The scene is a spacious sitting-room in the Palace Hotel at Middlepool. It is sumptuously furnished with the lack of taste peculiar to such apartments. Everything is large and rich and rather stiff. It is obvious that the decorations have been carried out on contract by a first-rate firm. They are calculated to give the business man who engages the room the impression that he is getting his money’s worth.
On the left is a large French window, opening to the floor and looking on the square in front of the hotel. At the back is a door leading into George Winter’s bedroom. On the right are two doors; one leads into the passage, and the other is that of Catherine’s room. There is a telephone on the table.
It is some weeks later, between ten and eleven on the morning of the election.
Lord Francis Etchingham, Fred Bennett, James Ford, Colonel Boyce, and Mr. Swalecliffe. Mr. Swalecliffe is standing at the window.
When the curtain rises there is an excited buzz of conversation. Boyce is at the telephone.
Boyce.
[Speaking into the receiver.] Yes, Colonel Boyce. Be sure you don’t make a mistake.
Swalecliffe.
I can’t imagine what’s become of him. One would have thought....