Three Act Tragedy

“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 moments 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 somehow 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.”

“You can’t ask a professional singer to sing,” murmured Mr. Satterthwaite. “Can one ask a professional detective to detect? Yes, a very nice point.”

“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 would 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.

4

“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 terrifying 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.”