Three Act Tragedy (Hercule Poirot 11)

Her tone implied: “Now that you’ve come everything will be all right….”

Mr. Satterthwaite thought to himself: “But she wasn’t sure he’d come—she wasn’t sure at all. She’s been on tenterhooks. She’s been fretting herself to death.” And he thought: “Doesn’t the man realize? Actors are usually vain enough…Doesn’t he know the girl’s head over ears in love with him?”

It was, he thought, an odd situation. That Sir Charles was overwhelmingly in love with the girl, he had no doubt whatever. She was equally in love with him. And the link between them—the link to which each of them clung frenziedly—was a crime—a double crime of a revolting nature.

During dinner little was said. Sir Charles talked about his experiences abroad. Egg talked about Loomouth. Mr. Satterthwaite encouraged them both whenever the conversation seemed likely to flag. When dinner was over they went to Mr. Satterthwaite’s house.

Mr. Satterthwaite’s house was on Chelsea Embankment. It was a large house, and contained many beautiful works of art. There were pictures, sculpture, Chinese porcelain, prehistoric pottery, ivories, miniatures and much genuine Chippendale and Hepplewhite furniture. It had an atmosphere about it of mellowness and understanding.

Egg Lytton Gore saw nothing, noticed nothing. She flung off her evening coat onto a chair and said:

“At last. Now tell me all about it.”

She listened with vivid interest whilst Sir Charles narrated their adventures in Yorkshire, drawing in her breath sharply when he described the discovery of the blackmailing letters.

“What happened after that we can only conjecture,” finished Sir Charles. “Presumably Ellis was paid to hold his tongue and his escape was facilitated.”

But Egg shook her head.

“Oh, no,” she said. “Don’t you see? Ellis is dead.”

Both men were startled, but Egg reiterated her assertion.

“Of course he’s dead. That’s why he’s disappeared so successfully that no one can find a trace of him. He knew too much, and so he was killed. Ellis is the third murder.”

Although neither of the two men had considered the possibility before, they were forced to admit that it did not entirely ring false.

“B

ut look here, my dear girl,” argued Sir Charles, “it’s all very well to say Ellis is dead. Where’s the body? There’s twelve stone or so of solid butler to be accounted for.”

“I don’t know where the body is,” said Egg. “There must be lots of places.”

“Hardly,” murmured Mr. Satterthwaite. “Hardly….”

“Lots,” reiterated Egg. “Let me see…” She paused for a moment. “Attics, there are masses of attics that no one ever goes into. He’s probably in a trunk in the attic.”

“Rather unlikely,” said Sir Charles. “But possible, of course. It might evade discovery—for—er—a time.”

It was not Egg’s way to avoid unpleasantness. She dealt immediately with the point in Sir Charles’s mind.

“Smell goes up, not down. You’d notice a decaying body in the cellar much sooner than in the attic. And, anyway, for a long time people would think it was a dead rat.”

“If your theory were correct, it would point definitely to a man as the murderer. A woman couldn’t drag a body round the house. In fact, it would be a pretty good feat for a man.”

“Well, there are other possibilities. There’s a secret passage there, you know. Miss Sutcliffe told me so, and Sir Bartholomew told me he would show it to me. The murderer might have given Ellis the money and shown him the way to get out of the house—gone down the passage with him and killed him there. A woman could do that. She could stab him, or something, from behind. Then she’d just leave the body there and go back, and no one would ever know.”

Sir Charles shook his head doubtfully, but he no longer disputed Egg’s theory.

Mr. Satterthwaite felt sure that the same suspicion had come to him for a moment in Ellis’s room when they had found the letters. He remembered Sir Charles’s little shiver. The idea that Ellis might be dead had come to him then….

Mr. Satterthwaite thought: “If Ellis is dead, then we’re dealing with a very dangerous person…Yes, a very dangerous person…” And suddenly he felt a cold chill of fear down his spine….

A person who had killed three times wouldn’t hesitate to kill again….

They were in danger, all three of them—Sir Charles, and Egg, and he….

If they found out too much….