An Inspector Calls and Other Plays

by J. B. Priestley

  BIRLING: Thanks. But it’s a bit too early for that. So don’t say anything. But I’ve had a hint or two. You see, I was Lord Mayor here two years ago when Royalty visited us. And I’ve always been regarded as a sound useful party man. So – well – I gather there’s a very good chance of a knighthood – so long as we behave ourselves, don’t get into the police court or start a scandal – eh?

  [Laughs complacently.]

  GERALD [laughs]: You seem to be a nice well-behaved family –

  BIRLING: We think we are –

  GERALD: So if that’s the only obstacle, sir, I think you might as well accept my congratulations now.

  BIRLING: No, no, I couldn’t do that. And don’t say anything yet.

  GERALD: Not even to my mother? I know she’d be delighted.

  BIRLING: Well, when she comes back, you might drop a hint to her. And you can promise her that we’ll try to keep out of trouble during the next few months.

  [They both laugh. ERIC enters.]

  ERIC: What’s the joke? Started telling stories?

  BIRLING: No. Want another glass of port?

  ERIC [sitting down]: Yes, please. [Takes decanter and helps himself.] Mother says we mustn’t stay too long. But I don’t think it matters. I left ’em talking about clothes again. You’d think a girl never had any clothes before she gets married. Women are potty about ’em.

  BIRLING: Yes, but you’ve got to remember, my boy, that clothes mean something quite different to a woman. Not just something to wear – and not only something to make ’em look prettier – but – well, a sort of sign or token of their self-respect.

  GERALD: That’s true.

  ERIC [eagerly]: Yes, I remember – [but he checks himself.]

  BIRLING: Well, what do you remember?

  ERIC [confused]: Nothing.

  BIRLING: Nothing?

  GERALD [amused]: Sounds a bit fishy to me.

  BIRLING [taking it in same manner]: Yes, you don’t know what some of these boys get up to nowadays. More money to spend and time to spare than I had when I was Eric’s age. They worked us hard in those days and kept us short of cash. Though even then – we broke out and had a bit of fun sometimes.

  GERALD: I’ll bet you did.

  BIRLING [solemnly]: But this is the point. I don’t want to lecture you two young fellows again. But what so many of you don’t seem to understand now, when things are so much easier, is that a man has to make his own way – has to look after himself – and his family too, of course, when he has one – and so long as he does that he won’t come to much harm. But the way some of these cranks talk and write now, you’d think everybody has to look after everybody else, as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive – community and all that nonsense. But take my word for it, you youngsters – and I’ve learnt in the good hard school of experience – that a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own – and –

  [We hear the sharp ring of a front door bell. BIRLING stops to listen.]

  ERIC: Somebody at the front door.

  BIRLING: Edna’ll answer it. Well, have another glass of port, Gerald – and then we’ll join the ladies. That’ll stop me giving you good advice.

  ERIC: Yes, you’ve piled it on a bit tonight, Father.

  BIRLING: Special occasion. And feeling contented, for once, I wanted you to have the benefit of my experience.

  [EDNA enters.]

  EDNA: Please, sir, an inspector’s called.

  BIRLING: An inspector? What kind of inspector?

  EDNA: A police inspector. He says his name’s Inspector Goole.

  BIRLING: Don’t know him. Does he want to see me?

  EDNA: Yes, sir. He says it’s important.

  BIRLING: All right, Edna. Show him in here. Give us some more light.

  [EDNA does, then goes out.]

  I’m still on the Bench. It may be something about a warrant.

  GERALD [lightly]: Sure to be. Unless Eric’s been up to something. [Nodding confidentially to BIRLING] And that would be awkward, wouldn’t it?

  BIRLING [humorously]: Very.

  ERIC [who is uneasy, sharply]: Here, what do you mean?

  GERALD [lightly]: Only something we were talking about when you were out. A joke really.

  ERIC [still uneasy]: Well, I don’t think it’s very funny.

  BIRLING [sharply, staring at him]: What’s the matter with you?

  ERIC [defiantly]: Nothing.

  EDNA [opening door, and announcing]: Inspector Goole.

  [The INSPECTOR enters, and EDNA goes, closing door after her. The INSPECTOR need not be a big man but he creates at once an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness. He is a man in his fifties, dressed in a plain darkish suit of the period. He speaks carefully, weightily, and has a disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person he addresses before actually speaking.]

  INSPECTOR: Mr Birling?

  BIRLING: Yes. Sit down, Inspector.

  INSPECTOR [sitting]: Thank you, sir.

  BIRLING: Have a glass of port – or a little whisky?

  INSPECTOR: No, thank you, Mr Birling. I’m on duty.

  BIRLING: You’re new, aren’t you?

  INSPECTOR: Yes, sir. Only recently transferred.

  BIRLING: I thought you must be. I was an alderman for years – and Lord Mayor two years ago – and I’m still on the Bench – so I know the Brumley police officers pretty well – and I thought I’d never seen you before.

  INSPECTOR: Quite so.

  BIRLING: Well, what can I do for you? Some trouble about a warrant?

  INSPECTOR: No, Mr Birling.

  BIRLING [after a pause, with a touch of impatience]: Well, what is it then?

  INSPECTOR: I’d like some information, if you don’t mind, Mr Birling. Two hours ago a young woman died in the Infirmary. She’d been taken there this afternoon because she’d swallowed a lot of strong disinfectant. Burnt her inside out, of course.

  ERIC [involuntarily]: My God!

  INSPECTOR: Yes, she was in great agony. They did everything they could for her at the Infirmary, but she died. Suicide of course.

  BIRLING [rather impatiently]: Yes, yes. Horrible business. But I don’t understand why you should come here, Inspector –

  INSPECTOR [cutting through, massively]: I’ve been round to the room she had, and she’d left a letter there and a sort of diary. Like a lot of these young women who get into various kinds of trouble, she’d used more than one name. But her original name – her real name – was Eva Smith.

  BIRLING [thoughtfully]: Eva Smith?

  INSPECTOR: Do you remember her, Mr Birling?

  BIRLING [slowly]: No – I seem to remember hearing that name – Eva Smith – somewhere. But it doesn’t convey anything to me. And I don’t see where I come into this.

  INSPECTOR: She was employed in your works at one time.

  BIRLING: Oh – that’s it, is it? Well, we’ve several hundred young women there, y’know, and they keep changing.

  INSPECTOR: This young woman, Eva Smith, was a bit out of the ordinary. I found a photograph of her in her lodgings. Perhaps you’d remember her from that.

  [INSPECTOR takes a photograph, about postcard size, out of his pocket and goes to BIRLING. Both GERALD and ERIC rise to have a look at the photograph, but the INSPECTOR interposes himself between them and the photograph. They are surprised and rather annoyed. BIRLING stares hard, and with recognition, at the photograph, which the INSPECTOR then replaces in his pocket.]

  GERALD [showing annoyance]: Any particular reason why I shouldn’t see this girl’s photograph, Inspector?

  INSPECTOR [coolly, looking hard at him]: There might be.

  ERIC: And the same applies to me, I suppose?

  INSPECTOR: Yes.

  GERALD: I can’t imagine what it could be.

  ERIC: Neither can I.

  BIRLING: And I must say, I agree with them, Inspector.

  INSPECTOR: It’s the way I like to go to work. One person and on
e line of inquiry at a time. Otherwise, there’s a muddle.

  BIRLING: I see. Sensible really. [Moves restlessly, then turns.] You’ve had enough of that port, Eric.

  [The INSPECTOR is watching BIRLING and now BIRLING notices him.]

  INSPECTOR: I think you remember Eva Smith now, don’t you, Mr Birling?

  BIRLING: Yes, I do. She was one of my employees and then I discharged her.

  ERIC: Is that why she committed suicide? When was this, Father?

  BIRLING: Just keep quiet, Eric, and don’t get excited. This girl left us nearly two years ago. Let me see – it must have been in the early autumn of nineteen-ten.

  INSPECTOR: Yes. End of September, nineteen-ten.

  BIRLING: That’s right.

  GERALD: Look here, sir. Wouldn’t you rather I was out of this?

  BIRLING: I don’t mind your being here, Gerald. And I’m sure you’ve no objection, have you, Inspector? Perhaps I ought to explain first that this is Mr Gerald Croft – the son of Sir George Croft – you know, Crofts Limited.

  INSPECTOR: Mr Gerald Croft, eh?

  BIRLING: Yes. Incidentally we’ve been modestly celebrating his engagement to my daughter, Sheila.

  INSPECTOR: I see. Mr Croft is going to marry Miss Sheila Birling?

  GERALD [smiling]: I hope so.

  INSPECTOR [gravely]: Then I’d prefer you to stay.

  GERALD [surprised]: Oh – all right.

  BIRLING [somewhat impatiently]: Look – there’s nothing mysterious – or scandalous – about this business – at least not so far as I’m concerned. It’s a perfectly straightforward case, and as it happened more than eighteen months ago – nearly two years ago – obviously it has nothing whatever to do with the wretched girl’s suicide. Eh, Inspector?

  INSPECTOR: No, sir. I can’t agree with you there.

  BIRLING: Why not?

  INSPECTOR: Because what happened to her then may have determined what happened to her afterwards, and what happened to her afterwards may have driven her to suicide. A chain of events.

  BIRLING: Oh well – put like that, there’s something in what you say. Still, I can’t accept any responsibility. If we were all responsible for everything that happened to everybody we’d had anything to do with, it would be very awkward, wouldn’t it?

  INSPECTOR: Very awkward.

  BIRLING: We’d all be in an impossible position, wouldn’t we?

  ERIC: By Jove, yes. And as you were saying, Dad, a man has to look after himself –

  BIRLING: Yes, well, we needn’t go into all that.

  INSPECTOR: Go into what?

  BIRLING: Oh – just before you came – I’d been giving these young men a little good advice. Now – about this girl, Eva Smith. I remember her quite well now. She was a lively good-looking girl – country-bred, I fancy – and she’d been working in one of our machine shops for over a year. A good worker too. In fact, the foreman there told me he was ready to promote her into what we call a leading operator – head of a small group of girls. But after they came back from their holidays that August, they were all rather restless, and they suddenly decided to ask for more money. They were averaging about twenty-two and six, which was neither more nor less than is paid generally in our industry. They wanted the rates raised so that they could average about twenty-five shillings a week. I refused, of course.

  INSPECTOR: Why?

  BIRLING [surprised]: Did you say ‘Why?’?

  INSPECTOR: Yes. Why did you refuse?

  BIRLING: Well, Inspector, I don’t see that it’s any concern of yours how I choose to run my business. Is it now?

  INSPECTOR: It might be, you know.

  BIRLING: I don’t like the tone.

  INSPECTOR: I’m sorry. But you asked me a question.

  BIRLING: And you asked me a question before that, a quite unnecessary question too.

  INSPECTOR: It’s my duty to ask questions.

  BIRLING: Well, it’s my duty to keep labour costs down, and if I’d agreed to this demand for a new rate we’d have added about twelve per cent to our labour costs. Does that satisfy you? So I refused. Said I couldn’t consider it. We were paying the usual rates and if they didn’t like those rates, they could go and work somewhere else. It’s a free country, I told them.

  ERIC: It isn’t if you can’t go and work somewhere else.

  INSPECTOR: Quite so.

  BIRLING [to ERIC]: Look – just you keep out of this. You hadn’t even started in the works when this happened. So they went on strike. That didn’t last long, of course.

  GERALD: Not if it was just after the holidays. They’d be all broke – if I know them.

  BIRLING: Right, Gerald. They mostly were. And so was the strike, after a week or two. Pitiful affair. Well, we let them all come back – at the old rates – except the four or five ringleaders, who’d started the trouble. I went down myself and told them to clear out. And this girl, Eva Smith, was one of them. She’d had a lot to say – far too much – so she had to go.

  GERALD: You couldn’t have done anything else.

  ERIC: He could. He could have kept her on instead of throwing her out. I call it tough luck.

  BIRLING: Rubbish! If you don’t come down sharply on some of these people, they’d soon be asking for the earth.

  GERALD: I should say so!

  INSPECTOR: They might. But after all it’s better to ask for the earth than to take it.

  BIRLING [staring at the INSPECTOR]: What did you say your name was, Inspector?

  INSPECTOR: Goole. G – double O – L – E.

  BIRLING: How do you get on with our Chief Constable, Colonel Roberts?

  INSPECTOR: I don’t see much of him.

  BIRLING: Perhaps I ought to warn you that he’s an old friend of mine, and that I see him fairly frequently. We play golf together sometimes up at the West Brumley.

  INSPECTOR [dryly]: I don’t play golf.

  BIRLING: I didn’t suppose you did.

  ERIC [bursting out]: Well, I think it’s a dam’ shame.

  INSPECTOR: No, I’ve never wanted to play.

  ERIC: No. I mean about this girl – Eva Smith. Why shouldn’t they try for higher wages? We try for the highest possible prices. And I don’t see why she should have been sacked just because she’d a bit more spirit than the others. You said yourself she was a good worker. I’d have let her stay.

  BIRLING [rather angrily]: Unless you brighten your ideas, you’ll never be in a position to let anybody stay or to tell anybody to go. It’s about time you learnt to face a few responsibilities. That’s something this public-school-and-Varsity life you’ve had doesn’t seem to teach you.

  ERIC [sulkily]: Well, we don’t need to tell the Inspector all about that, do we?

  BIRLING: I don’t see we need to tell the Inspector anything more. In fact, there’s nothing I can tell him. I told the girl to clear out, and she went. That’s the last I heard of her. Have you any idea what happened to her after that? Get into trouble? Go on the streets?

  INSPECTOR [rather slowly]: No, she didn’t exactly go on the streets.

  [SHEILA has now entered.]

  SHEILA [gaily]: What’s this about streets? [Noticing the INSPECTOR.] Oh – sorry. I didn’t know. Mummy sent me in to ask you why you didn’t come along to the drawing-room.

  BIRLING: We shall be along in a minute now. Just finishing.

  INSPECTOR: I’m afraid not.

  BIRLING [abruptly]: There’s nothing else, y’know. I’ve just told you that.

  SHEILA: What’s all this about?

  BIRLING: Nothing to do with you, Sheila. Run along.

  INSPECTOR: No, wait a minute, Miss Birling.

  BIRLING [angrily]: Look here, Inspector, I consider this uncalled-for and officious. I’ve half a mind to report you. I’ve told you all I know – and it doesn’t seem to me very important – and now there isn’t the slightest reason why my daughter should be dragged into this unpleasant business.

  SHEILA [coming farther in]: What business? What�
�s happening?

  INSPECTOR [impressively]: I’m a police inspector, Miss Birling. This afternoon a young woman drank some disinfectant, and died, after several hours of agony, tonight in the Infirmary.

  SHEILA: Oh – how horrible! Was it an accident?

  INSPECTOR: No. She wanted to end her life. She felt she couldn’t go on any longer.

  BIRLING: Well, don’t tell me that’s because I discharged her from my employment nearly two years ago.

  ERIC: That might have started it.

  SHEILA: Did you, Dad?

  BIRLING: Yes. The girl had been causing trouble in the works. I was quite justified.

  GERALD: Yes, I think you were. I know we’d have done the same thing. Don’t look like that, Sheila.

  SHEILA [rather distressed]: Sorry! It’s just that I can’t help thinking about this girl – destroying herself so horribly – and I’ve been so happy tonight. Oh I wish you hadn’t told me. What was she like? Quite young?

  INSPECTOR: Yes. Twenty-four.

  SHEILA: Pretty?

  INSPECTOR: She wasn’t pretty when I saw her today, but she had been pretty – very pretty.

  BIRLING: That’s enough of that.

  GERALD: And I don’t really see that this inquiry gets you anywhere, Inspector. It’s what happened to her since she left Mr Birling’s works that is important.

  BIRLING: Obviously. I suggested that some time ago.

  GERALD: And we can’t help you there because we don’t know.

  INSPECTOR [slowly]: Are you sure you don’t know? [He looks at GERALD, then at ERIC, then at SHEILA.]

  BIRLING: And are you suggesting now that one of them knows something about this girl?

  INSPECTOR: Yes.

  BIRLING: You didn’t come here just to see me then?

  INSPECTOR: No.

  [The other four exchange bewildered and perturbed glances.]

  BIRLING [with marked change of tone]: Well, of course, if I’d known that earlier, I wouldn’t have called you officious and talked about reporting you. You understand that, don’t you, Inspector? I thought that – for some reason best known to yourself – you were making the most of this tiny bit of information I could give you. I’m sorry. This makes a difference. You sure of your facts?

  INSPECTOR: Some of them – yes.

  BIRLING: I can’t think they can be of any great consequence.