The box is still on the platform, back to us, the sausages still on the floor where Marjory tossed them. All the puppets on the back walls are more or less in their same positions, though the scarecrow puppet may have slumped a little, unbeknownst to us. The attic door is tried, then the lock is picked, and the Press Man from Scene Two quietly enters. He strikes a match and looks over the puppets, the sausages, then sees the box, and slowly walks over to it. He peers in through the circular hole, and as he does so the scarecrow puppet creepily stirs and lifts its head to reveal Hans, who watches all, as the grandfather clock beside him strikes seven. The Press Man, still not having seen Hans, slowly rotates the box so that the glass side faces him and us, as Hans quietly takes down a puppet of a woodsman, and takes the real-life axe from its hands. The Press Man strikes another match to see more clearly, and taps on the glass. There’s a crumpled blanket but not much more inside it. Hans coughs, to finally get his attention.
Press Man Oh. Shit. Hello again.
Hans scratches his nose with the axe.
What’s the axe for?
Hans For axing things. Don’t axe stupid questions.
Marjory’s disembodied snort is heard from somewhere, maybe even amplified, but the Press Man can’t work out from where, though nothing has stirred in the box.
Press Man For axing what?
Hans For axing whom.
Marjory For axing who.
Hans Oh, I thought it was ‘whom’ when we don’t know whom we’re axing.
Marjory We do know whom we’re axing.
Hans We do. He doesn’t.
Press Man Well I do now!
Hans Oh, he does now.
Press Man (whispered, but amplified) Tell him you’re only kidding about killing him.
Hans I’m only kidding about killing you.
Press Man (whispered) To reassure him.
Hans To reassure you.
Marjory No, don’t tell him you’re reassuring him!
Hans No, I don’t tell you I’m reassuring you!
Press Man You come closer I’ll smash this glass, and that’s two of us you’ll have to take on.
Hans There’s no one in there, fuckhead.
He indicates a ‘puppet’ hanging on a crucifix on the back wall. It raises its head to reveal it’s Marjory hanging there. She gives a little wave.
I saw you coming up the stairs, fool! You call that creeping? Fucking elephant feet!
Press Man You do keep a pygmy in your attic.
Hans Who says I do? Alright, yes I do. But saying that isn’t going to make it less likely that you’re going to get killed, is it? It’s going to make it more likely.
Marjory But yes, who says he keeps a pygmy in his attic?
He turns to her.
Press Man Oh … well, a good journalist never reveals his sources, does he …?
Hans thwacks the Press Man across the head with the axe. He slumps down, bleeding …
Hans A good journalist?! You’re a burgular!
Marjory Burglar.
Hans Burglar. An elephant-footed burgular!
Marjory Who told you?!
Press Man The red men …!
Marjory gets down off the cross. She and Hans exchange a look.
Marjory How did they know?
Press Man I don’t know! I swear I don’t!
Marjory Were they Belgian?
Press Man Yes, I think so. They had dark hair and a massive inferiority complex.
Hans That’s Belgians alright! And was it blood or was it jam?
Marjory Hans, for Christ’s sake! Of course it was blood. It was thirty-year-old Congo blood.
Hans That doesn’t sound very hygienic.
Press Man I’m bleeding …
Hans Course you’re bleeding. What did you think it was, axe-grease?
Press Man What’s the greatest writer in all of Denmark doing with a pygmy in his attic?
Marjory What’s the greatest writer in all of Denmark doing with a Hans Christian Andersen living downstairs from her?
Press Man (pause) She writes your stories?
Hans No. Sort of. We co-write them. I just don’t do any of the writing. I change the bits I don’t like and then erase all the rest from history. I’m more like a German theatre director. Or, y’know, a German generally.
Press Man This is something of a scoop.
Hans The scoop of a dead man, unfortunately.
Marjory Ooh, I quite like that, ‘The scoop of a dead man.’
Hans Did you like that? See, I’m not a complete knobhead, am I?
Press Man Please. I’ve got my blind mother to look after.
Hans (yawning) Do ya?
Hans Where’s that whiny violin coming from? Oh yes, your mouth!
Press Man She’s not just blind, she’s deaf and dumb too, the poor thing.
Hans She’s blind, deaf and dumb? She’ll hardly notice you’re gone!
Press Man (to Marjory) Please, Miss … They told me about your sister, too, the Belgians.
Marjory What about my sister?
Hans Now now …!
Marjory My sister’s dead.
Press Man No, no. She’s in a box in Charles Dickens’s house in London.
Hans grabs the Press Man and, with his back to us, slits his throat with the axe, blood splattering across the glass of the box. Hans lets his dead body slump to the floor, then stands there, picking his fingers guiltily.
Hans ‘Charles Dickens’s house in London’! Like someone that famous would have a … pygmy in a …
Marjory looks at him, dumbfounded. Hans checks his watch.
Anyway, like I said, I’m off to Charles Dickens’s house in London. There’s a lot we have to catch up on. You’d better get back in the box.
Marjory She’s alive?
Hans I don’t know what you’re talking about. Box, please.
Hans And do you want your sausages or don’t you want your sausages, cos I’m aware of that sausage hissy-fit from earlier?
Marjory Is she alive, Hans?
Hans Maybe. I did say we had a lot in common, didn’t I? (Pause.) Do you want me to pass on a message?
She goes to speak.
No, I’m only mucking about. I’m not some kinda ‘message-passer-onner’ am I? I’ll see you in a couple of weeks, Marjory. Fingers crossed!
He puts the string of sausages back in through the hole, and exits … then comes back in again and turns down the gas lamp by the door.
I’ll turn the lights off, eh? Save a bit of gas, I’m not made of money.
The lights dim and he exits again, his footsteps echoing away downstairs, leaving Marjory moonlit.
Marjory She’s alive!
Smiling, she lays down under her blanket, and starts eating a sausage. The Narrator coughs, then speaks.
Narrator I’m jumping way ahead of myself here … but time travel allows that, so, y’know … (Pause.) Eighteen years after the events of Part One, and ten years before the horrors in the Congo were to begin, the esteemed Danish short-story writer, Hans Christian Andersen, died in Copenhagen of natural causes, following complications that arose from a fall out of bed … I swear to God, look it up! (Pause.) Amongst his belongings when he died, which mainly consisted of unsent love letters to both men and women and an attic-full of puppets made of materials that hadn’t been invented yet, a very small mahogany box was found. Inside the box lay a tiny skeleton. It, too, was strung like a marionette: seventeen strings drilled into its arm bones and sixteen strings drilled into its skull …
As we hear this description we see, suspended inside the glass of the box above Marjory, the pygmy skeleton as described, neck and arms hanging from puppet strings …
It only had one foot left on it and it only had one hand left on it, and I’m not sure how Hans Christian Andersen is going to come out of this story cleanly, but remember children, it is only a story, and right now the story is only half over. So kick your shoes off and settle in, for the far more cheery and more or less upbeat Part Two.
As the narration ends, the skeleton slowly raises its skull, its vacant black eye sockets staring straight out at us.
Blackout.
End of Part One.