Three Act Tragedy

‘You mean she was staying with Sir Bartholomew Strange at the time of his death?’

‘Yes.’

‘What does she say about it?’

Sir Charles had taken a letter from his pocket. He hesitated for a moment, then he handed it to Mr Satterthwaite.

‘You’d better read it for yourself.’

Mr Satterthwaite opened out the sheet with lively curiosity.

‘Dear Sir Charles,—I don’t know when this will get to you. I do hope soon. I’m so worried, I don’t know what to do. You’ll have seen, I expect, in the papers that Sir Bartholomew Strange is dead. Well, he died just the same way as Mr Babbington. It can’t be a coincidence—it can’t—it can’t … I’m worried to death …

‘Look here, can’t you come home and do something? It sounds a bit crude put like that, but you did have suspicions before, and nobody would listen to you, and now it’s your own friend who’s been killed; and perhaps if you don’t come back nobody will ever find out the truth, and I’m sure you could. I feel it in my bones …

‘And there’s something else. I’m worried, definitely, about someone … He had absolutely nothing to do with it, I know that, but things might look a bit odd. Oh, I can’t explain in a letter. But won’t you come back? You could find out the truth. I know you could.

‘Yours in haste,

‘EGG.’

‘Well?’ demanded Sir Charles impatiently. ‘A bit incoherent of course; she wrote it in a hurry. But what about it?’

Mr Satterthwaite folded the letter slowly to give himself a minute or two before replying.

He agreed that the letter was incoherent, but he did not think it had been written in a hurry. It was, in his view, a very careful production. It was designed to appeal to Sir Charles’s vanity, to his chivalry, and to his sporting instincts.

From what Mr Satterthwaite knew of Sir Charles, that letter was a certain draw.

‘Who do you think she means by “someone”, and “he”?’ he asked.

‘Manders, I suppose.’

‘Was he there, then?’

‘Must have been. I don’t know why. Tollie never met him except on that one occasion at my house. Why he should ask him to stay, I can’t imagine.’

‘Did he often have those big house-parties?’

‘Three or four times a year. Always one for the St Leger.’

‘Did he spend much time in Yorkshire?’

‘Had a big sanatorium—nursing home, whatever you like to call it. He bought Melfort Abbey (it’s an old place), restored it and built a sanatorium in the grounds.’

‘I see.’

Mr Satterthwaite was silent for a minute or two. Then he said:

‘I wonder who else there was in the house-party?’

Sir Charles suggested that it might be in one of the other newspapers, and they went off to institute a newspaper hunt.

‘Here we are,’ said Sir Charles.

He read aloud:

‘Sir Bartholomew Strange is having his usual house-party for the St Leger. Amongst the guests are Lord and Lady Eden, Lady Mary Lytton Gore, Sir Jocelyn and Lady Campbell, Captain and Mrs Dacres, and Miss Angela Sutcliffe, the well-known actress.’

He and Mr Satterthwaite looked at each other.

‘The Dacres and Angela Sutcliffe,’ said Sir Charles. ‘Nothing about Oliver Manders.’

‘Let’s get today’s Continental Daily Mail,’ said Mr Satterthwaite. ‘There might be something in that.’

Sir Charles glanced over the paper. Suddenly he stiffened.

‘My God, Satterthwaite, listen to this:

‘SIR BARTHOLOMEW STRANGE.

‘At the inquest today on the late Sir Bartholomew Strange, a verdict of Death by Nicotine Poisoning was returned, there being no evidence to show how or by whom the poison was administered.’

He frowned.

‘Nicotine poisoning. Sounds mild enough—not the sort of thing to make a man fall down in a fit. I don’t understand all this.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Do? I’m going to book a berth on the Blue Train tonight.’

‘Well,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, ‘I might as well do the same.’

‘You?’ Sir Charles wheeled round on him, surprised.

‘This sort of thing is rather in my line,’ said Mr Satterthwaite modestly. ‘I’ve—er—had a little experience. Besides, I know the Chief Constable in that part of the world rather well—Colonel Johnson. That will come in useful.’

‘Good man,’ cried Sir Charles. ‘Let’s go round to the Wagon Lits offices.’

Mr Satterthwaite thought to himself:

‘The girl’s done it. She’s got him back. She said she would. I wonder just exactly how much of her letter was genuine.’

Decidedly, Egg Lytton Gore was an opportunist.

When Sir Charles had gone off to the Wagon Lits offices, Mr Satterthwaite strolled slowly through the gardens. His mind was still pleasantly engaged with the problem of Egg Lytton Gore. He admired her resource and her driving power, and stifled that slightly Victorian side of his nature which disapproved of a member of the fairer sex taking the initiative in affairs of the heart.

Mr Satterthwaite was an observant man. In the midst of his cogitations on the female sex in general, and Egg Lytton Gore in particular, he was unable to resist saying to himself: