Jacob did it. Susan lowers her eyes, ashamed to have been caught staring at David. Now he too will dislike her: the outsider, crasher of birthday parties, Jacob’s shikse, insolent starer. She cannot look at Jacob, who has insisted that she come with him and now is drinking too much wine and shutting her out. She cannot look at Marian, who resents her presence and wants her dead. She cannot look at David, who has caught her staring at him, spying on him. She can look only at her hateful horrible cards: the HALL, the LOUNGE, Colonel Mustard, the Lead Pipe, the Knife. Oh, Jacob did it. On the porch. With his cold, cold eye.
Mr. Green’s dilemma. Mr. Green stands in the corridor near another door of the BALLROOM, not far from the DINING ROOM, paralyzed with uncertainty and chagrin. He has left the BALLROOM in a manner so awkward, sudden, and inexplicable that he feels it only proper to return and proffer an apology. At the same time, the thought of entering the BALLROOM again after his disgraceful exit is so painful that as he imagines it he draws an audible sharp breath. Besides, how can he possibly explain to Miss Scarlet, whose gasp was caused not simply by the Colonel’s sudden words in the silence but by the shocking revelation of Mr. Green’s presence, that he had been standing in a corner during her entrance into the room and had remained there without a word during her long walk across the echoing floor? The thought of entering the room again is itself unspeakably painful to Mr. Green, but in addition to entering the room he will be obliged to walk across the long, loud floor, carefully observed not only by Miss Scarlet, whose initial surprise at finding him in the corner will have had time to darken to indignation, but also by the Colonel, in whose presence, under the best of circumstances, Mr. Green feels uncomfortable and anxious, and who now, as witness to Mr. Green’s inglorious retreat and as a probable confidant and champion of the injured Miss Scarlet, will await Mr. Green in the manner of a stern father barely willing to listen to an excuse already dismissed as contemptible. Mr. Green will not know where to look; he will not know what to say; the entire purpose of his return, which should be to clarify a possible misunderstanding and render him less foolish or odious in their eyes, will be undermined by his undoubted inability to utter a single word and the general impossibility, even if he were not at a loss for words, of explaining his shameful behavior. Despite these extremely compelling reasons for evasion there remain, nevertheless, equally decisive arguments for confrontation. It is too much to hope, for example, that he can avoid either or both of them during the remainder of his visit. It might therefore prove even more painful in the long run if he does not, immediately, face up to the inevitable. Besides, he has left behind his book, a clumsily written but learned study which he took with him from the LIBRARY with the express intent of finishing it before dinner. Mr. Green takes a deep breath, raises his right foot, and does not move.
Sprechen Sie Englisch? “How’s Dad been?” Jacob asks out of the blue, looking up abruptly from his cards. David is startled and exhilarated: things are going to be all right after all, the family is sticking together, everything’s bound to be all right. “Oh, he’s been all right,” David answers. He knows that Mrs. Peacock did it, with either the Revolver or the Candlestick; his father is slumped in an armchair, a revolver at his feet, a red hole in his temple. “Actually there was one, I don’t know, episode.” Marian turns her head sharply. “What episode, Davey?” “Episode,” Jacob says, frowning thoughtfully and pulling at his chin. “Episode, episode.” His face assumes a hopeful expression. “Sprechen Sie Englisch?” “Well,” David says, “you know how he likes to park as close to his classroom as possible? So he doesn’t have to carry his briefcase too far? Well, last month someone took his space, so Dad had to walk across the whole parking lot with a load of books. He told Mom he was so short of breath he had to sit down. Now he’s bought an extra copy of every book for the course and he keeps one copy in his office and one at home.” “You never told me that,” Marian says. “Davey, you promised to tell me, no matter what.” “Mom made me promise not to tell. You know how Dad is.” “And he won’t see Hershatter?” Jacob asks. “No way. He tells Mom, but she’s not allowed to tell me. But she does, sometimes. He gets furious if she tells him to see Hershatter.” “Am I living in a bad novel?” Jacob says, flinging up an arm. “What is this crap? Can’t Mom get him to see Hershatter?” “You try getting him to see Hershatter. Mom says he gets too angry. She doesn’t want to upset him.” “She doesn’t want to upset him? He can’t walk across a parking lot and nobody’s allowed to know?” “He’s been better lately,” David says, “really.” Jacob stares at David; for a moment his arm is suspended in the air. He lowers his elbow to the table and leans his forehead into the heel of his hand. His long fingers are thrust into his hair and his eyes are heavy-lidded. “Dad is sick,” he says slowly. “He needs to see a doctor. If he keeps on like this, he’s going to die.” “Jake,” Marian says, placing a hand on his forearm. “It’s David’s birthday.”
Professor Plum makes a discovery. As he advances once again along the SECRET PASSAGE toward the KITCHEN, or is it the CONSERVATORY, Professor Plum notices, around a darkening bend in the path, a narrow fissure in the rough stone wall. He has noticed it before. In the half-darkness lit only by the distant flame of a kerosene lantern, he stops for a moment to give it his close attention. The fissure rises from the floor to the height of his forehead; it is wide enough to admit a man sideways. The Professor is in no great hurry to arrive at the CONSERVATORY, or is it the KITCHEN — indeed, his supreme pleasure is to traverse the passages — and on a sudden impulse he steps sideways from the path into the fissure, bending his head awkwardly and protecting his spectacles with a hand. Behind the entrance the fissure widens and admits the Professor to another dim-lit passage. It is much like the one he has left but covered with a strip of carpet and lined with shelves containing a variety of amusing objects: small colorful glass jars, faded magic-lantern slides, pipe racks filled with pipes of many shapes, lacquered wooden boxes. The Professor advances by slow steps, looking back at the receding fissure, which closes into darkness. He plans to follow the new passage only a short distance, before turning back and continuing on his way.
Cards (2). The backs of the cards show a magnifying glass in whose lens is pictured, in blue-black and white, the posts of a gate, a curving walk, and a gabled mansion with four chimneys. Each chimney is crowned by three chimney pots. A large blue-black tree with bushy blue-black foliage, situated between the gate and the mansion, spreads a curving branch above part of the roof. Each gatepost is surmounted by a finial composed of a cone with concave sides topped by a sphere. Each sphere, in the foreground, is large enough to contain the door of the mansion, in the background. On the handle of the magnifying glass are long parallel blue-black lines, suggestive of palpable ridges like those on the circumference of a coin.
Love and death. Jacob crushes down a reply and, with Marian’s hand still on his arm, remembers suddenly the new baby home from the hospitaclass="underline" he and Marian standing on both sides of the cradle looking down at David. He thought: he looks like me, in the album. The unexpected resemblance gave him the sense that he was the father, that he was peculiarly responsible for this child: his child. He sees his father’s grave face, hears the solemn words: Jacob, Marian, I want you to love your brother always, do you understand, you’re all he’ll have when your mother and I are no longer here. Jacob tried to understand, but the words frightened him; he wondered why they were no longer going to be there.