“I fancied so at first.
But I soon found that there was no evidence to support that theory.
Besides, my original stumbling block remained.
Even if it was you who put the nicotine into the cocktail glass, you could not have ensured its reaching one particular person.
“That was my problem. And suddenly a chance word from Miss Lytton Gore showed me light.”
“The poison was not intended especially for Stephen Babbington. It was intended for any one of those present, with three exceptions. These exceptions were Miss Lytton Gore, to whom you were careful to hand an innocent glass, yourself, and Sir Bartholomew Strange, who, you knew, did not drink cocktails.”
Mr. Satterthwaite cried out: “But that’s nonsense! What’s the point of it? There isn’t any.”
Poirot turned towards him.
Triumph came into his voice.
“Oh, yes, there is. A queer point - a very queer point.
The only time I have come across such a motive for murder.
The murder of Stephen Babbington was neither more nor less than a dress rehearsal.”
“What?”
“Yes, Sir Charles was an actor. He obeyed his actor’s instinct.
He tried out his murder before committing it.
No suspicion could possibly attach to him.
Not one of those people’s deaths could benefit him in any way, and, moreover, as everyone has found, he could not have been proved to have poisoned any particular person.
And, my friends, the dress rehearsal went well.
Mr. Babbington dies, and foul play is not even suspected.
It is left to Sir Charles to urge that suspicion and he is highly gratified at our refusal to take it seriously.
The substitution of the glass, too, that has gone without a hitch.
In fact, he can be sure that, when the real performance comes, it will be ‘all right on the night.’
“As you know, events took a slightly different turn.
On the second occasion a doctor was present who immediately suspected poison.
It was then to Sir Charles’s interests to stress the death of Babbington. Sir Bartholomew’s death must be presumed to be the outcome of the earlier death.
Attention must be focused on the motive for Babbington’s murder, not on any motive that might exist for Sir Bartholomew’s removal.
“But there was one thing that Sir Charles failed to realise - the efficient watchfulness of Miss Milray.
Miss Milray knew that her employer dabbled in chemical experiments in the tower in the garden.
Miss Milray paid bills for rose spraying solution, and realised that quite a lot of it had unaccountably disappeared.
When she read that Mr. Babbington had died of nicotine poisoning, her clever brain leaped at once to the conclusion that Sir Charles had extracted the pure alkaloid from the rose solution.
“And Miss Milray did not know what to do, for she had known Mr. Babbington as a little girl, and she was in love, deeply and devotedly as an ugly woman can be, with her fascinating employer.
“In the end she decided to destroy Sir Charles’s apparatus.
Sir Charles himself had been so cocksure of his success that he had never thought it necessary.
She went down to Cornwall, and I followed.”
Again Sir Charles laughed.
More than ever he looked a fine gentleman disgusted by a rat.
“Is some old chemical apparatus all your evidence?” he demanded contemptuously.
“No,” said Poirot. “There is your passport showing the dates when you returned to and left England.
And there is the fact that in the Harverton County Asylum there is a woman, Gladys Mary Mugg, the wife of Charles Mugg.”
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 hypnotised. 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, s 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.