Short Stories

by Agatha Christie

  "Me? I don't know what you mean."

  "I mean that you haven't been honest with me, Mrs Davis. You held out on me -just as Mrs Boyle held out on me."

  "I don't understand."

  "Oh, yes, you do. Why, when I first mentioned the Longridge Farm case, you knew all about it. Oh, yes, you did. You were upset. And it was you who confirmed that Mrs Boyle was the billeting officer for this part of the country. Both you and she came from these parts. So when I began to speculate who the third victim was likely to be, I plumped at once for you. You'd shown firsthand knowledge of the Longridge Farm business. We policemen aren't so dumb as we look, you know."

  Molly said in a low voice, "You don't understand. I didn't want to remember."

  "I can understand that." His voice changed a little. "Your maiden name was Wainwright, wasn't it?"

  "Yes."

  "And you're just a little older than you pretend to be. In 1940, when this thing happened, you were the schoolteacher at Abbeyvale school."

  "No!"

  "Oh, yes, you were, Mrs Davis."

  "I wasn't, I tell you."

  "The child who died managed to get a letter posted to you. He stole a stamp. The letter begged for help - help from his kind teacher. It's a teacher's business to find out why a child doesn't come to school. You didn't find out. You ignored the poor little devil's letter."

  "Stop." Molly's cheeks were flaming. "It's my sister you are talking about. She was the schoolmistress. And she didn't ignore his letter.

  She was ill - with pneumonia. She never saw the letter until after the child was dead. It upset her dreadfully - dreadfully - she was a terribly sensitive person. But it wasn't her fault. It's because she took it to heart so dreadfully that I've never been able to bear being reminded of it. It's been a nightmare to me, always."

  Molly's hands went to her eyes, covering them. When she took them away, Trotter was staring at her.

  He said softly, "So it was your sister. Well, after all -" He gave a sudden queer smile. "It doesn't much matter, does it? Your sister - my brother -"

  He took something out of his pocket. He was smiling now, happily.

  Molly stared at the object he held. "I always thought the police didn't carry revolvers," she said.

  "The police don't," said the young man. He went on, "But you see, Mrs Davis, I'm not a policeman. I'm Jim. I'm Georgie's brother. You thought I was a policeman because I rang up from the call box in the village and said that Sergeant Trotter was on his way. Then I cut the telephone wires outside the house when I got here, so that you shouldn't be able to ring back to the police station."

  Molly stared at him. The revolver was pointing at her now.

  "Don't move, Mrs Davis - and don't scream - or I pull the trigger at once."

  He was still smiling. It was, Molly realized with horror, a child's smile.

  And his voice, when he spoke, was becoming a child's voice.

  "Yes," he said, "I'm Georgie's brother. Georgie died at Longridge Farm. That nasty woman sent us there, and the farmer's wife was cruel to us, and you wouldn't help us - three little blind mice. I said then I'd kill you all when I grew up. I meant it. I've thought of it ever since." He frowned suddenly. "They bothered me a lot in the army - that doctor kept asking me questions -1 had to get away. I was afraid they'd stop me doing what I wanted to do. But I'm grown up now. Grown-ups can do what they like."

  Molly pulled herself together. Talk to him, she said to herself. Distract his mind. "But, Jim, listen." she said. "You'll never get safely away."

  His face clouded over. "Somebody's hidden my skis. I can't find them."

  He laughed. "But I daresay it will be all right. It's your husband's revolver. I took it out of his drawer. I daresay they'll think he shot you.

  Anyway -1 don't much care. It's been such fun - all of it Pretending!

  That woman in London, her face when she recognized me. That stupid woman this morning!"

  He nodded his head.

  Clearly, with eerie effect, came a whistle. Someone whistling the tune of "Three Blind Mice."

  Trotter started, the revolver wavered - a voice shouted, "Down, Mrs Davis."

  Molly dropped to the floor as Major Metcalf, rising from behind the concealment of the sofa by the door flung himself upon Trotter. The revolver went off - and the bullet lodged in one of the somewhat mediocre oil paintings dear to the heart of the late Miss Emory.

  A moment later, all was pandemonium - Giles rushed in, followed by Christopher and Mr Paravicini.

  Major Metcalf, retaining his grasp of Trotter, spoke in short explosive sentences.

  "Came in while you were playing - slipped behind the sofa - I've been on to him from the beginning - that's to say, I knew he wasn't a police officer. I'm a police officer - Inspector Tanner. We arranged with Metcalf I should take his place. Scotland Yard thought it advisable to have someone on the spot. Now, my lad -" He spoke quite gently to the now docile Trotter. "You come with me. No one will hurt you. You'll be all right. We'll look after you."

  In a piteous child's voice the bronzed young man asked, "Georgie won't be angry with me?"

  Metcalf said, "No. Georgie won't be angry."

  He murmured to Giles as he passed him, "Mad as a hatter, poor devil."

  They went out together. Mr Paravicini touched Christopher Wren on the arm. "You, also, my friend," he said, "come with me."

  Giles and Molly, left alone, looked at each other. In another moment they were in each other's arms.

  "Darling," said Giles, "you're sure he didn't hurt you?"

  "No, no, I'm quite all right. Giles, I've been so terribly mixed up. I almost thought you - why did you go to London that day?"

  "Darling, I wanted to get you an anniversary present, for tomorrow. I didn't want you to know."

  "How extraordinary! I went to London to get you a present and I didn't want you to know."

  "I was insanely jealous of that neurotic ass. I must have been mad.

  Forgive me, darling." The door opened, and Mr Paravicini skipped in in his goatlike way. He was beaming.

  "Interrupting the reconciliation - Such a charming scene - But, alas, I must bid you adieu. A police jeep has managed to get through. I shall persuade them to take me with them." He bent and whispered mysteriously in Molly's ear, "I may have a few embarrassments in the near future - but I am confident I can arrange matters, and if you should receive a case -with a goose, say, a turkey, some tins of foie gras, a ham - some nylon stockings, yes? Well, you understand, it will be with my compliments to a very charming lady. Mr Davis, my check is on the hall table."

  He kissed Molly's hand and skipped to the door.

  "Nylons?" murmured Molly, "Foie gras? Who is Mr Paravicini? Santa Claus?"

  "Black-market style, I suspect," said Giles.

  Christopher Wren poked a diffident head in. "My dears," he said, "I hope I'm not intruding, but there's a terrible smell of burning from the kitchen. Ought I to do something about it?"

  With an anguished cry of "My pie!" Molly fled from the room.

  The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding *1960 *

  FOREWORD BY AGATHA CHRISTIE

  This book of Christmas fare may be described as "The Chef's Selection." I am the Chef!

  There are two main courses: The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and The Mystery of the Spanish Chest; a selection of Entrées: Greenshaw's Folly, The Dream, and The Under Dog; and a Sorbet: Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds.

  The Mystery of the Spanish Chest may be described as a Hercule Poirot Special. It is a case in which he considers he was at his best!

  Miss Marple, in her turn, has always been pleased with her perspicuity in Greenshaw's Folly.

  The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding is an indulgence of my own, since it recalls to me, very pleasurably, the Christmases of my youth.

  After my father's death, my mother and I always spent Christmas with my brother-in-law's family in the north of England - and what superb Christmases they were for
a child to remember! Abney Hall had everything! The garden boasted a waterfall, a stream, and a tunnel under the drive! The Christmas fare was of gargantuan proportions. I was a skinny child, appearing delicate, but actually of robust health and perpetually hungry! The boys of the family and I used to vie with each other as to who could eat most on Christmas Day. Oyster Soup and Turbot went down without undue zest, but then came Roast Turkey, Boiled Turkey and an enormous Sirloin of Beef. The boys and I had two helpings of all three! We then had Plum Pudding, Mince-pies, Trifle and every kind of dessert. During the afternoon we ate chocolates solidly. We neither felt, nor were, sick! How lovely to be eleven years old and greedy!

  What a day of delight from "Stockings" in bed in the morning, Church and all the Christmas hymns, Christmas dinner, Presents, and the final Lighting of the Christmas Tree!

  And how deep my gratitude to the kind and hospitable hostess who must have worked so hard to make Christmas Day a wonderful memory to me still in my old age.

  So let me dedicate this book to the memory of Abney Hall, its kindness and its hospitality.

  And a happy Christmas to all who read this book.

  Agatha Christie

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE CHRISTMAS PUDDING

  II

  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 dishclothes. 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. One 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 Jelmond 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," 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."

  "That is desirable, I think," said Poirot. "One cannot go against the spirit of the times."

  "No," said Mrs Lacey, "that's just what I felt about it. And, of course, girls nowadays do do these sort of things."

  Poirot looked at her inquiringly.

  "I think the way one expresses it," said Mrs Lacey, "is that Sarah has got in with what they call the coffee-bar set. She won't go to dances or come out properly or be a deb or anything of that kind.

  Instead she has two rather unpleasant rooms in Chelsea down by the river and wears these funny clothes that they like to wear, and black stockings or bright green ones. Very thick stockings. (So prickly, I always think!) And she goes about without washing or combing her hair."

  "Ça, c'est tout à fait naturelle," said Poirot. "It is the fashion of the moment. They grow out of it."

  "Yes, I know," said Mrs Lacey. "I wouldn't worry about that sort of thing. But you see she's taken up with this Desmond Lee-Wortley and he really has a very unsavoury reputation. He lives more
or less on well-to-do girls. They seem to go quite mad about him. He very nearly married the Hope girl, but her people got her made a ward of court or something. And of course that's what Horace wants to do.

  He says he must do it for her protection. But I don't think it's really a good idea, M. Poirot. I mean, they'll just run away together and go to Scotland or Ireland or the Argentine or somewhere and either get married or else live together without getting married. And although it may be contempt of court and all that - well, it isn't really an answer, is it, in the end? Especially if a baby's coming. One has to give in then, and let them get married. And then, nearly always, it seems to me, after a year or two there's a divorce. And then the girl comes home and usually after a year or two she marries someone so nice he's almost dull and settles down. But it's particularly sad, it seems to me, if there is a child, because it's not the same thing, being brought up by a stepfather, however nice. No, I think it's much better if we did as we did in my young days. I mean the first young man one fell in love with was always someone undesirable. I remember I had a horrible passion for a young man called - now what was his name now? - how strange it is, I can't remember his Christian name at all! Tibbitt, that was his surname. Young Tibbitt.

  Of course, my father more or less forbade him the house, but he used to get asked to the same dances, and we used to dance together. And sometimes we'd escape and sit out together and occasionally friends would arrange picnics to which we both went.

  Of course, it was all very exciting and forbidden and one enjoyed it enormously. But one didn't go to the well, to the lengths that girls go nowadays. And so, after a while, the Mr Tibbitts faded out. And do you know, when I saw him four years later I was surprised what I could ever have seen in him! He seemed to be such a dull young man. Flashy, you know. No interesting conversation."

  "One always thinks the days of one's own youth are best," said Poirot, somewhat sententiously.

  "I know," said Mrs Lacey. "It's tiresome, isn't it? I mustn't be tiresome. But all the same I don't want Sarah, who's a dear girl really, to marry Desmond Lee-Wortley. She and David Welwyn, who is staying here, were always such friends and so fond of each other, and we did hope, Horace and I, that they would grow up and marry. But of course she just finds him dull now, and she's absolutely infatuated with Desmond."