The Mousetrap

The room is barely furnished with modern furniture. Centre are two sofas with space between. Chair and small table up Left. Club chair with tabouret Right and above it, down Left, where there is also a bookcase. There is a window seat up Right and cocktail cabinet below mantelpiece. Tabouret down Right. Before fireplace is a big white bearskin rug with a bear’s head. There is an armchair and tabouret Right Centre. A square ottoman at lower end of fireplace. A settee with table Left of it in front of window Right at back.

When Curtain rises,ROGERSis busy putting final touches to room. He is setting out bottles down Right. ROGERS is a competent middle-aged manservant. Not a butler, but a house-parlourman. Quick and deft. Just a trifle specious and shifty. There is a noise of seagulls. Motorboat horn heard off.MRS. ROGERSenters from dining room up Left. She is a thin, worried, frightened-looking woman. Enter NARRACOTT at Centre from Left. He carries a market basket filled with packages.

NARRACOTT. First lot to be arriving in Jim’s boat. Another lot not far behind. (Crosses Left to her.)

MRS. ROGERS. Good evening, Fred.

NARRACOTT. Good evening, Mrs. Rogers.

MRS. ROGERS. Is that the boat?

NARRACOTT. Yes.

MRS. ROGERS. Oh, dear, already? Have you remembered everything?

NARRACOTT. (Giving her basket) I think so. Lemons. Slip soles. Cream. Eggs, tomatoes and butter. That’s all, wasn’t it?

MRS. ROGERS. That’s right. So much to do I don’t know where to start. No maids till the morning, and all these guests arriving today.

ROGERS. (At mantel) Calm down, Ethel, everything’s shipshape now. Looks nice, don’t it, Fred?

NARRACOTT. Looks neat enough for me. Kind of bare, but rich folks like places bare, it seems.

MRS. ROGERS. Rich folks is queer.

NARRACOTT. And he was a queer sort of gentleman as built this place. Spent a wicked lot of money on it he did, and then gets tired of it and puts the whole thing up for sale.

MRS. ROGERS. Beats me why the Owens wanted to buy it, living on an island.

ROGERS. Oh, come off it, Ethel, and take all that stuff out into the kitchen. They’ll be here any minute now.

MRS. ROGERS. Making that steep climb an excuse for a drink, I suppose. Like some others I know.

(Motorboat horn heard off.)

NARRACOTT. That be young Jim. I’ll be getting along. There’s two gentlemen arriving by car, I understand. (Goes up to balcony.)

MRS. ROGERS. (Calling to him) I shall want at least five loaves in the morning and eight pints of milk, remember.

NARRACOTT. Right.

(MRS. ROGERS puts basket on floor up Left; exits to hall Left 1.)

ROGERS. (Breaks to Right of window) Don’t forget the oil for the engine, Fred. I ought to charge up tomorrow, or I’ll have the lights running down.

NARRACOTT. (Going off at Left) ’Twas held up on railway. It’s at the station now. I’ll bring it across the first thing tomorrow.

ROGERS. And give a hand with the luggage, will you?

NARRACOTT. Right.

MRS. ROGERS. (Enters with list) I forgot to give you the list of guests, Tom.

ROGERS. Thanks, old girl. (Looks reflectively at list) H’mm, doesn’t look a very classy lot to me. (Refers to list) Miss Claythorne. She’ll probably be the secretary.

MRS. ROGERS. I don’t hold much with secretaries. Worse than hospital nurses, and them giving themselves airs and graces and looking down on the servants.

ROGERS. Oh, stop grousing, Ethel, and cut along to that lovely up-to-date expensive kitchen of yours.