An Inspector Calls and Other Plays

by J. B. Priestley

  MRS BIRLING: No. Edna’ll go. I asked her to wait up to make us some tea.

  SHEILA: It might be Gerald coming back.

  BIRLING [relieved]: Yes, of course. I’d forgotten about him.

  [EDNA appears.]

  EDNA: It’s Mr Croft.

  [GERALD appears, and EDNA withdraws.]

  GERALD: I hope you don’t mind my coming back?

  MRS BIRLING: No, of course not, Gerald.

  GERALD: I had a special reason for coming. When did that Inspector go?

  SHEILA: Only a few minutes ago. He put us all through it –

  MRS BIRLING [warningly]: Sheila!

  SHEILA: Gerald might as well know.

  BIRLING [hastily]: Now – now – we needn’t bother him with all that stuff.

  SHEILA: All right. [To GERALD] But we’re all in it – up to the neck. It got worse after you left.

  GERALD: How did he behave?

  SHEILA: He was – frightening.

  BIRLING: If you ask me, he behaved in a very peculiar and suspicious manner.

  MRS BIRLING: The rude way he spoke to Mr Birling and me – it was quite extraordinary!

  GERALD: Hm – hm!

  [They all look inquiringly at GERALD.]

  BIRLING [excitedly]: You know something. What is it?

  GERALD [slowly]: That man wasn’t a police officer.

  BIRLING [astounded]: What?

  MRS BIRLING: Are you certain?

  GERALD: I’m almost certain. That’s what I came back to tell you.

  BIRLING [excitedly]: Good lad! You asked about him, eh?

  GERALD: Yes. I met a police sergeant I know down the road. I asked him about this Inspector Goole and described the chap carefully to him. He swore there wasn’t any Inspector Goole or anybody like him on the force here.

  BIRLING: You didn’t tell him –

  GERALD [cutting in]: No, no. I passed it off by saying I’d been having an argument with somebody. But the point is – this sergeant was dead certain they hadn’t any inspector at all like the chap who came here.

  BIRLING [excitedly]: By Jingo! A fake!

  MRS BIRLING [triumphantly]: Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I say I couldn’t imagine a real police inspector talking like that to us?

  GERALD: Well, you were right. There isn’t any such inspector. We’ve been had.

  BIRLING [beginning to move]: I’m going to make certain of this.

  MRS BIRLING: What are you going to do?

  BIRLING: Ring up the Chief Constable – Colonel Roberts.

  MRS BIRLING: Careful what you say, dear.

  BIRLING [now at telephone]: Of course. [At telephone] Brumley eight seven five two. [To others as he waits] I was going to do this anyhow. I’ve had my suspicions all along. [At telephone] Colonel Roberts, please. Mr Arthur Birling here…. Oh, Roberts – Birling here. Sorry to ring you up so late, but can you tell me if an Inspector Goole has joined your staff lately … Goole. G-O-O-L-E … a new man … tall, clean-shaven. [Here he can describe the appearance of the actor playing the INSPECTOR.] I see … yes … well, that settles it…. No, just a little argument we were having here…. Good night. [He puts down the telephone and looks at the others.] There’s no Inspector Goole on the police. That man definitely wasn’t a police inspector at all. As Gerald says – we’ve been had.

  MRS BIRLING: I felt it all the time. He never talked like one. He never even looked like one.

  BIRLING: This makes a difference, y’know. In fact, it makes all the difference.

  GERALD: Of course!

  SHEILA [bitterly]: I suppose we’re all nice people now.

  BIRLING: If you’ve nothing more sensible than that to say, Sheila, you’d better keep quiet.

  ERIC: She’s right, though.

  BIRLING [angrily]: And you’d better keep quiet anyhow. If that had been a police inspector and he’d heard you confess –

  MRS BIRLING [warningly]: Arthur – careful!

  BIRLING [hastily]: Yes, yes.

  SHEILA: You see, Gerald, you haven’t to know the rest of our crimes and idiocies.

  GERALD: That’s all right, I don’t want to. [To BIRLING] What do you make of this business now? Was it a hoax?

  BIRLING: Of course. Somebody put that fellow up to coming here and hoaxing us. There are people in this town who dislike me enough to do that. We ought to have seen through it from the first. In the ordinary way, I believe I would have done. But coming like that, bang on top of our little celebration, just when we were all feeling so pleased with ourselves, naturally it took me by surprise.

  MRS BIRLING: I wish I’d been here when that man first arrived. I’d have asked him a few questions before I allowed him to ask us any.

  SHEILA: It’s all right saying that now.

  MRS BIRLING: I was the only one of you who didn’t give in to him. And now I say we must discuss this business quietly and sensibly and decide if there’s anything to be done about it.

  BIRLING [with hearty approval]: You’re absolutely right, my dear. Already we’ve discovered one important fact – that that fellow was a fraud and we’ve been hoaxed – and that may not be the end of it by any means.

  GERALD: I’m sure it isn’t.

  BIRLING [keenly interested]: You are, eh? Good! [To ERIC, who is restless] Eric, sit down.

  ERIC [sulkily]: I’m all right.

  BIRLING: All right? You’re anything but all right. And you needn’t stand there – as if – as if –

  ERIC: As if – what?

  BIRLING: As if you’d nothing to do with us. Just remember your own position, young man. If anybody’s up to the neck in this business, you are, so you’d better take some interest in it.

  ERIC: I do take some interest in it. I take too much, that’s my trouble.

  SHEILA: It’s mine too.

  BIRLING: Now listen, you two. If you’re still feeling on edge, then the least you can do is to keep quiet. Leave this to us. I’ll admit that fellow’s antics rattled us a bit. But we’ve found him out – and all we have to do is to keep our heads. Now it’s our turn.

  SHEILA: Our turn to do – what?

  MRS BIRLING [sharply]: To behave sensibly, Sheila – which is more than you’re doing.

  ERIC [bursting out]: What’s the use of talking about behaving sensibly? You’re beginning to pretend now that nothing’s really happened at all. And I can’t see it like that. This girl’s still dead, isn’t she? Nobody’s brought her to life, have they?

  SHEILA [eagerly]: That’s just what I feel, Eric. And it’s what they don’t seem to understand.

  ERIC: Whoever that chap was, the fact remains that I did what I did. And Mother did what she did. And the rest of you did what you did to her. It’s still the same rotten story whether it’s been told to a police inspector or to somebody else. According to you, I ought to feel a lot better – [To GERALD] I stole some money, Gerald, you might as well know – [As BIRLING tries to interrupt] I don’t care, let him know. The money’s not the important thing. It’s what happened to the girl and what we all did to her that matters. And I still feel the same about it, and that’s why I don’t feel like sitting down and having a nice cosy talk.

  SHEILA: And Eric’s absolutely right. And it’s the best thing any one of us has said tonight and it makes me feel a bit less ashamed of us. You’re just beginning to pretend all over again.

  BIRLING: Look – for God’s sake!

  MRS BIRLING [protesting]: Arthur!

  BIRLING: Well, my dear, they’re so damned exasperating. They just won’t try to understand our position or to see the difference between a lot of stuff like this coming out in private and a downright public scandal.

  ERIC [shouting]: And I say the girl’s dead and we all helped to kill her – and that’s what matters –

  BIRLING [also shouting, threatening ERIC]: And I say – either stop shouting or get out. [Glaring at him but in quiet tone] Some fathers I know would have kicked you out of the house anyhow by this time. So hold your tongue if you want to
stay here.

  ERIC [quietly, bitterly]: I don’t give a damn now whether I stay here or not.

  BIRLING: You’ll stay here long enough to give me an account of that money you stole – yes, and to pay it back too.

  SHEILA: But that won’t bring Eva Smith back to life, will it?

  ERIC: And it doesn’t alter the fact that we all helped to kill her.

  GERALD: But is it a fact?

  ERIC: Of course it is. You don’t know the whole story yet.

  SHEILA: I suppose you’re going to prove now you didn’t spend last summer keeping this girl instead of seeing me, eh?

  GERALD: I did keep a girl last summer. I’ve admitted it. And I’m sorry, Sheila.

  SHEILA: Well, I must admit you came out of it better than the rest of us. The Inspector said that.

  BIRLING [angrily]: He wasn’t an Inspector.

  SHEILA [flaring up]: Well, he inspected us all right. And don’t let’s start dodging and pretending now. Between us we drove that girl to commit suicide.

  GERALD: Did we? Who says so? Because I say – there’s no more real evidence we did than there was that that chap was a police inspector.

  SHEILA: Of course there is.

  GERALD: No, there isn’t. Look at it. A man comes here pretending to be a police officer. It’s a hoax of some kind. Now what does he do? Very artfully, working on bits of information he’s picked up here and there, he bluffs us into confessing that we’ve all been mixed up in this girl’s life in one way or another.

  ERIC: And so we have.

  GERALD: But how do you know it’s the same girl?

  BIRLING [eagerly]: Now wait a minute! Let’s see how that would work. Now – [hesitates] no, it wouldn’t.

  ERIC: We all admitted it.

  GERALD: All right, you all admitted something to do with a girl. But how do you know it’s the same girl?

  [He looks round triumphantly at them. As they puzzle this out, he turns to BIRLING, after a pause.]

  Look here, Mr Birling. You sack a girl called Eva Smith. You’ve forgotten, but he shows you a photograph of her and then you remember. Right?

  BIRLING: Yes, that part’s straightforward enough. But what then?

  GERALD: Well, then he happens to know that Sheila once had a girl sacked from Milwards shop. He tells us that it’s this same Eva Smith. And he shows her a photograph that she recognizes.

  SHEILA: Yes. The same photograph.

  GERALD: How do you know it’s the same photograph? Did you see the one your father looked at?

  SHEILA: No, I didn’t.

  GERALD: And did your father see the one he showed you?

  SHEILA: No, he didn’t. And I see what you mean now.

  GERALD: We’ve no proof it was the same photograph and therefore no proof it was the same girl. Now take me. I never saw a photograph, remember. He caught me out by suddenly announcing that this girl changed her name to Daisy Renton. I gave myself away at once because I’d known a Daisy Renton.

  BIRLING [eagerly]: And there wasn’t the slightest proof that this Daisy Renton was really Eva Smith. We’ve only his word for it, and we’d his word for it that he was a police inspector, and we know now he was lying. So he could have been lying all the time.

  GERALD: Of course he could. Probably was. Now what happened after I left?

  MRS BIRLING: I was upset because Eric had left the house, and this man said that if Eric didn’t come back, he’d have to go and find him. Well, that made me feel worse still. And his manner was so severe and he seemed so confident. Then quite suddenly he said I’d seen Eva Smith only two weeks ago.

  BIRLING: Those were his exact words.

  MRS BIRLING: And like a fool I said Yes I had.

  BIRLING: I don’t see now why you did that. She didn’t call herself Eva Smith when she came to see you at the committee, did she?

  MRS BIRLING: No, of course she didn’t. But, feeling so worried, when he suddenly turned on me with those questions, I answered more or less as he wanted me to answer.

  SHEILA: But, Mother, don’t forget that he showed you a photograph of the girl before that, and you obviously recognized it.

  GERALD: Did anybody else see it?

  MRS BIRLING: No, he showed it only to me.

  GERALD: Then, don’t you see, there’s still no proof it was really the same girl. He might have showed you the photograph of any girl who applied to the committee. And how do we know she was really Eva Smith or Daisy Renton?

  BIRLING: Gerald’s dead right. He could have used a different photograph each time and we’d be none the wiser. We may all have been recognizing different girls.

  GERALD: Exactly. Did he ask you to identify a photograph, Eric?

  ERIC: No. He didn’t need a photograph by the time he’d got round to me. But obviously it must have been the girl I knew who went round to see Mother.

  GERALD: Why must it?

  ERIC: She said she had to have help because she wouldn’t take any more stolen money. And the girl I knew had told me that already.

  GERALD: Even then, that may have been all nonsense.

  ERIC: I don’t see much nonsense about it when a girl goes and kills herself. You lot may be letting yourselves out nicely, but I can’t. Nor can Mother. We did her in all right.

  BIRLING [eagerly]: Wait a minute, wait a minute! Don’t be in such a hurry to put yourself into court. That interview with your mother could have been just as much a put-up job, like all this police inspector business. The whole damned thing can have been a piece of bluff.

  ERIC [angrily]: How can it? The girl’s dead, isn’t she?

  GERALD: What girl? There were probably four or five different girls.

  ERIC: That doesn’t matter to me. The one I knew is dead.

  BIRLING: Is she? How do we know she is?

  GERALD: That’s right. You’ve got it. How do we know any girl killed herself today?

  BIRLING [looking at them all, triumphantly]: Now answer that one. Let’s look at it from this fellow’s point of view. We’re having a little celebration here and feeling rather pleased with ourselves. Now he has to work a trick on us. Well, the first thing he has to do is to give us such a shock that after that he can bluff us all the time. So he starts right off. A girl has just died in the Infirmary. She drank some strong disinfectant. Died in agony –

  ERIC: All right, don’t pile it on.

  BIRLING [triumphantly]: There you are, you see. Just repeating it shakes you a bit. And that’s what he had to do. Shake us at once – and then start questioning us – until we didn’t know where we were. Oh – let’s admit that. He had the laugh of us all right.

  ERIC: He could laugh his head off – if I knew it really was all a hoax.

  BIRLING: I’m convinced it is. No police inquiry. No one girl that all this happens to. No scandal –

  SHEILA: And no suicide?

  GERALD [decisively]: We can settle that at once.

  SHEILA: How?

  GERALD: By ringing up the Infirmary. Either there’s a dead girl there or there isn’t.

  BIRLING [uneasily]: It will look a bit queer, won’t it – ringing up at this time of night –

  GERALD: I don’t mind doing it.

  MRS BIRLING [emphatically]: And if there isn’t –

  GERALD: Anyway we’ll see. [He goes to telephone and looks up number. The others watch tensely.] Brumley eight nine eight six…. Is that the Infirmary? This is Mr Gerald Croft – of Crofts Limited…. Yes…. We’re rather worried about one of our employees. Have you had a girl brought in this afternoon who committed suicide by drinking disinfectant – or any like suicide? Yes, I’ll wait.

  [As he waits, the others show their nervous tension. BIRLING wipes his brow, SHEILA shivers, ERIC clasps and unclasps his hands, etc.]

  Yes? … You’re certain of that…. I see. Well, thank you very much…. Good night. [He puts down telephone and looks at them.] No girl has died in there today. Nobody’s been brought in after drinking disinfectant. They haven’t had a sui
cide for months.

  BIRLING [triumphantly]: There you are! Proof positive. The whole story’s just a lot of moonshine. Nothing but an elaborate sell! [He produces a huge sigh of relief.] Nobody likes to be sold as badly as that – but – for all that – [he smiles at them all] Gerald, have a drink.

  GERALD [smiling]: Thanks, I think I could just do with one now.

  BIRLING [going to sideboard]: So could I.

  MRS BIRLING [smiling]: And I must say, Gerald, you’ve argued this very cleverly, and I’m most grateful.

  GERALD [going for his drink]: Well, you see, while I was out of the house I’d time to cool off and think things out a little.

  BIRLING [giving him a drink]: Yes, he didn’t keep you on the run as he did the rest of us. I’ll admit now he gave me a bit of a scare at the time. But I’d a special reason for not wanting any public scandal just now. [Has his drink now, and raises his glass.] Well, here’s to us. Come on, Sheila, don’t look like that. All over now.

  SHEILA: The worst part is. But you’re forgetting one thing I still can’t forget. Everything we said had happened really had happened. If it didn’t end tragically, then that’s lucky for us. But it might have done.

  BIRLING [jovially]: But the whole thing’s different now. Come, come, you can see that, can’t you? [Imitating INSPECTOR in his final speech] You all helped to kill her. [Pointing at SHEILA and ERIC, and laughing] And I wish you could have seen the look on your faces when he said that. [SHEILA moves towards door.] Going to bed, young woman?

  SHEILA [tensely]: I want to get out of this. It frightens me the way you talk.

  BIRLING [heartily]: Nonsense! You’ll have a good laugh over it yet. Look, you’d better ask Gerald for that ring you gave back to him, hadn’t you? Then you’ll feel better.

  SHEILA [passionately]: You’re pretending everything’s just as it was before.

  ERIC: I’m not!

  SHEILA: No, but these others are.

  BIRLING: Well, isn’t it? We’ve been had, that’s all.

  SHEILA: So nothing really happened. So there’s nothing to be sorry for, nothing to learn. We can all go on behaving just as we did.

  MRS BIRLING: Well, why shouldn’t we?

  SHEILA: I tell you – whoever that Inspector was, it was anything but a joke. You knew it then. You began to learn something. And now you’ve stopped. You’re ready to go on in the same old way.