Curtain: Poirot's Last Case (7 page)

‘Do you call that unhappiness? I should have said it was the happiest state imaginable.’

‘Oh yes, I’m not disputing it – but not if you’re hampered from doing what you feel it’s in you to do. If you can’t, that is to say, produce your best.’

I looked at her, feeling rather puzzled. She went on to explain: ‘Last autumn Dr Franklin was offered the chance of going out to Africa and continuing his research work there. He’s tremendously keen, as you know, and has really done first-class work already in the realm of tropical medicine.’

‘And he didn’t go?’

‘No. His wife protested. She herself wasn’t well enough to stand the climate and she kicked against the idea of being left behind, especially as it would have meant very economical living for her. The pay offered was not high.’

‘Oh,’ I said. I went on slowly: ‘I suppose he felt that in her state of health he couldn’t leave her.’

‘Do you know much about her state of health, Captain Hastings?’

‘Well, I – no – But she is an invalid, isn’t she?’

‘She certainly enjoys bad health,’ said Miss Cole drily. I looked at her doubtfully. It was easy to see that her sympathies were entirely with the husband.

‘I suppose,’ I said slowly, ‘that women who are – delicate are apt to be selfish?’

‘Yes, I think invalids – chronic invalids – usually are very selfish. One can’t blame them perhaps. It’s so easy.’

‘You don’t think that there’s really very much the matter with Mrs Franklin?’

‘Oh, I shouldn’t like to say that. It’s just a suspicion. She always seems able to do anything she wants to do.’

I reflected in silence for a minute or two. It struck me that Miss Cole seemed very well acquainted with the ramifications of the Franklin ménage. I asked with some curiosity: ‘You know Dr Franklin well, I suppose?’

She shook her head. ‘Oh, no. I had only met them once or twice before we met here.’

‘But he has talked to you about himself, I suppose?’ Again she shook her head. ‘No, what I have just told you I learnt from your daughter Judith.’

Judith, I reflected, with a moment’s bitterness, talked to everyone except me.

Miss Cole went on: ‘Judith is terrifically loyal to her employer and very much up in arms on his behalf. Her condemnation of Mrs Franklin’s selfishness is sweeping.’

‘You, too, think she is selfish?’

‘Yes, but I can see her point of view. I – I understand invalids. I can understand, too, Dr Franklin’s giving way to her. Judith, of course, thinks he should park his wife anywhere and get on with the job. Your daughter’s a very enthusiastic scientific worker.’

‘I know,’ I said rather disconsolately. ‘It worries me sometimes. It doesn’t seem natural, if you know what I mean. I feel she ought to be – more human – more keen on having a good time. Amuse herself – fall in love with a nice boy or two. After all, youth is the time to have one’s fling – not to sit poring over test tubes. It isn’t natural. In our young days we were having fun – flirting – enjoying ourselves –
you
know.’

There was a moment’s silence. Then Miss Cole said in a queer cold voice: ‘I don’t know.’

I was instantly horrified. Unconsciously I had spoken as though she and I were contemporaries – but I realized suddenly that she was well over ten years my junior and that I had been unwittingly extremely tactless.

I apologized as best I could. She cut into my stammering phrases.

‘No, no, I didn’t mean that. Please don’t apologize. I meant just simply what I said.
I don’t know
. I was never what you meant by “young”. I never had what is called “a good time”.’

Something in her voice, a bitterness, a deep resentment, left me at a loss. I said, rather lamely, but with sincerity: ‘I’m sorry.’

She smiled. ‘Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. Don’t look so upset. Let’s talk about something else.’

I obeyed. ‘Tell me something about the other people here,’ I said. ‘Unless they’re all strangers to you.’

‘I’ve known the Luttrells all my life. It’s rather sad that they should have to do this – especially for him. He’s rather a dear. And she’s nicer than you’d think. It’s having had to pinch and scrape all her life that has made her rather – well – predatory. If you’re always on the make, it does tell in the end. The only thing I do rather dislike about her is that gushing manner.’

‘Tell me something about Mr Norton.’

‘There isn’t really much to tell. He’s very nice – rather shy – just a little stupid, perhaps. He’s always been rather delicate. He’s lived with his mother – rather a peevish, stupid woman. She bossed him a good deal, I think. She died a few years ago. He’s keen on birds and flowers and things like that. He’s a very kind person – and he’s the sort of person who sees a lot.’

‘Through his glasses, you mean?’

Miss Cole smiled. ‘Well, I wasn’t meaning it quite so literally as that. I meant more that he
notices
a good deal. Those quiet people often do. He’s unselfish – and very considerate for a man, but he’s rather –
ineffectual
, if you know what I mean.’

I nodded. ‘Oh, yes, I know.’

Elizabeth Cole said suddenly, and once more the deep bitter note was in her voice: ‘That’s the depressing part of places like this. Guest houses run by broken-down gentlepeople. They’re full of failures – of people who have never got anywhere and never will get anywhere, of people who – who have been defeated and broken by life, of people who are old and tired and finished.’

Her voice died away. A deep and spreading sadness permeated me. How true it was! Here we were, a collection of twilit people.
Grey heads, grey hearts, grey dreams
. Myself, sad and lonely, the woman beside me also a bitter and disillusioned creature. Dr Franklin, eager, ambitious, curbed and thwarted, his wife a prey to ill health. Quiet little Norton limping about looking at birds. Even Poirot, the once brilliant Poirot, now a broken, crippled old man.

How different it had been in the old days – the days when I had first come to Styles. The thought was too much for me – a stifled exclamation of pain and regret came to my lips.

My companion said quickly: ‘What is it?’

‘Nothing. I was just struck by the contrast – I was here, you know, many years ago, as a young man. I was thinking of the difference between then and now.’

‘I see. It was a happy house then? Everyone was happy here?’

Curious, sometimes, how one’s thoughts seemed to swing in a kaleidoscope. It happened to me now. A bewildering shuffling and reshuffling of memories, of events. Then the mosaic settled into its true pattern.

My regret had been for the past as the past, not for the reality. For even then, in that far-off time, there had been no happiness at Styles. I remembered dispassionately the real facts. My friend John and his wife, both unhappy and chafing at the life they were forced to lead. Laurence Cavendish, sunk in melancholy. Cynthia, her girlish brightness damped by her dependent position. Inglethorp married to a rich woman for her money. No, none of them had been happy. And now, again, no one here was happy. Styles was not a lucky house.

I said to Miss Cole: ‘I’ve been indulging in false sentiment. This was never a happy house. It isn’t now. Everyone here is unhappy.’

‘No, no. Your daughter –’

‘Judith’s not happy.’

I said it with the certainty of sudden knowledge. No, Judith wasn’t happy.

‘Boyd Carrington,’ I said doubtfully. ‘He was saying the other day that he was lonely – but for all that I think he’s enjoying himself quite a good deal – what with his house and one thing and another.’

Miss Cole said sharply: ‘Oh yes, but then 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.’

It was a curious word to choose. I turned and stared at her.

‘Will you tell me,’ I asked, ‘why you used that particular expression?’

‘Because,’ she said with a sudden fierce energy, ‘it’s the truth. The truth about me, at any rate. I am maimed.’

‘I can see,’ I said gently, ‘that you have been very unhappy.’

She said quietly: ‘You don’t know who I am, do you?’

‘Er – I know your name –’

‘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.’

She nodded. ‘I see you know about it. That was what I meant just now. 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.’

She paused, her eyes, those beautiful eyes, wide and dark.

‘And then my sister – my sister –’

She stopped.

‘Please don’t – don’t go on. It is too painful for you. I know about it. There is no need to tell me.’

‘But you don’t know. You can’t. Maggie. It’s inconceivable – unbelievable. 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.’

‘You mean –’ I hesitated – ‘that the facts were at – at variance –’

She cut me short. ‘No, no. Not that. No, it’s Maggie herself. It wasn’t like her. It wasn’t – it wasn’t
Maggie
!’

Words trembled on my lips, but I did not say them. The time had not yet come when I could say to her: ‘You are right.
It wasn’t Maggie
. . .’

It must have been about six o’clock when Colonel Luttrell came along the path. He had a rook rifle with him and was carrying a couple of dead wood-pigeons.

He started when I hailed him and seemed surprised to see us.

‘Hullo, what are you two doing here? That tumble-down old place isn’t very safe, you know. It’s falling to pieces. Probably break up about your ears. Afraid you’ll get dirty there, Elizabeth.’

‘Oh, that’s all right. Captain Hastings has sacrificed a pocket handkerchief in the good cause of keeping my dress clean.’

The Colonel murmured vaguely: ‘Oh really? Oh well, that’s all right.’

He stood there pulling at his lip and we got up and joined him.

His mind seemed far away this evening. He roused himself to say: ‘Been trying to get some of these cursed wood-pigeons. Do a lot of damage, you know.’

‘You’re a very fine shot, I hear,’ I told him. ‘Eh? Who told you that? Oh, Boyd Carrington. Used to be – used to be. Bit rusty nowadays. Age will tell.’

‘Eyesight,’ I suggested.

He negatived the suggestion immediately. ‘Non-sense. Eyesight’s as good as ever it was. That is – have to wear glasses for reading, of course. But far sight’s all right.’

He repeated a minute or two later: ‘Yes – all right. Not that it matters . . .’ His voice trailed off into an absent-minded mutter.

Miss Cole said, looking round: ‘What a beautiful evening it is.’

She was quite right. The sun was drawing to the west and the light was a rich golden, bringing out the deeper shades of green in the trees in a deep glowing effect. It was an evening, still and calm, and very English, such as one remembers when in far-off tropical countries. I said as much.

Colonel Luttrell agreed eagerly. ‘Yes, yes, often used to think of evenings like this – out in India, you know. Makes you look forward to retiring and settling down, what?’

I nodded. He went on, his voice changing: ‘Yes, settling down, coming home – nothing’s ever quite what you picture it – no – no.’

I thought that that was probably particularly true in his case. 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 walked slowly towards the house. Norton and Boyd Carrington were sitting on the veranda and the Colonel and I joined them whilst Miss Cole went on into the house.

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.

‘Been a hot day,’ said Norton. ‘I’m thirsty.’

‘Have a drink, you fellows. On the house, what?’ The Colonel sounded eager and happy.

We thanked him and accepted. He got up and went in.

The part of the terrace where we were sitting was just outside the dining-room window, and that window was open.

We heard the Colonel inside opening a cupboard, then heard the squeak of a corkscrew and the subdued pop as the cork of the bottle came out.

And then, sharp and high, came the unofficial voice of Mrs Colonel Luttrell!

‘What are you doing, George?’

The Colonel’s voice was subdued to a mutter. We only heard a mumbled word here and there – ‘fellows outside’ – ‘drink’ –

The sharp, irritating voice burst out indignantly: ‘You’ll do no such thing, George. The idea now. 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.’

Again there was an agonized low protesting mumble. Mrs Luttrell answered snappishly: ‘I don’t care whether they do or they don’t. The bottle’s going back in the cupboard, and I’m going to lock the cupboard too.’

There was the sound of a key being turned in the lock.

‘There now. That’s the way of it.’

This time the Colonel’s voice came more clearly: ‘You’re going too far, Daisy. I won’t have it.’

‘
You
won’t haveit? And who areyou

I’d liketoknow? Who runs this house? I do. And don’t you forget it.’

There was a faint swish of draperies and Mrs Luttrell evidently flounced out of the room.

It was some few moments before the Colonel reappeared. He looked in those few moments to have grown much older and feebler.

There was not one of us who did not feel deeply sorry for him and who would not willingly have murdered Mrs Luttrell.

‘Awfully sorry, you chaps,’ he said, his voice sounding stiff and unnatural. ‘Seem to have run out of whisky.’

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. We were all miserably uncomfortable, and Norton quite lost his head, hurriedly saying first that he didn’t really want a drink – too near dinner, wasn’t it – and then elaborately changing the subject and making a series of the most unconnected remarks. It was indeed a bad moment. I myself felt paralysed and Boyd Carrington, who was the only one of us who might conceivably have managed to pass it off, got no opportunity with Norton’s babble.

Out of the tail of my eye I saw Mrs Luttrell stalking away down one of the paths equipped with gardening gloves and a dandelion weeder. She was certainly an efficient woman, but I felt bitterly towards her just then. No human being has a right to humiliate another human being.

Norton was still talking feverishly. He had picked up a wood-pigeon, and from first telling us how he had been laughed at at his prep school for being sick when he saw a rabbit killed, had gone on to the subject of grouse moors, telling a long and rather pointless story of an accident that had occurred in Scotland when a beater had been shot. We talked of various shooting accidents we had known, and then Boyd Carrington cleared his throat and said:

‘Rather an amusing thing happened once with a batman of mine. Irish chap. He had a holiday and went off to Ireland for it. When he came back I asked him if he had had a good holiday.

‘“Ah shure, your Honour, best holiday I’ve ever had in my life!”

‘“I’m glad of that,” I said, rather surprised at his enthusiasm.

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

‘“You shot your brother!” I exclaimed.

‘“Ah yes, indade. It’s years now that I’ve been wanting to do it. And there I was on a roof in Dublin and who should I see coming down the street but my brother and I there with a rifle in my hand. A lovely shot it was, though I say it myself. Picked him off as clean as a bird. Ah, it was a foine moment, that, and I’ll never forget it!”’

Boyd Carrington told a story well, with exaggerated dramatic emphasis, and we all laughed and felt easier. When he got up and strolled off, saying he must get a bath before dinner, Norton voiced our feeling by saying with enthusiasm: ‘What a splendid chap he is!’

I agreed and Luttrell said: ‘Yes, yes, a good fellow.’

‘Always been a success everywhere, so I understand,’ said Norton. ‘Everything he’s turned his hand to has succeeded. Clear-headed, knows his own mind – essentially a man of action. The true successful man.’

Luttrell said slowly: ‘Some men are like that. Everything they turn their hand to succeeds. They can’t go wrong. Some people – have all the luck.’

Norton gave a quick shake of the head. ‘No, no, sir. Not luck.’ He quoted with meaning: ‘
Not in our stars, dear Brutus – but in ourselves
.’

Luttrell said: ‘Perhaps you’re right.’

I said quickly: ‘At any rate he’s lucky to have inherited Knatton. What a place! But he certainly ought to marry. He’ll be lonely there by himself.’

Norton laughed. ‘Marry and settle down? And suppose his wife bullies him –’

It was the purest bad luck. The sort of remark that anyone could make. But it was unfortunate in the circumstances, and Norton realized it just at the moment that the words came out. He tried to catch them back, hesitated, stammered, and stopped awkwardly. It made the whole thing worse.

Both he and I began to speak at once. I made some idiotic remark about the evening light. Norton said something about having some bridge after dinner.

Colonel Luttrell took no notice of either of us. He said in a queer, inexpressive voice: ‘No, Boyd Carrington won’t get bullied by his wife. He’s not the sort of man who
lets
himself get bullied.
He’s
all right. He’s a
man
!’

It was very awkward. Norton began babbling about bridge again. In the middle of it a large wood-pigeon came flapping over our heads and settled on the branch of a tree not far away.

Colonel Luttrell picked up his gun. ‘There’s one of the blighters,’ he said.

Before he could take aim the bird had flown off again through the trees where it was impossible to get a shot at it.

At the same moment, however, the Colonel’s attention was diverted by a movement on the far slope.

‘Damn, there’s a rabbit nibbling the bark of those young fruit trees. Thought I’d wired the place.’

He raised the rifle and fired, and as I saw –

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.’

I was already running across the lawn. Norton came behind me. I reached the spot and knelt down. 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.

I bent to examine the wound and looked up at Norton. He was leaning against a tree and was looking green and as though he were going to be sick. He said apologetically: ‘I can’t stand blood.’

I said sharply: ‘Get hold of Franklin at once. Or the nurse.’

He nodded and ran off.

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 business-like way to stop the bleeding. Franklin arrived at a run soon afterwards. Between them they got her into the house and to bed: Franklin dressed and bandaged the wound and sent for her own doctor and Nurse Craven stayed with her.

I ran across Franklin just as he left the telephone.

‘How is she?’

‘Oh, she’ll pull through all right. It missed any vital spot, luckily. How did it happen?’

I told him. He said: ‘I see. Where’s the old boy? He’ll be feeling knocked out, I shouldn’t wonder. Probably needs attention more than she does. I shouldn’t say his heart is any too good.’

We found Colonel Luttrell in the smoking-room. He was a blue colour round the mouth and looked completely dazed. He said brokenly: ‘Daisy? Is she – how is she?’

Franklin said quickly: ‘She’ll be all right, sir. You needn’t worry.’

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

‘These things happen,’ said Franklin drily. ‘I’ve seen one or two of them in my time. Look here, sir, you’d better let me give you a pick-me-up. You’re not feeling too good.’

‘I’m all right. Can I – can I go to her?’

‘Not just now. Nurse Craven is with her. But you don’t need to worry. She’s all right. Dr Oliver will be here presently and he’ll tell you the same.’

I left the two of them together and went out into the evening sunshine. Judith and Allerton were coming along the path towards me. His head was bent to hers and they were both laughing.

Coming on top of the tragedy that had just happened, it made me feel very angry. I called sharply to Judith and she looked up, surprised. In a few words I told them what had occurred.

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

She did not seem nearly as perturbed as she should have been, I thought.

Allerton’s manner was outrageous. He seemed to take the whole thing as a good joke.

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

‘Certainly not,’ I said sharply. ‘It was an accident.’

‘Yes, but I know these accidents. Damned convenient sometimes. My word, if the old boy shot her deliberately I take off my hat to him.’

‘It was nothing of the kind,’ I said angrily. ‘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.’

‘Colonel Luttrell,’ I said coldly, ‘isn’t that type of man.’

‘Well you couldn’t say it wouldn’t be a blessed release, could you?’ demanded Allerton pertinently. ‘They hadn’t just had a row or anything, had they?’

I turned away angrily, at the same time trying to hide a certain perturbation. Allerton had come a little too near the mark. For the first time a doubt crept into my mind.

It was not bettered by meeting Boyd Carrington. He had been for a stroll down towards the lake, he explained. When I told him the news he said at once: ‘You don’t think he meant to shoot her, do you, Hastings?’

‘My dear man.’

‘Sorry, sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It was only, for the moment, one wondered . . . She – she gave him a bit of provocation, you know.’

We were both silent for a moment as we remembered the scene we had so unwillingly overheard.

I went upstairs feeling unhappy and worried, and rapped on Poirot’s door.

He had already heard through Curtiss of what had occurred, but he was eager for full details. Since my arrival at Styles I had got into the way of reporting most of my daily encounters and conversations in full detail. In this way I felt that the dear old fellow felt less cut off. It gave him the illusion of actually participating in everything that went on. I have always had a good and accurate memory and found it a simple matter to repeat conversations verbatim.