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  Evelyn rose with a cry, her eyes fixed on Poirot.

  ‘And I also fancy that they will not return. Oscar Levering has been sailing close to the wind for a long time, and this is the end. He and his sister will pursue their activities abroad for a time under a different name. I alternately tempted and frightened him this morning. By casting aside all pretence he could gain possession of the ruby whilst we were in the house and he was supposed to be fetching the police. But it meant burning his boats. Still, with a case being built up against him for murder, flight seemed clearly indicated.’

  ‘Did he kill Nancy?’ whispered Jean.

  Poirot rose.

  ‘Supposing we visit once more the scene of the crime,’ he suggested.

  He led the way, and they followed him. But a simultaneous gasp broke from their lips as they passed outside the house. No trace of the tragedy remained; the snow was smooth and unbroken.

  ‘Crikey!’ said Eric, sinking down on the step. ‘It wasn’t all a dream, was it?’

  ‘Most extraordinary,’ said M. Poirot, ‘The Mystery of the Disappearing Body.’ His eyes twinkled gently.

  Jean came up to him in sudden suspicion.

  ‘M. Poirot, you haven’t–you aren’t–I say, you haven’t been spoofing us all the time, have you? Oh, I do believe you have!’

  ‘It is true, my children. I knew about your little plot, you see, and I arranged a little counterplot of my own. Ah, here is Mlle. Nancy–and none the worse, I hope, after her magnificent acting of the comedy.’

  It was indeed Nancy Cardell in the flesh, her eyes shining and her whole person exuberant with health and vigour.

  ‘You have not caught cold? You drank the tisane I sent to your room?’ demanded Poirot accusingly.

  ‘I took one sip and that was enough. I’m all right. Did I do it well, M. Poirot? Oh, my arm hurts after that tourniquet!’

  ‘You were splendid, petite. But shall we explain to the others? They are still in the fog, I perceive. See you, mes enfants, I went to Mlle. Nancy, told her that I knew all about your little complot, and asked her if she would act a part for me. She did it very cleverly. She induced Mr Levering to make her a cup of tea, and also managed that he should be the one chosen to leave footprints on the snow. So when the time came, and he thought that by some fatality she was really dead, I had all the materials to frighten him with. What happened after we went into the house, Mademoiselle?’

  ‘He came down with his sister, snatched the ruby out of my hand, and off they went post-haste.’

  ‘But I say, M. Poirot, what about the ruby?’ cried Eric. ‘Do you mean to say you’ve let them have that?’

  Poirot’s face fell, as he faced a circle of accusing eyes.

  ‘I shall recover it yet,’ he said feebly; but he perceived that he had gone down in their estimation.

  ‘Well, I do think!’ began Johnnie. ‘To let them get away with the ruby–’

  But Jean was sharper.

  ‘He’s spoofing us again!’ she cried. ‘You are, aren’t you?’

  ‘Feel in my left-hand pocket, Mademoiselle.’

  Jean thrust in an eager hand, and drew it out again with a squeal of triumph. She held aloft the great ruby in its crimson splendour.

  ‘You see,’ explained Poirot, ‘the other was a paste replica I brought with me from London.’

  ‘Isn’t he clever?’ demanded Jean ecstatically.

  ‘There’s one thing you haven’t told us,’ said Johnnie suddenly. ‘How did you know about the rag? Did Nancy tell you?’

  Poirot shook his head.

  ‘Then how did you know?’

  ‘It is my business to know things,’ said M. Poirot, smiling a little as he watched Evelyn Haworth and Roger Endicott walking down the path together.

  ‘Yes, but do tell us. Oh, do, please! Dear M. Poirot, please tell us!’

  He was surrounded by a circle of flushed, eager faces.

  ‘You really wish that I should solve for you this mystery?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I do not think I can.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Ma foi, you will be so disappointed.’

  ‘Oh, do tell us! How did you know?’

  ‘Well, you see, I was in the library–’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘And you were discussing your plans just outside–and the library window was open.’

  ‘Is that all?’ said Eric in disgust. ‘How simple!’

  ‘Is it not?’ said M. Poirot, smiling.

  ‘At all events, we know everything now,’ said Jean in a satisfied voice.

  ‘Do we?’ muttered M. Poirot to himself, as he went into the house. ‘I do not–I, whose business it is to know things.’

  And, for perhaps the twentieth time, he drew from his pocket a rather dirty piece of paper.

  ‘Don’t eat any plum-pudding–’M. Poirot shook his head perplexedly. At the same moment he became aware of a peculiar gasping sound very near his feet. He looked down and perceived a small creature in a print dress. In her left hand was a dust-pan, and in the right a brush.

  ‘And who may you be, mon enfant?’ inquired M. Poirot.

  ‘Annie ’Icks, please, Sir. Between-maid.’

  M. Poirot had an inspiration. He handed her the letter.

  ‘Did you write that, Annie?’

  ‘I didn’t mean any ’arm, Sir.’

  He smiled at her.

  ‘Of course you didn’t. Suppose you tell me all about it?’

  ‘It was them two, Sir–Mr Levering and his sister. None of us can abide ’em; and she wasn’t ill a bit–we could all tell that. So I thought something queer was going on, and I’ll tell you straight, Sir, I listened at the door, and I heard him say as plain as plain, “This fellow Poirot must be got out of the way as soon as possible.” And then he says to ’er, meaning-like, “Where did you put it?” And she answers, “In the pudding.” And so I saw they meant to poison you in the Christmas pudding, and I didn’t know what to do. Cook wouldn’t listen to the likes of me. And then I thought of writing a warning, and I put it in the ’all where Mr Graves would be sure to see it and take it to you.’

  Annie paused breathless. Poirot surveyed her gravely for some minutes.

  ‘You read too many novelettes, Annie,’ he said at last. ‘But you have the good heart, and a certain amount of intelligence. When I return to London I will send you an excellent book upon le ménage, also the Lives of the Saints, and a work upon the economic position of woman.’

  Leaving Annie gasping anew, he turned and crossed the hall. He had meant to go into the library, but through the open door he saw a dark head and a fair one, very close together, and he paused where he stood. Suddenly a pair of arms slipped round his neck.

  ‘If you will stand just under the mistletoe!’ said Jean.

  ‘Me too,’ said Nancy. M. Poirot enjoyed it all–he enjoyed it very much indeed.

  Afterword

  ‘Christmas Adventure’ was first published as The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding in The Sketch on 12 December 1923 as the last in the second series of stories published under the heading The Grey Cells of M. Poirot. The story reappeared in the 1940s under the title ‘Christmas Adventure’ in two short-lived collections, Problem at Pollensa Bay and Christmas Adventure and Poirot Knows the Murderer before, many years later, being extended by Christie to a novella. As such, it was included in The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and a Selection of Entrées (1960).

  In the foreword to that collection, Christie described how the story recalled the Christmases of her youth which she and her mother had spent, after her father’s death in 1901, at Abney Hall in Stockport. Abney had been built by Sir James Watts, one-time Lord Mayor of Manchester and grandfather of James Watts, the husband of Christie’s elder sister, Madge. In her autobiography, published in 1977, Christie described Abney as ‘a wonderful house to have Christmas in as a child. Not only was it enormous Victorian Gothic with quantities of rooms, passages, unexpected step
s, back staircases, front staircases, alcoves, niches–everything in the world that a child could want–but it also had three different pianos that you could play, as well as an organ.’ Elsewhere, she described ‘the tables groaning with food and the lavish hospitality…there was an open storeroom in which everyone could partake of chocolates and all sorts of delicacies whenever they liked.’ And, when Agatha wasn’t eating–usually in competition with James Watts’ younger brother Humphrey–she was playing with him and his brothers Lionel and Miles and their sister Nan. Perhaps she had them in mind when writing about the children in the story and the fun they had one snowy Christmas with ‘a real-live detective in the house’.

  The Lonely God

  I

  He stood on a shelf in the British Museum, alone and forlorn amongst a company of obviously more important deities. Ranged round the four walls, these greater personages all seemed to display an overwhelming sense of their own superiority. The pedestal of each was duly inscribed with the land and race that had been proud to possess him. There was no doubt of their position; they were divinities of importance and recognized as such.

  Only the little god in the corner was aloof and remote from their company. Roughly hewn out of grey stone, his features almost totally obliterated by time and exposure, he sat there in isolation, his elbows on his knees, and his head buried in his hands; a lonely little god in a strange country.

  There was no inscription to tell the land whence he came. He was indeed lost, without honour or renown, a pathetic little figure very far from home. No one noticed him, no one stopped to look at him. Why should they? He was so insignificant, a block of grey stone in a corner. On either side of him were two Mexican gods worn smooth with age, placid idols with folded hands, and cruel mouths curved in a smile that showed openly their contempt of humanity. There was also a rotund, violently self-assertive little god, with a clenched fist, who evidently suffered from a swollen sense of his own importance, but passers-by stopped to give him a glance sometimes, even if it was only to laugh at the contrast of his absurd pomposity with the smiling indifference of his Mexican companions.

  And the little lost god sat on there hopelessly, his head in his hands, as he had sat year in and year out, till one day the impossible happened, and he found–a worshipper.

  II

  ‘Any letters for me?’

  The hall porter removed a packet of letters from a pigeon-hole, gave a cursory glance through them, and said in a wooden voice:

  ‘Nothing for you, sir.’

  Frank Oliver sighed as he walked out of the club again. There was no particular reason why there should have been anything for him. Very few people wrote to him. Ever since he had returned from Burma in the spring, he had become conscious of a growing and increasing loneliness.

  Frank Oliver was a man just over forty, and the last eighteen years of his life had been spent in various parts of the globe, with brief furloughs in England. Now that he had retired and come home to live for good, he realized for the first time how very much alone in the world he was.

  True, there was his sister Greta, married to a Yorkshire clergyman, very busy with parochial duties and the bringing up of a family of small children. Greta was naturally very fond of her only brother, but equally naturally she had very little time to give him. Then there was his old friend Tom Hurley. Tom was married to a nice, bright, cheerful girl, very energetic and practical, of whom Frank was secretly afraid. She told him brightly that he must not be a crabbed old bachelor, and was always producing ‘nice girls’. Frank Oliver found that he never had anything to say to these ‘nice girls’ they persevered with him for a while, then gave him up as hopeless.

  And yet he was not really unsociable. He had a great longing for companionship and sympathy, and ever since he had been back in England he had become aware of a growing discouragement. He had been away too long, he was out of tune with the times. He spent long, aimless days wandering about, wondering what on earth he was to do with himself next.

  It was on one of these days that he strolled into the British Museum. He was interested in Asiatic curiosities, and so it was that he chanced upon the lonely god. Its charm held him at once. Here was something vaguely akin to himself; here, too, was someone lost and astray in a strange land. He became in the habit of paying frequent visits to the Museum, just to glance in on the little grey stone figure, in its obscure place on the high shelf.

  ‘Rough luck on the little chap,’ he thought to himself. ‘Probably had a lot of fuss made about him once, kow-towing and offerings and all the rest of it.’

  He had begun to feel such a proprietary right in his little friend (it really almost amounted to a sense of actual ownership) that he was inclined to be resentful when he found that the little god had made a second conquest. He had discovered the lonely god; nobody else, he felt, had a right to interfere.

  But after the first flash of indignation, he was forced to smile at himself. For this second worshipper was such a little bit of a thing, such a ridiculous, pathetic creature, in a shabby black coat and skirt that had seen its best days. She was young, a little over twenty he should judge, with fair hair and blue eyes, and a wistful droop to her mouth.

  Her hat especially appealed to his chivalry. She had evidently trimmed it herself, and it made such a brave attempt to be smart that its failure was pathetic. She was obviously a lady, though a poverty-stricken one, and he immediately decided in his own mind that she was a governess and alone in the world.

  He soon found out that her days for visiting the god were Tuesdays and Fridays, and she always arrived at ten o’clock, as soon as the Museum was open. At first he disliked her intrusion, but little by little it began to form one of the principal interests of his monotonous life. Indeed, the fellow devotee was fast ousting the object of devotion from his position of pre-eminence. The days that he did not see the ‘Little Lonely Lady’, as he called her to himself, were blank.

  Perhaps she, too, was equally interested in him, though she endeavoured to conceal the fact with studious unconcern. But little by little a sense of fellowship was slowly growing between them, though as yet they had exchanged no spoken word. The truth of the matter was, the man was too shy! He argued to himself that very likely she had not even noticed him (some inner sense gave the lie to that instantly), that she would consider it a great impertinence, and, finally, that he had not the least idea what to say.

  But Fate, or the little god, was kind and sent him an inspiration–or what he regarded as such. With infinite delight in his own cunning, he purchased a woman’s handkerchief, a frail little affair of cambric and lace which he almost feared to touch, and, thus armed, he followed her as she departed and stopped her in the Egyptian room.

  ‘Excuse me, but is this yours?’ He tried to speak with airy unconcern, and signally failed.

  The Lonely Lady took it, and made a pretence of examining it with minute care.

  ‘No, it is not mine.’ She handed it back, and added, with what he felt guiltily was a suspicious glance: ‘It’s quite a new one. The price is still on it.’

  But he was unwilling to admit that he had been found out. He started on an over-plausible flow of explanation.

  ‘You see, I picked it up under that big case. It was just by the farthest leg of it.’ He derived great relief from this detailed account. ‘So, as you had been standing there, I thought it must be yours and came after you with it.’

  She said again: ‘No, it isn’t mine,’ and added, as if with a sense of ungraciousness, ‘thank you.’

  The conversation came to an awkward standstill. The girl stood there, pink and embarrassed, evidently uncertain how to retreat with dignity.

  He made a desperate effort to take advantage of his opportunity.

  ‘I–I didn’t know there was anyone else in London who cared for our little lonely god till you came.’

  She answered eagerly, forgetting her reserve:

  ‘Do you call him that too?’

  A
pparently, if she had noticed his pronoun, she did not resent it. She had been startled into sympathy, and his quiet ‘Of course!’ seemed the most natural rejoinder in the world.

  Again there was a silence, but this time it was a silence born of understanding.

  It was the Lonely Lady who broke it in a sudden remembrance of the conventionalities.

  She drew herself up to her full height, and with an almost ridiculous assumption of dignity for so small a person, she observed in chilling accents:

  ‘I must be going now. Good morning.’ And with a slight, stiff inclination of her head, she walked away, holding herself very erect.

  III

  By all acknowledged standards Frank Oliver ought to have felt rebuffed, but it is a regrettable sign of his rapid advance in depravity that he merely murmured to himself: ‘Little darling!’

  He was soon to repent of his temerity, however. For ten days his little lady never came near the Museum. He was in despair! He had frightened her away! She would never come back! He was a brute, a villain! He would never see her again!

  In his distress he haunted the British Museum all day long. She might merely have changed her time of coming. He soon began to know the adjacent rooms by heart, and he contracted a lasting hatred of mummies. The guardian policeman observed him with suspicion when he spent three hours poring over Assyrian hieroglyphics, and the contemplation of endless vases of all ages nearly drove him mad with boredom.

  But one day his patience was rewarded. She came again, rather pinker than usual, and trying hard to appear self-possessed.

  He greeted her with cheerful friendliness.

  ‘Good morning. It is ages since you’ve been here.’

  ‘Good morning.’

  She let the words slip out with icy frigidity, and coldly ignored the end part of his sentence.

  But he was desperate.

  ‘Look here!’ He stood confronting her with pleading eyes that reminded her irresistibly of a large, faithful dog. ‘Won’t you be friends? I’m all alone in London–all alone in the world, and I believe you are, too. We ought to be friends. Besides, our little god has introduced us.’