Curtain - Agatha Christie [74]
‘I could do it – and I was probably the only person who could. For you see my statement carried weight. I am a man experienced in the matter of committing murder – if I am convinced it is suicide, well, then, it will be accepted as suicide.
‘It puzzled you, I could see, and you were not pleased. But mercifully you did not suspect the true danger.
‘But will you think of it after I am gone? Will it come into your mind, lying there like some dark serpent that now and then raises its head and says: “Suppose Judith . . . ?”
‘It may do. And therefore I am writing this. You must know the truth.
‘There was one person whom the verdict of suicide did not satisfy. Norton. He was balked, you see, of his pound of flesh. As I say, he is a sadist. He wants the whole gamut of emotion, suspicion, fear, the coils of the law. He was deprived of all that. The murder he had arranged had gone awry.
‘But presently he saw what one may call a way of recouping himself. He began to throw out hints. Earlier on he had pretended to see something through his glasses. Actually he intended to convey the exact impression that he did convey – namely that he saw Allerton and Judith in some compromising attitude. But not having said anything definite, he could use that incident in a different way.
‘Supposing, for instance, that he says he saw Franklin and Judith. That will open up an interesting new angle of the suicide case! It may, perhaps, throw doubts on whether it was suicide . . .
‘So, mon ami, I decided that what had to be done must be done at once. I arranged that you should bring him to my room that night . . .
‘I will tell you exactly what happened. Norton, no doubt, would have been delighted to tell me his arranged story. I gave him no time. I told him, clearly and definitely, all that I knew about him.
‘He did not deny it. No, mon ami, he sat back in his chair and smirked. Mais oui, there is no other word for it, he smirked. He asked me what I thought I was going to do about this amusing idea of mine. I told him that I proposed to execute him.
‘“Ah,” he said, “I see. The dagger or the cup of poison?”
‘We were about to have chocolate together at the time. He has a sweet tooth, M. Norton.
‘“The simplest,” I said, “would be the cup of poison.”
‘And I handed him the cup of chocolate I had just poured out.
‘“In that case,” he said, “would you mind my drinking from your cup instead of from mine?”
‘I said, “Not at all.” In effect, it was quite immaterial. As I have said, I, too, take the sleeping tablets. The only thing is that since I have been taking them every night for a considerable period, I have acquired a certain tolerance, and a dose that would send M. Norton to sleep would have very little effect upon me. The dose was in the chocolate itself. We both had the same. His portion took effect in due course, mine had little effect upon me, especially when counteracted with a dose of my strychnine tonic.
‘And so to the last chapter. When Norton was asleep I got him into my wheeled chair – fairly easy, it has many types of mechanism – and wheeled him back in it to its usual place in the window embrasure behind the curtains.
‘Curtiss then “put me to bed”. When everything was quiet I wheeled Norton to his room. It remained, then, to avail myself of the eyes and ears of my excellent friend Hastings.
‘You may not have realized it, but I wear a wig, Hastings. You will realize even less that I wear a false moustache. (Even George does not know that!) I pretended to burn it by accident soon after Curtiss came, and at once had my hairdresser make me a replica.
‘I put on Norton’s dressing-gown, ruffled up my grey hair on end, and came down the passage and rapped on your door. Presently you came and looked with sleepy eyes into the passage. You saw Norton leave the bathroom and