Curtain

Catholic. She had left him a short time after their marriage. Owing to her religion there had never been any question of divorce.

'And if you ask me,' said Boyd Carrington frankly, 'it suits the blighter down to the ground. His intentions are always dishonourable, and a wife in the background suits the book very well.'

Pleasant hearing for a father!

The days after the shooting accident passed uneventfully enough on the surface, but they accompanied a growing undercurrent of unrest on my part.

Colonel Luttrell spent much time in his wife's bedroom. A nurse had arrived to take charge of the patient and Nurse Craven was able to resume her ministrations to Mrs Franklin.

Without wishing to be ill-natured, I must admit that I had observed signs on Mrs Franklin's part of irritation at not being the invalid en chef. The fuss and attention that centred round Mrs Luttrell was clearly very displeasing to the little lady who was accustomed to her own health being the main topic of the day.

She lay about in a hammock chair, her hand to her side, complaining of palpitations. No food that was served was suitable for her, and all her exactions were masked by a veneer of patient endurance.

'I do so hate making a fuss,' she murmured plaintively to Poirot. 'I feel so ashamed of my wretched health. It's so – so humiliating always to have to ask people to be doing things for me. I sometimes think ill health is really a crime. If one isn't healthy and insensitive, one isn't fit for this world and one should just be put quietly away.'

'Ah no, madame.' Poirot, as always, was gallant. 'The delicate exotic flower has to have the shelter of the greenhouse – it cannot endure the cold winds. It is the common weed that thrives in the wintry air – but it is not to be prized higher on that account. Consider my case – cramped, twisted, unable to move, but I – I do not think of quitting life. I enjoy still what I can – the food, the drink, the pleasures of the intellect.'

Mrs Franklin sighed and murmured:

'Ah, but it's different for you. You have no one but yourself to consider. In my case, there is my poor John. I feel acutely what a burden I am to him. A sickly useless wife. A millstone hung round his neck.'

'He has never said that you are that, I am sure.'

'Oh not said so. Of course not. But men are so transparent, poor dears. And John isn't any good at concealing his feelings. He doesn't mean, of course, to be unkind, but he's – well, mercifully for himself he's a very insensitive sort of person. He's no feelings and so he doesn't expect anyone else to have them. It's so terribly lucky to be born thick-skinned.'

'I should not describe Dr Franklin as thick-skinned.'

'Wouldn't you? Oh, but you don't know him as well as I do. Of course I know that if it wasn't for me, he would be much freer. Sometimes, you know, I get so terribly depressed that I think what a relief it would be to end it all.'

'Oh, come, madame.'

'After all, what use am I to anybody? To go out of it all into the Great Unknown -' She shook her head. 'And then John would be free.'

'Great fiddlesticks,' said Nurse Craven when I repeated this conversation to her. 'She won't do anything of the kind. Don't you worry, Captain Hastings. These ones that talk about 'ending it all' in a dying duck voice haven't the faintest intention of doing anything of the kind.'

And I must say that once the excitement aroused by Mrs Luttrell's injury had died down and Nurse Craven was once more in attendance, Mrs Franklin's spirits improved very much.

On a particularly fine morning Curtiss had taken Poirot down to the corner below the beech trees near the laboratory. This was a favourite spot of his. It was sheltered from any east wind and in fact hardly any breeze could ever be felt there. This suited Poirot, who abhorred draughts and was always suspicious of the fresh air. Actually, I think, he much preferred to be indoors but had grown to tolerate the outer air when muffled in rugs.

I strolled down to join him there, and just as I got there, Mrs Franklin came out of the laboratory.

She was most becomingly dressed and looked remarkably cheerful. She explained that she was driving over with Boyd Carrington to see the house and to give expert advice on choosing cretonnes.

'I left my handbag in the lab yesterday when I was talking to John,' she explained. 'Poor John, he and Judith have driven into Tadcaster – they were short of some chemical reagent or other.'

She sank down on a seat near Poirot and shook her head with a comical expression. 'Poor dears – I'm so glad I haven't got the scientific mind. On a lovely day like this – it – all seems so puerile.'

'You must not let scientists hear you say that, madame.'

'No, of course not.' Her face changed. It grew serious. She said quietly:

'You mustn't think, M. Poirot, that I don't admire my husband. I do. I think the way he just lives for his work is really – tremendous.'

There was a little tremor in her voice.

A suspicion crossed my mind that Mrs Franklin rather liked playing different roles. At this moment she was being the loyal and hero-worshipping wife.

She leaned forward, placing an earnest hand on Poirot's knee.

'John,' she said, 'is really a – a kind of saint. It makes me quite frightened sometimes.'

To call Franklin a saint was somewhat overstating the case, I thought, but Barbara Franklin went on, her eyes shining:

'He'll do anything – take any risk – just to advance the sum of human knowledge. That is pretty fine, don't you think?'

'Assuredly, assuredly,' said Poirot quickly.

'But sometimes, you know,' went on Mrs Franklin, 'I'm really nervous about him. The lengths to which he'll go, I mean. This horrid bean thing he's experimenting with now. I'm so afraid that he'll start experimenting on himself.'

'He'd take every precaution, surely,' I said.

She shook her head with a slight, rueful smile.

'You don't know John. Did you ever hear about what he did with that new gas?'

I shook my head.

'It was some new gas they wanted to find out about. John volunteered to test it. He was shut up in a tank for something like thirty-six hours – taking his pulse and temperature and respiration – to see what the aftereffects were and if they were the same for men as for animals. It was a frightful risk, so one of the professors told me afterwards. He might easily have passed out altogether. But that's the sort of person John is – absolutely oblivious of his own safety. I think it's rather wonderful, don't you, to be like that? I should never be brave enough.'

'It needs, indeed, high courage,' said Poirot, 'to do these things in cold blood.'

Barbara Franklin said:

'Yes, it does. I'm awfully proud of him, you know, but at the same time it makes me rather nervous, too. Because, you see, guinea pigs and frogs are no good after a certain point. You want the human reaction. That's why I feel so terrified that John will go and dose himself with this nasty ordeal bean and that something awful might happen.' She sighed and shook her head. 'But he only laughs at my fears. He really is a sort of saint, you know.'

At this moment Boyd Carrington came towards us.

'Hullo, Babs, ready?'

'Yes, Bill, waiting for you.'

'I do hope it won't tire you too much.'

'Of course it won't. I feel better today than I have for ages.'

She got up, smiled prettily at us both, and walked up the lawn with her tall escort.

'Dr Franklin – the modern saint – h'm,' said Poirot.

'Rather a change of attitude,' I said. 'But I think the lady is like that.'

'Like what?'

'Given to dramatizing herself in various roles. One day the misunderstood neglected wife, then the self- sacrificing suffering woman who hates to be a burden on the man she loves. Today it's the hero-worshipping helpmate. The trouble is that all the roles are slightly overdone.'

Poirot said thoughtfully: