Three Act Tragedy - Agatha Christie [25]
‘You didn’t find anything—unusual about him?’ asked Sir Charles hopefully.
‘Well, it’s odd your saying that, sir, because, if you know what I mean, I did and I didn’t.’
‘Sir Charles looked encouraging, and Mrs Leckie went on:
‘I couldn’t exactly say what it was, sir, but there was some thing—’
There always is—after the event—thought Mr Satterthwaite to himself grimly. However much Mrs Leckie had despised the police, she was not proof against suggestion. If Ellis turned out to be the criminal, well, Mrs Leckie would have noticed something.
‘For one thing, he was standoffish. Oh, quite polite, quite the gentleman—as I said, he’d been used to good houses. But he kept himself to himself, spent a lot of time in his own room; and he was—well, I don’t know how to describe it, I’m sure—he was, well, there was something—’
‘You didn’t suspect he wasn’t—not really a butler?’ suggested Mr Satterthwaite.
‘Oh, he’d been in service, right enough, sir. The things he knew—and about well-known people in society, too.’
‘Such as?’ suggested Sir Charles gently.
But Mrs Leckie became vague, and non-committal. She was not going to retail servants’ hall gossip. Such a thing would have offended her sense of fitness.
To put her at her ease, Mr Satterthwaite said:
‘Perhaps you can describe his appearance.’
Mrs Leckie brightened.
‘Yes, indeed, sir. He was a very respectable-looking man—side-whiskers and grey hair, stooped a little, and he was growing stout—it worried him, that did. He had a rather shaky hand, too, but not from the cause you might imagine. He was a most abstemious man—not like many I’ve known. His eyes were a bit weak, I think, sir, the light hurt them—especially a bright light, used to make them water something cruel. Out with us he wore glasses, but not when he was on duty.’
‘No special distinguishing marks?’ asked Sir Charles. ‘No scars? Or broken fingers? Or birth marks?’
‘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.’
‘He had a tooth missing,’ said Mr Satterthwaite.
‘I believe so, sir; I never noticed it myself.’
‘What was his manner on the night of the tragedy?’ asked Mr Satterthwaite in a slightly bookish manner.
‘Well, really, sir, I couldn’t say. I was busy, you see, in my kitchen. I hadn’t time for noticing things.’
‘No, no, quite so.’
‘When the news came out that the master was dead we were struck all of a heap. I cried and couldn’t stop, and so did Beatrice. The young ones, of course, were excited like, though very upset. Mr Ellis naturally wasn’t so upset as we were, he being new, but he behaved very considerate, and insisted on Beatrice and me taking a little glass of port to counteract the shock. And to think that all the time it was he—the villain—’
Words failed Mrs Leckie, her eyes shone with indignation.
‘He disappeared that night, I understand?’
‘Yes, sir, went to his room like the rest of us, and in the morning he wasn’t there. That’s what set the police on him, of course.’
‘Yes, yes, very foolish of him. Have you any idea how he left the house?’
‘Not the slightest. It seems the police were watching the house all night, and they never saw him go—but, there, that’s what the police are, human like anyone else, in spite of the airs they give themselves, coming into a gentleman’s house and nosing round.’
‘I hear there’s some question of a secret passage,’ Sir Charles said.
Mrs Leckie sniffed.
‘That’s what the police say.’
‘Is there such a thing?’
‘I’ve heard mention of it,’ Mrs Leckie agreed cautiously.
‘Do you know where it starts from?’
‘No, I don’t, sir. Secret passages are all very well, but they’re not things to be encouraged in the servants’ hall. It gives the girls ideas. They might think of slipping out that way. My girls go out by