Free Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie Page B

1921….”
    Sir Charles won.

Four
T HE E VIDENCE OF THE S ERVANTS
    N othing could have been more peaceful than the grounds and building of Melfort Abbey as the two men saw it that afternoon in the September sunshine. Portions of the Abbey were fifteenth century. It had been restored and a new wing added onto it. The new Sanatorium was out of sight of the house, with grounds of its own.
    Sir Charles and Mr. Satterthwaite were received by Mrs. Leckie, the cook, a portly lady, decorously gowned in black, who was tearful and voluble. Sir Charles she already knew, and it was to him she addressed most of her conversation.
    â€œYou’ll understand, I’m sure, sir, what it’s meant to me. The master’s death and all. Policemen all over the place, poking their noses here and there—would you believe it, even the dustbins they had to have their noses in, and questions!—they wouldn’t have done with asking questions. Oh, that I should have lived to see such a thing—the doctor, such a quiet gentleman as he always was, and made Sir Bartholomew, too, which a proud day it was to all of us, as Beatrice and I well remember, though she’s been here two yearsless than I have. And such questions as that police fellow (for gentleman I will not call him, having been accustomed to gentlemen and their ways and knowing what’s what), fellow, I say, whether or not he is a superintendent—” Mrs. Leckie paused, took breath and extricated herself from the somewhat complicated conversational morass into which she had fallen. “Questions, that’s what I say, about all the maids in the house, and good girls they are, every one of them—not that I’d say that Doris gets up when she should do in the morning. I have to speak about it at least once a week, and Vickie, she’s inclined to be impertinent, but, there, with the young ones you can’t expect the training—their mothers don’t give it to them nowadays—but good girls they are, and no police superintendent shall make me say otherwise. ‘Yes,’ I said to him, ‘you needn’t think I’m going to say anything against my girls. They’re good girls, they are, and as to having anything to do with murder, why it’s right down wicked to suggest such a thing.’”
    Mrs. Leckie paused.
    â€œMr. Ellis, now—that’s different. I don’t know anything about Mr. Ellis, and couldn’t answer for him in any way, he having been brought from London, and strange to the place, while Mr. Baker was on holiday.”
    â€œBaker?” asked Mr. Satterthwaite.
    â€œMr. Baker had been Sir Bartholomew’s butler for the last seven years, sir. He was in London most of the time, in Harley Street. You’ll remember him, sir?” She appealed to Sir Charles, who nodded. “Sir Bartholomew used to bring him up here when he had a party. But he hadn’t been so well in his health, so Sir Bartholomew said, and he gave him a couple of months’ holiday, paid for him, too, in a place near the sea down near Brighton—a realkind gentleman the doctor was—and he took Mr. Ellis on temporary for the time being, and so, as I said to that superintendent, I can’t say anything about Mr. Ellis, though, from all he said himself, he seems to have been with the best families, and he certainly had a gentlemanly way with him.”
    â€œYou didn’t find anything—unusual about him?” asked Sir Charles hopefully.
    â€œWell, 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:
    â€œI 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