The green, cat-like eyes of Hercule Poirot looked into hers.
“You cannot do that, mademoiselle,” he said. “For what you seek to destroy is evidence.”
Agatha Christie
Three Act Tragedy aka Murder in Three Acts (1934)
Dedicated to my friends
Geoffrey and Violet ShipstonChapter 27
Final Curtain
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 outer darkness.
Hercule Poirot's voice was dreamy. He seemed to be addressing himself to space rather than to 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 different kinds of mentalities. 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 trees, 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 two other 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 far 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 me that the only two people who could have done so - for example, those who handled the drinks - were Sir Charles Cartwright himself and the parlormaid, 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 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 parlormaid. 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 could have planned 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 one 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 suspicions 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 newspaper cutting on the subject of nicotine poisoning in his possession. There was also the reference to M in sir Bartholomew's diary.
“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. That I was, in fact, looking not at reality but at an artfully painted bit of scenery. A really clever criminal would have realized 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 unrecognized 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 unrecognized. 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 recognized? 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 afterward 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 was an intimate friend of his. The servants I got over easily enough. The impersonation of the butler risked nothing; if the servants recognized 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 parlormaid, Doris. 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 humor. 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, 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. This 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 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’ 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’ 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 has 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’ room; she went through the baize door into the servants’ quarters; led, I think, by the mongoose instinct for finding out.
