Айзек Азимов - The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries

“Deaths,” said Hercule Poirot thoughtfully. He looked at Mr. Jesmond. “One hopes,” he said, “it will not come to that?”

Mr. Jesmond made a peculiar noise rather like a hen who has decided to lay an egg and then thought better of it.

“No, no, indeed,” he said, sounding rather prim. “There is no question, I am sure, of anything of that kind.”

“You cannot be sure,” said Hercule Poirot. “Whoever has the ruby now, there may be others who want to gain possession of it, and who will not stick at a trifle, my friend.”

“I really don’t think,” said Mr. Jesmond, sounding more prim than ever, “that we need enter into speculations of that kind. Quite unprofitable.”

“Me,” said Hercule Poirot, suddenly becoming very foreign, “me, I explore all the avenues, like the politicians.”

Mr. Jesmond looked at him doubtfully. Pulling himself together, he said, “Well, I can take it that is settled, M. Poirot? You will go to Kings Lacey?”

“And how do I explain myself there?” asked Hercule Poirot.

Mr. Jesmond smiled with confidence.

“That, I think, can be arranged very easily,” he said. “I can assure you that it will all seem quite natural. You will find the Laceys most charming. Delightful people.”

“And you do not deceive me about the oil-fired central heating?”

“No, no, indeed.” Mr. Jesmond sounded quite pained. “I assure you you will find every comfort.”

“ Tout confort moderne ,” murmured Poirot to himself, reminiscently. “ Eh bien ,” he said, “I accept.”

The temperature in the long drawing-room at Kings Lacey was a comfortable sixty-eight as Hercule Poirot sat talking to Mrs. Lacey by one of the big mullioned windows. Mrs. Lacey was engaged in needlework. She was not doing petit point or embroidering flowers upon silk. Instead, she appeared to be engaged in the prosaic task of hemming dishcloths. As she sewed she talked in a soft reflective voice that Poirot found very charming.

“I hope you will enjoy our Christmas party here, M. Poirot. It’s only the family, you know. My granddaughter and a grandson and a friend of his and Bridget who’s my great-niece, and Diana who’s a cousin and David Welwyn who is a very old friend. Just a family party. But Edwina Morecombe said that that’s what you really wanted to see. An old-fashioned Christmas. Nothing could be more old-fashioned than we are! My husband, you know, absolutely lives in the past. He likes everything to be just as it was when he was a boy of twelve years old, and used to come here for his holidays.” She smiled to herself. “All the same old things, the Christmas tree and the stockings hung up and the oyster soup and the turkey — two turkeys, one boiled and one roast — and the plum pudding with the ring and the bachelor’s button and all the rest of it in it. We can’t have sixpences nowadays because they’re not pure silver any more. But all the old desserts, the Elvas plums and Carlsbad plums and almonds and raisins, and crystallised fruit and ginger. Dear me, I sound like a catalogue from Fortnum and Mason!”

“You arouse my gastronomic juices, madame.”

“I expect we’ll all have frightful indigestion by tomorrow evening,” said Mrs. Lacey. “One isn’t used to eating so much nowadays, is one?”

She was interrupted by some loud shouts and whoops of laughter outside the window. She glanced out.

“I don’t know what they’re doing out there. Playing some game or other, I suppose. I’ve always been so afraid, you know, that these young people would be bored by our Christmas here. But not at all, it’s just the opposite. Now my own son and daughter and their friends, they used to be rather sophisticated about Christmas. Say it was all nonsense and too much fuss and it would be far better to go out to a hotel somewhere and dance. But the younger generation seem to find all this terribly attractive. Besides,” added Mrs. Lacey practically, “schoolboys and schoolgirls are always hungry, aren’t they? I think they must starve them at these schools. After all, one does know children of that age each eat about as much as three strong men.”

Poirot laughed and said, “It is most kind of you and your husband, madame, to include me in this way in your family party.”

“Oh, we’re both delighted, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Lacey. “And if you find Horace a little gruff,” she continued, “pay no attention. It’s just his manner, you know.”

What her husband, Colonel Lacey, had actually said was: “Can’t think why you want one of these damned foreigners here cluttering up Christmas! Why can’t we have him some other time? Can’t stick foreigners! All right, all right, so Edwina Morecombe wished him on us. What’s it got to do with her , I should like to know? Why doesn’t she have him for Christmas?”

“Because you know very well,” Mrs. Lacey had said, “that Edwina always goes to Claridge’s.”

Her husband had looked at her piercingly and said, “Not up to something, are you, Em?”

“Up to something?” said Em, opening very blue eyes. “Of course not. Why should I be?”

Old Colonel Lacey laughed, a deep, rumbling laugh. “I wouldn’t put it past you, Em,” he said. “When you look your most innocent is when you are up to something.”

Revolving these things in her mind, Mrs. Lacey went on:

“Edwina said she thought perhaps you might help us... I’m sure I don’t know quite how, but she said that friends of yours had once found you very helpful in... in a case something like ours. I... well, perhaps you don’t know what I’m talking about?”

Poirot looked at her encouragingly. Mrs. Lacey was close on seventy, as upright as a ramrod, with snow-white hair, pink cheeks, blue eyes, a ridiculous nose, and a determined chin.

“If there is anything I can do I shall only be too happy to do it,” said Poirot. “It is, I understand, a rather unfortunate matter of a young girl’s infatuation.”

Mrs. Lacey nodded. “Yes. It seems extraordinary that I should — well, want to talk to you about it. After all, you are a perfect stranger...”

“ And a foreigner,” said Poirot, in an understanding manner.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Lacey, “but perhaps that makes it easier, in a way. Anyhow, Edwina seemed to think that you might perhaps know something — how shall I put it — something useful about this young Desmond Lee-Wortley.”

Poirot paused a moment to admire the ingenuity of Mr. Jesmond and the ease with which he had made use of Lady Morecombe to further his own purposes.

“He has not, I understand, a very good reputation, this young man?” he began delicately.

“No, indeed, he hasn’t! A very bad reputation! But that’s no help so far as Sarah is concerned. It’s never any good, is it, telling young girls that men have a bad reputation? It... it just spurs them on!”

“You are so very right,” said Poirot.

“In my young day,” went on Mrs. Lacey. “(Oh dear, that’s a very long time ago!) We used to be warned, you know, against certain young men, and of course it did heighten one’s interest in them, and if one could possibly manage to dance with them, or to be alone with them in a dark conservatory—” She laughed. “That’s why I wouldn’t let Horace do any of the things he wanted to do.”

“Tell me,” said Poirot, “exactly what it is that troubles you?”

“Our son was killed in the War,” said Mrs. Lacey. “My daughter-in-law died when Sarah was born so that she has always been with us, and we’ve brought her up. Perhaps we’ve brought her up unwisely — I don’t know. But we thought we ought always to leave her as free as possible.”