The Mousetrap Act 2 Flashcards
Learn the lines of Trotter
Start of Act 2.
Now, Mrs. Ralston, try and think - think.
I can’t think. My head’s numbed.
Mrs. Boyle had only just been killed when you got to her. You came from the kitchen. Are you sure you didn’t see or hear anybody as you came along the hallway?
No - no, I don’t think so. Just the radio blaring out in here. I couldn’t think who’d turned it on so loud. I wouldn’t hear anything else with that, would I?
That was clearly the murderer’s idea - or murderess.
how could I hear anything else?
You might have done. If the murderer had left the Hall that way he might have heard you coming from the kitchen. He might have slipped up the backstairs - or into the dining-room…
I think - I’m not sure - I heard a door creek - and shut - just as I came out of the kitchen.
Which door?
I don’t know.
Think, Mrs. Ralston - try and think. Upstairs? Downstairs? Close at hand? Right? Left?
Can’t you stop bullying her? Can’t you see she’s all in?
We’re investigating a murder, Mr. Ralston. Up to now, nobody has taking this thing seriously. Mrs. Boyle didn’t. She held out on me with information. You all held out on me. Well, Mrs. Boyle is dead. Unless we get to the bottom of this - and quickly, mind - there may be another death.
Another? Nonsense. Why?
Because there were three little blind mice.
A death for each of them? But there would have to be some connection - I mean another connection - with the Longridge Farm business.
Yes, there would have to be that.
But why another death here?
Because there were only two addresses in the notebook we found. Now, at twenty-four Culver Street there was only one possible victim. She’s dead. But here at Monkswell Manor there is a wider field.
nonsense. surely it would be a most unlikely coincidence that there should be two people brought here by chance, both of them with a share in the Long Ridge Farm case?
Given certain circumstances, it wouldn’t be so much of a coincidence. Think it out, Miss Casewell. Now I want to get down quite clearly where everyone was when Mrs Boyle was killed. I’ve already got Mrs. Ralston’s statement. You were in the kitchen preparing vegetables. You came out of the kitchen, along the passage, through the swing door into the hall and in here. The radio was blaring, but the light was switched off, and the hall was dark. You switched the light on, saw Mrs. Boyle, and screamed.
Yes. I screamed and screamed. And that last - people came.
Yes. as you say, people came - A lot of people from different directions - all arriving more or less at once. Now then, when I got out of that window to trace the telephone wire, you, Mr. Ralston, went upstairs to the room you and Mrs. Ralston occupy, to try the extension telephone. Where were you when Mrs. Ralston screamed?
I will still up in the bedroom. The extension telephone was dead, too. I looked out of the window to see if I could see any sign of the wires being cut there, but I couldn’t. Just after I close the window again, I heard Mollie scream and I rushed down.
Those simple actions took you a rather long time, didn’t they, Mr. Ralston?
I don’t think so.
I should say you definitely - took your time over then.
I was thinking about something.
Very well. Now then, Mr. Wren, I’ll have your account where you were
I’d been in the kitchen, seeing if there was anything I could do to help Mrs. Rolston. I adore cooking. After that I went upstairs to my bedroom.
Why?
It’s quite a natural thing to go to one’s bedroom, don’t you think? I mean - one does want to be alone sometimes.
You went to your bedroom because you wanted to be alone?
And I wanted to brush my hair - and - er - tidy up.
You wanted to brush your hair?
Anyway, that’s where I was!
And you heard Mrs. Ralston scream?
Yes. (heard Mrs. Ralston scream?)
And you came down?
Yes. ( And you came down?)
Curious that you and Mr. Ralston didn’t meet on the stairs.
I came down by the back stairs. They’re near to my room.
Did you go to your room by the back stairs, or did you come through here?
I went up by the back stairs, too.
I see. Mr. Paravicini?
I have told you. I was playing the piano in the drawing-room - through there, Inspector.
I’m not an Inspector - just a Sergeant, Mr. Paravicini. Did anybody hear you playing the piano?
You were playing Three Blind Mice.
Is that so?
And yet - it runs in people’s head. someone was whistling it, too.
Whistling it? Where?
I am not sure. Perhaps in the front hall - perhaps on the stairs - perhaps even upstairs in the bedroom.
Who was whistling Three Blind Mice?
Are you making this up, Mr. Paravicini?
no, no, Inspector - I beg your pardon - Sergeant, I would not do a thing like that.
Well, go on, you were playing the piano.
With one finger - so… And then I hear the radio - playing very loud - someone is shouting on it. It offended my ears. And after that - suddenly - I hear Mrs. Ralston screen.
Mr. Ralston upstairs. Mr. Wren upstairs. Mr. Paravicini in the drawing-room. Miss Casewell?
I was writing letters in the library.
Could you hear what was going on in here?
No, I didn’t hear anything until Mrs. Ralston screamed.
And what did you do then?
I came in here.
At once.
I - think so.
You say you were writing letters when you heard Mrs. Ralston scream?
Yes.- Miss Casewell (Heard Mrs. Ralston scream?)
And you got up from the writing table hurriedly and came in here?
Yes. -Miss Casewell (got up from the writing table hurriedly and came in here?)
And yet there doesn’t seem to be any unfinished letter on the writing desk in the library.
I brought it with me.
Dearest Jessie - h’m - a friend of yours, or relation?
That’s none of your damned business.
Perhaps not. You know if I would hear someone screaming blue murder when I was writing a letter. I don’t believe I’d take the time to pick up my unfinished letter, fold it and put it in my handbag before going to see what was the matter.
You wouldn’t? How interesting.
Now, Major Metcalf, what about you? You say you were in the cellar. Why?
Not at all. Crypt of an old Monastery, I should say. Probably why this place is called “Monkswell.”
We’re not engaged in antiquarian research, Major Metcalf. We’re investigating a murder. Mrs. Ralston has told us that she heard a door shut with a faint creek. that particular door shuts with a creek. It could be, you know, but after killing this is Boyle, the murderer heard mrs. Ralston coming from the kitchen and slipped into the cupboard pulling the door after him.
Mine are there alright. But most criminals are careful to wear gloves, aren’t they?
It’s usual. But all criminals slip up sooner or later.
Look here, aren’t we wasting time? There’s one person who…
Please, Mr. Ralston, I’m in charge of this investigation.
oh, very well, but…
Mr. Ralston!
Thank you. We’ve got to establish opportunity, you know, as well as motive. And now let me tell you this - you all had opportunity. There are two staircases - anyone could go up by one and come down by the other. Anyone could go down to the cellars by the door near the kitchen and come up by flight of steps that leads up through a trapdoor to the foot of the stairs over there. The vital fact was that everyone of you was alone at the time the murder was committed.
But look here, Sergeant, you speak as though we were all under suspicion. That’s absurd!
In a murder case, everyone is under suspicion.
It’s all right, Chris. Nobody’s against you. Tell him it’s all right.
We don’t frame people.
Tell him you’re not going to arrest him.
I’m not arresting anyone. To do that, I’ve got to have evidence. I haven’t got any evidence - yet.
Wait, Giles, wait. Sergeant Trotter, can I - can I speak to you a minute?
Certainly, Mrs. Ralston. Will the rest of you go into the dining-room, please.
Please.
Yes, Mrs. Ralston, what is it you want to say to me?
Sergeant Trotter, you think that this - this crazy killer must be the - eldest of those three boys at the Farm - but you don’t know that, do you?
We don’t actually know the thing. All we’ve got so far is that the woman who joined with her husband in ill-treating and starving those children, has been killed, and that the woman magistrate who was responsible for placing then there has been killed. The telephone wire that links me with the police headquarters has been cut…
You don’t even know that. It may have been just the snow.
No, Mrs. Ralston, the line was deliberately cut. It was cut just outside the front door. I found the place.
I see.
Sit down, Mrs. Ralston.
But, all the same, you don’t know…
I’m going by probability. It all points one way; mental instability, childish mentality, desertion from the Army and the psychiatrist’s report.
Oh I know, and therefore it all seems to point to Christopher. But I don’t believe it it’s Christopher. There must be other possibilities.
Such as?
Well - hadn’t those children any relations at all?
The mother was a drunk. She died soon after the children were taken away from her.
What about their father?
He was an Army sergeant, serving abroad. If he’s alive, he’s probably discharged from the Army by now.
You don’t know where he is now?
We’ve no information. To trace it may take some time, but I can assure you, Mrs. Ralston, that the police take every eventuality into account.
But you don’t know where he may be at this minute, and if the son is mentally unstable, the father may be unstable, too.
Well, it’s a possibility.
If he came home, after being a prisoner with the Japs, perhaps, and having suffered terribly - if he came home and found his wife dead and that his children had gone through some terrible experience, and one of them had died through it, he might go off his head a bit and want - revenge!
That’s only surmise.
But it’s possible?
Oh yes, Mrs. Ralston, it’s quite possible.
So the murderer may be middle-aged, or even old. When I said the police had wrong up, Major Metcalf was frightfully upset. He really was. I saw his face.
Major Metcalf?
Middle-aged. A soldier. He seems quite nice and perfectly normal - but it might not show, might it?
No, often it doesn’t show at all.
So, it’s not only Christopher who’s the suspect. There’s Major Metcalf as well.
Any other suggestions?
Well, Mr. Paravicini did drop the poker when I said the police had wrong up.
Mr. Paravicini.
I know he seems quite old - and foreign and everything, but he might didn’t really be as old as he looks. He moves like a much younger man, and he’s definitely got makeup on his face. Miss Casewell noticed it, too. He might be - oh, I know it sounds very melodramatic - but he might be disguised.
You’re very anxious, aren’t you, that it shouldn’t be young Mr. Wren?
He seems so - helpless, somehow. And so unhappy.
Mrs. Ralston, let me tell you something. I had all possibilities in mind ever since the beginning. The boy Georgie, the father - and someone else. There was a sister, you remember.
oh - the sister?
It could have been a woman who killed Maureen Lyon. A woman. The muffler pulled up and the man’s felt hat pulled well down, and the killer whispered, you know. It’s the voice that gives the sex away. Yes, it might have been a woman.
Miss Casewell?
She looks a bit old for the part. Oh yes, Mrs. Ralston, there’s a very wide field. There’s yourself, for instance.
Me?
You’re about the right age.
No, no. Whatever you tell me about yourself, I’ve got no means of checking it at this moment, remember. And then there’s your husband.
Giles, how ridiculous!
He and Christopher Wren are much of an age. Say, your husband looks older than his years, and Christopher Wren looks younger. Actually age is very hard to tell. How much do you know about your husband, Mrs. Ralston?
How much do I know about Giles? Oh, don’t be silly.
You’ve been married - how long?
Just a year.
And you met him - where?
At a dance in London. We went in a party.
Did you meet his people?
He hasn’t any people. They’re all dead.
They’re all dead?
Yes - but, oh you make it sound all wrong. His father was a barister and his mother died when he was a baby.
You’re only telling me what he told you.
Yes - but…
You don’t know it of your own knowledge.
It’s outrageous that…
You’d be surprised, Mrs. Ralston, if you knew how many cases rather like yours we get. Especially since the war. Home broken up and families dead. Fellow says he’s been in the Air Force, or just finished his Army training. Parents killed - no relations. There aren’t any backgrounds nowadays and young people settle their own affairs - they meet and marry. It’s parents and relatives who used to make the inquiries before they consented to an engagement. That’s all done away with. Girl just Mary’s Herman. Sometimes she doesn’t find out for a year or two that he’s an absconding bank clerk, or an Army deserter or something equally undesirable. How long had you known Giles Ralston when you married him?
Just three weeks. But…
And you don’t know anything about him?
That’s not true. I know everything about him! I know exactly the sort of person he is. He’s Giles. And it’s absolutely absurd to suggest that he is some horrible crazy homicidal maniac. Why, he wasn’t even in London yesterday when the murder took place.
Where was he? Here?
He went across country to a sale to get some wire netting for our chickens.
Bring it back with him?
No, it turned out to be the wrong kind.
Only thirty miles from London, aren’t you? Oh, you got an ABC? Only an hour by train - a little longer by car.
I tell you Giles wasn’t in London.
Just a minute, Mrs. Ralston. Is this your husband’s coat?
Yes.
Evening news. Yesterday’s. Sold on the streets about 3:30 yesterday afternoon.
I don’t believe it!
Don’t you? Don’t you?
