Three-Act Tragedy Read online

  ‘In the end she decided to destroy Sir Charles’s apparatus. Sir Charles himself had been so cocksure of his success that he had never thought it necessary. She went down to Cornwall, and I followed.’

  Again Sir Charles laughed. More than ever he looked a fine gentleman disgusted by a rat.

  ‘Is some old chemical apparatus all your evidence?’ he demanded contemptuously.

  ‘No,’ said Poirot. ‘There is your passport showing the dates when you returned to and left England. And there is the fact that in the Harverton County Asylum there is a woman, Gladys Mary Mugg, the wife of Charles Mugg.’

  Egg had so far sat silent—a frozen figure. But now she stirred. A little cry—almost a moan—came from her.

  Sir Charles turned superbly.

  ‘Egg, you don’t believe a word of this absurd story, do you?’

  He laughed. His hands were outstretched.

  Egg came slowly forward as though hypnotized. Her eyes, appealing, tortured, gazed into her lover’s. And then, just before she reached him, she wavered, her glance fell, went this way and that as though seeking for reassurance.

  Then with a cry she fell on her knees by Poirot.

  ‘Is this true? Is this true?’

  He put both hands on her shoulders, a firm, kindly touch.

  ‘It is true, mademoiselle.’

  There was no sound then but Egg’s sobs.

  Sir Charles seemed suddenly to have aged. It was an old man’s face, a leering satyr’s face.

  ‘God damn you,’ he said.

  And never, in all his acting career, had words come with such utter and compelling malignancy.

  Then he turned and went out of the room.

  Mr Satterthwaite half sprang up from his chair, but Poirot shook his head, his hand still gently stroking the sobbing girl.

  ‘He’ll escape,’ said Mr Satterthwaite.

  Poirot shook his head.

  ‘No, he will only choose his exit. The slow one before the eyes of the world, or the quick one off stage.’

  The door opened softly and someone came in. It was Oliver Manders. His usual sneering expression was gone. He looked white and unhappy.

  Poirot bent over the girl.

  ‘See, mademoiselle,’ he said gently. ‘Here is a friend come to take you home.’

  Egg rose to her feet. She looked uncertainly towards Oliver then made a step stumblingly towards him.

  ‘Oliver…Take me to Mother. Oh, take me to Mother.’

  He put an arm round her and drew her towards the door.

  ‘Yes, dear, I’ll take you. Come.’

  Egg’s legs were trembling so that she could hardly walk. Between them Oliver and Mr Satterthwaite guided her footsteps. At the door she took a hold upon herself and threw back her head.

  ‘I’m all right.’

  Poirot made a gesture, and Oliver Manders came back into the room.

  ‘Be very good to her,’ said Poirot.

  ‘I will, sir. She’s all I care about in the world—you know that. Love for her made me bitter and cynical. But I shall be different now. I’m ready to stand by. And some day, perhaps—’

  ‘I think so,’ said Poirot. ‘I think she was beginning to care for you when he came along and dazzled her. Hero worship is a real and terrible danger to the young. Some day Egg will fall in love with a friend, and build her happiness upon rock.’

  He looked kindly after the young man as he left the room.

  Presently Mr Satterthwaite returned.

  ‘M. Poirot,’ he said. ‘You have been wonderful—absolutely wonderful.’

  Poirot put on his modest look.

  ‘It is nothing—nothing. A tragedy in three acts—and now the curtain has fallen.’

  ‘You’ll excuse me—’ said Mr Satterthwaite.

  ‘Yes, there is some point you want explained to you?’

  ‘There is one thing I want to know.’

  ‘Ask then.’

  ‘Why do you sometimes speak perfectly good English and at other times not?’

  Poirot laughed.

  ‘Ah, I will explain. It is true that I can speak the exact, the idiomatic English. But, my friend, to speak the broken English is an enormous asset. It leads people to despise you. They say—a foreigner—he can’t even speak English properly. It is not my policy to terrify people—instead I invite their gentle ridicule. Also I boast! An Englishman he says often, “A fellow who thinks as much of himself as that cannot be worth much.” That is the English point of view. It is not at all true. And so, you see, I put people off their guard. Besides,’ he added, ‘it has become a habit.’

  ‘Dear me,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, ‘quite the cunning of the serpent.’

  He was silent for a moment or two, thinking over the case.

  ‘I’m afraid I have not shone over this matter,’ he said vexedly.

  ‘On the contrary. You appreciated that important point—Sir Bartholomew’s remark about the butler—you realized the astute observation of Miss Wills. In fact, you could have solved the whole thing but for your playgoer’s reaction to dramatic effect.’

  Mr Satterthwaite looked cheerful.

  Suddenly an idea struck him. His jaw fell.

  ‘My goodness,’ he cried, ‘I’ve only just realized it. That rascal, with his poisoned cocktail! Anyone might have drunk it. It might have been me.’

  ‘There is an even more terrible possibility that you have not considered,’ said Poirot.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘It might have been ME,’ said Hercule Poirot.

  E-Book Extras

  The Poirots

  Essay by Charles Osborne

  The Poirots

  The Mysterious Affair at Styles; The Murder on the Links; Poirot Investigates; The Murder of Roger Ackroyd; The Big Four; The Mystery of the Blue Train; Black Coffee; Peril at End House; Lord Edgware Dies; Murder on the Orient Express; Three-Act Tragedy; Death in the Clouds; The ABC Murders; Murder in Mesopotamia; Cards on the Table; Murder in the Mews; Dumb Witness; Death on the Nile; Appointment with Death; Hercule Poirot’s Christmas; Sad Cypress; One, Two, Buckle My Shoe; Evil Under the Sun; Five Little Pigs; The Hollow; The Labours of Hercules; Taken at the Flood; Mrs McGinty’s Dead; After the Funeral; Hickory Dickory Dock; Dead Man’s Folly; Cat Among the Pigeons; The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding; The Clocks; Third Girl; Hallowe’en Party; Elephants Can Remember; Poirot’s Early Cases; Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case

  1. The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)

  Captain Arthur Hastings, invalided in the Great War, is recuperating as a guest of John Cavendish at Styles Court, the ‘country-place’ of John’s autocratic old aunt, Emily Inglethorpe—she of a sizeable fortune, and so recently remarried to a man twenty years her junior. When Emily’s sudden heart attack is found to be attributable to strychnine, Hastings recruits an old friend, now retired, to aid in the local investigation. With impeccable timing, Hercule Poirot, the renowned Belgian detective, makes his dramatic entrance into the pages of crime literature.

  Of note: Written in 1916, The Mysterious Affair at Styles was Agatha Christie’s first published work. Six houses rejected the novel before it was finally published—after puzzling over it for eighteen months before deciding to go ahead—by The Bodley Head.

  Times Literary Supplement: ‘Almost too ingenious…very clearly and brightly told.’

  2. The Murder on the Links (1923)

  “For God’s sake, come!” But by the time Hercule Poirot can respond to Monsieur Renauld’s plea, the millionaire is already dead—stabbed in the back, and lying in a freshly dug grave on the golf course adjoining his estate. There is no lack of suspects: his wife, whose dagger did the deed; his embittered son; Renauld’s mistress—and each feels deserving of the dead man’s fortune. The police think they’ve found the culprit. Poirot has his doubts. And the discovery of a second, identically murdered corpse complicates matters considerably. (However, on a bright note, Captain Arthur Hastings does meet his future wife.)


  The New York Times: ‘A remarkably good detective story…warmly recommended.’

  Literary Review: ‘Really clever.’

  Sketch: ‘Agatha Christie never lets you down.’

  3. Poirot Investigates (1924)

  A movie star, a diamond; a murderous ‘suicide’; a pharaoh’s curse upon his tomb; a prime minister abducted…What links these fascinating cases? The brilliant deductive powers of Hercule Poirot in…‘The Adventure of the Western Star’; ‘The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor’; ‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’; ‘The Mystery of the Hunter’s Lodge’; ‘The Million Dollar Bond Robbery’; ‘The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb’; ‘The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan’; ‘The Kidnapped Prime Minister’; ‘The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim’; ‘The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman’; ‘The Case of the Missing Will.’

  Of note: The stories collected here were first published in Sketch, beginning on March 7, 1923. Sketch also featured the first illustration of the foppish, egg-headed, elaborately moustachioed Belgian detective.

  Literary Review: ‘A capital collection…ingeniously constructed and told with an engaging lightness of style.’

  Irish Times: ‘In straight detective fiction there is still no one to touch [Christie].’

  4. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)

  In the quiet village of King’s Abbot a widow’s suicide has stirred suspicion—and dreadful gossip. There are rumours that she murdered her first husband, that she was being blackmailed, and that her secret lover was Roger Ackroyd. Then, on the verge of discovering the blackmailer’s identity, Ackroyd himself is murdered. Hercule Poirot, who has settled in King’s Abbot for some peace and quiet and a little gardening, finds himself at the centre of the case—and up against a diabolically clever and devious killer.

  Of note: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd broke all the rules of detective fiction and made Agatha Christie a household name. Widely regarded as her masterpiece (though perhaps it may be called her ‘Poirot masterpiece’ since other titles in her canon—notably And Then There Were None—are similarly acclaimed), The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was the source of some controversy when it was published. The Times Literary Supplement’s praise of the first Poirot, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, ‘almost too ingenious,’ was applied by scores of readers to Ackroyd, who were nonetheless enraptured by the novel, and have remained so over the decades.

  Fair warning: There are two things you must do if you know nothing of the book: discuss it with no one, and read it with all speed.

  H.R.F. Keating: ‘One of the landmarks of detective literature’ (in his Crime & Mystery: The 100 Best Books).

  Julian Symons: ‘The most brilliant of deceptions’ (in his Bloody Murder: From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel).

  Irish Independent: ‘A classic—the book has worthily earned its fame.’

  5. The Big Four (1927)

  Hercule Poirot is preparing for a voyage to South America. Looming in the doorway of his bedroom is an uninvited guest, coated from head to foot in dust and mud. The man’s gaunt face registers Poirot for a moment, and then he collapses. The stranger recovers long enough to identify Poirot by name and madly and repeatedly scribble the figure ‘4’ on a piece of paper. Poirot cancels his trip. An investigation is in order. Fortunately, Poirot has the faithful Captain Hastings at his side as he plunges into a conspiracy of international scope—one that would consolidate power in the deadly cabal known as ‘The Big Four.’

  6. The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)

  Le Train Bleu is an elegant, leisurely means of travel, and one certainly free of intrigue. Hercule Poirot is aboard, bound for the Riviera. And so is Ruth Kettering, the American heiress. Bailing out of a doomed marriage, she is en route to reconcile with her former lover. But her private affairs are made quite public when she is found murdered in her luxury compartment—bludgeoned almost beyond recognition. Fans of the later novel Murder on the Orient Express will not want to miss this journey by rail—and Poirot’s eerie reenactment of the crime…

  7. Black Coffee (1930; 1998)

  Sir Claud Amory’s formula for a powerful new explosive has been stolen, presumably by a member of his large household. Sir Claud assembles his suspects in the library and locks the door, instructing them that the when the lights go out, the formula must be replaced on the table—and no questions will be asked. But when the lights come on, Sir Claud is dead. Now Hercule Poirot, assisted by Captain Hastings and Inspector Japp, must unravel a tangle of family feuds, old flames, and suspicious foreigners to find the killer and prevent a global catastrophe.

  Of note: Black Coffee was Agatha Christie’s first playscript, written in 1929. It premiered in 1930 at the Embassy Theatre in Swiss Cottage, London, before transferring the following year to St Martin’s in the West End—a theatre made famous by virtue of its becoming the permanent home of the longest-running play in history, Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap. Agatha Christie’s biographer, Charles Osborne, who, as a young actor in 1956 had played Dr Carelli in a Tunbridge Wells production of Black Coffee, adapted the play as this novel in 1998.

  Antonia Fraser, Sunday Telegraph: ‘A lively and light-hearted read which will give pleasure to all those who have long wished that there was just one more Christie to devour.’

  Mathew Prichard, from his Foreword to Black Coffee: ‘This Hercule Poirot murder mystery…reads like authentic, vintage Christie. I feel sure Agatha would be proud to have written it.’

  8. Peril at End House (1932)

  Nick is an unusual name for a pretty young woman. And Nick Buckley has been leading an unusual life of late. First, on a treacherous Cornish hillside, the brakes on her car fail. Then, on a coastal path, a falling boulder misses her by inches. Safe in bed, she is almost crushed by a painting. Upon discovering a bullet hole in Nick’s sun hat, Hercule Poirot (who had come to Cornwall for a simple holiday with his friend Captain Hastings) decides that the girl needs his protection. At the same time, he begins to unravel the mystery of a murder that hasn’t been committed. Yet.

  Times Literary Supplement: ‘Ingenious.’

  9. Lord Edgware Dies (1933)

  Poirot was present when the beautiful actress Jane Wilkinson bragged of her plan to ‘get rid of’ her estranged husband. Now the monstrous man is dead. But how could Jane have stabbed Lord Edgware in his library at exactly the time she was dining with friends? And what could have been her motive, since Edgware had finally granted her a divorce? The great Belgian detective, aided by Captain Hastings, can’t help feeling that some kind of heinous stagecraft is in play. And does more murder wait in the wings?

  The New York Times: ‘A most ingenious crime puzzle.’

  Times Literary Supplement: ‘The whole case is a triumph of Poirot’s special qualities.’

  Noted crime fiction critic Julian Symons selected Lord Edgware Dies as one of Agatha Christie’s best.

  10. Murder on the Orient Express (1934)

  Just after midnight, a snowstorm stops the Orient Express dead in its tracks in the middle of Yugoslavia. The luxurious train is surprisingly full for this time of year. But by morning there is one passenger less. A ‘respectable American gentleman’ lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside…Hercule Poirot is also aboard, having arrived in the nick of time to claim a second-class compartment—and the most astounding case of his illustrious career.

  Regarding chronology: Agatha Christie seems not much concerned in the course of her books with their relationship to each other. It is why the Marples and the Poirots may be ready in any order, really, with pleasure. However, the dedicated Poirotist may wish to note that the great detective is returning from ‘A little affair in Syria’ at the start of Murder on the Orient Express. It is a piece of business after this ‘little affair’—the investigation into the death of an archaeologist’s wife—that is the subject of Murder in Mesopotamia (1936). If one wishes to delay a tad longer the pleasures of Orient Express, Murder
in Mesopotamia offers no better opportunity.

  Fair warning: Along these lines, it is advisable that one not read Cards on the Table (1936) prior to Orient Express, since Poirot himself casually gives away the ending to the latter novel.

  Of note: Murder on the Orient Express is one of Agatha Christie’s most famous novels, owing no doubt to a combination of its romantic setting and the ingeniousness of its plot; its non-exploitative reference to the sensational kidnapping and murder of the infant son of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh only two years prior; and a popular 1974 film adaptation, starring Albert Finney as Poirot—one of the few cinematic versions of a Christie work that met with the approval, however mild, of the author herself.