Three Act Tragedy (Hercule Poirot 11)

“Steadied his nerves with brandy, he did. Or unsteadied them, some would say.”

“What about Lady Mary Lytton Gore?”

“A very nice lady,” said Beatrice, her tone softening. “My great aunt was in service with her father at the Castle. A pretty young girl she was, so I’ve always heard. Poor she may be, but you can see she’s someone—and so considerate, never giving trouble and always speaking so pleasant. Her daughter’s a nice young lady, too. They didn’t know Sir Bartholomew well, of course, but they were very distressed.”

“Miss Wills?”

Some of Beatrice’s rigidity returned.

“I’m sure I couldn’t say, sir, what Miss Wills thought about it.”

“Or what you thought about her?” asked Sir Charles. “Come now, Beatrice, be human.”

An unexpected smile dinted Beatrice’s wooden cheeks. There was something appealingly schoolboyish in Sir Charles’s manner. She was not proof against the charm that nightly audiences had felt so strongly.

“Really, sir, I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Just what you thought and felt about Miss Wills.”

“Nothing, sir, nothing at all. She wasn’t, of course—”

Beatrice hesitated.

“Go on, Beatrice.”

“Well, she wasn’t quite the ‘class’ of the others, sir. She couldn’t help it, I know,” went on Beatrice kindly. “But she did things a real lady wouldn’t have done. She pried, if you know what I mean, sir, poked and pried about.”

Sir Charles tried hard to get this statement amplified, but Beatrice remained vague. Miss Wills had poked and pried, but asked to produce a special instance of the poking, Beatrice seemed unable to do so. She merely repeated that Miss Wills pried into things that were no business of hers.

They gave it up at last, and Mr. Satterthwaite said:

“Young Mr. Manders arrived unexpectedly, didn’t he?”

“Yes, sir, he had an accident with his car—just by the lodge gates, it was. He said it was a bit of luck its happening just here. The house was full, of course, but Miss Lyndon had a bed made up for him in the little study.”

“Was everyone very surprised to see him?”

“Oh, yes, sir, naturally, sir.”

Asked her opinion of Ellis, Beatrice was noncommittal. She’d seen very little of him. Going off the way he did looked bad, though why

he should want to harm the master she couldn’t imagine. Nobody could.

“What was he like, the doctor, I mean? Did he seem to be looking forward to the house party? Had he anything on his mind?”

“He seemed particularly cheerful, sir. Smiled to himself, he did, as though he had some joke on. I even heard him make a joke with Mr. Ellis, a thing he’d never done with Mr. Baker. He was usually a bit brusque with the servants, kind always, but not speaking to them much.”

“What did he say?” asked Mr. Satterthwaite eagerly.

“Well, I forget exactly now, sir. Mr. Ellis had come up with a telephone message, and Sir Bartholomew asked him if he was sure he’d got the names right, and Mr. Ellis said quite sure—speaking respectful, of course. And the doctor he laughed and said, ‘You’re a good fellow, Ellis, a first-class butler. Eh, Beatrice, what do you think?’ And I was so surprised, sir, at the master speaking like that—quite unlike his usual self—that I didn’t know what to say.”

“And Ellis?”

“He looked kind of disapproving, sir, as though it was the kind of thing he hadn’t been used to. Stiff like.”

“What was the telephone message?” asked Sir Charles.

“The message, sir? Oh, it was from the Sanatorium—about a patient who had arrived there and had stood the journey well.”