Hercule Poirot's Christmas Read online

  Pilar said to Poirot: ‘You knew? When did you know?’

  Poirot smiled:

  ‘Mademoiselle, if you have studied the laws of Mendel you would know that two blue-eyed people are not likely to have a brown-eyed child. Your mother was, I was sure, a most chaste and respectable lady. It followed, then, that you were not Pilar Estravados at all. When you did your trick with the passport, I was quite sure of it. It was ingenious, but not, you understand, quite ingenious enough.’

  Superintendent Sugden said unpleasantly:

  ‘The whole thing’s not quite ingenious enough.’

  Pilar stared at him. She said:

  ‘I don’t understand…’

  Sugden said: ‘You’ve told us a story—but I think there’s a good deal more you haven’t told.’

  Stephen said: ‘You leave her alone!’

  Superintendent Sugden took no notice. He went on:

  ‘You’ve told us that you went up to your grandfather’s room after dinner. You said it was an impulse on your part. I’m going to suggest something else. It was you who stole those diamonds. You’d handled them. On occasion, perhaps, you’d put them away in the safe and the old man hadn’t watched you do it! When he found the stones were missing, he saw at once that only two people could have taken them. One was Horbury, who might have got to know the combination and have crept in and stolen them during the night. The other person was you.

  ‘Well, Mr Lee at once took measures. He rang me up and had me come to see him. Then he sent word to you to come and see him immediately after dinner. You did so and he accused you of the theft. You denied it; he pressed the charge. I don’t know what happened next—perhaps he tumbled to the fact that you weren’t his granddaughter, but a very clever little professional thief. Anyway, the game was up, exposure loomed over you, and you slashed at him with a knife. There was a struggle and he screamed. You were properly up against it then. You hurried out of the room, turned the key from the outside and then, knowing you could not get away, before the others came, you slipped into the recess by the statues.’

  Pilar cried shrilly:

  ‘It is not true! It is not true! I did not steal the diamonds! I did not kill him. I swear it by the Blessed Virgin.’

  Sugden said sharply:

  ‘Then who did? You say you saw a figure standing outside Mr Lee’s door. According to your story, that person must have been the murderer. No one else passed the recess! But we’ve only your word for it that there was a figure there at all. In other words, you made that up to exculpate yourself!’

  George Lee said sharply:

  ‘Of course she’s guilty! It’s all clear enough! I always said an outsider killed my father! Preposterous nonsense to pretend one of his family would do a thing like that! It—it wouldn’t be natural!’

  Poirot stirred in his seat. He said:

  ‘I disagree with you. Taking into consideration the character of Simeon Lee, it would be a very natural thing to happen.’

  ‘Eh?’ George’s jaw dropped. He stared at Poirot.

  Poirot went on:

  ‘And, in my opinion, that very thing did happen. Simeon Lee was killed by his own flesh and blood, for what seemed to the murderer a very good and sufficient reason.’

  George cried: ‘One of us? I deny—’

  Poirot’s voice broke in hard as steel.

  ‘There is a case against every person here. We will, Mr George Lee, begin with the case against you. You had no love for your father! You kept on good terms with him for the sake of money. On the day of his death he threatened to cut down your allowance. You knew that on his death you would probably inherit a very substantial sum. There is the motive. After dinner you went, as you say, to telephone. You did telephone—but the call lasted only five minutes. After that you could easily have gone to your father’s room, chatted with him, and then attacked him and killed him. You left the room and turned the key from outside, for you hoped the affair would be put down to a burglar. You omitted, in your panic, to make sure that the window was fully open so as to support the burglar theory. That was stupid; but you are, if you will pardon my saying so, rather a stupid man!

  ‘However,’ said Poirot, after a brief pause during which George tried to speak and failed, ‘many stupid men have been criminals!’

  He turned his eyes on Magdalene.

  ‘Madame, too, she also had a motive. She is, I think, in debt, and the tone of certain of your father’s remarks may—have caused her uneasiness. She, too, has no alibi. She went to telephone, but she did not telephone, and we have only her word for what she did do…

  ‘Then,’ he paused, ‘there is Mr David Lee. We have heard, not once but many times, of the revengeful tempers and long memories that went with the Lee blood. Mr David Lee did not forget or forgive the way his father had treated his mother. A final jibe directed at the dead lady may have been the last straw. David Lee is said to have been playing the piano at the time of the murder. By a coincidence he was playing the “Dead March”. But suppose somebody else was playing that “Dead March”, somebody who knew what he was going to do, and who approved his action?’

  Hilda Lee said quietly:

  ‘That is an infamous suggestion.’

  Poirot turned to her. ‘I will offer you another, madame. It was your hand that did the deed. It was you who crept upstairs to execute judgment on a man you considered beyond human forgiveness. You are of those, madame, who can be terrible in anger…’

  Hilda said: ‘I did not kill him.’

  Superintendent Sugden said brusquely:

  ‘Mr Poirot’s quite right. There is a possible case against everyone except Mr Alfred Lee, Mr Harry Lee, and Mrs Alfred Lee.’

  Poirot said gently:

  ‘I should not even except those three…’

  The superintendent protested: ‘Oh, come now, Mr Poirot!’

  Lydia Lee said:

  ‘And what is the case against me, M. Poirot?’

  She smiled a little as she spoke, her brows raised ironically.

  Poirot bowed. He said:

  ‘Your motive, madame, I pass over. It is sufficiently obvious. As to the rest, you were wearing last night a flowered taffeta dress of a very distinctive pattern with a cape. I will remind you of the fact that Tressilian, the butler, is shortsighted. Objects at a distance are dim and vague to him. I will also point out that your drawing-room is big and lighted by heavily shaded lamps. On that night, a minute or two before the cries were heard, Tressilian came into the drawing-room to take away the coffee-cups. He saw you, as he thought, in a familiar attitude by the far window half concealed by the heavy curtains.’

  Lydia Lee said: ‘He did see me.’

  Poirot went on:

  ‘I suggest that it is possible that what Tressilian saw was the cape of your dress, arranged to show by the window curtain, as though you yourself were standing there.’

  Lydia said: ‘I was standing there…’

  Alfred said: ‘How dare you suggest—?’

  Harry interrupted him.

  ‘Let him go on, Alfred. It’s our turn next. How do you suggest that dear Alfred killed his beloved father since we were both together in the dining-room at the time?’

  Poirot beamed at him.

  ‘That,’ he said, ‘is very simple. An alibi gains in force accordingly as it is unwillingly given. You and your brother are on bad terms. It is well known. You jibe at him in public. He has not a good word to say for you! But, supposing that were all part of a very clever plot. Supposing that Alfred Lee is tired of dancing attendance upon an exacting taskmaster. Supposing that you and he have got together some time ago. Your plan is laid. You come home. Alfred appears to resent your presence. He shows jealousy and dislike of you. You show contempt for him. And then comes the night of the murder you have so cleverly planned together. One of you remains in the dining-room, talking and perhaps quarrelling aloud as though two people were there. The other goes upstairs and commits the crime…’

 
Alfred sprang to his feet.

  ‘You devil!’ he said. His voice was inarticulate.

  Sugden was staring at Poirot. He said:

  ‘Do you really mean—?’

  Poirot said, with a sudden ring of authority in his voice:

  ‘I have had to show you the possibilities! These are the things that might have happened! Which of them actually did happen we can only tell by passing from the outside appearance to the inside reality…’

  He paused and then said slowly:

  ‘We must come back, as I said before, to the character of Simeon Lee himself…’

  VI

  There was a momentary pause. Strangely enough, all indignation and all rancour had died down. Hercule Poirot held his audience under the spell of his personality. They watched him, fascinated, as he began slowly to speak.

  ‘It is all there, you see. The dead man is the focus and centre of the mystery! We must probe deep into the heart and mind of Simeon Lee and see what we find there. For a man does not live and die to himself alone. That which he has, he hands on—to those who come after him…

  ‘What had Simeon Lee to bequeath to his sons and daughter? Pride, to begin with—a pride which, in the old man, was frustrated in his disappointment over his children. Then there was the quality of patience. We have been told that Simeon Lee waited patiently for years in order to revenge himself upon someone who had done him an injury. We see that that aspect of his temperament was inherited by the son who resembled him least in face. David Lee also could remember and continue to harbour resentment through long years. In face, Harry Lee was the only one of his children who closely resembled him. That resemblance is quite striking when we examine the portrait of Simeon Lee as a young man. There is the same high-bridged aquiline nose, the long sharp line of the jaw, the backward poise of the head. I think, too, that Harry inherited many of his father’s mannerisms—that habit, for instance, of throwing back his head and laughing, and another habit of drawing his finger along the line of his jaw.

  ‘Bearing all these things in mind, and being convinced that the murder was committed by a person closely connected with the dead man, I studied the family from the psychological standpoint. That is, I tried to decide which of them were psychologically possible criminals. And, in my judgment, only two persons qualified in that respect. They were Alfred Lee and Hilda Lee, David’s wife. David himself I rejected as a possible murderer. I do not think a person of his delicate susceptibilities could have faced the actual bloodshed of a cut throat. George Lee and his wife I likewise rejected. Whatever their desires, I did not think they had the temperament to take a risk. They were both essentially cautious. Mrs Alfred Lee I felt sure was quite incapable of an act of violence. She has too much irony in her nature. About Harry Lee I hesitated. He had a certain coarse truculence of aspect, but I was nearly sure that Harry Lee, in spite of his bluff and his bluster, was essentially a weakling. That, I now know, was also his father’s opinion. Harry, he said, was worth no more than the rest. That left me with two people I have already mentioned. Alfred Lee was a person capable of a great deal of selfless devotion. He was a man who had controlled and subordinated himself to the will of another for many years. It was always possible under these conditions for something to snap. Moreover, he might quite possibly have harboured a secret grudge against his father which might gradually have grown in force through never being expressed in any way. It is the quietest and meekest people who are often capable of the most sudden and unexpected violence for the reason that when their control does snap, it does so entirely! The other person I considered was capable of the crime was Hilda Lee. She is the kind of individual who is capable, on occasions, of taking the law into her own hands—though never through selfish motives. Such people judge and also execute. Many Old Testament characters are of this type. Jael and Judith, for example.

  ‘And now having got so far I examined the circumstances of the crime itself. And the first thing that arises—that strikes one in the face, as it were—is the extraordinary conditions under which that crime took place! Take your minds back to that room where Simeon Lee lay dead. If you remember, there was both a heavy table and a heavy chair overturned, a lamp, crockery, glasses, etc. But the chair and the table were especially surprising. They were of solid mahogany. It was hard to see how any struggle between that frail old man and his opponent could result in so much solid furniture being overturned and knocked down. The whole thing seemed unreal. And yet surely no one in their senses would stage such an effect if it had not really occurred—unless possibly Simeon Lee had been killed by a powerful man and the idea was to suggest that the assailant was a woman or somebody of weak physique.

  ‘But such an idea was unconvincing in the extreme, since the noise of the furniture would give the alarm and the murderer would thereby have very little time to make his exit. It would surely be to anyone’s advantage to cut Simeon Lee’s throat as quietly as possible.

  ‘Another extraordinary point was the turning of the key in the lock from the outside. Again, there seemed no reason for such a proceeding. It could not suggest suicide, since nothing in the death itself accorded with suicide. It was not to suggest escape through the windows—for those windows were so arranged that escape that way was impossible! Moreover, once again, it involved time. Time which must be precious to the murderer!

  ‘There was one other incomprehensible thing—a piece of rubber cut from Simeon Lee’s spongebag and a small wooden peg shown to me by Superintendent Sugden. These had been picked up from the floor by one of the persons who first entered the room. There again—these things did not make sense! They meant exactly nothing at all! Yet they had been there.

  ‘The crime, you perceive, is becoming increasingly incomprehensible. It has no order, no method—enfin, it is not reasonable.

  ‘And now we come to a further difficulty. Superintendent Sugden was sent for by the dead man; a robbery was reported to him, and he was asked to return an hour and a half later. Why? If it is because Simeon Lee suspected his granddaughter or some other member of the family, why does he not ask Superintendent Sugden to wait downstairs while he has his interview straight away with the suspected party? With the superintendent actually in the house, his lever over the guilty person would have been much stronger.

  ‘So now we arrive at the point where not only the behaviour of the murderer is extraordinary, but the behaviour of Simeon Lee also is extraordinary!

  ‘And I say to myself: “This thing is all wrong!” Why? Because we are looking at it from the wrong angle. We are looking at it from the angle that the murderer wants us to look at it…

  ‘We have three things that do not make sense: the struggle, the turned key, and the snip of rubber. But there must be some way of looking at those three things which would make sense! And I empty my mind blank and forget the circumstances of the crime and take these things on their own merits. I say—a struggle. What does that suggest? Violence—breakage—noise…The key? Why does one turn a key? So that no one shall enter? But the key did not prevent that, since the door was broken down almost immediately. To keep someone in? To keep someone out? A snip of rubber? I say to myself: “A little piece of a spongebag is a little piece of a spongebag, and that is all!”

  ‘So you would say there is nothing there—and yet that is not strictly true, for three impressions remain: noise—seclusion—blankness…

  ‘Do they fit with either of my two possibles? No, they do not. To both Alfred Lee and Hilda Lee a quiet murder would have been infinitely preferable, to have wasted time in locking the door from the outside is absurd, and the little piece of spongebag means yet once more—nothing at all!

  ‘And yet I have very strongly the feeling that there is nothing absurd about this crime—that it is on the contrary, very well planned and admirably executed. That is has, in fact, succeeded! Therefore that everything that has happened was meant…

  ‘And then, going over it again, I got my first glimmer of light…


  ‘Blood—so much blood—blood everywhere…An insistence on blood—fresh, wet, gleaming blood…So much blood—too much blood…

  ‘And a second thought comes with that. This is a crime of blood—it is in the blood. It is Simeon Lee’s own blood that rises up against him…’

  Hercule Poirot leaned forward.

  ‘The two most valuable clues in this case were uttered quite unconsciously by two different people. The first was when Mrs Alfred Lee quoted a line from Macbeth: “Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” The other was a phrase uttered by Tressilian, the butler. He described how he felt dazed and things seemed to be happening that had happened before. It was a very simple occurrence that gave him that strange feeling. He heard a ring at the bell and went to open the door to Harry Lee, and the next day he did the same thing to Stephen Farr.