Thomas Godfrey (Ed) (15 page)

“It’s Desmond,” she said.
“It’s Desmond’s car. He—he must have gone to fetch the police instead of
telephoning.”

Diana Middleton came
running out of the house to join them.

“What’s happened?” she
cried in a breathless voice. “Desmond just came rushing into the house. He said
something about Bridget being killed and then he rattled the telephone but it
was dead. He couldn’t get an answer. He said the wires must have been cut. He
said the only thing was to take a car and go for the police. Why the police?...”

Poirot made a gesture.

“Bridget?” Diana stared
at him. “But surely—isn’t it a joke of some kind? I heard something—something
last night. I thought that they were going to play a joke on you, M. Poirot?”

“Yes,” said Poirot, “that
was the idea—to play a joke on me. But now come into the house, all of you. We
shall catch our deaths of cold here and there is nothing to be done until Mr.
Lee-Wortley returns with the police.”

“But look here,” said
Colin, “we can’t—we can’t leave Bridget here alone.”

“You can do her no good
by remaining,” said Poirot gently. “Come, it is a sad, a very sad tragedy, but
there is nothing we can do any more to help Mademoiselle Bridget. So let us
come in and get warm and have perhaps a cup of tea or of coffee.”

They followed him
obediently into the house. Peverell was just about to strike the gong. If he
thought it extraordinary for most of the household to be outside and for Poirot
to make an appearance in pyjamas and an overcoat, he displayed no sign of it.
Peverell in his old age was still the perfect butler. He noticed nothing that
he was not asked to notice. They went into the dining-room and sat down. When
they all had a cup of coffee in front of them and were sipping it, Poirot
spoke.

“I have to recount to you,”
he said, “a little history. I cannot tell you all the details, no. But I can
give you the main outline. It concerns a young princeling who came to this
country. He brought with him a famous jewel which he was to have reset for the
lady he was going to marry, but unfortunately before that he made friends with
a very pretty young lady. This pretty young lady did not care very much for the
man, but she did care for his jewel—so much so that one day she disappeared
with the historic possession which had belonged to his house for generations.
So the poor young man, he is in a quandary, you see. Above all he cannot have a
scandal. Impossible to go to the police. Therefore he comes to me, to Hercule
Poirot. ‘Recover for me,’ he says, ‘my historic ruby.’
Eh bien,
this young lady, she has a friend and the friend, he
has put through several questionable transactions. He has been concerned with
blackmail and he has been concerned with the sale of jewellery abroad. Always
he has been very clever. He is suspected, yes, but nothing can be proved. It
comes to my knowledge that this very clever gentleman, he is spending Christmas
here in this house. It is important that the pretty young lady, once she has
acquired the jewel, should disappear for a while from circulation, so that no
pressure can be put upon her, no questions can be asked her. It is arranged,
therefore, that she comes here to Kings Lacey, ostensibly as the sister of the
clever gentleman—”

Sarah drew a sharp
breath.

“Oh, no. Oh, no, not
here!
Not with me here!”

“But so it is,” said
Poirot. “And by a little manipulation I, too, become a guest here for
Christmas. This young lady, she is supposed to have just come out of hospital.
She is much better when she arrives here. But then comes the news that I, too,
arrive, a detective—a well-known detective. At once she has what you call the
wind up. She hides the ruby in the first place she can think of, and then very
quickly she has a relapse and takes to her bed again. She does not want that I
should see her, for doubtless I have a photograph and I shall recognise her. It
is very boring for her, yes, but she has to stay in her room and her brother,
he brings her up the trays.”

“And the ruby?” demanded
Michael.

“I think,” said Poirot, “that
at the moment it is mentioned I arrive, the young lady was in the kitchen with
the rest of you, all laughing and talking and stirring the Christmas puddings.
The Christmas puddings are put into bowls and the young lady she hides the
ruby, pressing it down into one of the pudding bowls. Not the one that we are
going to have on Christmas Day. Oh no, that one she knows is in a special
mould. She put it in the other one, the one that is destined to be eaten on New
Year’s Day. Before then she will be ready to leave, and when she leaves no
doubt that Christmas pudding will go with her. But see how fate takes a hand. On
the very morning of Christmas Day there is an accident. The Christmas pudding
in its fancy mould is dropped on the stone floor and the mould is shattered to
pieces. So what can be done? The good Mrs. Ross, she takes the other pudding
and sends it in.”

“Good lord,” said Colin, “do
you mean that on Christmas Day when Grandfather was eating his pudding that
that was a
real
ruby he’d got in his mouth?”

“Precisely,” said Poirot,
“and you can imagine the emotions of Mr. Desmond Lee-Wortley when he saw that.
Eh bien,
what happens next? The ruby is passed round. I examine
it and I manage unobtrusively to slip it in my pocket. In a careless way as
though I were not interested. But one person at least observes what I have
done. When I lie in bed that person searches my room. He searches me. He does
not find the ruby. Why?”

“Because,” said Michael
breathlessly, “you had given it to Bridget. That’s what you mean. And so that’s
why—but I don’t understand quite— I mean—Look here, what
did
happen?”

Poirot smiled at him.

“Come now into the
library,” he said, “and look out of the window and I will show you something
that may explain the mystery.”

He led the way and they
followed him.

“Consider once again,” said
Poirot, “the scene of the crime.”

He pointed out of the window.
A simultaneous gasp broke from the lips of all of them. There was no body lying
on the snow, no trace of the tragedy seemed to remain except a mass of scuffled
snow.

“It wasn’t all a dream,
was it?” said Colin faintly. “I—has someone taken the body away?”

“Ah,” said Poirot. “You
see? The Mystery of the Disappearing Body.” He nodded his head and his eyes
twinkled gently.

“Good lord,” cried
Michael. “M. Poirot, you are—you haven’t—oh, look here, he’s been having us on
all this time!”

Poirot twinkled more than
ever.

“It is true, my children,
I also have had my little joke. I knew about your little plot, you see, and so
I arranged a counter-plot of my own. Ah,
voilà
Mademoiselle Bridget. None the worse, I hope, for your
exposure in the snow? Never should I forgive myself if you contracted
une fluxion de poitrine.”

Bridget had just come
into the room. She wearing a thick skirt and a woolen sweater. She was
laughing.

“I sent a
tisane
to your room,” said Poirot severely. “You have drunk
it?”

“One sip was enough!”
said Bridget. “
I’
m all right. Did I do it well, M. Poirot? Goodness, my
arm hurts still after that tourniquet you made me put on it.”

“You were splendid, my
child,” said Poirot. “Splendid. But see, the others are still in the fog. Last
night I went to Mademoiselle Bridget. I told her that I knew about your little
complot
and I asked her if she would act a part for me. She
did it very cleverly. She made the footprints with a pair of Mr. Lee-Wortley’s
shoes.”

Sarah said in a harsh
voice:

“But what’s the point of
it all, M. Poirot? What’s the point of sending Desmond off to fetch the police?
They’ll be very angry when they find out it’s nothing but a hoax.”

Poirot shook his head
gently.

“But I do not think for
one moment, Mademoiselle, that Mr. Lee-Wortley went to fetch the police,” he
said. “Murder is a thing in which Mr. Lee-Wortley does not want to be mixed up.
He lost his nerve badly. All he could see was his chance to get the ruby. He
snatched that, he pretended the telephone was out of order and he rushed off in
a car on the pretence of fetching the police. I think myself it is the last you
will see of him for some time. He has, I understand, his own ways of getting
out of England. He has his own plane, has he not, Mademoiselle?”

Sarah nodded. “Yes,” she
said. “We were thinking of—” She stopped.

“He wanted you to elope
with him that way, did he not?
Eh bien,
that is a very good way of smuggling a jewel out of the country. When you are eloping
with a girl, and that fact is publicised, then you will not be suspected of
also smuggling a historic jewel out of the country. Oh yes, that would have
made a very good camouflage.”

“I don’t believe it,” said
Sarah. “I don’t believe a word of it!”

“Then ask his sister,” said
Poirot, gently nodding his head over her shoulder. Sarah turned her head
sharply.

A platinum blonde stood
in the doorway. She wore a fur coat and was scowling. She was clearly in a
furious temper.

“Sister my foot!” she
said, with a short unpleasant laugh. “That swine’s no brother of mine! So he’s
beaten it, has he, and left me to carry the can? The whole thing was
his
idea!
He
put me up to it! Said it was money for jam. They’d never prosecute because of
the scandal. I could always threaten to say that Ali had
given
me his historic jewel. Des and I were to have shared
the swag in Paris—and now the swine runs out on me! I’d like to murder him!”
She switched abruptly. “The sooner I get out of here—Can someone telephone for
a taxi?”

“A car is waiting at the
front door to take you to the station, Mademoiselle,” said Poirot.

“Think of everything, don’t
you?”

“Most things,” said
Poirot complacently.

But Poirot was not to get
off so easily. When he returned to the dining-room after assisting the spurious
Miss Lee-Wortley into the waiting car, Colin was waiting for him.

There was a frown on his
boyish face.

“But look here, M.
Poirot.
What about the ruby?
Do
you mean to say
you’ve
let him get away with it?”

Poirot’s face fell. He
twirled his moustaches. He seemed ill at ease.

“I shall recover it yet,”
he said weakly. “There are other ways. I shall still—”

“Well, I do think!” said
Michael. “To let that swine get away with the ruby!”

Bridget was sharper.

“He’s having us on again,”
she cried. “You are, aren’t you, M. Poirot!”

“Shall we do a final conjuring
trick, Mademoiselle? Feel in my left-hand pocket.”

Bridget thrust her hand
in. She drew it out again with a scream of triumph and held aloft a large ruby
blinking in crimson splendour.

“You comprehend,” explained
Poirot, “the one that was clasped in your hand was a paste replica. I brought
it from London in case it was possible to make a substitute. You understand? We
do not want the scandal. Monsieur Desmond will try and dispose of that ruby in
Paris or in Belgium or wherever it is that he has his contacts, and then it
will be discovered that the stone is not real! What could be more excellent?
All finishes happily. The scandal is avoided, my princeling receives his ruby
back again, he returns to his country and makes a sober and we hope a happy marriage.
All ends well.”

“Except for me,” murmured
Sarah under her breath.

She spoke so low that no
one heard her but Poirot. He shook his head gently.

“You are in error,
Mademoiselle Sarah, in what you say there. You have gained experience. All
experience is valuable. Ahead of you I prophesy there lies happiness.”