Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case

‘She was a very kind woman,’ I said slowly. ‘Generous. Gave a lot to charity.’

‘Oh, that kind of generosity.’

Judith’s voice sounded faintly scornful. Then she asked a curious question: ‘Were people – happy here?’

No, they had not been happy. That, at least, I knew. I said slowly: ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because they felt like prisoners. Mrs Inglethorp, you see, had all the money – and – doled it out. Her stepchildren could have no life of their own.’

I heard Judith take a sharp breath. The hand on my arm tightened.

‘That’s wicked – wicked. An abuse of power. It shouldn’t be allowed. Old people, sick people, they shouldn’t have the power to hold up the lives of the young and strong. To keep them tied down, fretting, wasting their power and energy that could be used – that’s needed. It’s just selfishness.’

‘The old,’ I said drily, ‘have not got a monopoly of that quality.’

‘Oh, I know, Father, you think the young are selfish. So we are, perhaps, but it’s a clean selfishness. At least we only want to do what we want ourselves, we don’t want everybody else to do what we want, we don’t want to make slaves of other people.’

‘No, you just trample them down if they happen to be in your way.’

Judith squeezed my arm. She said: ‘Don’t be so bitter! I don’t really do much trampling – and you’ve never tried to dictate our lives to any of us. We are grateful for that.’

‘I’m afraid,’ I said honestly, ‘that I’d have liked to, though. It was your mother who insisted you should be allowed to make your own mistakes.’

Judith gave my arm another quick squeeze. She said: ‘I know. You’d have liked to fuss over us like a hen! I do hate fuss. I won’t stand it. But you do agree with me, don’t you, about useful lives being sacrificed to useless ones?’

‘It does sometimes happen,’ I admitted. ‘But there’s no need for drastic measures . . . It’s up to anybody just to walk out, you know.’

‘Yes, but is it? Is it?’

Her tone was so vehement that I looked at her in some astonishment. It was too dark to see her face clearly. She went on, her voice low and troubled: ‘There’s so much – it’s difficult – financial considerations, a sense of responsibility, reluctance to hurt someone you’ve been fond of – all those things, and some people are so unscrupulous – they know just how to play on all those feelings. Some people – some people are like leeches!’

‘My dear Judith,’ I exclaimed, taken aback by the positive fury of her tone.

She seemed to realize that she had been over-vehement, for she laughed, and withdrew her arm from mine.

‘Was I sounding very intense? It’s a matter I feel rather hotly about. You see, I’ve known a case . . . An old brute. And when someone was brave enough to – to cut the knot and set the people she loved free, they called her mad. Mad? It was the sanest thing anyone could do – and the bravest!’

A horrible qualm passed over me. Where, not long ago, had I heard something like that?

‘Judith,’ I said sharply. ‘Of what case are you talking?’

‘Oh, nobody you know. Some friends of the Franklins. Old man called Litchfield. He was quite rich and practically starved his wretched daughters – never let them see anyone, or go out. He was mad really, but not sufficiently so in the medical sense.’

‘And the eldest daughter murdered him,’ I said.

‘Oh, I expect you read about it? I suppose you would call it murder – but it wasn’t done from personal motives. Margaret Litchfield went straight to the police and gave herself up. I think she was very brave. I wouldn’t have had the courage.’

‘The courage to give yourself up or the courage to commit murder?’

‘Both.’

‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ I said severely, ‘and I don’t like to hear you talking of murder as justified in certain cases.’ I paused, and added: ‘What did Dr Franklin think?’

‘Thought it served him right,’ said Judith. ‘You know, Father, some people really ask to be murdered.’

‘I won’t have you talking like this, Judith. Who’s been putting these ideas into your head?’

‘Nobody.’

‘Well, let me tell you that it’s all pernicious nonsense.’

‘I see. We’ll leave it at that.’ She paused. ‘I came really to give you a message from Mrs Franklin. She’d like to see you if you don’t mind coming up to her bedroom.’

‘I shall be delighted. I’m so sorry she was feeling too ill to come down to dinner.’

‘She’s all right,’ said Judith unfeelingly. ‘She just likes making a fuss.’

The young are very unsympathetic.

Chapter 5

I had only met Mrs Franklin once before. She was a woman about thirty – of what I should describe as the madonna type. Big brown eyes, hair parted in the centre, and a long gentle face. She was very slender and her skin had a transparent fragility.

She was lying on a day bed, propped up with pillows, and wearing a very dainty negligee of white and pale blue.

Franklin and Boyd Carrington were there drinking coffee. Mrs Franklin welcomed me with an outstretched hand and a smile.

‘How glad I am you’ve come, Captain Hastings. It will be so nice for Judith. The child has really been working far too hard.’

‘She looks very well on it,’ I said as I took the fragile little hand in mine.

Barbara Franklin sighed. ‘Yes, she’s lucky. How I envy her. I don’t believe really that she knows what ill health is. What do you think, Nurse? Oh! Let me introduce you. This is Nurse Craven who’s so terribly, terribly good to me. I don’t know what I should do without her. She treats me just like a baby.’

Nurse Craven was a tall, good-looking young woman with a fine colour and a handsome head of auburn hair. I noticed her hands which were long and white – very different from the hands of so many hospital nurses. She was in some respects a taciturn girl, and sometimes did not answer. She did not now, merely inclined her head.

‘But really,’ went on Mrs Franklin, ‘John has been working that wretched girl of yours too hard. He’s such a slave-driver. You are a slave-driver, aren’t you, John?’

Her husband was standing looking out of the window. He was whistling to himself and jingling some loose change in his pocket. He started slightly at his wife’s question.

‘What’s that, Barbara?’

‘I was saying that you overwork poor Judith Hastings shamefully. Now Captain Hastings is here, he and I are going to put our heads together and we’re not going to allow it.’

Persiflage was not Dr Franklin’s strong point. He looked vaguely worried and turned to Judith enquiringly. He mumbled: ‘You must let me know if I overdo it.’

Judith said: ‘They’re just trying to be funny. Talking of work, I wanted to ask you about that stain for the second slide – you know, the one that –’