The Third Secret (1964) - full transcript
A prominent London Psychologist seems to have taken his own life, causing stunned disbelief amongst his colleagues and patients. His teenage daughter refuses to believe it was suicide as this would go against all of the principles her father stood for, therefore she is convinced it was murder. She enlists the help of a former patient to try to get to the truth. The truth, however, turns out to be both surprising and disturbing.
- Mrs Bales.
- Dr Whitset.
Dr Whitset, whatever's happened?
I'll call...
Oh, my God.
Oh, help me.
Help me, somebody, please.
Help, please!
Don't.
No-one else.
Come closer, please.
No strength.
How strange to lose it.
Listen, please.
I've bungled it.
Tell them I..., I...
I've messed it up.
- Nobody to blame but me.
- No, no, Doctor.
Not you.
Never you, Doctor.
Yes, me.
Nobody to blame.
Doctor, please.
Please, I...
Tell them to look after...
Sir Frederick?
Sir Frederick, are you all right?
I've never felt better in my life.
Why?
Dr Gillen, why should he do it?
Why should he do something that
contradicts everything he stood for?
Without him, there wouldn't even be
a British Analytical Institute.
And what about his patients?
How lost they must feel.
Would you read that
back please, Miss Tanner?
"Therefore, gentlemen,
it is imperative...
"imperative..."
I wonder, Mr Morgan,
would you excuse me for a moment?
Anything I...
I'm sorry, Dr Whitset.
I'm so sorry.
£2,000 for a crayon drawing?
Really, Mr Price-Gorham.
But I don't think you
quite understand, Mrs Pelton.
I don't care if it is a Delacroix.
It's a crayon drawing,
and it's for the hall bathroom.
Oh, surely, you're not going to put
a Delacroix in the, er...
in a bathroom?
Mr Price-Gorham, you've been making
a fortune out of us for the past ten years.
I've no objection.
You have nice things. You're convenient.
I've even bought some of your own work,
so don't let's have a nasty scene.
Send it around.
Oh, I like that frame. Don't change it.
- A Delacroix in... in the bathroom?
- Exactly.
So, Doctor.
So, as we mark the third anniversary
of this American experiment
of a so-called Peace Corps,
shall we acknowledge it
only as a noble gesture,
merely a tease
to the rest of the world,
indicating that the United States has
some fleeting moments of conscience?
Or will it snowball,
as many symbolic gestures do,
and become the pioneer of a massive
re-evaluation of man's obligation to man?
This is Alex Stedman
for The American Page.
Thank you and good night.
Hold it, studio. Hold it.
That's it, Mr Stedman.
Could you hold on for a video check?
Marvellous, Alex. Absolutely marvellous.
This is gonna be a great show.
Do you think they're
really interested?
Interested? They eat it up.
Of course it's gotta have the sour side.
They do like it a bit nasty.
You do it beautifully
and they believe you, Alex.
An American reporting on his own kind.
You mean turning on his own kind.
Why so testy tonight?
Don't you like being able to do a show
about something good that's happening?
Are you taking this show seriously?
The whole world is unravelling.
And we're trying to tell the British public
that their American cousins
have come up with a Boy Scout movement
to stop space-age delinquents.
You know what, Alex?
Stay gloomy.
- It's money in the bank.
- Everything's product to you, Lew.
Even a point of view.
You're an impressive person, Alex.
An unusually sober news commentator,
with a world-weary personality
that people find attractive.
Yes, that is a product.
What would you call it?
Product.
Cheer up, Alex.
You're off camera now.
Videotape okay, Mr Stedman.
All right, studio. Thank you.
Wrap it up. Home to mother, boys.
Good night, Mr Stedman.
Good night, Mr Stedman.
Good night, boys.
It's very complicated, isn't it?
- It has to be.
- Why?
It saves people from having to think
about what they're really doing.
They have to concentrate
on how to do it.
That's therapy.
Doesn't really help.
Therapy.
Are you looking for anyone?
I believe they've all gone home.
You haven't.
- How did you get in?
- I lied to the guard.
- Why?
- I'm obsessive. I lie to guards.
That's not very serious.
I love TV,
even when it's terrible.
I think I'm going blind
from watching TV.
Do you see? Look closely.
See the deterioration?
I'm a victim of the electronic age.
Me too.
My father says
you're a collector's item.
He said you're an honest man.
I've seen you in real life before,
Mr Stedman.
- Where was that?
- At father's house.
Who is your father?
Who is your father?
Leo Whitset. I'm Catherine.
I don't know your father.
You'd better go home now.
- You do know him.
- It's late. You should be home.
I don't have a home any more.
My aunt and uncle
have inherited me, I think.
My house is closed.
It's all locked up.
We had such a lovely house.
Don't you remember?
They won't even let me
go there any more.
What can I do, Miss Whitset?
What do you want of me?
My father didn't kill himself.
You know about people
like my father did.
Do you think
he could do such a thing?
- Do you?
- That's what the police said.
- Your housekeeper heard his last words.
- She's a liar.
Why should she lie?
Why should she tell the police that
he told her he did it himself?
Why should she?
He was dying. People don't
make sense when they're dying.
- They do, Miss Whitset. They do.
- He couldn't have.
The matter is closed! Finished.
- The inquest ruled it...
- Don't say it.
They said it
couldn't be anything else.
His own gun.
His fingerprints on it.
His friends said
that he was depressed.
Extremely depressed.
My father felt deeply about things.
That's not being depressed.
A man who grieves
is not a freak. Are you?
My father was murdered.
He was.
The idea of suicide
would be the most terrible thing
in the world to my father.
He was murdered.
I know it. You must know it.
Please help me.
- Why me?
- I saw my father watch you on TV.
He read all your articles.
Thought you were fine, so fine.
It's not wrong to ask for help, is it?
You must've spoken to the police.
Over and over again.
And what do they do? They comforted me.
But I don't want to be comforted.
Do you think my father
would do such a thing?
It was one of his patients,
Mr Stedman.
My father knew that one of
his patients wanted to kill him.
Did he tell you that?
He didn't tell me who.
He never would discuss his patients.
He never even kept files, never wanted
anyone to have access to them.
But I know that one of his patients
wanted to kill him.
He was terribly worried
about one of them.
The house was locked.
How could they...
You know he'd open the door to anyone
in trouble. It was one of them.
- I'm one of them.
- I know you.
You're like my father.
You want people to live.
Will you help me, Mr Stedman?
Like my father helped you?
Liar.
Please don't hate him.
- Know how to ride a bike?
- Yes.
- Never forget, do you?
- I don't know.
You're young.
You've had no time to forget anything.
I forgot
how to whistle,
how to grin,
how to talk to children
without frightening them.
But then a man told me
I could remember.
He... he tried
to make me believe
I hadn't seen what I had seen.
So I tried.
I really tried.
And then I heard a shot.
The lesson was over.
But I did learn
how to whistle again.
Listen.
And I have learned to laugh
all over again.
Look at me.
Please look at me.
I swear to you, Mr Stedman,
on my father's grave,
that he did not fool you,
that he cared,
that he did not die
the way they said.
The reason why the seven stars
are no more than seven?
Because they are not eight.
- Is he in?
- Tied up.
- Tell him I'm here, will you?
- Can't.
- I'll just stick my head in.
- Don't. Alex Stedman's with him.
Oh. Well, here we go again.
They won't refuse him.
You ever seen his shows?
Even when he's nice about things,
you feel he knows
something is terrible.
Don't you ever look up
when people talk to you?
No.
- Why not?
- I'm Civil Service.
Alex, let it alone.
The fellow simply killed himself.
Let it alone.
- Why?
- Alex, please. I don't know why.
I'm a public relations man,
not a policeman.
What are you doing at the Yard?
Sub-letting an office?
Do you want us to start a thing about
a perfectly competent police inspector,
question the decision of
a meticulous coroner's court,
make a fool out of one
of our best pathologists?
Do you know how difficult it is
to get good doctors for that sort of work?
Alex, this is a clean one.
Oh, you can make something of it.
Just look suspicious about a death
and the public is with you,
but this one is clean.
They rarely come so clean.
His housekeeper heard his last words.
Look, here we are.
"Tell them I messed it up.
Nobody to blame but me.
"Blame no-one but me."
Et cetera, et cetera.
"Et cetera, et cetera"
is what I'm interested in.
The gentleman simply killed himself.
His own gun, his own fingerprints on it,
the angle of the wound,
- the house locked tighter than a drum.
- There's no such house.
Well, I don't know about those things.
I'm no locksmith.
- Have they checked every patient?
- Every one.
- How far back?
- Far enough.
- I'd like that list.
- I don't have it.
The CID doesn't throw that material
around. It's privileged information.
You mean, conveniently privileged.
- The police can use it. The courts can use it.
- And that's it.
Not even the patient has access to them.
They're doctor's files.
There aren't any files.
I just want the names of the patients.
I'll make it even easier for you.
Just the names of the patients
he was treating at the time.
Even the names of the patients
fall into the same category.
And your people have checked them all?
"Patients seem all right.
Case closed." Right?
I want the names of the patients.
I don't have them.
Only the CID would.
You know, Larry,
if there's someone on that list
who was being looked after,
your people would be
making a mistake.
Are you accusing us
of protecting somebody?
Not to cover a crime.
No, never that.
But somebody might want to
save someone the embarrassment
of being revealed
as a person in analysis.
It's misguided affection.
It's no disgrace.
You ought to sneak a look
at that list, Larry.
You'd be amazed at who's on it.
Mr Stedman, I'm not debating with you,
and I'm not being interviewed by you.
I revered Leo Whitset.
I revered him, as did
the whole profession, but he's dead.
He committed suicide.
That's a fact.
- It will not affect my work.
- Won't it?
A leading analyst takes his own life,
contradicting everything he stands for.
How do you explain that
to your patients?
I tell them it's not pertinent.
It's not pertinent to their treatment.
Would it be pertinent if you could tell them
that he didn't commit suicide,
that he was murdered?
By a patient?
It's impossible.
And Leo Whitset
did not treat psychotics.
You know the time he spent teaching
at the Institute, lecturing, writing.
He limited his private patients
to good, healthy neurotics.
- Good, healthy neurotics?
- Yes.
People able to
function within reality.
A neurotic knows
who he is, what he is.
He's disturbed, yes.
Most people are.
- But he's not a psychotic.
- And analysts do not treat psychotics?
Some do,
with entirely different methods.
Mr Stedman, a psychotic is a person
who is suffering a major illness,
unlike the neurotic,
whose ability to...
to judge reality is impaired.
He lacks a kind of glue.
Yes, we call it "glue".
We don't really know what it is,
but it's the force,
certain kind of strength,
which enables a person to adjust,
to adapt to stress and change.
Lacking this glue, a person cannot cope
with the pressures of life,
unless he sets up defences
which are sometimes irrational,
sometimes debilitating,
sometimes...
Sometimes what, Doctor?
Violent?
Would Leo Whitset have accepted
such a patient, Dr Gillen?
No.
Not knowingly.
- How else?
- Sometimes, you might accept a patient,
then discover in the course of treatment
that you have a borderline schizophrenic.
If Leo Whitset had not knowingly
accepted such a patient,
would he have stopped treating him?
Not necessarily.
He might feel the patient would be
more hurt than helped by a change.
Change, Mr Stedman, is the most
traumatic pressure on the psychotic.
If in fact Leo Whitset did have
among his patients a psychotic,
would it be possible
for Whitset not to know
that he was treating a patient
who might kill him?
There's one type that might fool anyone:
the paranoid schizophrenic.
Would it be possible for this type of patient
to murder him and make it look like suicide?
This type might kill his doctor.
The doctor might represent the agonies,
the inability to cope.
The destruction of the doctor would
temporarily alleviate the psychic pain.
And this type might,
and I repeat "might",
conspire to make it look a suicide.
How would he behave afterwards?
He could behave like any patient
hearing of his doctor's death,
appear to be heartbroken,
even happy.
He might be bitter.
He might not even
remember what had happened.
And he would be the most
difficult one to find.
No conscience, no fear,
nothing to hide, a mask of innocence.
They could behave in so many ways.
They could appear
to be absolutely rational.
He could behave like you, Mr Stedman.
Could he continue to hide it,
- to keep up the pretence?
- Yes.
And the violence, the desire to kill?
- Would it reappear?
- Inevitably.
When the stresses became too much,
when the pressure grew unbearable.
Suddenly, on impulse?
Sometimes, it might be the result
of very deliberate plotting,
very careful scheming,
sometimes a sudden violent outburst.
Mr Stedman, what I'm describing to you
is one of the most terrible
illnesses we know of.
Then we should find that person.
Dr Gillen,
I want a list of his patients.
Mr Stedman, there was no such patient.
Are you sure?
- I'll find the patient.
- Don't.
Why not?
If there's any chance,
the slightest chance that you're right,
you're looking for one of the most
dangerous people in existence.
You won't know until...
You won't know
what to do, what to say.
I do know how to listen,
how to look, to wait.
I'm a trained reporter, Doctor.
I've spent most of my life
looking for the truth.
Not this kind of truth.
It's special.
Look around the world, Doctor.
What's so special about madness?
What's so special about murder?
- What is it, Mark?
- Your lecture begins in a few minutes.
I know.
- Anything wrong, Doctor?
- Nothing.
I've merely been interviewed.
I think quite thoroughly.
- What are you staring at?
- Er, nothing.
I've rarely seen you smoking.
Stop being so damned observant.
You student analysts are compulsively
observant. That's all you do is observe.
Spend so much time observing,
you don't have time to think.
Let's go.
Keep in mind, Doctor. There may be
times when a man smokes a cigar
because he wishes to smoke a cigar.
You've twisted everything!
You're cannibals!
- Cathy, please. I didn't mean anything.
- I know exactly what you meant.
Come on, Cathy.
I'll go home with you.
- Don't go back to that house again.
- Cathy?
Don't walk along the river by yourself.
I've always walked home that way.
But you don't live there any more,
Catherine. Your father...
My father did a lot more good
than all your ancestors put together.
Cathy, Laura didn't mean anything.
I know exactly what she meant,
and you all defend her. That's just as cruel.
Cathy, I will not explain again.
I did not insult your father.
You think you've
won something, don't you?
You really should know more.
You're not babies, you know.
What a silly sight, you know.
I'd like to help.
I don't believe you.
Why did you follow me?
I didn't follow you.
I was waiting for you.
Why did you follow me?
Why should I follow you?
Why should I frighten you, Cathy?
My father called me Cathy.
- How did you find me here?
- Your housekeeper.
- Mrs Bales.
- She's very valuable.
She told me you still walked back
to where you used to live.
Don't your aunt and uncle worry
when you come home late?
That's not my home.
I'm never that late anyway.
I only look at the house
for a little while.
That's not much to ask, is it?
Is it?
Alex, do you like those sounds?
Yes, very much.
Why should someone follow me?
What more is wanted
from the Whitsets?
- What did we do?
- Let's just listen for a while.
- Are you used to being famous?
- I think so.
I'd never get used to it.
I'd never think it was real.
- Do you mind when people stare at you?
- Depends.
- On what?
- What kind of stare.
- How about like this?
- That's a nice stare.
He has to stare forever,
no matter what.
He just has to keep staring.
The price of telling tall tales.
Hans Christian Andersen,
born in Odense,
April the second, 1805,
published his first volume in 1822,
was considered a lunatic
by much of the community.
Died in Copenhagen,
August the fourth, 1875.
That's very impressive, if accurate.
Oh, it's accurate. My father
said I was compulsively accurate.
I never make mistakes on facts.
- Is that to the good?
- I don't know. It just is.
My father said we all
spend too much time
wanting to know
the good or bad in things.
He said some things... are.
They just are.
- Didn't he tell you that?
- No.
- I didn't make it up. He did say it.
- I don't question it.
He rarely said anything to me.
I did most of the talking.
He knows the third secret.
The third secret?
My father said
everyone has three secrets:
the ones they won't tell people,
the ones they won't tell themselves...
- And?
- That's a secret.
You're the nicest adult I ever met,
except my father.
And you're the nicest
non-adult I ever met, except...
Except who, Alex? Who?
My daughter.
My father's dead,
so I like you best now.
- And I, you.
- Why?
My daughter's dead too, Cathy.
Do I remind you of her, Alex?
- I'm sorry.
- You do, a little.
Am I anywhere near as pretty?
You're both beautiful.
It's all right.
My father didn't get them all either.
I bet you copied them as you wrote.
Never. Honest, I didn't.
I just remembered things.
I'd write part of a line from Shakespeare
on the wall in front of the house.
The next day, my father
would sneak down and finish it.
We never told each other,
but we knew. Then he stopped.
And then you started
to finish them, Alex.
- How did you know it was me?
- I watched you.
You always walked along the river
before your appointment with him.
You never missed one,
till now. Never.
- It's early.
- It's late.
Please, before we go.
My father, he didn't...
- Please believe me.
- I believe you, Cathy.
You do? Then you'll tell everyone,
won't you, Alex? They'll believe you.
I'm afraid not.
Cathy, I've been to the police,
then to your father's colleagues.
I can't even get the names
of his patients. I've tried.
I know them.
You know them?
But your father wouldn't...
He wouldn't dream of telling me.
But I knew anyway.
You see, he'd always leave his mail
in the outside hall, his outgoing mail.
Mrs Bales took it to the corner.
I'd see who he was writing to.
Cathy, your father probably had
correspondents all over the world.
But every month,
the first of every month,
there were four letters.
He wrote four certain letters
the first of every month.
- Didn't he write one to you every month, Alex?
- Of course, the bills.
Right. And I remember
the names and addresses.
I remember them.
That's enough, isn't it?
It was one of his patients.
I know who they are.
I know their names.
Isn't that enough?
Go home now, Cathy.
- Isn't that enough, Alex?
- It's enough.
- Shall we meet here tomorrow?
- Yes.
Thank you, Alex.
I'll bring you a list of the names.
I always thought
I wanted to own a Vlaminck.
They've practically disappeared.
- Stolen?
- What?
Oh, no, museums.
And of course, the Americans.
They'd buy Nelson's Column
if we let them.
Sure. Why not?
Oh, I'm terribly sorry.
I didn't mean...
It's just that we've practically forgotten
that you are an American, Mr Stedman.
You've almost become a fixture.
That's terribly hospitable of you.
May I, er...
May I be of any service?
- I don't think so. The proprietor will show me...
- Oh, I'm the proprietor.
Although that's not a phrase
we use very much in our business.
- My assistant, Miss Humphries, was helping you.
- Stedman, Alex Stedman.
Price-Gorham,
Alfred Price-Gorham.
We... we're very honoured to have you here,
Mr Stedman. I know of you, of course.
Although I'm afraid I get very
little chance to watch your programme.
A place like this
must keep you very busy.
Oh, this is just the end result.
There's so much more, you know.
Checking bankruptcy
proceedings of large estates,
going to auctions, travelling, buying.
And of course, the product
is steadily shrinking.
I know.
The museums and the Americans.
An oversimplification,
perhaps a little unjust.
The world produces...
few masterpieces, Mr Stedman,
but many millionaires.
You, um... you really admire
this one, don't you?
Yes, very much.
There's something
familiar about that place.
Familiar, and a little frightening.
Yes, well, we... we've all been
to places like that, Mr Stedman,
one way or another.
There's a kind of
despair in it somewhere.
Yes, there is.
A sense of possible violence,
a hint of horror.
Yes.
Yet all under control.
It's a talented line
between chaos and order.
And an elusive line.
You seem to have a predilection
for the dark soul,
violence on a leash, so to speak.
Oh, no, no.
Not me, Mr Stedman. My customers.
The gentle, the light,
the lyric...
all dated.
- I'm afraid my place is completely old hat.
- Why?
Well, I only have the gentle things,
tender things,
sometimes funny things.
Could I see that sort of thing?
Oh, you wouldn't be interested.
They're mostly my own work.
But I would.
I'm not name-conscious.
Ada... er, Miss Humphries.
Mr Stedman is interested
in seeing some of my work.
I... I'm not in to anyone, understand?
- Of course, Mr Price-Gorham.
- Anyone.
The sun is the most, er...
precious thing for my kind of work.
I would think so.
East Anglia, isn't it?
Oh, you know
that part of the country.
- My wife was born in Norwich.
- Oh, beautiful city. Beautiful.
Yes.
Well, er... what do you think?
They're very pleasant.
Pleasant?
- Don't you see anything else?
- They're very relaxing.
Vitality, Mr Stedman,
doesn't have to be, er...
gaudy, crude, sick.
The real spine shouldn't be
twisted all over the canvas.
- Something in work?
- No.
No, it's just something I've been
toying with.
It isn't working out.
That happens sometimes.
I'll tell you something, Mr Stedman.
I don't sell these, don't even try.
I'm not an aggressive man,
not on my own behalf.
I could sell them, of course.
There are those who admire
my work. But it's, er...
it's an ugly process.
They tease you a little.
They want to try them
in the country house.
Then they want
to buy them for nothing.
No, I, um...
No, they're not for sale.
He's never busy. Come along, Victor.
It wasn't very clever of you,
Mr Price-Gorham,
to refuse to sell me the Delacroix.
Put them anywhere, Victor.
My God. There's enough junk here
for a two-year calendar.
Mrs Pelton, please, you...
you bought them.
I... I... I won't take them back.
Won't you?
Why? Because they're yours?
I've... I've told
my friends that I've sold.
If you think they're too expensive,
I'll make an adjustment.
Whatever you think is fair.
But... don't return them, please.
You... you don't know
what it means to sell, to really sell.
Get up, Mr Price-Gorham.
You look ridiculous crouching there.
I'd like to buy one of your paintings,
Mr Price-Gorham.
No charity, please.
Charity?
I'm sorry.
What we've done to that word.
Oh, Mr Stedman, we have
a new collection coming in.
I hope you'll visit us again.
I don't think so.
We'll never get rid of them that way.
But why get rid of them?
They're the only things we can count on
to stay the same in London.
Ah, good luck to the pigeons.
You think they appreciate it?
Or do they take it for granted by now?
Probably take it for granted.
Don't do that.
They're not bothering you.
- But you are.
- I'm not bothering anybody.
Don't generalise. You won't
talk to me. I'm not used to it.
I've never seen a pretty girl
having lunch here.
Haven't you?
And feeding the pigeons,
and not talking to me.
- I followed you.
- Why?
I saw you come out of a building.
I said, "Alex Stedman,
"there is an astonishingly lovely girl."
I'm sorry you lost her in the crowd.
When I was 18, I saw a girl standing
in line at Radio City Music Hall.
- You know Radio City?
- Everybody knows Radio City.
Not that I've ever been there.
Well, this girl,
my Radio City girl,
was so astonishing
I loved her immediately.
But I didn't go over to her.
I watched her go into that theatre.
Never saw her again.
She really must
have liked the picture.
I think you've missed the point.
No, you haven't.
Anyway, it ruined my life.
Please say,
"How did it ruin your life?"
- How?
- Thank you.
I've never been able to stop asking myself
whether I would've married her,
had twelve children,
and become gentle.
If people want to meet someone,
they just have to go over
or something, haven't they?
I don't know.
I think it's easier
for some than others.
My name is Alex Stedman.
I'm thoroughly harmless.
My name's Anne Tanner.
I... I saw you too, Mr Stedman.
- I was just trying to unfreeze.
- You were what?
I was trying to unfreeze,
to get up and say hello.
To say hello to a man who...
who's given me thought and pleasure.
And I didn't think I ought to intrude.
Well, I think that people
like you ought to be left alone.
I mean...
Oh, damn.
I can't even
get picked up with any style.
Yes, you can.
You've been very elegant.
Oh, elegant.
The only time I tried to curtsy,
my father had to call the doctor.
It's really not much of a park,
is it, without children?
Well, it's not really
very pretty at all.
Even if it is out of doors.
Well, I told you it was
easier for some than others.
If you had your choice, and could
spend the rest of the afternoon
doing anything you wished,
what would you do?
I'd tell my friends how we met,
and how I dazzled you.
No, seriously.
What would you do?
- Would you call your boyfriend?
- I don't have one.
- Shocking.
- Not at all.
Be frivolous for a moment,
just as a game.
What would you really like to do
on a soft, friendly day like today?
- Could I be frivolous and rich?
- They go together.
Then I'd hire a car,
and I'd go sightseeing,
to special places,
which are probably not special
to anyone except me.
You know, I've been in London
over a year now
and I've never been to...
Well, I just never have.
That's monstrous.
- But curable. I'll personally...
- The game's over.
- I have a job. I must get back.
- No, it's still on.
Could you call them?
Tell them something happened.
If you will, I will.
And then?
And then? And then?
And then...
I decided that if I didn't know
what to do,
to be,
I'd come to London and find out.
And?
I found out that the only thing
I could really do was type fast,
and then faster and faster.
Is that all you've found out, Anne?
No.
I found out other things.
What other things?
Don't ask me, Alex.
It's been such a wonderful holiday.
It's been so full.
I still don't know why you asked me,
but I don't care.
Don't you have full days, Anne?
Aren't you enjoying London?
You should be doing fine.
You'll never own anything
more than these years.
Let things happen to you.
Take the word of Mrs Patrick Campbell:
"You can do anything you like in London
as long as you don't do it in the street.
"And don't frighten the horses."
Look at all the cars, Alex.
Everybody's going home.
Bumper to bumper.
That doesn't matter.
They're going home.
He said it would happen to me.
He said...
Who said?
What's wrong, Anne?
Can't I finish
just one single solitary day,
just one,
without feeling desperate?
Oh, please, come in.
I'm Millie Hoving, Catherine's aunt.
I just took a chance
of stopping by to see Cathy.
- I hope I'm not intruding.
- Oh, no, no, no. It's quite all right.
Catherine talks of you
all the time, Mr Stedman.
You've been so kind to her.
- Won't you sit down?
- Thank you.
I'll tell her you're here.
She'll be so excited.
She's such a nice child, Mr Stedman.
Frankly, after my brother's death,
I thought she'd become ill,
but she's doing fine.
Oh, I had that made from a photograph.
Leo would never sit for a portrait.
- Cathy looks a great deal like her father.
- She does.
They used to say I looked like him
when we were young.
You look nothing like him, Mildred.
Nothing like him at all.
- This is Mr Ste...
- I know who it is.
I'm Alden Hoving,
Mr Stedman, Catherine's uncle.
Very pleased to meet you.
Catherine says you were
a friend of her father's.
- I was.
- Horrible thing, the whole business.
Of course, Leo needed
a doctor himself.
But who knows?
What good are they?
If Leo couldn't cope,
which of them can?
- Alden, please.
- Please? Please what, Mildred?
- I'll go and fetch Catherine.
- Some brandy, Mr Stedman?
- No, thank you.
- It's not easy for us.
We've never had children.
But now she's ours.
There's no money, you know. None.
Except for the house,
and that's on a mortgage.
It took us years to get Leo
to buy some insurance,
so that Catherine
would be taken care of.
He was so involved
in other people's lives
that he forgot
to take care of his own.
- Finally, we convinced him.
- Then Catherine will be taken care of.
All the policies were cancelled.
They pay nothing on a suicide.
It wasn't suicide! It was not!
Don't you say that again, ever!
Catherine, don't you dare
talk to me like that.
- If you do, I'll...
- You'll do what, Uncle?
- Good night, Mr Stedman.
- Good night.
- It's late, Catherine.
- Isn't it?
You ought to give them
a chance, Cathy.
They are new at it.
It's nice of you to come and see me.
I was wondering when.
- How are you?
- Fine.
But I don't belong here, Alex.
I'm a stranger here.
They're your closest relatives, Cathy.
They're going to
sell the house, my house!
- Can they do that, Alex? Can they?
- I'm afraid so.
Your father's executors can sell.
Of course the money is yours in trust.
I don't want the money.
I want the house.
What would you do with it, Cathy?
I'd visit it, look after it,
guard it,
and then, when I'm old enough,
I'd move back there.
- Isn't that fair?
- That's very fair.
But I'm afraid too romantic for solicitors,
accountants, probate courts.
Those kind of people seem
to run the world, don't they, Alex?
And I'd never even
heard of them before.
They were always there, Cathy.
I guess you can
only see them in the dark.
- I'd love you to see it before it's gone.
- I've been there.
Not really. Just to my father's office.
The rest is so beautiful.
I want to show you my house, Alex.
I want to show it to you,
just once before they sell it.
- All right?
- All right.
- I have to go now.
- Don't go yet.
I must.
Alex, any news?
Have you seen them?
- A few.
- But I gave you all the names.
It was one of them,
but you'll find out. I know it.
You look nice.
You're all dressed up.
- Where are you going?
- I have a date, young lady.
I don't suppose you'd wait for me?
It wouldn't be so many years.
You won't look at me by then.
I'd be a relic.
- Never.
- I'd be old and ugly.
- Never.
- There's no such thing as never.
Yes, there is. My father will never
kiss me good night again.
Never again.
- Good night.
- Oh, Alex, you make me cry.
I don't see any tears.
- Inside?
- Always inside.
You read them all?
No, but I count them all the time.
If you don't like it, I'll die.
I like it. Don't die.
Right.
Well, it's almost ready.
I'm terribly sorry, Alex, but I...
- I really am in trouble.
- Trouble?
I still don't know
how to talk to you.
And you have given me
time to practise.
I don't know how to
talk to any man, I suppose.
You talk very well.
No, I don't. I... I just react.
I never initiate anything.
I can't go through life just reacting.
Like "oh, really?"
and "do you mean it?"
And I have things to ask you.
I've even tried to memorise them.
I wanted to ask you
simply, non-aggressively.
I want to ask lean questions
that even if you don't answer,
neither of us will be embarrassed.
But what comes out is a sort of
sticky silence.
and the smell of
two hours' nervous shopping.
You're very articulate.
Only about stuttering.
Anne.
Anne...
The beginning is everything, isn't it?
No, don't do that. Please.
You see, I... I just react.
And I'm so attracted to you.
It's awful, isn't it?
Turn around.
Turn around.
See how graceful you are?
See how elegant,
how really elegant you are?
No.
Let me do it on my own.
Whitset... Whitset...
Whitset...
Whitset.
Whitset.
Anne?
Anne?
What's wrong, Anne?
Wrong?
Here?
Where this empty cave
turned beautiful?
So beautiful,
when you made love to me.
- Let me help you.
- Help me?
You want to help me?
Help me, then.
I had a bad dream.
Such a bad dream.
About millions of years of loneliness.
Continents of cemeteries.
You dream about
the dead too, don't you?
You dream about a dead doctor.
Poor dead doctor.
Oh, I dream about him
all the time. All the time.
But not tonight.
I didn't need him tonight.
I had you.
But still he was with us,
tapping his way round like
a blind, defrocked ghost.
- But it was your dream this time...
- For God's sake!
Yeah, for God's sake!
You dream about your doctor, Alex,
and you talk about him in your dreams.
Our doctor.
Our dead doctor!
What do you want of me?
Why humiliate a nobody?
I was looking for
the person who killed him.
He was killed?
That's not what they said.
And you thought that I might have
killed him?
Don't you care anything about people?
- Don't you feel anything for them?
- I feel for Leo Whitset!
And that makes you so noble!
A commitment to the dead!
So easy. No witnesses.
And what about the living?
Is there something
so antiseptic about us?
Does warmth revolt you?
Does being loved make you impotent?
It took Whitset's death
to make you care for him.
He did not die
the way they said. Not him!
Kill him?
I pray for his poor soul
every day of my life.
He doesn't need your prayers.
He needs his reputation.
Oh, Alex.
Is there no gentleness left?
Doesn't anyone care about people?
Did the last of pity
die with Leo Whitset?
...proceeds from an experienced team director.
The tower had already been erected
to its full height of about 120 feet.
But stagings required to be erected at
various points up and down the structure,
provide platforms where the riveters
could rivet the steelwork.
The method of erecting such stagings
involve the fastening of battens of wood,
known as needles, horizontally
at the sides of the structure.
The inner ends thereof being approximately
in line with the centre of the tower,
And the outer ends protruding
out at some feet beyond...
Mr Bickes, I think we'll adjourn now.
- Tomorrow morning at ten-thirty.
- Of course, my lord.
- Mr Stedman?
- Yes.
How do you do? My name is McHenry,
Dermot McHenry.
- Yes.
- I am His Lordship's clerk.
- His Lordship's clerk.
- I see.
Well, actually, His Lordship was wondering
whether you would care to come to his room.
- I don't know Sir Frederick.
- You don't?
- Oh. Well, His Lordship...
- I know of Sir Frederick, of course.
It must take a great deal of patience
to sit through one of these.
Actually, it's
a most interesting case.
I probably didn't get
the full implication.
- I'm sorry.
- That's all right.
Actually, His Lordship was wondering
whether you'd care to take tea with him.
- Sure!
- Oh, well, then if you'd kindly follow me.
- Great!
- Yes, well...
Is there anything special that interests you
about this case, Mr Stedman?
It's really a
dreary industrial injury matter.
They're endless. The whole business
could have been settled by the solicitors.
You know, the chaps
who sit in front of the barristers.
- I know.
- Yes, of course you'd know.
Lived here quite a long time.
A long time.
Would you like some more?
I assume that you're thinking of doing
a programme concerning the courts?
For the moment,
I'm just browsing around.
Oh, yes, gestation before...
I prefer to call it browsing.
There's no commitment,
not even to myself.
Oh, yes, but an idea is an idea.
Once you have it,
it's a little more difficult
to control it, hmm?
You... you cannot film
in the courts, you know.
- Of course not.
- Oh, yes, of course you know that.
Well, I was delighted that
you were able to stop by.
We're always pleased to see
distinguished visitors in court.
Erm, perhaps I could
drop you somewhere?
No, thank you.
By the way, Sir Frederick,
as long as I'm here, I wonder
if you might help me out
with a legal point
that's been troubling me?
It's just a small thing.
Well, I should be delighted
to clear it up for you.
I want to know if there is a legal method
for me to recover my file from my doctor?
Under what circumstances?
Actually, from my doctor's estate.
He was an analyst.
Surely your solicitor
must have advised you
that it's next to impossible?
He said "quite impossible".
He said an analyst's files
were never available to his patient.
"Privileged writings," he called it.
Well, not technically.
But in principle
they're treated that way.
And a very wise concept.
I was able to see the files
just before the place was sealed.
Unfortunately, there was
no time to destroy mine.
Of course, I don't want
anyone else to see it.
What can I do, Sir Frederick?
Why, I don't think you need worry.
After the estate has been probated,
the, er, executors
will probably destroy them.
They usually do.
I think you can assume
that no-one will see your file.
How can I be sure?
I saw them.
- Them?
- I went through all of them.
Mr Stedman,
I think that was an unconscionable
thing to have done.
My instinct, I guess.
I can't resist looking at any information
available, even privileged.
Besides, Whitset's dead.
He can't possibly...
Leo Whitset?
He kept no files.
I once thought so.
But he did.
And what a memory for detail.
You were a long time
getting around to this.
I had an impression of
your being a direct man.
I should have been.
Then you know.
So he did keep files.
No! No, I knew that office
as well as I know my own.
He had no files. None.
No secretary. No nurse.
He didn't believe there should be
any access. He had no files. None.
Not in the office,
but he did live upstairs.
Didn't you know that?
I did.
You know all about
my career, of course.
You've heard that I may be
promoted to the Court of Appeal.
Yes, Sir Frederick.
I must confess, you're
as distinguished as you can get.
Mr Stedman, you really
are a disappointment.
You're not a gossip columnist.
You've never been grouped
with cheap sensation mongers.
- I'm a reporter.
- You're also a guest in this country.
I live here!
Yes, of course.
No need for that.
Frederick, you wanted
me to be direct. I'll try.
The death of Leo Whitset.
Well, at first I couldn't believe it.
A man like Leo Whitset?
But it was true.
When I got back to London,
they had confirmed
that it was suicide.
You got back?
Where were you?
I'd been sitting in Bristol.
Mr Justice Maxim had been taken ill.
You were away?
You were not in London when he died?
What does it matter where I was?
It's a matter of public record anyway.
What is important
is where you were.
And we know, don't we?
Looking through the recorded
anguish of other people.
Mr Stedman, please.
It was a long time ago.
Nobody remembers. Nobody.
It's never happened again.
Please. Only he knew.
I told him. I trusted him.
Please, Mr Stedman.
It was a long time ago.
I trusted him.
There are no files, Judge.
There are no files.
None.
Just the names.
A mere list of patients.
But why, Mr Stedman? Why?
To be this cruel.
- Why?
- To save a man's reputation.
That's not enough.
That's not enough,
for one man to do this to another!
Why?
I thought it was for his reputation,
but it's for me.
I have to know. Me.
Why?
Because if he died that way,
I can't believe anything he said.
He told me I could live again.
I believed him.
I believed him.
See that one, Alex?
That's his honorary degree
from the University of Vienna.
And this is my favourite chair.
That's for distinguished service,
from the American
Psychoanalytic Association.
Wasn't that nice of them?
I've heard they can be very grumpy
about other countries.
- Oh, that's a personally autographed picture...
- That's Dana Hayward.
Right. He was a great pioneer in...
- something or other.
- Yes, something or other.
Read the inscription, Alex.
"To Leo Whitset,
companion in nightmare."
Look, Alex. See this one?
Cathy, don't you think I'd better
take you home? It's getting late.
This is my home, Alex.
Please. You promised.
I want to show you where we lived.
We shouldn't even be here.
This place is sealed by law.
Just a little longer, Alex.
Please.
- What's that?
- Oh, my father used to go there.
It's near Colchester.
I've never been there.
That was his place.
He went there to walk and think.
He wrote his articles and books there.
I used to nag him to take me.
But he said there was nothing but
"mean trees, unruly shrubbery,
a hard bed and a bumpy road."
Come on, Alex.
I want you to see more.
I think I've dreamt about that place.
I've never been there,
but I've dreamt about it.
My father says we all dream
about a quiet place.
Come on.
It is your room, Cathy.
I don't mean to be childish, honest,
but I can't let them sell it.
It's like selling your memories,
like taking away the year,
like they never were.
It's not fair to sell
a person's memories, is it, Alex?
You'll keep your memories, Cathy.
Believe me.
It's just a room in a house.
Long ago, it wasn't here.
Something else was here.
Cathy, everything changes.
That's the real truth.
Maybe that's true.
But it doesn't mean anything to me.
Isn't it true that the rain is wet
or the grass smells sweet?
But that doesn't matter.
What matters, Alex, is how you feel.
And I feel that the end of this house
is the end of me.
You see? It's just as comfortable
a sitting bed as it is a sleeping bed.
Catherine!
Mr Hoving.
Wait outside, Cathy.
Outside, Cathy!
The girl is fourteen.
Fourteen, Mr Stedman.
- Did you just remember her age?
- You pig!
You filthy-minded pig!
You rigid, narrow, dirty-thinking pig!
- I'll have you arrested!
- For what?
- I know your type, you worldly men.
- Stop it! Stop it!
- You're jaded!
- You filthy sick man!
I'll kill you!
I'll kill you!
Alex! Alex, don't! Don't!
Alex, no! Not again!
Let him go, Alex!
- Alex, you were going to kill him!
- No, Cathy! No!
- You were going to kill him too!
- It's not true! You don't understand!
Oh, Alex.
No, Cathy. No.
Think we have time to
make these changes, Alex?
It's nothing drastic. I just think
we ought to lighten it a little bit.
Either we do it or we don't.
That's the story, Lew. We can't...
Please turn up the sound.
...has come to light concerning the death,
some weeks ago, of Dr Leo Whitset.
The police, who had accepted
the coroner's verdict of suicide,
reopened their investigations
when a patient of Whitset's
apparently took her own life
late last night.
The patient, 28-year-old secretary
Anne Tanner,
had been under Whitset's care
for about six months.
Found beside the body of Miss Tanner
was a note confessing her responsibility
for the death of the noted analyst.
Now for our report on today's
international match. Over to Wembley.
Won't you talk to me ever?
I'm sorry, Alex,
about what happened at my house.
I was terribly frightened.
My uncle...
well, he is what you said.
He was putting
his thoughts into your head.
I'm sorry about your friend, Alex.
Even though she...
I am sorry, Alex.
They haven't finished
the investigation, Cathy.
- It's not certain yet.
- It has to be her, doesn't it?
They said I can keep the house
after they have a formal report.
The insurance will be all right then.
I'll be able to keep everything.
My father wouldn't want strangers
living in the house, Alex.
I know he wouldn't.
I don't want anything
of his to be sold.
What about the other house?
Oh, the one in Colchester.
We didn't own it.
I've never been there.
It had nothing to do with me.
My father said
I wouldn't like it anyway.
"Just some mean trees,
a hard bed and a bumpy road."
Yes.
But I can keep my house, Alex.
And I can come and go as I please.
We may rent it for a while,
but only for a while.
It never need have happened, Alex.
She was his newest patient.
You shouldn't have taken...
- How do you know she was the newest?
- The mail.
The monthly letters to her
started after the others.
See how observant I am?
- It's frightening.
- If only he hadn't taken her.
He was tired.
He worked so hard at the Institute.
Five patients were too many.
He shouldn't have...
Five? But there were only four.
Four patients, Cathy.
Of course four.
Didn't I say four?
No, you said five,
and you're never wrong
with facts, are you?
Go on. Try me again.
Anything. Go ahead. Try me.
All right.
- Who lived there?
- Hogarth. Mr William Hogarth.
He resided there from 1738 to 1740.
He's buried not far from here, Alex,
in the Chiswick Churchyard.
- Try me again.
- And who lived there?
Mr Horace Walpole.
He lived there from 1748 to 1770.
He died at the age of 80
as the fourth Earl of Orford.
A lifelong victim of the gout.
Why is there something funny
about the gout, Alex?
If it can kill people,
why does it sound so funny?
It makes people walk peculiarly.
And it's a name from another time,
far enough away for us to laugh.
You really know things, Alex.
I only know facts.
Did the police ever go to
the house in Colchester, Cathy?
No, they didn't know about it.
- Why not?
- It's my aunt's. You know, Aunt Millie.
It was given to her
by my grandparents.
They died after she married that...
She never told him it was hers.
She didn't want to go there with him.
So she let my father
use it as his own.
She loved my father very much.
She wanted him to be
so much happier than he was.
Come on, Alex.
Ask me some more things.
All right.
The address
of the house in Colchester.
Now, that's difficult,
an address you've never been to.
Easy. 128 Willow Tree Lane,
Stenham Farms, Colchester.
Cathy?
Cathy.
Are you here?
Cathy.
Don't hide from me.
Hello, Alex.
I was downstairs, Alex.
I'm sorry I wasn't here to greet you.
I was worried about you, Cathy.
Your housekeeper said
you were staying with a friend.
I am.
Were you going to stay here all alone?
I'm not alone.
I think we ought to
go home now, Cathy.
Where's that, Alex?
Where there are people.
People who care.
There's no such place.
I had such a funny dream
last night, Alex.
I dreamt we were standing in front
of the statue, the one in the park.
You remember, near my school.
The one of Mr Hans Christian Andersen.
Near where we were standing was a dead
rosebush and a little pool of water.
And you said,
"You see, Cathy,
there are no secrets there.
"The rosebush is dead
and the water is dying."
You said,
"Look into the water, Cathy.
"There's no reflection.
"The water is dying."
Let's go, Cathy.
There's nothing left here.
You said that in the dream, Alex.
"Let's go, Cathy.
There's nothing left here."
You're cleverer than I am, Alex.
- Just older, that's all.
- Much cleverer.
You knew I meant
five patients, didn't you?
Yes.
That game about Mr Hogarth's house
and Mr Walpole's house
- was not a game, was it?
- No, it wasn't.
Do you know what
the third secret is, Alex?
The first is what
we don't tell people.
The second is what
we don't tell ourselves.
And the third...
The third...
The third secret...
is the truth?
Yes.
You see, you find out
by understanding.
I only know because my father knew.
Don't stay here, Alex.
This place is closed.
It's all sealed up.
Please go home!
I love you, Alex.
And I you.
- We'll go together.
- No!
- No!
- Wait, Cathy!
No!
Don't run away!
That doctor was a devil!
He wanted to put me away!
He wanted to shut me away!
Your father loved you, Cathy.
He wanted to help you.
You think I
killed my father, don't you?
He loved me! He begged
the doctor not to send me away!
Cathy, there was only one person.
They had a fight. I know they did.
I went looking for my father.
I wanted to make him some dinner.
He was getting so thin.
But he wasn't home.
There was someone else in the house.
I took his gun, I came down here,
- and I... I...
- Cathy...
- You didn't mean to.
- It was the doctor I killed.
But they sent another one, you!
And you want to
send me away too, like him!
- No, Cathy.
- It was the doctor, not my father!
- I loved him!
- Cathy...
- Don't.
- Not my father! I loved him! I loved him!
Alex! Help me! Please help me!
Alex!
Alex, help me!
It was the doctor I killed!
Where are you, Alex?
Hurry, Alex! Hurry!
Alex! Help!
Hurry, Alex! Where are you?
Alex!
Alex!
Mr Stedman, why did my brother wait?
He loved her.
He was human. He was weak.
My brother was one of
the strongest people I know.
And a doctor, a fine doctor.
He was.
And as a doctor,
he made an early diagnosis.
Borderline schizophrenia.
Yet there was a chance
she could still go to school.
He took that chance.
There was a chance
she could stay with him.
He took that chance.
My brother wouldn't consider
taking such a chance,
and never with Catherine.
Only with Catherine.
Mrs Hoving,
your brother must have
been heartbroken.
Trying to keep his child
out of a world of screams,
of silences,
out of a world where she would
grow old without growing up.
But why did she come to you? Why?
She probably thought
her father had some
little respect for me.
A confused, lost child.
The sensationalism surrounding
her father's death must have shocked her.
- And she came to me.
- And you believed her.
Why not?
I wanted to believe her.
I was the man in search.
I had thought if your brother
had killed himself, he had failed me.
That's not true.
However Leo Whitset lived and died,
he was a fine physician.
He couldn't have failed me.
He was only my doctor,
not my God.
I've stayed too long.
You rest now.
Do you know who saved your life,
Mr Stedman?
Do you know who called me,
who called an ambulance?
Do you know whose arms were
holding you when we came?
Catherine.
You won't enjoy this, Mr Stedman.
I don't expect to.
She won't speak.
She won't hear you.
Why do you want to see her?
Because she's my friend.
Morning, nurse.
This is Miss Whitset's visitor.
You look fine, Cathy. Just fine.
I'm fine too. All better.
I have permission to visit you
all the time, just like family.
All inside, Cathy.
Always inside.
It's a good thing
what you found out, Alex.
And what's that, Cathy?
That he didn't die badly.
It's a good thing, isn't it, Alex?
It's a good thing.
Look, Alex.
I'm crying.
SUBTITLES BY POWERHOUSE FILMS LTD
- Dr Whitset.
Dr Whitset, whatever's happened?
I'll call...
Oh, my God.
Oh, help me.
Help me, somebody, please.
Help, please!
Don't.
No-one else.
Come closer, please.
No strength.
How strange to lose it.
Listen, please.
I've bungled it.
Tell them I..., I...
I've messed it up.
- Nobody to blame but me.
- No, no, Doctor.
Not you.
Never you, Doctor.
Yes, me.
Nobody to blame.
Doctor, please.
Please, I...
Tell them to look after...
Sir Frederick?
Sir Frederick, are you all right?
I've never felt better in my life.
Why?
Dr Gillen, why should he do it?
Why should he do something that
contradicts everything he stood for?
Without him, there wouldn't even be
a British Analytical Institute.
And what about his patients?
How lost they must feel.
Would you read that
back please, Miss Tanner?
"Therefore, gentlemen,
it is imperative...
"imperative..."
I wonder, Mr Morgan,
would you excuse me for a moment?
Anything I...
I'm sorry, Dr Whitset.
I'm so sorry.
£2,000 for a crayon drawing?
Really, Mr Price-Gorham.
But I don't think you
quite understand, Mrs Pelton.
I don't care if it is a Delacroix.
It's a crayon drawing,
and it's for the hall bathroom.
Oh, surely, you're not going to put
a Delacroix in the, er...
in a bathroom?
Mr Price-Gorham, you've been making
a fortune out of us for the past ten years.
I've no objection.
You have nice things. You're convenient.
I've even bought some of your own work,
so don't let's have a nasty scene.
Send it around.
Oh, I like that frame. Don't change it.
- A Delacroix in... in the bathroom?
- Exactly.
So, Doctor.
So, as we mark the third anniversary
of this American experiment
of a so-called Peace Corps,
shall we acknowledge it
only as a noble gesture,
merely a tease
to the rest of the world,
indicating that the United States has
some fleeting moments of conscience?
Or will it snowball,
as many symbolic gestures do,
and become the pioneer of a massive
re-evaluation of man's obligation to man?
This is Alex Stedman
for The American Page.
Thank you and good night.
Hold it, studio. Hold it.
That's it, Mr Stedman.
Could you hold on for a video check?
Marvellous, Alex. Absolutely marvellous.
This is gonna be a great show.
Do you think they're
really interested?
Interested? They eat it up.
Of course it's gotta have the sour side.
They do like it a bit nasty.
You do it beautifully
and they believe you, Alex.
An American reporting on his own kind.
You mean turning on his own kind.
Why so testy tonight?
Don't you like being able to do a show
about something good that's happening?
Are you taking this show seriously?
The whole world is unravelling.
And we're trying to tell the British public
that their American cousins
have come up with a Boy Scout movement
to stop space-age delinquents.
You know what, Alex?
Stay gloomy.
- It's money in the bank.
- Everything's product to you, Lew.
Even a point of view.
You're an impressive person, Alex.
An unusually sober news commentator,
with a world-weary personality
that people find attractive.
Yes, that is a product.
What would you call it?
Product.
Cheer up, Alex.
You're off camera now.
Videotape okay, Mr Stedman.
All right, studio. Thank you.
Wrap it up. Home to mother, boys.
Good night, Mr Stedman.
Good night, Mr Stedman.
Good night, boys.
It's very complicated, isn't it?
- It has to be.
- Why?
It saves people from having to think
about what they're really doing.
They have to concentrate
on how to do it.
That's therapy.
Doesn't really help.
Therapy.
Are you looking for anyone?
I believe they've all gone home.
You haven't.
- How did you get in?
- I lied to the guard.
- Why?
- I'm obsessive. I lie to guards.
That's not very serious.
I love TV,
even when it's terrible.
I think I'm going blind
from watching TV.
Do you see? Look closely.
See the deterioration?
I'm a victim of the electronic age.
Me too.
My father says
you're a collector's item.
He said you're an honest man.
I've seen you in real life before,
Mr Stedman.
- Where was that?
- At father's house.
Who is your father?
Who is your father?
Leo Whitset. I'm Catherine.
I don't know your father.
You'd better go home now.
- You do know him.
- It's late. You should be home.
I don't have a home any more.
My aunt and uncle
have inherited me, I think.
My house is closed.
It's all locked up.
We had such a lovely house.
Don't you remember?
They won't even let me
go there any more.
What can I do, Miss Whitset?
What do you want of me?
My father didn't kill himself.
You know about people
like my father did.
Do you think
he could do such a thing?
- Do you?
- That's what the police said.
- Your housekeeper heard his last words.
- She's a liar.
Why should she lie?
Why should she tell the police that
he told her he did it himself?
Why should she?
He was dying. People don't
make sense when they're dying.
- They do, Miss Whitset. They do.
- He couldn't have.
The matter is closed! Finished.
- The inquest ruled it...
- Don't say it.
They said it
couldn't be anything else.
His own gun.
His fingerprints on it.
His friends said
that he was depressed.
Extremely depressed.
My father felt deeply about things.
That's not being depressed.
A man who grieves
is not a freak. Are you?
My father was murdered.
He was.
The idea of suicide
would be the most terrible thing
in the world to my father.
He was murdered.
I know it. You must know it.
Please help me.
- Why me?
- I saw my father watch you on TV.
He read all your articles.
Thought you were fine, so fine.
It's not wrong to ask for help, is it?
You must've spoken to the police.
Over and over again.
And what do they do? They comforted me.
But I don't want to be comforted.
Do you think my father
would do such a thing?
It was one of his patients,
Mr Stedman.
My father knew that one of
his patients wanted to kill him.
Did he tell you that?
He didn't tell me who.
He never would discuss his patients.
He never even kept files, never wanted
anyone to have access to them.
But I know that one of his patients
wanted to kill him.
He was terribly worried
about one of them.
The house was locked.
How could they...
You know he'd open the door to anyone
in trouble. It was one of them.
- I'm one of them.
- I know you.
You're like my father.
You want people to live.
Will you help me, Mr Stedman?
Like my father helped you?
Liar.
Please don't hate him.
- Know how to ride a bike?
- Yes.
- Never forget, do you?
- I don't know.
You're young.
You've had no time to forget anything.
I forgot
how to whistle,
how to grin,
how to talk to children
without frightening them.
But then a man told me
I could remember.
He... he tried
to make me believe
I hadn't seen what I had seen.
So I tried.
I really tried.
And then I heard a shot.
The lesson was over.
But I did learn
how to whistle again.
Listen.
And I have learned to laugh
all over again.
Look at me.
Please look at me.
I swear to you, Mr Stedman,
on my father's grave,
that he did not fool you,
that he cared,
that he did not die
the way they said.
The reason why the seven stars
are no more than seven?
Because they are not eight.
- Is he in?
- Tied up.
- Tell him I'm here, will you?
- Can't.
- I'll just stick my head in.
- Don't. Alex Stedman's with him.
Oh. Well, here we go again.
They won't refuse him.
You ever seen his shows?
Even when he's nice about things,
you feel he knows
something is terrible.
Don't you ever look up
when people talk to you?
No.
- Why not?
- I'm Civil Service.
Alex, let it alone.
The fellow simply killed himself.
Let it alone.
- Why?
- Alex, please. I don't know why.
I'm a public relations man,
not a policeman.
What are you doing at the Yard?
Sub-letting an office?
Do you want us to start a thing about
a perfectly competent police inspector,
question the decision of
a meticulous coroner's court,
make a fool out of one
of our best pathologists?
Do you know how difficult it is
to get good doctors for that sort of work?
Alex, this is a clean one.
Oh, you can make something of it.
Just look suspicious about a death
and the public is with you,
but this one is clean.
They rarely come so clean.
His housekeeper heard his last words.
Look, here we are.
"Tell them I messed it up.
Nobody to blame but me.
"Blame no-one but me."
Et cetera, et cetera.
"Et cetera, et cetera"
is what I'm interested in.
The gentleman simply killed himself.
His own gun, his own fingerprints on it,
the angle of the wound,
- the house locked tighter than a drum.
- There's no such house.
Well, I don't know about those things.
I'm no locksmith.
- Have they checked every patient?
- Every one.
- How far back?
- Far enough.
- I'd like that list.
- I don't have it.
The CID doesn't throw that material
around. It's privileged information.
You mean, conveniently privileged.
- The police can use it. The courts can use it.
- And that's it.
Not even the patient has access to them.
They're doctor's files.
There aren't any files.
I just want the names of the patients.
I'll make it even easier for you.
Just the names of the patients
he was treating at the time.
Even the names of the patients
fall into the same category.
And your people have checked them all?
"Patients seem all right.
Case closed." Right?
I want the names of the patients.
I don't have them.
Only the CID would.
You know, Larry,
if there's someone on that list
who was being looked after,
your people would be
making a mistake.
Are you accusing us
of protecting somebody?
Not to cover a crime.
No, never that.
But somebody might want to
save someone the embarrassment
of being revealed
as a person in analysis.
It's misguided affection.
It's no disgrace.
You ought to sneak a look
at that list, Larry.
You'd be amazed at who's on it.
Mr Stedman, I'm not debating with you,
and I'm not being interviewed by you.
I revered Leo Whitset.
I revered him, as did
the whole profession, but he's dead.
He committed suicide.
That's a fact.
- It will not affect my work.
- Won't it?
A leading analyst takes his own life,
contradicting everything he stands for.
How do you explain that
to your patients?
I tell them it's not pertinent.
It's not pertinent to their treatment.
Would it be pertinent if you could tell them
that he didn't commit suicide,
that he was murdered?
By a patient?
It's impossible.
And Leo Whitset
did not treat psychotics.
You know the time he spent teaching
at the Institute, lecturing, writing.
He limited his private patients
to good, healthy neurotics.
- Good, healthy neurotics?
- Yes.
People able to
function within reality.
A neurotic knows
who he is, what he is.
He's disturbed, yes.
Most people are.
- But he's not a psychotic.
- And analysts do not treat psychotics?
Some do,
with entirely different methods.
Mr Stedman, a psychotic is a person
who is suffering a major illness,
unlike the neurotic,
whose ability to...
to judge reality is impaired.
He lacks a kind of glue.
Yes, we call it "glue".
We don't really know what it is,
but it's the force,
certain kind of strength,
which enables a person to adjust,
to adapt to stress and change.
Lacking this glue, a person cannot cope
with the pressures of life,
unless he sets up defences
which are sometimes irrational,
sometimes debilitating,
sometimes...
Sometimes what, Doctor?
Violent?
Would Leo Whitset have accepted
such a patient, Dr Gillen?
No.
Not knowingly.
- How else?
- Sometimes, you might accept a patient,
then discover in the course of treatment
that you have a borderline schizophrenic.
If Leo Whitset had not knowingly
accepted such a patient,
would he have stopped treating him?
Not necessarily.
He might feel the patient would be
more hurt than helped by a change.
Change, Mr Stedman, is the most
traumatic pressure on the psychotic.
If in fact Leo Whitset did have
among his patients a psychotic,
would it be possible
for Whitset not to know
that he was treating a patient
who might kill him?
There's one type that might fool anyone:
the paranoid schizophrenic.
Would it be possible for this type of patient
to murder him and make it look like suicide?
This type might kill his doctor.
The doctor might represent the agonies,
the inability to cope.
The destruction of the doctor would
temporarily alleviate the psychic pain.
And this type might,
and I repeat "might",
conspire to make it look a suicide.
How would he behave afterwards?
He could behave like any patient
hearing of his doctor's death,
appear to be heartbroken,
even happy.
He might be bitter.
He might not even
remember what had happened.
And he would be the most
difficult one to find.
No conscience, no fear,
nothing to hide, a mask of innocence.
They could behave in so many ways.
They could appear
to be absolutely rational.
He could behave like you, Mr Stedman.
Could he continue to hide it,
- to keep up the pretence?
- Yes.
And the violence, the desire to kill?
- Would it reappear?
- Inevitably.
When the stresses became too much,
when the pressure grew unbearable.
Suddenly, on impulse?
Sometimes, it might be the result
of very deliberate plotting,
very careful scheming,
sometimes a sudden violent outburst.
Mr Stedman, what I'm describing to you
is one of the most terrible
illnesses we know of.
Then we should find that person.
Dr Gillen,
I want a list of his patients.
Mr Stedman, there was no such patient.
Are you sure?
- I'll find the patient.
- Don't.
Why not?
If there's any chance,
the slightest chance that you're right,
you're looking for one of the most
dangerous people in existence.
You won't know until...
You won't know
what to do, what to say.
I do know how to listen,
how to look, to wait.
I'm a trained reporter, Doctor.
I've spent most of my life
looking for the truth.
Not this kind of truth.
It's special.
Look around the world, Doctor.
What's so special about madness?
What's so special about murder?
- What is it, Mark?
- Your lecture begins in a few minutes.
I know.
- Anything wrong, Doctor?
- Nothing.
I've merely been interviewed.
I think quite thoroughly.
- What are you staring at?
- Er, nothing.
I've rarely seen you smoking.
Stop being so damned observant.
You student analysts are compulsively
observant. That's all you do is observe.
Spend so much time observing,
you don't have time to think.
Let's go.
Keep in mind, Doctor. There may be
times when a man smokes a cigar
because he wishes to smoke a cigar.
You've twisted everything!
You're cannibals!
- Cathy, please. I didn't mean anything.
- I know exactly what you meant.
Come on, Cathy.
I'll go home with you.
- Don't go back to that house again.
- Cathy?
Don't walk along the river by yourself.
I've always walked home that way.
But you don't live there any more,
Catherine. Your father...
My father did a lot more good
than all your ancestors put together.
Cathy, Laura didn't mean anything.
I know exactly what she meant,
and you all defend her. That's just as cruel.
Cathy, I will not explain again.
I did not insult your father.
You think you've
won something, don't you?
You really should know more.
You're not babies, you know.
What a silly sight, you know.
I'd like to help.
I don't believe you.
Why did you follow me?
I didn't follow you.
I was waiting for you.
Why did you follow me?
Why should I follow you?
Why should I frighten you, Cathy?
My father called me Cathy.
- How did you find me here?
- Your housekeeper.
- Mrs Bales.
- She's very valuable.
She told me you still walked back
to where you used to live.
Don't your aunt and uncle worry
when you come home late?
That's not my home.
I'm never that late anyway.
I only look at the house
for a little while.
That's not much to ask, is it?
Is it?
Alex, do you like those sounds?
Yes, very much.
Why should someone follow me?
What more is wanted
from the Whitsets?
- What did we do?
- Let's just listen for a while.
- Are you used to being famous?
- I think so.
I'd never get used to it.
I'd never think it was real.
- Do you mind when people stare at you?
- Depends.
- On what?
- What kind of stare.
- How about like this?
- That's a nice stare.
He has to stare forever,
no matter what.
He just has to keep staring.
The price of telling tall tales.
Hans Christian Andersen,
born in Odense,
April the second, 1805,
published his first volume in 1822,
was considered a lunatic
by much of the community.
Died in Copenhagen,
August the fourth, 1875.
That's very impressive, if accurate.
Oh, it's accurate. My father
said I was compulsively accurate.
I never make mistakes on facts.
- Is that to the good?
- I don't know. It just is.
My father said we all
spend too much time
wanting to know
the good or bad in things.
He said some things... are.
They just are.
- Didn't he tell you that?
- No.
- I didn't make it up. He did say it.
- I don't question it.
He rarely said anything to me.
I did most of the talking.
He knows the third secret.
The third secret?
My father said
everyone has three secrets:
the ones they won't tell people,
the ones they won't tell themselves...
- And?
- That's a secret.
You're the nicest adult I ever met,
except my father.
And you're the nicest
non-adult I ever met, except...
Except who, Alex? Who?
My daughter.
My father's dead,
so I like you best now.
- And I, you.
- Why?
My daughter's dead too, Cathy.
Do I remind you of her, Alex?
- I'm sorry.
- You do, a little.
Am I anywhere near as pretty?
You're both beautiful.
It's all right.
My father didn't get them all either.
I bet you copied them as you wrote.
Never. Honest, I didn't.
I just remembered things.
I'd write part of a line from Shakespeare
on the wall in front of the house.
The next day, my father
would sneak down and finish it.
We never told each other,
but we knew. Then he stopped.
And then you started
to finish them, Alex.
- How did you know it was me?
- I watched you.
You always walked along the river
before your appointment with him.
You never missed one,
till now. Never.
- It's early.
- It's late.
Please, before we go.
My father, he didn't...
- Please believe me.
- I believe you, Cathy.
You do? Then you'll tell everyone,
won't you, Alex? They'll believe you.
I'm afraid not.
Cathy, I've been to the police,
then to your father's colleagues.
I can't even get the names
of his patients. I've tried.
I know them.
You know them?
But your father wouldn't...
He wouldn't dream of telling me.
But I knew anyway.
You see, he'd always leave his mail
in the outside hall, his outgoing mail.
Mrs Bales took it to the corner.
I'd see who he was writing to.
Cathy, your father probably had
correspondents all over the world.
But every month,
the first of every month,
there were four letters.
He wrote four certain letters
the first of every month.
- Didn't he write one to you every month, Alex?
- Of course, the bills.
Right. And I remember
the names and addresses.
I remember them.
That's enough, isn't it?
It was one of his patients.
I know who they are.
I know their names.
Isn't that enough?
Go home now, Cathy.
- Isn't that enough, Alex?
- It's enough.
- Shall we meet here tomorrow?
- Yes.
Thank you, Alex.
I'll bring you a list of the names.
I always thought
I wanted to own a Vlaminck.
They've practically disappeared.
- Stolen?
- What?
Oh, no, museums.
And of course, the Americans.
They'd buy Nelson's Column
if we let them.
Sure. Why not?
Oh, I'm terribly sorry.
I didn't mean...
It's just that we've practically forgotten
that you are an American, Mr Stedman.
You've almost become a fixture.
That's terribly hospitable of you.
May I, er...
May I be of any service?
- I don't think so. The proprietor will show me...
- Oh, I'm the proprietor.
Although that's not a phrase
we use very much in our business.
- My assistant, Miss Humphries, was helping you.
- Stedman, Alex Stedman.
Price-Gorham,
Alfred Price-Gorham.
We... we're very honoured to have you here,
Mr Stedman. I know of you, of course.
Although I'm afraid I get very
little chance to watch your programme.
A place like this
must keep you very busy.
Oh, this is just the end result.
There's so much more, you know.
Checking bankruptcy
proceedings of large estates,
going to auctions, travelling, buying.
And of course, the product
is steadily shrinking.
I know.
The museums and the Americans.
An oversimplification,
perhaps a little unjust.
The world produces...
few masterpieces, Mr Stedman,
but many millionaires.
You, um... you really admire
this one, don't you?
Yes, very much.
There's something
familiar about that place.
Familiar, and a little frightening.
Yes, well, we... we've all been
to places like that, Mr Stedman,
one way or another.
There's a kind of
despair in it somewhere.
Yes, there is.
A sense of possible violence,
a hint of horror.
Yes.
Yet all under control.
It's a talented line
between chaos and order.
And an elusive line.
You seem to have a predilection
for the dark soul,
violence on a leash, so to speak.
Oh, no, no.
Not me, Mr Stedman. My customers.
The gentle, the light,
the lyric...
all dated.
- I'm afraid my place is completely old hat.
- Why?
Well, I only have the gentle things,
tender things,
sometimes funny things.
Could I see that sort of thing?
Oh, you wouldn't be interested.
They're mostly my own work.
But I would.
I'm not name-conscious.
Ada... er, Miss Humphries.
Mr Stedman is interested
in seeing some of my work.
I... I'm not in to anyone, understand?
- Of course, Mr Price-Gorham.
- Anyone.
The sun is the most, er...
precious thing for my kind of work.
I would think so.
East Anglia, isn't it?
Oh, you know
that part of the country.
- My wife was born in Norwich.
- Oh, beautiful city. Beautiful.
Yes.
Well, er... what do you think?
They're very pleasant.
Pleasant?
- Don't you see anything else?
- They're very relaxing.
Vitality, Mr Stedman,
doesn't have to be, er...
gaudy, crude, sick.
The real spine shouldn't be
twisted all over the canvas.
- Something in work?
- No.
No, it's just something I've been
toying with.
It isn't working out.
That happens sometimes.
I'll tell you something, Mr Stedman.
I don't sell these, don't even try.
I'm not an aggressive man,
not on my own behalf.
I could sell them, of course.
There are those who admire
my work. But it's, er...
it's an ugly process.
They tease you a little.
They want to try them
in the country house.
Then they want
to buy them for nothing.
No, I, um...
No, they're not for sale.
He's never busy. Come along, Victor.
It wasn't very clever of you,
Mr Price-Gorham,
to refuse to sell me the Delacroix.
Put them anywhere, Victor.
My God. There's enough junk here
for a two-year calendar.
Mrs Pelton, please, you...
you bought them.
I... I... I won't take them back.
Won't you?
Why? Because they're yours?
I've... I've told
my friends that I've sold.
If you think they're too expensive,
I'll make an adjustment.
Whatever you think is fair.
But... don't return them, please.
You... you don't know
what it means to sell, to really sell.
Get up, Mr Price-Gorham.
You look ridiculous crouching there.
I'd like to buy one of your paintings,
Mr Price-Gorham.
No charity, please.
Charity?
I'm sorry.
What we've done to that word.
Oh, Mr Stedman, we have
a new collection coming in.
I hope you'll visit us again.
I don't think so.
We'll never get rid of them that way.
But why get rid of them?
They're the only things we can count on
to stay the same in London.
Ah, good luck to the pigeons.
You think they appreciate it?
Or do they take it for granted by now?
Probably take it for granted.
Don't do that.
They're not bothering you.
- But you are.
- I'm not bothering anybody.
Don't generalise. You won't
talk to me. I'm not used to it.
I've never seen a pretty girl
having lunch here.
Haven't you?
And feeding the pigeons,
and not talking to me.
- I followed you.
- Why?
I saw you come out of a building.
I said, "Alex Stedman,
"there is an astonishingly lovely girl."
I'm sorry you lost her in the crowd.
When I was 18, I saw a girl standing
in line at Radio City Music Hall.
- You know Radio City?
- Everybody knows Radio City.
Not that I've ever been there.
Well, this girl,
my Radio City girl,
was so astonishing
I loved her immediately.
But I didn't go over to her.
I watched her go into that theatre.
Never saw her again.
She really must
have liked the picture.
I think you've missed the point.
No, you haven't.
Anyway, it ruined my life.
Please say,
"How did it ruin your life?"
- How?
- Thank you.
I've never been able to stop asking myself
whether I would've married her,
had twelve children,
and become gentle.
If people want to meet someone,
they just have to go over
or something, haven't they?
I don't know.
I think it's easier
for some than others.
My name is Alex Stedman.
I'm thoroughly harmless.
My name's Anne Tanner.
I... I saw you too, Mr Stedman.
- I was just trying to unfreeze.
- You were what?
I was trying to unfreeze,
to get up and say hello.
To say hello to a man who...
who's given me thought and pleasure.
And I didn't think I ought to intrude.
Well, I think that people
like you ought to be left alone.
I mean...
Oh, damn.
I can't even
get picked up with any style.
Yes, you can.
You've been very elegant.
Oh, elegant.
The only time I tried to curtsy,
my father had to call the doctor.
It's really not much of a park,
is it, without children?
Well, it's not really
very pretty at all.
Even if it is out of doors.
Well, I told you it was
easier for some than others.
If you had your choice, and could
spend the rest of the afternoon
doing anything you wished,
what would you do?
I'd tell my friends how we met,
and how I dazzled you.
No, seriously.
What would you do?
- Would you call your boyfriend?
- I don't have one.
- Shocking.
- Not at all.
Be frivolous for a moment,
just as a game.
What would you really like to do
on a soft, friendly day like today?
- Could I be frivolous and rich?
- They go together.
Then I'd hire a car,
and I'd go sightseeing,
to special places,
which are probably not special
to anyone except me.
You know, I've been in London
over a year now
and I've never been to...
Well, I just never have.
That's monstrous.
- But curable. I'll personally...
- The game's over.
- I have a job. I must get back.
- No, it's still on.
Could you call them?
Tell them something happened.
If you will, I will.
And then?
And then? And then?
And then...
I decided that if I didn't know
what to do,
to be,
I'd come to London and find out.
And?
I found out that the only thing
I could really do was type fast,
and then faster and faster.
Is that all you've found out, Anne?
No.
I found out other things.
What other things?
Don't ask me, Alex.
It's been such a wonderful holiday.
It's been so full.
I still don't know why you asked me,
but I don't care.
Don't you have full days, Anne?
Aren't you enjoying London?
You should be doing fine.
You'll never own anything
more than these years.
Let things happen to you.
Take the word of Mrs Patrick Campbell:
"You can do anything you like in London
as long as you don't do it in the street.
"And don't frighten the horses."
Look at all the cars, Alex.
Everybody's going home.
Bumper to bumper.
That doesn't matter.
They're going home.
He said it would happen to me.
He said...
Who said?
What's wrong, Anne?
Can't I finish
just one single solitary day,
just one,
without feeling desperate?
Oh, please, come in.
I'm Millie Hoving, Catherine's aunt.
I just took a chance
of stopping by to see Cathy.
- I hope I'm not intruding.
- Oh, no, no, no. It's quite all right.
Catherine talks of you
all the time, Mr Stedman.
You've been so kind to her.
- Won't you sit down?
- Thank you.
I'll tell her you're here.
She'll be so excited.
She's such a nice child, Mr Stedman.
Frankly, after my brother's death,
I thought she'd become ill,
but she's doing fine.
Oh, I had that made from a photograph.
Leo would never sit for a portrait.
- Cathy looks a great deal like her father.
- She does.
They used to say I looked like him
when we were young.
You look nothing like him, Mildred.
Nothing like him at all.
- This is Mr Ste...
- I know who it is.
I'm Alden Hoving,
Mr Stedman, Catherine's uncle.
Very pleased to meet you.
Catherine says you were
a friend of her father's.
- I was.
- Horrible thing, the whole business.
Of course, Leo needed
a doctor himself.
But who knows?
What good are they?
If Leo couldn't cope,
which of them can?
- Alden, please.
- Please? Please what, Mildred?
- I'll go and fetch Catherine.
- Some brandy, Mr Stedman?
- No, thank you.
- It's not easy for us.
We've never had children.
But now she's ours.
There's no money, you know. None.
Except for the house,
and that's on a mortgage.
It took us years to get Leo
to buy some insurance,
so that Catherine
would be taken care of.
He was so involved
in other people's lives
that he forgot
to take care of his own.
- Finally, we convinced him.
- Then Catherine will be taken care of.
All the policies were cancelled.
They pay nothing on a suicide.
It wasn't suicide! It was not!
Don't you say that again, ever!
Catherine, don't you dare
talk to me like that.
- If you do, I'll...
- You'll do what, Uncle?
- Good night, Mr Stedman.
- Good night.
- It's late, Catherine.
- Isn't it?
You ought to give them
a chance, Cathy.
They are new at it.
It's nice of you to come and see me.
I was wondering when.
- How are you?
- Fine.
But I don't belong here, Alex.
I'm a stranger here.
They're your closest relatives, Cathy.
They're going to
sell the house, my house!
- Can they do that, Alex? Can they?
- I'm afraid so.
Your father's executors can sell.
Of course the money is yours in trust.
I don't want the money.
I want the house.
What would you do with it, Cathy?
I'd visit it, look after it,
guard it,
and then, when I'm old enough,
I'd move back there.
- Isn't that fair?
- That's very fair.
But I'm afraid too romantic for solicitors,
accountants, probate courts.
Those kind of people seem
to run the world, don't they, Alex?
And I'd never even
heard of them before.
They were always there, Cathy.
I guess you can
only see them in the dark.
- I'd love you to see it before it's gone.
- I've been there.
Not really. Just to my father's office.
The rest is so beautiful.
I want to show you my house, Alex.
I want to show it to you,
just once before they sell it.
- All right?
- All right.
- I have to go now.
- Don't go yet.
I must.
Alex, any news?
Have you seen them?
- A few.
- But I gave you all the names.
It was one of them,
but you'll find out. I know it.
You look nice.
You're all dressed up.
- Where are you going?
- I have a date, young lady.
I don't suppose you'd wait for me?
It wouldn't be so many years.
You won't look at me by then.
I'd be a relic.
- Never.
- I'd be old and ugly.
- Never.
- There's no such thing as never.
Yes, there is. My father will never
kiss me good night again.
Never again.
- Good night.
- Oh, Alex, you make me cry.
I don't see any tears.
- Inside?
- Always inside.
You read them all?
No, but I count them all the time.
If you don't like it, I'll die.
I like it. Don't die.
Right.
Well, it's almost ready.
I'm terribly sorry, Alex, but I...
- I really am in trouble.
- Trouble?
I still don't know
how to talk to you.
And you have given me
time to practise.
I don't know how to
talk to any man, I suppose.
You talk very well.
No, I don't. I... I just react.
I never initiate anything.
I can't go through life just reacting.
Like "oh, really?"
and "do you mean it?"
And I have things to ask you.
I've even tried to memorise them.
I wanted to ask you
simply, non-aggressively.
I want to ask lean questions
that even if you don't answer,
neither of us will be embarrassed.
But what comes out is a sort of
sticky silence.
and the smell of
two hours' nervous shopping.
You're very articulate.
Only about stuttering.
Anne.
Anne...
The beginning is everything, isn't it?
No, don't do that. Please.
You see, I... I just react.
And I'm so attracted to you.
It's awful, isn't it?
Turn around.
Turn around.
See how graceful you are?
See how elegant,
how really elegant you are?
No.
Let me do it on my own.
Whitset... Whitset...
Whitset...
Whitset.
Whitset.
Anne?
Anne?
What's wrong, Anne?
Wrong?
Here?
Where this empty cave
turned beautiful?
So beautiful,
when you made love to me.
- Let me help you.
- Help me?
You want to help me?
Help me, then.
I had a bad dream.
Such a bad dream.
About millions of years of loneliness.
Continents of cemeteries.
You dream about
the dead too, don't you?
You dream about a dead doctor.
Poor dead doctor.
Oh, I dream about him
all the time. All the time.
But not tonight.
I didn't need him tonight.
I had you.
But still he was with us,
tapping his way round like
a blind, defrocked ghost.
- But it was your dream this time...
- For God's sake!
Yeah, for God's sake!
You dream about your doctor, Alex,
and you talk about him in your dreams.
Our doctor.
Our dead doctor!
What do you want of me?
Why humiliate a nobody?
I was looking for
the person who killed him.
He was killed?
That's not what they said.
And you thought that I might have
killed him?
Don't you care anything about people?
- Don't you feel anything for them?
- I feel for Leo Whitset!
And that makes you so noble!
A commitment to the dead!
So easy. No witnesses.
And what about the living?
Is there something
so antiseptic about us?
Does warmth revolt you?
Does being loved make you impotent?
It took Whitset's death
to make you care for him.
He did not die
the way they said. Not him!
Kill him?
I pray for his poor soul
every day of my life.
He doesn't need your prayers.
He needs his reputation.
Oh, Alex.
Is there no gentleness left?
Doesn't anyone care about people?
Did the last of pity
die with Leo Whitset?
...proceeds from an experienced team director.
The tower had already been erected
to its full height of about 120 feet.
But stagings required to be erected at
various points up and down the structure,
provide platforms where the riveters
could rivet the steelwork.
The method of erecting such stagings
involve the fastening of battens of wood,
known as needles, horizontally
at the sides of the structure.
The inner ends thereof being approximately
in line with the centre of the tower,
And the outer ends protruding
out at some feet beyond...
Mr Bickes, I think we'll adjourn now.
- Tomorrow morning at ten-thirty.
- Of course, my lord.
- Mr Stedman?
- Yes.
How do you do? My name is McHenry,
Dermot McHenry.
- Yes.
- I am His Lordship's clerk.
- His Lordship's clerk.
- I see.
Well, actually, His Lordship was wondering
whether you would care to come to his room.
- I don't know Sir Frederick.
- You don't?
- Oh. Well, His Lordship...
- I know of Sir Frederick, of course.
It must take a great deal of patience
to sit through one of these.
Actually, it's
a most interesting case.
I probably didn't get
the full implication.
- I'm sorry.
- That's all right.
Actually, His Lordship was wondering
whether you'd care to take tea with him.
- Sure!
- Oh, well, then if you'd kindly follow me.
- Great!
- Yes, well...
Is there anything special that interests you
about this case, Mr Stedman?
It's really a
dreary industrial injury matter.
They're endless. The whole business
could have been settled by the solicitors.
You know, the chaps
who sit in front of the barristers.
- I know.
- Yes, of course you'd know.
Lived here quite a long time.
A long time.
Would you like some more?
I assume that you're thinking of doing
a programme concerning the courts?
For the moment,
I'm just browsing around.
Oh, yes, gestation before...
I prefer to call it browsing.
There's no commitment,
not even to myself.
Oh, yes, but an idea is an idea.
Once you have it,
it's a little more difficult
to control it, hmm?
You... you cannot film
in the courts, you know.
- Of course not.
- Oh, yes, of course you know that.
Well, I was delighted that
you were able to stop by.
We're always pleased to see
distinguished visitors in court.
Erm, perhaps I could
drop you somewhere?
No, thank you.
By the way, Sir Frederick,
as long as I'm here, I wonder
if you might help me out
with a legal point
that's been troubling me?
It's just a small thing.
Well, I should be delighted
to clear it up for you.
I want to know if there is a legal method
for me to recover my file from my doctor?
Under what circumstances?
Actually, from my doctor's estate.
He was an analyst.
Surely your solicitor
must have advised you
that it's next to impossible?
He said "quite impossible".
He said an analyst's files
were never available to his patient.
"Privileged writings," he called it.
Well, not technically.
But in principle
they're treated that way.
And a very wise concept.
I was able to see the files
just before the place was sealed.
Unfortunately, there was
no time to destroy mine.
Of course, I don't want
anyone else to see it.
What can I do, Sir Frederick?
Why, I don't think you need worry.
After the estate has been probated,
the, er, executors
will probably destroy them.
They usually do.
I think you can assume
that no-one will see your file.
How can I be sure?
I saw them.
- Them?
- I went through all of them.
Mr Stedman,
I think that was an unconscionable
thing to have done.
My instinct, I guess.
I can't resist looking at any information
available, even privileged.
Besides, Whitset's dead.
He can't possibly...
Leo Whitset?
He kept no files.
I once thought so.
But he did.
And what a memory for detail.
You were a long time
getting around to this.
I had an impression of
your being a direct man.
I should have been.
Then you know.
So he did keep files.
No! No, I knew that office
as well as I know my own.
He had no files. None.
No secretary. No nurse.
He didn't believe there should be
any access. He had no files. None.
Not in the office,
but he did live upstairs.
Didn't you know that?
I did.
You know all about
my career, of course.
You've heard that I may be
promoted to the Court of Appeal.
Yes, Sir Frederick.
I must confess, you're
as distinguished as you can get.
Mr Stedman, you really
are a disappointment.
You're not a gossip columnist.
You've never been grouped
with cheap sensation mongers.
- I'm a reporter.
- You're also a guest in this country.
I live here!
Yes, of course.
No need for that.
Frederick, you wanted
me to be direct. I'll try.
The death of Leo Whitset.
Well, at first I couldn't believe it.
A man like Leo Whitset?
But it was true.
When I got back to London,
they had confirmed
that it was suicide.
You got back?
Where were you?
I'd been sitting in Bristol.
Mr Justice Maxim had been taken ill.
You were away?
You were not in London when he died?
What does it matter where I was?
It's a matter of public record anyway.
What is important
is where you were.
And we know, don't we?
Looking through the recorded
anguish of other people.
Mr Stedman, please.
It was a long time ago.
Nobody remembers. Nobody.
It's never happened again.
Please. Only he knew.
I told him. I trusted him.
Please, Mr Stedman.
It was a long time ago.
I trusted him.
There are no files, Judge.
There are no files.
None.
Just the names.
A mere list of patients.
But why, Mr Stedman? Why?
To be this cruel.
- Why?
- To save a man's reputation.
That's not enough.
That's not enough,
for one man to do this to another!
Why?
I thought it was for his reputation,
but it's for me.
I have to know. Me.
Why?
Because if he died that way,
I can't believe anything he said.
He told me I could live again.
I believed him.
I believed him.
See that one, Alex?
That's his honorary degree
from the University of Vienna.
And this is my favourite chair.
That's for distinguished service,
from the American
Psychoanalytic Association.
Wasn't that nice of them?
I've heard they can be very grumpy
about other countries.
- Oh, that's a personally autographed picture...
- That's Dana Hayward.
Right. He was a great pioneer in...
- something or other.
- Yes, something or other.
Read the inscription, Alex.
"To Leo Whitset,
companion in nightmare."
Look, Alex. See this one?
Cathy, don't you think I'd better
take you home? It's getting late.
This is my home, Alex.
Please. You promised.
I want to show you where we lived.
We shouldn't even be here.
This place is sealed by law.
Just a little longer, Alex.
Please.
- What's that?
- Oh, my father used to go there.
It's near Colchester.
I've never been there.
That was his place.
He went there to walk and think.
He wrote his articles and books there.
I used to nag him to take me.
But he said there was nothing but
"mean trees, unruly shrubbery,
a hard bed and a bumpy road."
Come on, Alex.
I want you to see more.
I think I've dreamt about that place.
I've never been there,
but I've dreamt about it.
My father says we all dream
about a quiet place.
Come on.
It is your room, Cathy.
I don't mean to be childish, honest,
but I can't let them sell it.
It's like selling your memories,
like taking away the year,
like they never were.
It's not fair to sell
a person's memories, is it, Alex?
You'll keep your memories, Cathy.
Believe me.
It's just a room in a house.
Long ago, it wasn't here.
Something else was here.
Cathy, everything changes.
That's the real truth.
Maybe that's true.
But it doesn't mean anything to me.
Isn't it true that the rain is wet
or the grass smells sweet?
But that doesn't matter.
What matters, Alex, is how you feel.
And I feel that the end of this house
is the end of me.
You see? It's just as comfortable
a sitting bed as it is a sleeping bed.
Catherine!
Mr Hoving.
Wait outside, Cathy.
Outside, Cathy!
The girl is fourteen.
Fourteen, Mr Stedman.
- Did you just remember her age?
- You pig!
You filthy-minded pig!
You rigid, narrow, dirty-thinking pig!
- I'll have you arrested!
- For what?
- I know your type, you worldly men.
- Stop it! Stop it!
- You're jaded!
- You filthy sick man!
I'll kill you!
I'll kill you!
Alex! Alex, don't! Don't!
Alex, no! Not again!
Let him go, Alex!
- Alex, you were going to kill him!
- No, Cathy! No!
- You were going to kill him too!
- It's not true! You don't understand!
Oh, Alex.
No, Cathy. No.
Think we have time to
make these changes, Alex?
It's nothing drastic. I just think
we ought to lighten it a little bit.
Either we do it or we don't.
That's the story, Lew. We can't...
Please turn up the sound.
...has come to light concerning the death,
some weeks ago, of Dr Leo Whitset.
The police, who had accepted
the coroner's verdict of suicide,
reopened their investigations
when a patient of Whitset's
apparently took her own life
late last night.
The patient, 28-year-old secretary
Anne Tanner,
had been under Whitset's care
for about six months.
Found beside the body of Miss Tanner
was a note confessing her responsibility
for the death of the noted analyst.
Now for our report on today's
international match. Over to Wembley.
Won't you talk to me ever?
I'm sorry, Alex,
about what happened at my house.
I was terribly frightened.
My uncle...
well, he is what you said.
He was putting
his thoughts into your head.
I'm sorry about your friend, Alex.
Even though she...
I am sorry, Alex.
They haven't finished
the investigation, Cathy.
- It's not certain yet.
- It has to be her, doesn't it?
They said I can keep the house
after they have a formal report.
The insurance will be all right then.
I'll be able to keep everything.
My father wouldn't want strangers
living in the house, Alex.
I know he wouldn't.
I don't want anything
of his to be sold.
What about the other house?
Oh, the one in Colchester.
We didn't own it.
I've never been there.
It had nothing to do with me.
My father said
I wouldn't like it anyway.
"Just some mean trees,
a hard bed and a bumpy road."
Yes.
But I can keep my house, Alex.
And I can come and go as I please.
We may rent it for a while,
but only for a while.
It never need have happened, Alex.
She was his newest patient.
You shouldn't have taken...
- How do you know she was the newest?
- The mail.
The monthly letters to her
started after the others.
See how observant I am?
- It's frightening.
- If only he hadn't taken her.
He was tired.
He worked so hard at the Institute.
Five patients were too many.
He shouldn't have...
Five? But there were only four.
Four patients, Cathy.
Of course four.
Didn't I say four?
No, you said five,
and you're never wrong
with facts, are you?
Go on. Try me again.
Anything. Go ahead. Try me.
All right.
- Who lived there?
- Hogarth. Mr William Hogarth.
He resided there from 1738 to 1740.
He's buried not far from here, Alex,
in the Chiswick Churchyard.
- Try me again.
- And who lived there?
Mr Horace Walpole.
He lived there from 1748 to 1770.
He died at the age of 80
as the fourth Earl of Orford.
A lifelong victim of the gout.
Why is there something funny
about the gout, Alex?
If it can kill people,
why does it sound so funny?
It makes people walk peculiarly.
And it's a name from another time,
far enough away for us to laugh.
You really know things, Alex.
I only know facts.
Did the police ever go to
the house in Colchester, Cathy?
No, they didn't know about it.
- Why not?
- It's my aunt's. You know, Aunt Millie.
It was given to her
by my grandparents.
They died after she married that...
She never told him it was hers.
She didn't want to go there with him.
So she let my father
use it as his own.
She loved my father very much.
She wanted him to be
so much happier than he was.
Come on, Alex.
Ask me some more things.
All right.
The address
of the house in Colchester.
Now, that's difficult,
an address you've never been to.
Easy. 128 Willow Tree Lane,
Stenham Farms, Colchester.
Cathy?
Cathy.
Are you here?
Cathy.
Don't hide from me.
Hello, Alex.
I was downstairs, Alex.
I'm sorry I wasn't here to greet you.
I was worried about you, Cathy.
Your housekeeper said
you were staying with a friend.
I am.
Were you going to stay here all alone?
I'm not alone.
I think we ought to
go home now, Cathy.
Where's that, Alex?
Where there are people.
People who care.
There's no such place.
I had such a funny dream
last night, Alex.
I dreamt we were standing in front
of the statue, the one in the park.
You remember, near my school.
The one of Mr Hans Christian Andersen.
Near where we were standing was a dead
rosebush and a little pool of water.
And you said,
"You see, Cathy,
there are no secrets there.
"The rosebush is dead
and the water is dying."
You said,
"Look into the water, Cathy.
"There's no reflection.
"The water is dying."
Let's go, Cathy.
There's nothing left here.
You said that in the dream, Alex.
"Let's go, Cathy.
There's nothing left here."
You're cleverer than I am, Alex.
- Just older, that's all.
- Much cleverer.
You knew I meant
five patients, didn't you?
Yes.
That game about Mr Hogarth's house
and Mr Walpole's house
- was not a game, was it?
- No, it wasn't.
Do you know what
the third secret is, Alex?
The first is what
we don't tell people.
The second is what
we don't tell ourselves.
And the third...
The third...
The third secret...
is the truth?
Yes.
You see, you find out
by understanding.
I only know because my father knew.
Don't stay here, Alex.
This place is closed.
It's all sealed up.
Please go home!
I love you, Alex.
And I you.
- We'll go together.
- No!
- No!
- Wait, Cathy!
No!
Don't run away!
That doctor was a devil!
He wanted to put me away!
He wanted to shut me away!
Your father loved you, Cathy.
He wanted to help you.
You think I
killed my father, don't you?
He loved me! He begged
the doctor not to send me away!
Cathy, there was only one person.
They had a fight. I know they did.
I went looking for my father.
I wanted to make him some dinner.
He was getting so thin.
But he wasn't home.
There was someone else in the house.
I took his gun, I came down here,
- and I... I...
- Cathy...
- You didn't mean to.
- It was the doctor I killed.
But they sent another one, you!
And you want to
send me away too, like him!
- No, Cathy.
- It was the doctor, not my father!
- I loved him!
- Cathy...
- Don't.
- Not my father! I loved him! I loved him!
Alex! Help me! Please help me!
Alex!
Alex, help me!
It was the doctor I killed!
Where are you, Alex?
Hurry, Alex! Hurry!
Alex! Help!
Hurry, Alex! Where are you?
Alex!
Alex!
Mr Stedman, why did my brother wait?
He loved her.
He was human. He was weak.
My brother was one of
the strongest people I know.
And a doctor, a fine doctor.
He was.
And as a doctor,
he made an early diagnosis.
Borderline schizophrenia.
Yet there was a chance
she could still go to school.
He took that chance.
There was a chance
she could stay with him.
He took that chance.
My brother wouldn't consider
taking such a chance,
and never with Catherine.
Only with Catherine.
Mrs Hoving,
your brother must have
been heartbroken.
Trying to keep his child
out of a world of screams,
of silences,
out of a world where she would
grow old without growing up.
But why did she come to you? Why?
She probably thought
her father had some
little respect for me.
A confused, lost child.
The sensationalism surrounding
her father's death must have shocked her.
- And she came to me.
- And you believed her.
Why not?
I wanted to believe her.
I was the man in search.
I had thought if your brother
had killed himself, he had failed me.
That's not true.
However Leo Whitset lived and died,
he was a fine physician.
He couldn't have failed me.
He was only my doctor,
not my God.
I've stayed too long.
You rest now.
Do you know who saved your life,
Mr Stedman?
Do you know who called me,
who called an ambulance?
Do you know whose arms were
holding you when we came?
Catherine.
You won't enjoy this, Mr Stedman.
I don't expect to.
She won't speak.
She won't hear you.
Why do you want to see her?
Because she's my friend.
Morning, nurse.
This is Miss Whitset's visitor.
You look fine, Cathy. Just fine.
I'm fine too. All better.
I have permission to visit you
all the time, just like family.
All inside, Cathy.
Always inside.
It's a good thing
what you found out, Alex.
And what's that, Cathy?
That he didn't die badly.
It's a good thing, isn't it, Alex?
It's a good thing.
Look, Alex.
I'm crying.
SUBTITLES BY POWERHOUSE FILMS LTD