Agatha Christie - Three Act Tragedy

“Yes,” said Egg and Mr. Satterthwaite again, but in unison this time.

“Then it is the first murder we must investigate, not the second.”

Egg nodded.

“In my mind, until we discover the motive for the first murder, we can hardly hope to discover the murderer. The motive presents extraordinary difficulty. Babbington was a harmless, pleasant, gentle old man without, one would say, an enemy in the world. Yet he was killed and there must have been some reason for killing. We’ve got to find that reason.”

He paused and then said in his ordinary everyday voice:

“Let’s get down to it. What reasons are there for killing people? First, I suppose, gain.”

“Revenge,” said Egg.

“Homicidal mania,” said Mr. Satterthwaite. “The crime passionel would hardly apply in this case. But there’s fear.”

Charles Cartwright nodded. He was scribbling on a piece of paper.

“That about covers the ground,” he said. “First, Gain. Does anyone gain by Babbington’s death? Has he any money or expectation of money?”

“I should think it very unlikely,” said Egg.

“So should I, but we’d better approach Mrs. Babbington on the point.”

“Then there’s revenge. Did Babbington do an injury to anyone perhaps in his young days? Did he marry the girl that some other man wanted? We’ll have to look into that, too.”

“Then homicidal mania. Were both Babbington and Tollie killed by a lunatic? I don’t think that theory will hold water. Even a lunatic has some kind of reasonableness in his crimes. I mean a lunatic might think himself divinely appointed to kill doctors, or to kill clergyman, but not to kill both. I think we can wash out the theory of homicidal mania. There remains fear .”

“Now, frankly, that seems to me far the most likely solution. Babbington knew something about somebody or he recognised somebody. He was killed to prevent him telling what that something was.”

“I can’t see what someone like Mr. Babbington could know that was damaging about anybody who was there that night.”

“Perhaps,” said Sir Charles, “it was something that he didn’t know that he knew.”

He went on, trying to make his meaning clear.

“It’s difficult to say just what I mean. Suppose, for instance (this is only an instance) that Babbington saw a certain person in a certain place at a certain time. As far as he knows, there’s no reason why that person had concocted a very clever alibi for some reason showing that at that particular time he was somewhere else a hundred miles away. Well, at any minute old Babbington, in the most innocent way in the world, might give the show away.”

“ I see,” said Egg. “Say there’s a murder committed in London, and Babbington sees the man who did it at Paddington Station, but the man has proved that he didn’t do it by having an alibi showing that he was at Leeds at the time. Then Babbington might give the whole show away.”

“That’s what I mean exactly. Of course that’s only an instance. It might be anything. Someone he saw that evening whom he’d known under a different name – ”

“It might be something to do with a marriage,” said Egg. “Clergyman do lots of marriages. Somebody who’d committed bigamy.”

“Or it might have to do with a birth or a death,” suggested Mr. Satterthwaite.

“It’s a very wide field,” said Egg, frowning. “We’ll have to get at it the other way. Work back from the people who were there. Let’s make a list. Who was at your house, and who was at Sir Bartholomew’s.”

She took the paper and pencil from Sir Charles.

“The Dacres, they were at both. That woman like a wilted cabbage, what’s her name Wills. Miss Sutcliffe. “

“You can leave Angela out of it,” said Sir Charles. “I’ve known her for years.”

Egg frowned mutinously.

“We can’t do that sort of thing,” she said. “Leave people out because we know them. We’ve got to be business-like. Besides, I don’t know anything about Angela Sutcliffe. She’s just as likely to have done it as anyone else, so far as I can see more likely. All actress have pasts. I think, on the whole, she’s the most likely person.”

She gazed defiantly at Sir Charles. There was an answering spark in his eyes.

“In that case we mustn’t leave out Oliver Manders.”

“How could it be Oliver? He’d met Mr. Babbington ever so many times before.”

“He was at both places, and his arrival is a little open to suspicion.”

“Very well,” said Egg. She paused, and then added: “In that case I’d better put down Mother and myself as well… That makes six suspects.”

“I don’t think ”

“We’ll do it properly, or not at all.” her eyes flashed.

Mr. Satterthwaite made peace by offering refreshment. He rang for drinks.

Sir Charles strolled off into a far corner to admire a head of Negro sculpture. Egg came over to Mr. Satterthwaite and slipped a hand through his arm.

“Stupid of me to have lost my temper,” she murmured. “I am stupid but why should the woman be expected? Why is he so keen she should be? Oh, dear, why the devil am I so disgustingly jealous?”

Mr. Satterthwaite smiled and patted her hand.

“Jealousy never pays, my dear,” he said. “If you feel jealous, don’t show it. By the way, did you really think young Manders might be suspected?”

Egg grinned – a friendly childish grin.

“Of course not. I put that in so as not to alarm the man.” She turned her head. Sir Charles was still moodily studying Negro sculpture. “You know I didn’t want him to feel he was being chased. But I don’t want him to think I really have a pash for Oliver because I haven’t. How difficult everything is! He’s gone back now to his ‘Bless you, my children,’ attitude. I don’t want that at all.”

“Have patience,” counselled Mr. Satterthwaite. “Everything comes right in the end, you know.”

“I’m not patient,” said Egg. “I want to have things at once, or even quicker.”

Mr. Satterthwaite laughed, and Sir Charles turned and came towards them.

As they sipped their drinks, they arranged a plan of campaign. Sir Charles should return to Crow's Nest, for which he had not yet found a purchaser. Egg and her mother would return to Rose Cottage rather sooner than they had meant to do. Mrs. Babbington was still living in Loomouth. They would get what information they could from her and then proceed to act upon it.

“We’ll succeed,” said Egg. “I know we’ll succeed.”

She leaned forward to Sir Charles, her eyes glowing. She held out her glass to touch his.

“Drink to ours success,” she commanded.

Slowly, very slowly, his eyes fixed on hers, he raised his glass to his lips.

“To success,” he said, “and to the Future… ”

Mrs. Babbington had moved into a small fisherman’s cottage not far from the harbour. She was expecting a sister home from Japan in about six months. Until her sister arrived she was making no plans for the future. The cottage chanced to be vacant, and she took it for six months. She felt too bewildered by her sudden loss to move away from Loomouth. Stephen Babbington had held the living of St. Petroch, Loomouth, for seventeen years. They had been, on the whole, seventeen happy and peaceful years, in spite of the sorrow occasioned by the death of her son Robin. Of her remaining children, Edward was in Ceylon, Lloyd was in South Africa, and Stephen was third officer on the Angolia . They wrote frequently and affectionately, but they could offer neither a home nor companionship to their mother.

Margaret Babbington was very lonely…