it would be black and white.

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: Can we move on?

WITHENSHAW
: I was just making the point that there’s nothing to witness just because a member of this Committee is so bowed down with the burden of representing his constituency, while trying to make a decent living in his spare time, that he has to take his—homework—to lunch in a West End restaurant.

ALL
: Hear, hear!

CHAMBERLAIN
:
Or
to dinner—pilloried for a beef stew in a modest eating house with a professional appointment, for all anyone knows a vicar’s daughter worried sick about the new motorway.

MCTEAZLE
: Any cynic can make it look like a hole-in-the-corner affair in an out-of-the-way nook like the Coq d’Or quite probably is, many of these French places are——

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: Nor was it a case of holding hands under the table.

ALL
: Hear, hear!

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: Probably she was passing him the money under the table, or vice versa.

MCTEAZLE
: The table under the money——

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
:—him passing
her
the money under the table—probably a financially embarrassed lobbyist for sexual equality taking an M.P. to a working dinner.

MCTEAZLE
: Women’s lib——

WITHENSHAW
: One of those American bits.

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: Quite possibly——

WITHENSHAW
: These Americans, they get in everywhere.

COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE
: Far too many of them about.

MCTEAZLE
: Hear, hear!

CHAMBERLAIN
: Absolutely!

WITHENSHAW
(
to
MADDIE
): Would you care to take my appendix out and pass it round—I’ve something of a reputation for dry humour, you know. Yes, I once took a train journey right across America … (
He pauses at the sight of
MADDIE
in her slip
,
MADDIE
has
picked up the sets of appendices and come out from behind her desk and taken two steps before remembering her state of undress, she pauses at the same moment, and then decides to continue. Big Ben starts chiming the three-quarter hour
.
MADDIE
goes round the table placing documents in front of the first couple of places. Big Ben finishes chiming the three-quarter hour.)
… but that’s another story.
(
The door opens to admit
MRS. EBURY.
All look at her as she speaks except
MCTEAZLE
who tries to hand
MADDIE
her skirt unnoticed
,
MADDIE
misses this, as she is intent on passing out the rest of the appendices.)

MRS. EBURY
: I’m sorry to be late, Malcolm.

WITHENSHAW
: Come right in, Deborah—we’re just casting our eye over the media. You’re next to me, lass. (
MRS. EBURY
hangs up her coat. She also is carrying newspapers and case. To get round the table she has to pass behind the blackboard, as does
MADDIE
who is making slightly heavy weather of sorting out appendices A, B, C, and D for each member
.
MRS. EBURY
and
MADDIE
cross over behind the blackboard but do not emerge immediately. Meanwhile the
CHAIRMAN
has opened the leader page of
The Times
and has started reading aloud.)

WITHENSHAW
:
‘Cherchez La Femme Fatale
. It needs no Gibbon come from the grave to spell out the danger to good government of a moral vacuum at the centre of power. Even so, Rome did not fall in a day, and
mutatis mutandis
it is not yet a case of
sauve qui peut
for the government——’—what is all this?—’Admittedly the silence hangs heavy in the House, no doubt on the principle of
qui s’excuse s’accuse
, but we expect: the electorate to take in its stride
cum grano salts
stories that upwards of a hundred M.P.s are
in flagrante delicto
, still more that the
demi-mondaine
in most cases is a single and presumably exhausted Dubarry
de nos jours
——’ bloody ‘ell. (
To
MCTEAZLE
who has picked up the
Guardian.) What does yours say?

MADDIE
(
only her legs visible behind the blackboard)’
. Forget the
Golden Carriage, the Cooking Pot and the Coq d’Or. Forget the Golden Carriage, the Watched Pot and the Coq d’Or. Forget the Golden Pot, Claridges and the Watched Cook… (
MADDIE
’s
speech is loud until
MCTEAZLB
interrupts with the
Guardian,
but continues softly until
MCTEAZLE
reaches ‘tedious, or at any rate tendentious …’ where it stops, to be heard again on
MCTEAZLE’S
‘Quis custodiet…’
and finally stopping on
WITHENSHAW
’s
‘Information’.)

MCTEAZLE
(
reading from the
Guardian): ‘
Spécialités de la Maison
. The House of Commons is no stranger to scandal or to farce but it usually manages to arrange its follies so as to keep the two separate. It would be tedious, or at any rate tendentious, to give a
catalogue raisonné
of the, at a Conservative estimate 63 Members of Parliament, and at a Labour estimate 114, of whom the
homme moyen sensuel
on the Clapham omnibus might well be asking,
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”’
(
MRS. EBURY
emerges during this final Latin phrase. Her hair, which had been done up in a bun, is now about her shoulders and her buttoned-up suit is in discreet disarray. She takes her seat.)
(
Continuing.)
‘—and yet our information——’ (
MADDIE
emerges from behind the blackboard.)

WITHENSHAW
(
scornfully):
Information! What does the editor of
Manchester Guardian
know about anything—bloody young pup—what’s his name——

MADDIE
(
putting documents in front of him):
Peter.

WITHENSHAW
(
to
MRS. EBURY)
: Ah—I don’t think you know Miss Gotobed.

MRS. EBURY: HOW
do you do? (
CHAMBERLAIN
picks up the
Daily Mirror.)

CHAMBERLAIN: ‘HOW
many cocks on the dung heap? We say too many—see page 2.’ (
He turns the page.)
(
MCTEAZLE
is surreptitiously trying to shove
MADDIE
’s
skirt at her as she goes by. She doesn’t notice, and he grabs at her slip.)
Strewth!
(
ALL
but
MCTEAZLE
look at him
—ALL
freeze. Simultaneously
MADDIE
’s
slip has come away in
MCTEAZLE
’s
hand, leaving her wearing a revealing blouse, knickers, suspender belt, stockings and shoes
.
After the freeze
MADDIE
sits down behind her desk
.
MCTEAZLE
now sits on the skirt and the slip.) (To
MADDIE
): Well, are you ready for it Miss Gotobed?

MADDIE
: Yes.