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

‘And then?’

‘And then there was that awful scream—and everybody running—and the door being locked and having to break it down. Oh! It was like a nightmare! I shall always remember it!’

‘No, no,’ Colonel Johnson’s tone was mechanically kind. He went on:

‘Did you know that your father-in-law kept a quantity of valuable diamonds in his safe?’

‘No, did he?’ Her tone was quite frankly thrilled. ‘Real diamonds?’

Hercule Poirot said:

‘Diamonds worth about ten thousand pounds.’

‘Oh!’ It was a soft gasping sound—holding in it the essence of feminine cupidity.

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‘Well,’ said Colonel Johnson, ‘I think that’s all for the present. We needn’t bother you any further, Mrs Lee.’

‘Oh, thank you.’

She stood up—smiled from Johnson to Poirot—the smile of a grateful little girl, then she went out walking with her head held high and her palms a little turned outwards.

Colonel Johnson called:

‘Will you ask your brother-in-law, Mr David Lee, to come here?’ Closing the door after her, he came back to the table.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘what do you think? We’re getting at some of it now! You notice one thing: George Lee was telephoning when he heard the scream! His wife was telephoning when she heard it! That doesn’t fit—it doesn’t fit at all.’

He added:

‘What do you think, Sugden?’

The superintendent said slowly:

‘I don’t want to speak offensively of the lady, but I should say that though she’s the kind who would be first class at getting money out a gentleman, I don’t think she’s the kind who’d cut a gentleman’s throat. That wouldn’t be her line at all.’

‘Ah, but one never knows, mon vieux,’ murmured Poirot.

The chief constable turned round on him.

‘And you, Poirot, what do you think?’

Hercule Poirot leaned forward. He straightened the blotter in front of him and flicked a minute speck of dust from a candlestick. He answered:

‘I would say that the character of the late Mr Simeon Lee begins to emerge for us. It is there, I think, that the whole importance of the case lies…in the character of the dead man.’

Superintendent Sugden turned a puzzled face to him.

‘I don’t quite get you, Mr Poirot,’ he said. ‘What exactly has the character of the deceased got to do with his murder?’

Poirot said dreamily:

‘The character of the victim has always something to do with his or her murder. The frank and unsuspicious mind of Desdemona was the direct cause of her death. A more suspicious woman would have seen Iago’s machinations and circumvented them much earlier. The uncleanness of Marat directly invited his end in a bath. From the temper of Mercutio’s mind came his death at the sword’s point.’

Colonel Johnson pulled his moustache.

‘What exactly are you getting at, Poirot?’