Three Act Tragedy

by Agatha Christie

  Sir Charles interposed just as Egg was shaking her head vexedly.

  “I can tell you that.”

  He got up and went to a cupboard, where he took out some heavy cut glass sherry glasses.

  “They were a slightly different shape, of course—more rounded—proper port shape. He got them at old Lammersfield’s sale—a whole set of table glass. I admired them, and as there were more than he needed, he passed some of them onto me. They’re good, aren’t they?”

  Poirot took the glass and turned it about in his hand.

  “Yes,” he said. “They are fine specimens. I thought something of that kind had been used.”

  “Why?” cried Egg.

  Poirot merely smiled at her.

  “Yes,” he went on, “the death of Sir Bartholomew Strange could be explained easily enough; but the death of Stephen Babbington is more difficult. Ah, if only it had been the other way about!”

  “What do you mean, the other way about?” asked Mr. Satterthwaite.

  Poirot turned to him.

  “Consider, my friend. Sir Bartholomew is a celebrated doctor. There might be many reasons for the death of a celebrated doctor. A doctor knows secrets, my friend, important secrets. A doctor has certain powers. Imagine a patient on the borderline of sanity. A word from the doctor, and he will be shut away from the world—what a temptation to an unbalanced brain! A doctor may have suspicions about the sudden death of one of his patients—oh, yes, we can find plenty of motives for the death of a doctor.

  “Now, as I say, if only it had been the other way about. If Sir Bartholomew Strange had died first and then Stephen Babbington. For Stephen Babbington might have seen something—might have suspected something about the first death.”

  He sighed and then resumed.

  “But one cannot have a case as one would like to have it. One must take a case as it is. Just one little idea I should like to suggest. I suppose it is not possible that Stephen Babbington’s death was an accident—that the poison (if poison there was) was intended for Sir Bartholomew Strange, and that, by mistake, the wrong man was killed.”

  “That’s an ingenious idea,” said Sir Charles. His face, which had brightened, fell again. “But I don’t believe it will work. Babbington came into this room about four minutes before he was taken ill. During that time the only thing that passed his lips was half a cocktail—there was nothing in that cocktail—”

  Poirot interrupted him.

  “That you have already told me—but suppose, for the sake of argument, that there was something in that cocktail. Could it have been intended for Sir Bartholomew Strange and did Mr. Babbington drink it by mistake?”

  Sir Charles shook his head.

  “Nobody who knew Tollie at all well would have tried poisoning him in a cocktail.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he never drank them.”

  “Never?”

  “Never.”

  Poirot made a gesture of annoyance.

  “Ah—this business—it goes all wrong. It does not make sense….”

  “Besides,” went on Sir Charles, “I don’t see how any one glass could have been mistaken for another—or anything of that kind. Temple carried them round on a tray and everyone helped themselves to any glass they fancied.”

  “True,” murmured Poirot. “One cannot force a cocktail like one forces a card. What is she like, this Temple of yours? She is the maid who admitted me tonight—yes?”

  “That’s right. I’ve had her three or four years—nice steady girl—knows her work. I don’t know where she came from—Miss Milray would know all about that.”

  “Miss Milray, that is your secretary? The tall woman—somewhat of the Grenadier?”

  “Very much of the Grenadier,” agreed Sir Charles.

  “I have dined with you before on various occasions, but I do not think I met her until that night.”

  “No, she doesn’t usually dine with us. It was a question of thirteen, you see.”

  Sir Charles explained the circumstances, to which Poirot listened very attentively.

  “It was her own suggestion that she should be present? I see.”

  He remained lost in thought a minute, then he said:

  “Might I speak to this parlourmaid of yours, this Temple?”

  “Certainly, my dear fellow.”

  Sir Charles pressed a bell. It was answered promptly.

  “You rang, sir?”

  Temple was a tall girl of thirty-two or three. She had a certain smartness—her hair was well brushed and glossy, but she was not pretty. Her manner was calm and efficient.

  “M. Poirot wants to ask you a few questions,” said Sir Charles.

  Temple transferred her superior gaze to Poirot.

  “We are talking of the night when Mr. Babbington died here,” said Poirot. “You remember that night?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.”

  “I want to know exactly how cocktails were served.”

  “I beg your pardon, sir.”

  “I want to know about the cocktails. Did you mix them?”

  “No, sir, Sir Charles likes doing that himself. I brought in the bottles—the vermouth, the gin, and all that.”

  “Where did you put them?”

  “On the table there, sir.”

  She indicated a table by the wall.

  “The tray with the glasses stood here, sir. Sir Charles, when he had finished mixing and shaking, poured out the cocktails into the glasses. Then I took the tray round and handed it to the ladies and gentlemen.”

  “Were all the cocktails on the tray you handed?”

  “Sir Charles gave one to Miss Lytton Gore, sir; he was talking to her at the time, and he took his own. And Mr. Satterthwaite”—her eyes shifted to him for a moment—“came and fetched one for a lady—Miss Wills, I think it was.”

  “Quite right,” said Mr. Satterthwaite.

  “The others I handed, sir; I think everyone took one except Sir Bartholomew.”

  “Will you be so very obliging, Temple, as to repeat the performance. Let us put cushions for some of the people. I stood here, I remember—Miss Sutcliffe was there.”

  With Mr. Satterthwaite’s help, the scene was reconstructed. Mr. Satterthwaite was observant. He remembered fairly well where everyone had been in the room. Then Temple did her round. They ascertained that she had started with Mrs. Dacres, gone onto Miss Sutcliffe and Poirot, and had then come to Mr. Babbington, Lady Mary and Mr. Satterthwaite, who had been sitting together.

  This agreed with Mr. Satterthwaite’s recollection.

  Finally Temple was dismissed.

  “Pah,” cried Poirot. “It does not make sense. Temple is the last person to handle those cocktails, but it was impossible for her to tamper with them in any way, and, as I say, one cannot force a cocktail on a particular person.”

  “It’s instinctive to take the one nearest to you,” said Sir Charles.

  “Possibly that might work by handing the tray to the person first—but even then it would be very uncertain. The glasses are close together; one does not look particularly nearer than another. No, no, such a haphazard method could not be adopted. Tell me, Mr. Satterthwaite, did Mr. Babbington put his cocktail down, or did he retain it in his hand?”

  “He put it down on this table.”

  “Did anyone come near that table after he had done so?”

  “No. I was the nearest person to him, and I assure you I did not tamper with it in any way—even if I could have done so unobserved.”

  Mr. Satterthwaite spoke rather stiffly. Poirot hastened to apologize.

  “No, no, I am not making an accusation—quelle idée! But I want to be very sure of my facts. According to the analysis there was nothing out of the way in that cocktail—now it seems that, apart from that analysis there could have been nothing put in it. The same results from two different tests. But Mr. Babbington ate or drank nothing else, and if he was poisoned by pure nicotine, death would have resulted very rapidly. You see
where that leads us?”

  “Nowhere, damn it all,” said Sir Charles.

  “I would not say that—no, I would not say that. It suggests a very monstrous idea—which I hope and trust cannot be true. No, of course it is not true—the death of Sir Bartholomew proves that…And yet—”

  He frowned, lost in thought. The others watched him curiously. He looked up.

  “You see my point, do you not? Mrs. Babbington was not at Melfort Abbey, therefore Mrs. Babbington is cleared of suspicion.”

  “Mrs. Babbington—but no one has even dreamed of suspecting her.”

  Poirot smiled beneficently.

  “No? It is a curious thing that. The idea occurred to me at once—but at once. If the poor gentleman is not poisoned by the cocktail, then he must have been poisoned a very few minutes before entering the house. What way could there be? A capsule? Something, perhaps, to prevent indigestion. But who, then, could tamper with that? Only a wife. Who might, perhaps, have a motive that no one outside could possibly suspect? Again a wife.”

  “But they were devoted to each other,” cried Egg indignantly. “You don’t understand a bit.”

  Poirot smiled kindly at her.

  “No. That is valuable. You know, but I do not. I see the facts unbiased by any preconceived notions. And let me tell you something, mademoiselle—in the course of my experience I have known five cases of wives murdered by devoted husbands, and twenty-two of husbands murdered by devoted wives. Les femmes, they obviously keep up appearances better.”

  “I think you’re perfectly horrid,” said Egg. “I know the Babbingtons are not like that. It’s—it’s monstrous!”

  “Murder is monstrous, mademoiselle,” said Poirot, and there was a sudden sternness in his voice.

  He went on in a lighter tone.

  “But I—who see only the facts—agree that Mrs. Babbington did not do this thing. You see, she was not at Melfort Abbey. No, as Sir Charles has already said, the guilt must lie on a person who was present on both occasions—one of the seven on your list.”

  There was a silence.

  “And how do you advise us to act?” asked Satterthwaite.

  “You have doubtless already your plan?” suggested Poirot.

  Sir Charles cleared his throat.

  “The only feasible thing seems to be a process of elimination,” he said. “My idea was to take each person on that list and consider them guilty until they are proved innocent. I mean that we are to feel convinced ourselves that there is a connection between that person and Stephen Babbington, and we are to use all our ingenuity to find out what that connection can be. If we find no connection, then we pass onto the next person.”

  “It is good psychology, that,” approved Poirot. “And your methods?”

  “That we have not yet had time to discuss. We should welcome your advice on that point, M. Poirot. Perhaps you yourself—”

  Poirot held up a hand.

  “My friend, do not ask me to do anything of an active nature. It is my lifelong conviction that any problem is best solved by thought. Let me hold what is called, I believe, the watching brief. Continue your investigations which Sir Charles is so ably directing—”

  “And what about me?” thought Mr. Satterthwaite. “These actors! Always in the limelight playing the star part!”

  “You will, perhaps, from time to time require what we may describe as Counsel’s opinion. Me, I am the Counsel.”

  He smiled at Egg.

  “Does that strike you as the sense, mademoiselle?”

  “Excellent,” said Egg. “I’m sure your experience will be very useful to us.”

  Her face looked relieved. She glanced at her watch and gave an exclamation.

  “I must go home. Mother will have a fit.”

  “I’ll drive you home,” said Sir Charles.

  They went out together.

  Five

  DIVISION OF LABOUR

  “So you see, the fish has risen,” said Hercule Poirot.

  Mr. Satterthwaite, who had been looking at the door which had just closed behind the other two, gave a start as he turned to Poirot. The latter was smiling with a hint of mockery.

  “Yes, yes, do not deny it. Deliberately you showed me the bait that day in Monte Carlo. Is it not so? You showed me the paragraph in the paper. You hoped that it would arouse my interest—that I should occupy myself with the affair.”

  “It is true,” confessed Mr. Satterthwaite. “But I thought that I had failed.”

  “No, no, you did not fail. You are a shrewd judge of human nature, my friend. I was suffering from ennui—I had—in the words of the child who was playing near us—‘nothing to do.’ You came at the psychological moment. (And, talking of that, how much crime depends, too, on that psychological moment. The crime, the psychology, they go hand in hand.) But let us come back to our muttons. This is a crime very intriguing—it puzzles me completely.”

  “Which crime—the first or the second?”

  “There is only one—what you call the first and second murder are only the two halves of the same crime. The second half is simple—the motive—the means adopted—”

  Mr. Satterthwaite interrupted.

  “Surely the means present an equal difficulty. There was no poison found in any of the wine, and the food was eaten by everybody.”

  “No, no, it is quite different. In the first case it does not seem as though anybody could have poisoned Stephen Babbington. Sir Charles, if he had wanted to, could have poisoned one of his guests, but not any particular guest. Temple might possibly have slipped something into the last glass on the tray—but Mr. Babbington’s was not the last glass. No, the murder of Mr. Babbington seems so impossible that I still feel that perhaps it is impossible—that he died a natural death after all…But that we shall soon know. The second case is different. Any one of the guests present, or the butler or parlourmaid, could have poisoned Bartholomew Strange. That presents no difficulty whatever.”

  “I don’t see—” began Mr. Satterthwaite.

  Poirot swept on:

  “I will prove that to you sometime by a little experiment. Let us pass onto another and most important matter. It is vital, you see (and you will see, I am sure, you have the sympathetic heart and the delicate understanding), that I must not play the part of what you call the spoilsport.”

  “You mean—” began Mr. Satterthwaite with the beginning of a smile.

  “That Sir Charles must have the star part! He is used to it. And, moreover, it is expected of him by someone else. Am I not right? It does not please mademoiselle at all that I come to concern myself in this matter.”

  “You are what we call ‘quick in the uptake,’ M. Poirot.”

  “Ah, that, it leaps to the eye! I am of a very susceptible nature—I wish to assist a love affair—not to hinder it. You and I, my friend, must work together in this—to the honour and glory of Charles Cartwright; is it not so? When the case is solved—”

  “If—” said Mr. Satterthwaite mildly.

  “When! I do not permit myself to fail.”

  “Never?” asked Mr. Satterthwaite searchingly.

  “There have been times,” said Poirot with dignity, “when for a short time, I have been what I suppose you would call slow in the takeup. I have not perceived the truth as soon as I might have done.”

  “But you’ve never failed altogether?”

  The persistence of Mr. Satterthwaite was curiosity, pure and simple. He wondered….

  “Eh bien,” said Poirot. “Once. Long ago, in Belgium. We will not talk of it….”

  Mr. Satterthwaite, his curiosity (and his malice) satisfied, hastened to change the subject.

  “Just so. You were saying that when the case is solved—”

  “Sir Charles will have solved it. That is essential. I shall have been a little cog in the wheel,” he spread out his hands. “Now and then, here and there, I shall say a little word—just one little word—a hint, no more. I desire no honour—no renown. I have
all the renown I need.”

  Mr. Satterthwaite studied him with interest. He was amused by the naïve conceit, the immense egoism of the little man. But he did not make the easy mistake of considering it mere empty boasting. An Englishman is usually modest about what he does well, sometimes pleased with himself over something he does badly; but a Latin has a truer appreciation of his own powers. If he is clever he sees no reason for concealing the fact.

  “I should like to know,” said Mr. Satterthwaite, “it would interest me very much—just what do you yourself hope to get out of this business? Is it the excitement of the chase?”

  Poirot shook his head.

  “No—no—it is not that. Like the chien de chasse, I follow the scent, and I get excited, and once on the scent I cannot be called off it. All that is true. But there is more…It is—how shall I put it?—a passion for getting at the truth. In all the world there is nothing so curious and so interesting and so beautiful as truth….”

  There was silence for a little while after Poirot’s words.

  Then he took up the paper on which Mr. Satterthwaite had carefully copied out the seven names, and read them aloud.

  “Mrs. Dacres, Captain Dacres, Miss Wills, Miss Sutcliffe, Lady Mary Lytton Gore, Miss Lytton Gore, Oliver Manders.

  “Yes,” he said, “suggestive, is it not?”

  “What is suggestive about it?”

  “The order in which the names occur.”

  “I don’t think there is anything suggestive about it. We just wrote the names down without any particular order about it.”

  “Exactly. The list is headed by Mrs. Dacres. I deduce from that that she is considered the most likely person to have committed the crime.”

  “Not the most likely,” said Mr. Satterthwaite. “The least unlikely would express it better.”

  “And a third phrase would express it better still. She is perhaps the person you would all prefer to have committed the crime.”

  Mr. Satterthwaite opened his lips impulsively, then met the gentle quizzical gaze of Poirot’s shining green eyes, and altered what he had been about to say.

  “I wonder—perhaps, M. Poirot, you are right—unconsciously that may be true.”

  “I would like to ask you something, Mr. Satterthwaite.”