The Mousetrap

SCENE3   Two months later. Late afternoon.

TIME: The Present.

ACT ONE

Scene I

SCENE: The living room ofPROFESSORHENDRYK’s flat in Bloomsbury. An afternoon in early spring.

The flat is the upper floor of one of the old houses in Bloomsbury. It is a well-proportioned room with comfortable, old-fashioned furniture. The main feature that strikes the eye is books; books everywhere, in shelves against the wall, lying on tables, on chairs, on the sofa and piled up in heaps on the floor. Double doors upClead to an entrance door isRand a passage leads offLto the kitchen. In the room the door toANYA’s bedroom is downRand there is a sash windowLleading on to a small balcony with ivy-covered railings, overlooking the street below and a row of houses opposite.KARL’s desk is in front of the window with a chair in front of it. The desk is filled with books as well as the telephone, blotter, calendar, etc. Below the desk is a record cabinet, filled with records, more books and odd lecture papers. There is a record player on top. Built into the walls either side of the double doors are bookcases. Below the left one isANYA’s small work-table. Between the doors and the bookcaseLof it there is a three-tiered, round table with books in each tier and a plant on the top one. Against the wall below the doorRis a small console table with a plant on top and books piled below. Hanging on the wall above the door downRis a small set of shelves with more books andANYA’s medicine in one corner. Under the shelves is a small cupboard with further books. The cupboards underneath. In front of these shelves, there is a library ladder. A sofa isRCwith a circular table behind it. Chairs stand above andLof the table. All three pieces of furniture have books on them. A large red armchair isLC, with still more books on it. At night the room is lit by wall-bracket each side of the window and table-lamps on the desk, on the tableRCand on the cupboardR. There are switchesLof the double doors. In the hall there is a chairRof the bedroom door.

When theCURTAINrises, the double doors are open. The stage is in darkness. When the lights come upLESTERCOLEis precariously balanced on the library ladder. He is a clumsy but likeable young man of about twenty-four, with a tousled head of hair. He is shabbily dressed. There is a pile of books on the top of the ladder.LESTERreaches up to the top shelf, selects a book now and again, pauses to read a passage and either adds it to the pile on the ladder or replaces it on the shelf.