Three Act Tragedy (Hercule Poirot 11)

“The butler. He had a kind of strawberry mark on his left wrist. I noticed it when he was handing me vegetables. I suppose that’s the sort of thing which might come in useful.”

“I should say very useful indeed. The police are trying hard to track down that man Ellis. Really, Miss Wills, you are a very remarkable woman. Not one of the servants or guests mentioned such a mark.”

“Most people don’t use their eyes much, do they?” said Miss Wills.

“Where exactly was the mark? And what size was it?”

“If you’ll just stretch out your own wrist—” Sir Charles extended his arm. “Thank you. It was here.” Miss Wills placed an unerring finger on the spot. “It was about the size, roughly, of a sixpence, and rather the shape of Australia.”

“Thank you, that’s very clear,” said Sir Charles, removing his hand and pulling down his cuffs again.

“You think I ought to write to the police and tell them?”

“Certainly I do. It might be most valuable in tracing the man. Dash it all,” went on Sir Charles with feeling, “in detective stories there’s always some identifying mark on the villain. I thought it was a bit hard that real life should prove so lamentably behindhand.”

“It’s usually a scar in stories,” said Miss Wills thoughtfully.

“A birthmark’s just as good,” said Sir Charles.

He looked boyishly pleased.

“The trouble is,” he went on, “most people are so indeterminate. There’s nothing about them to take hold of.”

Miss Wills looked inquiringly at him.

“Old Babbington, for instance,” went on Sir Charles, “he had a curiously vague personality. Very difficult to lay hold of.”

“His hands were very characteristic,” said Miss Wills. “What I call a scholar’s hands. A little crippled with arthritis, but very refined fingers and beautiful nails.”

“What an observer you are. Ah, but—of course, you knew him before.”

“Knew Mr. Babbington?”

“Yes, I remember his telling me so—where was it he said he had known you?”

Miss Wills shook her head decisively.

“Not me. You must have been mixing me up with someone else—or he was. I’d never met him before.”

“It must be a mistake. I thought—at Gilling—”

He looked at her keenly. Miss Wills appeared quite composed.

“No,” she said.

“Did it ever occur to you, Miss Wills, that he might have been murdered, too?”

“I know you and Miss Lytton Gore think so—or rather you think so.”

“Oh—and—er—what do you think?”

“It doesn’t seem likely,” said Miss Wills.

A little baffled by Miss Wills’s clear lack of interest in the subject Sir Charles started on another tack.

“Did Sir Bartholomew mention a Mrs. de Rushbridger at all?”

“No, I don’t think so.”