Eighteen
II don’t want to write about it at all.
I want, you see, to think about it as little as possible. Hercule Poirot was dead—and with himdied a good part of Arthur Hastings.
I will give you the bare facts without embroidery¹. It is all I can bear to do.
He died, they said, of natural causes. That is to say he died of a heart attack. It was the way, soFranklin said, that he had expected him to go. Doubtless the shock of Norton’s death brought oneon. By some oversight², it seems, the amyl nitrate ampoules were not by his bed.
Was it an oversight? Did someone deliberately³ remove them? No, it must have been somethingmore than that. X could not count on Poirot’s having a heart attack.
For, you see, I refuse to believe that Poirot’s death was natural. He was killed, as Norton waskilled, as Barbara Franklin was killed. And I don’t know why they were killed—and I don’t knowwho killed them!
There was an inquest on Norton and a verdict of suicide. The only point of doubt was raised bythe surgeon who said it was unusual for a man to shoot himself in the exact centre of his forehead.
But that was the only shadow of doubt. The whole thing was so plain. The door locked on theinside, the key in the dead man’s pocket, the windows closely shuttered, the pistol in his hand.
Norton had complained of headaches, it seemed, and some of his investments had been doingbadly lately. Hardly reasons for suicide, but they had to put forward something.
The pistol was apparently⁴ his own. It had been seen lying on his dressing-table twice by thehousemaid during his stay at Styles. So that was that. Another crime beautifully stage-managedand as usual with no alternative solution.
In the duel⁵ between Poirot and X, X had won.
It was now up to me.
I went to Poirot’s room and took away the despatch⁶ box.
I knew that he had made me his executor, so I had a perfect right to do so. The key was roundhis neck.
In my own room I opened the box.
And at once I had a shock. The dossiers of X’s cases were gone. I had seen them there only aday or two

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