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

From his tone it was plain that he did not see. He went on: ‘Were they of much value?’

‘My father estimated their value at about ten thousand pounds.’

‘In fact, they were very valuable stones?’

‘Yes.’

‘It seems a curious idea to keep such stones in a bedroom safe.’

Lydia interposed.

‘My father-in-law, Colonel Johnson, was a somewhat curious man. His ideas were not the conventional ones. It definitely gave him pleasure to handle those stones.’

‘They recalled, perhaps, the past to him,’ said Poirot.

She gave him a quick appreciative look.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think they did.’

‘Were they insured?’ asked the chief constable.

‘I think not.’

Johnson leaned forward. He asked quietly:

‘Did you know, Mr Lee, that those stones had been stolen?’

‘What?’ Alfred Lee stared at him.

‘Your father said nothing to you of their disappearance?’

‘Not a word.’

‘You did not know that he had sent for Superintendent Sugden here and had reported the loss to him?’

‘I hadn’t the faintest idea of such a thing!’

The chief constable transferred his gaze.

‘What about you, Mrs Lee?’

Lydia shook her head.

‘I heard nothing about it.’

‘As far as you knew, the stones were still in the safe?’

‘Yes.’

She hesitated and then asked:

‘Is that why he was killed? For the sake of those stones?’

Colonel Johnson said:

‘That is what we are going to find out!’

He went on: