Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie Page A

glasses on it, and I carried the tray out to the pantry, and there they were, sir, when the police came to examine them. The port glasses were still on the table. And the police didn’t find anything.”
    “You’re quite sure that the doctor didn’t have anything to eat or drink at dinner that nobody else had?”
    “Not that I saw, sir. In fact, I’m sure he didn’t.”
    “Nothing that one of the guests gave him - ”
    “Oh, no, sir.”
    “Do you know anything about a secret passage, Alice?”
    “One of the gardeners told me something about it. Comes out in the wood where there’s some old walls and things tumbled down. But I’ve never seen any opening to it in the house.”
    “Ellis never said anything about it?”
    “Oh, no, sir, he wouldn’t know anything about it, I’m sure.”
    “Who do you really think killed your master, Alice?”
    “I don’t know, Sir. I can’t believe anyone did ... I feel it must have been some kind of accident.”
    “H’m. Thank you, Alice.”
    “If it wasn’t for the death of Babbington,” said Sir Charles as the girl left the room, “we could make her the criminal. She’s a good-looking girl ... And she waited at table ... No, it won’t do. Babbington was murdered; and anyway Tollie never noticed good-looking girls. He wasn’t made that way.”
    “But he was fifty-five,” said Mr. Satterthwaite thoughtfully.
    “Why do you say that?”
    “It’s the age a man loses his head badly about a girl - even if he hasn’t done so before.”
    “Dash it all, Satterthwaite, I’m - er - getting on for fifty-five.”
    “I know,” said Satterthwaite.
    And before his gentle twinkling gaze Sir Charles’s eyes fell.
    Unmistakably he blushed ...

Three Act Tragedy
    10
    “How about an examination of Ellis’s room?” asked Mr. Satterthwaite, having enjoyed the spectacle of Sir Charles’s blush to the full.
    The actor seized at the diversion.
    “Excellent, excellent. Just what I was about to suggest myself.”
    “Of course the police have already searched it thoroughly.”
    “The police - ”
    Aristide Duval waved the police away scornfully. Anxious to forget his momentary discomfiture, he flung himself with renewed vigour into his part.
    “The police are blockheads,” he said sweepingly. “What have they looked for in Ellis’s room? Evidences of his guilt. We shall look for evidences of his innocence - an entirely different thing.”
    “You’re completely convinced of Ellis’s innocence?”
    “If we’re right about Babbington, he must be innocent.”
    “Yes, besides - ”
    Mr. Satterthwaite did not finish his sentence. He had been about to say that if Ellis was a professional criminal who had been detected by Sir Bartholomew and had murdered him in consequence the whole affair would become unbearably dull. Just in time he remembered that Sir Bartholomew had been a friend of Sir Charles Cartwright’s and was duly appalled by the callousness of the sentiments he had nearly revealed.
    At first sight Ellis’s room did not seem to offer much promise of discovery. The clothes in the drawers and hanging in the cupboard were all neatly arranged. They were well cut, and bore different tailors’ marks. Clearly cast-offs given him in different situations. The underclothing was on the same scale. The boots were neatly polished and arranged on trees.
    Mr. Satterthwaite picked up a boot and murmured, “Nines, just so, nines.” But since there were no footprints in the case, that didn’t seem to lead anywhere.
    It seemed clear from its absence that Ellis had departed in his butler’s kit, and Mr. Satterthwaite pointed out to Sir Charles that that seemed rather remarkable fact.
    “Any man in his senses would have changed into an ordinary suit.”
    “Yes, it’s odd that ... Looks almost, though that’s absurd, as if he hadn’t gone at all ... Nonsense, of course.”
    They continued their search. No letters, no papers, except a cutting from a newspaper regarding a cure