Conflict

Richard Mason:
Mutton? What's he getting mutton for? We're going out to dinner.

Kathryn Mason:
We're having mutton tomorrow.

Richard Mason:
I don't like mutton.

Kathryn Mason:
I don't know why you say such a thing. I've seen you eat it a thousand times.

Richard Mason:
A thousand times I told you I don't like it.

Kathryn Mason:
Nonsense, it's all your imagination. You can eat anything if you put your mind to it.

Richard Mason:
I don't eat with my mind, I eat with my stomach.

Kathryn Mason:
Really, Dick, you might put your things away, just look at that bed. If I've told you once, I've told you...

Richard Mason:
Thousand times.

Kathryn Mason:
And you insist on doing it.

Richard Mason:
Listen Kathryn, I don't insist on anything. I don't know what's come over you lately. You find fault in everything I do and everything I say. What's the matter with you?

Kathryn Mason:
Don't stand there and play the innocent with me. You know perfectly well what the matter is.

Richard Mason:
What're you talking about?

Kathryn Mason:
Your ridiculous infatuation with Evelyn. Oh you thought I didn't know, didn't you? You must think I'm blind. The way you look at her and hang on her every word is positively nauseating.

Kathryn Mason:
You're in love with her aren't you? I thought so. Well what're you going to do about it?

Richard Mason:
How can I do anything about it? I haven't said anything to her and I don't intend to. When I married you, your sister was jusjt a kid. Now she's grown up and I happen to find myself in love with her. Just one of those things that can't be helped.

Kathryn Mason:
I suppose you'd like me to step out of the picture, well I'll never do that.

Richard Mason:
I know that.

Kathryn Mason:
As though you should try to leave me because she'd never marry you anyway, she's too loyal.

Richard Mason:
I know that too.

Kathryn Mason:
I wouldn't tell Evelyn if I were you, I'm afraid she'd laugh at you too.

Richard Mason:
I wish you hadn't said that.

Kathryn Mason:
I'm not going to the party.

Richard Mason:
Oh yes you are. It's our fifth anniversary, you wouldn't miss it for anything. You'll go and I'll go like thousands of others go and laugh at the rest of them.

Evelyn Turner:
Are you ready yet?

Richard Mason:
Are we, Kathryn?

Kathryn Mason:
Certainly.

Dr. Mark Hamilton:
I knew everything there was to know, but I didn't know enough to get married.

Dr. Mark Hamilton:
Never having been married myself, I've always had a warm spot in my heart for those who have achieved it.

Evelyn Turner:
Achieved it?

Dr. Mark Hamilton:
Certainly, as a psychologist I can assure you a happy marriage is indeed a rare achievement.

Kathryn Mason:
Isn't that rather cynical?

Dr. Mark Hamilton:
Well, perhaps it is, but, you see, marriage is a very tricky business. People have impulses, compulsions, drives that to say towards escape, escape from loneliness. They seek their escape in the companionship of someone else and lo just when they think they've achieved it, they find they put on their own handcuffs.

Evelyn Turner:
Is your heart in a cage, Professor Holsworth?

Prof. Norman Holsworth:
Oh I give it a little birdseed now and then.

Evelyn Turner:
That's very strongminded of you, but I'm not quite convinced.

Prof. Norman Holsworth:
Neither am I.

Dr. Mark Hamilton:
You see sometimes a thought can be like a malignant disease that starts to eat away the willpower. When that happens, it's my business to remove the thought before it can cause destruction.

Richard Mason:
That's a very pretty theory, Doctor, but I don't quite see how you can take a thought out of a man's head. It seems to me if it's there, it's there and there's nothing can be done about it.

Prof. Norman Holsworth:
You see, Doctor Hamilton belongs to the Freudian school of psychology, he believes that love rather than money is the root of all evil.

Evelyn Turner:
Why it's nothing of the kind. Beg your pardon, Doctor Hamilton, but love doesn't always cause unhappiness and trouble. It's been one of man's inspirations for centuries. Why it's been the basis of some of the greatest stories ever written. Look at Romeo and Juliet, Anthony and Cleopatra, Abelard and Eloise.

Richard Mason:
Yes but look what happened to them.

Evelyn Turner:
Oh Dick that's not fair. You know what I mean, it doesn't matter what happens to people as long as they have something to live for.

Dr. Mark Hamilton:
But they didn't live for it, they died for it.

Kathryn Mason:
Richard! I was so afraid, I thought... [Richard approaches her] Why, you're walking, Richard, you're walking without help. How did you get here? Why are you here?... No, Richard, don't!

Richard Mason:
[on the phone with Lt. Egan] Hello Egan, this is Mason, somebody's been in my house tonight. No nothing has been taken, something's been added, the wedding ring my wife wore when she went away.

Dr. Mark Hamilton:
[fishing] Any luck?

Richard Mason:
[holds up his fish] Well if you call this luck.

Dr. Mark Hamilton:
[laughs] I could use that for bait.

Evelyn Turner:
I caught one bigger than that but I didn't like the way he looked at me so I threw him back.

Dr. Mark Hamilton:
[on unsolved murder and perfect crime] Laws of chance are overwhelmingly against it, so are the laws of human nature. You see a murderer's whole safety depends upon a complication of lies. If he had no motive, no access, if his alibi is perfect, even if he feels no remorse, think of the strain he endures in knowing one error would be his undoing. That if he is forgetful enough to conflict one of his statements, his act of innocence is unconvincing in any details, if he so much as talks in his sleep.

Richard Mason:
Doctor, I don't believe in ghosts and I don't believe in the supernatural. I don't believe that people live on in life after they left it. But I saw Kathyrn today or someone who looked like her.

Dr. Mark Hamilton:
Where?

Richard Mason:
Downtown. She passed me on the street, I followed her but couldn't catch her on account of this leg. She disappeared into an empty house.

Dr. Mark Hamilton:
How do you know it wasn't Kathryn?

Richard Mason:
Oh but it couldn't be.

Dr. Mark Hamilton:
Why couldn't it be?

Richard Mason:
Well if it was, why didn't she stop when I called her? Why didn't she speak to me?

Richard Mason:
Doctor, you've had a lot of experience with mental cases assuming I am a mental case. Ever run across anything like this before?

Dr. Mark Hamilton:
Only once, years ago when I was a student in Vienna.

Richard Mason:
What was it?

Dr. Mark Hamilton:
Man who murdered his wife.

Richard Mason:
What're you doing here? What've you got to do with all of this?

Dr. Mark Hamilton:
I caught the one slip you made. The rose. You said Kathryn was wearing it the last time you saw her.

Richard Mason:
She was! It was pinned to her coat.

Dr. Mark Hamilton:
I gave her that rose when she stopped at my house. A rose you couldn't have seen when you were supposed to be helpless at home.

Evelyn Turner:
Love has been men's inspiration for centuries.

Richard Mason:
Funny things happen inside people's heads, don't they?

Kathryn Mason:
[to Richard] It's funny how virtuous a man can be when he's helpless.

Evelyn Turner:
Do drive carefully, Dick. These mountain roads are so dangerous!

Richard Mason:
Yeah, I've heard that before.

Richard Mason:
[after he thinks he's seen his dead wife entering a deserted apartment] She's supposed to be dead, you understand. She's supposed to be murdered.

Landlady:
Murdered? [the landlady starts becoming increasingly more fearful of his tone]

Richard Mason:
[He becomes increasingly maniacal] Yes, murdered. You know what that means?

Landlady:
Yes, sir.

Richard Mason:
You don't like that, do you?

Landlady:
No, sir.

Richard Mason:
[His eyes now have a wild look to them] Yes, sir - no, sir - yes, sir! Cats come back sometimes, but women don't. You put cats in a bag and thriow them in the river, but sometimes they get out and come back.

Landlady:
No, sir.

Richard Mason:
Even if they do come back, you're not supposed to harbor them. It's against the law. It's against the housing law!

Landlady:
Yes, sir.

Richard Mason:
Especially a person who's been murdered!

Landlady:
[She becomes panicked] Murdered? [Screaming] HELP!