Three Act Tragedy (aka Murder in Three Acts) by Agatha Christie.
Title: Three Act Tragedy (aka Murder in Three Acts).
Author: Agatha Christie.
Genre: Fiction, mystery, detective fiction, crime.
Country: England, UK.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 1934.
Summary: Sir Charles Cartwright should have known better than to allow thirteen guests to sit down for dinner. For at the end of the evening one of them is dead-choked by a cocktail that contained no trace of poison. Predictable, says Hercule Poirot, the great detective. But entirely unpredictable is that he can find absolutely no motive for murder.
My rating: 7.5/10.
My review:
♥ “I’ve known Charles since he was a boy. We were 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 from the stage-said he wanted to live a simple country life, out of the world, and indulge his old fancy for the sea. He comes down here and builds this place. His idea of a simple country cottage. Three bathrooms and all the latest gadgets! I was like you, Satterthwaite, I didn’t think it would last. After all, Charles is human-he needs his audience. Two or three retired captains, a bunch of old women and a parson-that’s not much of a house to play to. I thought the ‘simple fellow, with his love of the sea,’ would run for six months. Then, frankly, I thought he’d tire of the part. I thought the next thing to fill the bill would be the weary man of the world at Monte Carlo, or possibly a laird in the Highlands-he’s versatile, Charles is.”
The doctor stopped. It had been a long speech. His eyes were full of affection and amusement as he watched the unconscious man below. In a couple of minutes he would be with them.
“However,” Sir Bartholomew went on, “it seems we were wrong. The attraction of the simple life holds.”
“A man who dramatises himself is sometimes misjudged,” pointed out Mr. Satterthwaite. “One does not take his sincerities seriously.”
♥ “Don’t you spend half your life sitting in Harley Street telling your patients how good life on the ocean wave would be for them?”
“The great merit of being a doctor,” said Sir Bartholomew, “is that you are not obliged to follow your own advice.”
♥ “The sea-there’s nothing like it-sun and wind and sea-and a simple shanty to come home to.”
And he looked with pleasure at the white building behind him, equipped with three bathrooms, hot and cold water in all the bedrooms, the latest system of central heating, the newest electrical fittings and a staff of parlourmaid, housemaid, chef, and kitchenmaid. Sir Charles’s interpretation of simple living was, perhaps, a trifle exaggerated.
♥ “But seriously, Tollie, have you noticed her face? It’s got two eyes, a nose and a mouth, but it’s not what you would call a face-not a female face. The most scandal-loving old cat in the neighbourhood couldn’t seriously connect sexual passion with a face like that.”
“You underrate the imagination of the British spinster.”
♥ “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 mine.”
“What is your theory, doctor?” asked Mr. Satterthwaite.
“That events come to people-not people to events. Why do some people have exciting lives and other people dull ones? Because of their surroundings? Not at all. One man may travel to the ends of the earth and nothing will happen to him. There will be a massacre a week before he arrives, and an earthquake the day after he leaves, and the boat that he nearly took will be shipwrecked. And another man may live at Balham and travel to the City every day, and things will happen to him. He will be mixed up with blackmailing gangs and beautiful girls and motor bandits. 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 thirteen to dinner.”
“Well,” said Sir Charles handsomely, “you can have your murder, Tollie, if you’re so keen on it. I make only one stipulation-that I shan’t be the corpse.”
♥ Mr. Satterthwaite had recalled himself to M. Hercule Poirot’s memory. The little man had been very affable. Mr. Satterthwaite suspected him of deliberately exaggerating his foreign mannerisms. His small twinkly eyes seemed to say, “You expect me to be the buffoon? To play the comedy for you? Bien-it shall be as you wish!”
♥ What a handsome pair they made. Both so young and good-looking…and quarrelling, too-always a healthy sign….
♥ “Was that a typical fit or seizure, or whatever you call it?”
“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.”
♥ “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, a very nice point.”
“Just an opinion,” said Sir Charles.
♥ Egg Lytton Gore had got him securely cornered on the fishing quay. Merciless, these modern young women-and terrifyingly alive.
&hearts “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 Egg cheerfully.
♥ “Oh, well, you’re all very superior about it. Someday, perhaps, you’ll find out we are right.”
“We?”
“Sir Charles and I.” She flushed slightly.
Mr. Satterthwaite thought in the words and metre of his generation when Quotations for All Occasions was to be found in every bookcase.
“Of more than twice her years,
Seam’d with an ancient swordcut on the cheek,
And bruised and bronzed, she lifted up her eyes
And loved him, with that love which was her doom.”
He felt a little ashamed of himself for thinking in quotations-Tennyson, too, was very little thought of nowadays. Besides, though Sir Charles was bronzed, he was not scarred, and Egg Lytton Gore, though doubtless capable of a healthy passion, did not look at all likely to perish of love and drift about rivers on a barge. There was nothing of the lily maid of Astolat about her.
“Except,” thought Mr. Satterthwaite, “her youth….”
Girls were always attracted to middle-aged men with interesting pasts. Egg seemed to be no exception to this rule.
♥ “I suppose he’s had lots of affairs,” said Egg.
“Er-h’m-probably,” said Mr. Satterthwaite, feeling Victorian.
“I like men to have affairs,” said Egg. “It shows they’re not queer or anything.”
Mr. Satterthwaite’s Victorianism suffered a further pang.
♥ Mr. Satterthwaite was usually fairly shrewd in his assumptions.
Still, there was probably one factor that he did not take into account, because he was unaware of it himself. That was the enhanced value placed by age on youth. To Mr. Satterthwaite, an elderly man, the fact that Egg might prefer a middle-aged man to a young one was frankly incredible. Youth was to him so much the most magical of all gifts.
♥ Mr. Satterthwaite glanced at him. What part was Charles Cartwright playing tonight. Not the ex-Naval man-not the international detective. No, some new and unfamiliar rôle.
It came as a shock to Mr. Satterthwaite when he realized what that rôle was. Sir Charles was playing second fiddle. Second fiddle to Oliver Manders.
♥ “Then why has he gone away-like this?”
Mr. Satterthwaite cleared his throat.
“I fancy he-er-thought it best.”
Egg stared at him piercingly.
“Do you mean-because of me?”
“Well-something of the kind, perhaps.”
“And so he’s legged it. I suppose I did show my hand a bit plainly…Men do hate being chased, don’t they? Mums is right, after all…You’ve no idea how sweet she is when she talks about men. Always in the third person-so Victorian and polite. ‘A man hates being run after; a girl should always let the man make the running.’ Don’t you think it’s a sweet expression-make the running? Sounds the opposite of what it means. Actually that’s just what Charles has done-made the running. He’s running away from me. He’s afraid. And the devil of it is, I can’t go after him. If I did I suppose he’d take a boat to the wilds of Africa or somewhere.”
♥“He’ll come back. If he doesn’t-”
“Well, 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.
♥ “Tell me, what are you doing out here? A holiday?”
“My time is all holidays nowadays. I have succeeded. I am rich. I retire. Now I travel about seeing the world.”
“Splendid,” said Mr. Satterthwaite.
“N’est-ce pas?”
“Mummy,” said the English child, “isn’t there anything to do?”
“Darling,” said her mother reproachfully, “isn’t it lovely to have come abroad and to be in the beautiful sunshine?”
“Yes, but there’s nothing to do.”
“Run about-amuse yourself. Go and look at the sea.”
“Maman,” said a French child, suddenly appearing. “Joue avec moi.”
A French mother looked up from her book.
“Amuse toi avec ta balle, Marcelle.”
Obediently the French child bounced her ball with a gloomy face.
“Je m’amuse,” said Hercule Poirot; and there was a very curious expression on his face.
Then, as if in answer to something he read in Mr. Satterthwaite’s face, he said:
“But yet, you have the quick perceptions. It is as you think-”
He was silent for a minute or two, then he said:
“See you, as a boy I was poor. There were many of us. We had to get on in the world. I entered the Police Force. I worked hard. Slowly I rose in that Force. I began to make a name for myself. I made a name for myself. I began to acquire an international reputation. At last, I was due to retire. There came the War. I was injured. I came, a sad and weary refugee, to England. A kind lady gave me hospitality. She died-not naturally; no, she was killed. Eh bien, I set my wits to work. I employed my little grey cells. I discovered her murderer. I found that I was not yet finished. No, indeed, my powers were stronger than ever. Then began my second career, that of a private inquiry agent in England. I have solved many fascinating and baffling problems. Ah, monsieur, I have lived! The psychology of human nature, it is wonderful. I grew rich. Someday, I said to myself, I will have all the money I need. I will realize all my dreams.”
He laid a hand on Mr. Satterthwaite’s knee.
“My friend, beware of the day when your dreams come true. That child near us, doubtless she too has dreamt of coming abroad-of the excitement-of how different everything would be. You understand?”
“I understand,” said Mr. Satterthwaite, “that you are not amusing yourself.”
Poirot nodded.
“Exactly.”
♥ “I wonder now,” he said. “I do not quite understand-”
Mr. Satterthwaite interrupted.
“You do not understand the modern English girl? Well, that is not surprising. I do not always understand them myself. A girl like Miss Lytton Gore-”
In his turn Poirot interrupted.
“Pardon. You have misunderstood me. I understand Miss Lytton Gore very well. I have met such another-many such others. You call the type modern; but it is-how shall I say?-agelong.”
Mr. Satterthwaite was slightly annoyed. He felt that he-and only he-understood Egg. This preposterous foreigner knew nothing about young English womanhood.
♥ “A knowledge of human nature-what a dangerous thing it can be.”
“A useful thing,” corrected Mr. Satterthwaite.
“Perhaps. It depends upon the point of view.”
♥ “In fact, I fancy myself the young gentleman must have had one over the eight, as the saying goes. What made him ram the wall just where he did I can’t imagine, if he was sober at the time.”
“Just high spirits, I expect,” said Sir Charles.
“Spirits it was, in my opinion, sir.”
♥ “No scars? Or broken fingers? Or birthmarks?”
“Oh, no, sir, nothing of that kind.”
“How superior detective stories are to life,” sighed Sir Charles. “In fiction there is always some distinguishing characteristic.”
♥ “If we’re right about Babbington, he must be innocent.”
“Yes, besides-”
Mr. Satterthwaite did not finish his sentence. He had been about to say that if Ellis was a professional criminal who had been detected by Sir Bartholomew and had murdered him in consequence the whole affair would become unbearably dull. Just in time he remembered that Sir Bartholomew had been a friend of Sir Charles Cartwright’s and was duly appalled by the callousness of the sentiments he had nearly revealed.
♥ She said to Sir Charles, “I knew you’d come….”
Her tone implied: “Now that you’ve come everything will be all right….”
Mr. Satterthwaite thought to himself: “But she wasn’t sure he’d come-she wasn’t sure at all. She’s been on tenterhooks. She’s been fretting herself to death.” And he thought: “Doesn’t the man realize? Actors are usually vain enough…Doesn’t he know the girl’s head over ears in love with him?”
It was, he thought, an odd situation. That Sir Charles was overwhelmingly in love with the girl, he had no doubt whatever. She was equally in love with him. And the link between them-the link to which each of them clung frenziedly-was a crime-a double crime of a revolting nature.
♥ “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’s 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.”
♥ “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.”
♥ “I always felt sorry for him. I still do. I think that terribly conceited manner of his is a good deal put on.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” said Mr. Satterthwaite. “It’s a very common phenomenon. If I ever see anyone who appears to think a lot of themselves and boasts unceasingly, I always know that there’s a secret sense of inferiority somewhere.”
“It seems very odd.”
“An inferiority complex is a very peculiar thing. Crippen, for instance, undoubtedly suffered from it. It’s at the back of a lot of crimes. The desire to assert one’s personality.”
“It seems very strange to me,” murmured Lady Mary.
♥ “I was such a foolish girl-girls are foolish, Mr. Satterthwaite. They are so sure of themselves, so convinced they know best. People write and talk a lot of a ‘woman’s instinct.’ I don’t believe, Mr. Satterthwaite, that there is any such thing. There doesn’t seem to be anything that warns girls against a certain type of man. Nothing in themselves, I mean. Their parents warn them, but that’s no good-one doesn’t believe. It seems dreadful to say so, but there is something attractive to a girl in being told anyone is a bad man. She thinks at once that her love will reform him.”
Mr. Satterthwaite nodded gently.
“One knows so little. When one knows more, it is too late.”
♥ “Some books that I’ve read these last few years have brought a lot of comfort to me. Books on psychology. It seems to show that in many ways people can’t help themselves. A kind of kink. Sometimes, in the most carefully brought up families you get it. As a boy Ronald stole money at school-money that he didn’t need. I can feel now that he couldn’t help himself…He was born with a kink….”
Very gently, with a small handkerchief, Lady Mary wiped her eyes.
“It wasn’t what I was brought up to believe,” she said apologetically. “I was taught that everyone knew the difference between right and wrong. But somehow-I don’t always think that is so.”
“The human mind is a great mystery,” said Mr. Satterthwaite gently. “As yet, we are going groping our way to understanding. Without acute mania it may nevertheless occur that certain natures lack what I should describe as braking power. If you or I were to say, ‘I hate someone-I wish he were dead,’ the idea would pass from our minds as soon as the words were uttered. The brakes would work automatically. But, in some people the id ea, or obsession, holds. They see nothing but the immediate gratification of the idea formed.”
♥ “It is very good of you-” began Mr. Satterthwaite.
“No, no, it is not good of me. It is the curiosity-and, yes, the hurt to my pride. I must repair my fault. My time-that is nothing-why voyage after all? The language may be different, but everywhere human nature is the same.”
♥ “Mrs. Babbington-but no one has even dreamed of suspecting her.”
Poirot smiled beneficently.
“No? It is a curious thing that. The idea occurred to me at once-but at once. If the poor gentleman is not poisoned by the cocktail, then he must have been poisoned a very few minutes before entering the house. What way could there be? A capsule? Something, perhaps, to prevent indigestion. But who, then, could tamper with that? Only a wife. Who might, perhaps, have a motive that no one outside could possibly suspect? Again a wife.”
“But they were devoted to each other,” cried Egg indignantly. “You don’t understand a bit.”
Poirot smiled kindly at her.
“No. That is valuable. You know, but I do not. I see the facts unbiased by any preconceived notions. And let me tell you something, mademoiselle-in the course of my experience I have known five cases of wives murdered by devoted husbands, and twenty-two of husbands murdered by devoted wives. Les femmes, they obviously keep up appearances better.”
“I think you’re perfectly horrid,” said Egg. “I know the Babbingtons are not like that. It’s-it’s monstrous!”
“Murder is monstrous, mademoiselle,” said Poirot, and there was a sudden sternness in his voice.
♥ “Perhaps you yourself-”
Poirot held up a hand.
“My friend, do not ask me to do anything of an active nature. It is my lifelong conviction that any problem is best solved by thought. Let me hold what is called, I believe, the watching brief. Continue your investigations..”
♥ “You are what we call ‘quick in the uptake,’ M. Poirot.”
“Ah, that, it leaps to the eye! I am of a very susceptible nature-I wish to assist a love affair-not to hinder it. You and I, my friend, must work together in this-to the honour and glory of Charles Cartwright; is it not so? When the case is solved-”
“If-” said Mr. Satterthwaite mildly.
“When! I do not permit myself to fail.”
“Never?” asked Mr. Satterthwaite searchingly.
“There have been times,” said Poirot with dignity, “when for a short time, I have been what I suppose you would call slow in the takeup. I have not perceived the truth as soon as I might have done.”
“But you’ve never failed altogether?”
The persistence of Mr. Satterthwaite was curiosity, pure and simple. He wondered….
“Eh bien,” said Poirot. “Once. Long ago, in Belgium. We will not talk of it….”
Mr. Satterthwaite, his curiosity (and his malice) satisfied, hastened to change the subject.
♥ “You were saying that when the case is solved-”
“Sir Charles will have solved it. That is essential. I shall have been a little cog in the wheel,” he spread out his hands. “Now and then, here and there, I shall say a little word-just one little word-a hint, no more. I desire no honour-no renown. I have all the renown I need.”
Mr. Satterthwaite studied him with interest. He was amused by the naïve conceit, the immense egoism of the little man. But he did not make the easy mistake of considering it mere empty boasting. An Englishman is usually modest about what he does well, sometimes pleased with himself over something he does badly; but a Latin has a truer appreciation of his own powers. If he is clever he sees no reason for concealing the fact.
♥ “..just what do you yourself hope to get out of this business? Is it the excitement of the chase?”
Poirot shook his head.
“No-no-it is not that. Like the chien de chasse, I follow the scent, and I get excited, and once on the scent I cannot be called off it. All that is true. But there is more…It is-how shall I put it?-a passion for getting at the truth. In all the world there is nothing so curious and so interesting and so beautiful as truth….”
♥ “You have shrewd judgment and observation, and you like keeping its results to yourself. Your opinions of people are your private collection. You do not display them for all the world to see.”
♥ “I’m sorry, too, for disturbing you. I expect you were busy writing.”
“I was, as a matter of fact.”
“Another play?”
“Yes. To tell you the truth, I thought of using some of the characters at the house party at Melfort Abbey.”
“What about libel?”
“That’s quite all right, Sir Charles, I find people never recognize themselves.” She giggled. “Not if, as you said just now, one is really merciless.”
“You mean,” said Sir Charles, “that we all have an exaggerated idea of our own personalities and don’t recognize the truth if it’s sufficiently brutally portrayed. I was quite right, Miss Wills, you are a cruel woman.”
Miss Wills tittered.
“You needn’t be afraid, Sir Charles. Women aren’t usually cruel to men-unless it’s some particular man-they’re only cruel to other women.”
♥ “Tell us: What shall we do now?”
The little man smiled at her.
“There is only one thing to do-think.”
“Think?” cried Egg. Her voice was disgusted.
Poirot beamed on her.
“But yes, exactly that. Think! With thought, all problems can be solved.”
♥ “You see, I have the orderly mind.”
“I don’t understand you.”
Mr. Satterthwaite, too, looked curiously at the little detective.
“What kind of a mind have I?” demanded Sir Charles, slightly hurt.
“You have the actor’s mind, Sir Charles, creative, original, seeing always dramatic values. Mr. Satterthwaite here, he has the playgoer’s mind, he observes the characters, he has the sense of atmosphere. But me, I have the prosaic mind. I see only the facts without any dramatic trappings or footlights.”
♥ “Of course I’m years too old for her.”
“She doesn’t think so-and she’s the best judge.”
♥ “Well, wish me happiness.”
“I do wish you happiness, mademoiselle. Not the brief happiness of youth, but the happiness that endures-the happiness that is built upon a rock.”
“I’ll tell Charles you call him a rock,” said Egg.
♥ “It’s no good asking me that. I can only suggest that she’s a lunatic. Clever people often are rather mad.”
♥ “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 three different types of mind: 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.”
♥ Sir Charles seemed suddenly to have aged. It was an old man’s face, a leering satyr’s face.
“God damn you,” he said.
And never, in all his acting career, had words come with such utter and compelling malignancy.
Then he turned and went out of the room.
Mr. Satterthwaite half sprang up from his chair, but Poirot shook his head, his hand still gently stroking the sobbing girl.
“He’ll escape,” said Mr. Satterthwaite.
Poirot shook his head.
“No, he will only choose his exit. The slow one before the eyes of the world, or the quick one off stage.”
♥ “Be very good to her,” said Poirot.
“I will, sir. She’s all I care about in the world-you know that. Love for her made me bitter and cynical. But I shall be different now. I’m ready to stand by. And someday, perhaps-”
“I think so,” said Poirot. “I think she was beginning to care for you when he came along and dazzled her. Hero-worship is a real and terrible danger to the young. Someday Egg will fall in love with a friend, and build her happiness upon rock.”
♥ “There is one thing I want to know.”
“Ask then.”
“Why do you sometimes speak perfectly good English and at other times not?”
Poirot laughed.
“Ah, I will explain. It is true that I can speak the exact, the idiomatic English. But, my friend, to speak the broken English is an enormous asset. It leads people to despise you. They say-a foreigner-he can’t even speak English properly. It is not my policy to terrify people-instead I invite their gentle ridicule. Also I boast! An Englishman he says often, ‘A fellow who thinks as much of himself as that cannot be worth much.’ That is the English point of view. It is not at all true. And so, you see, I put people off their guard. Besides,” he added, “it has become a habit.”
“Dear me,” said Mr. Satterthwaite, “quite the cunning of the serpent.”
♥ Mr. Satterthwaite looked cheerful.
Suddenly an idea struck him. His jaw fell.
“My goodness,” he cried, “I’ve only just realized it. That rascal, with his poisoned cocktail! Anyone might have drunk it. It might have been me.”
“There is an even more terrible possibility that you have not considered,” said Poirot.
“Eh?”
“It might have been ME,” said Hercule Poirot.