Hercule Poirot's Christmas: A Hercule Poirot Mystery (Hercule Poirot 20)

Stephen said slowly:

‘Two days ago he sat there alive—and now…’

Then, shaking off his absorption, he said: ‘Yes, M. Poirot, you brought me here to ask me something?’

‘Ah, yes. You were, I think, the first person to arrive on the scene that night?’

‘Was I? I don’t remember. No, I think one of the ladies was here before me.’

‘Which lady?’

‘One of the wives—George’s wife or David’s—I know they were both here pretty soon.’

‘You did not hear the scream, I think you said?’

‘I don’t think I did. I can’t quite remember. Somebody did cry out but that may have been someone downstairs.’

Poirot said:

‘You did not hear a noise like this?’

He threw his head back and suddenly gave vent to a piercing yell.

It was so unexpected that Stephen started backwards and nearly fell over. He said angrily:

‘For the Lord’s sake, do you want to scare the whole house? No, I didn’t hear anything in the least like that! You’ll have the whole place by the ears again! They’ll think another murder has happened!’

Poirot looked crestfallen. He murmured:

‘True…it was foolish…We must go at once.’

He hurried out of the room. Lydia and Alfred were at the foot of the stairs peering up—George came out of the library to join them, and Pilar came running, a passport held in her hand.

Poirot cried:

‘It is nothing—nothing. Do not be alarmed. A little experiment that I make. That was all.’

Alfred looked annoyed and George indignant. Poirot left Stephen to explain and he hurriedly slipped away along the passage to the other end of the house.

At the end of the passage Superintendent Sugden came quietly out of Pilar’s door and met Poirot.

‘Eh bien?’ asked Poirot.

The superintendent shook his head.

‘Not a sound.’

His eyes met Poirot’s appreciatively and he nodded.

V

Alfred Lee said: ‘Then you accept, M. Poirot?’

His hand, as it went to his mouth, shook slightly. His mild brown eyes were alight with a new and feverish expression. He stammered slightly in his speech. Lydia, standing silently by, looked at him with some anxiety.

Alfred said:

‘You don’t know—you c-c-can’t imagine—what it m-m-means to me…My father’s murderer must be f-f-found.’