The Mousetrap

HIGGS. (Seriously) So it is, lass. Make no mistake about that.

SARAH. It isn’t. (She indicates the BOYNTONS) Look at them. Sitting in the shadow of death.

HIGGS. (Considering them) Aye! They look as though they’d been given a life sentence.

SARAH. That’s just what they have been given. (She rises.) Of course. That’s it. (She crosses to Right Centre) That’s what she wanted.

HIGGS. What’s oop?

SARAH. (Laughing wildly) I think I’ve got a touch of the sun. But the sun lets in light, doesn’t it?

HIGGS. (Crossing to the marquee and calling) Hey, Doctor, here’s a patient for you out here.

(GERARD enters from the marquee. HIGGS jerks his thumb at SARAH and exits to the marquee)

GERARD. (Moving Left Centre) Are you ill?

SARAH. (Moving to Right of Gerard.) No, I’m not ill. Listen, Doctor Gerard. I know who killed Mrs. Boynton. I know it quite certainly—(She touches her forehead) here. What I must do—what you must help me to do—is to get proof.

GERARD. You know which of them killed her?

SARAH. None of them killed her.

(GERARD is about to interrupt.)

Wait. I know what you are going to say—that they themselves think so. That’s what she wanted.

GERARD. Comment?

SARAH. Listen. Yesterday I lost my temper—I told her what was the truth, that she couldn’t live long. I told her that when she died, they’d be free. You know what she was like—the lust for power and cruelty had grown—she wasn’t quite sane, was she?

GERARD. She was a sadist—yes. She specialized in mental cruelty.

SARAH. She couldn’t bear what I told her, she couldn’t face the thought of their being free—and happy. And she saw a way to keep them in prison for ever.

GERARD. Mon Dieu, you mean . . .

SARAH. Yes, don’t you see? She took the digitoxin from your case. She took my syringe. She slipped the empty bottle into Raymond’s pocket, and she asked Lennox to fasten her bracelet and then cried out when she knew someone was watching them. It was clever—damnably clever—just enough suspicion against each of them. Not enough to convict one but enough to keep them believing all their lives that one of them had killed her.

GERARD. And then she committed suicide. Yes, she had the courage for that.

SARAH. She’d got guts all right. And hate.

GERARD. (Crossing to Right as he works it out) After filling the syringe she slipped the empty bottle into Raymond’s pocket—yes, she could have done that as he was helping her up to the cave. Then later she called Lennox, pretended her bracelet was undone. Yes, that too. But she made no attempt to incriminate Nadine or Jinny.

SARAH. Nadine would come under suspicion because of always giving her medicine, and she could pretty well trust Jinny to incriminate herself with her wild talk.

GERARD. (Crossing to Left as he works it out) After filling the syringe, seeing there is no one to see, she plunges the needle into her wrist—so—and dies. But no, that will not do—for in that case what happened to the hypodermic needle? It would have been found by the body. There would have been only a minute or two—not time enough for her to get up and hide it. There is a flaw there.

SARAH. (Moving up Centre) I tell you I know what happened. She’s laughing at me—somewhere—now, taunting me because I can’t prove it—to him.

GERARD. (FollowingSARAH) That is all you are thinking of—to prove it to Raymond? And you think he will not believe you without proof.

SARAH. Do you?

GERARD. No.

SARAH. Then I must get proof. I must. I must. Oh, God, I must.

(The jingle of harness is heard off Left. MISS PRYCE enters Right, crosses to the slope Left and looks off.)

GERARD. You do well to invoke God. It is a miracle you need. (He crosses and sits down on the case.)

SARAH. Miracles don’t happen, and there’s no time—no time.

MISSPRYCE. (Turning and moving Left Centre) Were you talking about miracles?

SARAH. (Bitterly) I was saying that miracles don’t happen.

MISSPRYCE. Oh, but they do. A friend of mine had the most wonderful results from a bottle of water from Lourdes—really quite remarkable.

SARAH. (To herself) I must go on fighting. I won’t give in.

MISSPRYCE. The doctors were really quite astonished. They said . . . (She breaks off) Is anything the matter, dear?