Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case

Dust-jacket illustration of the first UK edition
Author	Agatha Christie
Cover artist	Not known
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre(s)	Crime novel
Publisher	Collins Crime Club
Publication date	September 1975
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	224 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN	ISBN 0-002-31619-6
Preceded by	Poirot's Early Cases
Followed by	Sleeping Murder

Curtain: Poirot's Last Case is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in September 1975 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at £2.95. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan, DBE (15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976), commonly known as Agatha Christie, was an English crime fiction writer. ... For other uses, see Country (disambiguation). ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Sherlock Holmes, pipe-puffing hero of crime fiction, confers with his colleague Dr. Watson; together these characters popularized the genre. ... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... The Collins Crime Club was an imprint of UK book publishers William Collins & Co Ltd and ran from May 1930 to April 1994. ... See also: 1974 in literature, other events of 1975, 1976 in literature, list of years in literature. ... Hardcover books A hardcover (or hardback or hardbound) is a book bound with rigid protective covers (typically of cardboard covered with cloth, heavy paper, or sometimes leather). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... ISBN redirects here. ... Poirots Early Cases is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie late in her career. ... Sleeping Murder is a novel by Agatha Christie. ... Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes Detective fiction is a branch of crime fiction that centers upon the investigation of a crime, usually murder, by a detective, either professional or amateur. ... Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan, DBE (15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976), commonly known as Agatha Christie, was an English crime fiction writer. ... The Collins Crime Club was an imprint of UK book publishers William Collins & Co Ltd and ran from May 1930 to April 1994. ... For other uses, see September (disambiguation). ... See also: 1974 in literature, other events of 1975, 1976 in literature, list of years in literature. ... Frank Howard Dodd, (1844-1916), was the leading publisher at Dodd, Mead and Company of New York City from 1870 until his death, January 16, 1916. ... The symbol £ represents the pound currency which Britain uses. ...

The novel features Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings in their final appearances in Christie's works (see below). Christie wrote the novel in the early 1940s, during World War II. Partly fearing for her own survival, and partly wanting to have a fitting end to Poirot's series of novels, Christie had the novel locked away in a bank vault for over thirty years. The final Poirot novel that Christie wrote, Elephants Can Remember, was published in 1972, followed by Christie's last novel, Postern of Fate. Knowing that she could no longer write any novels, the elderly Christie authorised Curtain's removal from the vault and subsequent publication. It was the last of her books to be published during her lifetime. David Suchet as Hercule Poirot in The Dream Hercule Poirot (pronounced in english ) is a fictional Belgian detective created by Agatha Christie. ... Captain Arthur Hastings, OBE, is a fictional character, the partner and best friend of Agatha Christies Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. ... The 1940s decade ran from 1940 to 1949. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Elephants Can Remember (published in 1972) is a detective fiction novel by Agatha Christie, featuring her Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and the recurring character Ariadne Oliver. ... See also: 1971 in literature, other events of 1972, 1973 in literature, list of years in literature. ... Postern of Fate (published in 1973) is a detective fiction novel by Agatha Christie, featuring her detectives Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. ...

Not only does the novel return the characters to the setting of her first, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, but it reunites Poirot and Hastings, who had not appeared together since Dumb Witness in 1937. The Mysterious Affair at Styles (written in 1916 and published in 1920) is a detective fiction novel by Agatha Christie. ... Dumb Witness (published in 1937) is an Agatha Christie mystery novel featuring the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. ... Year 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Plot introduction

Having not seen his old friend, Poirot, for a year, Captain Hastings, now a widower, is invited to stay with him at the scene of their first investigation together: Styles Court in Essex. He is prepared for an emotional reunion, but is immediately shocked by the decline in Poirot’s physical condition. When he learns from the Belgian that there is a dangerous murderer in the house, he realises that Poirot is determined to solve one final case or die in the attempt.

Plot summary

The murderer, identified by Poirot simply by the letter X, has been completely unsuspected of involvement in five previous murders, in all of which there was a clear suspect. Four of these suspects have subsequently died (one of them hanged), but in the case of Freda Clay, who gave her aunt an overdose of morphine, there was considered to be too little evidence to prosecute. Hastings agrees that it is highly unlikely to be coincidence if X was connected with all five deaths, but Poirot, now confined to a wheelchair by arthritis, will not give him X’s name. He merely makes it clear that X is in the house, which has been turned into a private hotel by the new owners: Colonel and Mrs. Luttrell.

Hastings makes certain discoveries in the next few days. of their father in one of the five cases. Margaret had died in Broadmoor Asylum and Elizabeth feels stigmatised by the case. Later that day Hastings and several other people overhear an argument between Colonel Luttrell and his wife. Shortly afterwards, he wounds her with a rook rifle,^[1] apparently mistaking her for a rabbit. Hastings reflects that this is precisely the sort of accident with which X is associated, but Mrs. Luttrell rapidly recovers. Location of Broadmoor Hospital at grid reference SU8464 in the United Kingdom Broadmoor Hospital is a high security psychiatric hospital at Crowthorne in Berkshire, England. ...

Hastings is concerned by the attentions paid to his daughter Judith by Major Allerton, who he discovers is married but estranged from his Roman Catholic wife. While he and Elizabeth are out with Stephen Norton, Norton sees something through his binoculars that seems to upset him. Hastings suspects that it is something to do with Allerton and, when his clumsy attempts to persuade Judith to give Allerton up merely antagonise her, he plans Allerton’s murder. He falls asleep while waiting to poison Allerton, and feels differently about things when he awakes the next day.

Barbara Franklin dies the following evening. She has been poisoned with physostigmine sulphate an extract from the Calabar bean that her husband has been researching. After Poirot’s testimony at the inquest – that Mrs. Franklin had been upset and that she had emerged from Franklin’s laboratory with a small bottle – a verdict of suicide is brought in, but Hastings suspects that the death was murder and Poirot confirms this. Physostigmine is a parasympathomimetic, specifically, an irreversible cholinesterase inhibitor obtained from the Calabar bean. ... The Calabar bean is the seed of a leguminous plant, Physostigma venenosum, a native of tropical Africa. ...

Norton, clearly still evidently upset about what he has seen through the binoculars, asks Hastings for his advice, which is to confide in Poirot. Poirot arranges a meeting between them and says that Norton must not speak to anyone further of what he has seen. That night, Hastings is awakened by a noise and sees Norton – with his dressing-gown, untidy grey hair and characteristic limp – go into his bedroom. The next morning, however, Norton is found dead in his locked room with a bullet-hole in the centre of his forehead, the key in his dressing-gown pocket and a pistol (remembered by a housemaid as belonging to him) nearby. X has seemingly struck again.

Poirot takes Hastings over the evidence, pointing out that his belief that he saw Norton that night relies on loose evidence: the dressing-gown, the hair, the limp. Nevertheless, there is no one in the house who could have impersonated Norton, who was a short man. It seems that the mystery will never be solved when Poirot himself dies that night, apparently of natural causes. He nevertheless leaves Hastings three conscious clues: a copy of Othello, a copy of John Fergueson (a play by St. John Greer Ervine that is now – unluckily for readers of Curtain – largely forgotten) and a note telling Hastings to speak to his permanent valet, George. For other uses, see Othello (disambiguation). ... St. ...

In the weeks that follow the death of Poirot, Hastings is staggered to discover that his daughter, Judith, has all along been in love with Dr. Franklin, and is now marrying him and following him to do research in Africa. Was Judith the murderer? When Hastings speaks to George, he discovers that Poirot wore a false moustache, and also that Poirot’s reasons for employing Curtiss were vague. Perhaps the murderer was Curtiss all along?

The solution, and one of the greatest of Christie’s twist endings, is contained in a written confession that is sent to Hastings four months after Poirot’s death. In it, Poirot explains that X was Norton, a man who had perfected the technique of which Iago, in Othello, is master: namely applying just such psychological pressure as is needed to provoke someone to commit murder. Again and again Norton had demonstrated this ability, first by clumsy and tactless remarks that goaded Colonel Luttrell to take a homicidal shot at his wife, and then by his careful manipulation of Hastings to resolve upon the murder of Major Allerton. Norton had contrived to create the impression that Judith loved Allerton, whereas in fact she had been in love with Franklin all along. Hastings's potential murder had, however, been averted by Poirot’s presence of mind in forcing drugged hot chocolate upon him on the night that he had intended it to take place. A twist ending or surprise ending is an unexpected conclusion or climax to a work of fiction, and which often contains irony or causes the audience to reevaluate the narrative or characters. ...

Baulked of his prey twice, Norton turned to Mrs. Franklin, who was soon persuaded to attempt the murder of her husband. By an ironic twist of Fate, however, Hastings himself had intervened in this murder; by turning a revolving bookcase table while seeking out a book in order to solve a crossword clue (coincidentally Othello again) he had swapped the cups of coffee so that the one with poison in it was actually drunk by Mrs. Franklin herself.

Poirot knew all this but could not prove it. He sensed that Norton, who had been deliberately vague about who he had seen through the binoculars when attempting to imply that he had seen Allerton and Judith, was now intending to reveal that he had seen Franklin and Judith, almost certainly implicating them in the apparent murder of Franklin’s wife. The only solution was for Poirot to murder Norton himself. At their meeting, he revealed to Norton what he suspected and said that he intended to "execute" him. He then gave him hot chocolate. Norton, arrogantly self-assured in the face of both the accusation and the threat, insisted on swapping cups, but both contained the same sleeping pills that had previously been used by Poirot to drug Hastings. Poirot himself had grown insensitive to them.

With Norton unconscious, Poirot, whose incapacity had been faked (a trick for which he needed a temporary valet who did not know how healthy he was) moved the body back to Norton’s room in his wheelchair. Then, he disguised himself as Norton by removing his own wig, putting on Norton’s dressing-gown and ruffling up his grey hair. Poirot was the only short suspect at the house. With it established that Norton was alive after he left Poirot’s room, Poirot shot him - with perfect and unnecessary symmetry - in the centre of his forehead. He locked the room with a duplicate key that Hastings knew Poirot to possess; both Hastings and the reader would have assumed that the duplicate key was to Poirot's own room, but Poirot had changed rooms before Norton's arrival, and it was to this previous room that he had the key.

Poirot’s last actions were to write the confession and await his death, which he accelerated by moving amyl nitrite phials out of his own reach. His last wish is implicitly that Hastings will marry Elizabeth Cole: a final instance of the inveterate matchmaking that has characterised his entire career. Amyl nitrite is the chemical compound with the formula C5H11ONO. A variety of isomers are known, but they all feature an amyl group attached to the nitrito functional group. ...

Characters in “Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case”

• Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective
• Captain Arthur Hastings, Poirot’s friend and Judith’s father
• Curtiss, Poirot’s temporary valet
• George, Poirot’s permanent valet
• Dr. John Franklin, a research chemist
• Barbara Franklin, his invalided wife
• Judith Hastings, Franklin’s laboratory assistant
• Nurse Craven, nurse to Barbara Franklin
• Sir William Boyd Carrington, former governor of a province of India
• Major Allerton, a womaniser
• Stephen Norton, a bird watcher
• Colonel Toby Luttrell, owner of Styles Court
• Mrs. Luttrell, his wife
• Elizabeth Cole

Literary significance and reception

Robert Barnard: "Written in the 'forties, designed for publication after Christie's death, but in fact issued just before it. Based on an idea toyed with in Peril at End House (chapter 9) – a clever and interesting one, but needing greater subtlety in the handling than Christie's style or characterisation will allow (the characters here are in any case quite exceptionally pallid). In fact, for a long-cherished idea, and as an exit for Poirot, this is oddly perfunctory in execution."^[2] Robert Barnard (born November 23, 1936} is a mystery writer, critic and lecturer. ... Peril at End House (1932) is a whodunnit novel by Agatha Christie, featuring her famous character Hercule Poirot. ...

Allusions and references

Allusions to other works

Due to its early date of composition, Curtain takes no account of Poirot’s later career. While details are only very occasionally anachronistic (such as the mentions of hanging, which had been abolished in Great Britain in 1965) they often have implications for the series as a whole that can only be dismissed by remembering that Christie probably intended the novel to be published earlier than it was; the fifth paragraph ("Wounded in the war that for me would always be the war--the war that was wiped out now by a second and more desperate war.") sets it within World War II. Hanging is the suspension of a person by a ligature, usually a cord wrapped around the neck, causing death. ...

Hastings, who had been invalided out of the First World War, became involved in the first Styles investigation in 1916, at which time he was around thirty years old.^[3] We know that Poirot was alive to solve the mystery in Elephants Can Remember, which was set in 1972-3. ^[4] Quite apart from Poirot’s age, Hastings must therefore himself be around ninety years old at the time of Curtain. While this does not make it impossible that he should marry Elizabeth Cole, who is thirty-five, it certainly makes it exceptional. Hastings himself estimates in Chapter 8 that Elizabeth is "well over ten years my junior" and an age of fifty is far more suitable for the way that he describes himself in the novel.

Another detail is Poirot's reference to a trip to Egypt for his health. At the time that Curtain was written this was almost certainly intended to be a reference to Death on the Nile, but if Hastings has seen Poirot a year before his death, then we must suppose that Poirot made a second trip there in about 1974. This, however, is merely to tie oneself in knots attempting to suggest a true, consistent biography that stands behind an entirely fictional sequence of events. Death on the Nile is a mystery novel by Agatha Christie published in 1936 featuring the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. ...

• Poirot mentions that once in Egypt he attempted to warn a murderer before they committed their crime. That case is that retold in Death on the Nile. He mentions that there was another case in which he had done the same thing: almost certainly that retold in “Triangle at Rhodes” (published in Murder in the Mews in 1937).

Murder in the Mews is the title of a novella by Agatha Christie, forming part of the Poirot series. ...

Allusions in other works

On August 6, 1975, The New York Times published a front-page obituary of Hercule Poirot with a photograph to mark his death. is the 218th day of the year (219th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... Obituary for World War I death An obituary is a notice of the death of a person, usually published in a newspaper, written or commissioned by the newspaper, and usually including a short biography. ...

References