Three Act Tragedy

Three Act Tragedy
Agatha Christie

At an apparently respectable dinner party, a vicar is the first to die…Thirteen guests arrived at dinner at the actor’s house. It was to be a particularly unlucky evening for the mild-mannered Reverend Stephen Babbington, who choked on his cocktail, went into convulsions and died.But when his martini glass was sent for chemical analysis, there was no trace of poison – just as Poirot had predicted. Even more troubling for the great detective, there was absolutely no motive…

Three Act Tragedy

Copyright (#u07fdeff0-05e8-53a1-87f6-b47085dc3b31)

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by Collins 1935

Agatha Christie® Poirot® Three Act Tragedy™

Copyright © 1935 Agatha Christie Limited (a Chorion company). All rights reserved.

www.agathachristie.com (http://www.agathachristie.com)

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

Title lettering by Ghost Design

Cover photograph © Ray Spence/Arcangel Images

Agatha Christie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007120901

Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2016 ISBN: 9780007422883

Version: 2018-04-24

Dedication (#u07fdeff0-05e8-53a1-87f6-b47085dc3b31)

Dedicated to

My Friends, Geoffrey and Violet Shipston

Contents

Cover (#u15792e9e-a2c3-59fb-a7dc-6f818bb9961b)

Title Page (#ua621c872-5eb6-53dc-81df-701f6e853ac7)

Copyright

Dedication

First Act: Suspicion

1. Crow’s Nest

2. Incident Before Dinner

3. Sir Charles Wonders

4. A Modern Elaine

5. Flight From a Lady

Second Act: Certainty

1. Sir Charles Receives a Letter

2. The Missing Butler

3. Which of Them?

4. The Evidence of the Servants

5. In the Butler’s Room

6. Concerning an Ink-Stain

7. Plan of Campaign

Third Act: Discovery

1. Mrs Babbington

2. Lady Mary

3. Re-enter Hercule Poirot

4. A Watching Brief