Wrington Drama Club ARCHIVE Lord Arthur Savile's Crime page 7

... next morning Baines can only report to Lady M. of Lord A's disappearance, apparently to foreign parts, and Lady M. can only threaten dire consequences if he doesn't appear at the rehearsal ...

... whereupon Lord A's sprightly arrival seems to confound all gloomy thoughts of further delay ...

... especially since he can proudly announce his pre-nuptial task is accomplished with Podgers' demise ..

... their unconfined joy is short-lived by a report in the paper of Podgers' suicide not murder... prompting Her W. to offer the alternative of, this time, a really big explosion - indeed a bomb ...

... Herr W. has seen Lady W. and Lady B. arriving and will plant his bomb once they are in. Everyone else is advised to leave ...

... Lord A. invites the Ladies to stay a short while ...

... and as they chat, Herr W. makes his stealthy entrance to plant the bomb under the table ...

... he hisses a warning to Lord A. as the bomb smokes ... which draws Lady B's attention ...

... and the penny finally drops even for Lord A. who summons Baines to dispose of it ... which he finally

does - in the asparagus plot of the kitchen garden .. and the oblivious aunts depart for church ... and Baines prepares his master for his momentous occasion ...

... the fastidious peer makes an ex gratia payment for the bomb to Herr W. ... who informs Baines

he has replaced it in the ladies' carriage ...

... despite his haste Baines is just too late ...

... with the result, as Nellie tearfully describes, that Lord A. having thrown the bomb into - and destroyed - a horse-trough, has been arrested by the constabulary and hauled away ... ... leaving Baines to place the usual announcement in The Times that "the wedding of Lord Arthur Savile has yet again been postponed".