Curtain - Agatha Christie [14]
Downstairs, Mrs Luttrell pounced upon us and suggested bridge. I excused myself on the plea of wanting to join Poirot.
I found my friend in bed. Curtiss was moving around the room tidying up, but he presently went out, shutting the door behind him.
‘Confound you, Poirot,’ I said. ‘You and your infernal habit of keeping things up your sleeve. I’ve spent the whole evening trying to spot X.’
‘That must have made you somewhat distrait,’ observed my friend. ‘Did nobody comment on your abstraction and ask you what was the matter?’
I reddened slightly, remembering Judith’s questions. Poirot, I think, observed my discomfiture. I noticed a small malicious smile on his lips. He merely said, however: ‘And what conclusion have you come to on that point?’
‘Would you tell me if I was right?’
‘Certainly not.’
I watched his face closely.
‘I had considered Norton –’
Poirot’s face did not change.
‘Not,’ I said, ‘that I’ve anything to go upon. He just struck me as perhaps less unlikely than anyone else. And then he’s – well – inconspicuous. I should imagine the kind of murderer we’re after would have to be inconspicuous.’
‘That is true. But there are more ways than you think of being inconspicuous.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Supposing, to take a hypothetical case, that if a sinister stranger arrives there some weeks before the murder, for no apparent reason, he will be noticeable. It would be better, would it not, if the stranger were to be a negligible personality, engaged in some harmless sport like fishing.’
‘Or watching birds,’ I agreed. ‘Yes, but that’s just what I was saying.’
‘On the other hand,’ said Poirot, ‘it might be better still if the murderer were already a prominent personality – that is to say, he might be the butcher. That would have the further advantage that no one notices bloodstains on a butcher!’
‘You’re just being ridiculous. Everybody would know if the butcher had quarrelled with the baker.’
‘Not if the butcher had become a butcher simply in order to have a chance of murdering the baker. One must always look one step behind, my friend.’
I looked at him closely, trying to decide if a hint lay concealed in those words. If they meant anything definite, they would seem to point to Colonel Luttrell. Had he deliberately opened a guest house in order to have an opportunity of murdering one of the guests?
Poirot very gently shook his head. He said: ‘It is not from my face that you will get the answer.’
‘You really are a maddening fellow, Poirot,’ I said with a sigh. ‘Anyway, Norton isn’t my only suspect. What about this fellow Allerton?’
Poirot, his face still impassive, enquired: ‘You do not like him?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Ah. What you call the nasty bit of goods. That is right, is it not?’
‘Definitely. Don’t you think so?’
‘Certainly. He is a man,’ said Poirot slowly, ‘very attractive to women.’
I made an exclamation of contempt. ‘How women can be so foolish. What do they see in a fellow like that?’
‘Who can say? But it is always so. The mauvais sujet – always women are attracted to him.’
‘But why?’
Poirot shrugged his shoulders. ‘They see something, perhaps, that we do not.’
‘But what?’
‘Danger, possibly . . . Everyone, my friend, demands a spice of danger in their lives. Some get it vicariously – as in bullfights. Some read about it. Some find it at the cinema. But I am sure of this – too much safety is abhorrent to the nature of a human being. Men find danger in many ways – women are reduced to finding their danger mostly in affairs of sex. That is why, perhaps, they welcome the hint of the tiger – the sheathed claws, the treacherous