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Chapter 6

Poirot was supposed to keep early hours. I left him therefore to go to sleepand went downstairs, pausing to have a few words with the attendant Cur-tiss on the way.

I found him a stolid individual, slow in the uptake, but trustworthy andcompetent. 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 hadalarming heart attacks, and his heart was much weakened in the last fewmonths. It was a case of the engine slowly failing.

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

I went downstairs sad at heart. I could hardly imagine life withoutPoirot …

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

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

Norton smiled pleasantly, but murmured that perhaps, really, theyought 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 Lut-trell was definitely displeased by this. She bit her lip and her charm andIrish brogue disappeared completely for the moment.

I soon found out why. I played on many future occasions with ColonelLuttrell, and he was not really such a bad player. He was what I should de-scribe as a moderate player, but inclined to be forgetful. Every now andthen he would make some really bad mistake owing to this. But playingwith his wife he made mistake after mistake without ceasing. He was obvi-ously nervous of her, and this caused him to play about three times asbadly as was normal. Mrs Luttrell was a very good player indeed, though arather unpleasant one to play with. She snatched every conceivable ad-vantage, ignored the rules if her adversary was unaware of them, and en-forced them immediately when they served her. She was also extremelyadept at a quick sideways glance into her opponent’s hands. In otherwords, she played to win.

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

We both excused ourselves from playing another on the score of thelateness 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 thatpoor 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 andI 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 toher.’

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

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 wasopen and the wind blowing in.

‘Ought we to shut that?’ I asked.

Norton hesitated a minute before saying: ‘Well – er – I don’t think every-body’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 ontop of my conversation with Poirot made me feel suddenly uneasy.

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

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

As is the way with night worries, everything gets exaggerated. A freshsense 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 alwaysbeen wise and understanding about the children.

Without her I felt miserably inadequate. The responsibility for theirsafety 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 wasto 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 ofbed I walked over to the wash-basin and looked doubtfully at a bottle ofaspirin tablets.

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

As I hesitated I heard a footfall and looked round. Allerton was comingalong the corridor towards me. It was dimly lit, and until he came near Icould 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 dislikedthat 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 strangefascination 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 tookout a bottle of tablets.

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

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

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

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

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

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

At once I knew that it had struck a note of some kind. His eyes grewhard and wary. He said – and his voice had changed – it was light and arti-ficial: ‘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’sgot to know when to stop. He didn’t. Bad business. That wife of his waslucky. If the sympathy of the jury hadn’t been with her, she’d havehanged.’

He passed me over a couple of the tablets. Then he said casually: ‘Didyou 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 offwith a light laugh.

‘Funny chap. Not exactly a Sunday school character but he was goodcompany 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 beenfoolish.

For it came to me very strongly that Allerton was almost certainly X.

And I had let him see that I suspected the fact.

 

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