MURDER IN THREE RC75

First Act

Suspicion

One

mr. satterthwaite sat on the terrace of

Crow's Nest and watched his host. Sir

Charles Cartwright, climbing up the path

from the sea. Crow's Nest was a modern

j then zigzagged high up above the sea. On

{ foot it was accessible in seven minutes by the

steep fisherman's path that Sir Charles

Cartwright was ascending at this minute.

Sir Charles was a well-built, sunburned

nan of middle age. He wore old, gray-flannel

rousers and a white sweater. He had a >lightly rolling gait, and carried his hands half closed as he walked. Nine people out of

Len would say, "Retired naval man, can't

mistake the type." The tenth and more discerning

would have hesitated, puzzled by

something indefinable that did not ring true.

And then perhaps a picture would rise

unsought--the deck of a ship, but not a real

ship--a ship curtailed by hanging curtains

of thick, rich material--a man, Charles

Cartwright, standing on that deck, light that

"Harley Street." Sir Bartholomew Strange

had succeeded in his profession. He was a

well-known specialist in nervous disorders

and had recently received a knighthood in

the birthday-honors list.

<He drew his chair forward beside that of

Mr. Satterthwaite and said: "What wouldn't

you have thought, eh? Let's have it."

at Oxford together. He's always been the

same--a better actor in private life than on

the stage' Charles is always acting. He can't

help it; it's second nature to him. Charles

doesn't go out of a room; he "makes an exit,'

and he usually has to have a good line to

make it on. All the same, he likes a change

of part--none better. Two years ago he retired

not much of a house to play to. I thought

"However," Sir Bartholomew went on, "it

seems we were wrong. The attraction of the

simple life holds."

"A man who dramatizes himself is sometimes

misjudged," pointed out Mr. Satterthwaite.

"One does not take his sincerities

seriously."

The doctor nodded.

"Yes," he said thoughtfully, "that's true." With a cheerful hallo, Charles Cartwright

ran up the steps onto the terrace.

"Mirabelle surpassed herself," he said.

"You ought to have come, Satterthwaite."

Mr. Satterthwaite shook his head. He had

suffered too often crossing the Channel to

have any illusions about the strength of his

stomach afloat. He had observed the

how good a life on the ocean wave would be

at his temples gave him a kind of added

distinction. He looked like what he was--a

gentleman first and an actor second.

"Did you go alone?" asked the doctor.

"No"--Sir Charles turned to take his drink

from a smart parlor maid who was holding a

tray--"I had a hand. The girl Egga to be

exact."

There was something--some faint trace of

self-consciousness--in his voice which made

Mr. Satterthwaite look up sharply.

"Miss Lytton Gore? She knows something

aKnnt coiling doesn't she?"

Sir Charles laughed rather ruefully.

"She succeeds in making me feel a complete

landlubber, but I'm coming on, thanks

to her."

Thoughts slipped quickly in and out of

Mr. Satterthwaite's mind:

"I wonder . . . Egg Lytton Gore. . . .

Perhaps that's why he hasn't tired of the

place. She's very attractive."

Sir Charles went on, "The sea--there's

nothing like it. Sun and wind and sea, and a

tonight."

Sir Charles looked startled, but said courteously:

"Delighted, I am sure. Miss Milray, but-er?>>

Miss Milray proceeded calmly to explain:

"Otherwise, Sir Charles, it would make thirteen

at table. And so many people are superstitious."

From her tone, it could be gathered that

Miss Milray would have sat down thirteen to

countenance. Miss Milray withdrew.

T'l-iat ?? coirl ^ir r^1-iar1f>><: r^-wrpntlv. "is a very remarkable woman. I'm always afraid

she'll come and brush my teeth for me."

"Efficiency personified," said Strange.

"She's been with me for six years," said

Sir Charles. "First as my secretary in London,

and here, I suppose, she's a kind of

glorified housekeeper. Runs this place like

"Quite probably," said Sir Bartholomew, "people have been talking."

"Talking?" The actor stared. "Talking

what about?"

"My dear Charles, you know what talking

means."

"You mean talking about her--and me?

With that face? And at her age?"

"She's probably under fifty."

"I suppose she is." Sir Charles considered

"You underrate the imagination of the

British spinster."

Sir Charles shook his head.

"I don't believe it. There's a kind of hideous

respectability about Miss Milray that

even a British spinster must recognize. She is

virtue and respectability personified, and a

useful woman. I always choose my secretaries

plain as sin."

"Of course," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "she

wrote One-Way Traffic. I saw it twice. It

made a great hit."

He rather enjoyed showing that he knew

that Anthony Astor was a woman.

"That's right," said Sir Charles. "I forget

what her real name is--Wills, I think. I've only met her once. I asked her to please Angela. That's the lot--of the house party, I

mean."

Either you or Miss Milray must have counted

wrong. Sir Charles."

"It couldn't be Miss Milray," said Sir

Charles, with assurance; "that woman's never

wrong. Let me see. Yes, by Jove, you're

right. I have missed out one guest. He'd

slipped my memory." He chuckled.

"Wouldn't be best pleased at that either.

The fellow is the most conceited little devil I

"Who is the egoist?" he asked.

"Rum little beggar," said Sir Charles.

"Rather a celebrated little beggar though.

You may have heard of him. Hercule Poirot.

He's a Belgian."

"The detective," said Mr. Satterthwaite.

"I have met him. Rather a remarkable personage."

"He's a character," said Sir Charles.

"I've never met him," said Sir

Bartholomew, "but I've heard a good deal

about him. He retired some time ago, though, didn't he? Probably most of what I've heard is legend. Well, Charles, I hope we shan't

have a crime this weekend."

"Why? Because we've got a detective in

the house? Rather putting the cart before the

horse, aren't you, Tollie?"

"Well, it's by way of being a theory of

There are people with a tendency to shipwrecks--even

if they go on a boat on an

ornamental lake, something will happen to

it. In the same way, men like your Hercule

Poirot don't have to look for crime; it comes

to them."

"In that case," said Mr. Satterthwaite,

"perhaps it is as well that Miss Milray is

joining us and that we are not sitting down

Two

Murder in Three Acts

the principal interest of Mr. Satterthwaite's

life was people. He was, on the whole, more

interested in women than in men. For a

manly man, Mr. Satterthwaite knew far too

much about women. There was a womanish

strain in his character which lent him insight

into the feminine mind. Women all his life

luxe, he was principally interested in the exact

country; whether naturally or artificially produced

it was impossible to tell. The greenishbronze

hair was set in a clever and novel

style that only London's best hairdresser

could achieve. Her plucked eyebrows, darkened

lashes, exquisitely made-up face, and

mouth lipsticked to a curve that its naturally

straight lines did not possess, seemed all adjuncts

disconcerted him. It was as though Miss Wills

were painstakingly learning him by heart.

Sir Charles was just pouring out the cocktails.

"Let me get you a cocktail," said Mr.

Satterthwaite, springing up.

Miss Wills giggled.

"I don't mind if I do," she said.

The door opened and Temple announced

Lady Mary Lytton Gore and Mr. and Mrs.

Babbington and Miss Lytton Gore.

Mr. Satterthwaite supplied Miss Wills with

her cocktail and then sidled into the neighborhood

of Lady Mary Lytton Gore. He had

a weakness for titles.

Also, apart from snobbishness, he liked a

gentlewoman, and that Lady Mary most undeniably

some obscure reason as Egg, bore little resemblance

to her mother. She was of a more

energetic type. She was not, Mr. Satterthwaite

decided, beautiful, but she was

undeniably attractive. And the cause of that

attraction, he thought, lay in her abounding

vitality. She seemed twice as alive as anyone

in that room. She had dark hair and gray

"I can't think why sailing bores you so

much. You used to like it."

"Egg, my dear, one grows up."

He drawled the words, raising his eyebrows.

"That's the playwright, Anthony Astor."

"What? That--that anaemic-looking young

woman? Oh"--she caught herself up--"how

dreadful of me! But it was a surprise. She

doesn't look--I mean she looks exactly like

an inefficient nursery governess."

"Look," said Egg's voice. "Mr. Babbington

is ill."

Sir Bartholomew Strange came forward

hurriedly, supporting the stricken man and

half lifting him to a couch at one side of the

room. The others crowded round, anxious to

help, but impotent.

Two minutes later. Strange straightened

An hour and a half had passed. To confusion

had succeeded peace. Lady Mary had

led the weeping Mrs. Babbington out of the

room and had finally gone home with her to

the vicarage. Miss Milray had been efficient

with the telephone. The local doctor had

arrived and taken charge. A simplified dinner

had been served, and by mutual consent

"It was very distressing," said Mr. Satterthwaite, cautiously feeling his way.

"Very distressing indeed," he added, with a

reminiscent shiver.

"H'm--yes, it was rather painful," said

the physician, the professional accent creeping

for a moment into his voice.

Cartwright paused in his pacing.

"Ever see anyone die quite like that before,

more deceases than I have, I don't doubt."

Doctor MacDougal was the principal doctor

in Loomouth, whom Miss Milray had

summoned.

"MacDougal didn't see this man die. He

was dead when he arrived. There was only

what we could tell him, what you could tell

him. He said it was some kind of seizure;

"Typical of what?"

"Of any known disease."

"If you'd ever studied medicine," said Sir

Bartholomew, "you'd know that there is

hardly any such thing as a typical case."

"What, precisely, are you suggesting. Sir

Charles?" asked Mr. Satterthwaite.

Cartwright did not answer. He made a

vague gesture with his hand. Strange gave a

suspicions:

"Yes, what do you suspect, Charles?

Suicide? Murder? Who wants to murder a

harmless old clergyman? It's fantastic. Suicide?

Well, I suppose that is a point. One

might, perhaps, imagine a reason for

Babbington wanting to make away with

himself."

"What reason?"

watching his own long-drawn-out suffering.

That's only a suggestion, of course. There's

nothing on earth to make us think that

Babbington did want to put an end to

himself."

"I wasn't thinking so much of suicide,"

began Sir Charles.

Bartholomew Strange again gave his low

suppose the symptoms are delayed in our

case, but we'll all be dead before morning."

"Damn it all, you joke, but--" Sir Charles

broke off irritably.

"I'm not really joking," said the physician.

His voice had altered. It was grave and

not unsympathetic.

"I'm not joking about poor old Babbington's

death. I'm casting fun at your suggestions, Charles, because--well, because I don't want you, thoughtlessly, to do harm."

"Harm?" demanded Sir Charles.

"Perhaps you understand what I'm driving

at, Mr. Satterthwaite?"

"I think, perhaps, I can guess," said Mr.

Satterthwaite.

"Don't you see, Charles," went on Sir

Bartholomew, "that those idle suspicions of

can stop. Damn it all, Charles, don't you see

how cruel and unnecessary it would be?

You're merely indulging your vivid imagination

in a gallop over a wholly speculative

course."

A look of irresolution appeared on the

actor's face.

"I hadn't thought of it like that," he admitted.

"You're a thundering good chap, Charles, but you do let your imagination run away with you. Come, now, do you seriously believe

anyone--anyone at all--would want to

murder that perfectly harmless old man?"

"I suppose not," said Sir Charles. "No, as

you say, it's ridiculous. Sorry, Tollie, but it

wasn't really a mere stunt on my part. I did

genuinely have a hunch that something was

wrong."

gin and vermuth."

"Done," said Sir Charles. Then he added, with a rueful smile, "You know, Tollie, you are partly responsible for my flights of

fancy."

"I?"

"Yes, with your talk of crime this moming.

You said this man Hercule Poirot was a

kind of stormy petrel, that where he went

crimes followed. No sooner does he arrive

than we have a suspiciously sudden death.

Of course, my thoughts fly to murder at

once."

"I wonder," said Mr. Satterthwaite, and

stopped.

"Yes," said Charles Cartwright. "I'd

thought of that. . . . What do you think, Tollie? Could we ask him what he thinks of it all? Is it etiquette, I mean?"

"A nice point," murmured Mr. Satterthwaite.

"I know medical etiquette, but I'm hanged

if I know anything about the etiquette of

detection."

"You can't ask a professional singer to

sing," murmured Mr. Satterthwaite. "Can

one ask a professional detective to detect?

Yes, that is a very nice point."

"Just an opinion," said Sir Charles.

wrong about it?"

Poirot's eyebrows rose. He said:

"Wrong? How do you mean that-wrong?"

Bartholomew Strange said, "My friend has

got an idea into his head that old Babbington

was murdered."

"And you do not think so, eh?"

"We'd like to know what you think?"

"That, at any rate, can do no harm. As a

judge of human nature, it seems to me unlikely

in the extreme that anyone would wish

to do away with a charming and harmless

old gentleman. Still less does the solution of

suicide appeal to me. However, the cocktail

glass will tell us, one way or another."

"And the result of the analysis, you think,

paused. "That, since you ask me, is my

opinion."

There was a moment's silence. Then Sir

Charles gave a deep sigh. He opened one of

the windows and looked out.

"Wind's gone round a point," he said.

The sailor had come back and the secretservice

detective had disappeared.

a disappeared. |

>>roy>><-\^i-^arr^rthwaite it 1

"D-.-.-*--t-.^. <-l,^ <^l>>t-><

seemed as though Sir Charles hankered

slightly after the part he was not, after all, to

play.

Four

"yes, but what do you think, Mr.

Satterthwaite? Really think?"

Mr. Satterthwaite looked this way and that.

There was no escape. Egg Lytton Gore had

got him securely cornered on the fishing

quay. Merciless, these modem young women,

and terrifyingly alive.

"Sir Charles has put this idea into your

head," he said.

"No, he hasn't. It was there already. It's

been there from the beginning. It was so

frightfully sudden."

"He was an old man and his health wasn't

very good--"

Egg cut the recital short:

"That's all tripe. He had neuritis and a

touch of rheumatoid arthritis. That doesn't

didn't it strike you that behind all

that bombardment of words he was hedging? What he said amounted to this--that there was nothing to show that death had not arisen

from natural causes. He didn't say it was the

| result of natural causes."

"Aren't you splitting hairs a little, my

dear?"

"The point is that he did; he was puzzled, but he had nothing to go upon, so he had to take refuge in medical caution. What did Sir

Bartholomew Strange think?"

something that happened after the inquest

made me wonder--"

"Something he said to you?"

Mr. Satterthwaite began to feel a pleasant

curiosity.

"Not to me--to Oliver--Oliver Manders;

he was at dinner that night, but perhaps you

don't remember him."

more than talk now. He wants to get rich. I

think everybody is rather disgusting about

money, don't you, Mr. Satterthwaite?"

Her youth came home to him then--the

crude, arrogant childishness of her.

"My dear," he said, "so many people are

disgusting about so many things."

"Most people are swine, of course," agreed

"So, you see, I feel rather strongly about

this. Supposing it wasn't a natural death."

"My dear child!"

"Well, it's damned odd! You must admit

it's odd."

"But surelv you yourself have just Dracti cally admitted that the Babbingtons hadn't an enemy, in the world."

"That's what's so queer about it. I can't

think of any conceivable motive."

"We?"

"Sir Charles and I." She flushed slightly.

Mr. Satterthwaite thought in the words

and meter of his generation, when Quotations

for All Occasions was to be found in

every bookcase:

"Of more than twice her years,

Seamed with an ancient sword-cut on the

cheek,

abruptly.

"Well," Mr. Satterthwaite paused. His

own answer, put bluntly, would have been

"Caution," but he realized that such a word

would be unacceptable to Egg Lytton Gore.

Sir Charles Cartwright had had plenty of affairs with women, actresses and others, but he had always managed to steer clear of matrimony.

Egg was clearly seeking for a more

romantic explanation.

on musingly:

"You know. Sir Charles is really cleverer

than you'd think. He poses a lot, of course, dramatizes himself, but behind all that he's got brains. He's far better sailing a boat than

you'd ever think to hear him talk. You'd

think, to listen to him, that it was all pose, but it isn't. It's the same about this business. You think it's all done for effect--that he

wants to play the part of the great detective.

All I say is I think he'd play it rather well."

"Possibly," agreed Mr. Satterthwaite.

of the cocktail, but, in his opinion, everything

was quite all right."

"Oh, well," said Egg, "he's getting old.

He's a back number." Mr. Satterthwaite

winced. Egg went on, unconscious of brutality:

"Come home and have tea with mother.

She likes you. She said so."

Delicately flattered, Mr. Satterthwaite accepted

called in his own mind a lady's room, and he

approved of it.

His conversation with Lady Mary was

agreeable; nothing brilliant, but pleasantly

chatty. They spoke of Sir Charles. Did Mr.

Satterthwaite know him well? Not intimately, Mr. Satterthwaite said. He had a financial interest in one of Sir Charles' plays

some years ago. They had been friends ever

since.

been away from here, except for an occasional

visit. Young people, I feel, should see

plenty of people and places--especially people.

Otherwise--well, propinquity is sometimes

a dangerous thing."

Mr. Satterthwaite agreed, thinking of Sir

Charles and the sailing, but that this was not

what was in Lady Mary's mind she showed a

moment or two later.

"Sir Charles' coming has done a lot for

Egg. It has widened her horizon. You see,

-i ----,,_ _._--. -c^,,, >>T/^,,->rr >>->>^r>>r>>1^ rinwn here, especially men. I've always been afraid that

Egg might marry someone simply from being

thrown with one person only and seeing

no one else."

Mr. Satterthwaite had a quick intuition.