Three Act Tragedy Read online

  This evening, sitting in the large room giving onto the terrace, cleverly decorated by a modern firm to resemble a ship’s cabin de luxe, he was principally interested in the exact shade of hair dye attained by Cynthia Dacres. It was an entirely new tone—straight from Paris, he suspected—a curious and rather pleasing effect of greenish bronze. What Mrs. Dacres really looked like it was impossible to tell. She was a tall woman with a figure perfectly disciplined to the demands of the moment. Her neck and arms were her usual shade of summer tan for the country—whether naturally or artificially produced it was impossible to tell. The greenish bronze hair was set in a clever and novel style that only London’s best hairdresser could achieve. Her plucked eyebrows, darkened lashes, exquisitively made-up face, and mouth lipsticked to a curve that its naturally straight line did not possess, seemed all adjuncts to the perfection of her evening gown of a deep and unusual blue, cut very simply it seemed (though this was ludicrously far from the case) and of an unusual material—dull, but with hidden lights in it.

  “That’s a clever woman,” said Mr. Satterthwaite, eyeing her with approval. “I wonder what she’s really like.”

  But this time he meant in mind, not in body.

  Her words came drawlingly, in the mode of the moment.

  “My dear, it wasn’t possible. I mean, things either are possible or they’re not. This wasn’t. It was simply penetrating.”

  That was the new word just now—everything was “penetrating.”

  Sir Charles was vigorously shaking cocktails and talking to Angela Sutcliffe, a tall, grey-haired woman with a mischievous mouth and fine eyes.

  Dacres was talking to Bartholomew Strange.

  “Everyone knows what’s wrong with old Ladisbourne. The whole stable knows.”

  He spoke in a high clipped voice—a little red, foxy man with a short moustache and slightly shifty eyes.

  Beside Mr. Satterthwaite sat Miss Wills, whose play, One-Way Traffic, had been acclaimed as one of the most witty and daring seen in London for some years. Miss Wills was tall and thin, with a receding chin and very badly waved fair hair. She wore pince-nez, and was dressed in exceedingly limp green chiffon. Her voice was high and undistinguished.

  “I went to the South of France,” she said. “But, really, I didn’t enjoy it very much. Not friendly at all. But of course it’s useful to me in my work—to see all the goings-on, you know.”

  Mr. Satterthwaite thought: “Poor soul. Cut off by success from her spiritual home—a boardinghouse in Bournemouth. That’s where she’d like to be.” He marvelled at the difference between written works and their authors. That cultivated “man-of-the-world” tone that Anthony Astor imparted to his plays—what faintest spark of it could be perceived in Miss Wills? Then he noticed that the pale blue eyes behind the pince-nez were singularly intelligent. They were turned on him now with an appraising look that slightly disconcerted him. It was as though Miss Wills were painstakingly learning him by heart.

  Sir Charles was just pouring out the cocktails.

  “Let me get you a cocktail,” said Mr. Satterthwaite, springing up.

  Miss Wills giggled.

  “I don’t mind if I do,” she said.

  The door opened and Temple announced Lady Mary Lytton Gore and Mr. and Mrs. Babbington and Miss Lytton Gore.

  Mr. Satterthwaite supplied Miss Wills with her cocktail and then sidled into the neighbourhood of Lady Mary Lytton Gore. As has been stated before, he had a weakness for titles.

  Also, apart from snobbishness, he liked a gentlewoman, and that Lady Mary most undeniably was.

  Left as a widow very badly off with a child of three, she had come to Loomouth and taken a small cottage where she had lived with one devoted maid ever since. She was a tall thin woman, looking older than her fifty-five years. Her expression was sweet and rather timid. She adored her daughter, but was a little alarmed by her.

  Hermione Lytton Gore, usually known for some obscure reason as Egg, bore little resemblance to her mother. She was of a more energetic type. She was not, Mr. Satterthwaite decided, beautiful, but she was undeniably attractive. And the cause of that attraction, he thought, lay in her abounding vitality. She seemed twice as alive as anyone in that room. She had dark hair, and grey eyes and was of medium height. It was something in the way the hair curled crisply in her neck, in the straight glance of the grey eyes, in the curve of the cheek, in the infectious laugh that gave one that impression of riotous youth and vitality.

  She stood talking to Oliver Manders, who had just arrived.

  “I can’t think why sailing bores you so much. You used to like it.”

  “Egg—my dear. One grows up.”

  He drawled the words, raising his eyebrows.

  A handsome young fellow, twenty-five at a guess. Something, perhaps, a little sleek about his good looks. Something else—something—was it foreign? Something unEnglish about him.

  Somebody else was watching Oliver Manders. A little man with an egg-shaped head and very foreign-looking moustaches. Mr. Satterthwaite had recalled himself to M. Hercule Poirot’s memory. The little man had been very affable. Mr. Satterthwaite suspected him of deliberately exaggerating his foreign mannerisms. His small twinkly eyes seemed to say, “You expect me to be the buffoon? To play the comedy for you? Bien—it shall be as you wish!”

  But there was no twinkle now in Hercule Poirot’s eyes. He looked grave and a little sad.

  The Rev. Stephen Babbington, rector of Loomouth, came and joined Lady Mary and Mr. Satterthwaite. He was a man of sixty odd, with kind faded eyes and a disarming diffident manner. He said to Mr. Satterthwaite:

  “We are very lucky to have Sir Charles living among us. He has been most kind—most generous. A very pleasant neighbour to have. Lady Mary agrees, I am sure.”

  Lady Mary smiled.

  “I like him very much. His success hasn’t spoilt him. In many ways he is,” her smile deepened, “a child still.”

  The parlourmaid approached with the tray of cocktails as Mr. Satterthwaite reflected how unendingly maternal women were. Being of the Victorian generation, he approved that trait.

  “You can have a cocktail, Mums,” said Egg, flashing up to them, glass in hand. “Just one.”

  “Thank you, dear,” said Lady Mary meekly.

  “I think,” said Mr. Babbington, “that my wife would allow me to have one.”

  And he laughed a little gentle clerical laugh.

  Mr. Satterthwaite glanced over at Mrs. Babbington, who was talking earnestly to Sir Charles on the subject of manure.

  “She’s got fine eyes,” he thought.

  Mrs. Babbington was a big untidy woman. She looked full of energy and likely to be free from petty-mindedness. As Charles Cartwright had said—a nice woman.

  “Tell me,” Lady Mary leaned forward. “Who is the young woman you were talking to when we came in—the one in green?”

  “That’s the playwright—Anthony Astor.”

  “What? That—that anaemic-looking young woman? Oh!” She caught herself up. “How dreadful of me. But it was a surprise. She doesn’t look—I mean she looks exactly like an inefficient nursery governess.”

  It was such an apt description of Miss Wills’ appearance that Mr. Satterthwaite laughed. Mr. Babbington was peering across the room with amiable shortsighted eyes. He took a sip of his cocktail and choked a little. He was unused to cocktails, thought Mr. Satterthwaite amusedly—probably they represented modernity to his mind—but he didn’t like them. Mr. Babbington took another determined mouthful with a slightly wry face and said:

  “Is it the lady over there? Oh dear—”

  His hand went to his throat.

  Egg Lytton Gore’s voice rang out:

  “Oliver—you slippery Shylock—”

  “Of course,” thought Mr. Satterthwaite, “that’s it—not foreign—Jew!”

  What a handsome pair they made. Both so young and good-looking…and quarrelling, too—always a healthy sign….

  H
e was distracted by a sound at his side. Mr. Babbington had risen to his feet and was swaying to and fro. His face was convulsed.

  It was Egg’s clear voice that drew the attention of the room, though Lady Mary had risen and stretched out an anxious hand.

  “Look,” said Egg’s voice. “Mr. Babbington is ill.”

  Sir Bartholomew Strange came forward hurriedly, supporting the stricken man and half lifting him to a couch at one side of the room. The others crowded round, anxious to help, but impotent….

  Two minutes later Strange straightened himself and shook his head. He spoke bluntly, aware that it was no use to beat about the bush.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “He’s dead….”

  Three

  SIR CHARLES WONDERS

  “Come in here a minute, Satterthwaite, will you?”

  Sir Charles poked his head out of the door.

  An hour and a half had passed. To confusion had succeeded peace. Lady Mary had led the weeping Mrs. Babbington out of the room and had finally gone home with her to the vicarage. Miss Milray had been efficient with the telephone. The local doctor had arrived and taken charge. A simplified dinner had been served, and by mutual consent the house party had retired to their rooms after it. Mr. Satterthwaite had been making his own retreat when Sir Charles had called to him from the door of the Ship room where the death had taken place.

  Mr. Satterthwaite passed in, repressing a slight shiver as he did so. He was old enough not to like the sight of death…For soon, perhaps, he himself…But why think of that?

  “I’m good for another twenty years,” said Mr. Satterthwaite robustly to himself.

  The only other occupant of the Ship room was Bartholomew Strange. He nodded approval at the sight of Mr. Satterthwaite.

  “Good man,” he said. “We can do with Satterthwaite. He knows life.”

  A little surprised, Mr. Satterthwaite sat down in an armchair near the doctor. Sir Charles was pacing up and down. He had forgotten the semi-clenching of his hands and looked definitely less naval.

  “Charles doesn’t like it,” said Sir Bartholomew. “Poor old Babbington’s death, I mean.”

  Mr. Satterthwaite thought the sentiment ill expressed. Surely nobody could be expected to “like” what had occurred. He realized that Strange had quite another meaning from the bald one the words conveyed.

  “It was very distressing,” said Mr. Satterthwaite, cautiously feeling his way. “Very distressing indeed,” he added with a reminiscent shiver.

  “H’m, yes, it was rather painful,” said the physician, the professional accent creeping for a moment into his voice.

  Cartwright paused in his pacing.

  “Ever see anyone die quite like that before, Tollie?”

  “No,” said Sir Bartholomew thoughtfully. “I can’t say that I have.

  “But,” he added in a moment or two, “I haven’t really seen as many deaths as you might suppose. A nerve specialist doesn’t kill off many of his patients. He keeps ’em alive and makes his income out of them. MacDougal has seen far more deceases than I have, I don’t doubt.”

  Dr. MacDougal was the principal doctor in Loomouth, whom Miss Milray had summoned.

  “MacDougal didn’t see this man die. He was dead when he arrived. There was only what we could tell him, what you could tell him. He said it was some kind of seizure, said Babbington was elderly, and his health was none too good. That doesn’t satisfy me.”

  “Probably didn’t satisfy him,” grunted the other. “But a doctor has to say something. Seizure is a good word—means nothing at all, but satisfies the lay mind. And, after all, Babbington was elderly, and his health had been giving him trouble lately; his wife told us so. There may have been some unsuspected weakness somewhere.”

  “Was that a typical fit or seizure, or whatever you call it?”

  “Typical of what?”

  “Of any known disease?”

  “If you’d ever studied medicine,” said Sir Bartholomew, “you’d know that there is hardly any such thing as a typical case.”

  “What, precisely, are you suggesting, Sir Charles?” asked Mr. Satterthwaite.

  Cartwright did not answer. He made a vague gesture with his hand. Strange gave a slight chuckle.

  “Charles doesn’t know himself,” he said. “It’s just his mind turning naturally to the dramatic possibilities.”

  Sir Charles made a reproachful gesture. His face was absorbed—thoughtful. He shook his head slightly in an abstracted manner.

  An elusive resemblance teased Mr. Satterthwaite—then he got it. Aristide Duval, the head of the Secret Service, unravelling the tangled plot of “Underground Wires.” In another minute he was sure. Sir Charles was limping unconsciously as he walked. Aristide Duval had been known as The Man With a Limp.

  Sir Bartholomew continued to apply ruthless common sense to Sir Charles’s unformulated suspicions.

  “Yes, what do you suspect, Charles? Suicide? Murder? Who wants to murder a harmless old clergyman? It’s fantastic. Suicide? Well, I suppose that is a point. One might perhaps imagine a reason for Babbington wanting to make away with himself—”

  “What reason?”

  Sir Bartholomew shook his head gently.

  “How can we tell the secrets of the human mind? Just one suggestion—suppose that Babbington had been told he suffered from an incurable disease—such as cancer. Something of that kind might supply a motive. He might wish to spare his wife the pain of watching his own long-drawn-out suffering. That’s only a suggestion, of course. There’s nothing on earth to make us think that Babbington did want to put an end to himself.”

  “I wasn’t thinking so much of suicide,” began Sir Charles.

  Bartholomew Strange again gave his low chuckle.

  “Exactly. You’re not out for probability. You want sensation—new and untraceable poison in the cocktails.”

  Sir Charles made an expressive grimace.

  “I’m not so sure I do want that. Damn it all, Tollie, remember I mixed those cocktails.”

  “Sudden attack of homicidal mania, eh? I suppose the symptoms are delayed in our case, but we’ll all be dead before morning.”

  “Damn it all, you joke, but—” Sir Charles broke off irritably.

  “I’m not really joking,” said the physician.

  His voice had altered. It was grave, and not unsympathetic.

  “I’m not joking about poor old Babbington’s death. I’m casting fun at your suggestions, Charles, because—well—because I don’t want you, thoughtlessly, to do harm.”

  “Harm?” demanded Sir Charles.

  “Perhaps you understand what I’m driving at, Mr. Satterthwaite?”

  “I think, perhaps, I can guess,” said Mr. Satterthwaite.

  “Don’t you see, Charles,” went on Sir Bartholomew, “that those idle suspicions of yours might be definitely harmful? These things get about. A vague suggestion of foul play, totally unfounded, might cause serious trouble and pain to Mrs. Babbington. I’ve known things of that kind happen once or twice. A sudden death—a few idle tongues wagging—rumours flying all round the place—rumours that go on growing—and that no one can stop. Damn it all, Charles, don’t you see how cruel and unnecessary it would be? You’re merely indulging your vivid imagination in a gallop over a wholly speculative course.”

  A look of irresolution appeared on the actor’s face.

  “I hadn’t thought of it like that,” he admitted.

  “You’re a thundering good chap, Charles, but you do let your imagination run away with you. Come now: do you seriously believe anyone, anyone at all, would want to murder that perfectly harmless old man?”

  “I suppose not,” said Sir Charles. “No, as you say, it’s ridiculous. Sorry, Tollie, but it wasn’t really a mere ‘stunt’ on my part. I did genuinely have a ‘hunch’ that something was wrong.”

  Mr. Satterthwaite gave a little cough.

  “May I make a suggestion? Mr. Babbington was taken ill a very few mo
ments after entering the room and just after drinking his cocktail. Now, I did happen to notice he made a wry face when drinking. I imagined because he was unused to the taste. But supposing that Sir Bartholomew’s tentative suggestion is correct—that Mr. Babbington may for some reason have wished to commit suicide. That does strike me as just possible, whereas the suggestion of murder seems quite ridiculous.

  “I feel that it is possible, though not probable, that Mr. Babbington introduced something into that glass unseen by us.

  “Now I see that nothing has yet been touched in this room. The cocktail glasses are exactly where they were. This is Mr. Babbington’s. I know, because I was sitting here talking to him. I suggest that Sir Bartholomew should get the glass analysed—that can be done quite quietly and without causing any ‘talk.’”

  Sir Bartholomew rose and picked up the glass.

  “Right,” he said. “I’ll humour you so far, Charles, and I’ll bet you ten pounds to one that there’s nothing in it but honest-to-God gin and vermouth.”

  “Done,” said Sir Charles.

  Then he added with a rueful smile:

  “You know, Tollie, you are partly responsible for my flights of fancy.”

  “I?”

  “Yes, with your talk of crime this morning. You said this man, Hercule Poirot, was a kind of stormy petrel, that where he went crimes followed. No sooner does he arrive than we have a suspiciously sudden death. Of course my thoughts fly to murder at once.”

  “I wonder,” said Mr. Satterthwaite, and stopped.

  “Yes,” said Charles Cartwright. “I’d thought of that. What do you think, Tollie? Could we ask him what he thinks of it all? Is it etiquette, I mean?”

  “A nice point,” murmured Mr. Satterthwaite.

  “I know medical etiquette, but I’m hanged if I know anything about the etiquette of detection.”