Thomas Godfrey (Ed) (16 page)

“That’s what
you
say,” said Sarah.

“But look here, M. Poirot,”
Colin was frowning. “How did you know about the show we were going to put on
for you?”

“It is my business to
know things,” said Hercule Poirot. He twirled his moustache.

“Yes, but I don’t see how
you could have managed it. Did someone split—did someone come and tell you?”

“No, no, not that.”

“Then how? Tell us how?”

They all chorused, “Yes,
tell us how.”

“But no,” Poirot
protested. “But no. If I tell you how I deduced that, you will think nothing of
it. It is like the conjurer who shows how his tricks are done!”

“Tell us, M. Poirot! Go
on. Tell us, tell us!”

“You really wish that I
should solve for you this last mystery?”

“Yes, go on. Tell us.”

“Ah, I do not think I
can. You will be so disappointed.”

“Now, come on, M. Poirot,
tell us.
How did you know?”

“Well, you see, I was
sitting in the library by the window in a chair after tea the other day and I
was reposing myself. I had been asleep and when I awoke you were discussing
your plans just outside the window close to me, and the window was open at the
top.”

“Is that all?” cried
Colin, disgusted. “How simple!”

“Is it not?” said Hercule
Poirot, smiling. “You see? You
are
disappointed!”

“Oh well,” said Michael, “at
any rate we know everything now.”

“Do we?” murmured Hercule
Poirot to himself, “
I
do not.
I
, whose business it is to know
things.”

He walked out into the
hall, shaking his head a little. For perhaps the twentieth time he drew from
his pocket a rather dirty piece of paper.
“DON’T EAT NONE OF THE PLUM PUDDING. ONE AS WISHES YOU
WELL.”

Hercule Poirot shook his
head reflectively. He who could explain everything could not explain this!
Humiliating. Who had written it?
Why
had it been written? Until he found that out he would never know a moment’s
peace. Suddenly he came out of his reverie to be aware of a peculiar gasping
noise. He looked sharply down. On the floor, busy with a dustpan and brush was
a tow-headed creature in a flowered overall. She was staring at the paper in
his hand with large round eyes.

“Oh sir,” said this
apparition. “Oh,
sir. Please,
sir.”

“And who may you be,
mon enfant?”
inquired M. Poirot genially.

“Annie Bates, sir, please
sir. I come here to help Mrs. Ross. I didn’t mean, sir, I didn’t mean to—to do
anything what I shouldn’t do. I did mean it well, sir. For your good, I mean.”

Enlightenment came to
Poirot. He held out the dirty piece of paper.

“Did you write that,
Annie?”

“I didn’t mean any harm, sir.
Really I didn’t.”

“Of course you didn’t,
Annie.” He smiled at her. “But tell me about it. Why did you write this?”

“Well, it was them two,
sir. Mr. Lee-Wortley and his sister. Not that she
was
his sister, I’m sure. None of us thought so! And she wasn’t ill a bit. We could
all tell
that.
We
thought—we all thought—something queer was going on. I’ll tell you straight,
sir. I was in her bathroom taking in the clean towels, and I listened at the
door.
He
was in her room and they were talking together. I heard what they said plain as
plain. ‘This detective,’ he was saying. ‘This fellow Poirot who’s coming here.
We’ve got to do something about it. We’ve got to get him out of the way as soon
as possible.’ And then he says to her in a nasty, sinister sort of way,
lowering his voice, ‘Where did you put it?’ And she answered him
‘In the pudding.
’ Oh sir, my heart gave such a leap
I thought it would stop beating. I thought they meant to poison you in the
Christmas pudding. I didn’t know
what
to
do! Mrs. Ross, she wouldn’t listen to the likes of me. Then the idea came to me
as I’d write you a warning. And I did and I put it on your pillow where you’d
find it when you went to bed.” Annie paused breathlessly.

Poirot surveyed her
gravely for some minutes.

“You see too many
sensational films, I think, Annie,” he said at last, “or perhaps it is the
television that affects you? But the important thing is that you have the good
heart and a certain amount of ingenuity. When I return to London I will send
you a present.”

“Oh thank you, sir. Thank
you very much, sir.

“What would you like,
Annie, as a present?”

“Anything I like, sir?
Could I have anything I like?”

“Within reason,” said
Hercule Poirot prudently, “yes.”

“Oh sir, could I have a
vanity box? A real posh slap-up vanity box like the one Mr. Lee-Wortley’s
sister, wot wasn’t his sister, had?”

“Yes,” said Poirot, “yes,
I think that could be managed.”

“It is interesting,” he mused. “I
was in a museum the other day observing some antiquities from Babylon or one of
those places, thousands of years old and among them were cosmetics boxes. The
heart of women does not change.”

“Beg your pardon, sir?” said Annie.

“It is nothing,” said Poirot, “I
reflect. You shall have your vanity box, child.”

“Oh thank you, sir. Oh thank you
very much indeed, sir.”

Annie departed ecstatically. Poirot
looked after her, nodding his head in satisfaction.

“Ah,” he said to himself. “And now
—
I
go. There is nothing more to be done here.”

A pair of arms slipped round his shoulders
unexpectedly.

“If you will stand just under the
mistletoe...” said Bridget.

Hercule Poirot enjoyed it. He
enjoyed it very much. He said to himself that he had had a very good Christmas.

Once
upon a time, reading was one of man‘s principal sources of fun. This was
sometime after the discovery of sex and before the invention of television.
Damon Runyon was one of the principal reasons reading became fun.

His methods were deceptively simple.
He took big city life with all its inherent frustrations, and made it seem warm
and humorous. He transformed O. Henry’s Four Million into a collection of guys
and dolls who were either putting gin into a bathtub or carrying it around on
their hip.

Respectable types, who would have
blanched if they ran into the real Nathan Detroit or Dancing Dan in a dark
alley, found them great fun when encountered in the safety of their favorite
armchair. Runyon’s stories were hugely popular in their day, creating a style
that was much imitated.

Today, unfortunately, Runyon’s art
is out of fashion in an age that considers sentimentality a bigger literary
crime than illiteracy. Happily there are still many Runyon Revolutionists
around. If reading again becomes one of man’s principal sources of fun, a
Runyon renaissance is guaranteed.

N
OW
one
time it comes on Christmas, and in fact it is the evening
be
fore
Christmas, and I am in Good Time Charley Bernstein’s little speakeasy in West
Forty-seventh Street, wishing Charley a Merry Christmas and having a few hot
Tom and Jerrys with him.

This hot Tom and Jerry is
an old time drink that is once used by one and all in this country to celebrate
Christmas with, and in fact it is once so popular that many people think
Christmas is invented only to furnish an excuse for hot Tom and Jerry, although
of course this is by no means true.

But anybody will tell you
that there is nothing that brings out the true holiday spirit like hot Tom and
Jerry, and I hear that since Tom and Jerry goes out of style in the United
States, the holiday spirit is never quite the same.

Well, as Good Time
Charley and I are expressing our holiday sentiments to each other over our hot
Tom and Jerry, and I am trying to think up the poem about the night before
Christmas and all through the house, which I know will interest Charley no
little, all of a sudden there is a big knock at the front door, and when
Charley opens the door, who comes in carrying a large package under one arm but
a guy by the name of Dancing Dan.

This Dancing Dan is a
good-looking young guy, who always seems well-dressed, and he is called by the
name of Dancing Dan because he is a great hand for dancing around and about
with dolls in night clubs, and other spots where there is any dancing. In fact,
Dan never seems to be doing anything else, although I hear rumors that when he
is not dancing he is carrying on in a most illegal manner at one thing and
another. But of course you can always hear rumors in this town about anybody,
and personally I am rather fond of Dancing Dan as he always seems to be getting
a great belt out of life.

Anybody in town will tell
you that Dancing Dan is a guy with no Barnaby whatever in him, and in fact he
has about as much gizzard as anybody around, although I wish to say I always
question his judgment in dancing so much with Miss Muriel O’Neill, who works in
the Half Moon night club. And the reason I question his judgment in this
respect is because everybody knows that Miss Muriel O’Neill is a doll who is
very well thought of by Heine Schmitz, and Heine Schmitz is not such a guy as
will take kindly to anybody dancing more than once and a half with a doll that
he thinks well of.

Well, anyway, as Dancing
Dan comes in, he weighs up the joint in one quick peek, and then he tosses the
package he is carrying into a corner where it goes plunk, as if there is
something very heavy in it, and then he steps up to the bar alongside of
Charley and me and wishes to know what we are drinking.

Naturally we start
boosting hot Tom and Jerry to Dancing Dan, and he says he will take a crack at
it with us, and after one crack, Dancing Dan says he will have another crack,
and Merry Christmas to us with it, and the first thing anybody knows it is a
couple of hours later and we still are still having cracks at the hot Tom and
Jerry with Dancing Dan, and Dan says he never drinks anything so soothing in
his life. In fact, Dancing Dan says he will recommend Tom and Jerry to
everybody he knows, only he does not know anybody good enough for Tom and
Jerry, except maybe Miss Muriel O’Neill, and she does not drink anything with
drugstore rye in it.

Well, several times while
we are drinking this Tom and Jerry, customers come to the door of Good Time
Charley’s little speakeasy and knock, but by now Charley is commencing to be afraid
they will wish Tom and Jerry, too, and he does not feel we will have enough for
ourselves, so he hangs out a sign which says “Closed on Account of Christmas,” and
the only one he will let in is a guy by the name of Ooky, who is nothing but an
old rumdum, and who is going around all week dressed like Santa Claus and
carrying a sign advertising Moe Lewinsky’s clothing joint around in Sixth
Avenue.

This Ooky is still
wearing his Santa Claus outfit when Charley lets him in, and the reason Charley
permits such a character as Ooky in his joint is because Ooky does the porter
work for Charley when he is not Santa Claus for Moe Lewinsky, such as sweeping
out, and washing the glasses, and one thing and another.