The Mousetrap

The table is in an alcove decorated in delicate Oriental style, equipped with three banquettes.

When theLIGHTScome up, CARLAis seatedRof the table andANGELAWARRENis seated above andCof it. They are just finishing lunch.CARLAis wearing a mink-trimmed coat.ANGELAis a tall woman of thirty, of distinguished appearance, well-dressed in a plain suit with a mannish hat. There is a not too noticeable scar on her left cheek.

ANGELA. (putting down her brandy glass) Well, now that we’ve finished our meal, Carla, I’m prepared to talk. I should have been sorry if you’d gone back to Canada without our being able to meet. (She offers Carla a cigarette from a leather case)

(CARLA declines and takes a cigarette from an American pack on the table)

(She takes one of her own cigarettes) I wanted to fix it before, but I’ve had a hundred and one things to do before leaving tomorrow. (She lights Carla’s cigarette and then her own with a lighter which matches her case)

CARLA. I know how it is. You’re going by sea?

ANGELA. Yes, much easier when you’re carting out a lot of equipment.

CARLA. I told you I saw Miss Williams?

ANGELA. (smiling) Dear Miss Williams. What a life I used to lead her. Climbing trees and playing truant, and plaguing the life out of everyone all round me. I was jealous, of course.

CARLA. (startled) Jealous?

ANGELA. Yes—of Amyas. I’d always come first with Caroline and I couldn’t bear her to be absorbed in him. I played all sorts of tricks on him—put—what was it, now—some filthy stuff—valerian, I think, in his beer, and once I put a hedgehog in his bed. (She laughs) I must have been an absolute menace. How right they were to pack me off to school. Though, of course, I was furious at the time.

CARLA. How much do you remember of it all?

ANGELA. Of the actual happening? Curiously little. We’d had lunch—and then Caroline and Miss Williams went into the garden room, and then we all came in and Amyas was dead and there was telephoning, and I heard Elsa screaming somewhere—on the terrace, I think with Caroline. I just wandered about, getting in everyone’s way.

CARLA. I can’t think why I don’t remember anything. After all, I was five. Old enough to remember something.

ANGELA. Oh, you weren’t there. You’d gone away to stay with your godmother, old Lady Thorpe, about a week before.

CARLA. Ah!

ANGELA. Miss Williams took me into Caroline’s room. She was lying down, looking very white and ill. I was frightened. She said I wasn’t to think about it—I was to go to Miss Williams’ sister in London, and then on to school in Zurich as planned. I said I didn’t want to leave her—and then Miss Williams chipped in and said in that authoritative way of hers—(she mimics Miss Williams) “The best way you can help your sister, Angela, is to do what she wants you to do without making any fuss.” (She sips her brandy)

CARLA. (amused) I know just what you mean. There’s something about Miss Williams which makes you feel you’ve just got to go along with her.

ANGELA. The police asked me a few questions, but I didn’t know why. I just thought there had been some kind of accident, and that Amyas had taken poison by mistake. I was abroad when they arrested Caroline, and they kept it from me as long as they could. Caroline wouldn’t let me go and see her in prison. She did everything she could to keep me out of it all. That was just like Caroline. She always tried to stand between me and the world.

CARLA. She must have been very fond of you.

ANGELA. It wasn’t that. (She touches her scar) It was because of this.

CARLA. That happened when you were a baby.

ANGELA. Yes. You’ve heard about it. It’s the sort of thing that happens—an older child gets mad with jealousy and chucks something. To a sensitive person, like Caroline, the horror of what she had done never quite left her. Her whole life was one long effort to make up to me for the way she had injured me. Very bad for me, of course.

CARLA. Did you ever feel vindictive about it?