The Mousetrap

(JUSTIN sits at the desk. After a while, CARLA looks back at Turnball)

TURNBALL. (after a pause) That’s right. The other woman—that Elsa Greer—she was a hussy if ever there was one. Sexy, if you’ll excuse the word. And your father was an artist—a really great painter; I understand some of his pictures are in the Tate Gallery—and you know what artists are. That Greer girl got her hooks into him good and proper—a kind of madness it must have been. Got him so he was going to leave his wife and child for her. Don’t ever blame your mother, Miss Crale. Even the gentlest lady can be pushed too far.

JUSTIN. Thank you, Turnball.

(TURNBALL looks from Carla to Justin, then exits)

CARLA. He thinks as you do—guilty.

JUSTIN. A gentle creature—pushed too far.

CARLA. (acquiescing) I—suppose so—yes. (With sudden energy) No! I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it. You—you’ve got to help me.

JUSTIN. To do what?

CARLA. Go back into the past and find out the truth.

JUSTIN. You won’t believe the truth when you hear it.

CARLA. Because it isn’t the truth. The defence was suicide, wasn’t it?

JUSTIN. Yes.

CARLA. It could have been suicide. My father could have felt that he’d messed up everything, and that he’d be better out of it all.

JUSTIN. It was the only defense possible—but it wasn’t convincing. Your father was the last man in the world to take his own life.

CARLA. (doubtfully) Accident?

JUSTIN. Conine—a deadly poison, introduced into a glass of beer by accident?

CARLA. All right, then. There’s only one answer. Someone else.

(JUSTIN begins to thumb through the file on his desk, which contains separate sheafs of notes on each person connected with the case)

JUSTIN. One of the five people there in the house. Hardly Elsa Greer. She’d got your father besotted about her, and he was going to get a divorce from his wife and marry her. Philip Blake? He was devoted to your father and always had been.

CARLA. (weakly) Perhaps he was in love with Elsa Greer, too.

JUSTIN. He certainly was not. Meredith Blake? He was your father’s friend, too, one of the most amiable men that ever lived. Imagination boggles at the thought of his murdering anyone.

CARLA. All right. All right. Who else do we have?

JUSTIN. Angela Warren, a schoolgirl of fourteen? And the governess, Miss Whoever her name is.

CARLA. (quickly) Well, what about Miss Whoever her name was?

JUSTIN. (after a slight pause) I see the way your mind is working. Frustration, lonely spinster, repressed love for your father. Let me tell you that Miss—Williams—(he looks in the file) yes, that was her name—Williams—wasn’t like that, at all. She was a tartar, a woman of strong character, and sound commonsense. (He closes the file) Go and see her for yourself if you don’t believe me.

CARLA. That’s what I’m going to do.

JUSTIN. (looking up) What?

CARLA. (stubbing out her cigarette in the ashtray on the desk) I’m going to see them all. (She rises) That’s what I want you to do for me. Find out where they all are. Make appointments for me with them.

JUSTIN. With what reason?

CARLA. (crossing toL) So that I can ask them questions, make them remember.

JUSTIN. What can they remember that could be useful after sixteen years?

CARLA. (putting on her gloves) Something, perhaps, that they never thought of at the time. Something that wasn’t evidence—not the sort of thing that would come out in court. It will be like patchwork—a little piece of this and a little piece of that. And in the end, who knows, it might add up to something.

JUSTIN. Wishful thinking. You’ll only give yourself more pain in the end. (He puts the file in the desk drawer)

CARLA. (defiantly) My mother was innocent. I’m starting from there. And you’re going to help me.

JUSTIN. (stubbornly) That’s where you’re wrong. (He rises) I’m not going to help you to chase a will-o’-the-wisp.

(CARLA and JUSTIN stare at each other.)