and the incident has a good effect on their marriage. Next, Hastings is concerned that his daughter Judith spends time with Major Allerton, a married man. While Hastings and Elizabeth are out with birdwatcher Stephen Norton, Norton sees something through his binoculars that disturbs him. Hastings assumes it has to do with Allerton. When his attempts to persuade Judith to give Allerton up merely antagonise her, the worried father plans Allerton's murder. He falls asleep while waiting to poison Allerton, relieved he took no action when he awakes the next day. Last, Barbara Franklin, wife of Judith's employer, Dr Franklin, dies the following evening. She was poisoned with physostigmine sulphate, an extract from the Calabar bean that her husband researches. Poirot's testimony at the inquest, that Mrs Franklin had been upset and that he saw her emerge from Dr Franklin's laboratory with a small bottle, persuades the jury to return a verdict of suicide. Norton is still concerned over what he saw days earlier when out with Hastings and Cole. Hastings advises Norton to confide in Poirot. They meet in Poirot's room. That night, Hastings is awakened by a noise and sees Norton entering his bedroom. The next morning, Norton is found dead in his locked room with a bullet-hole in the centre of his forehead, the key in his dressing-gown pocket and a pistol nearby. When Hastings tells Poirot that he saw Norton return to his room the night before, Poirot says it is flimsy evidence, not having seen the face: the dressing-gown, the hair, the limp, can all be imitated. Yet, there is no man in the house who could impersonate Norton, who was not tall. Poirot dies of a heart attack within hours. He leaves Hastings three clues: a copy of Othello, a copy of John Ferguson (a 1915 play by St. John Greer Ervine), and a note to speak to his longtime valet, Georges. After Poirot is buried at Styles, Hastings learns that Judith has all along been in love with Dr Franklin. She will marry him, and leave to do research in Africa. When Hastings speaks to Georges, he learns that Poirot wore a wig and that Poirot's reasons for employing Curtiss were vague. Four months after Poirot's death, Hastings receives a manuscript in which Poirot explains all. X was Norton, a man who had perfected the technique of which Iago in Othello (and a