The Prisoner Under The Spotlight

    Having resigned his job, by handing it his letter of resignation to a balding, bespectacled man, sat behind a desk, the Prisoner drives back to his home through the streets of London, shadowed by two Undertakers in a black hearse. Arriving home, at No.1 Buckingham Place, Westminster, London, the Prisoner then collects two ready packed suitcases. From his desk, his passport and an airline ticket to Europe, and packs two holiday travel brochures into one of the suitcases. Well there's nothing much wrong with that, save for the two travel brochures. The only reason for them that I can think of, is that they indicate the ultimate destination of the Prisoner. That being a topical beach somewhere in the south seas.  His first port of call having fled London, could very well have been Paris, seeing as he has an airline ticket for Europe. And if it was Paris, that would relate to what he was dreaming in ‘A B and C,’ the scene where the Prisoner was discussing with Madame Engadine, about what he was going to do in his new life. That he was taking a long holiday, because he needed time to think. Somewhere different, somewhere quiet, hence the tropical beach somewhere.

         But this is quite incidental, because the Prisoner left it all too late. They came for the Prisoner before he was expecting them, hence the Prisoner's haste to get away, to escape, before they came for him. Because I'm sure he was expecting them, otherwise why not simply stay at home, put his feet up, and consider his future? It's almost as though the prisoner was running away, not simply going on holiday.

          The Prisoner might very well have been expecting them, but not quite so soon, and probably not in the guise of two Undertakers. Not that the Prisoner actually saw the two Undertakers, as they parked their hearse outside his house. The Undertakers gained entry to the Prisoner's house by the aid of a key, and pumped nerve gas into the study through the keyhole via a gas gun, of the type seen in both episodes of ‘The Schizoid Man’ and ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling.’ Then the coffin was carried into the house, the lid removed and the unconscious body of the Prisoner placed inside and the lid replaced. And the coffin then carried outside the waiting hearse. Picture the scene as the two Undertakers carried the coffin out of 1 Buckingham Place, across the pavement, and the coffin placed in the back of the hearse, with the unconscious body of the Prisoner inside, being abducted from his home. It is an everyday occurrence, the Undertakers collecting a body from someone's home. So innocent would the scene be, that any passer by would not give a second glance. A gentleman passing by at the time, would indeed have removed his hat in respect of the dead, as gentleman would do. But in this case, and how many cases like it, the coffin actually contained the unconscious body of a man being abducted from his home, by two agents, their origin quite unknown!

Be seeing you