Norris Ridgewick is injured by a mousetrap

Norris Ridgewick is injured by a mousetrap after receiving a disguised package at the police station. The trap’s careful concealment makes the gift a calculated prank; Norris recognizes Danforth Keeton as the sender and responds not by seeking help, but by quietly deciding to confront the matter in his own way and time.

The package at the station

Norris finds a present on his desk, wrapped in light-blue paper and finished with a blue velvet ribbon. A card inside bears the message “!!!!!JUSTA REMINDER!!!!!” The wording initially leaves him unsure who sent it. He thinks of Alan Pangborn and his late mother as people who used to remind him of things, but the package’s presentation offers no immediate explanation.

Inside the cardboard box, tissue paper hides a large Victory rat trap. When Norris reaches in, the trap closes on the first three fingers of his right hand. He frees himself, then sees that the prank has injured his fingers, including the loss of his index fingernail. The festive wrapping and the trap concealed beneath tissue create a sharp reversal: what appeared to be an oddly personal present is a device intended to hurt him.

Recognizing Keeton’s hand

The card’s reminder and the trap’s placement lead Norris to connect the incident to Danforth Keeton. He recalls that Keeton had been at the station and concludes that the trap is Keeton’s work, consistent with his style. The discovery is not merely an inference about who sent the package; it gives Norris a personal reason to reinterpret Keeton’s earlier presence and the supposed gift as intimidation.

Keeton’s conduct belongs to a wider pattern of concealment and pressure. He has been sorting Bureau of Taxation correspondence, keeping his letters in a locked filing-cabinet drawer, and facing a demand to audit the town’s books. His gambling losses led him to take money from the town’s petty-cash fund, and by autumn 1990 he was using a bookie to make larger bets. Later, a warning slip explicitly names “EMBEZZLEMENT.” These circumstances establish the real stakes surrounding Keeton’s increasingly desperate actions, although the evidence does not show that Norris knows all of them when he opens the package.

A private answer

Norris does not tell Alan or anyone else what Keeton has done. He expects that others might see the incident as a foolish trick that he fell for, and he is unwilling to expose himself to that judgment. Instead, he puts the sprung trap back in its gift box, stores it in his desk, and throws away the wrapping, ribbon, bow, and tissue paper. The concealment protects the prank from immediate discussion, but it also leaves Norris alone with the decision about what to do next.

After taking aspirin, he says, “I'll take care of this myself,” and resolves to act “In my own way, and in my own time.” His response marks a change from being the target of Keeton’s humiliation to claiming some control over the coming response. The injury is limited in the immediate evidence, but the incident leaves Norris angry and suspicious; he also begins worrying that Keeton might target the fishing rod he has left at home. The episode turns the trap into both a weapon and a message, while Norris’s decision to keep it private makes his retaliation a personal undertaking rather than an official matter.