Curtain hp-39

by Agatha Christie

  "Of course."

  What did the fool think?

  He almost immediately told me:

  "Most people," he said, "don't want to know. They want soothing syrup. They want hope. They want reassurance ladled out in driblets. And of course amazing recoveries do occur. But they won't in Poirot's case."

  "Do you mean -" Again that cold hand closed round my heart.

  Franklin nodded,

  "Oh yes, he's for it, all right. And pretty soon, I should say. I shouldn't tell you so if he hadn't authorized me to do so."

  "Then – he knows."

  Franklin said:

  "He knows, all right. That heart of his may go out – phut – any moment. One can't say, of course, exactly when."

  He paused, then he said slowly:

  "From what he says, I gather he's worrying about getting something finished, something that – as he puts it – he's undertaken. D'you know about that?"

  "Yes," I said. "I know."

  Franklin shot me an interested glance.

  "He wants to be sure of finishing off the job."

  "I see."

  I wondered if John Franklin had any idea of what that job was!

  He said slowly:

  "I hope he'll manage it. From what he said, it means a lot to him." He paused and added: "He's got a methodical mind."

  I asked anxiously:

  "Isn't there something that can be done – something in the way of treatment -"

  He shook his head.

  "Nothing doing. He's got ampoules of amyl nitrite to use when he feels an attack is coming on."

  Then he said a rather curious thing.

  "Got a very great respect for human life, hasn't he?"

  "Yes – I suppose he has."

  How often had I not heard Poirot say: "I do not approve of murder." That understatement, made so primly, had always tickled my fancy.

  Franklin was going on:

  "That's the difference between us. I haven't…!"

  I looked at him curiously. He inclined his head with a faint smile.

  "Quite true," he said. "Since death comes anyway, what does it matter if it comes early or late? There's so little difference."

  "Then what on earth made you become a doctor if you feel like that?" I demanded with some indignation.

  "Oh, my dear fellow – doctoring isn't just a matter of dodging the ultimate end – it's a lot more – it's improving living. If a healthy man dies, it doesn't matter – much. If an imbecile – a cretin – dies, it's a good thing – but if by the discovery of administering the correct gland you turn your cretin into a healthy, normal individual by correcting his thyroid deficiency, that, to my mind, matters a good deal."

  I looked at him with more interest. I still felt that it would not be Dr Franklin I should call in if I had the influenza, but I had to pay tribute to a kind of white-hot sincerity and a very real force in the man. I had noticed a change in him since his wife's death. He had displayed few of the conventional signs of mourning. On the contrary he seemed more alive, less absent-minded, and full of a new energy and fire.

  He said abruptly, breaking into my thoughts:

  "You and Judith aren't much alike, are you?"

  "No, I suppose we're not."

  "Is she like her mother?"

  I reflected, then slowly shook my head.

  "Not really. My wife was a merry, laughing creature. She wouldn't take anything seriously – and tried to make me the same, without much success, I'm afraid."

  He smiled faintly.

  "No, you're rather the heavy father, aren't you? So Judith says. Judith doesn't laugh much – serious young woman. Too much work, I expect. My fault."

  He went into a brown study. I said conventionally:

  "Your work must be very interesting."

  "Eh?"

  "I said your work must be interesting."

  "Only to about half a dozen people, To everybody else it's darned dull – and they're probably right. Anyway -" he flung his head back, his shoulders squared themselves, he suddenly looked what he was, a powerful and virile man – "I've got my chance now! God, I could shout aloud. The Minister Institute people let me know today. The job's still open and I've got it. I start in ten days' time."

  "For Africa?"

  "Yes. It's grand."

  "So soon," I felt slightly shocked.

  He stared at me.

  "What do you mean – soon? Oh." His brow cleared. "You mean after Barbara's death? Why on earth not? It's no good pretending, is it, that her death wasn't the greatest relief to me?"

  He seemed amused by the expression on my face.

  "I've not time, I'm afraid, for conventional attitudes. I fell in love with Barbara – she was a very pretty girl – married her and fell out of love with her again in about a year, I don't think it lasted even as long as that with her, I was a disappointment to her, of course. She thought she could influence me. She couldn't, I'm a selfish, pigheaded sort of brute, and I do what I want to do."

  "But you did refuse this job in Africa on her account," I reminded him.

  "Yes. That was purely financial, though, I'd undertaken to support Barbara in the way of life she was accustomed to. If I'd gone, it would have meant leaving her very short. But now -" he smiled a completely frank boyish smile – "it's turned out amazingly lucky for me."

  I was revolted. It is true, I suppose, that many men whose wives die are not precisely heartbroken and everyone more or less knows the fact. But this was so blatant.

  He saw my face, but did not seem put out.

  "Truth," he said, "is seldom appreciated. And yet it saves a lot of time and a lot of inaccurate speech."

  I said sharply:

  "And it doesn't worry you at all that your wife committed suicide?"

  He said thoughtfully:

  "I don't really believe she did commit suicide. Most unlikely -"

  "But then, what do you think happened?"

  He caught me up.

  "I don't know. I don't think I – want to know. Understand?"

  I stared at him. His eyes were hard and cold.

  He said again:

  "I don't want to know. I'm not – interested. See?"

  I did see – but I didn't like it.

  III

  I don't know when it was that I noticed that Stephen Norton had something on his mind. He had been very silent after the inquest, and after that and the funeral were over, he still walked about, his eyes on the ground and his forehead puckered. He had a habit of running his hands through his short grey hair until it stuck up on end like Strumel Peter. It was comical but quite unconscious and denoted some perplexity of his mind. He returned absent-minded answers when you spoke to him, and it did at last dawn upon me that he was definitely worried about something. I asked him tentatively if he had had bad news of any kind, which he promptly negatived. That closed the subject for the time being.

  But a little later he seemed to be trying to get an opinion from me on some matter in a clumsy, roundabout way.

  Stammering a little, as he always did when he was serious about a thing, he embarked on an involved story centering on a point of ethics.

  "You know, Hastings, it should be awfully simple to say when a thing's right or wrong – but really, when it comes to it, it isn't quite such plain sailing. I mean one may come across something – the kind of thing, you see, that isn't meant for you – it's all a kind of accident, and it's the sort of thing you couldn't take advantage of, and yet it might be most frightfully important. Do you see what I mean?"

  "Not very well, I'm afraid," I confessed.

  Norton's brow furrowed again. He ran his hands up through his hair again so that it stood upright in its usual comical manner.

  "It's so hard to explain. What I mean is, suppose you just happened to see something in a private letter – one opened by mistake, that sort of thing – a letter meant for someone else and you began reading it because you thought it was written to you and so you actually re
ad something you weren't meant to before you realized. That could happen, you know."

  "Oh yes, of course it could."

  "Well, I mean, what would one do?"

  "Well -" I gave my mind to the problem. "I suppose you'd go to the person and say: 'I'm awfully sorry, but I opened this by mistake.'"

  Norton sighed. He said it wasn't quite so simple as that.

  "You see – you might have read something rather embarrassing, Hastings."

  "That would embarrass the other person, you mean? I suppose you'd have to pretend you hadn't actually read anything – that you'd discovered your mistake in time."

  "Yes." Norton said it after a moment's pause, and he did not seem to feel that be had yet arrived at a satisfactory solution.

  He said rather wistfully:

  "I wish I did know what I ought to do."

  I said that I couldn't see that there was anything else he could do.

  Norton said, the perplexed frown still on his forehead:

  "You see, Hastings, there's rather more to it than that. Supposing that what you read was – well, rather important to someone else again, I mean."

  I lost patience.

  "Really, Norton, I don't see what you do mean. You can't go about reading other people's private letters, can you -"

  "No no of course not. I didn't mean that. And anyway, it wasn't a letter at all. I only said that to try and explain the sort of thing. Naturally anything you saw or heard or read – by accident – you'd keep to yourself, unless -"

  "Unless what?"

  Norton said slowly:

  "Unless it was something you ought to speak about."

  I looked at him with suddenly awakened interest. He went on:

  "Look here, think of it this way – supposing you saw something through a – a keyhole -"

  Keyholes made me think of Poirot! Norton was stumbling on:

  "What I mean is, you'd got a perfectly good reason for looking through the keyhole – the key might have stuck and you just looked to see if it was clear – or – or some quite good reason – and you never for one minute expected to see what you did see…"

  For a moment or two I lost the thread of his stumbling sentences, for enlightenment had come to me. I remembered a day on a grassy knoll and Norton swinging up his glasses to see a speckled woodpecker, I remembered his immediate distress and embarrassment, his endeavours to prevent me from looking through the glasses in my turn, At the moment I had leaped to the conclusion that what he had seen was something to do with me – in fact that it was Allerton and Judith. But supposing that that was not the case? That he had seen something quite different? I had assumed that it was something to do with Allerton and Judith because I was so obsessed by them at that time that I could think of nothing else.

  I said abruptly:

  "Was it something you saw through those glasses of yours?"

  Norton was both startled and relieved.

  "I say, Hastings, how did you guess?"

  "It was that day when you and I and Elizabeth Cole were up on that knoll, wasn't it?"

  "Yes, that's right."

  "And you didn't want me to see?"

  "No. It wasn't – well, I mean it wasn't meant for any of us to see."

  "What was it?"

  Norton frowned again.

  "That's just it. Ought I to say? I mean it was – well, it was spying. I saw something I wasn't meant to see. I wasn't looking for it – there really was a speckled woodpecker – a lovely fellow, and then I saw the other thing."

  He stopped. I was curious, intensely curious, yet I respected his scruples.

  I asked:

  "Was it – something that mattered?"

  He said slowly:

  "It might matter. That's just it. I don't know."

  I asked then:

  "Has it something to do with Mrs Franklin's death?"

  He started.

  "It's queer you should say that."

  "Then it has?"

  "No – no, not directly. But it might have." He said slowly: "It would throw a different light on, certain things. It would mean that – Oh, damn it all, I don't know what to do!"

  I was in a dilemma. I was agog with curiosity, yet I felt that Norton was very reluctant to say what he had seen. I could understand that. I should have felt the same myself. It is always unpleasant to come into possession of a piece of information that has been acquired in what the outside world would consider a dubious manner.

  Then an idea struck me.

  "Why not consult Poirot?"

  "Poirot?" Norton seemed a little doubtful.

  "Yes, ask his advice."

  "Well," said Norton slowly, "it's an idea. Only, of course, he's a foreigner -" He stopped, rather embarrassed.

  I knew what he meant. Poirot's scathing remarks on the subject of "playing the game" were only too familiar to me. I only wondered that Poirot had never thought of taking to bird glasses himself! He would have done it if he had thought of it.

  "He'd respect your confidence," I urged. "And you needn't act upon his advice if you don't like it."

  "That's true," said Norton, his brow clearing. "You know, Hastings, I think that's just what I will do."

  IV

  I was astonished at Poirot's instant reaction to my piece of information.

  "What is that you say, Hastings?"

  He dropped the piece of thin toast he had been raising to his lips. He poked his head forward.

  "Tell me. Tell me quickly."

  I repeated the story.

  "He saw something through the glasses that day," repeated Poirot thoughtfully. "Something that he will not tell you." His hand shot out and gripped my arm. "He has not told anyone else of this?"

  "I don't think so. No, I'm sure he hasn't."

  "Be very careful, Hastings. It is urgent that he should not tell anyone – he must not even hint. To do so might be dangerous."

  "Dangerous?"

  "Very dangerous."

  Poirot's face was grave.

  "Arrange with him, mon ami, to come up and see me this evening. Just an ordinary friendly little visit, you understand. Do not let anyone else suspect that there is any special reason for his coming. And be careful, Hastings; be very, very careful. Who else did you say was with you at the time?"

  "Elizabeth Cole."

  "Did she notice anything odd about his manner?"

  I tried to recollect.

  "I don't know. She may have. Shall I ask her if -"

  "You will say nothing, Hastings – absolutely nothing."

  Chapter 16

  I

  I gave Norton Poirot's message.

  "I'll go up and see him, certainly. I'd like to. But you know, Hastings, I'm rather sorry I mentioned the matter even to you."

  "By the way," I said. "You haven't said anything to anyone else about it, have you?"

  "No – at least – no, of course not."

  "You're quite sure?"

  "No, no, I haven't said anything."

  "Well, don't. Not until after you've seen Poirot."

  I had noticed the slight hesitation in his tone when he first answered, but his second assurance was quite firm. I was to remember that slight hesitation afterwards, though.

  II

  I went up again to the grassy knoll where we had been on that day. Someone else was there already. Elizabeth Cole. She turned her head as I came up the slope.

  She said:

  "You look very excited, Captain Hastings. Is anything the matter?"

  I tried to calm myself.

  "No, no, nothing at all. I'm just out of breath with walking fast." I added in an everyday commonplace voice:

  "It's going to rain."

  She looked up at the sky.

  "Yes, I think it is."

  We stood there silent for a minute or two. There was something about this woman that I found very sympathetic. Ever since she had told me who she really was, and the tragedy that had ruined her life, I had taken an interest in her. Tw
o people who have suffered unhappiness have a great bond in common. Yet for her there was, or so I suspected, a second spring. I said now impulsively:

  "Far from being excited, I'm depressed today. I've had bad news about my dear old friend."

  "About M. Poirot?"

  Her sympathetic interest led me to unburden myself.

  When I had finished, she said softly:

  "I see. So – the end might come any time?"

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  After a minute or two I said:

  "When he's gone, I shall indeed be alone in the world."

  "Oh no, you've got Judith – and your other children."

  "They're scattered over the world, and Judith – well, she's got her work. She doesn't need me."

  "I suspect that children don't ever need their parents until they are in trouble of some kind. You should make up your mind to that as to some fundamental law. I'm far more lonely than you are. My two sisters are far away – one in America and one in Italy."

  "My dear girl," I said. "Your life's beginning."

  "At thirty-five?"

  "What's thirty-five? I wish I were thirty-five." I added maliciously: "I'm not quite blind, you know."

  She turned an enquiring glance on me, then blushed.

  "You don't think – oh! Stephen Norton and I are only friends. We've got a good deal in common -"

  "All the better."

  "He's – he's just awfully kind."

  "Oh, my dear," I said. "Don't believe it's all kindness. We men aren't made that way."

  But Elizabeth Cole had turned suddenly white. She said in a low, strained voice:

  "You're cruel – blind! How can I ever think of – of marriage? With my history. With my sister a murderess – or if not that, insane. I don't know which is worse."

  I said strongly:

  "Don't let that prey on your mind. Remember, it may not be true."

  "What do you mean? It is true."

  "Don't you remember saying to me once: 'It wasn't Maggie'?"

  She caught her breath.

  "One feels like that."

  "What one feels is often – true."

  She stared at me.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Your sister," I said, "did not kill her father."