27

hercule poirot sat in a big armchair. the wall lights had been turned out. only a rose-shaded lamp shed its glow on the figure in the armchair. there seemed something symbolic about it - he alone in the light - and the other three, sir charles, mr. satterthwaite and egg lytton gore - poirot’s audience - sitting in the outer darkness. hercule poirot’s voice was dreamy. he seemed to be addressing himself to space rather than his listeners.

“to reconstruct the crime - that is the aim of the detective. to reconstruct a crime you must place one fact upon another just as you place one card on another in building a house of cards. and if the facts will not fit - if the card will not balance - well - you must start your house again, or else it will fall ...

“as i said the other day there are three different types of mind: there is the dramatic mind - the producer’s mind, which sees the effect of reality that can be produced by mechanical appliances - there is also the mind that reacts easily to dramatic appearances - and there is the young romantic mind - and finally, my friends, there is the prosaic mind - the mind that sees not blue sea and mimosa tree, but the painted backcloth of stage scenery.

“so i come, mes amis, to the murder of stephen babbington in august last. on that evening sir charles cartwright advanced the theory that stephen babbington had been murdered. i did not agree with that theory. i could not believe (a) that such a man as stephen babbington was likely to have been murdered, and (b) that it was possible to administer poison to a particular person under the circumstances that had obtained that evening.

“now here i admit that sir charles was right and i was wrong. i was wrong because i was looking at the crime from an entirely false angle. it is only twenty-four hours ago that i suddenly perceived the proper angle of vision - and let me say that from that angle of vision the murder of stephen babbington is both reasonable and possible. but i will pass from that point for the moment and take you step by step along the path i myself have trodden. the death of stephen babbington i may call the first act of our drama. the curtain fell on that act when we all departed from crow’s nest.

“what i might call the second act of the drama began in monte carlo when mr. satterthwaite showed me the newspaper account of sir bartholomew’s death. it was at once clear that i had been wrong and sir charles had been right. both stephen babbington and sir bartholomew strange had been murdered and the two murders formed part of one and the same crime. later a third murder completed the series - the murder of mrs. de rushbridger. what we need, therefore, is a reasonable common-sense theory which will link those three deaths together - in other words those three crimes were committed by one and the same person, and were to the advantage and benefit of that particular person.

“now i may say at once that the principal thing that worried me was the fact that the murder of sir bartholomew strange came after that of stephen babbington. looking at those three murders without distinction of time and place the probabilities pointed to the murder of sir bartholomew strange being what one might call the central or principal crime, and the other two murders as secondary in character - that is, arising from the connection of those two people with sir bartholomew strange. however, as i remarked before - one cannot have one’s crime as one would like to have it. stephen babbington had been murdered first and sir bartholomew strange some time later. it seemed, therefore, as though the second crime must necessarily arise out of the first and that accordingly it was the first crime we must examine for the clue to the whole.

“i did indeed so fair incline to the theory of probability that i seriously considered the idea of a mistake having arisen. was it possible that sir bartholomew strange was intended as the first victim, and that mr. babbington was poisoned by mistake? i was forced, however, to abandon that idea. anybody who knew sir bartholomew strange with any degree of intimacy knew that he disliked the cocktail habit.

“another suggestion: had stephen babbington been poisoned in mistake for any other member of the original party? i could not find any evidence of such a thing. i was therefore forced back to the conclusion that the murder of stephen babbington had been definitely intended -and at once i came up against a complete stumbling block - the apparent impossibility of such a thing having happened.

“one should always start an investigation with the simplest and most obvious theories. granting that stephen babbington had drunk a poisoned cocktail, who had had the opportunity of poisoning that cocktail? at first sight, it seemed to that the only two people who could have done so (e.g. who handled the drinks) were sir charles cartwright himself and the parlourmaid temple. but though either of them could presumably have introduced the poison into the glass, neither of them had had any opportunity of directing

that particular glass into mr. babbington’s hand. temple might have done so by adroit handing of the tray so as to offer him the one remaining glass - (not easy, but it might have been done). sir charles could have done so by deliberately picking up the particular glass and handing it to him. but neither of these things had occurred. it looked as though chance and chance alone directed that particular glass to stephen babbington.

“sir charles cartwright and temple had the handling of the cocktails. were either of those two at melfort abbey? they were not. who had the best chance of tampering with sir bartholomew’s port glass? the absconding butler, ellis, and his helper, the parlourmaid. but here, however, the possibility that one of the guests had done so could not be laid aside. it was risky, but it was possible, for any of the house party to have slipped into the dining room and put the nicotine into the port glass.

“when i joined you at crow’s nest you already had a list drawn up of the people who had been at crow's nest and at melfort abbey. i may say now that the four names which headed the list - captain and mrs. dacres, miss sutcliffe and miss wills - i discarded immediately.

“it was impossible that any of those four people should have known beforehand that they were going to meet stephen babbington at dinner. the employment of nicotine as a poison showed a carefully thought-out plan, not one that could be put into operation on the spur of the moment. there were three other names on that list - lady mary lytton gore, miss lytton gore and mr. oliver manders. although not probable, those three were possible. they were local people, they might conceivably have motives for the removal of stephen babbington, and have chosen the evening of the dinner- party for putting their plans into operation.

“on the other hand, i could find no evidence whatsoever that any of them had actually done such a thing.

“mr. satterthwaite, i think, reasoned on much the same lines as i had done, and he fixed his suspicion on oliver manders. i may say that young manders was by far the most possible suspect. he displayed all the signs of high nervous tension on that evening at crow’s nest - he had a somewhat distorted view of life owing to his private troubles - he had a strong inferiority complex, which is a frequent cause of crime, he was at an unbalanced age, he had actually had a quarrel, or shall we say had displayed animosity against

mr.

babbington.

then

there

were

the

curious

circumstances of his arrival at melfort abbey. and later we had his somewhat incredible story of the letter from sir bartholomew strange and the evidence of miss wills as to his having a newspaper cutting on the subject of nicotine poisoning in his possession.

“oliver manders, then, was clearly the person who should be placed at the head of the list of those seven suspects.

“but then, my friends, i was visited by a curious sensation. it seemed clear and logical enough that the person who had committed the crimes must have been a person who had been

present on both occasions; in other words a person on that list of

seven - but i had the feeling that that obviousness was an arranged

obviousness. it was what any sane and logical person would be

expected to think. i felt that i was, in fact, looking not at reality but at an artfully painted bit of scenery. a really clever criminal would have realised that anyone whose name was on that list would

necessarily be suspect, and therefore he or she would arrange for it not to be there.

“in other words, the murderer of stephen babbington and sir bartholomew strange was present on both occasions - but was not

apparently so.

“who had been present on the first occasion and not on the second? sir charles cartwright, mr. satterthwaite, miss milray and mrs. babbington.

“could any of those four have been present on the second occasion in some capacity other than their own? sir charles and mr. satterthwaite had been in the south of france, miss milray had been in london, mrs. babbington had been in loomouth. of the four, then, miss milray and mrs. babbington seemed indicated. but could miss milray have been present at melfort abbey unrecognised by any of the company? miss milray has very striking features not easily disguised and not easily forgotten. i decided that it was impossible that miss milray could have been at melfort abbey unrecognised. the same applied to mrs. babbington.

“for the matter of that could mr. satterthwaite or sir charles cartwright have been at melfort abbey and not been recognised?

mr. satterthwaite just possibly; but when we come to sir charles cartwright we come to a very different matter. sir charles is an actor accustomed to playing a part. but what part could he have played?

“and then i came to the consideration of the butler ellis.

“a very mysterious person, ellis. a person who appears from nowhere a fortnight before the crime and vanishes afterwards with complete success. why was ellis so successful? because ellis did

not really exist. ellis, again, was a thing of pasteboard and paint and stagecraft - ellis was not real.

“but was it possible? after all, the servants at melfort abbey knew sir charles cartwright, and sir bartholomew strange was an intimate friend of his. the servants i got over easily enough. the impersonation of the butler risked nothing - if the servants recognised him - why, no harm would be done - the whole thing could be passed off as a joke. if, on the other hand, a fortnight passed without any suspicion being aroused, well, the thing was safe as houses. and i recalled what i had been told of the servants’

remarks about the butler. he was ‘quite the gentleman,’ and had been ‘in good houses,’ and knew several interesting scandals. that was easy enough. but a very significant statement was made by the parlourmaid alice. she said, ‘he arranged the work different from any butler i ever knew before.’ when that remark was repeated to me, it became a confirmation of my theory.

“but sir bartholomew strange was another matter. it is hardly to be supposed that his friend could take him in. he must have known of the impersonation. had we any evidence of that? yes. the acute mr. satterthwaite pounced on one point quite early in the proceedings - the facetious remark of sir bartholomew (totally uncharacteristic of his manner to servants) - ‘you’re a first-class butler, aren’t you ellis?’ a perfectly understandable remark if the

butler were sir charles cartwright and sir bartholomew was in on

the joke.

“because that is undoubtedly how sir bartholomew saw the matter. the impersonation of ellis was a joke, possibly even a wager, its culmination was designed to be the successful spoofing of the house party - hence sir bartholomew’s remark about a surprise and his cheerful humour. note, too, that there was still time to draw back. if any of the house party had spotted charles cartwright that first evening at the dinner table, nothing irrevocable had yet occurred. the whole thing could have been passed off as a joke. but nobody noticed the stooping aged" target="_blank">middle-aged butler, with his belladonna-darkened eyes, and his whiskers, and the painted birthmark on his wrist. a very subtle identifying touch that - which completely failed, owing to the lack of observation of most human beings! the birthmark was intended to bulk largely in the description of ellis - and in all that fortnight no one noticed it! the only person who did was the sharp-eyed miss wills, to whom we shall come presently.

“what happened next? sir bartholomew died. his time the death was not put down to natural causes. the police came. they questioned ellis and the others. later that night ‘ellis’ left by the secret passage, resumed his own personality, and two days later was strolling about the gardens at monte carlo ready to be shocked and surprised by the news of his friend’s death.

“this, mind you, was all theory. i had no actual proof, but everything that arose supported that theory. my house of cards was well and truly built. the blackmailing letters discovered in ellis’s room? but it was sir charles himself who discovered them!

“and what of the supposed letter from sir bartholomew strange asking young manders to arrange an accident? well, what could be easier than for sir charles to write that letter in sir bartholomew’s name? if manders had not destroyed that letter himself, sir charles in the role of ellis can easily do so when he valets the young gentleman. in the same way the newspaper cutting is easily introduced by ellis into oliver manders’s wallet.

“and now we come to the third victim - mrs. de rushbridger. when do we first hear of mrs. de rushbridger? immediately after that very awkward chaffing reference to ellis being the perfect butler - that extremely uncharacteristic utterance of sir bartholomew strange. at all costs attention must be drawn away from sir bartholomew’s manner to his butler. sir charles quickly asks what was the message the butler had brought. it is about this woman - this patient of the doctor’s. and immediately sir charles throws all his personality into directing attention to this unknown woman and away from the butler. he goes to the sanatorium and questions the matron. he runs mrs. de rushbridger for all he is worth as a red herring.

“we must now examine the part played by miss wills in the drama. miss wills has a curious personality. she is one of those people who are quite unable to impress themselves on their surroundings. she is neither good-looking nor witty nor clever, nor even particularly sympathetic. she is nondescript. but she is extremely observant and extremely intelligent. she takes her revenge on the world with her pen. she had the great art of being able to reproduce character on paper. i do not know if there was anything about the butler that struck miss wills as unusual, but i do think that she was the only person at the table who noticed him at all. on the morning after the murder her insatiable curiosity led her to poke and pry, as the housemaid put it. she went into dacres’s room, she went through the baize door into the servants’ quarters, led, i think, by the mongoose instinct for finding out.

“she was the only person who occasioned sir charles any uneasiness. that is why he was anxious to be the one to tackle her. he was fairly reassured by his interview and distinctly gratified that she had noticed the birthmark. but after that came catastrophe. i don’t think that until that minute miss wills had connected ellis the butler with sir charles cartwright. i think she had only been vaguely struck by some resemblance to someone in ellis. but she was an observer. when dishes were handed to her she had automatically noted - not the face - but the hands that held the dishes.

“it did not occur to her that ellis was sir charles. but when sir charles was talking to her it did suddenly occur to her that sir

charles was ellis! and so she asked him to pretend to hand her a dish of vegetables. but it was not whether the birthmark was on the right or the left wrist that interested her.

she wanted a pretext to study his hands - hands held in the same position as those of ellis the butler.

“and so she leaped to the truth. but she was a peculiar woman. she enjoyed knowledge for its own sake. besides, she was by no means sure that sir charles had murdered his friend. he had masqueraded as a butler, yes - but that did not necessarily make him a murderer. many an innocent man has kept silence because speech would place him in an awkward position.

“so miss wills kept her knowledge to herself - and enjoyed it. but sir charles was worried. he did not like that expression of satisfied malice on her face that he saw as he left the room. she knew something. what? did it affect him? he could not be sure. but he felt that it was something connected with ellis the butler. first mr. satterthwaite - now miss wills. attention must be drawn away from that vital point. it must be focused definitely elsewhere. and he thought of a plan - simple, audacious and, as he fancied, definitely mystifying.

“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 part 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 had 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 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 recognise 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 sympathise 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?”

“yes, sir charles was an actor. he obeyed his actor’s instinct. he tried out his murder before committing it. no suspicion could possibly attach to him. not one of those people’s deaths could benefit him in any way, and, moreover, as everyone has found, he

could not have been proved to have poisoned any particular

person. and, my friends, the dress rehearsal went well. mr. babbington dies, and foul play is not even suspected. it is left to sir charles to urge that suspicion and he is highly gratified at our refusal to take it seriously. the substitution of the glass, too, that has gone without a hitch. in fact, he can be sure that, when the real performance comes, it will be ‘all right on the night.’

“as you know, events took a slightly different turn. on the second occasion a doctor was present who immediately suspected poison. it was then to sir charles’s interests to stress the death of babbington. sir bartholomew’s death must be presumed to be the outcome of the earlier death. attention must be focused on the motive for babbington’s murder, not on any motive that might exist for sir bartholomew’s removal.

“but there was one thing that sir charles failed to realise - the efficient watchfulness of miss milray. miss milray knew that her employer dabbled in chemical experiments in the tower in the garden. miss milray paid bills for rose spraying solution, and realised that quite a lot of it had unaccountably disappeared. when she read that mr. babbington had died of nicotine poisoning, her clever brain leaped at once to the conclusion that sir charles had extracted the pure alkaloid from the rose solution.

“and miss milray did not know what to do, for she had known mr. babbington as a little girl, and she was in love, deeply and devotedly as an ugly woman can be, with her fascinating employer.

“in the end she decided to destroy sir charles’s apparatus. sir charles himself had been so cocksure of his success that he had never thought it necessary. she went down to cornwall, and i followed.”

again sir charles laughed. more than ever he looked a fine gentleman disgusted by a rat.

“is some old chemical apparatus all your evidence?” he demanded contemptuously.

“no,” said poirot. “there is your passport showing the dates when you returned to and left england. and there is the fact that in the harverton county asylum there is a woman, gladys mary mugg, the wife of charles mugg.”

egg had so far sat silent - a frozen figure. but now she stirred. a little cry - almost a moan - came from her.

sir charles turned superbly.

“egg, you don’t believe a word of this absurd story, do you?”

he laughed. his hands were outstretched.

egg came slowly forward as though hypnotised. her eyes, appealing, tortured, gazed into her lover’s. and then, just before she reached him, she wavered, her glance fell, went this way and that as though seeking for reassurance.

then with a cry she fell on her knees by poirot.

“is this true? is this true?”

he put both hands on her shoulders, s firm, kindly touch.

“it is true, mademoiselle.”

there was no sound then but egg’s sobs.

sir charles seemed suddenly to have aged. it was an old man’s face, a leering satyr’s face.

“god damn you,” he said.

and never, in all his acting career, had words come with such utter and compelling malignancy.

then he turned and went out of the room.

mr. satterthwaite half sprang up from his chair, but poirot shook his head, his hand still gently stroking the sobbing girl.

“he’ll escape,” said mr. satterthwaite.

poirot shook his head.

“no, he will only choose his exit. the slow one before the eyes of the world, or the quick one off stage.”

the door opened softly and someone came in. it was oliver manders. his usual sneering expression was gone. he looked white and unhappy.

poirot bent over the girl.

“see, mademoiselle,” he said gently. “here is a friend come to take you home.”

egg rose to her feet. she looked uncertainly towards oliver then made a step stumblingly towards him.

“oliver ... take me to mother. oh, take me to mother.”

he put an arm round her and drew her towards the door.

“yes, dear, i’ll take you. come.”

egg’s legs were trembling so that she could hardly walk. between them oliver and mr. satterthwaite guided her footsteps. at the door she took a hold upon herself and threw back her head.

“i’m all right.”

poirot made a gesture, and oliver manders cane back into the room.

“be very good to her,” said poirot.

“i will, sir. she’s all i care about in the world - you know that. love for her made me bitter and cynical. but i shall be different now. i’m ready to stand by. and some day, perhaps - ”

“i think so,” said poirot. “i think she was beginning to care for you when he came along and dazzled her. hero worship is a real and terrible danger to the young. some day egg will fall in love with a friend, and build her happiness upon rock.”

he looked kindly after the young man as he left the room.

presently mr. satterthwaite returned.

“m. poirot,” he said. “you have been wonderful - absolutely wonderful.”

poirot put on his modest look.

“it is nothing - nothing. a tragedy in three acts - and now the curtain has fallen.”

“you’ll excuse me - ” said mr. satterthwaite.

“yes, there is some point you want explained to you?”

“there is one thing i want to know.”

“ask then.”

“why do you sometimes speak perfectly good english and at other times not?”

poirot laughed.

“ah, i will explain. it is true that i can speak the exact, the idiomatic english. but, my friend, to speak the broken english if an enormous asset. it leads people to despise you. they say - a foreigner - he can’t even speak english properly. it is not my policy to terrify people - instead i invite their gentle ridicule. also i boast! an englishman he says often, ‘a fellow who thinks as much of himself as that cannot be worth much.’ that is the english point of view. it is not at all true. and so, you see, i put people off their guard. besides, he added, it has become a habit.”

“dear me,” said mr. satterthwaite, “quite the cunning of the serpent.”

he was silent for a moment or two, thinking over the case.

“i’m afraid i have not shone over this matter,” he said vexedly.

“on the contrary. you appreciated that important point - sir bartholomew’s remark about the butler - you realised that astute observation of miss wills. i fact, you could have solved the whole thing but for your playgoer’s reaction to dramatic effect.”

mr. satterthwaite looked cheerful.

suddenly an idea struck him. his jaw fell.

“my goodness,” he cried, “i’ve only just realised it. that rascal, with his poisoned cocktail! anyone might have drunk it. it might have been me.”

“there is an even more terrible possibility that you have not considered,” said poirot.

“eh?”

“it might have been me,” said hercule poirot.