Three Act Tragedy (Hercule Poirot 11)

A WATCHING BRIEF

“Good,” said Poirot. “We are colleagues. Eh bien, you will put me, if you please, au courant of the situation.”

He listened with close attention whilst Mr. Satterthwaite outlined the steps they had taken since returning to England. Mr. Satterthwaite was a good narrator. He had the faculty of creating an atmosphere, of painting a picture. His description of the Abbey, of the servants, of the Chief Constable was admirable. Poirot was warm in his appreciation of the discovery by Sir Charles of the unfinished letters under the gas fire.

“Ah, mais c’est magnifique, ça!” he exclaimed ecstatically. “The deduction, the reconstruction—perfect! You should have been a great detective, Sir Charles, instead of a great actor.”

Sir Charles received these plaudits with becoming modesty—his own particular brand of modesty. He had not received compliments on his stage performances for many years without perfecting a manner of acknowledging them.

“Your observation, too, it was very just,” said Poirot, turning to Mr. Satterthwaite. “That point of yours about his sudden familiarity with the butler.”

“Do you think there is anything in this Mrs. de Rushbridger idea?” asked Sir Charles eagerly.

“It is an idea. It suggests—well, it suggests several things, does it not?”

Nobody was quite sure about the several things, but nobody liked to say so, so there was merely an assenting murmur.

Sir Charles took up the tale next. He described his and Egg’s visit to Mrs. Babbington and its rather negative result.

“And now you’re up to date,” he said. “You know what we do. Tell us: how does it all strike you?”

He leaned forward, boyishly eager.

Poirot was silent for some minutes. The other three watched him.

He said at last:

“Can you remember at all, mademoiselle, what type of port glass Sir Bartholomew had on his table?”

Sir Charles interposed just as Egg was shaking her head vexedly.

“I can tell you that.”

He got up and went to a cupboard, where he took out some heavy cut glass sherry glasses.

“They were a slightly different shape, of course—more rounded—proper port shape. He got them at old Lammersfield’s sale—a whole set of table glass. I admired them, and as there were more than he needed, he passed some of them onto me. They’re good, aren’t they?”

Poirot took the glass and turned it about in his hand.

“Yes,” he said. “They are fine specimens. I thought something of that kind had been used.”

“Why?” cried Egg.

Poirot merely smiled at her.

“Yes,” he went on, “the death of Sir Bartholomew Strange could be explained easily enough; but the death of Stephen Babbington is more difficult. Ah, if only it had been the other way about!”

“What do you mean, the other way about?” asked Mr. Satterthwaite.

Poirot turned to him.

“Consider, my friend. Sir Bartholomew is a celebrated doctor. There might be many reasons for the death of a celebrated doctor. A doctor knows secrets, my friend, important secrets. A doctor has certain powers. Imagine a patient on the borderline of sanity. A word from the doctor, and he will be shut away from the world—what a temptation to an unbalanced brain! A doctor may have suspicions about the sudden death of one of his patients—oh, yes, we can find plenty of motives for the death of a doctor.

“Now, as I say, if only it had been the other way about. If Sir Bartholomew Strange had died first and then Stephen Babbington. For Stephen Babbington might have seen something—might have suspected something about the first death.”

He sighed and then resumed.

“But one cannot have a case as one would like to have it. One must take a case as it is. Just one little idea I should like to suggest. I suppose it is not possible that Stephen Babbington’s death was an accident—that the poison (if poison there was) was intended for Sir Bartholomew Strange, and that, by mistake, the wrong man was killed.”