How often had I not heard Poirot say: 'I do not approve of murder.' That understatement, made so primly, had always tickled my fancy.
Franklin was going on:
'That's the difference between us. I haven't…!'
I looked at him curiously. He inclined his head with a faint smile.
'Quite true,' he said. 'Since death comes anyway, what does it matter if it comes early or late? There's so little difference.'
'Then what on earth made you become a doctor if you feel like that?' I demanded with some indignation.
'Oh, my dear fellow – doctoring isn't just a matter of dodging the ultimate end – it's a lot more – it's improving living. If a healthy man dies, it doesn't matter – much. If an imbecile – a cretin – dies, it's a good thing – but if by the discovery of administering the correct gland you turn your cretin into a healthy, normal individual by correcting his thyroid deficiency, that, to my mind, matters a good deal.'
I looked at him with more interest. I still felt that it would not be Dr Franklin I should call in if I had the influenza, but I had to pay tribute to a kind of white-hot sincerity and a very real force in the man. I had noticed a change in him since his wife's death. He had displayed few of the conventional signs of mourning. On the contrary he seemed more alive, less absent-minded, and full of a new energy and fire.
He said abruptly, breaking into my thoughts:
'You and Judith aren't much alike, are you?'
'No, I suppose we're not.'
'Is she like her mother?'
I reflected, then slowly shook my head.
'Not really. My wife was a merry, laughing creature. She wouldn't take anything seriously – and tried to make me the same, without much success, I'm afraid.'
He smiled faintly.
'No, you're rather the heavy father, aren't you? So Judith says. Judith doesn't laugh much – serious young woman. Too much work, I expect. My fault.'
He went into a brown study. I said conventionally:
'Your work must be very interesting.'
'Eh?'
'I said your work must be interesting.'
'Only to about half a dozen people, To everybody else it's darned dull – and they're probably right. Anyway -' he flung his head back, his shoulders squared themselves, he suddenly looked what he was, a powerful and virile man – 'I've got my chance now! God, I could shout aloud. The Minister Institute people let me know today. The job's still open and I've got it. I start in ten days' time.'
'For Africa?'
'Yes. It's grand.'
'So soon,' I felt slightly shocked.
He stared at me.
'What do you mean – soon? Oh.' His brow cleared. 'You mean after Barbara's death? Why on earth not? It's no good pretending, is it, that her death wasn't the greatest relief to me?'
He seemed amused by the expression on my face.
'I've not time, I'm afraid, for conventional attitudes. I fell in love with Barbara – she was a very pretty girl – married her and fell out of love with her again in about a year, I don't think it lasted even as long as that with her, I was a disappointment to her, of course. She thought she could influence me. She couldn't, I'm a selfish, pigheaded sort of brute, and I do what I want to do.'
'But you did refuse this job in Africa on her account,' I reminded him.
'Yes. That was purely financial, though, I'd undertaken to support Barbara in the way of life she was accustomed to. If I'd gone, it would have meant leaving her very short. But now -' he smiled a completely frank boyish smile – 'it's turned out amazingly lucky for me.'
I was revolted. It is true, I suppose, that many men whose wives die are not precisely heartbroken and everyone more or less knows the fact. But this was so blatant.
He saw my face, but did not seem put out.
'Truth,' he said, 'is seldom appreciated. And yet it saves a lot of time and a lot of inaccurate speech.'
I said sharply:
'And it doesn't worry you at all that your wife committed suicide?'
He said thoughtfully:
'I don't really believe she did commit suicide. Most unlikely -'
'But then, what do you think happened?'
He caught me up.
'I don't know. I don't think I – want to know. Understand?'
I stared at him. His eyes were hard and cold.
He said again:
'I don't want to know. I'm not – interested. See?'
I did see – but I didn't like it.
III
I don't know when it was that I noticed that Stephen Norton had something on his mind. He had been very silent after the inquest, and after that and the funeral were over, he still walked about, his eyes on the ground and his forehead puckered. He had a habit of running his hands through his short grey hair until it stuck up on end like Strumel Peter. It was comical but quite unconscious and denoted some perplexity of his mind. He returned absent-minded answers when you spoke to him, and it did at last dawn upon me that he was definitely worried about something. I asked him tentatively if he had had bad news of any kind, which he promptly negatived. That closed the subject for the time being.
But a little later he seemed to be trying to get an opinion from me on some matter in a clumsy, roundabout way.
Stammering a little, as he always did when he was serious about a thing, he embarked on an involved story centering on a point of ethics.
'You know, Hastings, it should be awfully simple to say when a thing's right or wrong – but really, when it comes to it, it isn't quite such plain sailing. I mean one may come across something – the kind of thing, you see, that isn't meant for you – it's all a kind of accident, and it's the sort of thing you couldn't take advantage of, and yet it might be most frightfully important. Do you see what I mean?'
'Not very well, I'm afraid,' I confessed.
Norton's brow furrowed again. He ran his hands up through his hair again so that it stood upright in its usual comical manner.
'It's so hard to explain. What I mean is, suppose you just happened to see something in a private letter – one opened by mistake, that sort of thing – a letter meant for someone else and you began reading it because you thought it was written to you and so you actually read something you weren't meant to before you realized. That could happen, you know.'
'Oh yes, of course it could.'
'Well, I mean, what would one do?'
'Well -' I gave my mind to the problem. 'I suppose you'd go to the person and say: 'I'm awfully sorry, but I opened this by mistake.''
Norton sighed. He said it wasn't quite so simple as that.
'You see – you might have read something rather embarrassing, Hastings.'
'That would embarrass the other person, you mean? I suppose you'd have to pretend you hadn't actually
