Therefore when you ask yourself: Who could have killed Norton? Who could have shot and still have left the room (apparently) locked on the inside since the key is in Norton's pocket? The answer is: "Hercule Poirot, who since he has been here has possessed duplicate keys of one of the rooms."

The man you saw in the passage.

I myself asked you if you were sure the man you saw in the passage was Norton. You were startled. You asked me if I intended to suggest it was not Norton. I replied, truthfully, that I did not at all intend to suggest it was not Norton. (Naturally, since I had taken a good deal of trouble to suggest it was Norton.) I then brought up the question of height. All the men, I said, were much taller than Norton. But there was a man who was shorter than Norton — Hercule Poirot. And it is comparatively easy with raised heels or elevators in the shoes to add to one's height.

You were under the impression that I was a helpless invalid. But why? Only because I said so. And I had sent away Georges. That was my last indication to you, "Go and talk to Georges."

Othello and Clutie John show you that X was Norton.

Then who could have killed Norton?

Only Hercule Poirot.

And once you suspected that, everything would have fallen into place — the things I had said and done, my inexplicable reticence. Evidence from the doctors in Egypt, from my own doctor in London, that I was not incapable of walking about. The evidence of Georges as to my wearing a wig. The fact which I was unable to disguise, and which you ought to have noticed, that I limp much more than Norton does.

And last of all, the pistol shot. My one weakness. I should, I am aware, have shot him through the temple. I could not bring myself to produce an effect so lopsided, so haphazard. No, I shot him symmetrically, in the exact centre of the forehead ... Oh, Hastings, Hastings! That should have told you the truth. But perhaps, after all, you have suspected the truth? Perhaps when you read this, you already know.

But somehow I do not think so ...

No, you are too trusting ...

You have too beautiful a nature ...

What shall I say more to you? Both Franklin and Judith, I think you will find, knew the truth although they will not have told it to you. They will be happy together, those two. They will be poor, and innumerable tropical insects will bite them and strange fevers will attack them — but we all have our own ideas of the perfect life, have we not?

And you, my poor lonely Hastings? Ah, my heart bleeds for you, dear friend. Will you, for the last time, take the advice of your old Poirot?

After you have read this, take a train or a car or a series of buses and go to find Elizabeth Cole, who is also Elizabeth Litchfield. Let her read this, or tell her what is in it. Tell her that you, too, might have done what her sister Margaret did — only for Margaret Litchfield there was no watchful Poirot at hand. Take the nightmare away from her, show her that her father was killed, not by his daughter, but by that kind sympathetic family friend, that "honest Iago," Stephen Norton. For it is not right, my friend, that a woman like that, still young, still attractive, should refuse life because she believes herself to be tainted. No, it is not right. Tell her so, you, my friend, who are yourself still not unattractive to women ... Eh bien, I have no more now to say. I do not know, Hastings, if what I have done is justified or not justified. No — I do not know. I do not believe that a man should take the law into his own hands ...