The Mousetrap

(RAYMOND and GINEVRA enter Right. GINEVRA crosses to Left Centre. CARBERY rises and indicates the chair Right of the table. GINEVRA thanks him with a little royal inclination of her head and sits Right of the table.)

(He resumes his seat.) Just want to ask you something, Miss Boynton. There’s a hypodermic syringe missing from this case. Do you know anything about it?

GINEVRA. (Shaking her head) No—oh, no.

CARBERY. Are you sure you didn’t take it?

GINEVRA. Why should I take it?

CARBERY. Well—(He smiles at her) I’m asking you.

GINEVRA. (Leaning forward) Are you on my side?

CARBERY. (Startled) Eh, what’s that?

GINEVRA. Or are you one of them?

(GERARD makes a gesture of frustration.)

(She turns swiftly and looks at GERARD.) Ask him. He knows. He came here—he followed me from Jerusalem—to protect me. To keep me safe from my enemies.

CARBERY. What enemies, Miss Boynton?

GINEVRA. I mustn’t say. No, I mustn’t say. It isn’t safe.

CARBERY. What do you know about this hypodermic?

GINEVRA. I know who took it. (She nods.)

CARBERY. Who?

GINEVRA. It was meant for me. They were going to kill me. After dark. I should have been asleep. I shouldn’t have cried out. They knew, you see, that I’d not got the knife.

CARBERY. What knife?

GINEVRA. I stole a knife. He—(She looks at GERARD) took it away from me. I ought to have had it—to protect myself with. They were plotting to kill me.

GERARD. (Moving behindGINEVRAand shaking her by the shoulders) You must stop this playacting—none of that that you please yourself by imagining is real. You know in your heart that it is not real.

GINEVRA. It’s true—it’s all true.

GERARD. (Kneeling by her) No, it is not true. Listen, Ginevra, your mother is dead and you will lead now a new life. You must come out of this world of shadows and fancies. You are free now—free.

GINEVRA. (Rising) Mother is dead—I’m free—free. (She crosses to Right Centre.) Mother is dead. (She turns suddenly to CARBERY.) Did I kill her?

GERARD. (Rising and moving up Centre.) Ah! Mon Dieu!

SARAH. (Rising, fiercely) Of course you didn’t kill her.

GINEVRA. (Turning a mad lovely smile onSARAH) How do you know?

(GINEVRA exits Right)

SARAH. (After a moment’s stunned pause) She doesn’t know what she’s saying.

CARBERY. (Rising) The question seems to be, did she know what she was doing.

SARAH. She didn’t do anything. (She moves Right Centre.)

CARBERY. I wonder.

(LENNOX and NADINE enter Right. Their faces are anxious.)

NADINE. (Moving Right Centre) What have you been doing to Jinny? She said—she said . . .

CARBERY. What did she say, Mrs. Boynton?

NADINE. She said. “They think I killed Mother.” She was smiling. Oh!

GERARD. It all fits in. It is the instinct to dramatize herself. You have given her a new role, that is all.

NADINE. (Crossing to Right of the table) You don’t understand, Colonel Carbery. My sister-in-law is not well. She is suffering from a kind of nervous breakdown. It’s all so fantastic. Just because my mother-in-law unfortunately died . . .

CARBERY. Unfortunately?

NADINE. What do you mean?

CARBERY. It was, if you’ll excuse me for saying it, not such a very unfortunate death for all of you, was it?

LENNOX. (Crossing to Right ofNADINE) What are you hinting at? What are you trying to say?