Curtain Trivia

1. Who's described as "a very good [bridge] player, though a rather unpleasant to play with"?

From Quiz Curtain: Poirot's Last Case

Answer: Mrs Luttrell

Mrs Luttrell blames her husband for being a poor bridge player, which makes him play even worse.

From Quiz "Curtain"

Answer: Colonel and Mrs. Luttrell

"Curtain" (1975) is Agatha Christie's final Hercule Poirot mystery. It is fitting that it all ends where it began, Styles Court. As the story begins, it is a much older Hastings that is making the journey back to Styles. Yet, his mental state is much the same as that of the young, wounded soldier who made this journey in 1916. His future is again uncertain. Hastings is unsettled, not by the uncertainty of war, but by the death of his beloved "Cinderella". Life at Styles Court is very different now. It has passed out of the hands of the Cavendish family and has been turned into a guesthouse run by Colonel and Mrs. Daisy Luttrell.

From Quiz Curtain: Poirot's Last Case

Answer: Elizabeth Litchfield

Her elder sister Margaret had killed her father. Elizabeth decided to use a false identity afterwards.

From Quiz Curtain: Poirot's Last Case

Answer: Eight Slumberyl tablets in his whisky

Hastings was influenced by X. He suspected his daughter Judith of being in love with Major Allerton. Poirot prevented the murder by dropping sleeping tablets in Hastings' cup of chocolate.

From Quiz "Curtain"

Answer: Georges has returned home because his father is ill

Poirot explains to Hastings that his faithful Georges has left and retuned home to care for his sick father. Curtiss is now taking care of Poirot.

From Quiz Curtain: Poirot's Last Case

Answer: He had an excellent memory

In chapter eight Poirot described him as a "windbag" and a "stuffed shirt". "His memory is so bad that he tells back to you the story that you have told to him."

From Quiz Curtain: Poirot's Last Case

Answer: Judith Hastings

Mrs Franklin and Nurse Craven had to borrow Dr Franklin's key to enter the lab.

From Quiz "Curtain"

Answer: Stephen Norton

The first three people Hastings meets upon arriving at Styles Court are Colonel and Mrs. Luttrell and Stephen Norton. Norton is carrying a pair of field glasses and tells Hastings that he is going bird watching. Birds are not the only things that Norton spied through his field glasses, is it?

From Quiz Curtain: Poirot's Last Case

Answer: Captain Hastings swinging round the bookcase-table

Mrs Franklin wanted to kill her husband by putting physostigmine in his coffee. After Hastings had swung round the bookcase-table with the coffee cups on it Mrs Franklin accidentally drank the poisoned cup herself.

From Quiz "Curtain"

Answer: She is Dr. Franklin's secretary

Judith is the secretary of Dr. Franklin, a specialist in tropical disease research. She is a very pretty girl, very well-educated, and very highly intelligent. Judith is very young, and she has no patience with those she considers to be useless. Of all his four children, Judith is the one Hastings says he loved most but understood the least. Judith loved her father, but she could (and did) shrivel poor, well-meaning Hastings with her sharp tongue, if she thought he was interfering in her business.

From Quiz Curtain: Poirot's Last Case

Answer: George knew that Poirot could still walk

Poirot pretended to be an invalid, so nobody suspected it was he that Hastings saw limping in Norton's dressing gown.

From Quiz Curtain: Poirot's Last Case

Answer: Middle of the forehead

This was a clue that it wasn't suicide, but that Norton was shot by Poirot, who had a strong preference for symmetry.

From Quiz Curtain: Poirot's Last Case

Answer: Iago

Norton was X. Just like Iago he never killed anyone himself, but he instigated other people to kill.

From Quiz "Curtain"

Answer: She drank a cup of poisoned coffee meant for someone else

Barbara Franklin died of phyostigmine poisoning from drinking a cup of coffee into which alkaloids derived from calabar beans had been added. (You can tell that Agatha Christie worked as a pharmacy dispenser in both WWI and WWII, by her great love of poisons, both exotic and mundane). Hastings unknowingly mixed up the cups and handed her the fatal brew. Surely justice was served, as it was Mrs. Franklin who meant the poisonous brew for someone else!

From Quiz Curtain: Poirot's Last Case

Answer: None

The murders were committed by someone under Norton's influence. Norton would never have been convicted because technically he didn't commit any murder himself.

From Quiz "Curtain"

Answer: Overdose of sleeping pills in Allerton's drink

Poor Hastings was manipulated by X into believing that Allerton, a womanizer and complete rotter, was going to seduce Judith. Being an old fashioned, protective father, Hastings could see no way out--except murder. He planned to serve Allerton up a fatal nightcap laced with Allerton's own potent sleeping pills. Luckily for both Allerton and Hastings, X's plot was foiled.

From Quiz "Curtain"

Answer: Barbara Franklin

Poirot testified that he saw Barbara Franklin leaving Dr. Franklin's laboratory with a small bottle in her hand. His testimony supported the theory of suicide, which was exactly what Poirot wanted. He did not want Judith or Dr. Franklin to be suspected of murdering her.

From Quiz "Curtain"

Answer: Sir William Boyd Carrington

Hercule Poirot is absolutely disdainful of Hastings' suggestion. To Hastings, Sir William Boyd Carrington was the epitome of an Englishman of the old school. Boyd Carrington was a fine shot, a big game hunter, and a former governor in India. Poirot reminds Hastings that Boyd Carrington is forgetful. Boyd Carrington had repeated one of Poirot's stories and said that the Chef de la Surete in Paris had told it to him.

From Quiz "Curtain"

Answer: Elizabeth Cole

In a letter written to Hastings, Poirot reveals the identity of X. He also reveals that he is the one who stopped Hastings from murdering Allerton and thus prevented Hastings from becoming one of X's murderers. X did not committ murder--but X knew exactly what buttons to push and exactly how to play on people's emotions. He caused murder to happen. Why did X do these despiciable things that led to murder? X was a sadist who deprived pleasure from the pain of others. X gloried in the power of life and death. Poirot asked Hastings to look up Miss Elizabeth Cole (Litchfield) and tell her all about X. Her father had been murdered by someone dear to her--manipulated by X, and she had suffered for many years because of this tragedy. Did Hastings find love again? We are really never told, but I think so.

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