Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and other stories Read online

  Poirot nodded. The doctor leaned over Lady Astwell.

  "You are waking," he murmured softly. "You are waking now. In another minute you will open your eyes."

  The two men waited, and presently Lady Astwell sat upright and stared at them both.

  "Have I been having a nap?"

  "That's it, Lady Astwell, just a little sleep," said the doctor.

  She looked at him.

  "Some of your hocus-pocus, eh?"

  "You don't feel any the worse, I hope?" he asked.

  Lady Astwell yawned.

  "I feel rather tired and done up."

  The doctor rose.

  "I will ask them to send you up some coffee," he said, "and we will leave you for the present."

  "Did I - say anything?" Lady Astwell called after them as they reached the door.

  Poirot smiled back at her.

  "Nothing of great importance, Madame. You informed us that the drawing-room covers needed cleaning."

  "So they do," said Lady Astwell. "You needn't have put me into a trance to get me to tell you that." She laughed good-humoredly. "Anything more?"

  "Do you remember M. Trefusis picking up a paper-knife in the drawing-room that night?" asked Poirot.

  "I don't know, I'm sure," said Lady Astwell. "He may have done so."

  "Does a bulge in the curtain convey anything to you?"

  Lady Astwell frowned.

  "I seem to remember," she said slowly. "No - it's gone, and yet -"

  "Do not distress yourself, Lady Astwell," said Poirot quickly, "it is of no importance - of no importance whatever."

  The doctor went with Poirot to the latter's room.

  "Well," said Cazalet, "I think this explains things pretty clearly. No doubt when Sir Reuben was dressing down the secretary, the latter grabbed tight hold on a paper-knife, and had to exercise a good deal of self-control to prevent himself answering back. Lady Astwell's conscious mind was wholly taken up with the problem of Lily Margrave, but her subconscious mind noticed and misconstrued the action.

  "It implanted in her the firm conviction that Trefusis murdered Sir Reuben. Now we come to the bulge in the curtain. That is interesting. I take it from what you have told me of the Tower room that the desk was right in the window. There are curtains across that window, of course?"

  "Yes, mon ami, black velvet curtains."

  "And there is room in the embrasure of the window for anyone to remain concealed behind them?"

  "There would be just room, I think."

  "Then there seems at least a possibility," said the doctor slowly, "that someone was concealed in the room, but if so it could not be the secretary, since they both saw him leave the room. It could not be Victor Astwell, for Trefusis met him going out, and it could not be Lily Margrave. Whoever it was must have been concealed there before Sir Reuben entered the room that evening. You have told me pretty well how the land lies. Now what about Captain Naylor? Could it have been he who was concealed there?"

  "It is always possible," admitted Poirot. "He certainly dined at the hotel, but how soon he went out afterward is difficult to fix exactly. He returned about half-past twelve."

  "Then it might have been he," said the doctor, "and if so, he committed the crime. He had the motive, and there was a weapon near at hand. You don't seem satisfied with the idea, though?"

  "Me, I have other ideas," confessed Poirot. "Tell me now, M. le Docteur, supposing for one minute that Lady Astwell herself had committed this crime, would she necessarily betray the fact in the hypnotic state?"

  The doctor whistled.

  "So that's what you are getting at? Lady Astwell is the criminal, eh? Of course - it is possible; I never thought of it till this minute. She was the last to be with him, and no one saw him alive afterward. As to your question: I should be inclined to say - No. Lady Astwell would go into the hypnotic state with a strong mental reservation to say nothing of her own part in the crime. She would answer my questions truthfully, but she would be dumb on that one point. Yet I should hardly have expected her to be so insistent on Mr Trefusis's guilt."

  "I comprehend," said Poirot. "But I have not said that I believe Lady Astwell to be the criminal. It is a suggestion, that is all."

  "It is an interesting case," said the doctor after a minute or two. "Granting Charles Leverson is innocent, there are so many possibilities, Humphrey Naylor, Lady Astwell, and even Lily, Margrave."

  "There is another you have not mentioned," said Poirot quietly, "Victor Astwell. According to his own story, he sat in his room with the door open waiting for Charles Leverson's return, but we have only his own word for it, you comprehend?"

  "He is the bad-tempered fellow, isn't he?" asked the doctor. "The one you told me about?"

  "That is so," agreed Poirot.

  The doctor rose to his feet.

  "Well, I must be getting back to town. You will let me know how things shape, won't you?"

  After the doctor had left, Poirot pulled the bell for George.

  "A cup of tisane, George. My nerves are much disturbed."

  "Certainly, sir," said George. "I will prepare it immediately."

  Ten minutes later he brought a steaming cup to his master. Poirot inhaled the noxious fumes with pleasure. As he sipped it, he soliloquized aloud.

  "The chase is different all over the world. To catch the fox you ride hard with the dogs. You shout, you run, it is a matter of speed. I have not shot the stag myself, but I understand that to do so you crawl for many long, long hours upon your stomach. My friend Hastings has recounted the affair to me. Our method here, my good George, must be neither of these. Let us reflect upon the household cat. For many long, weary hours, he watches the mouse hole, he makes no movement, he betrays no energy, but - he does not go away."

  He sighed and put the empty cup down on its saucer.

  "I told you to pack for a few days. Tomorrow, my good George, you will go to London and bring down what is necessary for a fortnight."

  "Very good, sir," said George. As usual he displayed no emotion.

  The apparently permanent presence of Hercule Poirot at Mon Repos was disquieting to many people. Victor Astwell remonstrated with his sister-in-law about it.

  "It's all very well, Nancy. You don't know what fellows of that kind are like. He has found jolly comfortable quarters here, and he is evidently going to settle down comfortably for about a month, charging you two guineas a day all the while."

  Lady Astwell's reply was to the effect that she could manage her own affairs without interference.

  Lily Margrave tried earnestly to conceal her perturbation. At the time, she had felt sure that Poirot believed her story. Now she was not so certain.

  Poirot did not play an entirely quiescent game. On the fifth day of his sojourn he brought down a small thumbograph album to dinner. As a method of getting the thumbprints of the household, it seemed a rather clumsy device, yet not perhaps so clumsy as it seemed, since no one could afford to refuse his thumbprints. Only after the little man had retired to bed did Victor Astwell state his views.

  "You see what it means, Nancy. He is out after one of us."

  "Don't be absurd, Victor."

  "Well, what other meaning could that blinking little book of his have?"

  "M, Poirot knows what he is doing," said Lady Astwell complacently, and looked with some meaning at Owen Trefusis.

  On another occasion Poirot introduced the game of tracing footprints on a sheet of paper. The following morning, going with his soft cat-like tread into the library, the detective startled Owen Trefusis, who leaped from his chair as though he had been shot.

  "You must really excuse me, M. Poirot," he said primly, "but you have us on the jump."

  "Indeed, how is that?" demanded the little man innocently.

  "I will admit," said the secretary, "that I thought the case against Charles Leverson utterly overwhelming, You apparently do not find it so."

  Poirot was standing looking out of the window. He turned s
uddenly to the other.

  "I shall tell you something, M. Trefusis - in confidence."

  "Yes?"

  Poirot seemed in no hurry to begin. He waited a minute, hesitating. When he did speak, his opening words were coincident with the opening and shutting of the front door. For a man saying something in confidence, he spoke rather loudly, his voice drowning the sound of a footstep in the hall outside.

  "I shall tell you this in confidence, Mr Trefusis. There is new evidence. It goes to prove that when Charles Leverson entered the Tower room that night, Sir Reuben was already dead."

  The secretary stared at him.

  "But what evidence? Why have we not heard of it?"

  "You will hear," said the little man mysteriously. "In the meantime, you and I alone know the secret."

  He skipped nimbly out of the room, and almost collided with Victor Astwell in the hall outside.

  "You have just come in, eh, Monsieur?"

  Astwell nodded.

  "Beastly day outside," he said, breathing hard, "cold and blowy."

  "Ah," said Poirot, "I shall not promenade myself today - me, I am like a cat, I sit by the fire and keep myself warm."

  "Ça marche, George," he said that evening to the faithful valet, rubbing his hands as he spoke, "they are on the tenterhooks - the jump! It is hard, George, to play the game of the cat, the waiting game, but it answers, yes, it answers wonderfully. Tomorrow we make a further effect."

  On the following day, Trefusis was obliged to go up to town. He went up by the same train as Victor Astwell. No sooner had they left the house than Poirot was galvanized into a fever of activity.

  "Come, George, let us hurry to work. If the housemaid should approach these rooms, you must delay her. Speak to her sweet nothings, George, and keep her in the corridor."

  He went first to the secretary's room, and began a thorough search. Not a drawer or a shelf was left uninspected. Then he replaced everything hurriedly, and declared his quest finished. George, on guard in the doorway, gave way to a deferential cough.

  "If you will excuse me, sir?"

  "Yes, my good George?"

  "The shoes, sir. The two pairs of brown shoes were on the second shelf, and the patent-leather ones were on the shelf underneath. In replacing them you have reversed the order."

  "Marvelous!" cried Poirot, holding up his hands. "But let us not distress ourselves over that. It is of no importance, I assure you, George. Never will M. Trefusis notice such a trifling matter."

  "As you think, sir," said George.

  "It is your business to notice such things," said Poirot encouragingly as he clapped the other on the shoulder. "It reflects credit upon you."

  The valet did not reply, and when, later in the day, the proceeding was repeated in the room of Victor Astwell, he made no comment on the fact that Mr Astwell's underclothing was not returned to its drawers strictly according to plan. Yet, in the second case at least, events proved the valet to be right and Poirot wrong. Victor Astwell came storming into the drawing-room that evening.

  "Now, look here, you blasted little Belgian jackanapes, what do you mean by searching my room? What the devil do you think you are going to find there? I won't have it, do you hear? That's what comes of having a ferreting little spy in the house."

  Poirot's hands spread themselves out eloquently as his words tumbled one over the other. He offered a hundred apologies, a thousand, a million. He had been maladroit, officious, he was confused. He had taken an unwarranted liberty. In the end the infuriated gentleman was forced to subside, still growling. And again that evening, sipping his tisane, Poirot murmured to George: "It marches, my good George, yet - it marches."

  "Friday," observed Hercule Poirot thoughtfully, "is my lucky day."

  "Indeed, sir."

  "You are not superstitious, perhaps, my good George?"

  "I prefer not to sit down thirteen at table, sir, and I am adverse to passing under ladders. I have no superstitions about a Friday, sir."

  "That is well," said Poirot, "for, see you, today we make our Waterloo."

  "Really, sir."

  "You have such enthusiasm, my good George, you do not even ask what I propose to do."

  "And what is that, sir?"

  "Today, George, I make a final thorough search of the Tower room."

  True enough, after breakfast, Poirot, with the permission of Lady Astwell, went to the scene of the crime. There, at various times of the morning, members of the household saw him crawling about on all fours, examining minutely the black velvet curtains and standing on high chairs to examine the picture frames on the wall. Lady Astwell for the first time displayed uneasiness.

  "I have to admit it," she said. "He is getting on my nerves at last. He has something up his sleeve, and I don't know what it is. And the way he is crawling about on the floor up there like a dog makes me downright shivery. What is he looking for, I'd like to know? Lily, my dear, I wish you would go up and see what he is up to now. No, on the whole, I'd rather you stayed with me."

  "Shall I go, Lady Astwell?" asked the secretary, rising from the desk.

  "If you would, Mr Trefusis."

  Owen Trefusis left the room and mounted the stairs to the Tower room. At first glance, he thought the room was empty, there was certainly no sign of Hercule Poirot there. He was just turning to go down again when a sound caught his ears; he then saw the little man halfway down the spiral staircase that led to the bedroom above.

  He was on his hands and knees; in his left hand was a little pocket lens, and through this he was examining minutely something on the woodwork beside the stair carpet.

  As the secretary watched him, he uttered a sudden grunt, and slipped the lens into his pocket. He then rose to his feet, holding something between his finger and thumb. At that moment he became aware of the secretary's presence.

  "Ah, hah! M. Trefusis, I didn't hear you enter."

  He was in that moment a different man. Triumph and exultation beamed all over his face. Trefusis stared at him in surprise.

  "What is the matter, M. Poirot? You look very pleased."

  The little man puffed out his chest.

  "Yes, indeed. See you I have at last found that which I have been looking for from the beginning. I have here between my finger and thumb the one thing necessary to convict the criminal."

  "Then," the secretary raised his eyebrows, "it was not Charles Leverson?"

  "It was not Charles Leverson," said Poirot. "Until this moment, though I know the criminal, I am not sure of his name but at last all is clear."

  He stepped down the stairs and tapped the secretary on the shoulder.

  "I am obliged to go to London immediately. Speak to Lady Astwell for me. Will you request of her that everyone should be assembled in the Tower room this evening at nine o'clock? I shall be there then, and I shall reveal the truth. Ah, me, but I am well content."

  And breaking into a fantastic little dance, he skipped from the Tower room. Trefusis was left staring after him.

  A few minutes later Poirot appeared in the library, demanding if anyone could supply him with a little cardboard box.

  "Unfortunately, I have not such a thing with me," he explained, "and there is something of great value that it is necessary for me to put inside."

  From one of the drawers in the desk Trefusis produced a small box, and Poirot professed himself highly delighted with it.

  He hurried upstairs with his treasure-trove; meeting George on the landing, he handed the box to him.

  "There is something of great importance inside," he explained. "Place it, my good George, in the second drawer of my dressing-table, beside the jewel-case that contains my pearl studs."

  "Very good, sir," said George.

  "Do not break it." said Poirot. "Be very careful. Inside that box is something that will hang a criminal."

  "You don't say, sir," said George.

  Poirot hurried down the stairs again and, seizing his hat, departed from the house at a brisk run.
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  His return was more unostentatious. The faithful George, according to orders, admitted him by the side door.

  "They are all in the Tower room?" inquired Poirot.

  "Yes, sir."

  There was a murmured interchange of a few words, and then Poirot mounted with the triumphant step of the victor to that room where the murder had taken place less than a month ago. His eyes swept around the room. They were all there, Lady Astwell, Victor Astwell, Lily Margrave, the secretary, and Parsons, the butler. The latter was hovering by the door uncertainly.

  "George, sir, said I should be needed here," said Parsons as Poirot made his appearance. "I don't know if that is right, sir?"

  "Quite right," said Poirot. "Remain, I pray of you."

  He advanced to the middle of the room.

  "This has been a case of great interest," he said in a slow, reflective voice. "It is interesting because anyone might have murdered Sir Reuben Astwell. Who inherits his money? Charles Leverson and Lady Astwell. Who was with him last that night? Lady Astwell. Who quarreled with him violently? Again Lady Astwell."

  "What are you talking about?" cried Lady Astwell. "I don't understand, I -"

  "But someone else quarreled with Sir Reuben," continued Poirot in a pensive voice. "Someone else left him that night white with rage. Supposing Lady Astwell left her husband alive at a quarter to twelve that night, there would be ten minutes before Mr Charles Leverson returned, ten minutes in which it would be possible for someone from the second floor to steal down and do the deed, and then return to his room again."

  Victor Astwell sprang up with a cry.

  "What the hell -?" He stopped, choking with rage.

  "In a rage, Mr Astwell, you once killed a man in West Africa."

  "I don't believe it," cried Lily Margrave.

  She came forward, her hands clenched, two bright spots of color in her cheeks.

  "I don't believe it," repeated the girl. She came close to Victor Astwell's side.

  "It's true, Lily," said Astwell, "but there are things this man doesn't know. The fellow I killed was a witch doctor who had just massacred fifteen children. I consider that I was justified."

  Lily came up to Poirot.

  "M. Poirot," she said earnestly, "you are wrong. Because a man has a sharp temper, because he breaks out and says all kinds of things, that is not any reason why he should do a murder. I know - I know, I tell you - that Mr Astwell is incapable of such a thing."