Three Act Tragedy (Hercule Poirot 11)

“On the day of my Sherry Party I imagine Sir Charles rose very early, went to Yorkshire and, disguised in shabby clothes, gave the telegram to a small boy to send off. Then he returned to town in time to act the party I had indicated in my little drama. He did one more thing. He posted a box of chocolates to a woman he had never seen and of whom he knew nothing….

“You know what happened that evening. From Sir Charles’s uneasiness I was fairly sure that Miss Wills had certain suspicions. When Sir Charles did his ‘death scene’ I watched Miss Wills’s face. I saw the look of astonishment that showed on it. I knew then that Miss Wills definitely suspected Sir Charles of being the murderer. When he appeared to die poisoned like the other two she thought her deductions must be wrong.

“But if Miss Wills suspected Sir Charles, then Miss Wills was in serious danger. A man who has killed twice will kill again. I uttered a very solemn warning. Later that night I communicated with Miss Wills by telephone, and on my advice she left home suddenly the next day. Since then she has been living here in this hotel. That I was wise is proved by the fact that Sir Charles went out to Tooting on the following evening after he had returned from Gilling. He was too late. The bird had flown.

“In the meantime, from his point of view, the plan had worked well. Mrs. de Rushbridger had something of importance to tell us. Mrs. de Rushbridger was killed before she could speak. How dramatic! How like the detective stories, the plays, the films! Again the cardboard and the tinsel and the painted cloth.

“But I, Hercule Poirot, was not deceived. Mr. Satterthwaite said to me she was killed in order that she should not speak. I agreed. He went on to say she was killed before she could tell us what she knew. I said, ‘Or what she did NOT know.’ I think he was puzzled. But he should have seen then the truth. Mrs. de Rushbridger was killed because she could, in actual fact, have told us nothing at all. Because she had no connection with the crime. If she were to be Sir Charles’s successful red herring—she could only be so dead. And so Mrs. de Rushbridger, a harmless stranger, was murdered….

“Yet even in that seeming triumph Sir Charles made a colossal—a childish—error! The telegram was addressed to me, Hercule Poirot, at the Ritz Hotel. But Mrs. de Rushbridger had never heard of my connection with the case! No one up in that part of the world knew of it. It was an unbelievably childish error.

“Eh bien, then I had reached a certain stage. I knew the identity of the murderer. But I did not know the motive for the original crime.

“I reflected.

“And once again, more clearly than ever, I saw the death of Sir Bartholomew Strange as the original and purposeful murder. What reason could Sir Charles Cartwright have for the murder of his friend? Could I imagine a motive? I thought I could.”

There was a deep sigh. Sir Charles Cartwright rose slowly to his feet and strolled to the fireplace. He stood there, his hand on his hip, looking down at Poirot. His attitude (Mr. Satterthwaite could have told you) was that of Lord Eaglemount as he looks scornfully at the rascally solicitor who has succeeded in fastening an accusation of fraud upon him. He radiated nobility and disgust. He was the aristocrat looking down at the ignoble canaille.

“You have an extraordinary imagination, M. Poirot,” he said. “It’s hardly worth while saying that there’s not one single word of truth in your story. How you have the damned impertinence to dish up such an absurd fandangle of lies I don’t know. But go on, I am interested. What was my motive for murdering a man whom I had known ever since boyhood?”

Hercule Poirot, the little bourgeois, looked up at the aristocrat. He spoke quickly but firmly.

“Sir Charles, we have a proverb that says, ‘Cherchez la femme.’ It was there that I found my motive. I had seen you with Mademoiselle Lytton Gore. It was clear that you loved her—loved her with that terrible absorbing passion that comes to a middle-aged man and which is usually inspired by an innocent young girl.

“You loved her. She, I could see, had the hero-worship for you. You had only to speak and she would fall into your arms. But you did not speak. Why?

“You pretended to your friend, Mr. Satterthwaite, that you were the dense lover who cannot recognize his mistress’s answering passion. You pretended to think that Miss Lytton Gore was in love with Oliver Manders. But I say, Sir Charles, that you are a man of the world. You are a man with a great experience of women. You cannot have been deceived. You knew perfectly well that Miss Lytton Gore cared for you. Why, then, did you not marry her? You wanted to do so.

“It must be that there was some obstacle. What could that obstacle be? It could only be the fact that you already had a wife. But nobody ever spoke of you as a married man. You passed always as a bachelor. The marriage, then, had taken place when you were very young—before you became known as a rising young actor.

“What had happened to your wife? If she were still alive, why did nobody know about her? If you were living apart there was the remedy of divorce. If your wife was a Catholic, or one who disapproved of divorce, she would still be known as living apart from you.

“But there are two tragedies where the law gives no relief. The woman you married might be serving a life sentence in some prison, or she might be confined in a lunatic asylum. In neither case could you obtain a divorce, and if it had happened while you were still a boy nobody might know about it.

“If nobody knew, you might marry Miss Lytton Gore without telling her the truth. But supposing one person knew—a friend who had known you all your life? Sir Bartholomew Strange was an honourable, upright physician. He might pity you deeply, he might sympathize with a liaison or an irregular life, but he would not stand by silent and see you enter into a bigamous marriage with an unsuspecting young girl.

“Before you could marry Miss Lytton Gore, Sir Bartholomew Strange must be removed….”

Sir Charles laughed.

“And dear old Babbington? Did he know all about it, too?”

“I fancied so at first. But I soon found that there was no evidence to support that theory. Besides, my original stumbling block remained. Even if it was you who put the nicotine into the cocktail glass, you could not have ensured its reaching one particular person.

“That was my problem. And suddenly a chance word from Miss Lytton Gore showed me light.

“The poison was not intended especially for Stephen Babbington. It was intended for any one of those present, with three exceptions. These exceptions were Miss Lytton Gore, to whom you were careful to hand an innocent glass, yourself, and Sir Bartholomew Strange, who, you knew, did not drink cocktails.”

Mr. Satterthwaite cried out:

“But that’s nonsense! What’s the point of it? There isn’t any.”

Poirot turned towards him. Triumph came into his voice.

“Oh, yes, there is. A queer point—a very queer point. The only time I have come across such a motive for murder. The murder of Stephen Babbington was neither more nor less than a dress rehearsal.”

“What?”