Hercule Poirot's Christmas: A Hercule Poirot Mystery Read online

  Poirot said:

  ‘It might be both.’

  She stared at him.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It might be a member of the family—and, at the same time, a stranger…You do not see what I mean? Eh bien, it is an idea that has occurred to the mind of Hercule Poirot.’

  He looked at her.

  ‘Well, madame, what am I to say to Mr Lee?’

  Lydia raised her hands and let them fall in a sudden helpless gesture.

  She said:

  ‘Of course—you must accept.’

  IV

  Pilar stood in the centre of the music-room. She stood very straight, her eyes darting from side to side like an animal who fears an attack.

  She said:

  ‘I want to get away from here!’

  Stephen Farr said gently:

  ‘You’re not the only one who feels like that. But they won’t let us go, my dear.’

  ‘You mean—the police?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Pilar said very seriously:

  ‘It is not nice to be mixed up with the police. It is a thing that should not happen to respectable people.’

  Stephen said with a faint smile:

  ‘Meaning yourself?’

  Pilar said:

  ‘No, I mean Alfred and Lydia and David and George and Hilda and—yes—Magdalene too.’

  Stephen lit a cigarette. He puffed at it for a moment or two before saying:

  ‘Why the exception?’

  ‘What is that, please?’

  Stephen said:

  ‘Why leave out brother Harry?’

  Pilar laughed, her teeth showing white and even.

  ‘Oh, Harry is different! I think he knows very well what it is to be mixed up with the police.’

  ‘Perhaps you are right. He certainly is a little too picturesque to blend well into the domestic picture.’

  He went on:

  ‘Do you like your English relations, Pilar?’

  Pilar said doubtfully:

  ‘They are kind—they are all very kind. But they do not laugh much, they are not gay.’

  ‘My dear girl, there’s just been a murder in the house!’

  ‘Y-es,’ said Pilar doubtfully.

  ‘A murder,’ said Stephen instructively, ‘is not such an everyday occurrence as your nonchalance seems to imply. In England they take their murders seriously whatever they may do in Spain.’

  Pilar said:

  ‘You are laughing at me…’

  Stephen said:

  ‘You’re wrong. I’m not in a laughing mood.’

  Pilar looked at him and said:

  ‘Because you, too, wish to get away from here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the big, handsome policeman will not let you go?’

  ‘I haven’t asked him. But if I did, I’ve no doubt he’d say no. I’ve got to watch my step, Pilar, and be very very careful.’

  ‘That is tiresome,’ said Pilar, nodding her head.

  ‘It’s just a little bit more than tiresome, my dear. Then there’s that lunatic foreigner prowling about. I don’t suppose he’s any good but he makes me feel jumpy.’

  Pilar was frowning. She said:

  ‘My grandfather was very, very rich, was he not?’

  ‘I should imagine so.’

  ‘Where does his money go to now? To Alfred and the others?’

  ‘Depends on his will.’

  Pilar said thoughtfully: ‘He might have left me some money, but I am afraid that perhaps he did not.’

  Stephen said kindly:

  ‘You’ll be all right. After all, you’re one of the family. You belong here. They’ll have to look after you.’

  Pilar said with a sigh: ‘I—belong here. It is very funny, that. And yet it is not funny at all.’

  ‘I can see that you mightn’t find it very humorous.’

  Pilar sighed again. She said:

  ‘Do you think if we put on the gramophone, we could dance?’

  Stephen said dubiously:

  ‘It wouldn’t look any too good. This is a house of mourning, you callous Spanish baggage.’

  Pilar said, her big eyes opening very wide:

  ‘But I do not feel sad at all. Because I did not really know my grandfather, and though I liked to talk to him, I do not want to cry and be unhappy because he is dead. It is very silly to pretend.’

  Stephen said: ‘You’re adorable!’

  Pilar said coaxingly:

  ‘We could put some stockings and some gloves in the gramophone, and then it would not make much noise, and no one would hear.’

  ‘Come along then, temptress.’

  She laughed happily and ran out of the room, going along towards the ballroom at the far end of the house.

  Then, as she reached the side passage which led to the garden door, she stopped dead. Stephen caught up with her and stopped also.

  Hercule Poirot had unhooked a portrait from the wall and was studying it by the light from the terrace. He looked up and saw them.

  ‘Aha!’ he said. ‘You arrive at an opportune moment.’

  Pilar said: ‘What are you doing?’

  She came and stood beside him.

  Poirot said gravely:

  ‘I am studying something very important, the face of Simeon Lee when he was a young man.’

  ‘Oh, is that my grandfather?’

  ‘Yes, mademoiselle.’

  She stared at the painted face. She said slowly:

  ‘How different—how very different…He was so old, so shrivelled up. Here he is like Harry, like Harry might have been ten years ago.’

  Hercule Poirot nodded.

  ‘Yes, mademoiselle. Harry Lee is very much the son of his father. Now here—’ He led her a little way along the gallery. ‘Here is madame, your grandmother—a long gentle face, very blonde hair, mild blue eyes.’

  Pilar said:

  ‘Like David.’

  Stephen said:

  ‘Just a look of Alfred too.’

  Poirot said:

  ‘The heredity, it is very interesting. Mr Lee and his wife were diametrically opposite types. On the whole, the children of the marriage took after the mother. See here, mademoiselle.’

  He pointed to a picture of a girl of nineteen or so, with hair like spun gold and wide, laughing blue eyes. The colouring was that of Simeon Lee’s wife, but there was a spirit, a vivacity that those mild blue eyes and placid features had never known.

  ‘Oh!’ said Pilar.

  The colour came up in her face.

  Her hand went to her neck. She drew out a locket on a long gold chain. She pressed the catch and it flew open. The same laughing face looked up at Poirot.

  ‘My mother,’ said Pilar.

  Poirot nodded. On the opposite side of the locket was the portrait of a man. He was young and handsome, with black hair and dark blue eyes.

  Poirot said: ‘Your father?’

  Pilar said:

  ‘Yes, my father. He is very beautiful, is he not?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. Few Spaniards have blue eyes, have they, señorita?’

  ‘Sometimes, in the North. Besides, my father’s mother was Irish.’

  Poirot said thoughtfully:

  ‘So you have Spanish blood, and Irish and English, and a touch of gipsy too. Do you know what I think, mademoiselle? With that inheritance, you should make a bad enemy.’

  Stephen said, laughing:

  ‘Remember what you said in the train, Pilar? That your way of dealing with your enemies would be to cut their throats. Oh!’

  He stopped—suddenly realizing the import of his words.

  Hercule Poirot was quick to lead the conversation away. He said:

  ‘Ah, yes, there was something, señorita, I had to ask you. Your passport. It is needed by my friend the superintendent. There are, you know, police regulations—very stupid, very tiresome, but necessary—for a foreigner in this country. And of course, by law, you are a foreigner.’
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  Pilar’s eyebrows rose.

  ‘My passport? Yes, I will get it. It is in my room.’

  Poirot said apologetically as he walked by her side:

  ‘I am most sorry to trouble you. I am indeed.’

  They had reached the end of the long gallery. Here was a flight of stairs. Pilar ran up and Poirot followed. Stephen came too. Pilar’s bedroom was just at the head of the stairs.

  She said as she reached the door: ‘I will get it for you.’

  She went in. Poirot and Stephen Farr remained waiting outside.

  Stephen said remorsefully:

  ‘Damn’ silly of me to say a thing like that. I don’t think she noticed, though, do you?’

  Poirot did not answer. He held his head a little on one side as though listening.

  He said:

  ‘The English are extraordinarily fond of fresh air. Miss Estravados must have inherited that characteristic.’

  Stephen said staring:

  ‘Why?’

  Poirot said softly:

  ‘Because though it is today extremely cold—the black frost you call it (not like yesterday so mild and sunny) Miss Estravados has just flung up her lower window-sash. Amazing to love so much the fresh air.’

  Suddenly there was an exclamation in Spanish from inside the room and Pilar reappeared laughingly dismayed.

  ‘Ah!’ she cried. ‘But I am stupid—and clumsy. My little case it was on the window-sill, and I was sorting through it so quickly and very stupidly I knock my passport out of the window. It is down on the flower-bed below. I will get it.’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ said Stephen, but Pilar had flown past him and cried back over her shoulder:

  ‘No, it was my stupidity. You go to the drawing-room with M. Poirot and I will bring it to you there.’

  Stephen Farr seemed inclined to go after her, but Poirot’s hand fell gently on his arm and Poirot’s voice said:

  ‘Let us go this way.’

  They went along the first-floor corridor towards the other end of the house until they got to the head of the main staircase. Here Poirot said:

  ‘Let us not go down for a minute. If you will come with me to the room of the crime there is something I want to ask you.’

  They went along the corridor which led to Simeon Lee’s room. On their left they passed an alcove which contained two marble statues, stalwart nymphs clasping their draperies in an agony of Victorian propriety.

  Stephen Farr glanced at them and murmured:

  ‘Pretty frightful by daylight. I thought there were three of them when I came along the other night, but thank goodness there are only two!’

  ‘They are not what is admired nowadays,’ admitted Poirot. ‘But no doubt they cost much money in their time. They look better by night, I think.’

  ‘Yes, one sees only a white glimmering figure.’

  Poirot murmured:

  ‘All cats are grey in the dark!’

  They found Superintendent Sugden in the room. He was kneeling by the safe and examining it with a magnifying glass. He looked up as they entered.

  ‘This was opened with the key all right,’ he said. ‘By someone who knew the combination. No sign of anything else.’

  Poirot went up to him, drew him aside, and whispered something. The superintendent nodded and left the room.

  Poirot turned to Stephen Farr, who was standing staring at the armchair in which Simeon Lee always sat. His brows were drawn together and the veins showed in his forehead. Poirot looked at him for a minute or two in silence, then he said:

  ‘You have the memories—yes?’

  Stephen said slowly:

  ‘Two days ago he sat there alive—and now…’

  Then, shaking off his absorption, he said: ‘Yes, M. Poirot, you brought me here to ask me something?’

  ‘Ah, yes. You were, I think, the first person to arrive on the scene that night?’

  ‘Was I? I don’t remember. No, I think one of the ladies was here before me.’

  ‘Which lady?’

  ‘One of the wives—George’s wife or David’s—I know they were both here pretty soon.’

  ‘You did not hear the scream, I think you said?’

  ‘I don’t think I did. I can’t quite remember. Somebody did cry out but that may have been someone downstairs.’

  Poirot said:

  ‘You did not hear a noise like this?’

  He threw his head back and suddenly gave vent to a piercing yell.

  It was so unexpected that Stephen started backwards and nearly fell over. He said angrily:

  ‘For the Lord’s sake, do you want to scare the whole house? No, I didn’t hear anything in the least like that! You’ll have the whole place by the ears again! They’ll think another murder has happened!’

  Poirot looked crestfallen. He murmured:

  ‘True…it was foolish…We must go at once.’

  He hurried out of the room. Lydia and Alfred were at the foot of the stairs peering up—George came out of the library to join them, and Pilar came running, a passport held in her hand.

  Poirot cried:

  ‘It is nothing—nothing. Do not be alarmed. A little experiment that I make. That was all.’

  Alfred looked annoyed and George indignant. Poirot left Stephen to explain and he hurriedly slipped away along the passage to the other end of the house.

  At the end of the passage Superintendent Sugden came quietly out of Pilar’s door and met Poirot.

  ‘Eh bien?’ asked Poirot.

  The superintendent shook his head.

  ‘Not a sound.’

  His eyes met Poirot’s appreciatively and he nodded.

  V

  Alfred Lee said: ‘Then you accept, M. Poirot?’

  His hand, as it went to his mouth, shook slightly. His mild brown eyes were alight with a new and feverish expression. He stammered slightly in his speech. Lydia, standing silently by, looked at him with some anxiety.

  Alfred said:

  ‘You don’t know—you c-c-can’t imagine—what it m-m-means to me…My father’s murderer must be f-f-found.’

  Poirot said:

  ‘Since you have assured me that you have reflected long and carefully—yes, I accept. But you comprehend, Mr Lee, there can be no drawing back. I am not the dog one sets on to hunt and then recalls because you do not like the game he puts up!’

  ‘Of course…of course…Everything is ready. Your bedroom is prepared. Stay as long as you like—’

  Poirot said gravely: ‘It will not be long.’

  ‘Eh? What’s that?’

  ‘I said it will not be long. There is in this crime such a restricted circle that it cannot possibly take long to arrive at the truth. Already, I think, the end draws near.’

  Alfred stared at him, ‘Impossible!’ he said.

  ‘Not at all. The facts all point more or less clearly in one direction. There is just some irrelevant matter to be cleared out of the way. When this is done the truth will appear.’

  Alfred said incredulously:

  ‘You mean you know?’

  Poirot smiled. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘I know.’

  Alfred said:

  ‘My father—my father—’ He turned away.

  Poirot said briskly:

  ‘There are, M. Lee, two requests that I have to make.’

  Alfred said in a muffled voice:

  ‘Anything—anything.’

  ‘Then, in the first place, I would like the portrait of M. Lee as a young man placed in the bedroom you are good enough to allot to me.’

  Alfred and Lydia stared at him.

  The former said: ‘My father’s portrait—but why?’

  Poirot said with a wave of the hand:

  ‘It will—how shall I say—inspire me.’

  Lydia said sharply:

  ‘Do you propose, M. Poirot, to solve a crime by clairvoyance?’

  ‘Let us say, madame, that I intend to use not only the eyes of the body, but the eyes of the mind.’r />
  She shrugged her shoulders.

  Poirot continued:

  ‘Next, M. Lee, I should like to know of the true circumstances attending the death of your sister’s husband, Juan Estravados.’

  Lydia said: ‘Is that necessary?’

  ‘I want all the facts, madame.’

  Alfred said:

  ‘Juan Estravados, as the result of a quarrel about a woman, killed another man in a café.’

  ‘How did he kill him?’

  Alfred looked appealingly at Lydia. She said evenly:

  ‘He stabbed him. Juan Estravados was not condemned to death, as there had been provocation. He was sentenced to a term of imprisonment and died in prison.’

  ‘Does his daughter know about her father?’

  ‘I think not.’

  Alfred said:

  ‘No, Jennifer never told her.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Lydia said:

  ‘You don’t think that Pilar—Oh, it’s absurd!’

  Poirot said:

  ‘Now, M. Lee, will you give me some facts about your brother, M. Harry Lee?’

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘I understand that he was considered somewhat of a disgrace to the family. Why?’

  Lydia said:

  ‘It is so long ago…’

  Alfred said, the colour coming up in his face:

  ‘If you want to know, M. Poirot, he stole a large sum of money by forging my father’s name to a cheque. Naturally my father didn’t prosecute. Harry’s always been crooked. He’s been in trouble all over the world. Always cabling for money to get out of a scrape. He’s been in and out of gaol here, there and everywhere.’

  Lydia said:

  ‘You don’t really know all this, Alfred.’

  Alfred said angrily, his hands shaking:

  ‘Harry’s no good—no good whatever! He never has been!’

  Poirot said:

  ‘There is, I see, no love lost between you?’

  Alfred said:

  ‘He victimized my father—victimized him shamefully!’

  Lydia sighed—a quick, impatient sigh. Poirot heard it and gave her a sharp glance.

  She said:

  ‘If only those diamonds could be found. I’m sure the solution lies there.’

  Poirot said:

  ‘They have been found, madame.’

  ‘What?’

  Poirot said gently:

  ‘They were found in your little garden of the Dead Sea…’