It was High Noon. But the question was - would he last the day?

Duncan Smith's hard line on the 'plotters' backfires as senior Tories react angrily and constituencies tire of bickering

The wait was agonising. It was "High Noon" at Conservative Central Office and Iain Duncan Smith was to make a "personal statement".

As an air of fetid excitement swept the press briefing room, the backdrop slogan – "Leadership With a Purpose" – offered a certain bathos as three doleful figures walked in.

Oliver Letwin, the shadow Home Secretary, Theresa May, the party chairman, and Michael Ancram, the shadow Foreign Secretary, trooped in like witnesses at an execution.

The cameramen hovered expectantly, waiting for the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition for what seemed an age, with Mrs May looking every inch a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. For one awful second, there was even a whisper that Michael Portillo would walk in.

The Tory party's very own Gary Cooper then emerged, blinking into the flashbulbs, and drew his Colt 45.

We quickly realised this wasn't a personal statement on halitosis or one's favourite colour. This being the Tory party, it had to be the leader calling on his party to support him through this sticky patch. Just as John Major had done his famous "back me or sack me" speech in Downing Street's rose garden seven long years ago, Mr Duncan Smith said he wouldn't let the hard work of "hundreds of thousands" of party volunteers be sabotaged by a small group of MPs.

The Tory leader had never promised them a rose garden, but he had expected some loyalty and was jolly angry about not getting it. But when he said the party "will not look kindly on people who put personal ambitions before the interests of the party", some assumed IDS was talking about himself and this was it: he's going to resign.

It was not to be, though, and the Quiet Man turned mute as he refused to take questions afterwards. "Are you on the run?" yelled journalists as he made a swift exit.

Earlier, the Conservative leader had abandoned a planned photocall to launch his party's new right-to-buy policy in the East End of London. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the shadow Housing minister, and Philip Hammond, the shadow Local Government minister, suffered the embarrassment of learning from journalists 15 minutes before the event was due to start that it had been cancelled. A black cat, sitting on a wall near by, yawned as the bewildered pair headed back to the Commons.

After his statement, Mr Duncan Smith swapped the inner-city estate for the refined surroundings of The Ivy, eaterie to the rich and famous in the West End.

When the Tory leader arrived at a lunch with TV executives, ironically scheduled to "raise his media profile" as one aide put it, one reporter shouted, helpfully: "Are you going to last the day?"

Ninety-five minutes of fine food and wine later, he ignored questions from the media scrum as he walked briskly to his car. In a wonderful coincidence, Phillip Gould, Tony Blair's personal pollster, had also just left The Ivy. For some reason, Mr Gould had a grin from ear to ear at the spectacle before him.

Mr Duncan Smith was bundled into his car like a criminal, only the regulation woolly blanket missing from his head. But there was one last comic, Keystone cops-style moment. Owen Patterson, his parliamentary aide and the man criticised for deepening the crisis by naming four alleged plotters against the leader, was nearly left behind in the melee. The car set off, stopped again, a door swung open and he dived in.

Across the road, the neon signs of the theatre opposite seemed somehow apt. "A truly entertaining classic thriller", "Its mystery is superbly maintained until the very end", "Even more thrilling than the plot is the atmosphere of skulduggery" the comments read.

The Mousetrap may be in its record 50th year. But that other madcap farce, the battle for the soul of the Tory party, looks bound to run and run.