The Mousetrap and Other Plays

  KARL. (sitting at the desk) Think no more about it. I have lost books myself in my time. It happens to all of us.

  LESTER. (moving to the doors up C) You’ve been awfully good about it. Awfully good. Some people wouldn’t have lent me any more books.

  KARL. Tcha! That would have been foolish. Go on, my boy.

  LESTER exits rather unwillingly by the hall to R.

  (To LISA) How is Anya?

  LISA. She has been very depressed and fretful this afternoon, but she settled down for a little sleep. I hope she is asleep, now.

  KARL. I won’t wake her if she is asleep. My poor darling, she needs all the sleep she can get.

  LISA. I’ll get some water for the flowers.

  LISA takes a vase from the shelf R and comes back into the room. He glances quickly round, makes sure he is alone with Karl and moves to R of the armchair.

  LESTER. (with a rush) I’ve got to tell you, sir, I must. I—I didn’t lose that book.

  LISA enters from up C and L with the flowers in the vase, crosses very quietly to L of the table and RC and puts the vase on it.

  I—I sold it.

  KARL. (not turning and not really surprised but kindly nodding his head) I see. You sold it.

  LESTER. I never meant to tell you. I don’t know why I have. But I just felt you’d got to know. I don’t know what you’ll think of me.

  KARL. (turning round; thoughtfully) You sold it. For how much?

  LESTER. (slightly pleased with himself) I got two pounds for it. Two pounds.

  KARL. You wanted the money?

  LESTER. Yes, I did. I wanted it badly.

  KARL. (rising) What did you want the money for?

  LESTER. (giving KARL a rather shifty glance) Well, you see, my mother’s been ill lately and . . . (He breaks off and moves away from KARL down C) No, I won’t tell you any more lies. I wanted it—you see, there was a girl. I wanted to take her out, and . . .

  KARL suddenly smiles at LESTER and crosses below the armchair to L of him.

  KARL. Ah! You wanted it to spend on a girl. I see. Good. Very good—very good, indeed.

  LESTER. Good? But . . .

  KARL. So natural. Oh, yes, it was very wrong of you to steal my book and to sell it and to lie to me about it. But if you have to do bad things I am glad that you do them for a good motive. And at your age there is no better motive than that—to go out with a girl and enjoy yourself. (He pats LESTER on the shoulder) She is pretty, your girl?

  LESTER. (self-consciously) Well, naturally, I think so. (He gains confidence) Actually, she’s pretty marvellous.

  KARL. (with a knowing chuckle) And you had a good time on the two pounds?

  LESTER. In a way. Well, I mean, I began by enjoying it awfully. But—but I did feel rather uncomfortable.

  KARL. (sitting on the right arm of the armchair) You felt uncomfortable—yes, that’s interesting.

  LESTER. Do believe me, sir, I am terribly sorry and ashamed, and it won’t happen again. And I’ll tell you this, too, I’m going to save up and buy that book back and bring it back to you.

  KARL. (gravely) Then you shall do so if you can. Now, cheer up—that’s all over and forgotten.

  LESTER throws KARL a grateful glance and exits by the hall to R. LISA comes slowly forward towards KARL.

  (He nods his head) I’m glad he came and told me about it himself. I hoped he would, but of course I wasn’t at all sure.

  LISA. (moving RC) You knew, then, that he’d stolen it?

  KARL. Of course I knew.

  LISA. (puzzled) But you didn’t let him know that you knew.

  KARL. No.

  LISA. Why?

  KARL. Because, as I say, I hoped he would tell me about it himself.

  LISA. (after a pause) Was it a valuable book?

  KARL. (rising and moving to the desk) Actually, it’s quite irreplaceable.

  LISA. (turning away) Oh, Karl.

  KARL. Poor devil—so pleased to have got two pounds for it. The dealer who bought it off him will probably have sold it for forty or fifty pounds by now.

  LISA. So he won’t be able to buy it back?

  KARL. (sitting at the desk) No.

  LISA. (crossing to R of the armchair) I don’t understand you, Karl. (She begins to lose her temper) It seems to me sometimes you go out of your way to let yourself be played upon—you allow yourself to have things stolen from you, to be deceived . . .

  KARL. (gently but amused) But, Lisa, I wasn’t deceived.

  LISA. Well, that makes it worse. Stealing is stealing. The way you go on positively encourages people to steal.

  KARL. (becoming thoughtful) Does it? I wonder. I wonder.

  LISA is very angry now and starts pacing below the sofa and back up C.

  LISA. How angry you make me.

  KARL. I know. I always make you angry.

  LISA. (moving up R) That miserable boy . . .

  KARL. (rising and standing up LC) That miserable boy has the makings of a very fine scholar—a really fine scholar. That’s rare, you know, Lisa. That’s very rare. There are so many of these boys and girls, earnest, wanting to learn, but not the real thing.

  LISA sits on left arm of the sofa.

  (He moves to L. of LISA) But Lester Cole is the real stuff of which scholars are made.

  LISA has calmed down by now and she puts her arm affectionately on KARL’s arm.

  (He smiles ruefully. After a pause) You’ve no idea of the difference one Lester Cole makes to a weary professor’s life.

  LISA. I can understand that. There is so much mediocrity.

  KARL. Mediocrity and worse. (He gives LISA a cigarette, lights it, then sits C of the sofa) I’m willing to spend time on the conscientious plodder, even if he isn’t very bright, but the people who want to acquire learning as a form of intellectual snobbery, to try it on as you try on a piece of jewellery, who want just a smattering and only a smattering, and who ask for their food to be pre-digested, that I won’t stand for. I turned one of them down today.

  LISA. Who was that?

  KARL. A very spoiled young girl. Naturally she’s at liberty to attend classes and waste her time, but she wants private tuition—special lessons.

  LISA. Is she prepared to pay for them?

  KARL. That is her idea. Her father, I gather, has immense wealth and has always bought his daughter everything she wanted. Well, he won’t buy her private tuition from me.

  LISA. We could do with the money.

  KARL. I know. I know, but it’s not a question of money—it’s the time, you see, Lisa. I really haven’t got the time. There are two boys, Sydney Abrahamson—you know him—and another boy. A coal miner’s son. They’re both keen, desperately keen, and I think they’ve got the stuff in them. But they’re handicapped by a bad superficial education. I’ve got to give them private time if they’re to have a chance.

  LISA rises, crosses above the armchair and flicks her cigarette ash into the ashtray on the desk.

  And they’re worth it, Lisa, they’re worth it. Do you understand?

  LISA. I understand that one cannot possibly change you, Karl. You stand by and smile when a student helps himself to a valuable book, you refuse a rich pupil in favour of a penniless one. (She crosses to C) I’m sure it is very noble, but nobility doesn’t pay the baker and the butcher and the grocer.

  KARL. But surely, Lisa, we are really not so hard up.

  LISA. No, we are not really so hard up, but we could always do with some more money. Just think what we could do with this room.

  The thumping of a stick is heard off R.

  Ah! Anya is awake.

  KARL. (rising) I’ll go to her.

  KARL exits down R. LISA smiles, sighs and shakes her head, then collects the books from the armchair and puts them on the table RC. The music of a barrel organ is heard off. LISA picks up the “Walter Savage Landor” from the table RC, sits on the left arm of the sofa and reads, MRS. ROPER enters the hall from R. She carries a large parcel of washing. She exi
ts in the hall to L, deposits the parcel, then re-enters and comes into the room with her shopping bag.

  MRS. ROPER. I got the washing. (She goes to the desk) And I got a few more fags for the professor—he was right out again. (She takes a packet of cigarettes from her shopping bags and puts them on the desk) Oh! Don’t they carry on when they run out of fags? You should have heard Mr. Freemantel at my last place. (She puts her bag on the floor R of the armchair) Screamed blue murder he did if he hadn’t got a fag. Always sarcastic to his wife, he was. They were incompatible—you know, he had a secretary. Saucy cat! When the divorce came up, I could have told them a thing or two, from what I saw. I would have done, too, but for Mr. Roper. I thought it was only right, but he said, “No, Ivy, never spit against the wind.”

  The front door bell rings.

  Shall I see who it is?

  LISA. (rising) If you please, Mrs. Roper.

  MRS. ROPER exits by the hall to R.

  DOCTOR. (off) Good evening, Mrs. Roper.

  MRS. ROPER re-enters. DOCTOR STONER follows her on. He is a typical family doctor of the old school, aged about sixty. He is affectionately at home.

  MRS. ROPER. (as she enters) It’s the doctor.

  DOCTOR. Good evening, Lisa, my dear. (He stands up R and looks around the room at the masses of books everywhere)

  LISA. (moving to R of the table RC) Hello, Doctor Stoner.

  MRS. ROPER. (picking up her bag) Well, I must be off. Oh, Miss Koletzky, I’ll bring in another quarter of tea in the morning, we’re right out again. ’Bye!

  MRS. ROPER exits up C, closing the doors behind her. The DOCTOR crosses below the sofa to R of it.

  DOCTOR. Well, Lisa, and how goes it?

  LISA moves about the table RC and marks her place in the book, with a piece of flower wrapping paper.

  Has Karl been buying books again, or is it only my fancy that there are more than usual? (He busies himself clearing the books from the sofa and putting them on the table RC)

  LISA picks up the remainder of the wrapping paper, crosses to the wastepaper basket above the desk and drops the paper in it.

  LISA. (moving to L of the sofa) I have forbidden him to buy more, Doctor. Already there is practically nowhere to sit down.

  DOCTOR. You are quite right to read him the riot act, Lisa, but you won’t succeed. Karl would rather have a book for dinner than a piece of roast beef. How is Anya?

  LISA. She has been very depressed and in bad spirits today. Yesterday she seemed a little better and more cheerful.

  DOCTOR. (sitting on the sofa at the right end) Yes, yes, that’s the way it goes. (He sighs) Is Karl with her now?

  LISA. Yes.

  DOCTOR. He never fails her.

  The barrel organ music ceases.

  You realize, my dear, don’t you, that Karl is a very remarkable man? People feel it, you know, they’re influenced by him.

  LISA. He makes his effect, yes.

  DOCTOR. (sharply) Now, what do you mean by that, young woman?

  LISA. (taking the book from under her arm) “There are no fields of amaranth this side of the grave.”

  The DOCTOR takes the book from LISA and looks at the title.

  DOCTOR. H’m. Walter Savage Landor. What’s your exact meaning, Lisa, in quoting him?

  LISA. Just that you know and I know that there are no fields of amaranth this side of the grave. But Karl doesn’t know. For him the fields of amaranth are here and now, and that can be dangerous.

  DOCTOR. Dangerous—to him?

  LISA. Not only to him. Dangerous to others, to those who care for him, who depend on him. Men like Karl . . . (She breaks off)

  DOCTOR. (after a pause) Yes?

  Voices are heard off down R, and as LISA hears them she moves to the work-table up L and sets it R of the armchair. KARL enters down R pushing ANYA HENDRYK in a wheelchair. ANYA is a woman of about thirty-eight, fretful and faded with a trace of former prettiness. On occasions her manner shows she has at one time been a coquettish and pretty young girl. Mostly she is a querulous and whining invalid.

  KARL. (as he enters) I thought I heard your voice, Doctor.

  DOCTOR. (rising) Good evening, Anya, you look very well this evening.

  KARL pushes the wheelchair to C and sets it R of the work-table.

  ANYA. I may look well, Doctor, but I don’t feel it. How can I feel well cooped up here all day?

  DOCTOR. (Cheerfully) But you have that nice balcony outside your bedroom window. (He sits on the sofa) You can sit out there and get the air and the sunshine and see what’s going on all around you.

  ANYA. As if there’s anything worth looking at going on round me. All these drab houses and all the drab people who live in them. Ah, when I think of our lovely little house and the garden and all our nice furniture—everything gone. It’s too much, Doctor, it’s too much to lose everything you have.

  KARL. Come, Anya, you still have a fine upstanding husband.

  LISA brings the flowers from the table RC and puts them on the work-table.

  ANYA. Not such an upstanding husband as he was—(To LISA) is he?

  LISA laughs at ANYA’s little joke and exits up C.

  You stoop, Karl, and your hair is grey.

  KARL. (sitting on the left arm of the sofa) That is a pity, but you must put up with me as I am.

  ANYA. (miserably) I feel worse every day, Doctor. My back aches and I’ve got a twitching in this left arm. I don’t think that last medicine suits me.

  DOCTOR. Then we must try something else.

  ANYA. The drops are all right, the ones for my heart, but Lisa only gives me four at a time. She says that you said I mustn’t take more. But I think I’ve got used to them and it would be better if I took six or eight.

  DOCTOR. Lisa is carrying out my orders. That is why I have told her not to leave them near you in case you should take too many. They are dangerous, you know.

  ANYA. It’s just as well you don’t leave them near me. I’m sure if you did, one day I should take the whole bottle and finish it all.

  DOCTOR. No, no, my dear. You wouldn’t do that.

  ANYA. What good am I to anyone, just lying there, ill and a nuisance to everyone? Oh, I know they’re kind enough, but they must feel me a terrible burden.

  KARL. (rising and affectionately patting ANYA’s shoulder) You are not a burden to me, Anya.

  ANYA. That’s what you say, but I must be.

  KARL. No, you’re not.

  ANYA. I know I am. It’s not as though I am gay and amusing like I used to be. I’m just an invalid now, fretful and cross with nothing amusing to say or do.

  KARL. No, no, my dear.

  ANYA. If I were only dead and out of the way, Karl could marry—a young handsome wife who would help him in his career.

  KARL. You would be surprised if you knew how many men’s careers have been ruined by marrying young handsome wives when they themselves are middle-aged.

  ANYA. You know what I mean. I’m just a burden on you.

  KARL shakes his head at ANYA, gently smiling.

  DOCTOR. (writing a prescription on his pad) We’ll try a tonic. A new tonic.

  LISA enters up C. She carries a tray of coffee for four which she puts on the table RC.

  LISA. Have you seen your flowers, Anya? Karl brought them for you. (She pours the coffee)

  KARL moves above the work-table and picks up the vase for ANYA to see.

  ANYA. I don’t want to be reminded of spring. Spring in this horrible city. You remember the woods and how we went and picked the little wild daffodils? Ah, life was so happy, then, so easy. We didn’t know what was coming. Now, the world is hateful, horrible, all drab grey, and our friends are scattered, and most of them are dead, and we have to live in a foreign country.

  LISA hands a cup of coffee to the doctor.

  DOCTOR. Thank you, Lisa.

  KARL. There are worse things.

  ANYA. I know you think I complain all the time, but—if I were well I should be brave and be
ar it all.

  ANYA puts her hand out and KARL kisses it. LISA hands a cup of coffee to ANYA.

  KARL. I know, my dear, I know. You have a lot to bear.

  ANYA. You don’t know anything about it.

  The front door bell rings. LISA exits in the hall to R.

  You’re well and strong and so is Lisa. What have I ever done that this should happen to me?

  KARL. (taking her hand in his) Dearest—dearest—I understand.

  LISA. (off) Good afternoon.

  HELEN. (off) Could I see Professor Hendryk, please?

  LISA. (off) Would you come this way, please.

  LISA enters up C from R. HELEN ROLLANDER follows her on. HELEN is a beautiful and self-assured girl of about twenty-three. KARL moves above the armchair.

  (She stands L of the doors) Miss Rollander to see you, Karl.

  HELEN goes straight toward KARL. Her manner is assured and charming. LISA watches her sharply. The DOCTOR rising, is intrigued and interested.

  HELEN. I do hope you don’t mind my butting in like this. I got your private address from Lester Cole.

  LISA crosses to the table RC and pours more coffee.

  KARL. (moving up L of ANYA) Of course I do not mind. May I introduce you to my wife—Miss Rollander.

  HELEN stands R of ANYA. LISA gives KARL a cup of coffee.

  HELEN. (with great charm) How do you do, Mrs. Hendryk?

  ANYA. How do you do? I am, you see, an invalid. I cannot get up.

  HELEN. Of course not. I’m so sorry. I hope you don’t mind my coming, but I’m a pupil of your husband’s. I wanted to consult him about something.

  KARL. (indicating them in turn) This is Miss Koletzky and Dr. Stoner.

  HELEN. (to LISA) How do you do? (She crosses to the DOCTOR and shakes hands) How do you do? (She moves up C)

  DOCTOR. How do you do?

  HELEN. (looking round the room) So this is where you live. Books, books, and books. (She moves down to the sofa, then sits on it)

  DOCTOR. Yes, Miss Rollander, you are very fortunate in being able to sit down. I cleared that sofa only five minutes ago.

  HELEN. Oh, I’m always lucky.

  KARL. Would you like some coffee?

  HELEN. No, thank you. Professor Hendryk, I wonder if I could speak to you for a moment alone?