Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
Mabel : [Utterly surprised] Ronny! Do they want me in Court?
Dancy : No.
Mabel : What is it, then? Why are you back?
Dancy : Spun.
Mabel : [Blank] Spun? What do you mean? What’s spun?
Dancy : The case. They’ve found out through those notes.
Mabel : Oh! [Staring at his face.] Who?
(i) Where are Mabel and Dancy at this time? What was Mabel doing just before this conversation?
(ii) Why did Mabel say, “Do they want me in court?” Explain the meaning of spun in the extract?
(iii) What ‘notes’ is Dancy talking about now? How does Mabel react immediately after the extract?
(iv) Dancy leaves a note for his best friend towards the end of the play. What is the name of his best friend? What is written in the note?
(v) What does Dancy do at the end? Why does he do that? What is your opinion of Mabel and Dancy?
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(i) Mabel and Dancy are in the sitting room of their flat. Mabel was sitting on the sofa with a newspaper in her lap. She had a bottle of smelling salts in her hand. Two or three newspapers were dumped on the arm of the sofa. She had been glancing through the newspapers one after the other as if she couldn’t stay away from them. She seems to be lost in her own thoughts, staring blankly at the wall from time to time.
(ii)
- When Dancy comes back earlier than expected, she thinks that may be she was wanted in the Court as a witness. Levis had filed a case and the court proceedings were going on.
- Spun means finished. Dancy means the case is over.
(iii)
- Dancy is talking about the money that was stolen from Levis’s room in Meldon Court. The Inspector had the numbers of the notes of large denominations published in the newspapers. Gilman, a grocer, had discovered that Ricardo, a customer of his, had paid him in one of those stolen notes. He had reported the matter to Mr.Twisden. On questioning, Ricardo had told Mr.Twisden that the money had been given to him by Dancy.
- Mabel is shocked and is unable to take in the news. She buries her face in the pillows of the sofa and cries out “Don’t Ronny! Oh! No! Don’t!” She is horrified.
(iv)
- Major Colford.
- Suicide was the only decent thing he could do. It would be really unfair to Mabel if he continued to live.Hecalled his death another jump.Hespoke of a pistol-keeping faith. Heasked Colford to look after Mabel.
(v)
- He commits suicide. He shoots himself with his pistol in his bedroom.
- He could not face the humiliation of being arrested as a thief and bringing shame to the family.
- Personal response