Three Act Tragedy. Агата Кристи
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if he doesn’t?’
Egg laughed.
‘I’ll get him back somehow. You see if I don’t.’
It seemed as though allowing for difference of language Egg and the lily maid of Astolat had much in common, but Mr Satterthwaite felt that Egg’s methods would be more practical than those of Elaine, and that dying of a broken heart would form no part of them.
Mr Satterthwaite had come over for the day to Monte Carlo. His round of house-parties was over, and the Riviera in September was rather a favourite haunt of his.
He was sitting in the gardens enjoying the sun and reading a two-days-old Daily Mail.
Suddenly a name caught his attention. Strange. Death of Sir Bartholomew Strange. He read the paragraph through:
We much regret having to announce the death of Sir Bartholomew Strange, the eminent nerve specialist. Sir Bartholomew was entertaining a party of friends at his house in Yorkshire. Sir Bartholomew appeared to be in perfect health and spirits, and his demise occurred quite suddenly at the end of dinner. He was chatting with his friends and drinking a glass of port when he had a sudden seizure and died before medical aid could be summoned. Sir Bartholomew will be deeply regretted. He was …
Here followed a description of Sir Bartholomew’s career and work.
Mr Satterthwaite let the paper slip from his hand. He was very disagreeably impressed. A vision of the physician as he had seen him last flashed across his mind—big, jocund, in the pink of condition. And now—dead. Certain words detached themselves from their context and floated about disagreeably in Mr Satterthwaite’s mind. ‘Drinking a glass of port.’ ‘Sudden seizure … Died before medical aid could be summoned …’
Port, not a cocktail, but otherwise curiously reminiscent of that death in Cornwall. Mr Satterthwaite saw again the convulsed face of the mild old clergyman …
Supposing that after all …
He looked up to see Sir Charles Cartwright coming towards him across the grass.
‘Satterthwaite, by all that’s wonderful! Just the man I’d have chosen to see. Have you seen about poor old Tollie?’
‘I was just reading it now.’
Sir Charles dropped into a chair beside him. He was immaculately got up in yachting costume. No more grey flannels and old sweaters. He was the sophisticated yachtsman of the South of France.
‘Listen, Satterthwaite, Tollie was as sound as a bell. Never had anything wrong with him. Am I being a complete fanciful ass, or does this business remind you of—of—?’
‘Of that business at Loomouth? Yes, it does. But of course we may be mistaken. The resemblance may be only superficial. After all, sudden deaths occur the whole time from a variety of causes.’
Sir Charles nodded his head impatiently. Then he said:
‘I’ve just got a letter—from Egg Lytton Gore.’
Mr Satterthwaite concealed a smile.
‘The first you’ve had from her?’
Sir Charles was unsuspecting.
‘No. I had a letter soon after I got here. It followed me about a bit. Just giving me the news and all that. I didn’t answer it … Dash it all, Satterthwaite, I didn’t dare answer it … The girl had no idea, of course, but I didn’t want to make a fool of myself.’
Mr Satterthwaite passed his hand over his mouth where the smile still lingered.
‘And this one?’ he asked.
‘This is different. It’s an appeal for help …’
‘Help?’ Mr Satterthwaite’s eyebrows went up.
‘She was there—you see—in the house—when it happened.’
‘You mean she was staying with Sir Bartholomew Strange at the time of his death?’
‘Yes.’
‘What does she say about it?’
Sir Charles had taken a letter from his pocket. He hesitated for a moment, then he handed it to Mr Satterthwaite.
‘You’d better read it for yourself.’
Mr Satterthwaite opened out the sheet with lively curiosity.
‘Dear Sir Charles,—I don’t know when this will get to you. I do hope soon. I’m so worried, I don’t know what to do. You’ll have seen, I expect, in the papers that Sir Bartholomew Strange is dead. Well, he died just the same way as Mr Babbington. It can’t be a coincidence—it can’t—it can’t … I’m worried to death …
‘Look here, can’t you come home and do something? It sounds a bit crude put like that, but you did have suspicions before, and nobody would listen to you, and now it’s your own friend who’s been killed; and perhaps if you don’t come back nobody will ever find out the truth, and I’m sure you could. I feel it in my bones …
‘And there’s something else. I’m worried, definitely, about someone … He had absolutely nothing to do with it, I know that, but things might look a bit odd. Oh, I can’t explain in a letter. But won’t you come back? You could find out the truth. I know you could.
‘Yours in haste,
‘EGG.’
‘Well?’ demanded Sir Charles impatiently. ‘A bit incoherent of course; she wrote it in a hurry. But what about it?’
Mr Satterthwaite folded the letter slowly to give himself a minute or two before replying.
He agreed that the letter was incoherent, but he did not think it had been written in a hurry. It was, in his view, a very careful production. It was designed to appeal to Sir Charles’s vanity, to his chivalry, and to his sporting instincts.
From what Mr Satterthwaite knew of Sir Charles, that letter was a certain draw.
‘Who do you think she means by “someone”, and “he”?’ he asked.
‘Manders, I suppose.’
‘Was he there, then?’
‘Must have been. I don’t know why. Tollie never met him except on that one occasion at my house. Why he should ask him to stay, I can’t imagine.’
‘Did he often have those big house-parties?’
‘Three or four times a year. Always one for the St Leger.’
‘Did he spend much time in Yorkshire?’
‘Had a big sanatorium—nursing home, whatever you like to call it. He bought Melfort Abbey (it’s an old place), restored it and built a sanatorium in the grounds.’
‘I see.’
Mr Satterthwaite was silent for a minute or two. Then he said:
‘I wonder who else there was in the house-party?’
Sir Charles suggested that it might be in one of the other newspapers, and they went off to institute a newspaper hunt.
‘Here we are,’ said Sir Charles.
He read aloud:
‘Sir Bartholomew Strange is having his usual