Scene 4
(Enter MRS. DUNLOP and CHEF GERARD.)
SOUND EFFECTS: Footsteps down stairs
SOUND EFFECTS: Pots and pans clanging
CHEF GERARD:
I will not ask you again, madame!
MRS. DUNLOP:
I'll thank you to remember this is my kitchen, sir!
(Enter MRS. HUDSON and ABIGAIL.)
MRS. HUDSON:
Here now, what's this?
CHEF GERARD:
It is the house's kitchen, and the house engaged me to be in it.
MRS. DUNLOP:
Last night, they did, not whenever you bloody well please.
CHEF GERARD:
You will not keep me from my things!
ABIGAIL:
Cor, this is the very fellow, isn't he? The pastry chef, Achille Gerard?
CHEF GERARD:
My reputation often precedes me. But I am quite busy now, so I pray you all, leave me to my affairs.
MRS. HUDSON:
What's he still doing here, Mrs. Dunlop?
MRS. DUNLOP:
Come back for his precious molds and pans, it seems! Funny, they weren't so blasted important when he had an adoring public to greet at the party!
CHEF GERARD:
Nevertheless, they are mine! Now fetch them for me at once!
MRS. DUNLOP:
There! There's your kit, we put it all aside for you.
SOUND EFFECTS: Pots and pans clattering
CHEF GERARD:
And my colors! Where is my box of colors?
MRS. DUNLOP:
It's all there, for heaven's sake!
CHEF GERARD:
It best had be. You are fortunate I do not tell Miss Hope of your rudeness.
MRS. DUNLOP:
Why would Miss Hope give a toss about you?
CHEF GERARD:
Take care of how you speak to me, madame.
MRS. DUNLOP:
And who are you? Some cook hired on, same as I was.
CHEF GERARD:
Not at all the same, for there is a great deal more to my work than boiling turnips. Try me again, and you shall indeed see what the family cares for the hired help. Now, I bid you good day.
SOUND EFFECTS: Footsteps striding up stairs
(Exit CHEF GERARD.)
MRS. DUNLOP:
A lot of fuss for a box of two-a-penny aniline food colors. Couldn't the great chef have sent one of his dogsbodies after it all, so I could be rid of him? (Sighing) No matter— did the two of you manage to see our Susan? Is she all right? Did she get her supper?
MRS. HUDSON:
Yes, and with a right good stomach, too.
MRS. DUNLOP:
Ah, bless the poor thing.
ABIGAIL:
So that was the famous Achille Gerard, then?
MRS. DUNLOP:
That's his nibs. He's so grand about the place because he's been around before, as a guest of the family.
MRS. HUDSON:
A guest, you say?
MRS. DUNLOP:
That's right. Supposedly he's quite the artist to the posh set. He certainly seems to think so, swanning about with his nose in the air, offering his elbow to Miss Hope as if he and I weren't in the same business. Only he gets to call himself a chef.
MRS. HUDSON:
That's the way of it, somehow. We women do it, it's a job. When men do, it's a bloody heroic deed.
MRS. DUNLOP:
That's the truth of it, ma'am. I'd like to see him fix three squares a day for upstairs and down, day in and day out. Boiling turnips, indeed! But he's not so high and mighty he'll turn down their money.
MRS. HUDSON:
What can you tell us about that day, Mrs. Dunlop? The day of the party, when the gem went missing.
MRS. DUNLOP:
I was down here since sunup. I don't know what I might know that's any good to you.
MRS. HUDSON:
Come now, ma'am, all us in the house see things that our betters think we don't. How was things that evening? Did you notice anyone out of the ordinary about?
MRS. DUNLOP:
Everyone out of the ordinary! Gerard and all his little soldiers in their white coats invaded my kitchen, in a right Norman Conquest! Pushed me and all my girls right out of their way, and carted in their fixings by the wagonload.
ABIGAIL:
All that just for a lot of little nibbly things?
MRS. DUNLOP:
Well… I will say the man's got a way with sugarwork. Some of those creations, I never saw anything so delicate. Why, look here— there's a fair bit of his craft left over from the party.
MRS. HUDSON:
I say— is that a model Westminster Abbey?
MRS. DUNLOP:
From the yard to the spires.
ABIGAIL:
It's even got stained glass windows! Look at the colors— blue and red and yellow.
MRS. DUNLOP:
Told you he knew his sugar.
MRS. HUDSON:
So there was a right army of fellows you didn't know in here that evening.
ABIGAIL:
Then the thief could have been any one of them! And we'd never know he'd come and gone!
MRS. DUNLOP:
I suppose it could be, dearie— but the family swore up and down nobody came or left but Miss Susan.
ABIGAIL:
But… what does that mean? That… nobody else could have took the ruby out of there? How could that be possible?
MRS. HUDSON:
What's that Mr. Holmes is always on about? "Once a thing's bloody impossible, whatever else's left, no matter how barking, must be the thing?" Or some such?
MRS. DUNLOP:
Begging your pardon?
ABIGAIL:
What's the thing, Mrs. Hudson?
MRS. HUDSON:
If that ruddy great gem went into that room, and nobody else took it out again… the gem must still be in that room.
ABIGAIL:
But they tore the place apart looking! How could it still be there?
MRS. HUDSON:
Couldn't say, my girl. But there's only one way to tell. Now, we've got a locked room to get into. I may not be housekeeper here, but I'm certain I've got a skeleton key.
(Exit MRS. DUNLOP.)
TRANSITION MUSIC.