Three Act Tragedy - Agatha Christie [79]
‘You loved her. She, I could see, had the hero worship for you. You had only to speak and she would fall into your arms. But you did not speak. Why?
‘You pretended to your friend, Mr Satterthwaite, that you were the dense lover who cannot recognize his mistress’s answering passion. You pretended to think that Miss Lytton Gore was in love with Oliver Manders. But I say, Sir Charles, that you are a man of the world. You are a man with a great experience of women. You cannot have been deceived. You knew perfectly well that Miss Lytton Gore cared for you. Why, then, did you not marry her? You wanted to do so.
‘It must be that there was some obstacle. What could that obstacle be? It could only be the fact that you already had a wife. But nobody ever spoke of you as a married man. You passed always as a bachelor. The marriage, then, had taken place when you were very young—before you became known as a rising young actor.
‘What had happened to your wife? If she were still alive, why did nobody know about her? If you were living apart there was the remedy of divorce. If your wife was a Catholic, or one who disapproved of divorce, she would still be known as living apart from you.
‘But there are two tragedies where the law gives no relief. The woman you married might be serving a life sentence in some prison, or she might be confined in a lunatic asylum. In neither case could you obtain a divorce, and if it had happened while you were still a boy nobody might know about it.
‘If nobody knew, you might marry Miss Lytton Gore without telling her the truth. But supposing one person knew—a friend who had known you all your life? Sir Bartholomew Strange was an honourabe, upright physician. He might pity you deeply, he might sympathize with a liaison or an irregular life, but he would not stand by silent and see you enter into a bigamous marriage with an unsuspecting young girl.
‘Before you could marry Miss Lytton Gore, Sir Bartholomew Strange must be removed…’
Sir Charles laughed.
‘And dear old Babbington? Did he know all about it, too?’
‘I fancied so at first. But I soon found that there was no evidence to support that theory. Besides, my original stumbling block remained. Even if it was you who put the nicotine into the cocktail glass, you could not have ensured its reaching one particular person.
‘That was my problem. And suddenly a chance word from Miss Lytton Gore showed me light.
‘The poison was not intended especially for Stephen Babbington. It was intended for any one of those present, with three exceptions. These exceptions were Miss Lytton Gore, to whom you were careful to hand an innocent glass, yourself, and Sir Bartholomew Strange, who, you knew, did not drink cocktails.’
Mr Satterthwaite cried out:
‘But that’s nonsense! What’s the point of it? There isn’t any.’
Poirot turned towards him. Triumph came into his voice.
‘Oh, yes, there is. A queer point—a very queer point. The only time I have come across such a motive for murder. The murder of Stephen Babbington was neither more nor less than a dress rehearsal.’
‘What?’
‘Yes, Sir Charles was an actor. He obeyed his actor’s instinct. He tried out his murder before committing it. No suspicion could possibly attach to him. Not one of those people’s deaths could benefit him in any way, and, moreover, as everyone has found, he could not have been proved to have poisoned any particular person. And, my friends, the dress rehearsal went well. Mr Babbington dies, and foul play is not even suspected. It is left to Sir Charles to urge that suspicion and he is highly gratified at our refusal to take it seriously. The substitution of the glass, too, that has gone without a hitch. In fact, he can be sure that, when the real performance comes, it will be “all right on the night”.
‘As you know, events took a slightly different turn. On the second occasion a doctor was present who immediately suspected poison.