Deathtrap

by Ira Levin

  Sidney: He’s sharp. Dull, but sharp. (Clifford smiles, and looks at his finished page. Sidney weighs his decision) I’ll do it. Let people talk; I’ll blush all the way to the bank.

  Clifford: You mean it?

  Sidney: Bruhl and Anderson.

  Clifford: Great! (He extends his hand; Sidney shakes it across the desktop, and they add a warm extra handclasp. Clifford sits back happily) We’ll make it Wilton, not Westport.

  Sidney: Leave it Westport—the hell with it.

  Clifford: Jesus, just think: me, Clifford Anderson, collaborating with Sidney Bruhl!

  Sidney: That’s from Act One.

  Clifford: (Smiles, and then grows sober) Act Two is going to be a problem . . .

  Sidney: HOW SO?

  Clifford: Well, we’ve got the murder in Act One. Two murders, in effect. Act Two is liable to be a let-down.

  Sidney: Not—necessarily . . .

  Clifford: (Rolling a sheet of paper into his typewriter) We’ll bring in a detective, of course—the fifth character. I was thinking of a Connecticut version of the one in Dial “M. ”

  Sidney: Inspector Hubbard.

  Clifford: Yeh. And Inga van Bronk ought to come in again. A good comic character like that, it would be foolish not to make the most of her.

  Sidney: You go on drafting Act One. Let me do a little thinking about Act Two . . .

  (Clifford smiles at him, glances at his finished page, and begins typing. Sidney looks sorrowfully at him for a moment, then picks up his beer, leans back in his chair, and thinks, thinks, thinks as the lights fade to darkness)

  Scene Two:

  A Week Later, Night

  When the lights come up, Clifford, in a different shirt, is standing at his side of the desk squaring up a sizeable thickness of paper and looking pleased with himself Sidney's; typewriter is covered; Clifford's isn’t. The room is quite dark; the desk lamp and a light outside the front-door fanlight are the only illumination. Wind can be heard. Through the darkness outside the closed French doors a flashlight approaches; the person holding it raps at the doors, Clifford starts. He puts the papers down, and as the person raps again, goes warily toward the doors.

  Helga: (Shining the flashlight onto her face) Mr. Bruhl?

  Is I, Helga ten Dorp!

  ( Clifford turns a lamp on and goes and unbolts the French doors and opens them)

  Clifford: Come in. Mr. Bruhl isn’t here now.

  Helga: (Coming in, in a raincoat and kerchief) I come through wood; is less to walk.

  Clifford: (Closing the doors) He should be back any minute.

  Helga: You are?

  Clifford: His secretary, Clifford Anderson.

  Helga: (Offers her hand) I am Helga ten Dorp. I am psychic.

  Clifford: (Shaking her hand) I know, Mr. Bruhl’s told me about you. I understand you predicted his wife’s death.

  Helga: (Coming into the room, pocketing her flash-light) Ja,Ja, was much pain. Right here. (Pats her chest) Very sad. Such a nice lady. Ei, this room . . . He is well, Mr. Bruhl?

  Clifford: Yes, fine. He went out to dinner, the first time since . . . He said he’d be back by ten and it’s about a quarter past now.

  Helga: Will be big storm! Much wind and rain, lightning and thunder. Trees will fall.

  Clifford: Are you sure?

  Helga: Ja, was on radio. (Takes her kerchief off) I come to borrow candles. Are none in house. You have?

  Clifford: I don’t know. I haven’t noticed any but there must be some. I’ll go look. Why don’t you sit down?

  Helga: Thank you. ( Clifford starts for the foyer, Helga starts to sit but rises, pointing) You wear boots!

  (Clifford stops, and after a moment turns)

  Clifford: Everyone does these days. They’re very comfortable.

  Helga: You are for long time secretary to Mr. Bruhl?

  Clifford: No. I just came here . . . about three weeks ago. After Mrs. Bruhl died. (Helga turns from him, worried and perplexed) I’ll go look for—

  (He is interrupted by the unlocking and opening of the front door. Sidney comes in, switching the foyer light on and the outside light off. He's in a trench-coat over a shirt, tie, and jacket)

  Sidney:(Closing the door) Hi. What a bore that—

  Clifford: (Interrupting him) Mr. Bruhl! Hello. Mrs. ten Dorp is here.

  (He and Sidney exchange a look)

  Sidney: Oh. (Comes to the doorway, smiling) Hello.

  Helga: (Going toward him) Good evening, Mr. Bruhl.

  Sidney: (Meeting her, shaking her hand) How are you?

  Helga: Well.

  Sidney: Did you get my note?

  Helga: Ja, thank you.

  Sidney: (Taking his coat off) Yours was most kind. And the flowers . . .

  Clifford: Do we have any candles? There’s a storm coming up and Mrs. ten Dorp wants to borrow some.

  Sidney: Yes, we’ve got a box of them somewhere. I think Myra kept them over the refrigerator. If not there, then on the shelf on the landing. (Clifford goes off to the right. Sidney moves back into the foyer) A gray cardboard box. (Hangs his coat on the rack) I saw you on the Griffin show. It wasn’t a very good night, was it? (But Helga is urgently gesturing for him to come in and close the door. He does so) What is it?

  Helga: (Whispering) Is man I warn you of! Man in boots who attacks you!

  Sidney: (Is caught off-guard, then thinks) Oh my God. In the . . . turmoil of Myra’s death, I completely forgot about that warning!

  (The wind blows)

  Helga: Is he! Candles are not why I come! Have many candles! But tonight I feel here danger again, and in this room is feeling very strong! You should not have him here!

  Sidney: Do you know, I made up my mind just tonight to dismiss him? I was discussing the matter with my lawyer. I became uneasy about him last week, so I asked my lawyer to do a—

  Helga: (Interrupting him) Ei! (Peers at Clifford's typewriter) Smith-Corona! (Looks at Sidney,) Is his?

  Sidney: Ja. Yes!

  Helga: But naturally! Corona, not Colonna!Ach! This is why I see on black man’s face “qwertyuiop”! You must send away this man tonight!

  Sidney: I was going to—to give him his notice, at any rate. And I certainly won’t put it off, now that you’ve come and warned me about him. You’re positive you saw him attacking me?

  Helga: Was image like TV, so sharp!

  ( Clifford, coming out of the kitchen, hesitates)

  Sidney: Come in, Clifford!

  ( Clifford comes in with an open box of candles. He brings them to Helga, who smiles tautly and avoids his eyes)

  Helga: Thank you. I take two.

  Sidney: You’re welcome to take more.

  Helga: No, two are enough.

  Clifford: (Withdrawing a few steps) It’s really blowing up out there.

  Helga: (Pocketing the candles) Ja, sometime they are right with their predictions. (Ready to tie her kerchief; to Sidney, sotto voce) I should stay?

  Sidney: (Sotto) No need to. (And aloud) I hope you beat the rain.

  (He moves toward the foyer)

  Helga: I go through wood; is less to walk. (To Clifford,) Good night.

  Clifford: Good night.

  Sidney: (Opening the French doors) It’s pitch-black. Will you be able to find your way?

  Helga: Ja, I have torch.

  (She gets out her flash-light)

  Sidney: Good night. (Helga stops, turns, gasps) What’s wrong?

  (Clifford moves closer; he and Sidney exchange worried looks as Helga stays speechless for another moment)

  Helga: My daughter is pregnant! Ohhhhh! So many years they try! So many doctors they go to! And now, at last, they make me grandmother! Ei! God-dank! Goddank! (Another stunning realization lights her face) I must call and tell them!

  (She hurries out. Sidney, smiling, closes the doors and bolts them, draws the draperies)

  Clifford: She told you I’m the man in boots who attacks you?

  Sidney: Yes.

  Cli
fford: She noticed them just before you came in. (Smiles) Did you tell her I used a Styrofoam log, not one of the weapons?

  Sidney: Didn’t think it quite advisable. I told her you’re giving me karate lessons and we’re attacking each other all over the place. (Smiles) “The closer you stay to the truth, the better off you are.

  Clifford: (Putting the box of candles down) I finished Act One.

  Sidney: Did you? (Clifford gestures at the desk. Sidney goes toward it) Your evening was better spent than mine.

  (He picks up the stack of paper and riffles through it. Clifford comes over)

  Clifford: I ended it with Julian on the phone.

  Sidney: (Reads a line and looks doubtfully at Clifford,) “How can I go on without her?”

  Clifford: He wants the doctor to think he’s upset, doesn’t he?

  Sidney: Mmm. (Putting the papers down) Well, your dialogue may be a bit Tin Pan Alley but your timing couldn’t be better. I’ve got Act Two ready to go.

  Clifford: Terrific!

  (A flash of lightning shines through the draperies)

  Sidney: That is, I think I do. There are two bits of business I’m not sure will work. We’ll try them, and if they do I’ll give you the whole thing scene by scene. It’s full of surprises.

  Clifford: I can’t wait to hear!

  (A roll of thunder)

  Sidney: Go up and check the windows first, will you? It sounds as if we’re getting hurricanes Alice through Zelda.

  Clifford: (Heading for the foyer) How many scenes are there?

  Sidney: Three, same as in Act One. (Clifford goes out and starts up the stairs) I like that sort of symmetry . . .

  ( Sidney stands for a moment, then takes his jacket off and hangs it on the back of his desk chair; adjusts it nicely. A brighter lightning flash. He goes to the fireplace, takes a pistol from over the mantel, aims it and mock-fires; then, in the light of the lamp, he carefully resets the safety catch. A roll of thunder, and the sound of rain falling. The storm grows in intensity through the balance of the scene. With the pistol ready for firing, Sidney places it on the mantel in easy picking-up position. He looks around, judging movements and relative locations, and satisfied, rubs his hands, hitches up his belt, and waits tensely. Footsteps sound on the stairs, and Clifford comes in)

  Clifford: All windows closed.

  Sidney: Fine.

  Clifford: What are the bits of business?

  Sidney: They’re in the final scene, back to back, as it were. Willard has spilled the beans and our Connecticut version of Inspector Hubbard has come to beard Julian in his den. Julian, quite berserk, shoots the inspector in the left arm, but there’s only one bullet in the gun, so now he’s trying to get to the upstage wall in order to grab a weapon and finish the job. Question number one is: Can a one-armed inspector in otherwise good condition stop a two-armed middle-aged playwright from going where he wants? The answer had better be no. Let’s try it. Me Julian, you Hubbard. Right about here . . .

  Clifford: Left arm out of commission.

  Sidney: Yes. Ready? •

  Clifford: Ready.

  (Sidney starts toward Clifford, who tries to stop him, using only his right arm. Sidney gets free fairly easily)

  Sidney: You’ve got to try harder than that.

  Clifford: That would look convincing, I think.

  Sidney: Not even to a theatre party. Come on, give it a good try. (They scuffle again, with more gusto and accompanied by some lightning and thunder. Sidney again gets free with relative ease) Maybe you should be Julian.

  Clifford: I was afraid I would tear your shirt.

  Sidney: Cliff, dear, we’re trying to become rich and famous; let’s not let a five-year-old shirt stand in the way, okay?

  Clifford: Can’t we just let the director and the actors work it out?

  Sidney: That isn’t the way professional playwrights operate, dum-dum. Professional playwrights don’t offer a script until they’re absolutely sure that everything in it is playable and do-able. Now let’s show ’em why Bruhl and Anderson are going to go down in theatrical history! (They scuffle again, an earnest and fairly long struggle punctuated by exclamations and comments. At the end of it, Sidney, his shirt torn, manages to thrust Clifford away and get to the wall of weapons) Voila! It works!

  Clifford: (Pulling himself together) And look at your shirt. And mine. Jesus! (Sidney comes toward him) I scratched your neck.

  Sidney: (Wiping it with his hand) I’ll survive. The second bit now—much less strenuous and very brief.

  Clifford: I’m glad of that.

  Sidney: I’m Hubbard now and you’re Julian. Go on up to the wall, (Clifford does so) Take the axe. ( Clifford takes the axe from the wall and turns; holds it with both hands) It doesn’t look natural that way.

  Clifford: It feels natural.

  Sidney: Try a different way.

  Clifford: (Shifts to another hold on the axe, and shakes his head) It doesn’t feel right this way.

  Sidney: All right, go back to the way you had it. (Clifford does so, waits) Now put it down. On the floor. (A bit puzzled, Clifford obeys. Sidney turns and takes the pistol from the mantel, aims it at Clifford,) Stand very still. We have good-byes to say. (Clifford's eyes widen) Deathtrap is over. We’re now into theatre Verité .(The storm gathers strength) The gun from Gunpoint. No blanks as at the dear old Lyceum though—real bullets, courtesy of the Messrs. Remington. I loaded it last night, after you were asleep. I really don’t want that play to be written. Even though nothing can be proved, too much will be talked about, and I’m a little too old and, yes, uptight, to join the Washington secretaries, and the ex-lovers of ex-Presidents, and the happy hookers, and the happily hooked, in the National Bad-Taste Exposition. And I honestly can’t think of any other way to make sure you won’t set me up in a centrally located booth ... I asked Porter to have you checked out in Hartford. A few blots were found on your record, precisely the ones you told me about, and Porter feels—we discussed it this evening—that they tend to justify the unease I’ve been feeling. So I came home and gave you your notice, you became abusive and violent, and Mrs. ten Dorp’s three-week-old vision came to pass. Luckily I got to the gun, which I have the license and right to use in self-defense. It beats digging up the vegetable patch, doesn’t it? I’m truly sorry, Cliff. If you hadn’t succumbed to thrilleritis malignis, in what is surely one of the most acute cases on record, who knows, we might actually have become the team of Bruhl and Anderson. As it is, we’ll have to be—only Bruhl. I’m out of dialogue. Your go.

  Clifford: What can I say? I’m not going to beg.

  Sidney: I thought you might promise to become a steam fitter or something.

  Clifford: Would you believe me?

  Sidney: No.

  Clifford: So? (Shrugs) I’m hoping you’ll take pity on a pretty face.

  Sidney: Oh God, I shall miss you very much. Goodbye, Cliff.

  Clifford: Good-bye, Sidney. (Sidney hesitates an instant, then shoots; the blast is louder than the thunder. Clifford stands for a moment and scratches himself) I thought a click would be anticlimactic, so I bought some blanks this morning. While I was getting the bullets for this one. (Takes a pistol from the wall and aims it at Sidney,) Sit down—dum-dum. (Sidney stands staring at him) Sit down. Peripeteia? Reversal? You talked about it the first day of the seminar. Important element of all drama. Put that down. (Sidney, stunned, sits and puts the gun down, Clifford draws a deep breath and moves from his fixed position, keeping the pistol trained on Sidney,) The problem was, I had this terrific first act, and I couldn’t think of a second act. Very frustrating. Particularly since I’m sharing bed and board with the old master plotter himself, “author of The Murder Game. ” And of In for the Kill, which I consider an even more elegant construction.

  Sidney: Thanks, that makes two of us.

  Clifford: (Taking a pair of handcuffs from the wall) At present, yes. (Approaching Sidney,) Be my guest.

  (He offers the handcuffs)
/>   Sidney: (Mock-ingenuous) You mean put them on?

  Clifford: That’s what I mean.

  (Sidney resignedly takes the handcuffs and begins cuffing one wrist, Clifford withdraws a bit)

  Sidney: What are you going to do?

  Clifford: Continue gloating. Through the arm of the chair. Don’t play dumb! Through the arm! (Sighing, Sidney passes the other cuff through the chair arm and locks it about his wrist, Clifford sits on the comer of the desk) So there I am with my problem. Sidney’s not going to help me with it, not voluntarily; this I know from square one. Sidney uses three kinds of deodorant and four kinds of mouthwash; not for him the whiff of scandal. But is there maybe a way I can harness that seventeen jewel brain and set it to work for me all unwittingly? So I begin writing Act One, and every time I leave the desk, I inconspicuously lock the drawer. So inconspicuously, in fact, that for a day and a half smart Sidney doesn’t notice. But dull old Porter comes in, thank God, and saves me the embarrassment of getting heavy-handed and leaving a loose page lying around.

  Sidney: You’re a shit, you know that?

  Clifford: (Raising the gun) Would you mind saying that into the microphone? So there we are, Bruhl and Anderson. I write, Sidney thinks. I don’t sleep much—last night, for instance, I barely got a wink what with all the tiptoeing that was going on—but I’ll make it up next week . . . Thank you for Act Two. No Inspector Hubbard. Julian’s lawyer is the fifth character. Scene One: Julian finds out that Willard is writing the real Deathtrap about Doris’s murder. With changed names, of course. (The storm is approaching its peak) He pretends he’ll collaborate, but asks old “Peter Pilgrim” or something to check up on Willard, knowing full well there are false and unfair charges to be found. Scene Two: Julian sets Willard up for what’ll look like murder in self-defence by getting him to enact bits of business for the play. That’s beautiful, Sidney! The whole thing we just did; it’ll play like a dream and I never would have thought of it! I’m really in your debt. (Sidney glares) Julian shoots Willard, who’s basically an innocent kid Julian led astray—

  Sidney: Ooh, you bastard . . .

  Clifford: —but the very next moment Inga van Bronk and Peter Pilgrim come in. She’s called him because she’s been getting bad vibes all night; they met at Doris’s funeral. Willard lives just long enough to tell the truth about himself and Julian and about Doris’s murder, and Julian shoots himself. Curtain.