The Mousetrap

GERARD. I don’t know. He may have been quite confident that her death would be attributed to natural causes—as it would have been but for my discovery of the missing phial.

SARAH. It wasn’t Raymond. I watched his face when Colonel Carbery produced that bottle.

GERARD. Eh bien! (He sits Right of the table.) Then there is Nadine Boynton. She has plenty of nerve and efficiency, that quiet young woman. Nothing easier for her than to administer a lethal dose of digitoxin in Mrs. Boynton’s medicine. Then she slips the bottle in Raymond’s pocket.

SARAH. You are making her out a revolting character.

GERARD. Women are unscrupulous. She plants suspicion against her brother-in-law in order to be sure that no suspicion falls on her husband.

SARAH. Suspicion did fall on him.

GERARD. Yes. Is his story of the bracelet true? Myself I do not believe it.

SARAH. (Rising) What you mean is that you don’t want it to be your precious Jinny.

GERARD. (Rising, excitably) Of course it was not Jinny. I tell you it is psychologically impossible.

SARAH. (Crossing to Right) You Frenchmen! It is not at all psychologically impossible that Jinny should kill someone—and you know it.

GERARD. (Following her; excitedly) Yes, but not in that way. If she killed, she would kill flamboyantly, spectacularly. With the knife—that, yes, I can imagine it. But she would have to dramatize her act.

SARAH. Couldn’t it be someone outside altogether?

GERARD. (Moving Left Centre) It would be pleasant to think so—but you know only too well that what you say is unsound. After all, who is there? The good Jefferson Cope. But the death of the tyrannical old woman deprives him of the lady of his affection.

SARAH. Oh, it isn’t Jefferson Cope. As you say, he’s no motive. Nor have the others. But there’s you—and there’s me. You know, Doctor Gerard, I had a motive—and it is my syringe that is missing.

GERARD. And the digitoxin is mine. All the same, we did not kill her.

SARAH. That’s what you say.

GERARD. We are doctors. We save life—we do not take it.

SARAH. “Doctors differ—and patients die.” What years ago it seems when you said that to me in Jerusalem.

GERARD. Courage, mon enfant. And if I can help, remember that we are colleagues.

(GERARD exits to the marquee, SARAH moves towards the rock up Right.)

SARAH. Raymond. (She moves nearer. Imperiously) Raymond.

(RAYMOND turns his head and looks at SARAH.)

Come down here.

(RAYMOND rises, but does not come down. His manner is apathetic and he does not look at SARAH.)

RAYMOND. Yes, Sarah?

SARAH. Why don’t you stay down here and—talk to me? Why do you all sit up there by that cave?

RAYMOND. It seems—the right place for us.

(SARAH reaches up and takes RAYMOND’s hand.)

SARAH. I never heard such nonsense.

RAYMOND. (Sighing) You don’t understand. (He turns away.)

SARAH. Raymond—(She goes up to him.) do you think I believe you killed her? I don’t. I don’t.

RAYMOND. One of us killed her.

SARAH. You don’t even know that.

RAYMOND. Yes, I do. (Thoughtfully) We all know.

SARAH. But you didn’t kill her. You yourself didn’t kill her.

RAYMOND. No, I didn’t kill her. (He looks at the others.)

SARAH. Well then, that’s all that matters. Surely you see that?

RAYMOND. No, it’s you who don’t see. I suggested killing her. One of us acted on that suggestion. I don’t know which of us. I don’t want to know. But there it is. We’re all in it together.

SARAH. You won’t even fight?

RAYMOND. (Turning and smiling at her) There’s no one to fight. Don’t you understand, Sarah? One can’t fight the dead. (He sits on the steps.)

SARAH. (Moving down Centre) Oh, what shall I do?

LADYWESTHOLME. (Off Left) I can only tell you, Colonel Carbery, that I shall take it up with the Foreign Office.

(SARAH moves wearily to Right of the table and sits. LADY WESTHOLME and CARBERY enter from the marquee. They cross to Centre, CARBERY Left of LADY WESTHOLME.)

CARBERY. This is my territory, Lady Westholme, and I am responsible for its administration. To put it plainly, an old woman has been cold-bloodedly murdered, and you are suggesting that I should refrain from enquiring into the matter.