Agatha Christie - Curtain - Poirot’s Last Case

True, every fine day Curtiss would pick up his master and carry him carefully downstairs to where his chair had been carried down beforehand and was awaiting him. Then he would wheel Poirot out into the garden and select a spot that was free of draughts. On other days, when the weather was not propitious, he would be carried to the drawing-room.

Wherever he might be, someone or other was sure to come and sit with him and talk, but this was not the same thing as if Poirot could have selected for himself his partner in the tête-à-tête. He could no longer single out the person he wanted to talk to.

On the day after my arrival I was taken by Franklin to an old studio in the garden which had been fitted up in a rough and ready fashion for scientific purposes.

Let me make clear here and now that I myself have not got the scientific mind. In my account of Dr Franklin’s work I shall probably use all the wrong terms and arouse the scorn of those properly instructed in such matters.

As far as I, a mere layman, could make out, Franklin was experimenting with various alkaloids derived from the Calabar bean, Physostigma venenosum . I understood more after a conversation which took place one day between Franklin and Poirot. Judith, who tried to instruct me, was, as is customary with the earnest young, almost impossibly technical. She referred learnedly to the alkaloids physostigmine, eserine, physoveine and geneserine, and then proceeded to a most impossible sounding substance, prostigmin or the demethylcarbonic ester of 3 hydroxypheyl trimethyl lammonum, etc. etc., and a good deal more which, it appeared, was the same thing, only differently arrived at! It was all, at any rate, double Dutch to me, and I aroused Judith’s contempt by asking what good all this was likely to do mankind? There is no question that annoys your true scientist more. Judith at once threw me a scornful glance and embarked on another lengthy and learned explanation. The upshot of it was, so I gathered, that certain obscure tribes of West African natives had shown a remarkable immunity to an equally obscure, though deadly disease called, as far as I remember, Jordanitis – a certain enthusiastic Dr Jordan having originally tracked it down. It was an extremely rare tropical ailment, which had been, on one or two occasions, contracted by white people, with fatal results.

I risked inflaming Judith’s rage by remarking that it would be more sensible to find some drug that would counteract the after-effects of measles!

With pity and scorn Judith made it clear to me that it was not the benefaction of the human race, but the enlargement of human knowledge , that was the only goal worthy of attainment.

I looked at some slides through the microscope, studied some photographs of West African natives (really quite entertaining!), caught the eye of a soporific rat in a cage and hurried out again into the air.

As I say, any interest I could feel was kindled by Franklin’s conversation with Poirot.

He said: ‘You know, Poirot, the stuff’s really more up your street than mine. It’s the ordeal bean – supposed to prove innocence or guilt. These West African tribes believe it implicitly – or did do so – they’re getting sophisticated nowadays. They’ll solemnly chew it up quite confident that it will kill them if they’re guilty and not harm them if they’re innocent.’

‘And so, alas, they die?’

‘No, they don’t all die. That’s what has always been overlooked up to now. There’s a lot behind the whole thing – a medicine man ramp, I rather fancy. There are two distinct species of this bean – only they look so much alike that you can hardly spot the difference. But there is a difference. They both contain physostigmine and geneserine and the rest of it, but in the second species you can isolate, or I think I can, yet another alkaloid – and the action of that alkaloid neutralizes the effect of the others. What’s more that second species is regularly eaten by a kind of inner ring in a secret ritual – and the people who eat it never go down with Jordanitis. This third substance has a remarkable effect on the muscular system – without deleterious effects. It’s damned interesting. Unfortunately the pure alkaloid is very unstable. Still, I’m getting results. But what’s wanted is a lot more research out there on the spot . It’s work that ought to be done! Yes, by heck it is . . . I’d sell my soul to –’ He broke off abruptly. The grin came again. ‘Forgive the shop. I get too het up over these things!’

‘As you say,’ said Poirot placidly, ‘it would certainly make my profession much easier if I could test guilt and innocence so easily. Ah, if there were a substance that could do what is claimed for the Calabar bean.’

Franklin said: ‘Ah, but your troubles wouldn’t end there. After all, what is guilt or innocence?’

‘I shouldn’t think there could be any doubt about that ,’ I remarked.

He turned to me. ‘What is evil? What is good? Ideas on them vary from century to century. What you would be testing would probably be a sense of guilt or a sense of innocence. In fact no value as a test at all.’

‘I don’t see how you make that out.’

‘My dear fellow, suppose a man thinks he has a divine right to kill a dictator or a money-lender or a pimp or whatever arouses his moral indignation. He commits what you consider a guilty deed – but what he considers is an innocent one. What is your poor ordeal bean to do about it?’

‘Surely,’ I said, ‘there must always be a feeling of guilt with murder?’

‘Lots of people I’d like to kill,’ said Dr Franklin cheerfully. ‘Don’t believe my conscience would keep me awake at night afterwards. It’s an idea of mine, you know, that about eighty per cent of the human race ought to be eliminated. We’d get on much better without them.’

He got up and strolled away, whistling cheerfully to himself.

I looked after him doubtfully. A low chuckle from Poirot recalled me.

‘You look, my friend, like one who has envisaged a nest of serpents. Let us hope that our friend the doctor does not practise what he preaches.’

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘But supposing he does?’

II

After some hesitations I decided that I ought to sound Judith on the subject of Allerton. I felt that I must know what her reactions were. She was, I knew, a level-headed girl, well able to take care of herself, and I did not think that she would really be taken in by the cheap attraction of a man like Allerton. I suppose, actually, that I tackled her on the subject because I wanted to be reassured on that point.

Unfortunately, I did not get what I wanted . . . I went about it clumsily, I dare say. There is nothing that young people resent so much as advice from their elders. I tried to make my words quite careless and debonair. I suppose that I failed.

Judith bristled at once.

‘What’s this?’ she said. ‘A paternal warning against the big bad wolf ?’

‘No, no, Judith, of course not.’

‘I gather you don’t like Major Allerton?’

‘Frankly, I don’t. Actually, I don’t suppose you do either.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well – er – he isn’t your type, is he?’

‘What do you consider is my type, Father?’

Judith can always flurry me. I boggled rather badly. She stood looking at me, her mouth curving upwards in a slightly scornful smile.

‘Of course you don’t like him,’ she said. ‘I do. I think he’s very amusing.’

‘Oh, amusing – perhaps.’ I endeavoured to pass it off.

Judith said deliberately: ‘He’s very attractive. Any woman would think so. Men, of course, wouldn’t see it.’