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The Stolen Post-Office
From a Collection of Crowley's Plays and Scenarios
Dramatis Personae: 1. Senator Bryant. 2. His son Wadsworth Bryant. 20. Fond of amateur theatricals. 3. Senator Dexter. 52. Wealthy, pious, universally loved and respected. 4. Senator Hund. 55. Wealthy scoundrel. 5. Mrs. Dexter. 30. Fashionable, adulterous, extravagant and in debt. 6. Sylvia Lee. 18. Ward of Hund, whom she hates. Sculptress. 7. Schmidt. Bank cashier. 8. Bauer. Hund's nephew. Artist.
Sylvia meets Wadsworth at a football match of which he is the hero. She makes a statue of him as Nature's Ideal.
Schmidt absconds in disguise. His absence on Monday morning leads to police investigation.
Bank president, telephoned for, tries to stop the enquiry. Suspicion aroused, he commits suicide.
Ensuing bank failure ruins Bryant, who has angry discussion with Dexter and Hund, but we are not told whom he blames. He dies of apoplexy.
Sylvia also ruined, thrown out by Hund. She pawns her jewelry, rents a cheap room and starts serious professional sculpture.
Wadsworth refuses friends offers of help. He gets 15,000 dollars from the wreck of the estate. He becomes a chauffeur and lodges near Sylvia. They thus meet and fall in love. Wadsworth fights against it. He has changed his name and altered his appearance.
Dexter loses his chauffeur and engages Wadsworth.
Mrs. Dexter is Bauer's mistress. He takes cocaine. She gets money for him. Her feeling for him is partly the vanity of guilt, but she really loves him and urges him to quit cocaine and work seriously.
She finds Wadsworth reading an old Greek play while waiting for her. She tries to vamp him in vain. Angry scene with her husband, but she coaxes a cheque from him. He is generous but keeps her short of actual spending money so that she contracts[?] debts with tradesmen.
Sylvia is starving herself to buy marble, has become very weak. She feels forced to eat and goes out. Hund and Dexter driving downtown. Hund's car leading, knocks he over; drives on furiously; Dexter stops, recognises her and sends her home in his car. Hund, missing Dexter, turns back and reproaches him for delaying the appointment.
Dexter adopts Sylvia. Her materials brought over to the studio in his house. Hund calls on Bauer. Mrs. Dexter is there, posing nude and hides in the bedroom; Hund discovers her presence. She is dressed and sweeps out to find Hund. She knows Hund hates and envies her husband, and is confident of Hund's impotence. Hund has a very valuable contract for a new Post Office, and offers it to Bauer, who accepts it but knows his incompetence.
Dexter urges Sylvia to compete for the Post Office. She tries. Dexter, intensely nervous always carries a gun, even in his dressing gown, pulls it on seeing a curtain move from draught. Hund tries to bully Dexter to give the contract outright to Bauer. Dexter insists on a competition. Hund describes scene in studio. Dexter refuses to believe his wife guilty.
He retorts by exhibiting proofs which would ruin Hund politically. He shows noble generosity and will spare Hund provided he will run straight in future. Hund pretends penitence.
Hund goes to Bauer and tells him to have Dexter murdered. Two negro burglars are engaged to do this. This is arranged at a dance hall, whose ‘star’ is ‘Dago Flo’. She falls in love with Bauer. Attempts to sand-bag Dexter, who shoots and wounds one assailant.
Dexter shows Hund Sylvia's design; Bauer has done none. They decide to have it stolen. Dexter gives a party for Sylvia. The robbery planned for that night. Bauer is to kill Dexter and throw the blame on Sylvia.
The party. Sylvia suddenly drowsy. After the party all retire but nobody sleeps. Dexter reading in bed. Sylvia becomes somnambulic, gets a graving tool from her studio, and wanders into the corridors, apparently looking for a model. A loud scream. The servants rush out, find Sylvia dazed, think she screamed, lead her back to her room.
Mrs. Dexter has quarrelled with her husband and Bauer that night. She has secreted one of Sylvia's graving tools and goes with this to her husband's bedroom at the exact moment when Sylvia goes out of her room.
The burglars see Sylvia's exit (through the window), enter and steal model. Bauer sees them enter and climbs to Dexter's bedroom armed with one of his own graving tools. There are thus three people similarly armed close to Dexter's bedroom door at the same moment.
Dexter, unsuspicious of all this, consults his watch, makes some calculations, turns out his light. (He does not seem about to sleep, but to be waiting.)
Next morning Dexter's valet with chocolate finds Dexter's door ajar; amazed. He pushes door open, finds obstruction; behind it is Dexter's corpse Stabbed to the heart, in his left hand an undischarged pistol. Alarm. Doctor sends valet to send Wadsworth for police. Valet does not explain why they are wanted.
Wadsworth's car is wrecked. He is injured and lies dazed or unconscious in hospital. Police report accident. Doctor answers phone; asks them to send their best men.
Inquiry shows:—
1. Death due to graving tool. 2. One found in Sylvia's bedroom is blood-stained. 3. She has slight wound (she walked into a pillar during her somnambulism.) 4. Servants found her outside Dexter's door. She is arrested.
Later: Bauer offers Sylvia's lost Post Office, which is accepted. Mrs. Dexter now wants to marry him. He, no longer needing money, evades her. She is jealous, gets into his studio by a trick, with a pistol. Dago Flo is there. Violent quarrel. Mrs. Dexter strikes him and goes out.
Flo loving Bauer has helped him against cocaine. The scene with Mrs. Dexter prostrates him. He confesses to Flo that he killed Dexter, as Mrs. Dexter can prove. Flo insists on him giving himself up.
The Trial. Sylvia's guilt evident. Jury retire. Mrs. Dexter comes straight from Bauer, learns that there is no hope of acquittal.
Jury enter. Bauer rushes in and demands to be heard. Confesses the crime giving details. Mrs. Dexter, knowing him innocent, admired him; her love revives. Recalled, she corrects his account and confesses to herself having murdered her husband. Bauer has only been half believed; she is entirely so. To avoid arrest she tries to shoot herself, but fails.
Wadsworth Bryant rushes in. He has resumed his old appearance.
His Story. “Dexter was a hypocritical scoundrel, ruined my father. I swore to revenge and became his chauffeur to track and expose him. Just before evidence was complete Sylvia entered his house. I heard him boast that he would drug and violate her. I disguised myself, attended the party and saw him drug her. The opium made her somnambulic.
I stayed to watch his door and prevent the crime. Remembering that he went armed I took one of Sylvia's graving tools. I hid in a curtained alcove. After Bauer and Mrs. Dexter had gone, Dexter came out. I confronted him, declared myself and my intention. He threatened to shoot me to avoid exposure. I stabbed him before he could fire. I watched further details and was going to the police when I met accident.”
Epilogue. Hund, implicated with Dexter, in prison. Bauer, reformed, and married to Flo. Wadsworth and Sylvia happily married.
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