Curtain: Poirot's Last Case (14 page)

I

Dinner was a reasonably cheerful meal. Mrs Luttrell was down again and in her best vein of artificial Irish gaiety. Franklin was more animated and cheerful than I had yet seen him. Nurse Craven I saw for the first time in mufti instead of her nurse’s uniform. She was certainly a very attractive young woman now that she had cast off her professional reserve.

After dinner Mrs Luttrell suggested bridge, but in the end some round games were started. About half past nine Norton declared his intention of going up to see Poirot.

‘Good idea,’ said Boyd Carrington. ‘Sorry he’s been under the weather lately. I’ll come up too.’

I had to act quickly.

‘Look here,’ I said, ‘do you mind – it really tires him too much to talk to more than one person at a time.’

Norton took the cue and said quickly: ‘I promised to lend him a book on birds.’

Boyd Carrington said: ‘All right. You coming back again, Hastings?’

‘Yes.’

I went up with Norton. Poirot was waiting. After a word or two I came down again. We began playing rummy.

Boyd Carrington, I think, resented the carefree atmosphere of Styles tonight. He thought, perhaps, that it was too soon after the tragedy for everyone to forget. He was absent-minded, forgot frequently what he was doing, and at last excused himself from further play.

He went to the window and opened it. The sound of thunder could be heard in the distance. There was a storm about although it had not yet reached us. He closed the window again and came back. He stood for a minute or two watching us play. Then he went out of the room.

I went up to bed at a quarter to eleven. I did not go in to Poirot. He might be asleep. Moreover I felt a reluctance to think any more about Styles and its problems. I wanted to sleep – to sleep and forget.

I was just dropping off when a sound wakened me. I thought it might have been a tap on my door. I called ‘Come in’, but as there was no response, I switched the light on and, getting up, looked out into the corridor.

I saw Norton just coming from the bathroom and going into his own room. He wore a checked dressing-gown of particularly hideous colouring and his hair was sticking up on end as usual. He went into his room and shut the door, and immediately afterwards I heard him turn the key in the lock.

Overhead there was a low rumbling of thunder. The storm was coming nearer.

I went back to bed with a slightly uneasy feeling induced by the sound of that turning key.

It suggested, very faintly, sinister possibilities. Did Norton usually lock his door at night, I wondered? Had Poirot warned him to do so? I remembered with sudden uneasiness how Poirot’s door key had mysteriously disappeared.

I lay in bed and my uneasiness grew whilst the storm overhead added to my feeling of nerviness. I got up at last and locked my own door. Then I went back to bed and slept.

II

I went in to Poirot before going down to breakfast.

He was in bed and I was struck again by how ill he looked. Deep lines of weariness and fatigue were on his face.

‘How are you, old boy?’

He smiled patiently at me. ‘I exist, my friend. I still exist.’

‘Not in pain?’

‘No – just tired –’ he sighed – ‘very tired.’

I nodded. ‘What about last night? Did Norton tell you what he saw that day?’

‘He told me, yes.’

‘What was it?’

Poirot looked at me long and thoughtfully before he replied: ‘I am not sure, Hastings, that I had better tell you. You might misunderstand.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Norton,’ said Poirot, ‘tells me he saw two people –’ ‘Judith and Allerton,’ I cried. ‘I thought so at the time.’

‘
Eh bien, non. Not
Judith and Allerton. Did I not tell you you would misunderstand? You are a man of one idea!’

‘Sorry,’ I said, a little abashed. ‘Tell me.’

‘I will tell you tomorrow. I have much on which I wish to reflect.’

‘Does it – does it help with the case?’

Poirot nodded. He closed his eyes, leaning back in his pillows.

‘The case is ended. Yes, it is ended. There are only some loose ends to be tied. Go down to breakfast, my friend. And as you go, send Curtiss to me.’

I did so and went downstairs. I wanted to see Norton. I was deeply curious to know what it was that he had told Poirot.

Subconsciously I was still not happy. The lack of elation in Poirot’s manner struck me disagreeably. Why this persistent secrecy? Why that deep inexplicable sadness? What was the
truth
of all this?

Norton was not at breakfast.

I strolled out into the garden afterwards. The air was fresh and cool after the storm. I noticed that it had rained heavily. Boyd Carrington was on the lawn. I felt pleased to see him and wished that I could take him into my confidence. I had wanted to all along. I was very tempted to do so now. Poirot was really unfit to carry on by himself.

This morning Boyd Carrington looked so vital, so sure of himself, that I felt a wave of warmth and reassurance.

‘You’re late up this morning,’ he said.

I nodded. ‘I slept late.’

‘Bit of a thunderstorm last night. Hear it?’

I remembered now that I had been conscious of the rolling of thunder through my sleep.

‘I felt a bit under the weather last night,’ said Boyd Carrington. ‘I feel a lot better today.’ He stretched his arms out and yawned.

‘Where’s Norton?’ I asked.

‘Don’t think he’s up yet. Lazy devil.’

With common accord we raised our eyes. Where we were standing the windows of Norton’s room were just above us. I started. For alone in the façade of windows Norton’s were still shuttered.

I said: ‘That’s odd. Do you think they’ve forgotten to call him?’

‘Funny. Hope he’s not ill. Let’s go up and see.’

We went up together. The housemaid, a rather stupid-looking girl, was in the passage. In answer to a question she replied that Mr Norton hadn’t answered when she knocked. She’d knocked once or twice but he hadn’t seemed to hear. His door was locked.

A nasty foreboding swept over me. I rapped loudly on the door, calling as I did so: ‘Norton – Norton. Wake up!’

And again with growing uneasiness: ‘Wake up . . .’

III

When it was apparent that there was going to be no answer we went and found Colonel Luttrell. He listened to us with a vague alarm showing in his faded blue eyes. He pulled uncertainly at his moustache.

Mrs Luttrell, always the one for prompt decisions, made no bones about it.

‘You’ll have to get that door open somehow. There’s nothing else for it.’

For the second time in my life, I saw a door broken open at Styles. Behind that door was what had been behind a locked door on the first occasion.
Death by violence
.

Norton was lying on his bed in his dressing-gown. The key of the door was in the pocket. In his hand was a small pistol, a mere toy, but capable of doing its work. There was a small hole in the exact centre of his forehead.

For a moment or two I could not think of what I was reminded. Something, surely very old . . .

I was too tired to remember.

As I came into Poirot’s room he saw my face.

He said quickly: ‘What has happened? Norton?’

‘Dead!’

‘How? When?’

Briefly I told him.

I ended wearily: ‘They say it’s suicide. What else can they say? The door was locked. The windows were shuttered. The key was in his pocket. Why! I actually saw him go in and heard him lock the door.’

‘You saw him, Hastings?’

‘Yes, last night.’

I explained.

‘You’re sure it was Norton?’

‘Of course. I’d know that awful old dressing-gown anywhere.’

For a moment Poirot became his old self.

‘Ah, but it is a
man
you are identifying, not a
dressing-gown. Ma foi!
Anyone can wear a dressing-gown.’

‘It’s true,’ I said slowly, ‘that I didn’t see his face. But it was his hair all right, and that slight limp –’

‘Anyone could limp,
mon Dieu
!’

I looked at him, startled. ‘Do you mean to suggest, Poirot, that it
wasn’t
Norton that I saw?’

‘I am not suggesting anything of the kind. I am merely annoyed by the unscientific reasons you give for saying it was Norton. No, no, I do not for one minute suggest that it was
not
Norton. It would be difficult for it to be anyone else, for every man here is tall – very much taller than he was – and
enfin

you cannot disguise height – that, no. Norton was only five foot five, I should say.
Tout de même
, it is like a conjuring trick, is it not? He goes into his room, locks the door, puts the key in his pocket, and is found shot with the pistol in his hand and the key still in his pocket.’

‘Then you don’t believe,’ I said, ‘that he shot himself ?’

Slowly Poirot shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Norton did not shoot himself. He was deliberately killed.’

IV

I went downstairs in a daze. The thing was so inexplicable I may be forgiven, I hope, for not seeing the next inevitable step. I was dazed. My mind was not working properly.

And yet it was so logical. Norton had been killed – why? To prevent, or so I believed, his telling what he had seen.

But he had confided that knowledge to one other person.

So that person, too, was in danger . . .

And was not only in danger, but was helpless.

I
should
have known.

I
should
have foreseen . . .

‘
Cher ami!
’ Poirot had said to me as I left the room.

They were the last words I was ever to hear him say. For when Curtiss came to attend to his master he found that master dead . . .

I

I don’t want to write about it at all.

I want, you see, to think about it as little as possible. Hercule Poirot was dead – and with him died a good part of Arthur Hastings.

I will give you the bare facts without embroidery. It is all I can bear to do.

He died, they said, of natural causes. That is to say he died of a heart attack. It was the way, so Franklin said, that he had expected him to go. Doubtless the shock of Norton’s death brought one on. By some oversight, it seems, the amyl nitrate ampoules were not by his bed.

Was
it an oversight? Did someone deliberately remove them? No, it must have been something more than that. X could not count on Poirot’s having a heart attack.

For, you see, I refuse to believe that Poirot’s death was natural. He was killed, as Norton was killed, as Barbara Franklin was killed. And I don’t know
why
they were killed – and I don’t know who killed them!

There was an inquest on Norton and a verdict of suicide. The only point of doubt was raised by the surgeon who said it was unusual for a man to shoot himself in the exact centre of his forehead. But that was the only shadow of doubt. The whole thing was so plain. The door locked on the inside, the key in the dead man’s pocket, the windows closely shuttered, the pistol in his hand. Norton had complained of headaches, it seemed, and some of his investments had been doing badly lately. Hardly reasons for suicide, but they had to put forward something.

The pistol was apparently his own. It had been seen lying on his dressing-table twice by the housemaid during his stay at Styles. So that was that. Another crime beautifully stage-managed and as usual with no alternative solution.

In the duel between Poirot and X, X had won.

It was now up to me.

I went to Poirot’s room and took away the despatch box.

I knew that he had made me his executor, so I had a perfect right to do so. The key was round his neck.

In my own room I opened the box.

And at once I had a shock.
The dossiers of X’s cases were gone
. I had seen them there only a day or two previously when Poirot unlocked it. That was proof, if I had been needing it, that X had been at work. Either Poirot had destroyed those papers himself (most unlikely) or else X had done so.

X. X. That damned fiend X.

But the case was not empty. I remembered Poirot’s promise that I should find other indications which X would not know about.

Were these the indications?

There was a copy of one of Shakespeare’s plays,
Othello
, in a small cheap edition. The other book was the play
John Fergueson
by St John Ervine. There was a marker in it at the third act.

I stared at the two books blankly.

Here were the clues that Poirot had left for me – and they meant nothing to me at all!

What
could
they mean?

The only thing I could think of was a
code
of some kind. A word code based on the plays.

But if so, how was I to get at it?

There were no words, no letters, underlined anywhere. I tried gentle heat with no result.

I read the third act of
John Fergueson
carefully through. A most admirable and thrilling scene where the ‘wanting’ Clutie John sits and talks, and which ends with the younger Fergueson going out to seek for the man who has wronged his sister. Masterly character drawing – but I could hardly think that Poirot had left them to improve my taste in literature!

And then, as I turned the leaves of the book over, a slip of paper fell out. It bore a phrase in Poirot’s handwriting.

‘
Talk to my valet George.
’

Well, here was something. Possibly the key to the code – if code it was – had been left with George. I must get hold of his address and go to see him.

But first there was the sad business of burying my dear friend.

Here was the spot where he had lived when he first came to this country. He was to lie here at the last.

Judith was very kind to me in these days.

She spent a lot of time with me and helped to make all the arrangements. She was gentle and sympathetic. Elizabeth Cole and Boyd Carrington were very kind too.

Elizabeth Cole was less affected by Norton’s death than I should have thought. If she felt any deep grief she kept it to herself.

And so it was all ended . . .

II

Yes, I must put it down.

It must be said.

The funeral was over. I was sitting with Judith, trying to make a few sketchy plans for the future.

She said then: ‘But you see, dear,
I shan’t be here
.’

‘Not here?’

‘
I shan’t be in England.
’

I stared at her.

‘I haven’t liked to tell you before, Father. I didn’t want to make things worse for you. But you’ve got to know now. I hope you won’t mind too much. I’m going to Africa, you see, with Dr Franklin.’

I burst out at that. It was impossible. She couldn’t do a thing like that. Everyone would be bound to talk. To be an assistant to him in England and especially when his wife was alive was one thing, but to go abroad with him to Africa was another. It was impossible and I was going to forbid it absolutely. Judith must not do such a thing!

She didn’t interrupt. She let me finish. She smiled very faintly.

‘But, dearest,’ she said, ‘I’m not going as his assistant. I’m going as his wife.’

It hit me between the eyes.

I said – or rather stammered: ‘Al – Allerton?’

She looked faintly amused. ‘There was never anything in that. I would have told you so if you hadn’t made me so angry. Besides, I wanted you to think, well – what you did think. I didn’t want you to know it was – John.’

‘But I saw him kiss you one night – on the terrace.’ She said impatiently: ‘Oh, I dare say. I was miserable that night. These things happen. Surely you know that?’

I said: ‘You can’t marry Franklin yet – so soon.’

‘Yes, I can. I want to go out with him, and you’ve just said yourself it’s easier. We’ve nothing to wait for – now.’

Judith and Franklin. Franklin and Judith.

Do you understand the thoughts that came into my mind – the thoughts that had lain under the surface for some time?

Judith with a bottle in her hand, Judith with her young passionate voice declaring that useless lives should go to make way for useful ones – Judith whom I loved and whom Poirot also had loved. Those two people that Norton had seen – had they been Judith and
Franklin
? But if so – if so – no, that couldn’t be true. Not Judith. Franklin, perhaps – a strange man, a ruthless man, a man who if he made up his mind to murder, might murder again and again.

Poirot had been willing to consult Franklin.

Why? What had he said to him that morning?

But not Judith. Not my lovely grave young Judith. And yet how strange Poirot had looked. How those words had rung out: ‘You may prefer to say “Ring down the curtain” . . .’

And suddenly a fresh idea struck me. Monstrous! Impossible! Was the whole story of X a fabrication? Had Poirot come to Styles because he feared a tragedy in the Franklin ménage? Had he come to watch over Judith? Was
that
why he had resolutely told me nothing? Because the whole story of X was a fabrication, a smoke-screen?

Was the whole heart of the tragedy Judith, my daughter?

Othello
!It was
Othello
I had taken from the bookcase that night when Mrs Franklin had died. Was that the clue?

Judith that night looking, so someone had said, like her namesake before she cut off the head of Holofernes. Judith – with death in her heart?