The Real Inspector Hound and Other Plays by Tom Stoppard

footballer with a tortoise. How do you account for the animal? Was it a seeing-eye tortoise?
HARRIS : I don’t see that the tortoise as such requires explanation. Since the fellow was blind he needn’t necessarily have known it was a tortoise. He might have picked it up in mistake for some other object such as a lute.
FOOT : His loot?
HARRIS : Or mandolin.
MOTHER : It was, in fact, an alligator handbag.
FOOT : I’m afraid I can’t accept these picturesque fantasies. My wife has an alligator handbag and I defy anyone to mistake it for a musical instrument.
THELMA :
STOP!
Don’t move! (
They desist
.) I’ve dropped the needle.
HARRIS : (
looking at his watch
) For God’s sake, Thelma——
HARRIS : Help me find it.
( MOTHER
and
FOOT
dutifully get down on their hands and knees with
THELMA. HARRIS
remains standing on the table
. MOTHER
and
FOOT
are head-to-head
.)
MOTHER : Inspector, if the man we saw was blind, who was the other witness?
FOOT : What other witness?
MOTHER : The one who must have told the police about our car being there.
FOOT : My dear lady, you have put your finger on one of the ironies of this extraordinary case. I myself live at number four Ponsonby Place, and it was I, glancing out of an upstairs window, who saw your car pulling away from the kerb.
MOTHER : And yet, you never saw the minstrel?
FOOT : No, the first I knew about it was when I got to the station late this afternoon and read the eye-witness report sent in by the old lady. I must have missed him by seconds, which led me to suspect that he had driven off in your car. I remembered seeing a yellow parking ticket stuck in your windscreen, and the rest was child’s play. (
The telephone rings. Getting up and going to it
.) Ah—that will be Sergeant Potter. We shall soon see how my deductions tally with the facts, ( FOOT
picks up the phone. The needle search continues
.
HARRIS
stands, patient and gowned, on the table
.)
THELMA : Can we have the top light on?
HARRIS : There’s no bulb.
THELMA : Get the bulb from the bathroom.
HARRIS : It’s gone again.
THELMA : Well, get any bulb!—quickly!
( MOTHER
gets to her one good foot as
FOOT
replaces the phone dumbstruck and shaken. The table-lamp is next to the phone
.)
MOTHER : Could you get the bulb out of that lamp, Inspector? ( FOOT
looks at her unseeingly
.)
The bulb.
( FOOT ,
as in a dream, turns to the bulb. His brain has seized up
.)
You’ll need a hanky or a glove.
( FOOT
ineffectually pats his pocket
.)
A woollen sock would do.
( FOOT
sits down wearily and slips off one of his shoes and his sock
.)
HARRIS : Is something the matter with your foot, Foot? Inspector, Foot?
( FOOT
thrusts one hand into the woollen sock. With the other he produces from his pocket a pair of heavy dark glasses which he puts on
.)
You wish to inspect your foot, Inspector?
THELMA :
Can we please have some light?
FOOT : (
quietly
) Yes—of course—forgive me—I get this awful migraine behind the eyes—it’s the shock——
MOTHER : What happened, Inspector?
FOOT : It appears that no robbery of the kind I deduced has in fact taken place among the Victoria Palace Happy Minstrel Troupe. Moreover, there is no minstrel troupe, happy or miserable, playing at that theatre or any other. My reconstruction has proved false in every particular, and it is undoubtedly being voiced back at the station that my past success at deductions of a penetrating character has caused me finally to overreach myself in circumstances that could hardly be more humiliating. (
They all sense the enormity of it
. HARRIS ,
however, is unforgiving. He steps down off the table
.)
THELMA : Oh … I’m sorry. Is there anything we can do?
MOTHER : I’ve always found that bananas are very good for headaches.
HARRIS : (
nastily
) So the crime to which you have accused us of being accessories never in fact took place!
FOOT : That is the position, but before you start congratulating yourself, you still have to explain the incredible and