Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and other stories

by Agatha Christie

  Joanna Farley's voice broke in. "He wanted, in case anything happened to him, that the facts of his strange dream should be made known."

  Poirot nodded approvingly.

  "You are astute, Mademoiselle. That must be - that can only be - the point of the keeping of the letter. When Mr Farley was dead, the story of that strange dream was to be told! That dream was very important. That dream, Mademoiselle, was vital!

  "I will come now," he went on, "to the second point. After hearing his story I ask Mr Farley to show me the desk and the revolver. He seems about to get up to do so, then suddenly refuses. Why did he refuse?"

  This time no one advanced an answer.

  "I will put that question differently. What was there in that next room that Mr Farley did not want me to see?"

  There was still silence.

  "Yes," said Poirot, "it is difficult, that. And yet there was some reason - some urgent reason why Mr Farley received me in his secretary's room and refused point blank to take me into his own room. There was something in that room he could not afford to have me see.

  "And now I come to the third inexplicable thing that happened on that evening. Mr Farley, just as I was leaving, requested me to hand him the letter I had received. By inadvertence I handed him a communication from my laundress. He glanced at it and laid it down beside him. Just before I left the room I discovered my error - and rectified it! After that I left the house and - I admit it - I was completely at sea! The whole affair and especially that last incident seemed to me quite inexplicable."

  He looked round from one to the other.

  "You do not see?"

  Stillingfleet said, "I don't really see how your laundress comes into it, Poirot."

  "My laundress," said Poirot, "was very important. That miserable woman who ruins my collars, was, for the first time in her life, useful to somebody. Surely you see - it is so obvious. Mr Farley glanced at that communication - one glance would have told him that it was the wrong letter - and yet he knew nothing. Why? Because he could not see it properly!"

  Inspector Barnett said sharply, "Didn't he have his glasses on?"

  Hercule Poirot smiled. "Yes," he said. "He had his glasses on. That is what makes it so very interesting."

  He leaned forward.

  "Mr Farley's dream was very important. He dreamed, you see, that he committed suicide. And a little later on, he did commit suicide. That is to say he was alone in a room and was found there with a revolver by him, and no one entered or left the room at the time that he was shot. What does that mean? It means, does it not, that it must be suicide!"

  "Yes," said Stillingfleet.

  Hercule Poirot shook his head.

  "On the contrary," he said. "It was murder. An unusual and a very cleverly planned murder."

  Again he leaned forward, tapping the table, his eyes green and shining.

  "Why did Mr Farley not allow me to go into his own room that evening? What was there in there that I must not be allowed to see? I think, my friends, that there was - Benedict Farley himself!"

  He smiled at the blank faces.

  "Yes, yes, it is not nonsense what I say. Why could the Mr Farley to whom I had been talking not realize the difference between two totally dissimilar letters? Because, mes amis, he was a man of normal sight wearing a pair of very powerful glasses. Those glasses would render a man of normal eyesight practically blind. Isn't that so, doctor?"

  Stillingfleet murmured, "That's so - of course."

  "Why did I feel that in talking to Mr Farley I was talking to a mountebank, to an actor playing a part? Because he was playing a part! Consider the setting. The dim room, the green shaded light turned blindingly away from the figure in the chair. What did I see - the famous patchwork dressing-gown, the beaked nose (faked with that useful substance, nose putty), the white crest of hair, the powerful lenses concealing the eyes. What evidence is there that Mr Farley ever had a dream? Only the story I was told and the evidence of Mrs Farley. What evidence is there that Benedict Farley kept a revolver in his desk? Again only the story told me and the word of Mrs Farley. Two people carried this fraud through - Mrs Farley and Hugo Cornworthy. Cornworthy wrote the letter to me, gave instructions to the butler, went out ostensibly to the cinema, but let himself in again immediately with a key, went to his room, made himself up, and played the part of Benedict Farley.

  "And so we come to this afternoon. The opportunity for which Mr Cornworthy has been waiting arrives. There are two witnesses on the landing to swear that no one goes in or out of Benedict Farley's room. Cornworthy waits until a particularly heavy batch of traffic is about to pass. Then he leans out of his window, and with the lazytongs which he has purloined from the desk next door he holds an object against the window of that room. Benedict Farley comes to the window. Cornworthy snatches back the tongs and as Farley leans out, and the lorries are passing outside, Cornworthy shoots him with the revolver that he has ready. There is a blank wall opposite, remember. There can be no witness of the crime. Cornworthy waits for over half an hour, then gathers up some papers, conceals the lazytongs and the revolver between them, and goes out on to the landing and into the next room. He replaces the tongs on the desk, lays down the revolver after pressing the dead man's fingers on it, and hurries out with the news of Mr Farley's 'suicide.'

  "He arranges that the letter to me shall be found and that I shall arrive with my story - the story I heard from Mr Farley's own lips - of his extraordinary 'dream' - the strange compulsion he felt to kill himself! A few credulous people will discuss the hypnotism theory - but the main result will be to confirm without a doubt that the actual hand that held the revolver was Benedict Farley's own."

  Hercule Poirot's eyes went to the widow's face - the dismay - the ashy pallor - the blind fear.

  "And in due course," he finished gently, "the happy ending would have been achieved. A quarter of a million and two hearts that beat as one..."

  John Stillingfleet, M.D., and Hercule Poirot walked along the side of Northway House. On their right was the towering wall of the factory. Above them, on their left, were the windows of Benedict Farley's and Hugo Cornworthy's rooms. Hercule Poirot stopped and picked up a small object - a black stuffed cat.

  "Voilà," he said. "That is what Cornworthy held in the lazytongs against Farley's window. You remember, he hated cats? Naturally he rushed to the window."

  "Why on earth didn't Cornworthy come out and pick it up after he'd dropped it?"

  "How could he? To do so would have been definitely suspicious. After all, if this object where found what would anyone think - that some child had wandered round here and dropped it."

  "Yes," said Stillingfleet with a sigh. "That's probably what the ordinary person would have thought. But not good old Hercule! D'you know, old horse, up to the very last minute I thought you were leading up to some subtle theory of highfalutin' psychological 'suggested' murder? I bet those two thought so too! Nasty bit of goods, the Farley. Goodness, how she cracked! Cornworthy might have got away with it if she hadn't had hysterics and tried to spoil your beauty by going for you with her nails. I only got her off you just in time."

  He paused a minute and then said:

  "I rather like the girl. Grit, you know, and brains. I suppose I'd be thought to be a fortune hunter if I had a shot at her...?"

  "You are too late, my friend. There is already someone sur le tapis. Her father's death has opened the way to happiness."

  "Take it all round, she had a pretty good motive for bumping off the unpleasant parent."

  "Motive and opportunity are not enough," said Poirot. "There must also be the criminal temperament!"

  "I wonder if you'll ever commit a crime, Poirot?" said Stillingfleet. "I bet you could get away with it all right. As a matter of fact, it would be too easy for you - I mean the thing would be off as definitely too unsporting."

  "That," said Poirot, "is a typically English idea."

  GREENSHAW'S FOLLY

  The two men rounded t
he corner of the shrubbery.

  "Well, there you are," said Raymond West. "That's it."

  Horace Bindler took a deep, appreciative breath.

  "How wonderful," he cried. His voice rose in a high screech of aesthetic delight, then deepened in reverent awe. "It's unbelievable. Out of this world! A period piece of the best."

  "I thought you'd like it," said Raymond West complacently.

  "Like it?" Words failed Horace. He unbuckled the strap of his camera and got busy. "This will be one of the gems of my collection," he said happily. "I do think, don't you, that it's rather amusing to have a collection of monstrosities? The idea came to me one night seven years ago in my bath. My last real gem was in the Campo Santo at Genoa, but I really think this beats it. What's it called?"

  "I haven't the least idea," said Raymond.

  "I suppose it's got a name?"

  "It must have. But the fact is that it's never referred to round here as anything but Greenshaw's Folly."

  "Greenshaw being the man who built it?"

  "Yes. In eighteen sixty or seventy or thereabouts. The local success story of the time. Barefoot boy who had risen to immense prosperity. Local opinion is divided as to why he built this house, whether it was sheer exuberance of wealth or whether it was done to impress his creditors. If the latter, it didn't impress them. He either went bankrupt or the next thing to it. Hence the name, Greenshaw's Folly." Horace's camera clicked.

  "There," he said in a satisfied voice. "Remind me to show you Number Three-ten in my collection. A really incredible marble mantelpiece in the Italian manner." He added, looking at the house, "I can't conceive of how Mr Greenshaw thought of it all."

  "Rather obvious in some ways," said Raymond. "He had visited the châteaux of the Loire, don't you think? Those turrets. And then, rather unfortunately, he seems to have travelled in the Orient. The influence of the Taj Mahal is unmistakable. I rather like the Moorish wing," he added, "and the traces of a Venetian palace."

  "One wonders how he ever got hold of an architect to carry out these ideas."

  Raymond shrugged his shoulders.

  "No difficulty about that, I expect," he said. "Probably the architect retired with a good income for life while poor old Greenshaw went bankrupt."

  "Could we look at it from the other side?" asked Horace, "or are we trespassing?"

  "We're trespassing all right," said Raymond, "but I don't think it will matter."

  He turned toward the corner of the house and Horace skipped after him.

  "But who lives here? Orphans or holiday visitors? It can't be a school. No playing fields or brisk efficiency."

  "Oh, a Greenshaw lives here still," said Raymond over his shoulder. "The house itself didn't go in the crash. Old Greenshaw's son inherited it. He was a bit of a miser and lived here in a corner of it. Never spent a penny. Probably never had a penny to spend. His daughter lives here now. Old lady - very eccentric."

  As he spoke Raymond was congratulating himself on having thought of Greenshaw's Folly as a means of entertaining his guest. These literary critics always professed themselves as longing for a weekend in the country and were wont to find the country extremely boring when they got there. Tomorrow there would be the Sunday papers, and for today Raymond West congratulated himself on suggesting a visit to Greenshaw's Folly to enrich Horace Bindler's well-known collection of monstrosities.

  They turned the corner of the house and came out on a neglected lawn. In one corner of it was a large artificial rockery, and bending over it was a figure at the sight of which Horace clutched Raymond delightedly by the arm.

  "Do you see what she's got on?" he exclaimed. "A sprigged print dress. Just like a housemaid - when there were housemaids. One of my most cherished memories is staying at a house in the country when I was quite a boy where a real housemaid called you in the morning, all crackling in a print dress and a cap. Yes, my boy, really - a cap. Muslin with streamers. No, perhaps it was the parlourmaid who had the streamers. But anyway, she was a real housemaid and she brought in an enormous brass can of hot water. What an exciting day we're having."

  The figure in the print dress had straightened up and turned toward them, trowel in hand. She was a sufficiently startling figure. Unkempt locks of iron-grey fell wispily on her shoulders, and a straw hat, rather like the hats that horses wear in Italy, was crammed down on her head. The coloured print dress she wore fell nearly to her ankles. Out of a weather-beaten, not too clean face, shrewd eyes surveyed them appraisingly.

  "I must apologize for trespassing, Miss Greenshaw," said Raymond West, as he advanced toward her, "but Mr Horace Bindler who is staying with me -"

  Horace bowed and removed his hat.

  "- is most interested in - er - ancient history and - er - fine buildings."

  Raymond West spoke with the ease of a famous author who knows that he is a celebrity, that he can venture where other people may not.

  Miss Greenshaw looked up at the sprawling exuberance behind her.

  "It is a fine house," she said appreciatively. "My grandfather built it - before my time, of course. He is reported as having said that he wished to astonish the natives."

  "I'll say he did that, ma'am," said Horace Bindler.

  "Mr Bindler is the well-known literary critic," said Raymond West.

  Miss Greenshaw had clearly no reverence for literary critics. She remained unimpressed.

  "I consider it," said Miss Greenshaw, referring to the house, "as a monument to my grandfather's genius. Silly fools come here and ask me why I don't sell it and go and live in a flat. What would I do in a flat? It's my home and I live in t," said Miss Greenshaw. "Always have lived here." She considered, brooding over the past. "There were three of us. Laura married the curate. Papa wouldn't give her any money, said clergymen ought to be unworldly. She died, having a baby. Baby died too. Nettie ran away with the riding master. Papa cut her out of his will, of course. Handsome fellow, Harry Fletcher, but no good. Don't think Nettie was happy with him. Anyway, she didn't live long. They had a son. He writes to me sometimes, but of course he isn't a Greenshaw. I'm the last of the Greenshaws." She drew up her bent shoulders with a certain pride and readjusted the rakish angle of the straw hat. Then, turning, she said sharply:

  "Yes, Mrs Cresswell, what is it?"

  Approaching them from the house was a figure that, seen side by side with Miss Greenshaw, seemed ludicrously dissimilar. Mrs Cresswell had a marvelously dressed head of well-blued hair towering upward in meticulously arranged curls and rolls. It was as though she had dressed her head to go as a French marquise to a fancy dress party. The rest of her middle-aged person was dressed in what ought to have been rustling black silk but was actually one of the shinier varieties of black rayon. Although she was not a large woman, she had a well-developed and sumptuous bosom. Her voice was unexpectedly deep. She spoke with exquisite diction - only a slight hesitation over words beginning with h, and the final pronunciation of them with an exaggerated aspirate gave rise to a suspicion that at some remote period in her youth she might have had trouble over dropping her h's.

  "The fish, madam," said Mrs Cresswell, "the slice of cod. It has not arrived. I have asked Alfred to go down for it and he refuses."

  Rather unexpectedly, Miss Greenshaw gave a cackle of laughter.

  "Refuses, does he?"

  "Alfred, madam, has been most disobliging."

  Miss Greenshaw raised two earth-stained fingers to her lips, suddenly produced an earsplitting whistle, and at the same time yelled, "Alfred, Alfred, come here."

  Round the corner of the house a young man appeared in answer to the summons, carrying a spade in his hand. He had a bold, handsome face, and as he drew near he cast an unmistakably malevolent glance toward Mrs Cresswell.

  "You wanted me, miss?" he said.

  "Yes, Alfred. I hear you've refused to go down for the fish. What about it, eh?"

  Alfred spoke in a surly voice.

  "I'll go down for it if you wants it, miss. You've
only got to say."

  "I do want it. I want it for my supper."

  "Right you are, miss. I'll go right away."

  He threw an insolent glance at Mrs Cresswell, who flushed and murmured below her breath.

  "Now that I think of it," said Miss Greenshaw, "a couple of strange visitors are just what we need, aren't they, Mrs Cresswell?"

  Mrs Cresswell looked puzzled.

  "I'm sorry, madam -"

  "For you-know-what," said Miss Greenshaw, nodding her head. "Beneficiary to a will mustn't witness it. That's right, isn't it?" She appealed to Raymond West.

  "Quite correct," said Raymond.

  "I know enough law to know that," said Miss Greenshaw, "and you two are men of standing."

  She flung down the trowel on her weeding basket.

  "Would you mind coming up to the library with me?"

  "Delighted," said Horace eagerly.

  She led the way through French windows and through a vast yellow-and- gold drawing-room with faded brocade on the walls and dust covers arranged over the furniture, then through a large dim hall, up a staircase, and into a room on the second floor.

  "My grandfather's library," she announced.

  Horace looked round with acute pleasure. It was a room from his point of view quite full of monstrosities. The heads of sphinxes appeared on the most unlikely pieces of furniture; there was a colossal bronze representing, he thought, Paul and Virginia, and a vast bronze clock with classical motifs of which he longed to take a photograph.

  "A fine lot of books," said Miss Greenshaw.

  Raymond was already looking at the books. From what he could see from a cursory glance there was no book here of any real interest or, indeed, any book which appeared to have been read. They were all superbly bound sets of the classics as supplied ninety years ago for furnishing a gentleman's library. Some novels of a bygone period were included. But they too showed little signs of having been read.