approached by a masked man, obviously Mr Talmann in disguise, who is then joined by the estate manager and Mrs Herbert's former fiancé, Mr Noyes, her neighbour Mr Seymour, and the Poulenc twins, eccentric local landowners. The party accuses Mr Neville of the murder of Mr Herbert, for the drawings can be interpreted to suggest more than one illegal act and to implicate more than one person. They also accuse him of the sexual violation of Mrs Herbert, as evidenced by his sexual congress with her that afternoon. Neville realises, too late, that he has been entrapped by Mrs Herbert. Despite his protests, the group of men blind him and beat him to death, finally casting his body into the moat at the place where Mr Herbert's corpse was found. Cast Themes Although there is a murder mystery, its resolution is not explicit; it is implied that the mother (Mrs. Herbert) and daughter (Mrs. Talmann) planned the murder of Mr. Herbert. Mrs. Herbert and Mrs. Talmann were aided by Mr. Clarke, the gardener, and his assistant. In order to keep the estate in their hands, they needed an heir. Because Mr. Talmann was impotent, they used Mr. Neville as a stud. Mr. Herbert was murdered at the site where Mr. Neville is murdered. (In the original treatment, Mr. Herbert is murdered on his return on the 12th day and the site was vetoed as a painting site, because it was instead to be used as a murder site.) Background The film was inspired when Greenaway, who trained as an artist before becoming a filmmaker, spent three weeks drawing a house near Hay-on-Wye while holidaying with his family. Much like Mr. Neville in the final film, every day he would work on a particular view at a set time, to preserve the lighting effects while sketching from day to day. The hands shown drawing in the film are Greenaway's own, as are the completed drawings. The original cut of the film was about three hours long. The opening scene was about 30 minutes long and showed each character talking, at least once, with every other character. Possibly to make the film easier to watch, Greenaway edited it to 103 minutes. The opening scene is now about 10 minutes long and no longer shows all the interactions among all of the characters. Some anomalies in the longer version film are deliberate anachronisms: