You be the detective. Look for clues.
Listen.
Look at the evidence.
Listen.
What you see tells you a little.
What you hear tells you more.
Unless of course we let you see everything.
But in our detective story we don't.
So listen for motive.
Who would want to commit the crime? Listen for alibi.
Who was where?
On what date? At what time?
And who says so?
And are they telling the truth?
Listen for facts. Listen for contradictions.
As I do, Dr. John Thorndyke, police detective
and barrister.
My client
is charged with murder.
An eye witness saw her at the scene of the crime in suspicious circumstances.
She is on trial for her life.
You must decide.
Is she guilty?
Or not guilty?
You are charged with the murder of Lucy Bland.
How do you plead?
Not guilty.
Really, Thorndyke.
Her case is hopeless.
My dear Jarvis, you have not yet heard my defense.
What can you do?
It seems to me that the prosecution have only to call that witness.
And the verdict of
guilty follows automatically.
That is how it appears.
My case will rest on his evidence too.
And can you inform the court, Mr. Brodie,
what you saw on the night of May 18?
Well, I was walking along the lane, as I always do on Friday night, on my way to
the Flicks.
What time would that be?
About eight o'clock.
And this man beckoned to me.
I say, mate,
there's something rather rummy going on in this house.
How do you know?
I've been looking in
through a hole in the shutters.
She seems to be hiding something under the floor.
And did you recognize the woman who was dragging the bundle?
Well, sir,
it doesn't seem possible.
But I'd seen her so often in the village in one of them striped pinafore she always wears.
It was Miss Annesley.
Silence in the court!
Thank you, Mr. Brodie.
Mr. Brodie,
you recognized Miss Annesley very definitely.
Could you see how her hair was arranged?
Oh, yes, sir. It was done up on the top of her head in what they call a bun.
And there was a sort of skewer stuck through it.
What of the other man who was watching this with you? Have you seen him since?
Oh, no, sir. He was a stranger to me.
We walked off in different ways and I've not seen him before or since.
And how did you come to visit the cottage six weeks later?
It was to do with my work.
The cottage was let to a new tenant. Miss Annesley wasn't using it anymore.
The meter showed an unaccountable leakage in the current and
I was called to the house.
For what reason, Mr. Brodie?
I'm an electrician.
To get to the main, I'd have to take up part of the floor of the dining room.
I never even thought about what I'd seen that night.
And then I found Mrs. Bland.
Thank you, Mr. Brodie.
There could be no question of the integrity of this witness, Thorndyke.
There's no reason to believe he's lying. He said he saw her.
Witnesses are sometimes misleading.
There must be some evidence to help her.
Cast your mind back to the scene of the crime.
It is always a good rule to check the evidence as far as possible.
I have a great belief in first-hand observation.
Miss Annesley's character has reportedly begun to reproach.
Most people in the village respect her enormously.
The eyewitness must have looked through here.
Or here.
It seems incredible that a sane person engaged in the concealment of a murdered body could
forget to draw these curtains across the holes.
It seems a desperate thing to do.
To suffocate a person and then hide the body in such a way under the floor.
Jarvis, does this look like the photograph of a murderess?
I don't believe it.
She has a thoughtful, refined and gentle cast of face.
Something of a Japanese air with that coil on the top of the head and the big ivory hairpin
stuck through it.
I wonder when it was taken.
We must return to London.
The train will get us there in an hour.
I have some more investigating to do.
Are you all right?
Well, I never.
It's a dangerous thing to leave lying about the floor.
A bit of slate pencil.
Well, at least that's what it looks like.
Ah, but it isn't a piece of slate pencil.
It's a piece of carbon rod.
We may need to produce this as evidence at the trial.
Mr. Bland, what is your relationship with the accused, Miss Annesley?
We're friends.
But Phyllis was also on friendly terms with my wife, Lucy, the deceased.
And your wife visited Miss Annesley sometimes at the cottage.
But not as often as you, Mr. Bland.
In fact, you had a duplicate key to Miss Annesley's house which you could use whenever you liked
at any time of the day or night.
But that didn't mean...
What was your wife's religion, Mr. Bland?
Roman Catholic, but I don't see...
And in fact, her religion forbids divorce.
Yes.
And where were you on the night of May 18?
In London at a film opening and a party afterwards.
And on this particular evening, Miss Annesley did not accompany you?
No.
Well, she didn't always.
But I mean...
Thank you, Mr. Bland.
Her case seems even more hopeless.
Now they've proved a motive and there's no apparent alibi.
Who are those people?
Mr. Bland's partner, Mr. Julius Wicks and his fiancee, the film actress, Norma Rayner.
Silence in the court.
Mr. Bland, you attended the party because of your involvement in the motion picture business?
Yes.
Who is your partner in this business?
Mr. Julius Wicks is my partner and business manager on this particular project.
Is it a profitable business?
Very.
It's worth 6,000 pounds a year at the moment and will be worth much more with the improvements
in color and sound.
I do, however, have a number of other business interests.
In whose name are the assets for this particular business?
For tax reasons, they are in my wife's name.
To whom do they revert upon your wife's death?
Legally to my partner, Julius Wicks.
Although we have an unofficial arrangement.
I have known Mr. Wicks since the days before he moved to Hollywood and became such a talented
director.
Thank you, Mr. Bland.
No more questions, my lad.
Miss Rayner, you and your fiance, Mr. Wicks, were also at the party on May 18th to which
Mr. Bland refers.
Were you surprised that Miss Annisley did not accompany him?
Well, Phyllis isn't always with Leonard, but it was such a gala occasion.
I mean, everyone was there.
It was all over the papers the next day.
I was the star of the film, of course.
Although you would hardly have recognized me.
You know I have to look different all the time for different parts.
One month you're 15 and the next...
So you felt that Miss Annisley must have had another appointment.
Well, yes.
Thank you, Miss Rayner.
Dr. Thorndyke, do you wish to cross-examine the witness?
Yes, my lad.
Miss Rayner, you did not in fact arrive at the film premiere with your fiance, Mr. Wicks.
No, but I did call into his office on the way to the film and he was held up with an
important deal.
But he was at the party.
Everyone was congratulating him.
I see.
What time did the party start?
About 11.
Thank you, Miss Rayner.
Oh, one further question, Miss Rayner.
Have you ever been in Miss Annisley's house?
No.
Oh, yes.
We borrowed Mr. Bland's key for a weekend once, but I...
Thank you, Miss Rayner.
How did I go?
You were great, honey.
One of your best performances.
Silence!
Silence in the court!
I now call to the stand the accused, Miss Phyllis Annisley.
Miss Annisley, where were you on the night of May 18th this year?
I was living in my flat in London, but I can't remember exactly what I did.
You don't have a rule unless you keep a diary, which I unfortunately do not.
How much time did you spend in your house at Loheditton?
I lived in it until recently, but last year I began traveling around a lot, so I left
the house partly furnished and lived in my London flat.
Except when you went down there for weekends.
And Mr. Bland was often a visitor?
Then it visited sometimes, as did poor Lucy.
Is it true that it would only be possible for you to marry Mr. Bland on his wife's death?
I never thought of Lucy dying.
Miss Annisley, did you wish to marry Mr. Bland?
Yes.
Silence!
Dr. Thorndyke.
Miss Annisley, you've changed your hairstyle recently.
Oh, yes.
It doesn't suit me.
It's cut short.
I believe the correct term is bobbed.
Yes.
I really had no choice.
I was having my hair cleaned with petrol when it caught fire.
It was most alarming.
The hairdresser had the presence of mind to throw over a damp towel, and that saved my
life.
But my hair was nearly all burnt.
There was nothing for it but to have it trimmed as evenly as possible.
I had my photograph taken as a record.
When was this, Miss Annisley?
About the end of April, just before I returned to England.
In fact, on the 23rd of April, as confirmed by the photographer on the back.
And this photograph taken from your home, when was this taken, Miss Annisley?
About a year ago.
Thank you.
Hmm, have you decided yet?
Is she guilty or not guilty?
If not, who is?
The husband?
The film director?
The actress?
Did you pick up the clues about the electricity and the carbon rod?
And the hair?
There are contradictions in what you've seen and heard.
Gentlemen of the jury, there are a number of contradictions in this case.
Let us see how they appear.
The prisoner, Annisley, was seen on the 18th of May with her hair coiled on the top of
her head.
But on this date, her hair was quite short.
You've heard the evidence and you've seen the photograph taken on the 23rd of April
showing her with short hair, like a man's.
And yet, the appearance of Miss Annisley on the 18th of May has been declared by the eyewitness
to be identical with the photograph found at Miss Annisley's house, which was taken
a year previously.
Is it possible for human hair to grow from this to this in three weeks?
This piece of carbon rod was found at Miss Annisley's house by my assistant, Mr. Jarvis.
It is of the kind used in arc lamps in film studios.
Now, you will remember that Mr. Brodie discovered Mrs. Bland's body because he went to the house
to check an extraordinary leakage of electricity.
No one doubts the honesty of the witness, Mr. Brodie.
Yet, there is one alternative solution.
What if Mr. Brodie were not looking through the hole in the shutter at real live action,
but at this?
It required the use of both eyes to distinguish between a flat and solid object, and Mr. Brodie
was only using one as he looked through the hole in the shutter.
Now, are we in fact seeing Miss Annisley or an actress dressed and wigged as in the photograph
kept in her house, and what of the mysterious second man who called to Mr. Brodie as he
passed by the house, which was his habit on Friday evenings?
There is one person who had the knowledge and facilities to make and project a film,
who appeared in disguise to call Mr. Brodie, who drove to London a journey of one hour,
who arrived a little late for a party, which was his alibi, and from whose studio I obtained
what you have just seen.
Can it be these people are in this very courtroom?
Silence!
Silence in the court!
Gentlemen of the jury, there can be no doubt that the conspirators who made this film are
the actual murderers of Mrs. Lucy Bland.
Then it follows that the prisoner is innocent, and I accordingly ask you for a verdict of
not guilty.
Miss Annisley, I saw you but I never believed it.
Oh, how can I ever thank you enough?
We shall never forget this, Dr. Forndike.
A wonderful deliverance.
Congratulations, I never thought you'd win this case.
Why, it was all so obvious when you knew.
Silence in court!
Leave the jury box please and take the witness stand.
The court will hear your evidence.
Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
They do.
Are the following statements true or false?
Don't write your answers, just say them.
Ready?
Statement number one, Mr. Brody, the eyewitness, was a hairdresser.
True or false?
False.
He was an electrician.
Two, on the night of Friday, May the 18th, Mr. Brody was going to the flicks.
True or false?
True.
Films.
Pictures.
Movies.
Cinema.
Flicks.
Three, when Mr. Brody looked through the hole in the shutter, he saw an actress play the
part of Phyllis Annesley.
True or false?
True.
On film, he was at the flicks and didn't know it.
Four, when Mr. Brody went back to the house to check the electricity, he found a body.
True or false?
True.
Five, when Dr. Forndike and Jarvis went to the house, they found a light bulb.
True or false?
False.
It was a piece of carbon rod which Julius Wicks had left behind when he made the film.
Six, on the night of May the 18th, Julius Wicks had an alibi.
True or false?
True.
The actress said he was at his office, but he wasn't.
He was at the house showing the film to Mr. Brody.
Then he raced up to London and an hour later was at the party.
Seven, on the night of May the 18th, Phyllis Annesley had an alibi.
True or false?
False.
She couldn't remember where she was.
Eight, on April 23rd, Phyllis Annesley had short hair.
True or false?
True.
And that was the most important clue.
And Julius Wicks' mistake.
It meant she couldn't have done it.
And statement nine, Julius Wicks had no motive for the murder of Lucy Bland.
True or false?
False.
He had a motive.
Money.
That's why he did it.
Phyllis Annesley was not guilty.
Julius dismissed.