HUBERT (_sitting at the table, effusively_): I know a chap on the Stock Exchange who was taken last year and shown over the Black Museum at Scotland Yard. BELSIZE (_politely_): Really-- MRS. BRAMSON: And what d'you expect the policeman to do about it? HUBERT: Well, it was very interesting, he said. Bit ghoulish, of course-- BELSIZE: I expect so.... (_Getting down to business_) Now I wonder if any of you've seen anything in the least out of the ordinary round here lately? Anybody called--anybody strange wandering about in the woods--overheard anything? _They look at one another._ MRS. BRAMSON: The only visitor's been the doctor--and the district nurse. MRS. TERENCE: Been ever so gay. HUBERT: As a matter of fact, funny thing did happen to me. Tuesday afternoon it was, I remember now. BELSIZE: Oh? HUBERT (_graphically_): I was walking back to my cottage from golf, and I heard something moving stealthily behind a tree, or a bush, or something. BELSIZE (_interested_): Oh, yes? HUBERT: Turned out to be a squirrel. MRS. BRAMSON (_in disgust_): Oh!... HUBERT: No bigger than my hand! Funny thing to happen, I thought. BELSIZE: Very funny. Anything else? HUBERT: Not a thing. By Jove, fancy walking in the woods and stumbling over a dead body! Most embarrassing! MRS. TERENCE: I've stumbled over bodies in them woods afore now. But they wasn't dead. Oh, no. MRS. BRAMSON: Say what you know, and don't talk so much. MRS. TERENCE: Well, I've told 'im all I've seen. A bit o' love now and again. Though 'ow they make do with all them pine-needles beats me. BELSIZE: Anything else? MRS. BRAMSON: Miss Grayne's always moping round the woods. Perhaps _she_ can tell you something. OLIVIA: I haven't seen anything, I'm afraid.... Oh--I saw some men beating the undergrowth-- BELSIZE: Yes, I'm coming to that. But no tramps, for instance? OLIVIA: N-no, I don't think so. HUBERT: "Always carry a stick's" my motto. I'd like to see a tramp try anything on with me. Ah-ha! Swish! MRS. BRAMSON: What's all the fuss about? Has there been a robbery or something? BELSIZE: There's a lady missing. MRS. TERENCE: Where from? BELSIZE: The Tallboys. MRS. BRAMSON: That Tallboys again-- BELSIZE: A Mrs. Chalfont. MRS. TERENCE: Chalfont? Oh, yes! Dyed platinum blonde--widow of a colonel, so she says, livin' alone, so she says, always wearin' them faldalaldy openwork stockings. Fond of a drop too. That's 'er. HUBERT: Why, d'you know her? MRS. TERENCE: Never set eyes on 'er. But you know how people talk. Partial to that there, too, I'm told. MRS. BRAMSON: What's that there? MRS. TERENCE: Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies. BELSIZE (_quickly_): Well, anyway ... Mrs. Chalfont left the Tallboys last Friday afternoon, without a hat, went for a walk through the woods in this direction, and has never been seen since. _He makes his effect_. MRS. BRAMSON: I expect she was so drunk she fell flat and never came to.