Curtain: Poirot's Last Case: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition

by Agatha Christie

Sir William is different. He doesn’t belong here like the rest of us do. He’s from the outside world—the world of success and independence. He’s made a success of his life and he knows it. He’s not one of—of the maimed.”

?!?!?!

“Cole isn’t my name—that is to say, it was my mother’s name. I took it—afterwards.” “After?” “My real name is Litchfield.” For a minute or two it didn’t sink in—it was just a name vaguely familiar. Then I remembered. “Matthew Litchfield.”

Family of a victim.

My father was an invalid and a tyrant. He forbade us any kind of normal life. We couldn’t ask friends to the house. He kept us short of money. We were—in prison.”

I know that she went to the police, that she gave herself up, that she confessed. But I still sometimes can’t believe it! I feel somehow that it wasn’t true—that it didn’t—that it couldn’t have happened like she said it did.”

It wasn’t like her. It wasn’t—it wasn’t Maggie!”

Captain Hastings has sacrificed a pocket handkerchief in the good cause of keeping my dress clean.”

“Yes, yes, often used to think of evenings like this—out in India, you know.

He had not pictured himself running a guest house, trying to make it pay, with a nagging wife forever snapping at him and complaining.

We chatted for a few minutes. Colonel Luttrell seemed to have brightened up. He made a joke or two and seemed far more cheerful and wide awake than usual.

How do you think we’ll ever make this place pay if you go round standing everybody drinks? Drinks here will be paid for. I’ve got a business-head if you haven’t. Why, you’d be bankrupt tomorrow if it wasn’t for me! I’ve got to look after you like a child. Yes, just like a child. You’ve got no sense at all. Give me that bottle. Give it to me, I say.”

Christ.

“You’re going too far, Daisy. I won’t have it.” “You won’t have it? And who are you I’d like to know? Who runs this house? I do. And don’t you forget it.”

He must have realized that we could not have helped overhearing what had passed. If he had not realized it, our manner would soon have told him.

No human being has a right to humiliate another human being.

Yet they do.

‘Ah yes, shure, it was a grand holiday! I shot my brother.’

“Some men are like that. Everything they turn their hand to succeeds. They can’t go wrong. Some people—have all the luck.”

There was a scream in a woman’s voice. It died in a kind of horrible gurgle. The rifle fell from the Colonel’s hand, his body sagged—he caught his lip. “My God—it’s Daisy.”

And there's the murder.

It was Mrs. Luttrell. She had been kneeling, tying a stake against one of the small fruit trees. The grass was long there so that I realized how it was that the Colonel had not seen her clearly and had only distinguished movements in the grass. The light too was confusing. She had been shot through the shoulder and the blood was gushing out.

It was Nurse Craven who appeared first upon the scene. She was there in an incredibly short time and at once set about in a businesslike way to stop the bleeding. Franklin arrived at a run soon afterwards.

“I—thought—rabbit—nibbling the bark—don’t know how I came to make such a mistake. Light in my eyes.”

“What an extraordinary thing to happen,” was my daughter’s comment.

That's Not appropriate.

“Serve the old harridan damn well right,” he observed. “Think the old boy did it on purpose?”

Also not appropriate.

“Don’t be too sure. I’ve known two men who shot their wives. Cleaning his revolver one was. The other fired point-blank at her as a joke, he said. Didn’t know the thing was loaded. Got away with it, both of them. Damned good release, I should say myself.”

“I’m sorry, but I thought Doctor was here. The old lady is conscious now and she’s worrying about her husband. She’d like to see him. Do you know where he is, Captain Hastings? I don’t want to leave my patient.”

He was so unsteady as he began shuffling towards the door that I came and helped him. He leaned on me heavily as we went up the stairs. His breathing was coming with difficulty. The shock, as Franklin had prophesied, was severe.

The sound of the gong startled me as I went along the passage. I had completely forgotten the passage of time. The accident had upset everything. Only the cook had gone on as usual and produced dinner at the usual time.

After dinner, to my annoyance, Allerton and Judith disappeared into the garden together. I sat around a while, listening to Franklin and Norton discussing tropical diseases.

“Did the thought occur to you of your own accord, or did someone else suggest it to you?”

“You need not be so remorseful about your suspicions, Hastings. It was an idea quite likely to occur to anyone given the circumstances. Oh, yes, it was all quite natural.”

Underneath the quarrels, the misunderstandings, the apparent hostility of everyday life, a real and true affection can exist.”

Truth.

Married life, I mused, as I went to bed, was a curious thing.

How long was he married before his wife died?

If Mrs. Luttrell had been killed, it would have been a case like those other cases. Colonel Luttrell would, apparently, have killed his wife. It would have been accounted an accident, yet at the same time nobody would have been sure that it was an accident, or whether it had been done on purpose. Insufficient evidence to show it as murder, but quite enough evidence for murder to be suspected. But that meant—that meant— What did it mean? It meant—if anything at all was to make sense—that it was not Colonel Luttrell who shot Mrs. Luttrell, but X.

But possible, yes . . . Supposing that someone else had waited his moment, and at the exact instant when Colonel Luttrell had fired (at a rabbit), this other person had fired at Mrs. Luttrell.

Exactly.

Or, even with a slight discrepancy, it would have been put down as an echo. (Now I come to think of it, there had been an echo, surely.)

The only doubt would have been whether the shot was fired accidentally or with criminal intent—a question that could never be resolved.

Yes, this case fell into line with the rest and I knew now the meaning of Poirot’s manner. He was waiting for me to appreciate the fact.

“Do not figure to yourself that I am playing a lone hand. Not at all. You are, on the contrary, very much in the picture, Hastings. You are my eyes and ears. I only refuse to give you information that might be dangerous.”

“You want him,” I said slowly, “not to suspect that you are on his track? That is it, I suppose. Or else you think that I cannot take care of myself.”

A man who has killed once will kill again—and again and again and again.”

In my own mind I still clung to my belief that I had penetrated that personality. There was only one person at Styles who struck me as definitely evil. By a simple question, however, I could make sure of one thing. The test would be a negative one, but would nevertheless have a certain value.

I’d been down to the village, if you must know, to get some stamps.”

“Actually, we’d met just near the house and only about two minutes before we met you.

His manners were not what one would call polished to anyone, but he did at least behave to most people with a certain amount of everyday politeness. But to Judith, especially of late, his manner was always curt and dictatorial in the extreme. He hardly looked at her when he spoke and merely barked out orders.

I watched Franklin as he strode along the path towards the laboratory, his ungainly walk, his angular build, the jutting bones of his face and head, his red hair and his freckles. An ugly man and an ungainly man.

I reflected with dismay that Judith, owing to the circumstances of her job, practically never came into contact with other men. She had no opportunity of sizing up various attractive men.

There was, I felt sure, nothing of the madman about Allerton. He was sane—altogether sane—and utterly unprincipled.

Allerton’s wife was a devout Roman Catholic. She had left him a short time after their marriage.

The fuss and attention that centred round Mrs. Luttrell was clearly very displeasing to the little lady who was accustomed to her own health being the main topic of the day.

No food that was served was suitable for her, and all her exactions were masked by a veneer of patient endurance.

If one isn’t healthy and insensitive one isn’t fit for this world and one should just be put quietly away.”

You have no one but yourself to consider. In my case, there is my poor John. I feel acutely what a burden I am to him. A sickly useless wife. A millstone hung round his neck.”