CAPTAIN WRIGHT
Here is the door to the ghost-bride’s bedroom. It is disguised as a painting.
MILLER
(comes close to the painting)
Yes, it can be mistaken for a painting.
Karl Ivanovich joins Wright and pulls on the door handle
KARL IVANOVICH
It won’t budge.
MILLER
Let me try, sir.
He puts his shoulder to the door, but Wright stops him
CAPTAIN WRIGHT
Miller, it’s useless, the door is nailed shut.
Harry stands in the balcony’s doorway facing the room
HARRY
It’s because the door is blocked by the large wardrobe, the one where we found all those women’s clothes.
JAMES
Gentlemen, it’s time for dinner.
Everybody follows James. They close the door behind them and the room is empty again
EXT-FOREST – DAYTIME
Harry, Captain Wright, Georges, and James walk through the forest, carrying rifles and talking. A pair of spaniels follows them.
James carries their trophies, slung behind his shoulder
GEORGES
I think the lady in the abandoned rooms must have died suddenly.
CAPTAIN WRIGHT
And I think she ran off with her paramour.
HARRY
Who else agrees with him?
JAMES
I think something unpleasant happened at the Hunting House, but what precisely?
Georges picks up a stick from the ground and throws it, the dogs rush after the stick
GEORGES
What was a woman doing there?
HARRY
She was a foreign lady.
CAPTAIN WRIGHT
(stops, looking at Harry)
How do you know this?
HARRY
The village headman. He told me that a foreign lady died of a broken heart. She missed her homeland.
(pause)
His grandmother told him.
GEORGES
(comes up to them)
But why didn’t she live up at the castle?
JAMES
(laughs)
The headman’s grandmother did not specify why, did she?
Harry shoots a duck and hits. The duck falls behind the trees. Harry’s dog runs after it
HARRY