Although neither of the two men had considered the possibility before, they were forced to admit that it did not entirely ring false.
“But 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’ 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’ room when they had found the letters. He remembered Sir Charles’ 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 -
He was recalled by the sound of Sir Charles’ voice:
“There's one thing I didn't understand in your letter. Egg. You spoke of someone being in danger - of the police suspecting him. I can't see that they attach the least suspicion to anyone.”
It seemed to Mr. Satterthwaite that Egg was very slightly discomposed. He even fancied that she blushed.
“Aha,” said Mr. Satterthwaite to himself. “Let's see how you get out of this, young lady.”
“It was silly of me,” said Egg. “I got confused. I thought that Oliver, arriving as he did, with what might have been a trumped-up excuse - well, I thought the police were sure to suspect him.”
Sir Charles accepted the explanation easily enough.
“Yes,” he said. “I see.”
Mr. Satterthwaite spoke.
“Was it a trumped-up excuse?” he said.
Egg turned on him.
“What do you mean?”
“It was an odd sort of accident,” said Mr. Satterthwaite. “I thought if it was a trumped-up excuse, you might know.”
Egg shook her head.
“I don't know. I never thought about it. But why should Oliver pretend to have an accident if he didn't?”
“He might have had reasons,” said Sir Charles. “Quite natural ones.”
He was smiling at her. Egg blushed crimson.
“Oh, no,” she said. “No.”
Sir Charles sighed. It occurred to Mr. Satterthwaite that his friend had interpreted that blush quite wrongly. Sir Charles seemed a sadder and older man when he spoke again.
“Well,” he said, “if our young friend, Manders, is in no danger, where do I come in?”
Egg came forward quickly and caught him by the coat sleeve.
“You're not going away again. You're not going to give up. You're going to find out the truth - the truth. I don't believe anybody but you could find out the truth. You can. You will.”
She was tremendously in earnest. The waves of her vitality seemed to surge and eddy in the Old World air of the room.
“You believe in me?” said Sir Charles. He was moved.
“Yes, yes, yes. We're going to get at the truth. You and I together.”
“And Satterthwaite.”
“Of course, and Mr. Satterthwaite,” said Egg without interest.
Mr. Satterthwaite smiled covertly.
Whether Egg wanted to include him or not, he had no intention of being left out. He was fond of mysteries, and he liked observing human nature, and he had a soft spot for lovers. All three tastes seemed likely to be gratified in this affair.
Sir Charles sat down. His voice changed. He was in command, directing a production.
“First of all, we've got to clarify the situation. Do we, or do we not, believe that the same person killed Babbington and Bartholomew Strange?”
“Yes,” said Egg.
“Yes,” said Mr. Satterthwaite.
“Do we believe that the second murder sprang directly from the first? I mean, do we believe that Bartholomew Strange was killed in order to prevent his revealing the facts of the first murder, or his suspicion about it?”
“Yes,” said Egg and Mr. Satterthwaite again, but in unison this time.
“Then it is the first murder we must investigate, not the second.”
Egg nodded.
“In my mind, until we discover the motive for the first murder, we can hardly hope to discover the murderer. The motive presents extraordinary difficulty. Babbington was a harmless, pleasant, gentle old man without, one would say, an enemy in the world. Yet he was killed, and there must have been some reason for the killing. We've got to find that reason.”
He paused and then said in his ordinary everyday voice:
“Let's get down to it. What reasons are there for killing people? First, I suppose, gain.”
“Revenge,” said Egg.
“Homicidal mania,” said Mr. Satterthwaite.
“The crime passionnel would hardly apply in this case. But there's fear.”
Charles Cartwright nodded. He was scribbling on a piece of paper.
“That about covers the ground,” he said. “First: Gain. Does anyone gain by Babbington's death? Has he any money, or any expectations of money?”
“I should think it very unlikely,” said Egg.
“So should I, but we'd better approach Mrs. Babbington on the point.”
“Then there's revenge. Did Babbington do any injury to anyone - perhaps in his young days? Did he marry the girl that some other man wanted? We'll have to look into that too.
“Then homicidal mania. Both Babbington and Tollie were killed by a lunatic. I don't think that theory will hold water. Even a lunatic has some kind of reasonableness in his crimes. I mean a lunatic might think himself divinely appointed to kill doctors or to kill clergymen, but not to kill both. I think we can wash out the theory of homicidal mania. There remains fear.
“Now, frankly, that seems to me far the most likely solution. Babbington knew something about somebody, or he recognized somebody. He was killed to prevent him telling what that something was.”
“I can't see what someone like Mr. Babbington could know that was damaging about anybody who was there that night.”
“Perhaps,” said Sir Charles, “it was something that he didn't know that he knew.”
He went on, trying to make his meaning clear:
“It's difficult to say just what I mean. Suppose, for instance - this is only an instance - that Babbington saw a certain person in a certain place at a certain time. As far as he knows, there's no reason why that person shouldn't be there. But suppose, also, that that person had concocted a very clever alibi for some reason, showing that at that particular time he was somewhere else a hundred miles away. Well, at any minute old Babbington, in the most innocent way in the world, might give the show away.”
“I see,” said Egg. “Say there's a murder committed in London, and Babbington sees the man who did it at Paddington Station, but the man has proved that he didn't do it by having an alibi showing that he was at Leeds at the time. Then Babbington might give the whole show away.”
“That's what I mean exactly. Of course, that's only an instance. It might be anything. Someone he saw that evening whom he'd known under a different name.”
“It might be something to do with a marriage,” said Egg. “Clergymen do lots of marriages. Somebody who'd committed bigamy.”
“Or it might have to do with a birth or a death,” suggested Mr. Satterthwaite.
“It's a very wide field,” said Egg, frowning. “We'll have to get at it the other way. Work back from the people who were there. Let's make a list. Who was at your house and who was at Sir Bartholomew's?”
She took the paper and pencil from Sir Charles.
“The Dacres, they were at both. That woman like a wilted cabbage - what's her name? - Wills. Miss Sutcliffe.”
“You can leave Angela out of it,” said Sir Charles. “I've known her for years.”
Egg frowned mutinously.
“We can't do that sort of thing,” she said. “Leave people out because we know them.
We've got to be business-like. Besides, I don't know anything about Angela Sutcliffe. She's just as likely to have done it as anyone else, so far as I can see - more likely. All actresses have pasts. I think, on the whole, she's the most likely person.”
She gazed defiantly at Sir Charles. There was an answering spark in his eyes.
“In that case, we mustn't leave out Oliver Manders.”
“How could it be Oliver? He'd met Mr. Babbington ever so many times before.”
“He was at both places, and his arrival is a little open to suspicion.”
“Very well,” said Egg. She paused, and then added: “In that case, I'd better put down mother and myself as well. That makes seven suspects.”
“I don't think -”
“We'll do it properly, or not at all.” Her eyes flashed.
Mr. Satterthwaite made peace by offering refreshment. He rang for drinks.
Sir Charles strolled off into a far corner to admire a head of Negro sculpture. Egg came over to Mr. Satterthwaite and slipped a hand through his arm.
“Stupid of me to have lost my temper,” she murmured. “I am stupid - but why should the woman be excepted? Why is he so keen she should be? Oh, dear, why the devil am I so disgustingly jealous?”
Mr. Satterthwaite smiled and patted her hand.
“Jealousy never pays, my dear,” he said. “If you feel jealous, don't show it. By the way, did you really think that young Manders might be suspected?”
Egg grinned - a friendly, childish grin.
“Of course not. I put that in so as not to alarm the man.” She turned her head. Sir Charles was still moodily studying Negro sculpture. “You know, I didn't want him to think I really have a pash for Oliver, because I haven't. How difficult everything is! He's gone back now to his ‘Bless you, my children’ attitude. I don't want that at all.”
“Have patience,” counseled Mr. Satterthwaite. “Everything comes right in the end, you know.”
“I'm not patient,” said Egg “I want to have things at once or even quicker.”
Mr. Satterthwaite laughed, and Sir Charles turned and came toward them.
As they sipped their drinks, they arranged a plan of campaign. Sir Charles should return to Crow's Nest, for which he had not yet found a purchaser. Egg and her mother would return to Rose Cottage rather sooner than they had meant to do. Mrs. Babbington was still living in Loomouth. They would get what information they could from her and then proceed to act upon it.
“We'll succeed,” said Egg. “I know we will.”
She leaned forward to Sir Charles, her eyes glowing. She held out her glass to touch his.
“Drink to our success,” she commanded.
Slowly, very slowly, his eyes fixed on hers, he raised his glass to his lips.
“To success,” he said, “and to the future.”
Agatha Christie
Three Act Tragedy aka Murder in Three Acts (1934)
Dedicated to my friends
Geoffrey and Violet ShipstonThird Act Discovery
Chapter 13 Mrs. Babbington
Mrs. Babbington had moved into a small fisherman's cottage not far from the harbor. She was expecting a sister home from Japan in about six months. Until her sister arrived, she was making no plans for the future. The cottage chanced to be vacant and she took it for six months. She felt too bewildered by her sudden loss to move away from Loomouth. Stephen Babbington had held the living of St. Petroch, Loomouth, for seventeen years. They had been, on the whole, seventeen happy and peaceful years, in spite of the sorrow occasioned by the death of her son Robin. Of her remaining children, Edward was in Ceylon, Lloyd was in South Africa, and Stephen was third officer on the Angolia. They wrote frequently and affectionately, but they could offer neither a home nor companionship to their mother.
Margaret Babbington was very lonely.
Not that she allowed herself much time for thinking. She was still active in the parish - the new vicar was unmarried - and she spent a good deal of time working in the tiny plot of ground in front of the cottage. She was a woman whose flowers were part of her life.
She was working there one afternoon, when she heard the latch of the gate click, and looked up to see Sir Charles Cartwright and Egg Lytton Gore.
Margaret was not surprised to see Egg. She knew that the girl and her mother were due to return shortly. But she was surprised to see Sir Charles. Rumor had insisted that he had left the neighborhood for good. There had been paragraphs copied from other papers about his doings in the South of France.
There had been a board, To be sold, stuck up in the garden of Crow's Nest. No one had expected Sir Charles to return. Yet return he had.
Mrs. Babbington shook the untidy hair back from her hot forehead and looked ruefully at her earth-stained hands.
“I'm not fit to shake hands,” she said. “I ought to garden in gloves, I know. I do start in them sometimes. But I always tear them off sooner or later. One can feel things so much better with bare hands.”
She led the way into the house. The tiny sitting room had been made cozy with chintz.
There were photographs and bowls of chrysanthemums.
“It's a great surprise seeing you, Sir Charles. I thought you had given up Crow's Nest for good.”
“I thought I had,” said the actor frankly. “But sometimes, Mrs. Babbington, our destiny is too strong for us.”
Mrs. Babbington did not reply. She turned toward Egg, but the girl forestalled the words on her lips.
“Look here, Mrs. Babbington. This isn't just a call. Sir Charles and I have got something very serious to say. Only I - I should hate to upset you.”
