Thomas Godfrey (Ed) (10 page)

“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
embroidered 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 roasted—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 crystalised 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 seems to find all this terribly attractive.
Besides,” added Mrs. Lacey practically, “schoolboys and schoolgirls are always
hungry, aren’t they? I thing 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.”

“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.”

“Ca, 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 in 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.”

“I do not quite understand, Madame,”
said Poirot. “You have him here now, staying in the house, this Desmond
Lee-Wortley?”

“That’s
my
doing,” said Mrs.
Lacey. “Horace was all for forbidding her to see him and all that. Of course,
in Horace’s day, the father or guardian would have called round at the young
man’s lodgings with a horse whip! Horace was all for forbidding the fellow the
house, and forbidding the girl to see him. I told him that was quite the wrong
attitude to take. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Ask him down here. We’ll have him down for
Christmas with the family party.’ Of course, my husband said I was mad! But I
said, ‘At any rate, dear, let’s
try
it. Let her see
him in
our
atmosphere and
our
house and we’ll
be very nice to him and very polite, and perhaps then he’ll seem less
interesting to her’!”

“I think, as they say, you
have
something there, Madame,” said Poirot. “I think your point of view is very
wise. Wiser than your husband’s.”

“Well, I hope it is,” said Mrs.
Lacey doubtfully. “It doesn’t seem to be working much yet. But of course he’s
only been here a couple of days.” A sudden dimple showed in her wrinkled cheek.
“I’ll confess something to you, M. Poirot. I myself can’t help liking him. I
don’t mean I
really
like him, with my
mind,
but I can feel
the charm all right. Oh yes, I can see what Sarah sees in him. But I’m an old
enough woman and have enough experience to know that he’s absolutely no good.
Even if I
do
enjoy his company. Though I do think,” added Mrs. Lacey,
rather wistfully, “he has
some
good points. He asked if he might
bring his sister here, you know. She’s had an operation and was in hospital. He
said it was so sad for her being in a nursing home over Christmas and he
wondered if it would be too much trouble if he could bring her with him. He
said he’d take all her meals up to her and all that. Well now, I do think that
was
rather nice of him, don’t you, M. Poirot?”

“It shows a consideration,” said
Poirot, thoughtfully, “which seems almost out of character.”

“Oh, I don’t know. You can have
family affections at the same time as wishing to prey on a rich young girl.
Sarah will be
very
rich, you know, not only with what we leave her—and of
course that won’t be very much because most of the money goes with the place to
Colin, my grandson. But her mother was a very rich woman and Sarah will inherit
all her money when she’s twenty-one. She’s only twenty now. No, I do think it
was nice of Desmond to mind about his sister. And he didn’t pretend she was
anything very wonderful or that. She’s a shorthand typist, I gather—does
secretarial work in London. And he’s been as good as his word and does carry up
trays to her. Not all the time, of course, but quite often. So I think he has
some nice points. But all the same,” said Mrs. Lacey with great decision, “I
don’t want Sarah to marry him.”