"Curtain" Trivia Quiz

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.

Answer: True

It is a shock to see someone we love age, and it was a shock for Hastings to see Poirot. Hercule Poirot has grown very old, and his health is frail--but there is nothing wrong with his "little gray cells", his sense of humor, or his ego! In other words, underneath his fragile exterior, Hastings finds Poirot exactly the same.

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.

Answer: Poirot tells Hastings the identity of X

Poirot says that X is the one common link in five murders. Where X goes, murder seems to follow. He will not tell Hastings X's identity, because Poirot says that everything Hastings feels shows on his face. Poirot has followed X to Styles Court, and Poirot and Hastings are going to hunt together one last time. Poirot knows that X's presence at Styles Court means that someone will be murdered, but Poirot does not know who.

This is what Poirot hopes that Hastings can help to figure out. Now the fun begins, as we join Hastings in his quest for the identity of X and X's intended victim or victims.

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?

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.

Answer: Yes

Mrs. Daisy Luttrell has a tongue like an adder and uses it to berate her poor husband, the Colonel, constantly! She treats him like a bumbling fool, scolds him unmercifully about his bridge game, and makes his life miserable. After a particularly humiliating scolding from his wife, the Colonel shot Daisy while she was weeding. Did he actually think she was a rabbit--or is X behind the shooting?

Answer: True

It was a matter of owning up to one's obligations. For a man with a scientific mind, Dr. Franklin is quite old fashioned. Marriage vows were a contract he will not break. His words were: "A man chooses his wife. She's his responsibility until she dies-or he does". While this is a high-minded sentiment, it could also be a dangerous one.

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!

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.

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.

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.

Answer: True

Hastings comes away from his interview with Georges believing that Hercule Poirot hired Curtiss, and sent Georges away, because Curtiss was X. How better, Hastings reasoned, for Poirot to keep an eye on X? Did Hastings, after all these years, actually reach the right solution of the mystery? What do you think?

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.

Answer: Yes

Yes, Judith marries Dr. Franklin and the pair is off to Africa to live. She will be his assistant, and he will continue his research on tropical diseases, and as Hercule Poirot said, "They will be happy together, those two." In my introduction, the quote that Poirot says to Hastings: "Ring down the curtain", was taken by Agatha Christie from "Ring down the curtain, the farce is over", supposedly the last words of French writer and satirist, Francois Rabelais (1490-1553). I hope you enjoyed my quiz on the final case of Hercule Poirot and his faithful and true friend, Hastings.