Curtain: Poirot's Last Case (5 page)

I

My narrative of the days spent at Styles must necessarily be somewhat rambling. In my recollection of it, it presents itself to me as a series of conversations – of suggestive words and phrases that etched themselves into my consciousness.

First of all, and very early on, there came the realization of Hercule Poirot’s infirmity and helplessness. I did believe, as he had said, that his brain still functioned with all its old keenness, but the physical envelope had worn so thin that I realized at once that my part was destined to be a far more active one than usual. I had to be, as it were, Poirot’s eyes and ears.

True, every fine day Curtiss would pick up his master and carry him carefully downstairs to where his chair had been carried down beforehand and was awaiting him. Then he would wheel Poirot out into the garden and select a spot that was free of draughts. On other days, when the weather was not propitious, he would be carried to the drawing-room.

Wherever he might be, someone or other was sure to come and sit with him and talk, but this was not the same thing as if Poirot could have selected for himself his partner in the tête-à-tête. He could no longer single out the person he wanted to talk to.

On the day after my arrival I was taken by Franklin to an old studio in the garden which had been fitted up in a rough and ready fashion for scientific purposes.

Let me make clear here and now that I myself have not got the scientific mind. In my account of Dr Franklin’s work I shall probably use all the wrong terms and arouse the scorn of those properly instructed in such matters.

As far as I, a mere layman, could make out, Franklin was experimenting with various alkaloids derived from the Calabar bean,
Physostigma venenosum
. I understood more after a conversation which took place one day between Franklin and Poirot. Judith, who tried to instruct me, was, as is customary with the earnest young, almost impossibly technical. She referred learnedly to the alkaloids physostigmine, eserine, physoveine and geneserine, and then proceeded to a most impossible sounding substance, prostigmin or the demethylcarbonic ester of 3 hydroxypheyl trimethyl lammonum, etc. etc., and a good deal more which, it appeared, was the same thing, only differently arrived at! It was all, at any rate, double Dutch to me, and I aroused Judith’s contempt by asking what
good
all this was likely to do mankind? There is no question that annoys your true scientist more. Judith at once threw me a scornful glance and embarked on another lengthy and learned explanation. The upshot of it was, so I gathered, that certain obscure tribes of West African natives had shown a remarkable immunity to an equally obscure, though deadly disease called, as far as I remember, Jordanitis – a certain enthusiastic Dr Jordan having originally tracked it down. It was an extremely rare tropical ailment, which had been, on one or two occasions, contracted by white people, with fatal results.

I risked inflaming Judith’s rage by remarking that it would be more sensible to find some drug that would counteract the after-effects of measles!

With pity and scorn Judith made it clear to me that it was not the benefaction of the human race, but the enlargement of human
knowledge
, that was the only goal worthy of attainment.

I looked at some slides through the microscope, studied some photographs of West African natives (really quite entertaining!), caught the eye of a soporific rat in a cage and hurried out again into the air.

As I say, any interest I could feel was kindled by Franklin’s conversation with Poirot.

He said: ‘You know, Poirot, the stuff ’s really more up your street than mine. It’s the ordeal bean – supposed to prove innocence or guilt. These West African tribes believe it implicitly – or did do so – they’re getting sophisticated nowadays. They’ll solemnly chew it up quite confident that it will kill them if they’re guilty and not harm them if they’re innocent.’

‘And so, alas, they die?’

‘No, they don’t all die. That’s what has always been overlooked up to now. There’s a lot behind the whole thing – a medicine man ramp, I rather fancy. There are two distinct species of this bean – only they look so much alike that you can hardly spot the difference. But there
is
a difference. They both contain physostigmine and geneserine and the rest of it, but in the second species you can isolate, or I think I can, yet another alkaloid – and the action of that alkaloid neutralizes the effect of the others. What’s more that second species is regularly eaten by a kind of inner ring in a secret ritual – and the people who eat it never go down with Jordanitis. This third substance has a remarkable effect on the muscular system – without deleterious effects. It’s damned interesting. Unfortunately the pure alkaloid is very unstable. Still, I’m getting results. But what’s wanted is a lot more research out there
on the spot
. It’s work that
ought
to be done! Yes, by heck it is . . . I’d sell my soul to –’ He broke off abruptly. The grin came again. ‘Forgive the shop. I get too het up over these things!’

‘As you say,’ said Poirot placidly, ‘it would certainly make my profession much easier if I could test guilt and innocence so easily. Ah, if there were a substance that could do what is claimed for the Calabar bean.’

Franklin said: ‘Ah, but your troubles wouldn’t end there. After all, what
is
guilt or innocence?’

‘I shouldn’t think there could be any doubt about
that
,’ I remarked.

He turned to me. ‘What is evil? What is good? Ideas on them vary from century to century. What you would be testing would probably be a
sense
of guilt or a sense of innocence. In fact no value as a test at all.’

‘I don’t see how you make that out.’

‘My dear fellow, suppose a man thinks he has a divine right to kill a dictator or a money-lender or a pimp or whatever arouses his moral indignation. He commits what
you
consider a guilty deed – but what
he
considers is an innocent one. What is your poor ordeal bean to do about it?’

‘Surely,’ I said, ‘there must always be a feeling of guilt with murder?’

‘Lots of people
I’d
like to kill,’ said Dr Franklin cheerfully. ‘Don’t believe my conscience would keep me awake at night afterwards. It’s an idea of mine, you know, that about eighty per cent of the human race
ought
to be eliminated. We’d get on much better without them.’

He got up and strolled away, whistling cheerfully to himself.

I looked after him doubtfully. A low chuckle from Poirot recalled me.

‘You look, my friend, like one who has envisaged a nest of serpents. Let us hope that our friend the doctor does not practise what he preaches.’

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘But supposing he does?’

II

After some hesitations I decided that I ought to sound Judith on the subject of Allerton. I felt that I must know what her reactions were. She was, I knew, a level-headed girl, well able to take care of herself, and I did not think that she would really be taken in by the cheap attraction of a man like Allerton. I suppose, actually, that I tackled her on the subject because I wanted to be reassured on that point.

Unfortunately, I did not get what I wanted . . . I went about it clumsily, I dare say. There is nothing that young people resent so much as advice from their elders. I tried to make my words quite careless and debonair. I suppose that I failed.

Judith bristled at once.

‘What’s this?’ she said. ‘A paternal warning against the big bad wolf ?’

‘No, no, Judith, of course not.’

‘I gather you don’t like Major Allerton?’

‘Frankly, I don’t. Actually, I don’t suppose you do either.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well – er – he isn’t your type, is he?’

‘What do you consider is my type, Father?’

Judith can always flurry me. I boggled rather badly. She stood looking at me, her mouth curving upwards in a slightly scornful smile.

‘Of course
you
don’t like him,’ she said. ‘I do. I think he’s very amusing.’

‘Oh, amusing – perhaps.’ I endeavoured to pass it off.

Judith said deliberately: ‘He’s very attractive. Any woman would think so. Men, of course, wouldn’t see it.’

‘They certainly wouldn’t.’ I went on, rather clumsily: ‘You were out with him very late the other night –’

I was not allowed to finish. The storm broke.

‘Really, Father, you’re being too idiotic. Don’t you realize that at my age I’m capable of managing my own affairs? You’ve no earthly right to control what I do or whom I choose to make a friend of. It’s this senseless interfering in their children’s lives that is so infuriating about fathers and mothers. I’m very fond of you – but I’m an adult woman and my life is my own. Don’t start making a Mr Barrett of yourself.’

I was so hurt by this extremely unkind remark that I was quite incapable of replying, and Judith went quickly away.

I was left with the dismayed feeling that I had done more harm than good.

I was standing lost in my thoughts when I was roused by the voice of Mrs Franklin’s nurse exclaiming archly: ‘A penny for your thoughts, Captain Hastings!’

I turned gladly to welcome the interruption.

Nurse Craven was really a very good-looking young woman. Her manner was, perhaps, a little on the arch and sprightly side, but she was pleasant and intelligent.

She had just come from establishing her patient in a sunny spot not far from the improvised laboratory.

‘Is Mrs Franklin interested in her husband’s work?’ I asked.

Nurse Craven tossed her head contemptuously. ‘Oh, it’s a good deal too technical for
her
. She’s not at all a clever woman, you know, Captain Hastings.’

‘No, I suppose not.’

‘Dr Franklin’s work, of course, can only be appreciated by someone who knows something about medicine. He’s a very clever man indeed, you know. Brilliant. Poor man, I feel so sorry for him.’

‘Sorry for him?’

‘Yes. I’ve seen it happen so often. Marrying the wrong type of woman, I mean.’

‘You think she’s the wrong type for him?’

‘Well, don’t you? They’ve nothing at all in common.’

‘He seems very fond of her,’ I said. ‘Very attentive to her wishes and all that.’

Nurse Craven laughed rather disagreeably. ‘She sees to that all right!’

‘You think she trades on her – on her ill health?’ I asked doubtfully.

Nurse Craven laughed. ‘There isn’t much you could teach her about getting her own way. Whatever her ladyship wants happens. Some women are like that – clever as a barrelful of monkeys. If anyone opposes them they just lie back and shut their eyes and look ill and pathetic, or else they have a nerve storm – but Mrs Franklin’s the pathetic type. Doesn’t sleep all night and is all white and exhausted in the morning.’

‘But she is really an invalid, isn’t she?’ I asked, rather startled.

Nurse Craven gave me a rather peculiar glance. She said drily: ‘Oh, of course,’ and then turned the subject rather abruptly.

She asked me if it was true that I had been here long ago, in the first war.

‘Yes, that’s quite true.’

She lowered her voice. ‘There was a murder here, wasn’t there? So one of the maids was telling me. An old lady?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you were here at the time?’

‘I was.’

She gave a slight shiver. She said: ‘That explains it, doesn’t it?’

‘Explains what?’

She gave me a quick sideways glance. ‘The – the atmosphere of the place. Don’t you feel it? I do. Something
wrong
, if you know what I mean?’

I was silent a moment considering. Was it true what she had just said? Did the fact that death by violence – by malice aforethought – had taken place in a certain spot leave its impression on that spot so strongly that it was perceptible after many years? Psychic people said so. Did Styles definitely bear traces of that event that had occurred so long ago? Here, within these walls, in these gardens, thoughts of murder had lingered and grown stronger and had at last come to fruition in the final act. Did they still taint the air?

Nurse Craven broke in on my thoughts by saying abruptly: ‘I was in a house where there was a murder case once. I’ve never forgotten it. One doesn’t, you know. One of my patients. I had to give evidence and everything. Made me feel quite queer. It’s a nasty experience for a girl.’

‘It must be. I know myself –’

I broke off as Boyd Carrington came striding round the corner of the house.

As usual, his big, buoyant personality seemed to sweep away shadows and intangible worries. He was so large, so sane, so out-of-doors – one of those lovable, forceful personalities that radiate cheerfulness and common sense.

‘Morning, Hastings, morning, Nurse. Where’s Mrs Franklin?’

‘Good morning, Sir William. Mrs Franklin’s down at the bottom of the garden under the beech tree near the laboratory.’

‘And Franklin, I suppose, is
inside
the laboratory?’

‘Yes, Sir William – with Miss Hastings.’

‘Wretched girl. Fancy being cooped up doing stinks on a morning like this! You ought to protest, Hastings.’

Nurse Craven said quickly: ‘Oh, Miss Hastings is
quite
happy. She likes it, you know, and the doctor couldn’t do without her, I’m sure.’

‘Miserable fellow,’ said Boyd Carrington. ‘If I had a pretty girl like your Judith as a secretary, I’d be looking at
her
instead of at guinea pigs, eh, what?’

It was the kind of joke that Judith would particularly have disliked but it went down quite well with Nurse Craven who laughed a good deal.

‘Oh, Sir William,’ she exclaimed. ‘You really mustn’t say things like that. I’m sure we all know what
you’d
be like! But poor Dr Franklin is so serious – quite wrapped up in his work.’

Boyd Carrington said cheerfully: ‘Well, his wife seems to have taken up her position where she can keep her eye on her husband. I believe she’s jealous.’

‘You know far too much, Sir William!’

Nurse Craven seemed delighted with this
badinage
. She said reluctantly: ‘Well, I suppose I ought to be going to see about Mrs Franklin’s malted milk.’