Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case

‘You really mean it?’ I gasped.

‘Of course I mean it. You and I, Hastings, are going hunting once again.’

It took some minutes to grasp that Poirot was really in earnest.

Fantastic though his statement sounded, I had no reason to doubt his judgement.

With a slight smile he said, ‘At last you are convinced. At first you imagined, did you not, that I had the softening of the brain?’

‘No, no,’ I said hastily. ‘Only this seems such an unlikely place.’

‘Ah, you think so?’

‘Of course I haven’t seen all the people yet –’

‘Whom have you seen?’

‘Just the Luttrells, and a man called Norton, seems an inoffensive chap, and Boyd Carrington – I must say I took the greatest fancy to him.’

Poirot nodded. ‘Well, Hastings, I will tell you this, when you have seen the rest of the household, my statement will seem to you just as improbable as it is now.’

‘Who else is there?’

‘The Franklins – Doctor and Mrs, the hospital nurse who attends to Mrs Franklin, your daughter Judith. Then there is a man called Allerton, something of a lady-killer, and a Miss Cole, a woman in her thirties. They are all, let me tell you, very nice people.’

‘And one of them is a murderer?’

‘And one of them is a murderer.’

‘But why – how – why should you think –?’

I found it hard to frame my questions, they tumbled over each other.

‘Calm yourself, Hastings. Let us begin from the beginning. Reach me, I pray you, that small box from the bureau. Bien. And now the key – so –’

Unlocking the despatch case, he took from it a mass of typescript and newspaper clippings.

‘You can study these at your leisure, Hastings. For the moment I should not bother with the newspaper cuttings. They are merely the press accounts of various tragedies, occasionally inaccurate, sometimes suggestive. To give you an idea of the cases I suggest that you should read through the précis I have made.’

Deeply interested, I started reading.

CASE A. ETHERINGTON

Leonard Etherington. Unpleasant habits – took drugs and also drank. A peculiar and sadistic character. Wife young and attractive. Desperately unhappy with him. Etherington died, apparently of food poisoning. Doctor not satisfied. As a result of autopsy, death discovered to be due to arsenical poisoning. Supply of weed-killer in the house, but ordered a long time previously. Mrs Etherington arrested and charged with murder. She had recently been friends with a man in Civil Service returning to India. No suggestion of actual infidelity, but evidence of deep sympathy between them. Young man had since become engaged to be married to girl he met on voyage out. Some doubt as to whether letter telling Mrs Etherington of this fact was received by her after or before her husband’s death. She herself says before. Evidence against her mainly circumstantial, absence of another likely suspect and accident highly unlikely. Great sympathy felt with her at trial owing to husband’s character and the bad treatment she had received from him. Judge’s summing up was in her favour stressing that verdict must be beyond any reasonable doubt.

Mrs Etherington was acquitted. General opinion, however, was that she was guilty. Her life afterwards very difficult owing to friends, etc., cold shouldering her. She died as a result of taking an overdose of sleeping draught two years after the trial. Verdict of accidental death returned at inquest.

CASE B. MISS SHARPLES

Elderly spinster. An invalid. Difficult, suffering much pain.

She was looked after by her niece, Freda Clay. Miss Sharples died as a result of an overdose of morphia. Freda Clay admitted an error, saying that her aunt’s sufferings were so bad that she could not stand it and gave her more morphia to ease the pain. Opinion of police that act was deliberate, not a mistake, but they considered evidence insufficient on which to prosecute.

CASE C. EDWARD RIGGS

Agricultural labourer. Suspected his wife of infidelity with their lodger, Ben Craig. Craig and Mrs Riggs found shot. Shots proved to be from Riggs’s gun. Riggs gave himself up to the police, said he supposed he must have done it, but couldn’t remember. His mind went blank, he said. Riggs sentenced to death, sentence afterwards commuted to penal servitude for life.

CASE D. DEREK BRADLEY

Was carrying on an intrigue with a girl. His wife discovered this, she threatened to kill him. Bradley died of potassium cyanide administered in his beer. Mrs Bradley arrested and tried for murder. Broke down under cross examination. Convicted and hanged.

CASE E. MATTHEW LITCHFIELD

Elderly tyrant. Four daughters at home, not allowed any pleasures or money to spend. One evening on returning home, he was attacked outside his side door and killed by a blow on the head. Later, after police investigation, his eldest daughter, Margaret, walked into the police station and gave herself up for her father’s murder. She did it, she said, in order that her younger sisters might be able to have a life of their own before it was too late. Litchfield left a large fortune. Margaret Litchfield was adjudged insane and committed to Broadmoor, but died shortly afterwards.

I read carefully, but with a growing bewilderment. Finally I put the paper down and looked enquiringly at Poirot.

‘Well, mon ami?’

‘I remember the Bradley case,’ I said slowly, ‘I read about it at the time. She was a very good-looking woman.’

Poirot nodded.

‘But you must enlighten me. What is all this about?’

‘Tell me first what it amounts to in your eyes.’

I was rather puzzled.

‘What you gave me was an account of five different murders. They all occurred in different places and amongst different classes of people. Moreover there seems no superficial resemblance between them. That is to say, one was a case of jealousy, one was an unhappy wife seeking to get rid of her husband, another had money for a motive, another was, you might say, unselfish in aim since the murderer did not try to escape punishment, and the fifth was frankly brutal, probably committed under the influence of drink.’ I paused and said doubtfully: ‘Is there something in common between them all that I have missed?’

‘No, no, you have been very accurate in your summing up. The only point that you might have mentioned, but did not, was the fact that in none of those cases did any real doubt exist.’

‘I don’t think I understand.’

‘Mrs Etherington, for instance, was acquitted. But everybody, nevertheless, was quite certain that she did it. Freda Clay was not openly accused, but no one thought of any alternative solution to the crime. Riggs stated that he did not remember killing his wife and her lover, but there was never any question of anybody else having done so. Margaret Litchfield confessed. In each case, you see, Hastings, there was one clear suspect and no other.’

I wrinkled my brow. ‘Yes, that is true – but I don’t see what particular inferences you draw from that.’

‘Ah, but you see, I am coming to a fact that you do not know as yet. Supposing, Hastings, that in each of these cases that I have outlined, there was one alien note common to them all?’

‘What do you mean?’

Poirot said slowly: ‘I intend, Hastings, to be very careful in what I say. Let me put it this way. There is a certain person – X. In none of these cases did X (apparently) have any motive in doing away with the victim. In one case, as far as I have been able to find out, X was actually two hundred miles away when the crime was committed. Nevertheless I will tell you this. X was on intimate terms with Etherington, X lived for a time in the same village as Riggs, X was acquainted with Mrs Bradley. I have a snap of X and Freda Clay walking together in the street, and X was near the house when old Matthew Litchfield died. What do you say to that?’

I stared at him. I said slowly: ‘Yes, it’s a bit too much. Coincidence might account for two cases, or even three, but five is a bit too thick. There must, unlikely as it seems, be some connection between these different murders.’

‘You assume, then, what I have assumed?’

‘That X is the murderer? Yes.’

‘In that case, Hastings, you will be willing to go with me one step farther. Let me tell you this. X is in this house.’

‘Here? At Styles?’

‘At Styles. What is the logical inference to be drawn from that?’

I knew what was coming as I said: ‘Go on – say it.’

Hercule Poirot said gravely: ‘A murder will shortly be committed here – here.’

Chapter 3

For a moment or two I stared at Poirot in dismay, then I reacted.

‘No, it won’t,’ I said. ‘You’ll prevent that.’

Poirot threw me an affectionate glance.

‘My loyal friend. How much I appreciate your faith in me. Tout de même, I am not sure if it is justified in this case.’

‘Nonsense. Of course you can stop it.’

Poirot’s voice was grave as he said: ‘Reflect a minute, Hastings. One can catch a murderer, yes. But how does one proceed to stop a murder?’

‘Well, you – you – well, I mean – if you know beforehand –’

I paused rather feebly – for suddenly I saw the difficulties.

Poirot said: ‘You see? It is not so simple. There are, in fact, only three methods. The first is to warn the victim. To put the victim on his or her guard. That does not always succeed, for it is unbelievably difficult to convince some people that they are in grave danger – possibly from someone near and dear to them. They are indignant and refuse to believe. The second course is to warn the murderer. To say, in language that is only slightly veiled, “I know your intentions. If so-and-so dies, my friend, you will most surely hang.” That succeeds more often than the first method, but even there it is likely to fail. For a murderer, my friend, is more conceited than any creature on this earth. A murderer is always more clever than anyone else – no one will ever suspect him or her – the police will be utterly baffled, etc. Therefore he (or she) goes ahead just the same, and all you can have is the satisfaction of hanging them afterwards.’ He paused and said thoughtfully: ‘Twice in my life I have warned a murderer – once in Egypt, once elsewhere. In each case, the criminal was determined to kill . . . It may be so here.’

‘You said there was a third method,’ I reminded him.

‘Ah yes. For that one needs the utmost ingenuity. You have to guess exactly how and when the blow is timed to fall and you have to be ready to step in at the exact psychological moment. You have to catch the murderer, if not quite red-handed, then guilty of the intention beyond any possible doubt.

‘And that, my friend,’ went on Poirot, ‘is, I can assure you, a matter of great difficulty and delicacy, and I would not for a moment guarantee its success! I may be conceited, but I am not so conceited as that.’

‘Which method do you propose to try here?’

‘Possibly all three. The first is the most difficult.’

‘Why? I should have thought it the easiest.’

‘Yes, if you know the intended victim. But do you not realize, Hastings, that here I do not know the victim?’

‘What?’

I gave vent to the exclamation without reflecting. Then the difficulties of the position began to draw on me. There was, there must be, some link connecting this series of crimes, but we did not know what that link was. The motive, the vitally important motive, was missing. And without knowing that, we could not tell who was threatened.

Poirot nodded as he saw by my face that I was realizing the difficulties of the situation.

‘You see, my friend, it is not so easy.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I see that. You have so far been able to find no connection between these varying cases?’

Poirot shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

I reflected again. In the ABC crimes, we had to deal with what purported to be an alphabetical series, though in actuality it had turned out to be something very different.

I asked: ‘There is, you are quite sure, no far-fetched financial motive – nothing, for instance, like you found in the case of Evelyn Carlisle?’

‘No. You may be quite sure, my dear Hastings, that financial gain is the first thing for which I look.’

That was true enough. Poirot had always been completely cynical about money.

I thought again. A vendetta of some kind? That was more in accordance with the facts. But even there, there seemed a lack of any connecting link. I recalled a story I had read of a series of purposeless murders – the clue being that the victims had happened to serve as members of a jury, and the crimes had been committed by a man whom they had condemned. It struck me that something of that kind would meet this case. I am ashamed to say that I kept the idea to myself. It would have been such a feather in my cap if I could go to Poirot with the solution.

Instead I asked: ‘And now tell me, who is X?’

To my intense annoyance Poirot shook his head very decidedly. ‘That, my friend, I do not tell.’

‘Nonsense. Why not?’

Poirot’s eyes twinkled. ‘Because, mon cher, you are still the same old Hastings. You have still the speaking countenance. I do not wish, you see, that you should sit staring at X with your mouth hanging open, your face saying plainly: “This – this that I am looking at – is a murderer.”’

‘You might give me credit for a little dissimulation at need.’

‘When you try to dissimulate, it is worse. No, no, mon ami, we must be very incognito, you and I. Then, when we pounce, we pounce.’

‘You obstinate old devil,’ I said. ‘I’ve a good mind to –’

I broke off as there was a tap on the door. Poirot called, ‘Come in,’ and my daughter Judith entered.

I should like to describe Judith, but I’ve always been a poor hand at descriptions.

Judith is tall, she holds her head high, she has level dark brows, and a very lovely line of cheek and jaw, severe in its austerity. She is grave and slightly scornful, and to my mind there has always hung about her a suggestion of tragedy.

Judith didn’t come and kiss me – she is not that kind. She just smiled at me and said, ‘Hullo, Father.’

Her smile was shy and a little embarrassed, but it made me feel that in spite of her undemonstrativeness she was pleased to see me.

‘Well,’ I said, feeling foolish as I so often do with the younger generation, ‘I’ve got here.’

‘Very clever of you, darling,’ said Judith.

‘I describe to him,’ said Poirot, ‘the cooking.’

‘Is it very bad?’ asked Judith.

‘You should not have to ask that, my child. Is it that you think of nothing but the test tubes and the microscopes? Your middle finger it is stained with methylene blue. It is not a good thing for your husband if you take no interest in his stomach.’

‘I dare say I shan’t have a husband.’

‘Certainly you will have a husband. What did the bon Dieu create you for?’

‘Many things, I hope,’ said Judith.

‘Le mariage first of all.’

‘Very well,’ said Judith. ‘You will find me a nice husband and I will look after his stomach very carefully.’

‘She laughs at me,’ said Poirot. ‘Some day she will know how wise old men are.’

There was another tap on the door and Dr Franklin entered. He was a tall, angular young man of thirty-five, with a decided jaw, reddish hair, and bright blue eyes. He was the most ungainly man I had ever known, and was always knocking into things in an absentminded way.

He cannoned into the screen round Poirot’s chair, and half turning his head murmured ‘I beg your pardon’ to it automatically.

I wanted to laugh, but Judith, I noted, remained quite grave. I suppose she was quite used to that sort of thing.

‘You remember my father,’ said Judith.

Dr Franklin started, shied nervously, screwed up his eyes and peered at me, then stuck out a hand, saying awkwardly: ‘Of course, of course, how are you? I heard you were coming down.’ He turned to Judith. ‘I say, do you think we need change? If not we might go on a bit after dinner. If we got a few more of those slides prepared –’

‘No,’ said Judith. ‘I want to talk to my father.’

‘Oh, yes. Oh, of course.’ Suddenly he smiled, an apologetic, boyish smile. ‘I am sorry – I get so awfully wrapped up in a thing. It’s quite unpardonable – makes me so selfish. Do forgive me.’

The clock struck and Franklin glanced at it hurriedly.

‘Good Lord, is it as late as that? I shall get into trouble. Promised Barbara I’d read to her before dinner.’

He grinned at us both and hurried out, colliding with the door post as he went.

‘How is Mrs Franklin?’ I asked.

‘The same and rather more so,’ said Judith.

‘It’s very sad her being such an invalid,’ I said.

‘It’s maddening for a doctor,’ said Judith. ‘Doctors like healthy people.’

‘How hard you young people are!’ I exclaimed.

Judith said coldly: ‘I was just stating a fact.’

‘Nevertheless,’ said Poirot, ‘the good doctor hurries to read to her.’

‘Very stupid,’ said Judith. ‘That nurse of hers can read to her perfectly well if she wants to be read to. Personally I should loathe anyone reading aloud to me.’

‘Well, well, tastes differ,’ I said.

‘She’s a very stupid woman,’ said Judith.

‘Now there, mon enfant,’ said Poirot, ‘I do not agree with you.’

‘She never reads anything but the cheapest kind of novel. She takes no interest in his work. She doesn’t keep abreast of current thought. She just talks about her health to everyone who will listen.’

‘I still maintain, said Poirot, ‘that she uses her grey cells in ways that you, my child, know nothing about.’

‘She’s a very feminine sort of woman,’ said Judith. ‘She coos and purrs. I expect you like ’em like that, Uncle Hercule.’

‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘He likes them large and flamboyant and Russian for choice.’

‘So that is how you give me away, Hastings? Your father, Judith, has always had a penchant for auburn hair. It has landed him in trouble many a time.’

Judith smiled at us both indulgently. She said: ‘What a funny couple you are.’

She turned away and I rose.

‘I must get unpacked, and I might have a bath before dinner.’

Poirot pressed a little bell within reach of his hand and a minute or two later his valet attendant entered. I was surprised to find that the man was a stranger.

‘Why! Where’s George?’

Poirot’s valet George had been with him for many years.

‘George has returned to his family. His father is ill. I hope he will come back to me some time. In the meantime –’ he smiled at the new valet – ‘Curtiss looks after me.’

Curtiss smiled back respectfully. He was a big man with a bovine, rather stupid, face.

As I went out of the door I noted that Poirot was carefully locking up the despatch case with the papers inside it.

My mind in a whirl I crossed the passage to my own room.

Chapter 4

I went down to dinner that night feeling that the whole of life had become suddenly unreal.

Once or twice, while dressing, I had asked myself if possibly Poirot had imagined the whole thing. After all, the dear old chap was an old man now and sadly broken in health. He himself might declare his brain was as sound as ever – but in point of fact, was it? His whole life had been spent in tracking down crime. Would it really be surprising if, in the end, he was to fancy crimes where no crimes were? His enforced inaction must have fretted him sorely. What more likely than that he should invent for himself a new manhunt? Wishful thinking – a perfectly reasonable neurosis. He had selected a number of publicly reported happenings, and had read into them something that was not there – a shadowy figure behind them, a mad mass murderer. In all probability Mrs Etherington had really killed her husband, the labourer had shot his wife, a young woman had given her old aunt an overdose of morphia, a jealous wife had polished off her husband as she had threatened to do, and a crazy spinster had really committed the murder for which she had subsequently given herself up. In fact these crimes were exactly what they seemed!

Against that view (surely the common-sense one) I could only set my own inherent belief in Poirot’s acumen.

Poirot said that a murder had been arranged. For the second time Styles was to house a crime.

Time would prove or disprove that assertion, but if it were true, it behoved us to forestall that happening.

And Poirot knew the identity of the murderer which I did not.

The more I thought about that, the more annoyed I became! Really, frankly, it was damned cheek of Poirot! He wanted my co-operation and yet he refused to take me into his confidence!

Why? There was the reason he gave – surely a most inadequate one! I was tired of this silly joking about my ‘speaking countenance’. I could keep a secret as well as anyone. Poirot had always persisted in the humiliating belief that I am a transparent character and that anyone can read what is passing in my mind. He tries to soften the blow sometimes by attributing it to my beautiful and honest character which abhors all form of deceit!

Of course, I reflected, if the whole thing was a chimera of Poirot’s imagination, his reticence was easily explained.

I had come to no conclusion by the time the gong sounded, and I went down to dinner with an open mind, but with an alert eye, for the detection of Poirot’s mythical X.

For the moment I would accept everything that Poirot had said as gospel truth. There was a person under this roof who had already killed five times and who was preparing to kill again. Who was it?

In the drawing-room before we went in to dinner I was introduced to Miss Cole and Major Allerton. The former was a tall, still handsome woman of thirty-three or four. Major Allerton I instinctively disliked. He was a good-looking man in the early forties, broad-shouldered, bronzed of face, with an easy way of talking, most of what he said holding a double implication. He had the pouches under his eyes that come with a dissipated way of life. I suspected him of racketing around, of gambling, of drinking hard, and of being first and last a womanizer.

Old Colonel Luttrell, I saw, did not much like him either, and Boyd Carrington was also rather stiff in his manner towards him. Allerton’s success was with the women of the party. Mrs Luttrell twittered to him delightedly, whilst he flattered her lazily and with a hardly concealed impertinence. I was also annoyed to see that Judith, too, seemed to enjoy his company and was exerting herself far more than usual to talk to him. Why the worst type of man can always be relied upon to please and interest the nicest of women has long been a problem beyond me. I knew instinctively that Allerton was a rotter – and nine men out of ten would have agreed with me. Whereas nine women or possibly the whole ten would have fallen for him immediately.

As we sat down at the dinner table and plates of white gluey liquid were set before us, I let my eyes rove round the table whilst I summed up the possibilities.

If Poirot were right, and retained his clearness of brain unimpaired, one of these people was a dangerous murderer – and probably a lunatic as well.

Poirot had not actually said so, but I presumed that X was probably a man. Which of these men was it likely to be?

Surely not old Colonel Luttrell, with his indecision, and his general air of feebleness. Norton, the man I had met rushing out of the house with field-glasses? It seemed unlikely. He appeared to be a pleasant fellow, rather ineffective and lacking in vitality. Of course, I told myself, many murderers have been small insignificant men – driven to assert themselves by crime for that very reason. They resented being passed over and ignored. Norton might be a murderer of this type. But there was his fondness for birds. I have always believed that a love of nature was essentially a healthy sign in a man.