Agatha Christie
Curtain: Poirot’s
Last Case

Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

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First published in Great Britain by Collins 1975

Copyright © 1975 Agatha Christie Ltd.

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Source ISBN: 9780007527601

Ebook Edition 2010 ISBN: 9780007422241

Version: 2019-03-28

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Postscript

Keep Reading

About Agatha Christie

The Agatha Christie Collection

E-Book Extras

The Poirots

Essay by Charles Osborne

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

I

Who is there who has not felt a sudden startled pang at reliving an old experience, or feeling an old emotion?

‘I have done this before . . .’

Why do those words always move one so profoundly?

That was the question I asked myself as I sat in the train watching the flat Essex landscape outside.

How long ago was it that I had taken this selfsame journey? Had felt (ridiculously) that the best of life was over for me! Wounded in that war that for me would always be the war – the war that was wiped out now by a second and a more desperate war.

It had seemed in 1916 to young Arthur Hastings that he was already old and mature. How little had I realized that, for me, life was only then beginning.

I had been journeying, though I did not know it, to meet the man whose influence over me was to shape and mould my life. Actually, I had been going to stay with my old friend, John Cavendish, whose mother, recently remarried, had a country house named Styles. A pleasant renewing of old acquaintanceships, that was all I had thought it, not foreseeing that I was shortly to plunge into all the dark embroilments of a mysterious murder.

It was at Styles that I had met again that strange little man, Hercule Poirot, whom I had first come across in Belgium.

How well I remembered my amazement when I had seen the limping figure with the large moustache coming up the village street.

Hercule Poirot! Since those days he had been my dearest friend, his influence had moulded my life. In company with him, in the hunting down of yet another murderer, I had met my wife, the truest and sweetest companion any man could have had.

She lay now in Argentine soil, having died as she would have wished, with no long drawn out suffering, or feebleness of old age. But she had left a very lonely and unhappy man behind her.

Ah! If I could go back – live life all over again. If this could have been that day in 1916 when I first travelled to Styles . . . What changes had taken place since then! What gaps amongst the familiar faces! Styles itself had been sold by the Cavendishes. John Cavendish was dead, though his wife, Mary (that fascinating enigmatical creature), was still alive, living in Devonshire. Laurence was living with his wife and children in South Africa. Changes – changes everywhere.

But one thing, strangely enough, was the same. I was going to Styles to meet Hercule Poirot.

How stupefied I had been to receive his letter, with its heading Styles Court, Styles, Essex.

I had not seen my old friend for nearly a year. The last time I had seen him I had been shocked and saddened. He was now a very old man, and almost crippled with arthritis. He had gone to Egypt in the hopes of improving his health, but had returned, so his letter told me, rather worse than better. Nevertheless, he wrote cheerfully . . .

II

And does it not intrigue you, my friend, to see the address from which I write? It recalls old memories, does it not? Yes, I am here, at Styles. Figure to yourself, it is now what they call a guest house. Run by one of your so British old Colonels – very ‘old school tie’ and ‘Poona’. It is his wife, bien entendu, who makes it pay. She is a good manager, that one, but the tongue like vinegar, and the poor Colonel, he suffers much from it. If it were me I would take a hatchet to her!

I saw their advertisement in the paper, and the fancy took me to go once again to the place which first was my home in this country. At my age one enjoys reliving the past.

Then figure to yourself, I find here a gentleman, a baronet who is a friend of the employer of your daughter. (That phrase it sounds a little like the French exercise, does it not?)

Immediately I conceive a plan. He wishes to induce the Franklins to come here for the summer. I in my turn will persuade you and we shall be all together, en famille. It will be most agreeable. Therefore, mon cher Hastings, dépêchez-vous, arrive with the utmost celerity. I have commanded for you a room with bath (it is modernized now, you comprehend, the dear old Styles) and disputed the price with Mrs Colonel Luttrell until I have made an arrangement très bon marché.

The Franklins and your charming Judith have been here for some days. It is all arranged, so make no histories.

A bientôt, Yours always, Hercule Poirot

The prospect was alluring, and I fell in with my old friend’s wishes without demur. I had no ties and no settled home. Of my children, one boy was in the Navy, the other married and running the ranch in the Argentine. My daughter Grace was married to a soldier and was at present in India. My remaining child, Judith, was the one whom secretly I had always loved best, although I had never for one moment understood her. A queer, dark, secretive child, with a passion for keeping her own counsel, which had sometimes affronted and distressed me. My wife had been more understanding. It was, she assured me, no lack of trust or confidence on Judith’s part, but a kind of fierce compulsion. But she, like myself, was sometimes worried about the child. Judith’s feelings, she said, were too intense, too concentrated, and her instinctive reserve deprived her of any safety valve. She had queer fits of brooding silence and a fierce, almost bitter power of partisanship. Her brains were the best of the family and we gladly fell in with her wish for a university education. She had taken her B.Sc. about a year ago, and had then taken the post of secretary to a doctor who was engaged in research work connected with tropical disease. His wife was somewhat of an invalid.

I had occasionally had qualms as to whether Judith’s absorption in her work, and devotion to her employer, were not signs that she might be losing her heart, but the business-like footing of their relationship assured me.

Judith was, I believed, fond of me, but she was very undemonstrative by nature, and she was often scornful and impatient of what she called my sentimental and outworn ideas. I was, frankly, a little nervous of my daughter!

At this point my meditations were interrupted by the train drawing up at the station of Styles St Mary. That at least had not changed. Time had passed it by. It was still perched up in the midst of fields, with apparently no reason for existence.

As my taxi passed through the village, though, I realized the passage of years. Styles St Mary was altered out of all recognition. Petrol stations, a cinema, two more inns and rows of council houses.

Presently we turned in at the gate of Styles. Here we seemed to recede again from modern times. The park was much as I remembered it, but the drive was badly kept and much overgrown with weeds growing up over the gravel. We turned a corner and came in view of the house. It was unaltered from the outside and badly needed a coat of paint.

As on my arrival all those years ago, there was a woman’s figure stooping over one of the garden beds. My heart missed a beat. Then the figure straightened up and came towards me, and I laughed at myself. No greater contrast to the robust Evelyn Howard could have been imagined.

This was a frail elderly lady, with an abundance of curly white hair, pink cheeks, and a pair of cold pale blue eyes that were widely at variance with the easy geniality of her manner, which was frankly a shade too gushing for my taste.

‘It’ll be Captain Hastings now, won’t it?’ she demanded. ‘And me with my hands all over dirt and not able to shake hands. We’re delighted to see you here – the amount we’ve heard about you! I must introduce myself. I’m Mrs Luttrell. My husband and I bought this place in a fit of madness and have been trying to make a paying concern of it. I never thought the day would come when I’d be a hotel keeper! But I’ll warn you, Captain Hastings, I’m a very business-like woman. I pile up the extras all I know how.’

We both laughed as though at an excellent joke, but it occurred to me that what Mrs Luttrell had just said was in all probability the literal truth. Behind the veneer of her charming old lady manner, I caught a glimpse of flint-like hardness.

Although Mrs Luttrell occasionally affected a faint brogue, she had no Irish blood. It was a mere affectation.

I enquired after my friend.

‘Ah, poor little M. Poirot. The way he’s been looking forward to your coming. It would melt a heart of stone. Terribly sorry I am for him, suffering the way he does.’

We were walking towards the house and she was peeling off her gardening gloves.

‘And your pretty daughter, too,’ she went on. ‘What a lovely girl she is. We all admire her tremendously. But I’m old-fashioned, you know, and it seems to me a shame and a sin that a girl like that, that ought to be going to parties and dancing with young men, should spend her time cutting up rabbits and bending over a microscope all day. Leave that sort of thing to the frumps, I say.’

‘Where is Judith?’ I asked. ‘Is she somewhere about?’

Mrs Luttrell made what children call ‘a face’.

‘Ah, the poor girl. She’s cooped up in that studio place down at the bottom of the garden. Dr Franklin rents it from me and he’s had it all fitted up. Hutches of guinea pigs he’s got there, the poor creatures, and mice and rabbits. I’m not sure that I like all this science, Captain Hastings. Ah, here’s my husband.’

Colonel Luttrell had just come round the corner of the house. He was a very tall, attenuated old man, with a cadaverous face, mild blue eyes and a habit of irresolutely tugging at his little white moustache.

He had a vague, rather nervous manner.

‘Ah, George, here’s Captain Hastings arrived.’

Colonel Luttrell shook hands. ‘You came by the five – er – forty, eh?’

‘What else should he have come by?’ said Mrs Luttrell sharply. ‘And what does it matter anyway? Take him up and show him his room, George. And then maybe he’d like to go straight to M. Poirot – or would you rather have tea first?’

I assured her that I did not want tea and would prefer to go and greet my friend.

Colonel Luttrell said, ‘Right. Come along. I expect – er – they’ll have taken your things up already – eh, Daisy?’

Mrs Luttrell said tartly, ‘That’s your business, George. I’ve been gardening. I can’t see to everything.’

‘No, no, of course not. I – I’ll see to it, my dear.’

I followed him up the front steps. In the doorway we encountered a grey-haired man, slightly built, who was hurrying out with a pair of field-glasses. He limped, and had a boyish eager face. He said, stammering slightly: ‘There’s a pair of n-nesting blackcaps down by the sycamore.’

As we went into the hall, Luttrell said, ‘That’s Norton. Nice fellow. Crazy about birds.’

In the hall itself, a very big man was standing by the table. He had obviously just finished telephoning. Looking up he said, ‘I’d like to hang, draw and quarter all contractors and builders. Never get anything done right, curse ’em.’

His wrath was so comical and so rueful, that we both laughed. I felt very attracted at once towards the man. He was very good-looking, though a man well over fifty, with a deeply tanned face. He looked as though he had led an out-of-doors life, and he looked, too, the type of man that is becoming more and more rare, an Englishman of the old school, straightforward, fond of out-of-doors life, and the kind of man who can command.

I was hardly surprised when Colonel Luttrell introduced him as Sir William Boyd Carrington. He had been, I knew, Governor of a province in India, where he had been a signal success. He was also renowned as a first-class shot and big game hunter. The sort of man, I reflected sadly, that we no longer seemed to breed in these degenerate days.

‘Aha,’ he said. ‘I’m glad to meet in the flesh that famous personage mon ami Hastings.’ He laughed. ‘The dear old Belgian fellow talks about you a lot, you know. And then, of course, we’ve got your daughter here. She’s a fine girl.’

‘I don’t suppose Judith talks about me much,’ I said, smiling.

‘No, no, far too modern. These girls nowadays always seem embarrassed at having to admit to a father or mother at all.’

‘Parents,’ I said, ‘are practically a disgrace.’

He laughed. ‘Oh, well – I don’t suffer that way. I’ve no children, worse luck. Your Judith is a very good-looking wench, but terribly high-brow. I find it rather alarming.’ He picked up the telephone receiver again. ‘Hope you don’t mind, Luttrell, if I start damning your exchange to hell. I’m not a patient man.’

‘Do ’em good,’ said Luttrell.

He led the way upstairs and I followed him. He took me along the left wing of the house to a door at the end, and I realized that Poirot had chosen for me the room I had occupied before.

There were changes here. As I walked along the corridor some of the doors were open and I saw that the old-fashioned large bedrooms had been partitioned off so as to make several smaller ones.

My own room, which had not been large, was unaltered save for the installation of hot and cold water, and part of it had been partitioned off to make a small bathroom. It was furnished in a cheap modern style which rather disappointed me. I should have preferred a style more nearly approximating to the architecture of the house itself.

My luggage was in my room and the Colonel explained that Poirot’s room was exactly opposite. He was about to take me there when a sharp cry of ‘George’ echoed up from the hall below.

Colonel Luttrell started like a nervous horse. His hand went to his lips.

‘I – I – sure you’re all right? Ring for what you want –’

‘George.’

‘Coming, my dear, coming.’

He hurried off down the corridor. I stood for a moment looking after him. Then, with my heart beating slightly faster, I crossed the corridor and rapped on the door of Poirot’s room.

Chapter 2

Nothing is so sad, in my opinion, as the devastation wrought by age.

My poor friend. I have described him many times. Now to convey to you the difference. Crippled with arthritis, he propelled himself about in a wheeled chair. His once plump frame had fallen in. He was a thin little man now. His face was lined and wrinkled. His moustache and hair, it is true, were still of a jet black colour, but candidly, though I would not for the world have hurt his feelings by saying so to him, this was a mistake. There comes a moment when hair dye is only too painfully obvious. There had been a time when I had been surprised to learn that the blackness of Poirot’s hair came out of a bottle. But now the theatricality was apparent and merely created the impression that he wore a wig and had adorned his upper lip to amuse the children!

Only his eyes were the same as ever, shrewd and twinkling, and now – yes, undoubtedly – softened with emotion.

‘Ah, mon ami Hastings – mon ami Hastings . . .’

I bent my head and, as was his custom, he embraced me warmly.

‘Mon ami Hastings!’

He leaned back, surveying me with his head a little to one side.

‘Yes, just the same – the straight back, the broad shoulders, the grey of the hair – très distingué. You know, my friend, you have worn well. Les femmes, they still take an interest in you? Yes?’

‘Really, Poirot,’ I protested. ‘Must you –’

‘But I assure you, my friend, it is a test – it is the test. When the very young girls come and talk to you kindly, oh so kindly – it is the end! “The poor old man,” they say, “we must be nice to him. It must be so awful to be like that.” But you, Hastings – vous êtes encore jeune. For you there are still possibilities. That is right, twist your moustache, hunch your shoulders – I see it is as I say – you would not look so self-conscious otherwise.’

I burst out laughing. ‘You really are the limit, Poirot. And how are you yourself ?’

‘Me,’ said Poirot with a grimace. ‘I am a wreck. I am a ruin. I cannot walk. I am crippled and twisted. Mercifully I can still feed myself, but otherwise I have to be attended to like a baby. Put to bed, washed and dressed. Enfin, it is not amusing that. Mercifully, though the outside decays, the core is still sound.’

‘Yes, indeed. The best heart in the world.’

‘The heart? Perhaps. I was not referring to the heart. The brain, mon cher, is what I mean by the core. My brain, it still functions magnificently.’

I could at least perceive clearly that no deterioration of the brain in the direction of modesty had taken place.

‘And you like it here?’ I asked.

Poirot shrugged his shoulders. ‘It suffices. It is not, you comprehend, the Ritz. No, indeed. The room I was in when I first came here was both small and inadequately furnished. I moved to this one with no increase of price. Then, the cooking, it is English at its worst. Those Brussels sprouts so enormous, so hard, that the English like so much. The potatoes boiled and either hard or falling to pieces. The vegetables that taste of water, water, and again water. The complete absence of the salt and pepper in any dish –’ he paused expressively.

‘It sounds terrible,’ I said.

‘I do not complain,’ said Poirot, and proceeded to do so. ‘And there is also the modernization, so called. The bathrooms, the taps everywhere and what comes out of them? Lukewarm water, mon ami, at most hours of the day. And the towels, so thin, so meagre!’

‘There is something to be said for the old days,’ I said thoughtfully. I remembered the clouds of steam which had gushed from the hot tap of the one bathroom Styles had originally possessed, one of those bathrooms in which an immense bath with mahogany sides had reposed proudly in the middle of the bathroom floor. Remembered, too, the immense bath towels, and the frequent shining brass cans of boiling hot water that stood in one’s old-fashioned basin.

‘But one must not complain,’ said Poirot again. ‘I am content to suffer – for a good cause.’

A sudden thought struck me.

‘I say, Poirot, you’re not – er – hard up, are you? I know the war hit investments very badly –’

Poirot reassured me quickly.

‘No, no, my friend. I am in most comfortable circumstances. Indeed, I am rich. It is not the economy that brings me here.’

‘Then that’s all right,’ I said. I went on: ‘I think I can understand your feeling. As one gets on, one tends more and more to revert to the old days. One tries to recapture old emotions. I find it painful to be here, in a way, and yet it brings back to me a hundred old thoughts and emotions that I’d quite forgotten I ever felt. I dare say you feel the same.’

‘Not in the least. I do not feel like that at all.’

‘They were good days,’ I said sadly.

‘You may speak for yourself, Hastings. For me, my arrival at Styles St Mary was a sad and painful time. I was a refugee, wounded, exiled from home and country, existing by charity in a foreign land. No, it was not gay. I did not know then that England would come to be my home and that I should find happiness here.’

‘I had forgotten that,’ I admitted.

‘Precisely. You attribute always to others the sentiments that you yourself experience. Hastings was happy – everybody was happy!’

‘No, no,’ I protested, laughing.

‘And in any case it is not true,’ continued Poirot. ‘You look back, you say, the tears rising in your eyes, “Oh, the happy days. Then I was young.” But indeed, my friend, you were not so happy as you think. You had recently been severely wounded, you were fretting at being no longer fit for active service, you had just been depressed beyond words by your sojourn in a dreary convalescent home and, as far as I remember, you proceeded to complicate matters by falling in love with two women at the same time.’

I laughed and flushed.

‘What a memory you have, Poirot.’

‘Ta ta ta – I remember now the melancholy sigh you heaved as you murmured fatuities about two lovely women.’

‘Do you remember what you said? You said, “And neither of them for you! But courage, mon ami. We may hunt together again and then perhaps –”’

I stopped. For Poirot and I had gone hunting again to France and it was there that I had met the one woman . . .

Gently my friend patted my arm.

‘I know, Hastings, I know. The wound is still fresh. But do not dwell on it, do not look back. Instead look forward.’

I made a gesture of disgust.

‘Look forward? What is there to look forward to?’

‘Eh bien, my friend, there is work to be done.’

‘Work? Where?’

‘Here.’

I stared at him.

‘Just now,’ said Poirot, ‘you asked me why I had come here. You may not have observed that I gave you no answer. I will give the answer now. I am here to hunt down a murderer.’

I stared at him with even more astonishment. For a moment I thought he was rambling.

‘You really mean that?’

‘But certainly I mean it. For what other reason did I urge you to join me? My limbs, they are no longer active, but my brain, as I told you, is unimpaired. My rule, remember, has been always the same – sit back and think. That I still can do – in fact it is the only thing possible for me. For the more active side of the campaign I shall have with me my invaluable Hastings.’

‘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.

Boyd Carrington? Out of the question. A man with a name known all over the world. A fine sportsman, an administrator, a man universally liked and looked up to. Franklin I also dismissed. I knew how Judith respected and admired him.

Major Allerton now. I dwelt on him appraisingly. A nasty fellow if I ever saw one! The sort of fellow who would skin his grandmother. And all glossed over with this superficial charm of manner. He was talking now – telling a story of his own discomfiture and making everybody laugh with his rueful appreciation of a joke at his expense.

If Allerton was X, I decided, his crimes had been committed for profit in some way.

It was true that Poirot had not definitely said that X was a man. I considered Miss Cole as a possibility. Her movements were restless and jerky – obviously a woman of nerves. Handsome in a hag-ridden kind of way. Still, she looked normal enough. She, Mrs Luttrell and Judith were the only women at the dinner table. Mrs Franklin was having dinner upstairs in her room, and the nurse who attended to her had her meals after us.

After dinner I was standing by the drawing-room window looking out into the garden and thinking back to the time when I had seen Cynthia Murdoch, a young girl with auburn hair, run across that lawn. How charming she had looked in her white overall . . .

Lost in thoughts of the past, I started when Judith passed her arm through mine and led me with her out of the window on to the terrace.

She said abruptly: ‘What’s the matter?’

I was startled. ‘The matter? What do you mean?’

‘You’ve been so queer all through the evening. Why were you staring at everyone at dinner?’

I was annoyed. I had had no idea I had allowed my thoughts so much sway over me.

‘Was I? I suppose I was thinking of the past. Seeing ghosts perhaps.’

‘Oh, yes, of course you stayed here, didn’t you, when you were a young man? An old lady was murdered here, or something?’

‘Poisoned with strychnine.’

‘What was she like? Nice or nasty?’

I considered the question.

‘She was a very kind woman,’ I said slowly. ‘Generous. Gave a lot to charity.’

‘Oh, that kind of generosity.’

Judith’s voice sounded faintly scornful. Then she asked a curious question: ‘Were people – happy here?’

No, they had not been happy. That, at least, I knew. I said slowly: ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because they felt like prisoners. Mrs Inglethorp, you see, had all the money – and – doled it out. Her stepchildren could have no life of their own.’

I heard Judith take a sharp breath. The hand on my arm tightened.

‘That’s wicked – wicked. An abuse of power. It shouldn’t be allowed. Old people, sick people, they shouldn’t have the power to hold up the lives of the young and strong. To keep them tied down, fretting, wasting their power and energy that could be used – that’s needed. It’s just selfishness.’

‘The old,’ I said drily, ‘have not got a monopoly of that quality.’

‘Oh, I know, Father, you think the young are selfish. So we are, perhaps, but it’s a clean selfishness. At least we only want to do what we want ourselves, we don’t want everybody else to do what we want, we don’t want to make slaves of other people.’

‘No, you just trample them down if they happen to be in your way.’

Judith squeezed my arm. She said: ‘Don’t be so bitter! I don’t really do much trampling – and you’ve never tried to dictate our lives to any of us. We are grateful for that.’

‘I’m afraid,’ I said honestly, ‘that I’d have liked to, though. It was your mother who insisted you should be allowed to make your own mistakes.’

Judith gave my arm another quick squeeze. She said: ‘I know. You’d have liked to fuss over us like a hen! I do hate fuss. I won’t stand it. But you do agree with me, don’t you, about useful lives being sacrificed to useless ones?’

‘It does sometimes happen,’ I admitted. ‘But there’s no need for drastic measures . . . It’s up to anybody just to walk out, you know.’

‘Yes, but is it? Is it?’

Her tone was so vehement that I looked at her in some astonishment. It was too dark to see her face clearly. She went on, her voice low and troubled: ‘There’s so much – it’s difficult – financial considerations, a sense of responsibility, reluctance to hurt someone you’ve been fond of – all those things, and some people are so unscrupulous – they know just how to play on all those feelings. Some people – some people are like leeches!’

‘My dear Judith,’ I exclaimed, taken aback by the positive fury of her tone.

She seemed to realize that she had been over-vehement, for she laughed, and withdrew her arm from mine.

‘Was I sounding very intense? It’s a matter I feel rather hotly about. You see, I’ve known a case . . . An old brute. And when someone was brave enough to – to cut the knot and set the people she loved free, they called her mad. Mad? It was the sanest thing anyone could do – and the bravest!’

A horrible qualm passed over me. Where, not long ago, had I heard something like that?

‘Judith,’ I said sharply. ‘Of what case are you talking?’

‘Oh, nobody you know. Some friends of the Franklins. Old man called Litchfield. He was quite rich and practically starved his wretched daughters – never let them see anyone, or go out. He was mad really, but not sufficiently so in the medical sense.’

‘And the eldest daughter murdered him,’ I said.

‘Oh, I expect you read about it? I suppose you would call it murder – but it wasn’t done from personal motives. Margaret Litchfield went straight to the police and gave herself up. I think she was very brave. I wouldn’t have had the courage.’

‘The courage to give yourself up or the courage to commit murder?’

‘Both.’

‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ I said severely, ‘and I don’t like to hear you talking of murder as justified in certain cases.’ I paused, and added: ‘What did Dr Franklin think?’

‘Thought it served him right,’ said Judith. ‘You know, Father, some people really ask to be murdered.’

‘I won’t have you talking like this, Judith. Who’s been putting these ideas into your head?’

‘Nobody.’

‘Well, let me tell you that it’s all pernicious nonsense.’

‘I see. We’ll leave it at that.’ She paused. ‘I came really to give you a message from Mrs Franklin. She’d like to see you if you don’t mind coming up to her bedroom.’

‘I shall be delighted. I’m so sorry she was feeling too ill to come down to dinner.’

‘She’s all right,’ said Judith unfeelingly. ‘She just likes making a fuss.’

The young are very unsympathetic.

Chapter 5

I had only met Mrs Franklin once before. She was a woman about thirty – of what I should describe as the madonna type. Big brown eyes, hair parted in the centre, and a long gentle face. She was very slender and her skin had a transparent fragility.

She was lying on a day bed, propped up with pillows, and wearing a very dainty negligee of white and pale blue.

Franklin and Boyd Carrington were there drinking coffee. Mrs Franklin welcomed me with an outstretched hand and a smile.

‘How glad I am you’ve come, Captain Hastings. It will be so nice for Judith. The child has really been working far too hard.’

‘She looks very well on it,’ I said as I took the fragile little hand in mine.

Barbara Franklin sighed. ‘Yes, she’s lucky. How I envy her. I don’t believe really that she knows what ill health is. What do you think, Nurse? Oh! Let me introduce you. This is Nurse Craven who’s so terribly, terribly good to me. I don’t know what I should do without her. She treats me just like a baby.’

Nurse Craven was a tall, good-looking young woman with a fine colour and a handsome head of auburn hair. I noticed her hands which were long and white – very different from the hands of so many hospital nurses. She was in some respects a taciturn girl, and sometimes did not answer. She did not now, merely inclined her head.

‘But really,’ went on Mrs Franklin, ‘John has been working that wretched girl of yours too hard. He’s such a slave-driver. You are a slave-driver, aren’t you, John?’

Her husband was standing looking out of the window. He was whistling to himself and jingling some loose change in his pocket. He started slightly at his wife’s question.

‘What’s that, Barbara?’

‘I was saying that you overwork poor Judith Hastings shamefully. Now Captain Hastings is here, he and I are going to put our heads together and we’re not going to allow it.’

Persiflage was not Dr Franklin’s strong point. He looked vaguely worried and turned to Judith enquiringly. He mumbled: ‘You must let me know if I overdo it.’

Judith said: ‘They’re just trying to be funny. Talking of work, I wanted to ask you about that stain for the second slide – you know, the one that –’

He turned to her eagerly and broke in. ‘Yes, yes. I say, if you don’t mind, let’s go down to the lab. I’d like to be quite sure –’

Still talking, they went out of the room together. Barbara Franklin lay back on her pillows. She sighed. Nurse Craven said suddenly and rather disagreeably: ‘It’s Miss Hastings who’s the slave-driver, I think!’

Again Mrs Franklin sighed. She murmured: ‘I feel so inadequate. I ought, I know, to take more interest in John’s work, but I just can’t do it. I dare say it’s something wrong in me, but –’

She was interrupted by a snort from Boyd Carrington who was standing by the fireplace.

‘Nonsense, Babs,’ he said. ‘You’re all right. Don’t worry yourself.’

‘Oh but, Bill, dear, I do worry. I get so discouraged about myself. It’s all – I can’t help feeling it – it’s all so nasty. The guinea pigs and the rats and everything. Ugh!’ She shuddered. ‘I know it’s stupid, but I’m such a fool. It makes me feel quite sick. I just want to think of all the lovely happy things – birds and flowers and children playing. You know, Bill.’

He came over and took the hand she held out to him so pleadingly. His face as he looked down at her was changed, as gentle as any woman’s. It was, somehow, impressive – for Boyd Carrington was so essentially a manly man.

‘You’ve not changed much since you were seventeen, Babs,’ he said. ‘Do you remember that garden house of yours and the bird bath and the coconuts?’

He turned his head to me. ‘Barbara and I are old playmates,’ he said.

‘Old playmates!’ she protested.

‘Oh, I’m not denying that you’re over fifteen years younger than I am. But I played with you as a tiny tot when I was a young man. Gave you pick-a-backs, my dear. And then later I came home to find you a beautiful young lady – just on the point of making your début in the world – and I did my share by taking you out on the golf links and teaching you to play golf. Do you remember?’

‘Oh, Bill, do you think I’d forget?’

‘My people used to live in this part of the world,’ she explained to me. ‘And Bill used to come and stay with his old uncle, Sir Everard, at Knatton.’

‘And what a mausoleum it was – and is,’ said Boyd Carrington. ‘Sometimes I despair of getting the place liveable.’

‘Oh, Bill, it could be made marvellous – quite marvellous!’

‘Yes, Babs, but the trouble is I’ve got no ideas. Baths and some really comfortable chairs – that’s all I can think of. It needs a woman.’

‘I’ve told you I’ll come and help. I mean it. Really.’

Sir William looked doubtfully towards Nurse Craven. ‘If you’re strong enough, I could drive you over. What do you think, Nurse?’

‘Oh yes, Sir William. I really think it would do Mrs Franklin good – if she’s careful not to overtire herself, of course.’

‘That’s a date, then,’ said Boyd Carrington. ‘And now you have a good night’s sleep. Get into good fettle for tomorrow.’

We both wished Mrs Franklin good night and went out together. As we went down the stairs, Boyd Carrington said gruffly: ‘You’ve no idea what a lovely creature she was at seventeen. I was home from Burma – my wife died out there, you know. Don’t mind telling you I completely lost my heart to her. She married Franklin three or four years afterwards. Don’t think it’s been a happy marriage. It’s my idea that that’s what lies at the bottom of her ill health. Fellow doesn’t understand her or appreciate her. And she’s the sensitive kind. I’ve an idea that this delicacy of hers is partly nervous. Take her out of herself, amuse her, interest her, and she looks a different creature! But that damned sawbones only takes an interest in test tubes and West African natives and cultures.’ He snorted angrily.

I thought that there was, perhaps, something in what he said. Yet it surprised me that Boyd Carrington should be attracted by Mrs Franklin who, when all was said and done, was a sickly creature, though pretty in a frail, chocolate-box way. But Boyd Carrington himself was so full of vitality and life that I should have thought he would merely have been impatient with the neurotic type of invalid. However, Barbara Franklin must have been quite lovely as a girl, and with many men, especially those of the idealistic type such as I judged Boyd Carrington to be, early impressions die hard.

Downstairs, Mrs Luttrell pounced upon us and suggested bridge. I excused myself on the plea of wanting to join Poirot.

I found my friend in bed. Curtiss was moving around the room tidying up, but he presently went out, shutting the door behind him.

‘Confound you, Poirot,’ I said. ‘You and your infernal habit of keeping things up your sleeve. I’ve spent the whole evening trying to spot X.’

‘That must have made you somewhat distrait,’ observed my friend. ‘Did nobody comment on your abstraction and ask you what was the matter?’

I reddened slightly, remembering Judith’s questions. Poirot, I think, observed my discomfiture. I noticed a small malicious smile on his lips. He merely said, however: ‘And what conclusion have you come to on that point?’

‘Would you tell me if I was right?’

‘Certainly not.’

I watched his face closely.

‘I had considered Norton –’

Poirot’s face did not change.

‘Not,’ I said, ‘that I’ve anything to go upon. He just struck me as perhaps less unlikely than anyone else. And then he’s – well – inconspicuous. I should imagine the kind of murderer we’re after would have to be inconspicuous.’

‘That is true. But there are more ways than you think of being inconspicuous.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Supposing, to take a hypothetical case, that if a sinister stranger arrives there some weeks before the murder, for no apparent reason, he will be noticeable. It would be better, would it not, if the stranger were to be a negligible personality, engaged in some harmless sport like fishing.’

‘Or watching birds,’ I agreed. ‘Yes, but that’s just what I was saying.’

‘On the other hand,’ said Poirot, ‘it might be better still if the murderer were already a prominent personality – that is to say, he might be the butcher. That would have the further advantage that no one notices bloodstains on a butcher!’

‘You’re just being ridiculous. Everybody would know if the butcher had quarrelled with the baker.’

‘Not if the butcher had become a butcher simply in order to have a chance of murdering the baker. One must always look one step behind, my friend.’

I looked at him closely, trying to decide if a hint lay concealed in those words. If they meant anything definite, they would seem to point to Colonel Luttrell. Had he deliberately opened a guest house in order to have an opportunity of murdering one of the guests?

Poirot very gently shook his head. He said: ‘It is not from my face that you will get the answer.’

‘You really are a maddening fellow, Poirot,’ I said with a sigh. ‘Anyway, Norton isn’t my only suspect. What about this fellow Allerton?’

Poirot, his face still impassive, enquired: ‘You do not like him?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Ah. What you call the nasty bit of goods. That is right, is it not?’

‘Definitely. Don’t you think so?’

‘Certainly. He is a man,’ said Poirot slowly, ‘very attractive to women.’

I made an exclamation of contempt. ‘How women can be so foolish. What do they see in a fellow like that?’

‘Who can say? But it is always so. The mauvais sujet – always women are attracted to him.’

‘But why?’

Poirot shrugged his shoulders. ‘They see something, perhaps, that we do not.’

‘But what?’

‘Danger, possibly . . . Everyone, my friend, demands a spice of danger in their lives. Some get it vicariously – as in bullfights. Some read about it. Some find it at the cinema. But I am sure of this – too much safety is abhorrent to the nature of a human being. Men find danger in many ways – women are reduced to finding their danger mostly in affairs of sex. That is why, perhaps, they welcome the hint of the tiger – the sheathed claws, the treacherous spring. The excellent fellow who will make a good and kind husband – they pass him by.’

I considered this gloomily in silence for some minutes. Then I reverted to the previous theme.

‘You know, Poirot,’ I said. ‘It will be easy enough really for me to find out who X is. I’ve only got to poke about and find who was acquainted with all the people. I mean the people of your five cases.’

I brought this out triumphantly, but Poirot merely gave me a look of scorn.

‘I have not demanded your presence here, Hastings, in order to watch you clumsily and laboriously following the way I have already trodden. And let me tell you it is not quite so simple as you think. Four of those cases took place in this county. The people assembled under this roof are not a collection of strangers who have arrived here independently. This is not a hotel in the usual sense of the word. The Luttrells come from this part of the world; they were badly off and bought this place and started it as a venture. The people who come here are their friends, or friends recommended by their friends. Sir William persuaded the Franklins to come. They in turn suggested it to Norton, and, I believe, to Miss Cole – and so on. Which is to say that there is a very fair chance of a certain person who is known to one of these people being known to all of these people. It is also open to X to lie wherever the facts are best known. Take the case of the labourer Riggs. The village where that tragedy occurred is not far from the house of Boyd Carrington’s uncle. Mrs Franklin’s people, also, lived near. The inn in the village is much frequented by tourists. Some of Mrs Franklin’s family friends used to put up there. Franklin himself has stayed there. Norton and Miss Cole may have stayed there and probably have.

‘No, no, my friend. I beg that you will not make these clumsy attempts to unravel a secret that I refuse to reveal to you.’

‘It’s so damned silly. As though I should be likely to give it away. I tell you, Poirot, I’m tired of these jokes about my speaking countenance. It’s not funny.’

Poirot said quietly: ‘Are you so sure that is the only reason? Do you not realize, my friend, that such knowledge may be dangerous? Do you not see that I concern myself with your safety?’

I stared at him open-mouthed. Up till that minute I had not appreciated that aspect of the matter. But it was, of course, true enough. If a clever and resourceful murderer who had already got away with five crimes – unsuspected as he thought – once awoke to the fact that someone was on his trail, then indeed there was danger for those on his track.

I said sharply: ‘But then you – you yourself are in danger, Poirot?’

Poirot, as far as he was able to in his crippled state, made a gesture of supreme disdain.

‘I am accustomed to that; I can protect myself. And see, have I not here my faithful dog to protect me also? My excellent and loyal Hastings!’

Chapter 6

Poirot was supposed to keep early hours. I left him therefore to go to sleep and went downstairs, pausing to have a few words with the attendant Curtiss on the way.

I found him a stolid individual, slow in the uptake, but trustworthy and competent. He had been with Poirot since the latter’s return from Egypt. His master’s health, he told me, was fairly good, but he occasionally had alarming heart attacks, and his heart was much weakened in the last few months. It was a case of the engine slowly failing.

Oh well, it had been a good life. Nevertheless my heart was wrung for my old friend who was fighting so gallantly every step of the downward way. Even now, crippled and weak, his indomitable spirit was still leading him to ply the craft at which he was so expert.

I went downstairs sad at heart. I could hardly imagine life without Poirot . . .

A rubber was just finished in the drawing-room, and I was invited to cut in. I thought it might serve to distract my mind and I accepted. Boyd Carrington was the one to cut out, and I sat down with Norton and Colonel and Mrs Luttrell.

‘What do you say now, Mr Norton,’ said Mrs Luttrell. ‘Shall you and I take the other two on? Our late partnership’s been very successful.’

Norton smiled pleasantly, but murmured that perhaps, really, they ought to cut – what?

Mrs Luttrell assented, but with rather an ill-grace, I thought.

Norton and I cut together against the Luttrells. I noticed that Mrs Luttrell was definitely displeased by this. She bit her lip and her charm and Irish brogue disappeared completely for the moment.

I soon found out why. I played on many future occasions with Colonel Luttrell, and he was not really such a bad player. He was what I should describe as a moderate player, but inclined to be forgetful. Every now and then he would make some really bad mistake owing to this. But playing with his wife he made mistake after mistake without ceasing. He was obviously nervous of her, and this caused him to play about three times as badly as was normal. Mrs Luttrell was a very good player indeed, though a rather unpleasant one to play with. She snatched every conceivable advantage, ignored the rules if her adversary was unaware of them, and enforced them immediately when they served her. She was also extremely adept at a quick sideways glance into her opponent’s hands. In other words, she played to win.

And I understood soon enough what Poirot had meant by vinegar. At cards her self-restraint failed, and her tongue lashed every mistake her wretched husband made. It was really most uncomfortable for both Norton and myself, and I was thankful when the rubber came to an end.

We both excused ourselves from playing another on the score of the lateness of the hour.

As we moved away, Norton rather incautiously gave way to his feelings.

‘I say, Hastings, that was pretty ghastly. It gets my back up to see that poor old boy bullied like that. And the meek way he takes it! Poor chap. Not much of the peppery-tongued Indian Colonel about him.’

‘Ssh,’ I warned him, for Norton’s voice had been incautiously raised and I was afraid old Colonel Luttrell would overhear.

‘No, but it is too bad.’

I said with feeling: ‘I shall understand it if he ever takes a hatchet to her.’

Norton shook his head. ‘He won’t. The iron’s entered his soul. He’ll go on: “Yes, m’dear, no, m’dear, sorry, m’dear”, pulling at his moustache and bleating meekly until he’s put in his coffin. He couldn’t assert himself if he tried!’

I shook my head sadly, for I was afraid Norton was right.

We paused in the hall and I noticed that the side door to the garden was open and the wind blowing in.

‘Ought we to shut that?’ I asked.

Norton hesitated a minute before saying: ‘Well – er – I don’t think everybody’s in yet.’

A sudden suspicion darted through my mind.

‘Who’s out?’

‘Your daughter, I think – and – er – Allerton.’

He tried to make his voice extra casual, but the information coming on top of my conversation with Poirot made me feel suddenly uneasy.

Judith – and Allerton. Surely Judith, my clever, cool Judith, would not be taken in by a man of that type? Surely she would see through him?

I told myself that repeatedly as I undressed, but the vague uneasiness persisted. I could not sleep and lay tossing from side to side.

As is the way with night worries, everything gets exaggerated. A fresh sense of despair and loss swept over me. If only my dear wife were alive. She on whose judgement I had relied for so many years. She had always been wise and understanding about the children.

Without her I felt miserably inadequate. The responsibility for their safety and happiness was mine. Would I be equal to that task? I was not, Heaven help me, a clever man. I blundered – made mistakes. If Judith was to ruin her chances of happiness, if she were to suffer –

Desperately I switched the light on and sat up.

It was no good going on like this. I must get some sleep. Getting out of bed I walked over to the wash-basin and looked doubtfully at a bottle of aspirin tablets.

No, I needed something stronger than aspirin. I reflected that Poirot, probably, would have some sleeping stuff of some kind. I crossed the passage to his room and stood hesitating a minute outside the door. Rather a shame to wake the old boy up.

As I hesitated I heard a footfall and looked round. Allerton was coming along the corridor towards me. It was dimly lit, and until he came near I could not see his face, and wondered for a minute who it was. Then I saw, and stiffened all over. For the man was smiling to himself, and I disliked that smile very much.

He looked up and raised his eyebrows. ‘Hullo, Hastings, still about?’

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ I said shortly.

‘Is that all? I’ll soon fix you up. Come with me.’

I followed him into his room, which was the next one to mine. A strange fascination drove me to study this man as closely as I could.

‘You keep late hours yourself,’ I remarked.

‘I’ve never been an early bed-goer. Not when there’s sport abroad. These fine evenings aren’t made to be wasted.’

He laughed – and I disliked the laugh.

I followed him into the bathroom. He opened a little cupboard and took out a bottle of tablets.

‘Here you are. This is the real dope. You’ll sleep like a log – and have pleasant dreams too. Wonderful stuff Slumberyl – that’s the patent name for it.’

The enthusiasm in his voice gave me a slight shock. Was he a drug taker as well? I said doubtfully: ‘It isn’t – dangerous?’

‘It is if you take too much of it. It’s one of the barbiturates – whose toxic dose is very near the effective one.’ He smiled, the corners of his mouth sliding up his face in an unpleasant way.

‘I shouldn’t have thought you could get it without a doctor’s prescription,’ I said.

‘You can’t, old boy. Anyway, quite literally, you can’t. I’ve got a pull in that line.’

I suppose it was foolish of me, but I get these impulses. I said: ‘You knew Etherington, I think?’

At once I knew that it had struck a note of some kind. His eyes grew hard and wary. He said – and his voice had changed – it was light and artificial: ‘Oh yes – I knew Etherington. Poor chap.’ Then, as I did not speak, he went on: ‘Etherington took drugs – of course – but he overdid it. One’s got to know when to stop. He didn’t. Bad business. That wife of his was lucky. If the sympathy of the jury hadn’t been with her, she’d have hanged.’

He passed me over a couple of the tablets. Then he said casually: ‘Did you know Etherington as well?’

I answered with the truth. ‘No.’

He seemed for a moment at a loss how to proceed. Then he turned it off with a light laugh.

‘Funny chap. Not exactly a Sunday school character but he was good company sometimes.’

I thanked him for the tablets and went back to my room.

As I lay down again and turned off the lights I wondered if I had been foolish.

For it came to me very strongly that Allerton was almost certainly X. And I had let him see that I suspected the fact.

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