The Mousetrap

(There are general exclamations from the others. PHILIP rises and moves to L of the stool)

MISSWILLIAMS. What do you mean?

JUSTIN. You say you saw Caroline Crale take a handkerchief, wipe the beer bottle, and then press her husband’s fingers on it?

MISSWILLIAMS. Yes.

JUSTIN. (after a pause; quietly) The beer bottle?

MISSWILLIAMS. Certainly. The bottle.

JUSTIN. But the poison, Miss Williams, was not found in the bottle—not a trace of it. The conine was in the glass.

(There are general exclamations from the others)

ANGELA. You mean . . . ?

JUSTIN. (moving upC) I mean that if Caroline wiped the bottle, she thought the conine had been in the bottle. But if she had been the poisoner, she would have known where the conine was. (He turns to Carla)

(MISS WILLIAMS moves to the sofa. MEREDITH, bewildered, moves R)

CARLA. (on a very soft sigh) Of course.

(There is a pause)

JUSTIN. (moving to Carla) We all came here today to satisfy one person. Amyas Crale’s daughter. Are you satisfied, Carla?

(There is a pause. CARLA rises and moves above the stool. JUSTIN sits in the armchair R)

CARLA. Yes. I’m satisfied. I know now—oh, I know now such a lot of things.

PHILIP. What things?

CARLA. (movingLC) I know that you, Philip Blake, fell violently in love with my mother, and that when she turned you down and married Amyas, you never forgave her. (To Meredith) You thought you still loved my mother—but really it was Elsa you loved.

(MEREDITH looks at ELSA, who smiles triumphantly)

But all that doesn’t matter—what does matter is that I know now what made my mother behave so oddly at her trial.

(MISS WILLIAMS sits on the sofa at the left end)

I know what she was trying to hide. (She crosses above the stool to Justin) And I know just why she wiped those fingerprints off the bottle. Justin, do you know what I mean?

JUSTIN. I’m not quite sure.

CARLA. There’s only one person Caroline would have tried to shield—(she turns to Angela) you.

ANGELA. (sitting up) Me?

CARLA. (crossing to Angela) Yes. It’s all so clear. You’d played tricks on Amyas, you were angry with him—vindictive because you blamed him for sending you to school.

ANGELA. He was quite right.

CARLA. But you didn’t think so at the time. You were angry. It was you who went and fetched a bottle of beer for him, although it was my mother who took it to him. And, remember, you’d tampered with his beer once before. (She moves above the stool and kneels upon it) When Caroline found him dead with the beer bottle and glass beside him, all that flashed into her mind.

ANGELA. She thought I’d murdered him?

CARLA. She didn’t think you meant to. She thought you’d just played a trick, that you meant to make him sick, but that you had miscalculated the dose. Whatever you’d done, you’d killed him and she had to save you from the consequences. Oh, don’t you see, it all fits in? The way she got you hustled off to Switzerland, the pains she took to keep you from hearing about the arrest and the trial.

ANGELA. She must have been mad.

CARLA. She had a guilt complex about you, because of what she’d done to you as a child. So, in her way, she paid her debt.

ELSA. (rising and crossing below the stool to Angela) So, it was you.

ANGELA. Don’t be absurd. Of course it wasn’t. Do you mean to say you believe this ridiculous story?

CARLA. Caroline believed it.

JUSTIN. Yes, Caroline believed it. It explains so much.

ANGELA. (rising and crossing below the stool to Carla) And you, Carla? Do you believe it?

CARLA. (after a pause) No.

ANGELA. Ah! (She moves to the sofa and sits on it at the right end)

CARLA. But then, there’s no other solution.

(ELSA sits in the armchair L)

JUSTIN. Oh, yes, I think there might be. (He rises and crosses toLC) Tell me, Miss Williams, would it be natural or likely for Amyas Crale to have helped Angela by packing her clothes for her?

MISSWILLIAMS. Certainly not. He’d never dream of doing such a thing.

JUSTIN. And yet you, Mr. Philip Blake, overheard Amyas Crale say, “I’ll see to her packing.” I think you were wrong.