Curtain, Poirot's Last Case by Curtain Poirot's last case

Author:Curtain, Poirot's last case
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-06-27T07:57:17.735000+00:00

"She doesn't mean it, you know," he said. "It's the sort of half-baked idea one has when one is young - but fortunately one doesn't carry it out. It remains just talk."

I think Judith overheard, for she cast a furious glance over her shoulder.

Norton dropped his voice.

"Theories needn't worry anybody," he said. "But look here, Hastings -"

"Yes?"

Norton seemed rather embarrassed. He said:

"I don't want to butt in, but what do you know of Allerton?"

"Of Allerton?"

"Yes, sorry if I'm being a Nosy Parker, but frankly - if I were you, I shouldn't let that girl of yours see too much of him. He's - well, his reputation isn't very good."

"I can see for myself the sort of rotter he is," I said bitterly. "But it's not so easy in these days."

"Oh, I know. Girls can look after themselves, as the saying goes. Most of them can, too. But - well - Allerton has rather a special technique in that line."

He hesitated, then said:

"Look here, I feel I ought to tell you. Don't let it go further, of course - but I do happen to know something pretty foul about him."

He told it me then and there - and I was able to verify it in every detail later. It was a revolting tale. The story of a girl, sure of herself, modern, independent. Allerton had brought all his "technique" to bear upon her. Later had come the other side of the picture - the story ended with a desperate girl taking her own life with an overdose of Veronal.

And the horrible part was that the girl in question had been of much the same type as Judith - the independent highbrow kind. The kind of girl who when she does lose her heart, loses it with a desperation and an abandonment that the silly little fluffy type can never know.

I went in to lunch with a horrible sense of foreboding.

Chapter 12

"Is anything worrying you, mon ami?" asked Poirot that afternoon.

I did not answer, merely shook my head. I felt that I had no right to burden Poirot with this, my purely personal problem. It was not as though he could help in any way.

Judith would have treated any remonstrances on his part with the smiling detachment of the young towards the boring counsels of the old.

Judith, my Judith...

It is hard now to describe just what I went through that day. Afterwards, thinking it over, I am inclined to put something down to the atmosphere of Styles itself. Evil imaginings came easily to the mind there. There was, too, not only the past, but a sinister present. The shadow of murder and a murderer haunted the house.

And to the best of my belief the murderer was Allerton, and Judith was losing her heart to him! It was all unbelievable - monstrous - and I didn't know what to do.

It was after lunch that Boyd Carrington drew me aside. He hemmed and hawed a bit before coming to the point. At last he

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