Three Act Tragedy

Renowned stage actor Sir Charles Cartwright hosts a dinner party at his home in Cornwall. His guests include: Hercule Poirot; Dr Bartholomew Strange; Lady Mary Lytton Gore, and her daughter Hermione “Egg” Gore; Captain Dacres and his wife Cynthia; Muriel Wills; Oliver Manders; Mr Satterthwaite; and Reverend Babbington and his wife. When Babbington suddenly dies after sipping one of the cocktails being served, Cartwright believes it was murder. An investigation finds no poison in his glass. After his funeral, Poirot travels to Monte Carlo, where he is met with news from Satterthwaite and Cartwright that Dr Strange is dead. While holding a dinner party at his home in Yorkshire, Strange suddenly died after drinking a glass of port wine. The coroner rules he was poisoned with nicotine, despite there being no trace of it in his glass. With the exception of the three men, Strange's guests are the same ones who attended Cartwright's party. Due to the similarities, Babbington's body is exhumed, whereupon police find he died from the same cause.

Both Satterthwaite and Cartwright return to England to investigate the murders. They learn that prior to the party, Strange had sent his usual butler away for two months. A temporary replacement he hired named Ellis has since disappeared. Satterthwaite and Cartwright later find evidence showing that Ellis hoped to blackmail someone, while a serving maid recalls that Ellis acted strangely for a butler. When Wills is interviewed, she recalls noticing something odd at the party, and that Ellis has a birthmark on one hand. Some time later, Wills disappears. When Poirot returns to London to offer counsel on the case, he receives a telegram from Mrs De Rushbridger, a female patient at Strange's sanatorium in Yorkshire, who arrived on the day Strange died. Poirot and Satterthwaite go to meet her, only to find that she had been murdered with nicotine before their arrival. The poison had been concealed in some chocolates she had received anonymously. Learning that Cartwright's servant, Miss Milray, is hastily heading to Cornwall, Poirot follows her to find out why.

Upon his return, Poirot assembles everyone, and denounces Sir Charles Cartwright as the killer. Cartwright wants to marry Hermione, but already has a wife who resides in a lunatic asylum. As he cannot divorce her under British law, he decided to conceal this knowledge by murdering Dr Strange, the only witness to this marriage. After his party, Cartwright convinced Strange to let him assume the role of his butler, and then secretly poisoned him during his party. He left false evidence to suggest the motive was blackmail, and travelled to Monte Carlo the day after to establish his alibi. The first murder was a dress rehearsal for the second: Cartwright wished to test if he could switch the glass containing the poison. The murder of Mrs De Rushbridger was purely to create a false lead.

Poirot reveals that the nicotine poison came from distilling equipment Cartwright hid near his Cornwall residence; it was found by him, when Miss Milray went to destroy it. His suspicions about Cartwright were based on a few facts. Strange didn't drink the poisoned cocktail because he disliked cocktails, while Cartwright ensured Hermione didn't drink it; he didn't care who else amongst his guests drank it. Mrs De Rushbridger's telegram to Poirot was sent by Cartwright himself. Milray knows he is the murderer; her actions showed she sought to protect him. Wills also suspected him when she spoke up about Ellis; Poirot hid her away before Cartwright could murder her. Cartwright flees, but Poirot doesn't expect him to get far. Hermione is paired up with Manders. In the aftermath of the investigation, Satterthwaite remarks how he could have drunk the poisoned cocktail, to which Poirot remarks there was an even more terrible possibility: "It might have been me".

• Hercule Poirot - Renowned Belgian detective. A friend of Sir Charles, involved in investigating the case after the murder of Dr Strange.
• Sir Charles Cartwright - The killer of the case. Well-known stage actor, and Poirot's assistant in his investigations; his role has similar traits to that of Dr Sheppard in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
• Mr Satterthwaite - A sociable and observant man. Assists in initially investigating the case on Poirot's behalf.
• Reverend Babbington - First victim of the case. A local vicar in Cornwall, murdered during a cocktail party organised by Sir Charles. Initially believed to have died of natural causes.
• Dr Bartholomew Strange - Second victim of the case. Nerve specialist and long time friend of Sir Charles, and head of a sanitarium near his home in Yorkshire.
• Mrs De Rushbridger - Third victim of the case. Patient at Strange’s sanatorium, recently arrived on the day Dr Strange is murdered.
• Hermione Lytton Gore - An attractive, young, single woman, known by the nickname of "Egg". The love interest of Sir Charles, and one of his guests at his cocktail party.
• Lady Mary Lytton Gore - Mother of Hermione, and a guest at Sir Charles' cocktail party. She seeks a suitable husband for her daughter, and currently faces difficult financial circumstances.
• Captain Dacres - A gambler, and a guest at Sir Charles' cocktail party.
• Cynthia Dacres - Wife of Captain Dacres. A successful dressmaker, and a guest at Sir Charles' cocktail party.
• Angela Sutcliffe - A well-known actress, and a guest at Sir Charles' cocktail party.
• Mrs Babbington - Reverend Babbington's wife, and the local curate of his church. One of the guests at Sir Charles' cocktail party.
• Muriel Wills - A playwright, also known as Anthony Astor. One of the guests at Sir Charles' cocktail party.
• Oliver Manders - A young motorcycle mechanic, who is in love with Hermione. One of the guests at Sir Charles' cocktail party.
• Miss Milray - Long-time servant to Sir Charles. She is secretly in love with him.
• Ellis - Mysterious new butler at the home of Dr Strange. Disappears shortly after his employer's death; later revealed to be Cartwright in disguise.

The Times Literary Supplement of 31 January 1935 admitted that "Very few readers will guess the murderer before Hercule Poirot reveals the secret", but complained that the motive of the murderer "injures an otherwise very good story".[4]

Isaac Anderson in The New York Times Book Review of 7 October 1934, said that the motive was "most unusual, if not positively unique in the annals of crime. Since this is an Agatha Christie novel featuring Hercule Poirot as its leading character, it is quite unnecessary to say that it makes uncommonly good reading".[5]

In The Observer's issue of 6 January 1935, "Torquemada" (Edward Powys Mathers) said, "Her gift is pure genius, of leading the reader by the nose in a zigzag course up the garden and dropping the lead just when she wishes him to scamper to the kill. Three Act Tragedy is not among this author's best detective stories; but to say that it heads her second best is praise enough. The technique of misleadership is, as usual, superb; but, when all comes out, some of the minor threads of motive do not quite convince. Mrs Christie has, quite apart from her special gift, steadily improved and matured as a writer, from the-strange-affair-of-style to this charming and sophisticated piece of prose".[6]

Milward Kennedy in The Guardian (29 January 1935) opened his review with, "The year has opened most satisfactorily. Mrs Christie's Three Act Tragedy is up to her best level"; he summarised the set-up of the plot but then added, "A weak (but perhaps inevitable point) is the disappearance of a butler; the reader, that is to say, is given rather too broad a hint. But the mechanics of the story are ingenious and plausible, the characters (as always with Mrs Christie) are life-like and lively. Poirot does not take the stage very often, but when he does he is in great form."[7]

Robert Barnard commented much later that the "[s]trategy of deception here is one that by this date ought to have been familiar to Christie's readers. This is perhaps not one of the best examples of the trick, because few of the characters other than the murderer are well individualised. The social mix here is more artistic and sophisticated than is usual in Christie."[8]

• Colonel Johnson alludes to the events of this story in part 3, section V of Hercule Poirot's Christmas.
• Poirot refers to the events of this novel in The A.B.C. Murders (1936) when he and Arthur Hastings reunite after not seeing each other for several years. Poirot is telling Hastings about his experiences since retiring. He relates that he was almost "exterminated" himself recently by a murderer who was "not so much enterprising as careless".[9]

• In Act 3 Chapter 5 Poirot says that once he had a failure in his professional career that happened in Belgium, hinting at the story The Chocolate Box. In Act 2, Chapter 1 Poirot makes a hint to The Mysterious Affair at Styles while talking to Satterthwaite.
• In the end of Act 2 Chapter 3, Satterthwaite tells Sir Charles Cartwright that it is not the first time that he is investigating crimes. He is just starting to tell about the events of the story At the "Bells and Motley" when Sir Charles interrupts him and starts to tell his own story.
• In Act 2, Chapter 1, Sir Charles Cartwright discusses reserving a compartment on the "Blue Train" in order to travel from France to England. This is the titular train from another Poirot mystery, The Mystery of the Blue Train, published in 1928.

Dustjacket illustration of the UK First Edition (1935)

• 1934, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), Hardback, 279 pp
• 1935, Collins Crime Club (London), January 1935, Hardback, 256 pp
• 1945, Avon Books (New York), Paperback, (Avon number 61), 230 pp
• 1957, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), Paperback, 192 pp
• 1961, Popular Library (New York), Paperback, 175 pp
• 1964, Pan Books, Paperback (Pan number X275), 203 pp
• 1972, Greenway edition of collected works (William Collins), Hardcover, 253 pp, ISBN 0-00-231816-4
• 1973, Greenway edition of collected works (Dodd Mead), Hardcover, 253 pp
• 1975, Ulverscroft Large Print Edition, Hardcover, 351 pp, ISBN 0-85456-326-1
• 2006, Poirot Facsimile Edition (Facsimile of 1935 UK First Edition), HarperCollins, 6 November 2006, Hardback ISBN 0-00-723441-4

Two recent audiobook versions have been released.

• 2003, BBC Audiobooks released an unabridged reading by Andrew Sachs.
• 2012, HarperAudio released an unabridged reading by Hugh Fraser.

The novel's true first publication was the serialisation in the Saturday Evening Post in six instalments from 9 June (Volume 206, Number 50) to 14 July 1934 (Volume 207, Number 2) under the title Murder in Three Acts, with illustrations by John La Gatta. This novel is one of two to differ significantly in American editions (the other being The Moving Finger), both hardcover and paperback. The American edition of Three Act Tragedy changes the motive of the killer, but not so significantly as to require adjustment in other chapters of the novel. It is helpful to keep this difference in mind when reading the reviews quoted in the section Literary significance and reception.

In 1935 the novel became Christie's first title to sell 10,000 copies in its first year.[10]

• Three Act Tragedy at the official Agatha Christie website
• Three Act Tragedy at new official Agatha Christie website
• Murder in Three Acts (1986) at IMDb
• Three Act Tragedy (2010) at IMDb