The Mousetrap

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 toCHRISTOPHER) 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 ofMOLLIE) 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 atMOLLIE) 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. (ToGILES) 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.)

MRS. BOYLE. (Off) This is Monkswell Manor, I presume?

GILES. (Off) Yes . . .

( MRS. BOYLE enters through the archway up Right, carrying a suitcase, some magazines and her gloves. She is a large, imposing woman in a very bad temper.)

MRS. BOYLE. I am Mrs. Boyle. (She puts down the suitcase.)

GILES. I’m Giles Ralston. Come in to the fire, Mrs. Boyle, and get warm.

(MRS. BOYLE moves down to the fire.)

Awful weather, isn’t it? Is this your only luggage?

MRS. BOYLE. A Major—Metcalf, is it?—is seeing to it.

GILES. I’ll leave the door for him.

(GILES goes out to the front door.)

MRS. BOYLE. The taxi wouldn’t risk coming up the drive.

(GILES returns and comes down to Left of MRS. BOYLE.)

It stopped at the gate. We had to share a taxi from the station—and there was great difficulty in getting that. (Accusingly) Nothing ordered to meet us, it seems.