The Mousetrap

JANET. There was the books she ordered from the library. There was the Life of Baroness Vurdett Coutts and one about Disraeli and his wife. Both of them about women who’d married men years younger than themselves. I knew what she was thinking.

JUDGE. I’m afraid we cannot admit that.

JANET. Why?

JUDGE. Members of the Jury, it is possible for a woman to read the life of Disraeli without contemplating marriage with a man younger than herself.

MYERS. Did Mr. Vole ever mention a wife?

JANET. Never.

MYERS. Thank you. (He sits.)

SIRWILFRID. (Rises. Gently and kindly) I think we all appreciate how very devoted to your mistress you were.

JANET. Aye—I was.

SIRWILFRID. You had great influence over her?

JANET. Aye—maybe.

SIRWILFRID. In the last will Miss French made—that is to say the one made last spring, Miss French left almost the whole of her fortune to you. Were you aware of that fact?

JANET. She told me so. “All crooks, these charities,” she said. “Expenses here and expenses there and the money not going to the object you give it for. I’ve left it to you, Janet, and you can do what you think’s right and good with it.”

SIRWILFRID. That was an expression of great trust on her part. In her present will, I understand, she has merely left you an annuity. The principal beneficiary is the prisoner, Leonard Vole.

JANET. It will be wicked injustice if he ever touches a penny of that money.

SIRWILFRID. Miss French, you say, had not many friends and acquaintances. Now why was that?

JANET. She didn’t go out much.

SIRWILFRID. When Miss French struck up this friendship with Leonard Vole it made you very sore and angry, didn’t it?

JANET. I didn’t like seeing my dear lady imposed upon.

SIRWILFRID. But you have admitted that Mr. Vole did not impose upon her. Perhaps you meant hat you didn’t like to see someone else supplanting you as an influence on Miss French?

JANET. She leaned on him a good deal. Far more than was safe, I thought.

SIRWILFRID. Far more than you personally liked?

JANET. Of course. I’ve said so. But it was of her good I was thinking.

SIRWILFRID. So the prisoner had a great influence over Miss French, and she had a great affection for him?

JANET. That was what it had come to.

SIRWILFRID. So that if the prisoner had ever asked her for money, she would almost certainly have given him some, would she not?

JANET. I have not said that.

SIRWILFRID. But he never received any money from her?

JANET. That may not have been for want of trying.

SIRWILFRID. Returning to the night of October the fourteenth, you say you heard the prisoner and Miss French talking together. What did you hear him say?

JANET. I didn’t hear what they actually said.

SIRWILFRID. You mean you only heard the voices—the murmur of voices?

JANET. They were laughing.

SIRWILFRID. You heard a man’s voice and a woman’s and they were laughing. Is that right?

JANET. Aye.

SIRWILFRID. I suggest that is exactly what you did hear. A man’s voice and a woman’s voice laughing. You didn’t hear what was said. What makes you say that the man’s voice was Leonard Vole’s?

JANET. I know his voice well enough.

SIRWILFRID. The door was closed, was it not?

JANET. Aye. It was closed.

SIRWILFRID. You heard a murmur of voices through a closed door and you swear that one of the voices was that of Leonard Vole. I suggest that is mere prejudice on your part.

JANET. It was Leonard Vole.

SIRWILFRID. As I understand it you passed the door twice, once going to your room, and once going out?

JANET. That is so.

SIRWILFRID. You were no doubt in a hurry to get your pattern and return to your friend?

JANET. I was in no particular hurry. I had the whole evening.

SIRWILFRID. What I am suggesting is that on both occasions you walked quickly past that door.

JANET. I was there long enough to hear what I heard.

SIRWILFRID. Come, Miss MacKenzie, I’m sure you don’t wish to suggest to the Jury that you were eavesdropping.

JANET. I was doing no such thing. I’ve better things to do with my time.

SIRWILFRID. Exactly. You are registered, of course, under the National Health Insurance?

JANET. That’s so. Four and sixpence I have to pay out every week. It’s a terrible lot of money for a working woman to pay.

SIRWILFRID. Yes, yes, many people feel that. I think, Miss MacKenzie, that you recently applied for a national hearing apparatus?

JANET. Six months ago I applied for it and not got it yet.