’s Last Case

Chapter 6

Poirot was supposed to keep early hours. I left him therefore to go to sleep and went downstairs, pausing to have a few words with the attendant Curtiss on the way.

I found him a stolid individual, slow in the uptake, but trustworthy and competent. He had been with Poirot since the latter’s return from Egypt. His master’s health, he told me, was fairly good, but he occasionally had alarming heart attacks, and his heart was much weakened in the last few months. It was a case of the engine slowly failing.

Oh well, it had been a good life. Nevertheless my heart was wrung for my old friend who was fighting so gallantly every step of the downward way. Even now, crippled and weak, his indomitable spirit was still leading him to ply the craft at which he was so expert.

I went downstairs sad at heart. I could hardly imagine life without Poirot . . .

A rubber was just finished in the drawing-room, and I was invited to cut in. I thought it might serve to distract my mind and I accepted. Boyd Carrington was the one to cut out, and I sat down with Norton and Colonel and Mrs Luttrell.

‘What do you say now, Mr Norton,’ said Mrs Luttrell. ‘Shall you and I take the other two on? Our late partnership’s been very successful.’

Norton smiled pleasantly, but murmured that perhaps, really, they ought to cut – what?

Mrs Luttrell assented, but with rather an ill-grace, I thought.

Norton and I cut together against the Luttrells. I noticed that Mrs Luttrell was definitely displeased by this. She bit her lip and her charm and Irish brogue disappeared completely for the moment.

I soon found out why. I played on many future occasions with Colonel Luttrell, and he was not really such a bad player. He was what I should describe as a moderate player, but inclined to be forgetful. Every now and then he would make some really bad mistake owing to this. But playing with his wife he made mistake after mistake without ceasing. He was obviously nervous of her, and this caused him to play about three times as badly as was normal. Mrs Luttrell was a very good player indeed, though a rather unpleasant one to play with. She snatched every conceivable advantage, ignored the rules if her adversary was unaware of them, and enforced them immediately when they served her. She was also extremely adept at a quick sideways glance into her opponent’s hands. In other words, she played to win.

And I understood soon enough what Poirot had meant by vinegar. At cards her self-restraint failed, and her tongue lashed every mistake her wretched husband made. It was really most uncomfortable for both Norton and myself, and I was thankful when the rubber came to an end.

We both excused ourselves from playing another on the score of the lateness of the hour.

As we moved away, Norton rather incautiously gave way to his feelings.

‘I say, Hastings, that was pretty ghastly. It gets my back up to see that poor old boy bullied like that. And the meek way he takes it! Poor chap. Not much of the peppery-tongued Indian Colonel about him.’

‘Ssh,’ I warned him, for Norton’s voice had been incautiously raised and I was afraid old Colonel Luttrell would overhear.

‘No, but it is too bad.’

I said with feeling: ‘I shall understand it if he ever takes a hatchet to her.’

Norton shook his head. ‘He won’t. The iron’s entered his soul. He’ll go on: “Yes, m’dear, no, m’dear, sorry, m’dear”, pulling at his moustache and bleating meekly until he’s put in his coffin. He couldn’t assert himself if he tried!’

I shook my head sadly, for I was afraid Norton was right.

We paused in the hall and I noticed that the side door to the garden was open and the wind blowing in.

‘Ought we to shut that?’ I asked.

Norton hesitated a minute before saying: ‘Well – er – I don’t think everybody’s in yet.’

A sudden suspicion darted through my mind.

‘Who’s out?’

‘Your daughter, I think – and – er – Allerton.’

He tried to make his voice extra casual, but the information coming on top of my conversation with Poirot made me feel suddenly uneasy.

Judith – and Allerton. Surely Judith, my clever, cool Judith, would not be taken in by a man of that type? Surely she would see through him?

I told myself that repeatedly as I undressed, but the vague uneasiness persisted. I could not sleep and lay tossing from side to side.

As is the way with night worries, everything gets exaggerated. A fresh sense of despair and loss swept over me. If only my dear wife were alive. She on whose judgement I had relied for so many years. She had always been wise and understanding about the children.

Without her I felt miserably inadequate. The responsibility for their safety and happiness was mine. Would I be equal to that task? I was not, Heaven help me, a clever man. I blundered – made mistakes. If Judith was to ruin her chances of happiness, if she were to suffer –

Desperately I switched the light on and sat up.

It was no good going on like this. I must get some sleep. Getting out of bed I walked over to the wash-basin and looked doubtfully at a bottle of aspirin tablets.

No, I needed something stronger than aspirin. I reflected that Poirot, probably, would have some sleeping stuff of some kind. I crossed the passage to his room and stood hesitating a minute outside the door. Rather a shame to wake the old boy up.

As I hesitated I heard a footfall and looked round. Allerton was coming along the corridor towards me. It was dimly lit, and until he came near I could not see his face, and wondered for a minute who it was. Then I saw, and stiffened all over. For the man was smiling to himself, and I disliked that smile very much.

He looked up and raised his eyebrows. ‘Hullo, Hastings, still about?’

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ I said shortly.

‘Is that all? I’ll soon fix you up. Come with me.’

I followed him into his room, which was the next one to mine. A strange fascination drove me to study this man as closely as I could.

‘You keep late hours yourself,’ I remarked.

‘I’ve never been an early bed-goer. Not when there’s sport abroad. These fine evenings aren’t made to be wasted.’

He laughed – and I disliked the laugh.

I followed him into the bathroom. He opened a little cupboard and took out a bottle of tablets.

‘Here you are. This is the real dope. You’ll sleep like a log – and have pleasant dreams too. Wonderful stuff Slumberyl – that’s the patent name for it.’

The enthusiasm in his voice gave me a slight shock. Was he a drug taker as well? I said doubtfully: ‘It isn’t – dangerous?’

‘It is if you take too much of it. It’s one of the barbiturates – whose toxic dose is very near the effective one.’ He smiled, the corners of his mouth sliding up his face in an unpleasant way.

‘I shouldn’t have thought you could get it without a doctor’s prescription,’ I said.

‘You can’t, old boy. Anyway, quite literally, you can’t. I’ve got a pull in that line.’

I suppose it was foolish of me, but I get these impulses. I said: ‘You knew Etherington, I think?’

At once I knew that it had struck a note of some kind. His eyes grew hard and wary. He said – and his voice had changed – it was light and artificial: ‘Oh yes – I knew Etherington. Poor chap.’ Then, as I did not speak, he went on: ‘Etherington took drugs – of course – but he overdid it. One’s got to know when to stop. He didn’t. Bad business. That wife of his was lucky. If the sympathy of the jury hadn’t been with her, she’d have hanged.’

He passed me over a couple of the tablets. Then he said casually: ‘Did you know Etherington as well?’

I answered with the truth. ‘No.’

He seemed for a moment at a loss how to proceed. Then he turned it off with a light laugh.

‘Funny chap. Not exactly a Sunday school character but he was good company sometimes.’

I thanked him for the tablets and went back to my room.

As I lay down again and turned off the lights I wondered if I had been foolish.

For it came to me very strongly that Allerton was almost certainly X. And I had let him see that I suspected the fact.