Free Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie

occasions—”
    â€œYes,” said Mr. Satterthwaite. “And that’s not going to be as simple a matter as one might think, on the face of it. We’ve got toomany common factors. Do you realize, Cartwright, that practically every person who was present at the dinner at your house was present here?”
    Sir Charles nodded.
    â€œOf course I’ve realized that—but do you realize what deduction one can draw from it?”
    â€œI don’t quite follow you, Cartwright?”
    â€œDash it all, man, do you suppose that’s coincidence? No, it was meant. Why are all the people who were at the first death present at the second? Accident? Not on your life. It was plan—design—Tollie’s plan.”
    â€œOh!” said Mr. Satterthwaite. “Yes, it’s possible….”
    â€œIt’s certain. You didn’t know Tollie as well as I did, Satterthwaite. He was a man who kept his own counsel, and a very patient man. In all the years I’ve known him I’ve never known Tollie give utterance to a rash opinion or judgment.
    â€œLook at it this way: Babbington’s murdered—yes, murdered —I’m not going to hedge, or mince terms—murdered one evening in my house. Tollie ridicules me gently for my suspicions in the matter, but all the time he’s got suspicions of his own. He doesn’t talk about them—that’s not his way. But quietly, in his own mind, he’s building up a case. I don’t know what he had to build upon. It can’t, I think, be a case against any one particular person. He believed that one of those people was responsible for the crime, and he made a plan, a test of some kind to find out which person it was.”
    â€œWhat about the other guests, the Edens and the Campbells?”
    â€œCamouflage. It made the whole thing less obvious.”
    â€œWhat do you think the plan was?”
    Sir Charles shrugged his shoulders—an exaggerated foreigngesture. He was Aristide Duval, that mastermind of the Secret Service. His left foot limped as he walked.
    â€œHow can we know? I am not a magician. I cannot guess. But there was a plan…It went wrong, because the murderer was just one degree cleverer than Tollie thought…He struck first….”
    â€œHe?”
    â€œOr she. Poison is as much a woman’s weapon as a man’s—more so.”
    Mr. Satterthwaite was silent. Sir Charles said:
    â€œCome now, don’t you agree? Or are you on the side of public opinion? ‘ The butler’s the man. He done it. ’”
    â€œWhat’s your explanation of the butler?”
    â€œI haven’t thought about him. In my view he doesn’t matter…I could suggest an explanation.”
    â€œSuch as?”
    â€œWell, say that the police are right so far—Ellis is a professional criminal, working in, shall we say, with a gang of burglars. Ellis obtains this post with false credentials. Then Tollie is murdered. What is Ellis’s position? A man is killed, and in the house is a man whose fingerprints are at Scotland Yard, and who is known to the police. Naturally he gets the wind up and bolts.”
    â€œBy the secret passage?”
    â€œSecret passage be damned. He dodged out of the house while one of the fatheaded constables who were watching the house was taking forty winks.”
    â€œIt certainly seems more probable.”
    â€œWell, Satterthwaite, what’s your view?”
    â€œMine?” said Mr. Satterthwaite. “Oh, it’s the same as yours. It has been all along. The butler seems to me a very clumsy red herring. I believe that Sir Bartholomew and poor old Babbington were killed by the same person.”
    â€œOne of the house party?”
    â€œOne of the house party.”
    There was silence for a minute or two, and then Mr. Satterthwaite asked casually:
    â€œWhich of them do you think it was?”
    â€œMy God, Satterthwaite, how can I