An Inspector Calls and Other Plays

by J. B. Priestley

GERALD: No. I’ll just go out – walk about – for a while, if you don’t mind. I’ll come back.

  INSPECTOR: All right, Mr Croft.

  SHEILA: But just in case you forget – or decide not to come back, Gerald, I think you’d better take this with you. [She hands him the ring.]

  GERALD: I see. Well, I was expecting this.

  SHEILA: I don’t dislike you as I did half an hour ago, Gerald. In fact, in some odd way, I rather respect you more than I’ve ever done before. I knew anyhow you were lying about those months last year when you hardly came near me. I knew there was something fishy about that time. And now at least you’ve been honest. And I believe what you told us about the way you helped her at first. Just out of pity. And it was my fault really that she was so desperate when you first met her. But this has made a difference. You and I aren’t the same people who sat down to dinner here. We’d have to start all over again, getting to know each other –

  BIRLING: Now, Sheila, I’m not defending him. But you must understand that a lot of young men –

  SHEILA: Don’t interfere, please, Father. Gerald knows what I mean, and you apparently don’t.

  GERALD: Yes, I know what you mean. But I’m coming back – if I may.

  SHEILA: All right.

  MRS BIRLING: Well, really, I don’t know. I think we’ve just about come to an end of this wretched business –

  GERALD: I don’t think so. Excuse me.

  [He goes out. They watch him go in silence. We hear the front door slam.]

  SHEILA [to INSPECTOR]: You know, you never showed him that photograph of her.

  INSPECTOR: No. It wasn’t necessary. And I thought it better not to.

  MRS BIRLING: You have a photograph of this girl?

  INSPECTOR: Yes. I think you’d better look at it.

  MRS BIRLING: I don’t see any particular reason why I should –

  INSPECTOR: Probably not. But you’d better look at it.

  MRS BIRLING: Very well.

  [He produces the photograph and she looks hard at it.]

  INSPECTOR [taking back the photograph]: You recognize her?

  MRS BIRLING: No. Why should I?

  INSPECTOR: Of course she might have changed lately, but I can’t believe she could have changed so much.

  MRS BIRLING: I don’t understand you, Inspector.

  INSPECTOR: You mean you don’t choose to do, Mrs Birling.

  MRS BIRLING [angrily]: I meant what I said.

  INSPECTOR: You’re not telling me the truth.

  MRS BIRLING: I beg your pardon!

  BIRLING [angrily, to INSPECTOR]: Look here, I’m not going to have this, Inspector. You’ll apologize at once.

  INSPECTOR: Apologize for what – doing my duty?

  BIRLING: No, for being so offensive about it. I’m a public man –

  INSPECTOR [massively]: Public men, Mr Birling, have responsibilities as well as privileges.

  BIRLING: Possibly. But you weren’t asked to come here to talk to me about my responsibilities.

  SHEILA: Let’s hope not. Though I’m beginning to wonder.

  MRS BIRLING: Does that mean anything, Sheila?

  SHEILA: It means that we’ve no excuse now for putting on airs and that if we’ve any sense we won’t try. Father threw this girl out because she asked for decent wages. I went and pushed her farther out, right into the street, just because I was angry and she was pretty. Gerald set her up as his mistress and then dropped her when it suited him. And now you’re pretending you don’t recognize her from that photograph. I admit I don’t know why you should, but I know jolly well you did in fact recognize her, from the way you looked. And if you’re not telling the truth, why should the Inspector apologize? And can’t you see, both of you, you’re making it worse? [She turns away.]

  [We hear the front door slam again.]

  BIRLING: That was the door again.

  MRS BIRLING: Gerald must have come back.

  INSPECTOR: Unless your son has just gone out.

  BIRLING: I’ll see. [He goes out quickly.]

  [INSPECTOR turns to MRS BIRLING.]

  INSPECTOR: Mrs Birling, you’re a member – a prominent member – of the Brumley Women’s Charity Organization, aren’t you?

  [MRS BIRLING does not reply.]

  SHEILA: Go on, Mother. You might as well admit it. [To INSPECTOR] Yes, she is. Why?

  INSPECTOR [calmly]: It’s an organization to which women in distress can appeal for help in various forms. Isn’t that so?

  MRS BIRLING [with dignity]: Yes. We’ve done a great deal of useful work in helping deserving cases.

  INSPECTOR: There was a meeting of the interviewing committee two weeks ago?

  MRS BIRLING: I dare say there was.

  INSPECTOR: You know very well there was, Mrs Birling. You were in the chair.

  MRS BIRLING: And if I was, what business is it of yours?

  INSPECTOR [severely]: Do you want me to tell you – in plain words?

  [Enter BIRLING, looking rather agitated.]

  BIRLING: That must have been Eric.

  MRS BIRLING [alarmed]: Have you been up to his room?

  BIRLING: Yes. And I called out on both landings. It must have been Eric we heard go out then.

  MRS BIRLING: Silly boy! Where can he have gone to?

  BIRLING: I can’t imagine. But he was in one of his excitable queer moods, and even though we don’t need him here –

  INSPECTOR [cutting in, sharply]: We do need him here. And if he’s not back soon, I shall have to go and find him.

  [BIRLING and MRS BIRLING exchange bewildered and rather frightened glances.]

  SHEILA: He’s probably just gone to cool off. He’ll be back soon.

  INSPECTOR [severely]: I hope so.

  MRS BIRLING: And why should you hope so?

  INSPECTOR: I’ll explain why when you’ve answered my questions, Mrs Birling.

  BIRLING: Is there any reason why my wife should answer questions from you, Inspector?

  INSPECTOR: Yes, a very good reason. You’ll remember that Mr Croft told us – quite truthfully, I believe – that he hadn’t spoken to or seen Eva Smith since last September. But Mrs Birling spoke to and saw her only two weeks ago.

  SHEILA [astonished]: Mother!

  BIRLING: Is this true?

  MRS BIRLING [after a pause]: Yes, quite true.

  INSPECTOR: She appealed to your organization for help?

  MRS BIRLING: Yes.

  INSPECTOR: Not as Eva Smith?

  MRS BIRLING: No. Nor as Daisy Renton.

  INSPECTOR: As what then?

  MRS BIRLING:: First, she called herself Mrs Birling –

  BIRLING [astounded]: Mrs Birling !

  MRS BIRLING: Yes. I think it was simply a piece of gross impertinence – quite deliberate – and naturally that was one of the things that prejudiced me against her case.

  BIRLING: And I should think so! Damned impudence!

  INSPECTOR: You admit being prejudiced against her case?

  MRS BIRLING: Yes.

  SHEILA: Mother, she’s just died a horrible death – don’t forget.

  MRS BIRLING: I’m very sorry. But I think she had only herself to blame.

  INSPECTOR: Was it owing to your influence, as the most prominent member of the committee, that help was refused the girl?

  MRS BIRLING: Possibly.

  INSPECTOR: Was it or was it not your influence?

  MRS BIRLING [stung]: Yes, it was. I didn’t like her manner. She’d impertinently made use of our name, though she pretended afterwards it just happened to be the first she thought of. She had to admit, after I began questioning her, that she had no claim to the name, that she wasn’t married, and that the story she told at first – about a husband who’d deserted her – was quite false. It didn’t take me long to get the truth – or some of the truth – out of her.

  INSPECTOR: Why did she want help?

  MRS BIRLING: You know very well why she wanted help.

  INSPECTOR: No, I don’t. I k
now why she needed help. But as I wasn’t there, I don’t know what she asked from your committee.

  MRS BIRLING: I don’t think we need discuss it.

  INSPECTOR: You have no hope of not discussing it, Mrs Birling.

  MRS BIRLING: If you think you can bring any pressure to bear upon me, Inspector, you’re quite mistaken. Unlike the other three, I did nothing I’m ashamed of or that won’t bear investigation. The girl asked for assistance. We are asked to look carefully into the claims made upon us. I wasn’t satisfied with this girl’s claim – she seemed to me to be not a good case – and so I used my influence to have it refused. And in spite of what’s happened to the girl since, I consider I did my duty. So if I prefer not to discuss it any farther, you have no power to make me change my mind.

  INSPECTOR: Yes I have.

  MRS BIRLING: No you haven’t. Simply because I’ve done nothing wrong – and you know it.

  INSPECTOR [very deliberately]: I think you did something terribly wrong – and that you’re going to spend the rest of your life regretting it. I wish you’d been with me tonight in the Infirmary. You’d have seen –

  SHEILA [bursting in]: No, no, please! Not that again. I’ve imagined it enough already.

  INSPECTOR [very deliberately]: Then the next time you imagine it, just remember that this girl was going to have a child.

  SHEILA [horrified]: No! Oh – horrible – horrible! How could she have wanted to kill herself?

  INSPECTOR: Because she’d been turned out and turned down too many times. This was the end.

  SHEILA: Mother, you must have known.

  INSPECTOR: It was because she was going to have a child that she went for assistance to your mother’s committee.

  BIRLING: Look here, this wasn’t Gerald Croft –

  INSPECTOR [cutting in, sharply]: No, no. Nothing to do with him.

  SHEILA: Thank goodness for that! Though I don’t know why I should care now.

  INSPECTOR [to MRS BIRLING]: And you’ve nothing further to tell me, eh?

  MRS BIRLING: I’ll tell you what I told her. Go and look for the father of the child. It’s his responsibility.

  INSPECTOR: That doesn’t make it any the less yours. She came to you for help, at a time when no woman could have needed it more. And you not only refused it yourself but saw to it that the others refused it too. She was here alone, friendless, almost penniless, desperate. She needed not only money, but advice, sympathy, friendliness. You’ve had children. You must have known what she was feeling. And you slammed the door in her face.

  SHEILA [with feeling]: Mother, I think it was cruel and vile.

  BIRLING [dubiously]: I must say, Sybil, that when this comes out at the inquest, it isn’t going to do us much good. The Press might easily take it up –

  MRS BIRLING [agitated now]: Oh, stop it, both of you. And please remember before you start accusing me of anything again that it wasn’t I who had her turned out of her employment – which probably began it all. [Turning to INSPECTOR] In the circumstances I think I was justified. The girl had begun by telling us a pack of lies. Afterwards, when I got at the truth, I discovered that she knew who the father was, she was quite certain about that, and so I told her it was her business to make him responsible. If he refused to marry her – and in my opinion he ought to be compelled to – then he must at least support her.

  INSPECTOR: And what did she reply to that?

  MRS BIRLING: Oh – a lot of silly nonsense!

  INSPECTOR: What was it?

  MRS BIRLING: Whatever it was, I know it made me finally lose all patience with her. She was giving herself ridiculous airs. She was claiming elaborate fine feelings and scruples that were simply absurd in a girl in her position.

  INSPECTOR [very sternly]: Her position now is that she lies with a burnt-out inside on a slab. [As BIRLING tries to protest, turns on him.] Don’t stammer and yammer at me again, man. I’m losing all patience with you people. What did she say?

  MRS BIRLING [rather cowed]: She said that the father was only a youngster – silly and wild and drinking too much. There couldn’t be any question of marrying him – it would be wrong for them both. He had given her money but she didn’t want to take any more money from him.

  INSPECTOR: Why didn’t she want to take any more money from him?

  MRS BIRLING: All a lot of nonsense – I didn’t believe a word of it.

  INSPECTOR: I’m not asking you if you believed it. I want to know what she said. Why didn’t she want to take any more money from this boy?

  MRS BIRLING: Oh – she had some fancy reason. As if a girl of that sort would ever refuse money!

  INSPECTOR [sternly]: I warn you, you’re making it worse for yourself. What reason did she give for not taking any more money?

  MRS BIRLING: Her story was – that he’d said something one night, when he was drunk, that gave her the idea that it wasn’t his money.

  INSPECTOR: Where had he got it from then?

  MRS BIRLING: He’d stolen it.

  INSPECTOR: So she’d come to you for assistance because she didn’t want to take stolen money?

  MRS BIRLING: That’s the story she finally told, after I’d refused to believe her original story – that she was a married woman who’d been deserted by her husband. I didn’t see any reason to believe that one story should be any truer than the other. Therefore, you’re quite wrong to suppose I shall regret what I did.

  INSPECTOR: But if her story was true, if this boy had been giving her stolen money, then she came to you for help because she wanted to keep this youngster out of any more trouble – isn’t that so?

  MRS BIRLING: Possibly. But it sounded ridiculous to me. So I was perfectly justified in advising my committee not to allow her claim for assistance.

  INSPECTOR: You’re not even sorry now, when you know what happened to the girl?

  MRS BIRLING: I’m sorry she should have come to such a horrible end. But I accept no blame for it at all.

  INSPECTOR: Who is to blame then?

  MRS BIRLING: First, the girl herself.

  SHEILA [bitterly]: For letting Father and me have her chucked out of her jobs!

  MRS BIRLING: Secondly, I blame the young man who was the father of the child she was going to have. If, as she said, he didn’t belong to her class, and was some drunken young idler, then that’s all the more reason why he shouldn’t escape. He should be made an example of. If the girl’s death is due to anybody, then it’s due to him.

  INSPECTOR: And if her story is true – that he was stealing money –

  MRS BIRLING [rather agitated now]: There’s no point in assuming that –

  INSPECTOR: But suppose we do, what then?

  MRS BIRLING: Then he’d be entirely responsible – because the girl wouldn’t have come to us, and have been refused assistance, if it hadn’t been for him –

  INSPECTOR: So he’s the chief culprit anyhow.

  MRS BIRLING:: Certainly. And he ought to be dealt with very severely –

  SHEILA [with sudden alarm]: Mother – stop – stop!

  BIRLING: Be quiet, Sheila!

  SHEILA: But don’t you see –

  MRS BIRLING [severely]: You’re behaving like an hysterical child tonight. [SHEILA begins crying quietly. MRS BIRLING turns to INSPECTOR.] And if you’d take some steps to find this young man and then make sure that he’s compelled to confess in public his responsibility – instead of staying here asking quite unnecessary questions – then you really would be doing your duty.

  INSPECTOR [grimly]: Don’t worry, Mrs Birling. I shall do my duty. [He looks at his watch.]

  MRS BIRLING [triumphantly]: I’m glad to hear it.

  INSPECTOR: No hushing up, eh? Make an example of the young man, eh? Public confession of responsibility – um?

  MRS BIRLING: Certainly. I consider it your duty. And now no doubt you’d like to say good night.

  INSPECTOR: Not yet. I’m waiting.

  MRS BIRLING: Waiting for what?

  INSPECTOR: To do my
duty.

  SHEILA [distressed]: Now, Mother – don’t you see?

  MRS BIRLING [understanding now]: But surely … I mean … it’s ridiculous … [She stops, and exchanges a frightened glance with her husband.]

  BIRLING [terrified now]: Look, Inspector, you’re not trying to tell us that – that my boy – is mixed up in this –?

  INSPECTOR [sternly]: If he is, then we know what to do, don’t we? Mrs Birling has just told us.

  BIRLING [thunderstruck]: My God! But – look here –

  MRS BIRLING [agitated]: I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it …

  SHEILA: Mother – I begged you and begged you to stop –

  [INSPECTOR holds up a hand. We hear the front door. They wait, looking towards door. ERIC enters, looking extremely pale and distressed. He meets their inquiring stares. Curtain falls quickly.]

  END OF ACT TWO

  Act Three

  Exactly as at the end of Act Two. ERIC is standing just inside the room and the others are staring at him.

  ERIC: You know, don’t you?

  INSPECTOR [as before]: Yes, we know.

  [ERIC shuts the door and comes farther in.]

  MRS BIRLING [distressed]: Eric, I can’t believe it. There must be some mistake. You don’t know what we’ve been saying.

  SHEILA: It’s a good job for him he doesn’t, isn’t it?

  ERIC: Why?

  SHEILA: Because Mother’s been busy blaming everything on the young man who got this girl into trouble, and saying he shouldn’t escape and should be made an example of –

  BIRLING: That’s enough, Sheila.

  ERIC [bitterly]: You haven’t made it any easier for me, have you, Mother?

  MRS BIRLING: But I didn’t know it was you – I never dreamt. Besides, you’re not that type – you don’t get drunk –

  SHEILA: Of course he does. I told you he did.

  ERIC: You told her. Why, you little sneak!

  SHEILA: No, that’s not fair, Eric. I could have told her months ago, but of course I didn’t. I only told her tonight because I knew everything was coming out – it was simply bound to come out tonight – so I thought she might as well know in advance. Don’t forget – I’ve already been through it.

  MRS BIRLING: Sheila, I simply don’t understand your attitude.

  BIRLING: Neither do I. If you’d had any sense of loyalty –