Then I said:
'He left with you, did he not, a message for me?'
Georges said at once:
'For you, sir? No, not that I am aware of.'
I was surprised. I pressed him, but he was quite definite.
I said at last:
'My mistake, I suppose. Well, that's that. I wish you had been with him at the end.'
'I wish so, too, sir.'
'Still I suppose if your father was ill, you had to come to him.'
Georges looked at me in a very curious manner. He said:
'I beg your pardon, sir. I don't quite understand you.'
'You had to leave in order to look after your father, isn't that right?'
'I didn't wish to leave, sir. M. Poirot sent me away.'
'Sent you away?' I stared.
'I don't mean, sir, that he discharged me. The understanding was that I was to return to his service later. But I left by his wish, and he arranged for suitable remuneration while I was here with my old father.'
'But why, Georges, why?'
'I really couldn't say, sir.'
'Didn't you ask?'
'No, sir. I didn't think it was my place to do so. M. Poirot always had his ideas, sir. A very clever gentleman, I always understood, sir, and very much respected.'
'Yes, yes,' I murmured abstractedly.
'Very particular about his clothes, he was – though given to having them rather foreign and fancy, if you know what I mean. But that, of course, is understandable, as he was a foreign gentleman. His hair, too, and his moustache.'
'Ah! Those famous moustaches.' I felt a twinge of pain as I remembered his pride in them.
'Very particular about his moustache, he was,' went on Georges. 'Not very fashionable the way he wore it, but it suited him, sir, if you know what I mean.'
I said I did know. Then I murmured delicately:
'I suppose he dyed it as well as his hair?'
'He did – er – touch up his moustache a little – but not his hair – not of late years.'
'Nonsense,' I said. 'It was as black as a raven – looked quite like a wig, it was so unnatural.'
Georges coughed apologetically.
'Excuse me, sir, it was a wig. M. Poirot's hair came out a good deal lately, so he took to a wig.'
I thought how odd it was that a valet knew more about a man than his closest friend did.
I went back to the question that puzzled me.
'But have you really no idea why M. Poirot sent you away as he did? Think, man, think.'
Georges endeavoured to do so, but he was clearly not very good at thinking.
'I can only suggest, sir,' he said at last, 'that he discharged me because he wanted to engage Curtiss.'
'Curtiss? Why should he want to engage Curtiss.'
Georges coughed again.
'Well, sir, I really cannot say. He did not seem to me, when I saw him, as a – excuse me – particularly bright specimen, sir. He was strong physically, of course, but I should hardly have thought that he was quite the class M. Poirot would have liked. He'd been assistant in a mental home at one time, I believe.'
I stared at Georges.
Curtiss!
Was that the reason why Poirot had insisted on telling me so little? Curtiss, the one man I had never considered! Yes, and Poirot was content to have it so, to have me combing the guests at Styles for the mysterious X. But X was not a guest.
Curtiss!
One-time assistant in a mental home. And hadn't I read somewhere that people who have been patients in mental homes and asylums sometimes remain or go back there as assistants?
A queer, dumb, stupid-looking man – a man who might kill for some strange warped reason of his own…
And if so – if so…
Why, then a great cloud would roll away from me!
Curtiss -?
Postscript
(Note by Captain Arthur Hastings:
The following manuscript came into my possession four months after the death of my friend Hercule Poirot. I received a communication from a firm of lawyers asking me to call at their office. There, 'in accordance with the instructions of their client, the late M. Hercule Poirot,' they handed me a sealed packet. I reproduce its contents here.)
Manuscript written by Hercule Poirot:
Mon cher ami,
I shall have been dead four months when you read these words. I have debated long whether or not to write down what is written here, and I have decided that it is necessary for someone to know the truth about the second 'Affaire Styles.' Also I hazard a conjecture that by the time you read this you will have evolved the most preposterous theories – and possibly may be giving pain to yourself.
But let me say this: You should, mon ami, have easily been able to arrive at the truth. I saw to it that you had every indication. If you have not, it is because, as always, you have far too beautiful and trusting a nature. A la fin comme au commencement.
But you should know, at least, who killed Norton – even if you are still in the dark as to who killed Barbara Franklin. The latter may be a shock to you.
To begin with, as you know, I sent for you. I told you that I needed you. That was true. I told you that I wanted you to be my ears and my eyes. That again was true, very true – if not in the sense that you understood it! You were to see what I wanted you to see and hear what I wanted you to hear.
You complained, cher ami, that I was 'unfair' in my presentation of this case. I withheld from you knowledge that I had myself. That is to say, I refused to tell you the identity of X. That is quite true. I had to do so – though not for the reasons that I advanced. You will see the reason presently.
And now let us examine this matter of X. I showed you the resume of the various cases. I pointed out to you that in each separate case it seemed quite clear that the person accused, or suspected, had actually committed the crimes in question, that there was no alternate solution. And I then proceeded to the second important fact – that in each case X had been either on the scene or closely involved. You then jumped to a deduction that was, paradoxically, both true and false. You said that X had committed all the murders.
But, my friend, the circumstances were such that in each case (or very nearly) only the accused person could have done the crime. On the other hand, if so, how account for X? Apart from a person connected with the police force or with, say, a firm of criminal lawyers, it is not reasonable for any man or woman to be involved in five murder cases. It does not, you comprehend, happen! Never, never does it occur that someone says confidentially: 'Well, as a matter of fact, I've actually known five murderers'! No, no, mon ami, it is not possible, that. So we get the curious result that we have here a case of catalysis – a reaction between two substances that takes place only in the presence of a third substance, that third substance apparently taking no part in the reaction and remaining unchanged. That is the position. It means that where X was present, crimes took place – but X did not actively take part in these crimes.
