Curtain: Poirot's Last Case Read online

  ‘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 t
hat 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 conn
ection 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.’