Three Act Tragedy

‘Just an opinion,’ said Sir Charles.

There was a gentle tap on the door, and Hercule Poirot’s face appeared, peering in with an apologetic expression.

‘Come in, man,’ cried Sir Charles, springing up. ‘We were just talking of you.’

‘I thought perhaps I might be intruding.’

‘Not at all. Have a drink.’

‘I thank you, no. I seldom drink the whisky. A glass of sirop, now—’

But sirop was not included in Sir Charles’s conception of drinkable fluids. Having settled his guest in a chair, the actor went straight to the point.

‘I’m not going to beat about the bush,’ he said. ‘We were just talking of you, M. Poirot, and—and—of what happened tonight. Look here, do you think there’s anything wrong about it?’

Poirot’s eyebrows rose. He said:

‘Wrong? How do you mean that—wrong?’

Bartholomew Strange said, ‘My friend has got an idea into his head that old Babbington was murdered.’

‘And you do not think so—eh?’

‘We’d like to know what you think.’

Poirot said thoughtfully:

‘He was taken ill, of course, very suddenly—very suddenly indeed.’

‘Just so.’

Mr Satterthwaite explained the theory of suicide and his own suggestion of having a cocktail glass analysed.

Poirot nodded approval.

‘That, at any rate, can do no harm. As a judge of human nature, it seems to me unlikely in the extreme that anyone could wish to do away with a charming and harmless old gentleman. Still less does the solution of suicide appeal to me. However, the cocktail glass will tell us one way or another.’

‘And the result of the analysis, you think, will be—what?’

Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

‘Me? I can only guess. You ask me to guess what will be the result of the analysis?’

‘Yes—?’

‘Then I guess that they will find only the remains of a very excellent dry Martini.’ (He bowed to Sir Charles.) ‘To poison a man in a cocktail, one of many handed round on a tray—well, it would be a technique very—very—difficult. And if that charming old clergyman wanted to commit suicide, I do not think he would do it at a party. That would show a very decided lack of consideration for others, and Mr Babbington struck me as a very considerate person.’ He paused. ‘That, since you ask me, is my opinion.’

There was a moment’s silence. Then Sir Charles gave a deep sigh. He opened one of the windows and looked out.

‘Wind’s gone round a point,’ he said.

The sailor had come back and the Secret Service detective had disappeared.

But to the observant Mr Satterthwaite it seemed as though Sir Charles hankered slightly after the part he was not, after all, to play.

CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_43849a94-7879-5d81-89d1-19124e79040c)

A Modern Elaine (#ulink_43849a94-7879-5d81-89d1-19124e79040c)

‘Yes, but what do you think, Mr Satterthwaite? Really think?’

Mr Satterthwaite looked this way and that. There was no escape. Egg Lytton Gore had got him securely cornered on the fishing quay. Merciless, these modern young women—and terrifyingly alive.

‘Sir Charles has put this idea into your head,’ he said.

‘No, he hasn’t. It was there already. It’s been there from the beginning. It was so frightfully sudden.’

‘He was an old man, and his health wasn’t very good—’

Egg cut the recital short.

‘That’s all tripe. He had neuritis and a touch of rheumatoid arthritis. That doesn’t make you fall down in a fit. He never had fits. He was the sort of gentle creaking gate that would have lived to be ninety. What did you think of the inquest?’

‘It all seemed quite—er—normal.’

‘What did you think of Dr MacDougal’s evidence? Frightfully technical, and all that—close description of the organs—but didn’t it strike you that behind all that bombardment of words he was hedging? What he said amounted to this: that there was nothing to show death had not arisen from natural causes. He didn’t say it was the result of natural causes.’

‘Aren’t you splitting hairs a little, my dear?’

‘The point is that he did—he was puzzled, but he had nothing to go upon, so he had to take refuge in medical caution. What did Sir Bartholomew Strange think?’

Mr Satterthwaite repeated some of the physician’s dictums.

‘Pooh-poohed it, did he?’ said Egg thoughtfully. ‘Of course, he’s a cautious man—I suppose a Harley Street big bug has to be.’

‘There was nothing in the cocktail glass but gin and vermouth,’ Mr Satterthwaite reminded her.

‘That seems to settle it. All the same, something that happened after the inquest made me wonder—’

‘Something Sir Bartholomew said to you?’

Mr Satterthwaite began to feel a pleasant curiosity.

‘Not to me—to Oliver. Oliver Manders—he was at dinner that night, but perhaps you don’t remember him.’

‘Yes, I remember him very well. Is he a great friend of yours?’

‘Used to be. Now we scrap most of the time. He’s gone into his uncle’s office in the city, and he’s getting—well, a bit oily, if you know what I mean. Always talks of chucking it and being a journalist—he writes rather well. But I don’t think it’s any more than talk now. He wants to get rich. I think everybody is rather disgusting about money, don’t you, Mr Satterthwaite?’