Three Act Tragedy (17 page)

P
oirot did not have quite the uninterrupted twenty-four hours for which he had stipulated.

At twenty minutes past eleven on the following morning Egg walked in unannounced. To her amazement she found the great detective engaged in building card houses. Her face showed such lively scorn that Poirot was impelled to defend himself.

“It is not, mademoiselle, that I have become childish in my old age. No. But the building of card houses, I have always found it most stimulating to the mind. It is an old habit of mine. This morning, first thing, I go out and buy the pack of cards. Unfortunately I make an error, they are not real cards. But they do just as well.”

Egg looked more closely at the erection on the table.

She laughed.

“Good heavens, they've sold you Happy Families.”

“What is that you say, the Happy Family?”

“Yes, it's a game. Children play it in the nursery.”

“Ah, well, one can compose the houses just in the same manner.”

Egg had picked up some of the cards from the table and was looking at them affectionately.

“Master Bun, the baker's son—I always loved him. And here's Mrs. Mug, the milkman's wife. Oh, dear, I suppose that's me.”

“Why is that funny picture you, mademoiselle?”

“Because of the name.”

Egg laughed at his bewildered face and then began explaining. When she had finished he said:

“Ah, it was that that Sir Charles meant last night. I wondered…Mugg—ah, yes, one says in slang, does one not, you are a
mug
—a fool? Naturally you would change your name. You would not like to be the Lady Mugg, eh?”

Egg laughed. She said:

“Well, wish me happiness.”

“I do wish you happiness, mademoiselle. Not the brief happiness of youth, but the happiness that endures—the happiness that is built upon a rock.”

“I'll tell Charles you call him a rock,” said Egg. “And now for what I came to see you about. I've been worrying and worrying about that cutting from the paper that Oliver dropped from his wallet. You know, the one Miss Wills picked up and handed back to him. It seems to me that either Oliver is telling a downright lie when he says he doesn't remember its being there,
or else it never was there.
He dropped some odd bit of paper, and that woman pretended it was the nicotine cutting.”

“Why should she have done that, mademoiselle?”

“Because she wanted to get rid of it. She planted it on Oliver.”

“You mean she is the criminal?”

“Yes.”

“What was her motive?”

“It's no good asking me that. I can only suggest that she's a lunatic. Clever people often are rather mad. I can't see any other reason—in fact I can't see any motive anywhere.”

“Decidedly, that is the
impasse.
I should not ask
you
to guess at a motive. It is of myself that I ask that question without ceasing.
What was the motive behind Mr. Babbington's death?
When I can answer that the case will be solved.”

“You don't think just madness—?” suggested Egg.

“No, mademoiselle—not madness in the sense you mean. There is a
reason.
I must find that reason.”

“Well, good-bye,” said Egg. “I'm sorry to have disturbed you, but the idea just occurred to me. I must hurry. I'm going with Charles to the dress rehearsal of
Little Dog Laughed
—you know, the play Miss Wills has written for Angela Sutcliffe. It's the first night tomorrow.”

“
Mon dieu!
” cried Poirot.

“What is it? Has anything happened?”

“Yes, indeed something has happened. An idea. A superb idea. Oh, but I have been blind—blind—”

Egg stared at him. As though realizing his eccentricity, Poirot took a hold on himself. He patted Egg on the shoulder.

“You think I am mad. Not at all. I heard what you said. You go to see
The Little Dog Laughed,
and Miss Sutcliffe acts in it. Go then, and pay no attention to what I have said.”

Rather doubtfully Egg departed. Left to himself, Poirot strode up and down the room muttering under his breath. His eyes shone green as any cat's.

“
Mais oui
—that explains everything. A curious motive—a very curious motive—such a motive as I have never come across before, and yet it is reasonable, and, given the circumstances, natural. Altogether a very curious case.”

He passed the table where his card house still reposed. With a sweep of his hands he swept the cards from the table.

“The happy family, I need it no longer,” he said. “The problem is solved. It only remains to act.”

He caught up his hat and put on his overcoat. Then he went downstairs and the commissionaire called him a taxi. Poirot gave the address of Sir Charles's flat.

Arrived there, he paid off the taxi, and stepped into the hall. The porter was absent taking up the lift. Poirot walked up the stairs. Just as he arrived on the second floor the door of Sir Charles's flat opened and Miss Milray came out.

She started when she saw Poirot.

“You!”

Poirot smiled.

“Me! Or is it I?
Enfin, moi!
”

Miss Milray said:

“I'm afraid you won't find Sir Charles. He's gone to the Babylon Theatre with Miss Lytton Gore.”

“It is not Sir Charles I seek. It is my stick that I think I have left behind one day.”

“Oh, I see. Well, if you'll ring, Temple will find it for you. I'm
sorry I can't stop. I'm on my way to catch a train. I'm going down to Kent—to my mother.”

“I comprehend. Do not let me delay you, mademoiselle.”

He stood aside and Miss Milray passed rapidly down the stairs. She was carrying a small attaché case.

But when she had gone Poirot seemed to forget the purpose for which he had come. Instead of going on up to the landing, he turned and made his way downstairs again. He arrived at the front door just in time to see Miss Milray getting into a taxi. Another taxi was coming slowly along the kerb. Poirot raised a hand and it came to rest. He got in and directed the driver to follow the other taxi.

No surprise showed on his face when the first taxi went north and finally drew up at Paddington Station, though Paddington is an odd station from which to proceed to Kent. Poirot went to the first-class booking window and demanded a return ticket to Loomouth. The train was due to depart in five minutes. Pulling up his overcoat well about his ears, for the day was cold, Poirot ensconced himself in the corner of a first-class carriage.

They arrived at Loomouth about five o'clock. It was already growing dark. Standing back a little, Poirot heard Miss Milray being greeted by the friendly porter at the little station.

“Well, now, miss, we didn't expect you. Is Sir Charles coming down?”

Miss Milray replied:

“I've come down here unexpectedly. I shall be going back tomorrow morning. I've just come to fetch some things. No, I don't want a cab, thank you. I'll walk up by the cliff path.”

The dusk had deepened. Miss Milray walked briskly up the steep zigzag path. A good way behind came Hercule Poirot. He trod softly like a cat. Miss Milray, on arrival at Crow's Nest, produced a key from her bag and passed through the side door, leaving it ajar. She reappeared a minute or two later. She had a rusty door key and an electric torch in her hand. Poirot drew back a little behind a convenient bush.

Miss Milray passed round behind the house and up a scrambling overgrown path. Hercule Poirot followed. Up and up went Miss Milray until she came suddenly to an old stone tower such as is found often on that coast. This one was of humble and dilapidated appearance. There was, however, a curtain over the dirty window, and Miss Milray inserted her key in the big wooden door.

The key turned with a protesting creak. The door swung with a groan on its hinges. Miss Milray and her torch passed inside.

With an increase of pace Poirot caught up. He passed, in his turn, noiselessly through the door. The light of Miss Milray's torch gleamed fitfully on glass retorts, a bunsen burner—various apparatus.

Miss Milray had picked up a crowbar. She had raised it and was holding it over the glass apparatus when a hand caught her by the arm. She gasped and turned.

The green, catlike eyes of Poirot looked into hers.

“You cannot do that, mademoiselle,” he said. “For what you seek to destroy is evidence.”

H
ercule Poirot sat in a big armchair. The wall lights had been turned out. Only a rose-shaded lamp shed its glow on the figure in the armchair. There seemed something symbolic about it—he alone in the light—and the other three, Sir Charles, Mr. Satterthwaite and Egg Lytton Gore—Poirot's audience—sitting in the outer darkness.

Hercule Poirot's voice was dreamy. He seemed to be addressing himself to space rather than to his listeners.

“To reconstruct the crime—that is the aim of the detective. To reconstruct a crime you must place one fact upon another just as you place one card on another in building a house of cards. And if the facts will not fit—if the card will not balance—well—you must start your house again, or else it will fall….

“As I said the other day, there are three different types of mind: There is the dramatic mind—the producer's mind, which sees the effect of reality that can be produced by mechanical appliances—there is also the mind that reacts easily to dramatic appearances—
and there is the young romantic mind—and finally, my friends, there is the prosaic mind—the mind that sees not blue sea and mimosa trees, but the painted backcloth of stage scenery.

“So I come,
mes amis,
to the murder of Stephen Babbington in August last. On that evening Sir Charles Cartwright advanced the theory that Stephen Babbington had been murdered. I did not agree with that theory. I could not believe (a) that such a man as Stephen Babbington was likely to have been murdered, and (b) that it was possible to administer poison to a particular person under the circumstances that had obtained that evening.

“Now here I admit that Sir Charles was right and I was wrong. I was wrong because I was looking at the crime from an entirely false angle. It is only twenty-four hours ago that I suddenly perceived the proper angle of vision—and let me say that from that angle of vision the murder of Stephen Babbington is both
reasonable
and
possible.

“But I will pass from that point for the moment and take you step by step along the path I myself have trodden. The death of Stephen Babbington I may call the first act of our drama. The curtain fell on that act when we all departed from Crow's Nest.

“What I might call the second act of the drama began in Monte Carlo when Mr. Satterthwaite showed me the newspaper account of Sir Bartholomew's death. It was at once clear that I had been wrong and Sir Charles had been right. Both Stephen Babbington and Sir Bartholomew Strange had been murdered and the two murders formed part of one and the same crime. Later a third murder completed the series—the murder of Mrs. de Rushbridger. What we need, therefore, is a reasonable commonsense theory which will link those three deaths together—in other words those three
crimes were committed by one and the same person, and were to the advantage and benefit of that particular person.

“Now I may say at once that the principal thing that worried me was the fact that the murder of Sir Bartholomew Strange came
after
that of Stephen Babbington. Looking at those three murders without distinction of time and place the probabilities pointed to the murder of Sir Bartholomew Strange being what one might call the central or principal crime, and the other two murders as secondary in character—that is, arising from the connection of those two people with Sir Bartholomew Strange. However, as I remarked before—one cannot have one's crime as one would like to have it. Stephen Babbington had been murdered first and Sir Bartholomew Strange sometime later. It seemed, therefore, as though the second crime must necessarily arise out of the first and that accordingly it was the first crime we must examine for the clue to the whole.

“I did indeed so far incline to the theory of probability that I seriously considered the idea of a
mistake
having arisen. Was it possible that Sir Bartholomew Strange was intended as the first victim, and that Mr. Babbington was poisoned by mistake? I was forced, however, to abandon that idea. Anybody who knew Sir Bartholomew Strange with any degree of intimacy knew that he disliked the cocktail habit.

“Another suggestion: Had Stephen Babbington been poisoned in mistake for any other member of the original party? I could not find any evidence of such a thing. I was therefore forced back to the conclusion that the murder of Stephen Babbington had been definitely
intended
—and at once I came up against a complete stumbling block—the apparent
impossibility
of such a thing having happened.

“One should always start an investigation with the simplest
and most obvious theories. Granting that Stephen Babbington had drunk a poisoned cocktail, who had had the opportunity of poisoning that cocktail? At first sight, it seemed to me that the only two people who could have done so (e.g., who handled the drinks) were Sir Charles Cartwright himself and the parlourmaid Temple. But though either of them could presumably have introduced the poison into the glass,
neither of them had had any opportunity of directing that particular glass into Mr. Babbington's hand.
Temple might have done so by adroit handing of the tray so as to offer him the one remaining glass—(not easy, but it might have been done). Sir Charles could have done so by deliberately picking up the particular glass and handing it to him. But neither of these things had occurred. It looked as though
chance
and
chance
alone directed that particular glass to Stephen Babbington.

“Sir Charles Cartwright and Temple had the handling of the cocktails. Were either of those two at Melfort Abbey? They were not. Who had the best chance of tampering with Sir Bartholomew's port glass? The absconding butler, Ellis, and his helper, the parlourmaid. But here, however, the possibility that one of the guests had done so could not be laid aside. It was risky, but it was possible, for any of the house party to have slipped into the dining room and put the nicotine into the port glass.

“When I joined you at Crow's Nest you already had a list drawn up of the people who had been at Crow's Nest and at Melfort Abbey. I may say now that the four names which headed the list—Captain and Mrs. Dacres, Miss Sutcliffe and Miss Wills—I discarded immediately.

“It was
impossible
that any of those four people should have known
beforehand
that they were going to meet Stephen Babbing
ton at dinner. The employment of nicotine as a poison showed a carefully thought-out plan, not one that could be put into operation on the spur of the moment. There were three other names on that list—Lady Mary Lytton Gore, Miss Lytton Gore and Mr. Oliver Manders. Although not probable, those three were
possible.
They were local people, they might conceivably have motives for the removal of Stephen Babbington, and have chosen the evening of the dinner party for putting their plans into operation.

“On the other hand, I could find no evidence whatsoever that any of them had actually done such a thing.

“Mr. Satterthwaite, I think, reasoned on much the same lines as I had done, and he fixed his suspicions on Oliver Manders. I may say that young Manders was by far the most possible suspect. He displayed all the signs of high nervous tension on that evening at Crow's Nest—he had a somewhat distorted view of life owing to his private troubles—he had a strong inferiority complex, which is a frequent cause of crime, he was at an unbalanced age, he had actually had a quarrel, or shall we say had displayed animosity against Mr. Babbington. Then there were the curious circumstances of his arrival at Melfort Abbey. And later we had his somewhat incredible story of the letter from Sir Bartholomew Strange and the evidence of Miss Wills as to his having a newspaper cutting on the subject of nicotine poisoning in his possession.

“Oliver Manders, then, was clearly the person who should be placed at the head of the list of those seven suspects.

“But then, my friends, I was visited by a curious sensation. It seemed clear and logical enough that the person who had committed the crimes
must have been a person who had been present on both occasions;
in other words
a person on that list of seven—but I had the feeling
that that obviousness was an arranged obviousness.
It was what any sane and logical person would be
expected
to think. I felt that I was, in fact, looking not at reality but at an artfully painted bit of scenery. A really clever criminal would have realized that
anyone whose name was on that list would necessarily be suspect,
and therefore he or she would arrange for it not to be there.

“In other words, the murderer of Stephen Babbington and Sir Bartholomew Strange
was
present on both occasions—but was not
apparently
so.

“Who had been present on the first occasion and not on the second? Sir Charles Cartwright, Mr. Satterthwaite, Miss Milray and Mr. Babbington.

“Could any of those four have been present on the second occasion in some capacity other than their own? Sir Charles and Mr. Satterthwaite had been in the South of France, Miss Milray had been in London, Mrs. Babbington had been in Loomouth. Of the four, then, Miss Milray and Mrs. Babbington seemed indicated. But could Miss Milray have been present at Melfort Abbey unrecognized by any of the company? Miss Milray has very striking features not easily disguised and not easily forgotten. I decided that it was impossible that Miss Milray could have been at Melfort Abbey unrecognized. The same applied to Mrs. Babbington.

“For the matter of that could Mr. Satterthwaite or Sir Charles Cartwright have been at Melfort Abbey and not been recognized? Mr. Satterthwaite just possibly; but when we come to Sir Charles Cartwright we come to a very different matter. Sir Charles is an actor accustomed to playing a part. But what part could he have played?

“And then I came to the consideration of the butler Ellis.

“A very mysterious person, Ellis. A person who appears from nowhere a fortnight before the crime and vanishes afterwards with complete success. Why was Ellis so successful?
Because Ellis did not really exist.
Ellis, again, was a thing of pasteboard and paint and stagecraft—Ellis was not
real.

“But was it
possible?
After all, the servants at Melfort Abbey knew Sir Charles Cartwright, and Sir Bartholomew Strange was an intimate friend of his. The servants I got over easily enough. The impersonation of the butler risked nothing—if the servants recognized him—why, no harm would be done—the whole thing could be passed off as a joke. If, on the other hand, a fortnight passed without any suspicion being aroused, well, the thing was safe as houses. And I recalled what I had been told of the servants' remarks about the butler. He was ‘quite the gentleman,' and had been ‘in good houses,' and knew several interesting scandals. That was easy enough. But a very significant statement was made by the parlourmaid Alice. She said, ‘He arranged the work different from any butler I ever knew before.' When that remark was repeated to me, it became a confirmation of my theory.

“But Sir Bartholomew Strange was another matter. It is hardly to be supposed that his friend could take him in. He must have known of the impersonation. Had we any evidence of that? Yes. The acute Mr. Satterthwaite pounced on one point quite early in the proceedings—the facetious remark of Sir Bartholomew (totally uncharacteristic of his manner to servants)—‘You're a first-class butler, aren't you, Ellis?'
A perfectly understandable remark if the butler were Sir Charles Cartwright and Sir Bartholomew was in on the joke.

“Because that is undoubtedly how Sir Bartholomew saw the matter. The impersonation of Ellis was a joke, possibly even a
wager, its culmination was designed to be the successful spoofing of the house party—hence Sir Bartholomew's remark about a surprise and his cheerful humour. Note, too, that there was still time to draw back. If any of the house party had spotted Charles Cartwright that first evening at the dinner table, nothing irrevocable had yet occurred. The whole thing could have been passed off as a joke. But nobody noticed the stooping middle-aged butler, with his belladonna darkened eyes, and his whiskers, and the painted birthmark on his wrist. A very subtle identifying touch that—which completely failed, owing to the lack of observation of most human beings! The birthmark was intended to bulk largely in the description of Ellis—and in all that fortnight no one noticed it! The only person who did was the sharp-eyed Miss Wills, to whom we shall come presently.

“What happened next? Sir Bartholomew died. This time the death was not put down to natural causes. The police came. They questioned Ellis and the others. Later that night ‘Ellis' left by the secret passage, resumed his own personality, and two days later was strolling about the gardens at Monte Carlo ready to be shocked and surprised by the news of his friend's death.

“This, mind you, was all theory. I had no actual proof, but everything that arose supported that theory. My house of cards was well and truly built. The blackmailing letters discovered in Ellis's room? But it was Sir Charles himself who discovered them!

“And what of the supposed letter from Sir Bartholomew Strange asking young Manders to arrange an accident? Well, what could be easier than for Sir Charles to write that letter in Sir Bartholomew's name? If Manders had not destroyed that letter himself, Sir Charles in the rôle of Ellis can easily do so when he valets the
young gentleman. In the same way the newspaper cutting is easily introduced by Ellis into Oliver Manders's wallet.

“And now we come to the third victim—Mrs. de Rushbridger. When do we first hear of Mrs. de Rushbridger? Immediately after that very awkward chaffing reference to Ellis being the perfect butler—that extremely uncharacteristic utterance of Sir Bartholomew Strange. At all costs attention must be drawn away from Sir Bartholomew's manner to his butler. Sir Charles quickly asks what was the message the butler had brought. It is about this woman—this patient of the doctor's. And immediately Sir Charles throws all his personality into directing attention to this unknown woman and away from the butler. He goes to the Sanatorium and questions the Matron. He runs Mrs. de Rushbridger for all he is worth as a red herring.