The Mousetrap and Other Plays (74 page)

JANET
. (
To the
JUDGE
.) Twenty years I've been with her and looked after her. She knew me and she trusted me, and many's the time I've prevented her doing a foolish action!

JUDGE
. Miss MacKenzie, would you please address your remarks to the Jury.

MYERS
. What sort of a person was Miss French?

JANET
. She was a warm-hearted body—too warmhearted at times, I'm thinking. A wee bit impulsive too. There were times when she'd have no sense at all. She was easily flattered, you see.

MYERS
. When did you first see the prisoner, Leonard Vole?

JANET
. He came to the house, I mind, at the end of August.

MYERS
. How often did he come to the house?

JANET
. To begin with once a week, but later it was oftener. Two and even three times he'd come. He'd sit there flattering her, telling her how young she looked and noticing any new clothes she was wearing.

MYERS
. (
Rather hastily
) Quite, quite. Now will you tell the Jury in your own words, Miss MacKenzie, about the events of October the fourteenth.

JANET
. It was a Friday and my night out. I was going round to see some friends of mine in Glenister Road, which is not above three minutes' walk. I left the house at half past seven. I'd promised to take my friend the pattern of a knitted cardigan that she'd admired. When I got there I found I'd left it behind, so after supper I said I'd slip back to the house at twenty-five past nine. I let myself in with my key and went upstairs to my room. As I passed the sitting-room door I heard the prisoner in there talking to Miss French.

MYERS
. You were sure it was the prisoner you heard?

JANET
. Aye, I know his voice well enough. With him calling so often. An agreeable voice it was, I'll not say it wasn't. Talking and laughing they were. But it was no business of mine so I went up and fetched the pattern, came down and let myself out and went back to my friend.

MYERS
. Now I want these times very exact. You say that you re-entered the house at twenty-five past nine.

JANET
. Aye. It was just after twenty past nine when I left Clenister Road.

MYERS
. How do you know that, Miss MacKenzie?

JANET
. By the clock on my friend's mantelpiece, and I compared it with my watch and the time was the same.

MYERS
. You say it takes three or four minutes to walk to the house, so that you entered the house at twenty-five minutes past nine, and you were there . . .

JANET
. I was there under ten minutes. It took me a few minutes to search for the pattern as I wasna' sure where I'd left it.

MYERS
. And what did you do next?

JANET
. I went back to my friend in Glenister Road. She was delighted with the pattern, simply delighted. I stayed there until twenty to eleven, then I said good night to them and came home. I went into the sitting-room then to see if the mistress wanted anything before she went to bed.

MYERS
. What did you see?

JANET
. She was there on the floor, poor body, her head beaten in. And all the drawers of the bureau out on the ground, everything tossed hither and thither, the broken vase on the floor and the curtains flying in the wind.

MYERS
. What did you do?

JANET
. I rang the police.

MYERS
. Did you really think that a burglary had occurred?

SIR
WILFRID
. (
Jumping up
) Really, my lord, I must protest. (
He sits.
)

JUDGE
. I will not allow that question to be answered, Mr. Myers. It should not have been put to the witness.

MYERS
. Then let me ask you this, Miss MacKenzie. What did you do after you had telephoned the police?

JANET
. I searched the house.

MYERS
. What for?

JANET
. For an intruder.

MYERS
. Did you find one?

JANET
. I did not. Nor any signs of disturbance save in the sitting-room.

MYERS
. How much did you know about the prisoner, Leonard Vole?

JANET
. I knew that he needed money.

MYERS
. Did he ask Miss French for money?

JANET
. He was too clever for that.

MYERS
. Did he help Miss French with her business affairs—with her income tax returns, for instance?

JANET
. Aye—not that there was any need of it.

MYERS
. What do you mean by not any need of it?

JANET
. Miss French had a good, clear head for business.

MYERS
. Were you aware of what arrangements Miss French had made for the disposal of her money in the event of her death?

JANET
. She'd make a will as the fancy took her. She was a rich woman and she had a lot of money to leave and no near relatives. “It must go where it can do the most good,” she would say. Once it was to orphans she left it, and once to an old people's home, and another time a dispensary for cats and dogs, but it always came to the same in the end. She'd quarrel with the people and then she'd come home and tear up the will and make a new one.

MYERS
. Do you know when she made her last will?

JANET
. She made it on October the eighth. I heard her speaking to Mr. Stokes, the lawyer. Saying he was to come tomorrow, she was making a new will. He was there at the time—the prisoner, I mean, kind of protesting, saying, “No, no.”

(
LEONARD
hastily scribbles a note.
)

And the mistress said, “But I want to, my dear boy. I want to. Remember that day I was nearly run over by a bus. It might happen any time.”

(
LEONARD
leans over the dock and hands the note to
mayhew
, who passes it to
SIR
WILFRID
.)

MYERS
. Do you know when your mistress made a will previous to that one?

JANET
. In the spring it was.

MYERS
. Were you aware, Miss MacKenzie, that Leonard Vole was a married man?

JANET
. No, indeed. Neither was the mistress.

SIR
WILFRID
. (
Rising
) I object. What Miss French knew or did not know is pure conjecture on Janet MacKenzie's part. (
He sits.
)

MYERS
. Let us put it this way: You formed the opinion that Miss French thought Leonard Vole a single man? Have you any facts to support that opinion?

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.
)

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

JANET
. Aye—I was.

SIR
WILFRID
. You had great influence over her?

JANET
. Aye—maybe.

SIR
WILFRID
. 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.”

SIR
WILFRID
. 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.

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

JANET
. She didn't go out much.

SIR
WILFRID
. 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.

SIR
WILFRID
. 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.

SIR
WILFRID
. Far more than you personally liked?

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

SIR
WILFRID
. 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.

SIR
WILFRID
. 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.

SIR
WILFRID
. But he never received any money from her?

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

SIR
WILFRID
. 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.

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

JANET
. They were laughing.

SIR
WILFRID
. You heard a man's voice and a woman's and they were laughing. Is that right?

JANET
. Aye.

SIR
WILFRID
. 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.

SIR
WILFRID
. The door was closed, was it not?

JANET
. Aye. It was closed.

SIR
WILFRID
. 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.

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

JANET
. That is so.

SIR
WILFRID
. 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.

SIR
WILFRID
. 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.

SIR
WILFRID
. 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.

SIR
WILFRID
. 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.

SIR
WILFRID
. 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.

SIR
WILFRID
. So your hearing isn't very good, is that right? (
He lowers his voice.
) When I say to you, Miss MacKenzie, that you could not possibly recognize a voice through a closed door, what do you answer? (
He pauses.
) Can you tell me what I said?

JANET
. I can no' hear anyone if they mumble.

SIR
WILFRID
. In fact you didn't hear what I said, although I am only a few feet from you in an open court. Yet you say that behind a closed door with two people talking in an ordinary conversational tone, you definitely recognized the voice of Leonard Vole as you swept past that door on two occasions.

JANET
. It was him, I tell you. It was him.

SIR
WILFRID
. What you mean is you want it to be him. You have a preconceived notion.

JANET
. Who else could it have been?