The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding

‘He is sobered then, this M. Leverson. The chair falls with a crash, and he bends over Sir Reuben. He realizes what has happened, he looks at his hand covered with something warm and red. He is in a panic then, he would give anything on earth to recall the cry which has just sprung from his lips, echoing through the house. Mechanically he picks up the chair, then he hastens out through the door and listens. He fancies he hears a sound, and immediately, automatically, he pretends to be speaking to his uncle through the open door.

‘The sound is not repeated. He is convinced he has been mistaken in thinking he heard one. Now all is silence, he creeps up to his room, and at once it occurs to him how much better it will be if he pretends never to have been near his uncle that night. So he tells his story. Parsons at that time, remember, has said nothing of what he heard. When he does do so, it is too late for M. Leverson to change. He is stupid, and he is obstinate, he sticks to his story. Tell me, Monsieur, is that not possible?’

‘Yes,’ said the lawyer, ‘I suppose in the way you put it that it is possible.’

Poirot rose to his feet.

‘You have the privilege of seeing M. Leverson,’ he said. ‘Put to him the story I have told you, and ask him if it is not true.’

Outside the lawyer's office, Poirot hailed a taxi.

‘Three-four-eight Harley Street,’ he murmured to the driver.

Poirot's departure for London had taken Lady Astwell by surprise, for the little man had not made any mention of what he proposed doing. On his return, after an absence of twenty-four hours, he was informed by Parsons that Lady Astwell would like to see him as soon as possible. Poirot found the lady in her own boudoir. She was lying down on the divan, her head propped up by cushions, and she looked startlingly ill and haggard; far more so than she had done on the day Poirot arrived.

‘So you have come back, M. Poirot?’

‘I have returned, Madame.’

‘You went to London?’

Poirot nodded.

‘You didn't tell me you were going,’ said Lady Astwell sharply.

‘A thousand apologies, Madame, I am in error, I should have done so. La prochaine fois —’

‘You will do exactly the same,’ interrupted Lady Astwell with a shrewd touch of humour. ‘Do things first and tell people afterwards, that is your motto right enough.’

‘Perhaps it has also been Madame's motto?’ His eyes twinkled.

‘Now and then, perhaps,’ admitted the other. ‘What did you go up to London for, M. Poirot? You can tell me now, I suppose?’

‘I had an interview with the good Inspector Miller, and also with the excellent Mr Mayhew.’

Lady Astwell's eyes searched his face.

‘And you think, now —?’ she said slowly.

Poirot's eyes were fixed on her steadily.

‘That there is a possibility of Charles Leverson's innocence,’ he said gravely.

‘Ah!’ Lady Astwell moved suddenly, sending two cushions rolling to the ground. ‘I was right, then, I was right!’

‘I said a possibility, Madame, that is all.’

Something in his tone seemed to strike her. She raised herself on one elbow and regarded him piercingly.

‘Can I do anything?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ he nodded his head, ‘you can tell me, Lady Astwell, why you suspect Owen Trefusis.’

‘I have told you I know — that's all.’

‘Unfortunately, that is not enough,’ said Poirot dryly. ‘Cast your mind back to the fatal evening, Madame. Remember each detail, each tiny happening. What did you notice or observe about the secretary? I, Hercule Poirot, tell you there must have been something.’

Lady Astwell shook her head.

‘I hardly noticed him at all that evening,’ she said, ‘and I certainly was not thinking of him.’

‘Your mind was taken up by something else?’

‘Yes.’

‘With your husband's animus against Miss Lily Margrave?’

‘That's right,’ said Lady Astwell, nodding her head; ‘you seem to know all about it, M. Poirot.’

‘Me, I know everything,’ declared the little man with an absurdly grandiose air.

‘I am fond of Lily, M. Poirot; you have seen that for yourself. Reuben began kicking up a rumpus about some reference or other of hers. Mind you, I don't say she hadn't cheated about it. She had. But, bless you, I have done many worse things than that in the old days. You have got to be up to all sorts of tricks to get around theatrical managers. There is nothing I wouldn't have written, or said, or done, in my time.

‘Lily wanted this job, and she put in a lot of slick work that was not quite — well, quite the thing, you know. Men are so stupid about that sort of thing; Lily really might have been a bank clerk absconding with millions for the fuss he made about it. I was terribly worried all the evening, because, although I could usually get round Reuben in the end, he was terribly pigheaded at times, poor darling. So of course I hadn't time to go noticing secretaries, not that one does notice Mr Trefusis much, anyway. He is just there and that's all there is to it.’

‘I have noticed that fact about M. Trefusis,’ said Poirot. ‘His is not a personality that stands forth, that shines, that hits you cr-r-rack.’