“The Culprit”

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Presented by May Tully’s Players, one woman and three men. Scene bachelor’s apartments and as curtain rises the four are seated about a table closing a whist game. When accounts are figured up the host has won a large sum, one guest and his wife break even, and the remaining guest loses all the host has won. The big loser can’t pay. He hasn’t the money. The other player, his friend, agrees to pay his losings [sic]. While he and the host leave for another room to draw up a note the loser and the wife depart for their clothes. During their absence the host returns and throws the room in darkness by turning off the electric light. When the guests return he lights the room and dramatically announces he has been robbed of a large sum from a small safe that stood at one side of the room. Each of the guest [sic] excepting the wife submits to a search. The crime is finally fastened on the young husband and he finally confesses he entered the darkened room and robbed the safe. At this point the big loser takes a hand in the matter and shows up at the host as a blackmailer and a card cheat. He announces he is a detective employed by the wife without her husband’s knowledge to trap the host who has been collecting blackmail from her husband for years by means of information which the husband fearer might cause his wife to leave him if she ever learned. The scheme is exposed, the husband absolved of all blame and as the curtain goes down the host is handcuffed to the detective. There are many interesting situations and it holds the audience from the beginning. The act went good. C.D.F. 22 min.
Source:
University of Iowa, Keith Albee Vaudeville Collection, Manager Reports, 9 September 1912 – 24 February 1913.