The Mousetrap

NEVILE. (Annoyed.) Do you mind, Thomas? This is all rather private.

ROYDE. I’m afraid I don’t care about that. You see, I heard Audrey’s name mentioned . . .

NEVILE. (Moving toR. of the chaise, angrily.) What the hell has Audrey’s name got to do with you?

ROYDE. What has it to do with you, if it comes to that? I came here meaning to ask her to marry me, and I think she knows it. What’s more, I mean to marry her.

NEVILE. I think you’ve got a damn nerve . . .

ROYDE. You can think what you like. I’m stopping here. (Battle coughs.)

NEVILE. Oh, all right! Sorry, Superintendent, for the interruption. (To Royde.) The Superintendent is suggesting that Audrey—Audrey committed a brutal assault on Camilla and killed her. Motive—money.

BATTLE. (Moving downL. C.) I didn’t say the motive was money. I don’t think it was, though fifty thousand pounds is a very sizeable motive. No, I think that this crime was directed against you, Mr. Strange.

NEVILE. (Startled.) Me?

BATTLE. I asked you—yesterday—who hated you. The answer, I think, is Audrey Strange.

NEVILE. Impossible. Why should she? I don’t understand.

BATTLE. Ever since you left her for another woman, Audrey Strange has been brooding over her hatred of you. In my opinion—and strictly off the record—I think she’s become mentally unbalanced. I daresay we’ll have these high-class doctors saying so with a lot of long words. Killing you wasn’t enough to satisfy her hate. She decided to get you hanged for murder. (Royde moves up to R.)

NEVILE. (Shaken.) I’ll never believe that. (He perches on the back of the chaise.)

BATTLE. She wore your dinner jacket, she planted your niblick, smearing it with Lady Tressilian’s blood and hair. The only thing that saved you was something she couldn’t foresee. Lady Tressilian rang her bell for Miss Aldin after you’d left . . .

NEVILE. It isn’t true—it can’t be true. You’ve got the whole thing wrong. Audrey’s never borne a grudge against me. She’s always been gentle—forgiving.

BATTLE. It’s not my business to argue with you, Mr. Strange. I asked for a word in private because I wanted to prepare you for what’s about to happen. I’m afraid I shall have to caution Mrs. Audrey Strange and ask her to accompany me . . .

NEVILE. (Rising.) You mean—you’re going to arrest her?

BATTLE. Yes, sir.

NEVILE. (Crossing below the chaise toR. of Battle.) You can’t—you can’t—it’s preposterous. (Royde moves to L. of Nevile.)

ROYDE. (Pushing Nevile down on to the chaise.) Pull yourself together, Strange. Don’t you see that the only thing that can help Audrey now is for you to forget all your ideas of chivalry and come out with the truth?

NEVILE. The truth? You mean . . . ?

ROYDE. I mean the truth about Audrey and Adrian. (He turns to Battle.) I’m sorry, Superintendent, but you’ve got your facts wrong. Strange didn’t leave Audrey for another woman. She left him. She ran away with my brother Adrian. Then Adrian was killed in a car accident on his way to meet her. Strange behaved very decently to Audrey. He arranged for her to divorce him and agreed to take the blame.

NEVILE. I didn’t want her name dragged through the mud. I didn’t know anyone knew.

ROYDE. Adrian wrote to me and told me all about it just before he was killed. (To Battle.) You see, that knocks your motive out, doesn’t it? (He moves up R. C.) Audrey has no cause to hate Strange. On the contrary, she has every reason to be grateful to him.

NEVILE. (Rising; eagerly.) Royde’s right. He’s right. That cuts out the motive. Audrey can’t have done it. (Kay enters quickly by the French windows. Latimer slowly follows Kay on and stands down R.)

KAY. She did. She did. Of course she did.

NEVILE. (Angrily.) Have you been listening?

KAY. Of course I have. And Audrey did it, I tell you. I’ve known she did it all the time. (To Nevile.) Don’t you understand? She tried to get you hanged.

NEVILE. (Crossing toR. of Battle.) You won’t go through with it—not now?

BATTLE. (Slowly.) I seem to have been wrong—about the motive. But there’s still the money.

KAY. (Moving below the chaise.) What money?

BATTLE. (Crossing below Nevile toL. of Kay.) Fifty thousand pounds comes to Mrs. Audrey Strange at Lady Tressilian’s death.