Otto Brod wrote a play which he asked Clark Bennington to vet. Ben showed it to the two persons of his acquaintance who could read German and had some judgement. I refer to Doré and myself. The play we presented last night was my own free adaptation of Brod’s piece made without his consent or knowledge. Base is the slave that pays. In every way mine is an improvement. Was it George Moore who said that the difference between his quotation and those of the next man was that he left out the inverted commas? I am in full agreement with this attitude and so, by the way, was Will Shakespeare. Doré, however, is a bourgeois where the arts are in question. He recognized the source, disapproved, but had the grace to remain mum. The British critics, like Doré, would take the uncivilized view and Ben knew it. He suspected the original authorship, wrote to Brod and three days ago got an answer confirming his suspicions. This letter he proposed to use as an instrument of blackmail. I told Ben, which was no more than the truth, that I intended to make things right with Brod who, if he’s not a popinjay, would be well-content with the honour I’ve done him and the arrangement I proposed. Ben would have none of this. He threatened to publish Brod’s letter if a certain change was made in the casting. The day before yesterday, under duress, I submitted and no longer pressed for this change. However, owing to Miss G’s highstrikes, it was, after all, effected. Five minutes before the curtain went up on the first act, Ben informed me, with, Ho, such bugs and goblins in my life, that at the final curtain, he intended to advance to the footlights and tell the audience I’d pinched the play. Knowing Ben meant business, I acted: in a manner which, it appears, you have rumbled and which will be fully revealed by your analysis of the greasepaint on his unlovely mug.

He powdered his face with pethidine-hydrochloride, an effective analgesic drug, now in fashion, of which the maximum therapeutic dose is 100 mg. Ben got about 2 gm on his sweaty upper lip. I loaded his prepared powder-pad with pethidine (forgive the nauseating alliteration) while he was on in the last act and burnt the pad when I returned, immediately before the curtain-call. He was then comatose and I doubt if the gassing was necessary. However, I wished to suggest suicide. I overturned his powder box in opening out his overcoat. My own vestment being habitually besprinkled with snuff was none the worse but the powder must have settled on his coat after I had covered his head. Unfortunate. I fancy that with unexpected penetration, you have in all respects hit on the modus operandi. Pity we couldn’t share the curtain-call.