Murder of Elizabeth Cole's father

The murder of Elizabeth Cole’s father is disclosed as one of the crimes Stephen Norton brought about through psychological manipulation. Margaret Litchfield had come to see herself as a rescuer freeing her sisters from confinement, but Poirot’s final message identifies Norton—not Margaret—as the person who killed their father and urges Arthur Hastings to relieve Elizabeth of the belief that her sister was responsible.

Background and the family’s circumstances

Elizabeth Cole is also identified as Elizabeth Litchfield, linking her to the Litchfield family at the center of this earlier crime. In his retrospective account of Norton’s victims, Poirot explains that Norton befriended the Litchfields. Through his conversations with Norton, Margaret came to imagine herself as a heroine delivering her sisters from what she regarded as a life sentence of imprisonment. Poirot presents that belief as the opening Norton exploited: an existing conviction that her father’s death could benefit the family was shaped into a justification for murder.

Norton’s role and the crime

Poirot describes Norton’s repeated method as finding a susceptible motive in another person and encouraging it until that person became involved in a killing. He believes the individuals in the cases he traced would not have acted as they did without Norton’s influence. In the Litchfield case, Norton’s apparent friendship with the family concealed his destructive role. Margaret believed she was acting to liberate her sisters; Poirot’s account instead names Norton as the killer and identifies her belief in her own responsibility as a consequence of his influence.

Elizabeth’s burden and the revelation

The truth reaches Elizabeth through Poirot’s instructions to Hastings, rather than through a scene of direct confrontation in the surviving account. Poirot asks Hastings to find her after reading the message, or to tell her what it contains, and to explain that her father was killed by Norton, the family friend she had regarded as sympathetic, not by Margaret. The distinction matters because Elizabeth has continued to carry the nightmare of believing her sister killed their father. Poirot frames the disclosure as a way to free her from that guilt and from the conviction that she is tainted by the crime.

Significance

The case illustrates the difference between the person who performs an act and the hidden influence that helps produce it. Norton turned Margaret’s idea of family rescue into a path toward murder, then remained concealed behind the role of a trusted friend. The belated disclosure also makes the crime part of Poirot’s final effort to repair what Norton’s manipulation has left behind: he entrusts Hastings with the truth because Elizabeth’s continuing self-condemnation is itself an aftermath of the murder.