The Mousetrap

MAYHEW. (Moving above the desk) Yes. I brought Vole here, because I am anxious for you to hear his story exactly as he told it to me. (He takes some typewritten papers from his brief-case.) There is some urgency in the matter, it seems. (He hands the papers toSIRWILFRID.)

SIRWILFRID. Oh?

LEONARD. My wife thinks I’m going to be arrested. (He looks embarrassed.) She’s much cleverer than I am—so she may be right.

SIRWILFRID. Arrested for what?

LEONARD. (Still more embarrassed.) Well—for murder.

(SIR WILFRID perches himself on the down R. corner of the desk.)

MAYHEW. (Crossing toC.) It’s the case of Miss Emily French. You’ve probably seen the reports in the Press?

(SIR WILFRID nods.)

She was a maiden lady, living alone but for an elderly housekeeper, in a house at Hampstead. On the night of October the fourteenth her housekeeper returned at eleven o’clock to find that apparently the place had been broken into, and that her mistress had been coshed on the back of the head and killed. (To LEONARD.) That is right?

LEONARD. That’s right. It’s quite an ordinary sort of thing to happen nowadays. And then, the other day, the papers said that the police were anxious to interview a Mr. Leonard Vole, who had visited Miss French earlier on the evening in question, as they thought he might be able to give them useful information. So of course I went along to the police station and they asked me a lot of questions.

SIRWILFRID. (Sharply.) Did they caution you?

LEONARD. (Vaguely.) I don’t quite know. I mean they said would I like to make a statement and they’d write it down, and it might be used in Court. Is that cautioning me?

(SIR WILFRID exchanges a glance with MAYHEW, and speaks more to him than to LEONARD.)

SIRWILFRID. (Rising) Oh well, can’t be helped now. (He crosses above the desk to L.)

LEONARD. Anyway, it sounded damned silly to me. I told them all I could and they were very polite and seemed quite satisfied and all that. When I got home and told Romaine about it—my wife that is—well, she got the wind up. She seemed to think that they—well—that they’d got hold of the idea that I might have done it.

(SIR WILFRID moves the chair from L. of the fireplace to C. for MAYHEW, who sits.)

So I thought perhaps I ought to get hold of a solicitor—(To MAYHEW.) so I came along to you. I thought you’d be able to tell me what I ought to do about it. (He looks anxiously from one to the other.)

SIRWILFRID. (Moving downL.) You knew Miss French well?

(LEONARD rises, but SIR WILFRID motions him to sit.)

LEONARD. Oh yes, she’d been frightfully kind to me. (He resumes his seat.) Actually it was a bit of a bore sometimes—she positively fussed over me, but she meant it very well, and when I saw in the paper that she’d been killed I was awfully upset, because, you see, I’d really got fond of her.

MAYHEW. Tell Sir Wilfrid, just as you told me, how it was you came to make Miss French’s acquaintance.

LEONARD. (Turning obediently toSIRWILFRID) Well, it was one day in Oxford Street. I saw an old lady crossing the road carrying a lot of parcels and in the middle of the street she dropped them, tried to get hold of them again and found a bus was almost on top of her.

(SIR WILFRID crosses slowly below the others to R. of desk.)

Just managed to get to the curb safely. Well, I recovered her parcels from the street, wiped some of the mud off them as best I could, tied up one again that had burst open with string and generally soothed the old dear down. You know the sort of thing.

SIRWILFRID. And she was grateful?

LEONARD. Oh yes, she seemed very grateful. Thanked me a lot and all that. Anyone would think I’d saved her life instead of her parcels.

SIRWILFRID. There was actually no question of your having saved her life? (He takes a packet of cigarettes from the desk drawer.)

LEONARD. Oh, no. Nothing heroic. I never expected to see her again.

SIRWILFRID. Cigarette?

LEONARD. No, thanks, sir, never do. But by an extraordinary coincidence, two days later I happened to be sitting behind her in the theatre. She looked round and recognized me and we began to talk, and in the end she asked me to come and see her.

SIRWILFRID. And you went?