The Mousetrap

CARBERY. We’d better have it quite clear. (He pauses, moves down Left Centre a little, then speaks in a dry official voice.) Cases of sudden death, Mr. Boynton, are always investigated if there has been no physician attending the deceased who can give a death certificate. There will have to be an inquest on Mrs. Boynton. The object of that inquest will be to determine how the deceased came to her death. There are several possibilities. First, there is death from natural causes—well, that’s perfectly possible. Mrs. Boynton was suffering from a heart complaint. But there are other possibilities. There’s accidental death. She was taking digitalis. Could she have taken by some mistake—an overdose? (He pauses) Or could she have been given—(Significantly) by mistake, an overdose?

NADINE. I . . .

CARBERY. I understand, Mrs. Boynton, that it was you who habitually administered digitalis to your mother-in-law.

NADINE. Yes.

CARBERY. Is there any possibility that you might have given her an overdose?

NADINE. No. (Clearly) Neither by accident nor, Colonel Carbery, by intention.

CARBERY. Come come, now, I never suggested that.

NADINE. It is what you meant.

CARBERY. I was just considering the possibilities of accident. (He crosses to Left Centre.) So we come to the third possibility. (Sharply) Murder. Yes, just that, murder. And we have got certain evidence to support that view. First, the digitoxin that disappeared from Doctor Gerard’s case and reappeared in Raymond Boynton’s pocket.

(GERARD moves to Left of the table.)

RAYMOND. I tell you I know nothing about that—nothing.

CARBERY. Secondly, the hypodermic needle that is missing from Doctor King’s case.

SARAH. (Crossing to Right) If Ginevra took it, it was playacting, nothing more.

CARBERY. (ToLENNOX) And thirdly, Mr. Boynton, we come to you.

LENNOX. (Starting) To me?

SARAH. One of your Arab fellows has found something else, I suppose?

CARBERY. One of my Arab fellows—as you put it, Doctor King—saw something else.

LENNOX. Saw?

CARBERY. Yes. Yesterday afternoon most people were out walking or else resting from a walk, Mr. Boynton. There was no one—or you thought there was no one—about. You went up to your mother as she was sitting up there. (He nods towards the cave.) You took her hand and bent over her wrist. I don’t know exactly what you did, Mr. Boynton, and my Arab fellow couldn’t see what you did, but your mother cried out.

LENNOX. (Agitated) I can explain. I—she—her bracelet had come undone. She asked me to fasten it. I did. But I was clumsy—I caught the flesh of her wrist in the hinge at the back. That’s what made her cry out.

CARBERY. I see. That’s your story.

LENNOX. It’s the truth.

NADINE. I know that bracelet. It was tight-fitting. It wasn’t at all easy to fasten.

(CARBERY nods quietly.)

LENNOX. (Shrilly) What do you think I did?

CARBERY. I was wondering whether you gave her a rapid injection. (ToGERARD) Death would result, I think you said, very quickly from rapid palsy of the heart.

GERARD. That is correct.

CARBERY. She would cry out and try to rise—and that would be all.

GERARD. That would be all.

LENNOX. It’s not true. You can’t prove it.

CARBERY. There is a mark on her wrist. It is the mark of a hypodermic needle—not a mark caused by the hinge of a bracelet. I don’t like murder, Mr. Boynton.

LENNOX. She wasn’t murdered.

CARBERY. I think she was.

SARAH. It’s fantastic. You built up all this from what a few Arabs have pretended to find or to see. They’re probably lying.

CARBERY. My men don’t lie to me, Doctor King. They’ve found what they say they’ve found where they said they found it. And they’ve seen what they said they’ve seen. And they’ve heard what they’ve said they heard. (He pauses.)

GERARD. Heard?

CARBERY. (Crossing down Left and turning) Yes—heard. Don’t you remember? “One of us has got to kill her.”

CURTAIN

Scene II

SCENE: The same. The same afternoon.