Egg had so far sat silent—a frozen figure. But now she stirred. A little cry—almost a moan—came from her.
Sir Charles turned superbly.
“Egg, you don’t believe a word of this absurd story, do you?”
He laughed. His hands were outstretched.
Egg came slowly forward as though hypnotized. Her eyes, appealing, tortured, gazed into her lover’s. And then, just before she reached him, she wavered, her glance fell, went this way and that as though seeking for reassurance.
Then with a cry she fell on her knees by Poirot.
“Is this true? Is this true?”
He put both hands on her shoulders, a firm, kindly touch.
“It is true, mademoiselle.”
There was no sound then but Egg’s sobs.
Sir Charles seemed suddenly to have aged. It was an old man’s face, a leering satyr’s face.
“God damn you,” he said.
And never, in all his acting career, had words come with such utter and compelling malignancy.
Then he turned and went out of the room.
Mr. Satterthwaite half sprang up from his chair, but Poirot shook his head, his hand still gently stroking the sobbing girl.
“He’ll escape,” said Mr. Satterthwaite.
Poirot shook his head.
“No, he will only choose his exit. The slow one before the eyes of the world, or the quick one off stage.”
The door opened softly and someone came in. It was Oliver Manders. His usual sneering expression was gone. He looked white and unhappy.
Poirot bent over the girl.
“See, mademoiselle,” he said gently. “Here is a friend come to take you home.”
Egg rose to her feet. She looked uncertainly towards Oliver then made a step stumblingly towards him.
“Oliver…Take me to Mother. Oh, take me to Mother.”
He put an arm round her and drew her towards the door.
“Yes, dear, I’ll take you. Come.”
Egg’s legs were trembling so that she could hardly walk. Between them Oliver and Mr. Satterthwaite guided her footsteps. At the door she took a hold upon herself and threw back her head.
“I’m all right.”
Poirot made a gesture, and Oliver Manders came back into the room.
“Be very good to her,” said Poirot.
“I will, sir. She’s all I care about in the world—you know that. Love for her made me bitter and cynical. But I shall be different now. I’m ready to stand by. And someday, perhaps—”
“I think so,” said Poirot. “I think she was beginning to care for you when he came along and dazzled her. Hero-worship is a real and terrible danger to the young. Someday Egg will fall in love with a friend, and build her happiness upon rock.”
He looked kindly after the young man as he left the room.
Presently Mr. Satterthwaite returned.
“M. Poirot,” he said. “You have been wonderful—absolutely wonderful.”
Poirot put on his modest look.
“It is nothing—nothing. A tragedy in three acts—and now the curtain has fallen.”
“You’ll excuse me—” said Mr. Satterthwaite.
“Yes, there is some point you want explained to you?”
“There is one thing I want to know.”
“Ask then.”
“Why do you sometimes speak perfectly good English and at other times not?”
Poirot laughed.
“Ah, I will explain. It is true that I can speak the exact, the idiomatic English. But, my friend, to speak the broken English is an enormous asset. It leads people to despise you. They say—a foreigner—he can’t even speak English properly. It is not my policy to terrify people—instead I invite their gentle ridicule. Also I boast! An Englishman he says often, ‘A fellow who thinks as much of himself as that cannot be worth much.’ That is the English point of view. It is not at all true. And so, you see, I put people off their guard. Besides,” he added, “it has become a habit.”
“Dear me,” said Mr. Satterthwaite, “quite the cunning of the serpent.”
He was silent for a moment or two, thinking over the case.
“I’m afraid I have not shone over this matter,” he said vexedly.
“On the contrary. You appreciated that important point—Sir Bartholomew’s remark about the butler—you realized the astute observation of Miss Wills. In fact, you could have solved the whole thing but for your playgoer’s reaction to dramatic effect.”
Mr. Satterthwaite looked cheerful.
Suddenly an idea struck him. His jaw fell.
“My goodness,” he cried, “I’ve only just realized it. That rascal, with his poisoned cocktail! Anyone might have drunk it. It might have been me.”
“There is an even more terrible possibility that you have not considered,” said Poirot.
“Eh?”
“It might have been ME,” said Hercule Poirot.
* * *
The Agatha Christie Collection
THE HERCULE POIROT MYSTERIES
Match your wits with the famous Belgian detective.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Murder on the Links
Poirot Investigates
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Big Four
The Mystery of the Blue Train
Peril at End House
Lord Edgware Dies
Murder on the Orient Express
Three Act Tragedy
Death in the Clouds
The A.B.C. Murders
Murder in Mesopotamia
Cards on the Table
Murder in the Mews
Dumb Witness
Death on the Nile
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
Sad Cypress
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
Evil Under the Sun
Five Little Pigs
The Hollow
The Labors of Hercules
Taken at the Flood
The Underdog and Other Stories
Mrs. McGinty’s Dead
After the Funeral
Hickory Dickory Dock
Dead Man’s Folly
Cat Among the Pigeons
The Clocks
Third Girl
Hallowe’en Party
Elephants Can Remember
Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case
Explore more at www.AgathaChristie.com
* * *
* * *
The Agatha Christie Collection
THE MISS MARPLE MYSTERIES
Join the legendary spinster sleuth from St. Mary Mead in solving murders far and wide.
The Murder at the Vicarage
The Body in the Library
The Moving Finger
A Murder Is Announced
They Do It with Mirrors
A Pocket Full of Rye
4:50 From Paddington
The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side
A Caribbean Mystery
At Bertram’s Hotel
Nemesis
Sleeping Murder
Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories
THE TOMMY AND TUPPENCE MYSTERIES
Jump on board with the entertaining crime-solving couple from Young Adventurers Ltd.
The Secret Adversary
Partners in Crime
N or M?
By the Pricking of My Thumbs
Postern of Fate
Explore more at www.AgathaChristie.com
* * *
* * *
The Agatha Christie Collection
Don’t miss a single one of Agatha Christie’s stand-alone novels and short-story collections.
The Man in the Brown Suit
The Secret of Chimneys
The Seven Dials Mystery
The Mysterious Mr. Quin
The Sittaford Mystery
Parker Pyne Investigates
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?
Mur
der Is Easy
The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories
And Then There Were None
Towards Zero
Death Comes as the End
Sparkling Cyanide
The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories
Crooked House
Three Blind Mice and Other Stories
They Came to Baghdad
Destination Unknown
Ordeal by Innocence
Double Sin and Other Stories
The Pale Horse
Star over Bethlehem: Poems and Holiday Stories
Passenger to Frankfurt
The Golden Ball and Other Stories
The Mousetrap and Other Plays
The Harlequin Tea Set
Explore more at www.AgathaChristie.com
* * *
About the Author
Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She is the author of eighty crime novels and short-story collections, nineteen plays, two memoirs, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott.
She first tried her hand at detective fiction while working in a hospital dispensary during World War I, creating the now legendary Hercule Poirot with her debut novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. With The Murder in the Vicarage, published in 1930, she introduced another beloved sleuth, Miss Jane Marple. Additional series characters include the husband-and-wife crime-fighting team of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, private investigator Parker Pyne, and Scotland Yard detectives Superintendent Battle and Inspector Japp.
Many of Christie’s novels and short stories were adapted into plays, films, and television series. The Mousetrap, her most famous play of all, opened in 1952 and is the longest-running play in history. Among her best-known film adaptations are Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978), with Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov playing Hercule Poirot, respectively. On the small screen Poirot has been most memorably portrayed by David Suchet, and Miss Marple by Joan Hickson and subsequently Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie.
Christie was first married to Archibald Christie and then to archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, whom she accompanied on expeditions to countries that would also serve as the settings for many of her novels. In 1971 she achieved one of Britain’s highest honors when she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five. Her one hundred and twentieth anniversary was celebrated around the world in 2010.
www.AgathaChristie.com
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THE AGATHA CHRISTIE COLLECTION
The Man in the Brown Suit
The Secret of Chimneys
The Seven Dials Mystery
The Mysterious Mr. Quin
The Sittaford Mystery
Parker Pyne Investigates
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?
Murder Is Easy
The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories
And Then There Were None
Towards Zero
Death Comes as the End
Sparkling Cyanide
The Witness for the Prosecution and
Other Stories
Crooked House
Three Blind Mice and Other Stories
They Came to Baghdad
Destination Unknown
Ordeal by Innocence
Double Sin and Other Stories
The Pale Horse
Star over Bethlehem: Poems and
Holiday Stories
Endless Night
Passenger to Frankfurt
The Golden Ball and Other Stories
The Mousetrap and Other Plays
The Harlequin Tea Set
The Hercule Poirot Mysteries
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Murder on the Links
Poirot Investigates
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Big Four
The Mystery of the Blue Train
Peril at End House
Lord Edgware Dies
Murder on the Orient Express
Three Act Tragedy
Death in the Clouds
The A.B.C. Murders
Murder in Mesopotamia
Cards on the Table
Murder in the Mews
Dumb Witness
Death on the Nile
Appointment with Death
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
Sad Cypress
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
Evil Under the Sun
Five Little Pigs
The Hollow
The Labors of Hercules
Taken at the Flood
The Underdog and Other Stories
Mrs. McGinty’s Dead
After the Funeral
Hickory Dickory Dock
Dead Man’s Folly
Cat Among the Pigeons
The Clocks
Third Girl
Hallowe’en Party
Elephants Can Remember
Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case
The Miss Marple Mysteries
The Murder at the Vicarage
The Body in the Library
The Moving Finger
A Murder Is Announced
They Do It with Mirrors
A Pocket Full of Rye
4:50 from Paddington
The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side
A Caribbean Mystery
At Bertram’s Hotel
Nemesis
Sleeping Murder
Miss Marple: The Complete
Short Stories
The Tommy and Tuppence Mysteries
The Secret Adversary
Partners in Crime
N or M?
By the Pricking of My Thumbs
Postern of Fate
Memoirs
An Autobiography
Come, Tell Me How You Live
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
This title was previously published as Murder in Three Acts.
AGATHA CHRISTIE® POIROT® THREE ACT TRAGEDY™. Copyright © 1934 Agatha Christie Limited (a Chorion company). All rights reserved.
THREE ACT TRAGEDY © 1934. Published by permission of G.P. Putnam’s Sons, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN: 978-0-06-207383-9
EPub Edition © MAY 2011 ISBN: 978-0-06-175403-6
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