Chapter 10 of 30 · 3'01"
Clifford sits handcuffed while Sidney hunts for the key and questions how he got their unlisted number. The polite talk hides suspicion: "I don't remember notifying old Southampton College." A missing key becomes an excuse to test whether Clifford's story holds up.
❝ Monologue · 8 lines Clifford Explains the Phone Call
At the Bruhl house, Clifford Anderson is handcuffed and cannot find the key. He explains that a friend, Marietta Klenofski, may call soon to arrange his train home. Sidney Bruhl grows suspicious about how Clifford got their unlisted number, while Myra panics — until the key turns up and everyone laughs in relief.
This looks like a comic mishap — a guest locked into handcuffs with the key missing — but the talk around it is a test. Sidney keeps pressing Clifford about the unlisted number, and Clifford's claim that he got it from Mrs. Beecham leaves a gap Sidney pokes at: "How strange and how untypical of me." The handcuffs put Clifford physically at the Bruhls' mercy while the questions put his honesty on trial. When the key finally rattles, the relief is real, yet Sidney immediately turns the moment into a joke about the mace and a Vincent Price. Under the laughter, he is already measuring the young man in front of him.
A1–C2 is the CEFR scale. Cards above the level you pick fade, and playback will not auto-pause on them.
“You can't write a play like that and not have a mind that envisions possibilities.”
It links imagination to suspicion, giving the room a graceful way out of its fear.
Neutral
“There's a lesson in there somewhere, isn't there?”
A soft tag question turns a tense moment into a shared joke without blaming anyone.
Neutral
“I mean, one two-hour walk a day is just about enough for me.”
A plain tally of walking hours makes a complaint sound reasonable and even funny.
Informal
“I was going to take that mace and do a Vincent Price, didn't you?”
Turning near-panic into a horror-movie joke lets everyone breathe again.
Informal
“What's your excuse, O loyal and loving wife?”
A mock-heroic address turns a joke back on the wife who doubted him.
literary
I forgot to mention that I should be getting a phone call any minute now. There's a girl that's coming to see me at 8:30. It's about what time it is now, isn't it? You see, I couldn't reach her before I took off... So I just left her a note in the hall mirror... Telling her where I am and giving her this number. So she can call and find out what train I'll be taking back... So she can pick me up at the station.
Up next · 11the envy ofThe scene: Sidney Kills CliffordClifford says he got their unlisted number from Mrs. Beecham at the university, but Sidney does not remember giving the school the new number. That small gap makes Clifford's smooth story sound rehearsed.
A friend Clifford expects to call. She has a key to his place and will read the note he left, then call the Bruhls' number so he can tell her which train to meet.
Watching a guest trapped in handcuffs while the key cannot be found is more than she can take. She says her heart won't take it, and Sidney asks whether she has taken her pill.
Vincent Price was a famous horror-film actor, so to do a Vincent Price is to imitate his sinister, theatrical menace. Sidney uses it to joke that everyone expected him to attack with a mace.
After the panic settles, he notes that the whole scare taught them something about fear and suspicion — that even people close to you imagine the worst. He says it lightly, but it lands on Myra.
