HENRIETTA. She put something in it—out of her bag.
(The INSPECTOR picks up GERDA’s handbag, opens it and takes out the poison bottle.)
INSPECTOR. (Reading the label) I wonder how she got hold of that? (He feels GERDA’s pulse, then shakes his head.) So—she’s killed herself.
HENRIETTA. (Rising and crossing to Right) No, it was meant for me.
INSPECTOR. For you, why?
HENRIETTA. Because I—I knew—something. (She crosses above the sofa to the back of the armchair Centre.)
INSPECTOR. You knew she’d killed her husband? Oh yes, I knew that too. We get to know people in our job. You’re not the killer type. She was.
HENRIETTA. (Breaking to the fireplace) She loved John Cristow—too much.
INSPECTOR. The worshipper—that was the name of the statue, wasn’t it? What happens next for you?
HENRIETTA. John told me once that if he were dead, the first thing I’d do would be to model a figure of grief. It’s odd, but that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
(The INSPECTOR moves to the writing table. LADY ANGKATELL enters up Centre from Left. She looks radiant.)
LADY ANGKATELL. (Moving down Centre) It was a wonderful inquest.
(The INSPECTOR lifts the telephone receiver.)
Exactly as they describe it in books, and . . . (She sees GERDA.) Has—has Gerda . . . ?
(The INSPECTOR looks at her in silence. HENRIETTA puts her hands to her eyes to hide her tears.)
(She nods her head.) How very, very fortunate . . .
INSPECTOR. (Into the telephone) Get me the police station, will you?
(HENRIETTA starts to sob as—the Curtain falls.)
CURTAIN
The Mousetrap
Presented by Peter Saunders at the Ambassadors Theatre, London, on 25th November 1952, with the following cast of characters:
(in the order of their appearance)
MOLLIE RALSTON
Sheila Sim
GILES RALSTON
John Paul
CHRISTOPHER WREN
Allan McClelland
MRS. BOYLE
Mignon O’Doherty
MAJOR METCALF
Aubrey Dexter
MISS CASEWELL
Jessica Spencer
MR. PARAVICINI
Martin Miller
DETECTIVE SERGEANT TROTTER
Richard Attenborough
The play produced by Peter Cotes
Décor by Roger Furse
SYNOPSIS OF SCENES
ACT I
SCENE 1 The Great Hall at Monkswell Manor. Late afternoon
SCENE 2 The same. The following day after lunch
ACT II
The same. Ten minutes later
Time: the present
ACT ONE
Scene I
SCENE: The Great Hall at Monkswell Manor. Late afternoon.
The house looks not so much a period piece but a house which has been lived in by generations of the same family with dwindling resources. There are tall windows up Centre; a big arched opening up Right leading to the entrance hall, the front door and the kitchen; and an arched opening Left leading upstairs to the bedrooms. Up Left leading off the stairs is the door to the library; down Left is the door to the drawing room; and down Right the door (opening on stage) to the dining room. Right is an open fireplace, and beneath the window up Centre a windowseat and a radiator.
The hall is furnished as a lounge. There is some good old oak, including a large refectory table by the window up Centre, an oak chest in the entrance hall up Right, and a stool on the stairs Left. The curtains and the upholstered furniture—a sofa Left Centre, an armchair Centre, a large leather armchair Right, and a small Victorian armchair down Right—are shabby and old-fashioned. There is a combined desk and bookcase Left, with a radio and telephone on it and a chair beside it. There is another chair up Right Centre by the window, a Canterbury containing newspapers and magazines above the fireplace and a small half-circular card table behind the sofa. There are two wall brackets over the fireplace which are worked together; and a wall bracket on the Left wall, one Left of the library door and one in the entrance hall, which are also worked together. There are double switches Left of the arch up Right, and on the downstage side of the door down Left, and a single switch on the upstage side of the door down Right. A table lamp stands on the sofa table.
Before Curtain rises the House LIGHTS fade to a complete blackout and the music of “Three Blind Mice” is heard.
When Curtain rises the stage is in complete darkness. The music fades, giving place to a shrill whistle of the same tune, “Three Blind Mice.” A woman’s piercing scream is heard, then a mixture of male and female voices saying: “My God, what’s that?” “Went that way!” “Oh, my God!” Then a police whistle sounds, followed by several other police whistles, all of which fade to silence.
VOICE ON THE RADIO. . . and according to Scotland Yard, the crime took place at twenty-four Culver Street, Paddington.
The lights come up, revealing the Hall at Monkswell Manor. It is late afternoon, and almost dark. Snow can be seen falling heavily through the windows up Centre. There is a fire burning. A freshly painted signboard is standing on its side on the stairs against the archway Left; it has on it in large letters: MONKWELL MANOR GUEST HOUSE.
The murdered woman was a Mrs. Maureen Lyon. In connection with the murder, the police are anxious to interview a man seen in the vicinity, wearing a dark overcoat, light scarf, and a soft felt hat.
(MOLLIE RALSTON enters through the arch up Right. She is a tall, pretty young woman with an ingenuous air, in her twenties. She puts down her handbag and gloves on the armchair Centre, then crosses to the radio and switches it off during the next speech. She places a small parcel in the desk cupboard.)
Motorists are warned against ice-bound roads. The heavy snow is expected to continue, and throughout the country there will be a certain freezing, particularly at points on the north and northeast coast of Scotland.
MOLLIE. (Calling) Mrs. Barlow! Mrs. Barlow! (Receiving no reply, she crosses to the armchair Centre, picks up her handbag and one glove, and then goes out through the arch up Right. She removes her overcoat and then returns.) Brr! It’s cold. (She goes to the wall switch above the door down Right and switches on the wall brackets over the fireplace. She moves up to the window, feels the radiator and draws the curtains. Then she moves down to the sofa table and switches on the table lamp. She looks round and notices the large signboard lying on its side on the stairs. She picks it up and places it against the wall Left of the window alcove. She steps back, nodding her head) It really does look nice—oh! (She notices that there is no “S” on the sign) How stupid of Giles. (She looks at her watch then at the clock.) Gosh!
(MOLLIE hurries off up the stairs Left. GILES enters from the front door Right. He is a rather arrogant but attractive young man in his twenties. He stamps his feet to shake off the snow, opens the oak chest and puts inside a big paper carrier he has been carrying. He takes off his overcoat, hat and scarf, moves down and throws them on the armchair Centre. Then he goes to the fire and warms his hands.)
GILES. (Calling) Mollie? Mollie? Mollie? Where are you?
(MOLLIE enters from the arch Left.)
MOLLIE. (Cheerfully) Doing all the work, you brute. (She crosses to Giles.)
GILES. Oh, there you are—leave it all to me. Shall I stoke the Aga?
MOLLIE. Done.
GILES. (Kissing her) Hullo, sweetheart. Your nose is cold.
MOLLIE. I’ve just come in. (She crosses to the fire.)
GILES. Why? Where have you been? Surely you’ve not been out in this weather?
MOLLIE. I had to go down to the village for some stuff I’d forgotten. Did you get the chicken netting?
GILES. It wasn’t the right kind. (He sits on the Left arm of the armchair Centre) I went on to another dump but that wasn’t any good either. Practically a whole day wasted. My God, I’m half frozen. Car was s
kidding like anything. The snow’s coming down thick. What do you bet we’re not snowed up tomorrow?
MOLLIE. Oh dear, I do hope not. (She crosses to the radiator and feels it.) If only the pipes don’t freeze.
GILES. (Rising and moving up to MOLLIE) We’ll have to keep the central heating well-stoked up. (He feels the radiator.) H’m, not too good—I wish they’d send the coke along. We’ve not got any too much.
MOLLIE. (Moving down to the sofa and sitting) Oh! I do so want everything to go well at first. First impressions are so important.
GILES. (Moving down to Right of the sofa) Is everything ready? Nobody’s arrived yet, I suppose?
MOLLIE. No, thank goodness. I think everything’s in order. Mrs. Barlow’s hooked it early. Afraid of the weather, I suppose.
GILES. What a nuisance these daily women are. That leaves everything on your shoulders.
MOLLIE. And yours! This is a partnership.
GILES. (Crossing to the fire) So long as you don’t ask me to cook.
MOLLIE. (Rising) No, no, that’s my department. Anyway, we’ve got lots of tins in case we are snowed up. (Crossing to GILES) Oh, Giles, do you think it’s going to be all right?
GILES. Got cold feet, have you? Are you sorry now we didn’t sell the place when your aunt left it to you, instead of having this mad idea of running it as a guest house?
MOLLIE. No, I’m not. I love it. And talking of a guest house. Just look at that! (She indicates the signboard in an accusing manner.)
GILES. (Complacently) Pretty good, what? (He crosses to Left of the signboard.)
MOLLIE. It’s a disaster! Don’t you see? You’ve left out the “S”. Monkwell instead of Monkswell.
GILES. Good Lord, so I did. However did I come to do that? But it doesn’t really matter, does it? Monkwell is as good a name.
MOLLIE. You’re in disgrace. (She crosses to the desk.) Go and stoke up the central heating.
GILES. Across that icy yard! Ugh! Shall I bank it up for the night now?
MOLLIE. No, you don’t do that until ten or eleven o’clock at night.
GILES. How appalling!
MOLLIE. Hurry up. Someone may arrive at any minute now.
GILES. You’ve got all the rooms worked out?
MOLLIE. Yes. (She sits at the desk and picks up a paper from it.) Mrs. Boyle, Front Fourposter Room. Major Metcalf, Blue Room. Miss Casewell, East Room. Mr. Wren, Oak Room.
GILES. (Crossing to Right of the sofa table) I wonder what all these people will be like. Oughtn’t we to have got rent in advance?
MOLLIE. Oh no, I don’t think so.
GILES. We’re rather mugs at this game.
MOLLIE. They bring luggage. If they don’t pay we hang on to their luggage. It’s quite simple.
GILES. I can’t help thinking we ought to have taken a correspondence course in hotel keeping. We’re sure to get had in some way. Their luggage might be just bricks wrapped up in newspaper, and where should we be then?
MOLLIE. They all wrote from very good addresses.
GILES. That’s what servants with forged references do. Some of these people may be criminals hiding from the police. (He moves up to the signboard and picks it up.)
MOLLIE. I don’t care what they are so long as they pay us seven guineas every week.
GILES. You’re such a wonderful woman of business, Mollie.
(GILES exits through the arch up Right, carrying the signboard. MOLLIE switches on the radio.)
VOICE ON THE RADIO. And according to Scotland Yard, the crime took place at twenty-four Culver Street, Paddington. The murdered woman was a Mrs. Maureen Lyon. In connection with the murder, the police—
(MOLLIE rises and crosses to the armchair Centre.)
—are anxious to interview a man seen in the vicinity, wearing a dark overcoat—
(MOLLIE picks up GILES’s overcoat)
—light scarf—
(MOLLIE picks up his scarf)
—and a soft felt hat.
(MOLLIE picks up his hat and exits through the arch up Right.)
Motorists are warned against icebound roads.
(The door bell rings.)
The heavy snow is expected to continue, and throughout the country . . .
(MOLLIE enters, crosses to the desk, switches off the radio and hurries off through the arch up Right.)
MOLLIE. (Off) How do you do?
CHRISTOPHER. (Off) Thanks so much.
(CHRISTOPHER WREN enters through the arch up Right with a suitcase, which he places Right of the refectory table. He is a rather wild-looking, neurotic young man. His hair is long and untidy and he wears a woven artistic tie. He has a confiding, almost childish manner. mollie enters and moves up Centre.)
Weather is simply awful. My taxi gave up at your gate. (He crosses and places his hat on the sofa table.) Wouldn’t attempt the drive. No sporting instinct. (Moving up to MOLLIE) Are you Mrs. Ralston? How delightful! My name’s Wren.
MOLLIE. How do you do, Mr. Wren?
CHRISTOPHER. You know you’re not at all as I’d pictured you. I’ve been thinking of you as a retired General’s widow, Indian Army. I thought you’d be terrifically grim and Memsahibish, and that the whole place would be simply crammed with Benares brass. Instead, it’s heavenly. (Crossing below the sofa to Left of the sofa table)—quite heavenly. Lovely proportions. (Pointing at the desk) That’s a fake! (Pointing at the sofa table) Ah, but this table’s genuine. I’m simply going to love this place. (He moves below the armchair Centre.) Have you got any wax flowers or birds of Paradise?
MOLLIE. I’m afraid not.
CHRISTOPHER. What a pity! Well, what about a sideboard? A purple plummy mahogany sideboard with great solid carved fruits on it?
MOLLIE. Yes, we have—in the dining room. (She glances at the door down Right.)
CHRISTOPHER. (Following her glance) In here? (He moves down Right and opens the door.) I must see it.
(CHRISTOPHER exits into the dining room and MOLLIE follows him. GILES enters through the archway up Right. He looks round and examines the suitcase. Hearing voices from the dining room, GILES exits up Right.
MOLLIE. (Off) Do come and warm yourself.
(MOLLIE enters from the dining room, followed by CHRISTOPHER. MOLLIE moves Centre.)
CHRISTOPHER. (As he enters) Absolutely perfect. Real bedrock respectability. But why do away with a centre mahogany table? (Looking off Right.) Little tables just spoil the effect.
(GILES enters up Right and stands Left of the large armchair Right.)
MOLLIE. We thought guests would prefer them—this is my husband.
CHRISTOPHER. (Moving up to GILES and shaking hands with him) How do you do? Terrible weather, isn’t it? Takes one back to Dickens and Scrooge and that irritating Tiny Tim. So bogus. (He turns towards the fire.) Of course, Mrs. Ralston, you’re absolutely right about the little tables. I was being carried away by my feeling for period. If you had a mahogany dining table, you’d have to have the right family round it. (He turns to GILES.) Stern handsome father with a beard, prolific, faded mother, eleven children of assorted ages, a grim governess, and somebody called “poor Harriet,” the poor relation who acts as general dogsbody and is very, very grateful for being given a good home!
GILES. (Disliking him) I’ll take your suitcase upstairs for you. (He picks up the suitcase. To MOLLIE) Oak Room, did you say?
MOLLIE. Yes.
CHRISTOPHER. I do hope that it’s got a fourposter with little chintz roses?
GILES. It hasn’t.
(GILES exits Left up the stairs with the suitcase.)
CHRISTOPHER. I don’t believe your husband is going to like me. (Moving a few paces towards MOLLIE) How long have you been married? Are you very much in love?
MOLLIE. (Coldly) We’ve been married just a year. (Moving towards the stairs Left.) Perhaps you’d like to go up and see your room?
CHRISTOPHER. Ticked off! (He moves above the sofa table.) But I do so like knowing all about people. I mean, I think people are so
madly interesting. Don’t you?
MOLLIE. Well, I suppose some are and (Turning to CHRISTOPHER) some are not.
CHRISTOPHER. No, I don’t agree. They’re all interesting, because you never really know what anyone is like—or what they are really thinking. For instance, you don’t know what I’m thinking about now, do you? (He smiles as at some secret joke.)
MOLLIE. Not in the least. (She moves down to the sofa table and takes a cigarette from the box.) Cigarette?
CHRISTOPHER. No, thank you. (Moving to Right of MOLLIE) You see? The only people who really know what other people are like are artists—and they don’t know why they know it! But if they’re portrait painters (he moves Centre) it comes out—(He sits on the Right arm of the sofa) on the canvas.
MOLLIE. Are you a painter? (She lights her cigarette.)
CHRISTOPHER. No, I’m an architect. My parents, you know, baptized me Christopher, in the hope that I would be an architect. Christopher Wren! (He laughs.) As good as halfway home. Actually, of course, everyone laughs about it and makes jokes about St. Paul’s. However—who knows?—I may yet have the last laugh.
(GILES enters from the archway up Left and crosses to the arch up Right.)
Chris Wren’s Prefab Nests may yet go down in history! (To GILES) I’m going to like it here. I find your wife most sympathetic.
GILES. (Coldly) Indeed.
CHRISTOPHER. (Turning to look at MOLLIE) And really very beautiful.
MOLLIE. Oh, don’t be absurd.
(GILES leans on the back of the large armchair.)
CHRISTOPHER. There, isn’t that like an Englishwoman? Compliments always embarrass them. European women take compliments as a matter of course, but Englishwomen have all the feminine spirit crushed out of them by their husbands. (He turns and looks at GILES.) There’s something very boorish about English husbands.
MOLLIE. (Hastily) Come up and see your room. (She crosses to the arch up Left.)
CHRISTOPHER. Shall I?
MOLLIE. (To GILES) Could you stoke up the hot-water boiler?
(MOLLIE and CHRISTOPHER exit up the stairs Left. GILES scowls and crosses to Centre. The door bell peals. There is a pause, then it peals several times impatiently. GILES exits hurriedly up Right to the front door. The sound of wind and snow is heard for a moment or two.)