The Mousetrap and Other Plays (129 page)

(
MISS
WILLIAMS
exits up
C
.
PHILIP
re-enters up
C
)

PHILIP
. (
to Justin
) I'm not so sure you're right about that. I'll get my fellow on to it in the morning.

(
PHILIP
exits up
C
)

MEREDITH
. (
moving to the door up
C
) Elsa of all people, it seems absolutely impossible. Caroline's dead, Amyas is dead, there's no one to bear witness—(
he turns in the doorway
) is there?

(
MEREDITH
shakes his head and exits up
C
.
The babel dies down.
CARLA
sits on the upstage end of the bench.
JUSTIN
looks out of the french windows for a moment at Carla, then goes on to the terrace.
)

JUSTIN
. What do you want done, Carla?

CARLA
. (
quietly
) Nothing. She's been sentenced already, hasn't she?

JUSTIN
. (
puzzled
) Sentenced?

CARLA
. To life imprisonment—inside herself. (
She looks at him
) Thank you.

JUSTIN
. (
crossing above the bench to
L
;
embarrassed
) You'll go back to Canada, now, and get married. There's no legal proof, of course, but we can satisfy your Jeff. (
He crosses below Carla to
C
and looks at his notes
)

CARLA
. We don't need to satisfy him. I'm not going to marry him. I've already told him so.

JUSTIN
. (
looking up
) But—why?

CARLA
. (
thoughtfully
) I think I've—well—grown out of him. And I'm not going back to Canada. After all, I do belong here.

JUSTIN
. You may be—lonely.

CARLA
. (
with a mischievous smile
) Not if I marry an English husband. (
Gravely
) Now, if I could induce
you
to fall in love with me . . .

JUSTIN
. (
turning to her
)
Induce
me? Why the devil do you think I've done all this?

CARLA
. (
rising
) You've been mixing me up with my mother. But I'm Amyas' daughter, too. I've got a lot of the devil in me. I want you to be in love with
me.

JUSTIN
. Don't worry. (
He smiles, moves to her and takes her in his arms
)

CARLA
. (
laughing
) I don't.

(
They kiss.
MEREDITH
enters up
C
)

MEREDITH
. (
as he enters
) May I suggest a drink at my house before . . . (
He realizes the room is empty, goes to the french windows and looks out
) Oh! (
He smiles
) My word!

MEREDITH
exits up
C
and the
LIGHTS
dim to
BLACK
-
OUT
as
—

the
CURTAIN
falls

About the Author

Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She is the author of eighty crime novels and short-story collections, nineteen plays, two memoirs, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott.

She first tried her hand at detective fiction while working in a hospital dispensary during World War I, creating the now legendary Hercule Poirot with her debut novel
The Mysterious Affair at Styles.
With
The Murder in the Vicarage,
published in 1930, she introduced another beloved sleuth, Miss Jane Marple. Additional series characters include the ­husband-and-wife crime-fighting team of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, private investigator Parker Pyne, and Scotland Yard detectives Superintendent Battle and Inspector Japp.

Many of Christie's novels and short stories were adapted into plays, films, and television series.
The Mousetrap,
her most famous play of all, opened in 1952 and is the longest-running play in history. Among her best-known film adaptations are
Murder on the Orient Express
(1974) and
Death on the Nile
(1978), with Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov playing Hercule Poirot, respectively. On the small screen Poirot has been most memorably portrayed by David Suchet, and Miss Marple by Joan Hickson and subsequently Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie.

Christie was first married to Archibald Christie and then to archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, whom she accompanied on expeditions to countries that would also serve as the settings for many of her novels. In 1971 she achieved one of Britain's highest honors when she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five. Her one hundred and twentieth anniversary was celebrated around the world in 2010.

www.AgathaChristie.com

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The Agatha Christie Collection

The Man in the Brown Suit

The Secret of Chimneys

The Seven Dials Mystery

The Mysterious Mr. Quin

The Sittaford Mystery

Parker Pyne Investigates

Why Didn't They Ask Evans?

Murder Is Easy

The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories

And Then There Were None

Towards Zero

Death Comes as the End

Sparkling Cyanide

The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories

Crooked House

Three Blind Mice and Other Stories

They Came to Baghdad

Destination Unknown

Ordeal by Innocence

Double Sin and Other Stories

The Pale Horse

Star over Bethlehem: Poems and Holiday Stories

Endless Night

Passenger to Frankfurt

The Golden Ball and Other Stories

The Mousetrap and Other Plays

The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories

The Hercule Poirot Mysteries

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

The Murder on the Links

Poirot Investigates

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

The Big Four

The Mystery of the Blue Train

Peril at End House

Lord Edgware Dies

Murder on the Orient Express

Three Act Tragedy

Death in the Clouds

The A.B.C. Murders

Murder in Mesopotamia

Cards on the Table

Murder in the Mews

Dumb Witness

Death on the Nile

Appointment with Death

Hercule Poirot's Christmas

Sad Cypress

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

Evil Under the Sun

Five Little Pigs

The Hollow

The Labors of Hercules

Taken at the Flood

The Under Dog and Other Stories

Mrs. McGinty's Dead

After the Funeral

Hickory Dickory Dock

Dead Man's Folly

Cat Among the Pigeons

The Clocks

Third Girl

Hallowe'en Party

Elephants Can Remember

Curtain: Poirot's Last Case

The Miss Marple Mysteries

The Murder at the Vicarage

The Body in the Library

The Moving Finger

A Murder Is Announced

They Do It with Mirrors

A Pocket Full of Rye

4:50 from Paddington

The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

A Caribbean Mystery

At Bertram's Hotel

Nemesis

Sleeping Murder

Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories

The Tommy and Tuppence Mysteries

The Secret Adversary

Partners in Crime

N or M?

By the Pricking of My Thumbs

Postern of Fate

Memoirs

An Autobiography

Come, Tell Me How You Live