Hercule Poirot's Christmas Read online

‘It was possible, yes. One always hopes.’

  And he grinned outright.

  Poirot said:

  ‘Señorita Estravados is very beautiful.’

  Stephen answered:

  ‘She’s easily the best thing to look at that I’ve seen since I came to England.’

  ‘Did Miss Estravados join you?’ asked Colonel Johnson.

  Stephen shook his head.

  ‘I was still there when I heard the rumpus. I came out into the hall and ran hell for leather to see what was the matter. I helped Harry Lee to break the door down.’

  ‘And that’s all you have to tell us?’

  ‘Absolutely all, I’m afraid.’

  Hercule Poirot leaned forward. He said softly:

  ‘But I think, Monsieur Farr, that you could tell us a good deal if you liked.’

  Farr said sharply:

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘You can tell us something that is very important in this case—the character of Mr Lee. You say that your father talked much of him to you. What manner of a man was it that he described to you?’

  Stephen Farr said slowly:

  ‘I think I see what you’re driving at. What was Simeon Lee like in his young days? Well—you want me to be frank, I suppose?’

  ‘If you please.’

  ‘Well, to begin with, I don’t think that Simeon Lee was a highly moral member of society. I don’t mean that he was exactly a crook, but he sailed pretty near the wind. His morals were nothing to boast about anyway. He had charm, though, a good deal of it. And he was fantastically generous. No one with a hard-luck story ever appealed to him in vain. He drank a bit, but not over-much, was attractive to women, and had a sense of humour. All the same, he had a queer revengeful streak in him. Talk of the elephant never forgets and you talk of Simeon Lee. My father told me of several cases where Lee waited years to get even with someone who’d done him a nasty turn.’

  Superintendent Sugden said:

  ‘Two might play at that game. You’ve no knowledge, I suppose, Mr Farr, of anyone who Simeon Lee had done a bad turn to out there? Nothing out of the past that could explain the crime committed here this evening?’

  Stephen Farr shook his head.

  ‘He had enemies, of course, must have had, being the man he was. But I know of no specific case. Besides,’ his eyes narrowed, ‘I understand (as a matter of fact, I’ve been questioning Tressilian) there have been no strangers in or near the house this evening.’

  Hercule Poirot said:

  ‘With the exception of yourself, M. Farr.’

  Stephen Farr swung round upon him.

  ‘Oh, so that’s it? Suspicious stranger within the gates! Well, you won’t find anything of that kind. No back history of Simeon Lee doing Ebenezer Farr down, and Eb’s son coming over to revenge his dad! No,’ he shook his head. ‘Simeon and Ebenezer had nothing against each other. I came here, as I’ve told you, out of sheer curiosity. And moreover, I should imagine a gramophone is as good an alibi as anything else. I never stopped putting on records—somebody must have heard them. One record wouldn’t give me time to race away upstairs—these passages are a mile long, anyway—slit an old man’s throat, wash off the blood, and get back again before the others came rushing up. The idea’s farcical!’

  Colonel Johnson said:

  ‘We’re not making any insinuations against you, Mr Farr.’

  Stephen Farr said:

  ‘I didn’t care much for the tone of Mr Hercule Poirot’s voice.’

  ‘That,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘is unfortunate!’

  He smiled benignly at the other.

  Stephen Farr looked angrily at him.

  Colonel Johnson interposed quickly:

  ‘Thank you, Mr Farr. That will be all for the present. You will, of course, not leave this house.’

  Stephen Farr nodded. He got up and left the room, walking with a freely swinging stride.

  As the door closed behind him, Johnson said:

  ‘There goes X, the unknown quantity. His story seems straightforward enough. All the same, he’s the dark horse. He might have pinched those diamonds—might have come here with a bogus story just to gain admittance. You’d better get his fingerprints, Sugden, and see if he’s known.’

  ‘I’ve already got them,’ said the superintendent with a dry smile.

  ‘Good man. You don’t overlook much. I suppose you’re on to all the obvious lines?’

  Superintendent Sugden checked off on his fingers.

  ‘Check up on those telephone calls—times, etc. Check up on Horbury. What time he left, who saw him go. Check up all entrances and exits. Check up on staff generally. Check up financial position of members of family. Get on to the lawyers and check up on will. Search house for the weapon and for bloodstains on clothing—also possibly diamonds hidden somewhere.’

  ‘That covers everything, I think,’ said Colonel Johnson approvingly. ‘Can you suggest anything, M. Poirot?’

  Poirot shook his head. He said:

  ‘I find the superintendent admirably thorough.’

  Sugden said gloomily:

  ‘It won’t be any joke looking through this house for the missing diamonds. Never saw so many ornaments and knick-knacks in my life.’

  ‘The hiding-places are certainly abundant,’ Poirot agreed.

  ‘And there’s really nothing you would suggest, Poirot?’

  The chief constable looked a little disappointed—rather like a man whose dog has refused to do its trick.

  Poirot said:

  ‘You will permit that I take a line of my own?’

  ‘Certainly—certainly,’ said Johnson at the same moment as Superintendent Sugden said rather suspiciously:

  ‘What line?’

  ‘I would like,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘to converse—very often—very frequently—with members of the family.’

  ‘You mean you’d like to have another shot at questioning them?’ asked the colonel, a little puzzled.

  ‘No, no, not to question—to converse!’

  ‘Why?’ asked Sugden.

  Hercule Poirot waved an emphatic hand.

  ‘In conversation, points arise! If a human being converses much, it is impossible for him to avoid the truth!’

  Sugden said:

  ‘Then you think someone is lying?’

  Poirot sighed.

  ‘Mon cher, everyone lies—in parts like the egg of the English curate. It is profitable to separate the harmless lies from the vital ones.’

  Colonel Johnson said sharply:

  ‘All the same, it’s incredible, you know. Here’s a particularly crude and brutal murder—and whom have we as suspects? Alfred Lee and his wife—both charming, well-bred, quiet people. George Lee, who’s a Member of Parliament and the essence of respectability. His wife? She’s just an ordinary modern lovely. David Lee seems a gentle creature and we’ve got his brother Harry’s word for it that he can’t stand the sight of blood. His wife seems a nice sensible woman—quite commonplace. Remains the Spanish niece and the man from South Africa. Spanish beauties have hot tempers, but I don’t see that attractive creature slitting the old man’s neck in cold blood, especially as from what has come out she had every reason to keep him alive—at any rate until he had signed a new will. Stephen Farr’s a possibility—that is to say, he may be a professional crook and have come here after the diamonds. The old man discovered the loss and Farr slit his throat to keep him quiet. That could have been so—that gramophone alibi isn’t too good.’

  Poirot shook his head.

  ‘My dear friend,’ he said. ‘Compare the physique of M. Stephen Farr and old Simeon Lee. If Farr decided to kill the old man he could have done it in a minute—Simeon Lee couldn’t possibly have put up that fight against him. Can one believe that that frail old man and that magnificent specimen of humanity struggled for some minutes overturning chairs and breaking china? To imagine such a thing is fantastic!’

  Colonel Johnson’s eyes narrowed.
/>   ‘You mean,’ he said, ‘that it was a weak man who killed Simeon Lee?’

  ‘Or a woman!’ said the superintendent.

  XVI

  Colonel Johnson looked at his watch.

  ‘Nothing much more that I can do here. You’ve got things well in hand, Sugden. Oh, just one thing. We ought to see the butler fellow. I know you’ve questioned him, but we know a bit more about things now. It’s important to get confirmation of just where everybody says he was at the time of the murder.’

  Tressilian came in slowly. The chief constable told him to sit down.

  ‘Thank you, sir. I will, if you don’t mind. I’ve been feeling very queer—very queer indeed. My legs, sir, and my head.’

  Poirot said gently: ‘You have had the shock, yes.’

  The butler shuddered. ‘Such—such a violent thing to happen. In this house! Where everything has always gone on so quietly.’

  Poirot said:

  ‘It was a well-ordered house, yes? But not a happy one?’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to say that, sir.’

  ‘In the old days when all the family was at home, it was happy then?’

  Tressilian said slowly:

  ‘It wasn’t perhaps what one would call very harmonious, sir.’

  ‘The late Mrs Lee was somewhat of an invalid, was she not?’

  ‘Yes, sir, very poorly she was.’

  ‘Were her children fond of her?’

  ‘Mr David, he was devoted to her. More like a daughter than a son. And after she died he broke away, couldn’t face living here any longer.’

  Poirot said: ‘And Mr Harry? What was he like?’

  ‘Always rather a wild young gentleman, sir, but good-hearted. Oh, dear, gave me quite a turn, it did, when the bell rang—and then again, so impatient like, and I opened the door and there was a strange man, and then Mr Harry’s voice said, “Hallo, Tressilian. Still here, eh?” Just the same as ever.’

  Poirot said sympathetically:

  ‘It must have been the strange feeling, yes, indeed.’

  Tressilian said, a little pink flush showing in his cheek:

  ‘It seems sometimes, sir, as though the past isn’t the past! I believe there’s been a play on in London about something like that. There’s something in it, sir—there really is. There’s a feeling comes over you—as though you’d done everything before. It just seems to me as though the bell rings and I go to answer it and there’s Mr Harry—even if it should be Mr Farr or some other person—I’m just saying to myself—but I’ve done this before…’

  Poirot said:

  ‘That is very interesting—very interesting.’

  Tressilian looked at him gratefully.

  Johnson, somewhat impatient, cleared his throat and took charge of the conversation.

  ‘Just want to get various times checked correctly,’ he said. ‘Now, when the noise upstairs started, I understand that only Mr Alfred Lee and Mr Harry Lee were in the dining-room. Is that so?’

  ‘I really couldn’t tell you, sir. All the gentlemen were there when I served coffee to them—but that would be about a quarter of an hour earlier.’

  ‘Mr George Lee was telephoning. Can you confirm that?’

  ‘I think somebody did telephone, sir. The bell rings in my pantry, and when anybody takes off the receiver to call a number, there’s just a faint noise on the bell. I do remember hearing that, but I didn’t pay attention to it.’

  ‘You don’t know exactly when it was?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, sir. It was after I had taken coffee to the gentlemen, that is all I can say.’

  ‘Do you know where any of the ladies were at the time I mentioned?’

  ‘Mrs Alfred was in the drawing-room, sir, when I went for the coffee tray. That was just a minute or two before I heard the cry upstairs.’

  Poirot asked:

  ‘What was she doing?’

  ‘She was standing by the far window, sir. She was holding the curtain a little back and looking out.’

  ‘And none of the other ladies were in the room?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Do you know where they were?’

  ‘I couldn’t say at all, sir.’

  ‘You don’t know where anyone else was?’

  ‘Mr David, I think, was playing in the music-room next door to the drawing-room.’

  ‘You heard him playing?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Again the old man shivered. ‘It was like a sign, sir, so I felt afterwards. It was the “Dead March” he was playing. Even at the time, I remember, it gave me the creeps.’

  ‘It is curious, yes,’ said Poirot.

  ‘Now, about this fellow, Horbury, the valet,’ said the chief constable. ‘Are you definitely prepared to swear that he was out of the house by eight o’clock?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir. It was just after Mr Sugden here arrived. I remember particular because he broke a coffee-cup.’

  Poirot said:

  ‘Horbury broke a coffee-cup?’

  ‘Yes, sir—one of the old Worcester ones. Eleven years I’ve washed them up and never one broken till this evening.’

  Poirot said:

  ‘What was Horbury doing with the coffee-cups?’

  ‘Well, of course, sir, he’d no business to have been handling them at all. He was just holding one up, admiring it like, and I happened to mention that Mr Sugden had called, and he dropped it.’

  Poirot said:

  ‘Did you say “Mr Sugden” or did you mention the word police?’

  Tressilian looked a little startled.

  ‘Now I come to think of it, sir, I mentioned that the police superintendent had called.’

  ‘And Horbury dropped the coffee-cup,’ said Poirot.

  ‘Seems suggestive, that,’ said the chief constable. ‘Did Horbury ask any questions about the superintendent’s visit?’

  ‘Yes, sir, asked what he wanted here. I said he’d come collecting for the Police Orphanage and had gone up to Mr Lee.’

  ‘Did Horbury seemed relieved when you said that?’

  ‘Do you know, sir, now you mention it, he certainly did. His manner changed at once. Said Mr Lee was a good old chap and free with his money—rather disrepectfully he spoke—and then he went off.’

  ‘Which way?’

  ‘Out through the door to the servants’ hall.’

  Sugden interposed:

  ‘All that’s O.K., sir. He passed through the kitchen, where the cook and the kitchenmaid saw him, and out through the back door.’

  ‘Now listen, Tressilian, and think carefully. Is there any means by which Horbury could return to the house without anyone seeing him?’

  The old man shook his head.

  ‘I don’t see how he could have done so, sir. All the doors are locked on the inside.’

  ‘Supposing he had had a key?’

  ‘The doors are bolted as well.’

  ‘How does he get in when he comes?’

  ‘He has a key of the back door, sir. All the servants come in that way.’

  ‘He could have returned that way, then?’

  ‘Not without passing through the kitchen, sir. And the kitchen would be occupied till well after half-past nine or a quarter to ten.’

  Colonel Johnson said:

  ‘That seems conclusive. Thank you, Tressilian.’

  The old man got up and with a bow left the room. He returned, however, a minute or two later.

  ‘Horbury has just returned, sir. Would you like to see him now?’

  ‘Yes, please, send him in at once.’

  XVII

  Sydney Horbury did not present a very prepossessing appearance. He came into the room and stood rubbing his hands together and darting quick looks from one person to another. His manner was unctuous.

  Johnson said:

  ‘You’re Sydney Horbury?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Valet attendant to the late Mr Lee?’

  ‘Yes, sir. It’s terrible, isn’t it? You could have knock
ed me down with a feather when I heard from Gladys. Poor old gentleman—’