But she was interrupted by the advent of a monumental American, evidently a valued client.
While the American was unburdening herself of her requirements, which sounded comprehensive and expensive. Egg managed to make an unobtrusive exit, telling the young lady who had succeeded Mrs. Dacres that she would think it over before making a final choice.
As she emerged into Bruton Street, Egg glanced at her watch. It was twenty minutes to one. Before very long she might be able to put her second plan into operation.
She walked as far as Berkeley Square and then slowly back again. At one o'clock she had her nose glued to a window displaying Chinese objets d'art.
Miss Doris Sims came rapidly out into Bruton Street and turned in the direction of Berkeley Square. Just before she got there, a voice spoke at her elbow.
“Excuse me,” said Egg, “but can I speak to you a minute?”
The girl turned, surprised.
“You're one of the manikins at Ambrosine's, aren't you? I noticed you this morning. I hope you won't be frightfully offended if I say I think you've got simply the most perfect figure I've ever seen.”
Doris Sims was not offended. She was merely slightly confused.
“It's very kind of you, I'm sure, madam,” she said.
“You look frightfully good-natured too,” said Egg. “That's why I'm going to ask you a favor. Will you have lunch with me at the Berkeley or the Ritz and let me tell you about it?”
After a moment's hesitation, Doris Sims agreed. She was curious and she liked good food.
Once established at a table and lunch ordered, Egg plunged into explanations.
“I hope you'll keep this to yourself,” she said. “You see, I've got a job - writing up various professions for women. I want you to tell me all about the dressmaking business.”
Doris looked slightly disappointed, but she complied amiably enough, giving bald statements as to hours, rates of pay, conveniences and inconveniences of her employment. Egg entered particulars in a little notebook.
“It's awfully kind of you,” she said. “I'm very stupid at this. It's quite new to me. You see, I'm frightfully bad off and this little bit of journalistic work will make all the difference.”
She went on confidentially:
“It was rather nerve on my part walking into Ambrosine's and pretending I could buy lots of your models. Really, I've got just a few pounds of my dress allowance to last me till Christmas. I expect Mrs. Dacres would be simply wild if she knew.”
Doris giggled.
“I should say she would.”
“Did I do it well?” asked Egg. “Did I look as though I had money?”
“You did it splendidly, Miss Lytton Gore. Madam thinks you're going to get quite a lot of things.”
“I'm afraid she'll be disappointed,” said Egg. Doris giggled more. She was enjoying her lunch and she felt attracted to Egg. “She may be a society young lady,” she thought to herself, “but she doesn't put on airs. She's as natural as can be.”
These pleasant relations once established, Egg found no difficulty in inducing her companion to talk freely on the subject of her employer.
“I always think,” said Egg, “Mrs. Dacres looks a frightful cat. Is she?”
“None of us like her. Miss Lytton Gore, and that's a fact. But she's clever, of course, and she's got a rare head for business. Not like some society ladies who take up the dressmaking business and go bankrupt because their friends get clothes and don't pay. She's as hard as nails, madam is; though I will say she's fair enough, and she's got real taste; she knows what's what, and she's clever at getting people to have the style that suits them.”
“I suppose she makes a lot of money.” A queer, knowing look came into Doris’ eye.
“It's not for me to say anything, or to gossip.”
“Of course not,” said Egg. “Go on.”
“But if you ask me, the firm's not far off Queer Street. There was a Jewish gentleman came to see madam, and there have been one or two things - It's my belief she's been borrowing to keep going, in the hope that trade would revive, and that she's got in deep. Really, Miss Lytton Gore, she looks terrible sometimes. Quite desperate. I don't know what she'd look like without her makeup. I don't believe she sleeps of nights.”
“What's her husband like?”
“He's a queer fish. Bit of bad lot, if you ask me. Not that we ever see much of him. None of the other girls agree with me, but I believe she's very keen on him still. Of course, a lot of nasty things have been said.”
“Such as?” asked Egg.
“Well, I don't like to gossip, it was never in my nature.”
“Of course not. Go on, you were saying...”
“Well, the girls, they always talk. About a very young man... very rich and very easy to lead. Not a fool, you know... but so and so. And Madame has taken advantage of the situation. And he could have saved everything... but suddenly he was ordered a long sea voyage... very suddenly.”
“Ordered by whom, a doctor?”
“Yes. Someone from Harley Street. I think it was the one murdered in Yorkshire... poisoned they say.”
“Sir Bartholomew Strange?”
“That's right. Madame was there over the weekend and we all talked about it... between us, you know... just in jest... imagine if it was Madame... for revenge? Of course it was just a joke...”
“Of course,” said Egg. “Girl's play. I see.You know, for me Mrs. Dacres is the murdering kind... cold and no pity.”
“She pities no one... and a dog's temper! They say her husband lives in fear of her... and no wonder.”
“You heard something about a man called Babbington or a place in Kent... Gilling, I think?”
“To be honest, no.”
Doris looked at her watch and exclaimed, “I have to run. I'll be late.”
“Good-bye then. And thanks a lot.”
“Good-bye, Miss Lytton Gore, and I hope your article's a hit. I'll love to read it.”
Egg wrote in her booklet:
“Cynthia Dacres. Having financial difficulties. Described as having a dog's temper. Rich boy which whom she was supposed to have an affair, was ordered to travel by Sir Bartholomew Strange. Didn't show any reaction at mention of Gilling or at statement that Babbington knew her.”
“There doesn't seem much there,” said Egg to herself. “A possible motive for the murder of Sir Bartholomew, but very thin. M. Poirot may be able to make something of that. I can't.”
Agatha Christie
Three Act Tragedy aka Murder in Three Acts (1934)
Dedicated to my friends
Geoffrey and Violet ShipstonChapter 19
Captain Dacres
But Egg had not yet finished her program for the day. Her next move was to the apartment house in which the Dacres had a flat.
The building was a new block of extremely expensive flats. There were sumptuous window boxes, and uniformed porters of such magnificence that they looked like foreign generals.
Egg did not enter the building. She strolled up and down on the opposite side of the street. After about an hour of this, she calculated that she must have walked several miles.
It was half-past five.
Then a taxi drew up at the apartment house and Captain Dacres alighted from it. Egg allowed three minutes to elapse, then she crossed the road and entered the building.
Egg pressed the doorbell of No. 3. Dacres himself opened the door. He was still engaged in taking off his overcoat.
“Oh,” said Egg. “How do you do. You do remember me, don't you? We met in Cornwall and again in Yorkshire.”
“Of course - of course. In at the death both times, weren't we? Come in, Miss Lytton Gore.”
“I wanted to see your wife. Is she in?”
“She's round in Bruton Street, at her dressmaking place.”
“I know. I was there today. I thought perhaps she'd be back by now and that she wouldn't mind, perhaps, if I came here. Only, of course, I suppose I'm being a frightful bother.”
Egg paused appealingly.
Freddie Dacres said to himself:
“Nice-looking filly. Damned pretty girl, in fact.”
Aloud he said:
“Cynthia won't be back till well after six. I've just come back from Newbury. Had a rotten day and left early. Come round to the club and have a cocktail.”
Egg accepted, though she had a shrewd suspicion that Dacres had already had quite as much alcohol as was good for him.
Sitting in the subterranean obscurity of the seventy-two club, and sipping a Martini, Egg said: “This is great fun. I've never been here before.”
Freddie Dacres smiled indulgently. He liked a young and pretty girl. Not, perhaps, as much as he liked some other things, but well enough.
“Upsettin’ sort of time, wasn't it?” he said. “Up in Yorkshire, I mean. Something rather amusin’ about a doctor being poisoned - you see what I mean - wrong way about. A doctor's a chap who poisons other people.”
He laughed uproariously at his own remark and ordered another pink gin.
“That's rather clever of you,” said Egg. “I never thought of it that way before.”
“Only a joke, of course,” said Freddie Dacres.
“It's odd, isn't it,” said Egg, “that when we meet, it's always at a death?”
“Bit odd,” admitted Captain Dacres. “You mean the old clergyman chap at what's-his-name's - the actor fellow's place?”
“Yes. It was very queer, the way he died so suddenly.”
“Damn disturbin',” said Dacres. “Makes you feel a bit gruey, fellows popping off all over the place. You know, you think, ‘my turn next,’ and it gives you the shivers.”
“You knew Mr. Babbington before, didn't you? At Gilling.”
“Don't know the place. No, I never set eyes on the old chap before. Funny thing is, he popped off just the same way as old Strange did. Bit odd, that. Can't have been bumped off, too, I suppose?”
“Well, what do you think?”
Dacres shook his head.
“Can't have been,” he said decisively. “Nobody murders parsons. Doctors are different.”
“Yes,” said Egg, “I suppose doctors are different.”
“Course they are. Stands to reason. Doctors are interfering devils.” He slurred the words a little. He leaned forward. “Won't let well alone. Understand?”
“No,” said Egg.
“They monkey about with fellows’ lives. They've got too much power. Oughtn't to be allowed.”
“I don't quite see what you mean?”
“M'dear girl, I'm telling you. Get a fellow shut up - that's what I mean - put him in hell. They're cruel! Shut him up and keep the stuff from him, and however much you beg and pray, they won't give it you. Don't care about the hell you're in - That's doctors for you. I'm telling you - and I know.”
His face twitched painfully. His little pinpoint pupils stared past her.
“It's hell, I tell you - hell! And they call it curing you! Pretend they're doing a decent action. Swine!”
“Did Sir Bartholomew Strange -” began Egg cautiously.
He took the words out of her mouth.
“Sir Bartholomew Strange. Sir Bartholomew Humbug. I'd like to know what goes on in that precious sanatorium of his. Nerve cases. That's what they say. You're in there and you can't get out. And they say you've gone of your own free will. Free will. Just because they get hold of you when you've got the horrors.”
He was shaking now. His mouth drooped suddenly.
“I'm all to pieces,” he said apologetically. “All to pieces.” He called to the waiter, pressed Egg to have another drink and, when she refused, ordered one himself.
“That's better,” he said as he drained the glass.
“Got my nerve back now. Nasty business losing your nerve. Mustn't make Cynthia angry. She told me not to talk.” He nodded his head once or twice. “Wouldn't do to tell the police all this,” he said. “They might think I'd bumped old Strange off. Eh? You realize, don't you, that someone must have done it? One of us must have killed him. That's a funny thought. Which of us? - that's the question.”
“Perhaps you know which,” said Egg.
“What d'you say that for? Why should I know?”
He looked at her angrily and suspiciously.
“I don't know anything about it, I tell you. I wasn't going to take that damnable cure of his. No matter what Cynthia said, I wasn't going to take it. He was up to something - they were both up to something. But they couldn't fool me.”
He drew himself up.
“I'm a shtrong man, Mish Lytton Gore.”
“I'm sure you are,” said Egg. “Tell me, do you know anything of a Mrs. de Rushbridger who is at the sanatorium?”
“Rushbridger? Rushbridger? Old Strange said something about her. Now, what was it? Can't remember. Can't remember anything.”
He sighed, shook his head.
“Memory's going, that's what it is. And I've got enemies - a lot of enemies. They may be spying on me now.”
He looked round uneasily. Then he leaned across the table to Egg.
“What was that woman doing in my room that day?”
“What woman?”
“Rabbit-faced woman. Writes plays. It was the morning after - after he died. I'd just come up from breakfast. She came out of my room and went through the baize door at the end of the passage - went through into the servants’ quarters. Odd, eh? Why did she go into my room? What did she think she'd find there? What did she want to go nosing about for, anyway? What's it got to do with her?” He leaned forward confidentially. “Or do you think it's true, what Cynthia says?”
“What does Mrs. Dacres say?”
“Says I imagined it. Says I was ‘seeing things.'” He laughed uncertainly. “I do see things now and again. Pink mice, snakes - all that sort of thing. But seein’ a woman's different. I did see her. She's a queer fish, that woman. Nasty sort of eye she's got. Goes through you.”
He leaned back on the soft couch. He seemed to be dropping asleep.
Egg got up.
“I must be going. Thank you very much, Captain Dacres.”
“Don't thank me. Delighted. Absolutely delighted.” His voice trailed off.
“I'd better go before he passes out altogether,” thought Egg.
She emerged from the smoky atmosphere of the club into the cool evening air.
Beatrice, the housemaid, had said that Miss Wills poked and pried. Now came this story from Freddie Dacres. What had Miss Wills been looking for? What had she found? Was it possible that Miss Wills knew something?
Was there anything in this rather muddled story about Sir Bartholomew Strange? Had Freddie Dacres secretly feared and hated him?
It seemed possible.
But in all this no hint of any guilty knowledge in the Babbington case.
“How odd it would be,” said Egg to herself, “if he wasn't murdered, after all.”
