Three Act Tragedy

CHAPTER 2 Incident Before Dinner

The principal interest of Mr Satterthwaite’s life was people.

He was on the whole more interested in women than men. For a manly man, Mr Satterthwaite knew far too much about women. There was a womanish strain in his character which lent him insight into the feminine mind. Women all his life had confided in him, but they had never taken him seriously. Sometimes he felt a little bitter about this. He was, he felt, always in the stalls watching the play, never on the stage taking part in the drama. But in truth the role of onlooker suited him very well.

This evening, sitting in the large room giving on to the terrace, cleverly decorated by a modern firm to resemble a ship’s cabin de luxe, he was principally interested in the exact shade of hair dye attained by Cynthia Dacres. It was an entirely new tone—straight from Paris, he suspected—a curious and rather pleasing effect of greenish bronze. What Mrs Dacres really looked like it was impossible to tell. She was a tall woman with a figure perfectly disciplined to the demands of the moment. Her neck and arms were her usual shade of summer tan for the country—whether naturally or artificially produced it was impossible to tell. The greenish bronze hair was set in a clever and novel style that only London’s best hairdresser could achieve. Her plucked eyebrows, darkened lashes, exquisitively made-up face, and mouth lipsticked to a curve that its naturally straight line did not possess, seemed all adjuncts to the perfection of her evening gown of a deep and unusual blue, cut very simply it seemed (though this was ludicrously far from the case) and of an unusual material—dull, but with hidden lights in it.

‘That’s a clever woman,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, eyeing her with approval. ‘I wonder what she’s really like.’

But this time he meant in mind, not in body.

Her words came drawlingly, in the mode of the moment.

‘My dear, it wasn’t possible. I mean, things either are possible or they’re not. This wasn’t. It was simply penetrating.’

That was the new word just now—everything was ‘penetrating’.

Sir Charles was vigorously shaking cocktails and talking to Angela Sutcliffe, a tall, grey-haired woman with a mischievous mouth and fine eyes.

Dacres was talking to Bartholomew Strange.

‘Everyone knows what’s wrong with old Ladisbourne. The whole stable knows.’

He spoke in a high clipped voice—a little red, foxy man with a short moustache and slightly shifty eyes.

Beside Mr Satterthwaite sat Miss Wills, whose play, One-Way Traffic, had been acclaimed as one of the most witty and daring seen in London for some years. Miss Wills was tall and thin, with a receding chin and very badly waved fair hair. She wore pince-nez, and was dressed in exceedingly limp green chiffon. Her voice was high and undistinguished.

‘I went to the South of France,’ she said. ‘But, really, I didn’t enjoy it very much. Not friendly at all. But of course it’s useful to me in my work—to see all the goings-on, you know.’

Mr Satterthwaite thought: ‘Poor soul. Cut off by success from her spiritual home—a boarding-house in Bournemouth. That’s where she’d like to be.’ He marvelled at the difference between written works and their authors. That cultivated ‘man-of-the-world’ tone that Anthony Astor imparted to his plays—what faintest spark of it could be perceived in Miss Wills? Then he noticed that the pale-blue eyes behind the pince-nez were singularly intelligent. They were turned on him now with an appraising look that slightly disconcerted him. It was as though Miss Wills were painstakingly learning him by heart.

Sir Charles was just pouring out the cocktails.

‘Let me get you a cocktail,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, springing up.

Miss Wills giggled.

‘I don’t mind if I do,’ she said.

The door opened and Temple announced Lady Mary Lytton Gore and Mr and Mrs Babbington and Miss Lytton Gore.

Mr Satterthwaite supplied Miss Wills with her cocktail and then sidled into the neighbourhood of Lady Mary Lytton Gore. As has been stated before, he had a weakness for titles.

Also, apart from snobbishness, he liked a gentlewoman, and that Lady Mary most undeniably was.

Left as a widow very badly off with a child of three, she had come to Loomouth and taken a small cottage where she had lived with one devoted maid ever since. She was a tall thin woman, looking older than her fifty-five years. Her expression was sweet and rather timid. She adored her daughter, but was a little alarmed by her.

Hermione Lytton Gore, usually known for some obscure reason as Egg, bore little resemblance to her mother. She was of a more energetic type. She was not, Mr Satterthwaite decided, beautiful, but she was undeniably attractive. And the cause of that attraction, he thought, lay in her abounding vitality. She seemed twice as alive as anyone in that room. She had dark hair, and grey eyes and was of medium height. It was something in the way the hair curled crisply in her neck, in the straight glance of the grey eyes, in the curve of the cheek, in the infectious laugh that gave one that impression of riotous youth and vitality.

She stood talking to Oliver Manders, who had just arrived.

‘I can’t think why sailing bores you so much. You used to like it.’

‘Egg—my dear. One grows up.’

He drawled the words, raising his eyebrows.

A handsome young fellow, twenty-five at a guess. Something, perhaps, a little sleek about his good looks. Something else—something—was it foreign? Something unEnglish about him.

Somebody else was watching Oliver Manders. A little man with an egg-shaped head and very foreign-looking moustaches. Mr Satterthwaite had recalled himself to M. Hercule Poirot’s memory. The little man had been very affable. Mr Satterthwaite suspected him of deliberately exaggerating his foreign mannerisms. His small twinkly eyes seemed to say, ‘You expect me to be the buffoon? To play the comedy for you? Bien—it shall be as you wish!’

But there was no twinkle now in Hercule Poirot’s eyes. He looked grave and a little sad.

The Rev. Stephen Babbington, rector of Loomouth, came and joined Lady Mary and Mr Satterthwaite. He was a man of sixty odd, with kind faded eyes and a disarming diffident manner. He said to Mr Satterthwaite:

‘We are very lucky to have Sir Charles living among us. He has been most kind—most generous. A very pleasant neighbour to have. Lady Mary agrees, I am sure.’

Lady Mary smiled.

‘I like him very much. His success hasn’t spoilt him. In many ways he is,’ her smile deepened, ‘a child still.’

The parlourmaid approached with the tray of cocktails as Mr Satterthwaite reflected how unendingly maternal women were. Being of the Victorian generation, he approved that trait.

‘You can have a cocktail, Mums,’ said Egg, flashing up to them, glass in hand. ‘Just one.’

‘Thank you, dear,’ said Lady Mary meekly.

‘I think,’ said Mr Babbington, ‘that my wife would allow me to have one.’

And he laughed a little gentle clerical laugh.

Mr Satterthwaite glanced over at Mrs Babbington, who was talking earnestly to Sir Charles on the subject of manure.

‘She’s got fine eyes,’ he thought.

Mrs Babbington was a big untidy woman. She looked full of energy and likely to be free from petty mindedness. As Charles Cartwright had said—a nice woman.

‘Tell me,’ Lady Mary leaned forward. ‘Who is the young woman you were talking to when we came in—the one in green?’

‘That’s the playwright—Anthony Astor.’

‘What? That—that anaemic-looking young woman? Oh!’ She caught herself up. ‘How dreadful of me. But it was a surprise. She doesn’t look—I mean she looks exactly like an inefficient nursery governess.’

It was such an apt description of Miss Wills’ appearance that Mr Satterthwaite laughed. Mr Babbington was peering across the room with amiable short-sighted eyes. He took a sip of his cocktail and choked a little. He was unused to cocktails, thought Mr Satterthwaite amusedly—probably they represented modernity to his mind—but he didn’t like them. Mr Babbington took another determined mouthful with a slightly wry face and said:

‘Is it the lady over there? Oh dear—’

His hand went to his throat.

Egg Lytton Gore’s voice rang out:

‘Oliver—you slippery Shylock—’

‘Of course,’ thought Mr Satterthwaite, ‘that’s it—not foreign—Jew!’

What a handsome pair they made. Both so young and good-looking … and quarrelling, too—always a healthy sign …

He was distracted by a sound at his side. Mr Babbington had risen to his feet and was swaying to and fro. His face was convulsed.

It was Egg’s clear voice that drew the attention of the room, though Lady Mary had risen and stretched out an anxious hand.

‘Look,’ said Egg’s voice. ‘Mr Babbington is ill.’

Sir Bartholomew Strange came forward hurriedly, supporting the stricken man and half lifting him to a couch at one side of the room. The others crowded round, anxious to help, but impotent …

Two minutes later Strange straightened himself and shook his head. He spoke bluntly, aware that it was no use to beat about the bush.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘He’s dead …’