The Mousetrap

It is an informal room, but furnished with taste. Back Centre, up three steps, there are French windows opening on to a terrace with a low wall at the far side. Beyond the wall there is a view of the wooded hillside on which the house is built. There are smaller French windows, up one step Centre, of the wall Right, leading to the garden and giving a view of dense shrubbery. A door down Left leads to the other parts of the house. There is a large alcove in the back wall Left of the French windows. The entrance to this is arched, and a heavy curtain in the archway closes it off from the rest of the room. The back wall of the alcove is fitted with well-filled, built-in bookshelves and furnished with a small table on which stands a silver bowl of roses. A piece of statuary can be supposed to stand in the alcove, though not visible to the audience. The fireplace is Centre of the wall Left and there are well-filled, built-in bookshelves in the walls Right of the French windows up Centre and below the French windows Right. There is a small writing table down Right, on which stands a small table lamp and a telephone. A small chair is set at the table and a wastepaper basket stands below it. Above the writing table there is a pedestal on which stands a piece of abstract statuary. There is a table with a table lamp on it below the bookshelves up Right. A small table with a radio receiver stands above the fireplace. There is an armchair up Left Centre, and a comfortable sofa Right Centre. Below the sofa stands a small circular coffee table. A pouffe near the hearth completes the furniture. The room is carpeted and gay curtains hang at the windows. In addition to the table lamps, the room is lit at night by an electric candle lamp wall bracket Left of the French windows up Centre, and small electric candle lamps on the mantelpiece. One or two miniatures decorate the walls, and over the mantelpiece there is a fine picture depicting the idyllic scene of a Georgian house with columns, set in woodlands. The light switch and bell push are in the wall below the fireplace. There is also a switch controlling the light in the alcove, Right of the arch. Two wall vases, filled with flowers, decorate the side walls of the French windows up Centre.