Curtain: Poirot's Last Case is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in September 1975 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year, selling for $7.95.
The novel features Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings in their final appearances in Christie's works. It is a country house novel, with all the characters and the murder set in one house. Not only does the novel return the characters to the setting of her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, but it also reunites Poirot and Hastings, who last appeared together in Dumb Witness in 1937. It was adapted for television in 2013.
It is the last novel Christie published before her death. Sleeping Murder, written during the Blitz and published posthumously, is her final published novel.
Background By the time Curtain was written, the broader political situation was tense. The Spanish Civil War, which had broken out the previous year, upset the balance of power and drew an international response. At the same time, Germany was becoming increasingly aggressive in Europe, having spent the previous few years rearming. In the United Kingdom, there was a sense of political unease towards the future and an expectation of war, although foreign policy remained predicated on appeasement. Stanley Baldwin resigned as prime minister in May 1937 and was replaced by his deputy, Neville Chamberlain.
Due to the threat of war, Christie's husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan had his digs cancelled from 1938. Following the outbreak of war in September 1939 both undertook war work. Christie moved to London, living in the Isokon Flats in Hampstead. She worked in the pharmacy at University College Hospital—so allowing her to update her knowledge of poisons—while continuing to write. Two books she wrote in this period—"in anticipation of 'being killed in the raids' on London during the Blitz", as she later wrote—were Curtain, with Hercule Poirot, and Sleeping Murder, which featured Miss Marple, also in her last major case. These books remained unpublished and stayed in a bank vault with instructions not to be published until after her death. Her intention—in the knowledge that she could be killed at any time—was that her daughter Rosalind would receive an inheritance. In the event, Curtain was published a few months before she died, with Sleeping Murder being published posthumously.
Plot Poirot, now old and infirm, calls on the recently widowed Hastings to join him at Styles Court in Essex, the scene of his first case in Britain, which has since been converted to a guest house. He suspects that a person there is involved in five previous murders, all cases with seemingly indisputable culprits. Poirot claims that another murder is about to take place at Styles and asks Hastings to act as his eyes and ears, but, to Hastings' chagrin, will not share the name of his suspect, calling them only X.
Over the next few days, several alarming incidents occur. Colonel Luttrell, owner of the guest house, injures his wife with his shotgun, claiming to have been aiming at a rabbit in the grounds. Hastings, worried that Major Allerton, a guest with the reputation of a womanizer, is after his daughter Judith, tries to poison him. He is intercepted by Poirot and unknowingly drugged with sleeping pills, waking up the next day horrified at himself. Barbara Franklin, the wife of Dr Franklin, Judith's employer, dies by alkaloid poisoning, the subject of her husband's research. Thanks to Poirot's testimony, her death is ruled a suicide. Stephen Norton, a guest with a penchant for birdwatching, implies he has seen something through his binoculars. After talking to Poirot, Norton is found shot dead inside his locked room. Poirot identifies all of these events as the machinations of X, but offers no further explanation to Hastings. Poirot soon dies in his sleep, apparently from a long-expected heart attack. In his will, he leaves Hastings several cryptic clues to help him solve the mystery.
Four months later, a letter from Poirot is delivered to Hastings, explaining everything. X was Norton, an unassuming man highly skilled in the power of suggestion. He used his talents to manipulate people into committing murderous acts, for which he himself could never be prosecuted. Colonel Luttrell was subtly shamed for his subservience to his wife. Hastings was misdirected into thinking that Judith was in love with Allerton, rather than Dr Franklin. Mrs Franklin was inspired into murdering her husband to marry another Styles guest, but ultimately poisoned herself when Hastings inadvertently switched her coffee with Dr Franklin's. Poirot sought to have the case ruled as a suicide to avoid implicating Dr Franklin and Judith, while Norton's visit to Poirot was an attempt to shift suspicion onto them. Poirot drugged Norton with sleeping pills, locked him in his room with a spare key, and shot him - the murder he told Hastings would happen at Styles, as he saw no other way to stop Norton. Conflicted over taking a life, Poirot purposefully left his ampoules of nitrate out of reach, inviting his end. Poirot ends his account by encouraging Hastings to begin living his life again.
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