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"BEN: If there's a knock on the door you don't answer it. GUS: If there's a knock on the door I don't answer it."

This exchange occurs near the end of the play, in Part four. Ben states a series of instructions to Gus (who repeats each line) as to how they will carry out their job, which ends with their cornering the target with their guns, be it a male or female victim. Pinter directs the actors playing Ben and Gus to deliver their lines with a mechanical detachment, and the effect is that the ghastly deed of murder becomes drained of human emotion and sympathy. Gus is merely an echo, and the echo is much like silence, reinforcing Gus's status as a human "dumb waiter," manipulated and without any voice of his own. In the directions, Ben also has a lapse when he forgets to tell Gus to have his gun ready. Gus reminds him of this and he corrects himself, but it is a clue that Ben, or Wilson, intends the instructions to mislead Gus.

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