The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding

‘If it's the nephew, Lorrimer, you suspect, I don't mind telling you here and now that you are barking up the wrong tree. Lorrimer was playing bridge in Wimbledon from eight-thirty till midnight. That came out at the inquest.’

Poirot murmured:

‘And presumably it was verified. The police are careful.’

The doctor said:

‘Perhaps you know something against him?’

‘I didn't know that there was such a person until you mentioned him.’

‘Then you suspect somebody else?’

‘No, no. It is not that at all. It's a case of the routine habits of the human animal. That is very important. And the dead M. Gascoigne does not fit in. It is all wrong, you see.’

‘I really don't understand.’

Hercule Poirot murmured:

‘The trouble is, there is too much sauce over the bad fish.’

‘My dear sir?’

Hercule Poirot smiled.

‘You will be having me locked up as a lunatic soon, Monsieur le Docteur. But I am not really a mental case — just a man who has a liking for order and method and who is worried when he comes across a fact that does not fit in. I must ask you to forgive me for having given you so much trouble.’

He rose and the doctor rose also.

‘You know,’ said MacAndrew, ‘honestly I can't see anything the least bit suspicious about the death of Henry Gascoigne. I say he fell — you say somebody pushed him. It's all — well — in the air.’

Hercule Poirot sighed.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is workmanlike. Somebody has made the good job of it!’

‘You still think —’

The little man spread out his hands.

‘I'm an obstinate man — a man with a little idea — and nothing to support it! By the way, did Henry Gascoigne have false teeth?’

‘No, his own teeth were in excellent preservation. Very creditable indeed at his age.’

‘He looked after them well — they were white and well brushed?’

‘Yes, I noticed them particularly. Teeth tend to grow a little yellow as one grows older, but they were in good condition.’

‘Not discoloured in any way?’

‘No. I don't think he was a smoker if that is what you mean.’

‘I did not mean that precisely — it was just a long shot — which probably will not come off! Goodbye, Dr MacAndrew, and thank you for your kindness.’

He shook the doctor's hand and departed.

‘And now,’ he said, ‘for the long shot.’

At the Gallant Endeavour, he sat down at the same table which he had shared with Bonnington. The girl who served him was not Molly. Molly, the girl told him, was away on a holiday.

It was only just seven and Hercule Poirot found no difficulty in entering into conversation with the girl on the subject of old Mr Gascoigne.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He'd been here for years and years. But none of us girls ever knew his name. We saw about the inquest in the paper, and there was a picture of him. “There,” I said to Molly. “If that isn't our ‘Old Father Time’” as we used to call him.’

‘He dined here on the evening of his death, did he not?’

‘That's right, Thursday, the third. He was always here on a Thursday. Tuesdays and Thursdays — punctual as a clock.’

‘You don't remember, I suppose, what he had for dinner?’

‘Now let me see, it was mulligatawny soup, that's right, and beefsteak pudding or was it the mutton? — no pudding, that's right, and blackberry and apple pie and cheese. And then to think of him going home and falling down those stairs that very same evening. A frayed dressing-gown cord they said it was as caused it. Of course, his clothes were always something awful — old-fashioned and put on anyhow, and all tattered, and yet he had a kind of air, all the same, as though he was somebody! Oh, we get all sorts of interesting customers here.’

She moved off.

Hercule Poirot ate his filleted sole. His eyes showed a green light.

‘It is odd,’ he said to himself, ‘how the cleverest people slip over details. Bonnington will be interested.’

But the time had not yet come for leisurely discussion with Bonnington.

Armed with introductions from a certain influential quarter, Hercule Poirot found no difficulty at all in dealing with the coroner for the district.

‘A curious figure, the deceased man Gascoigne,’ he observed. ‘A lonely, eccentric old fellow. But his decease seems to arouse an unusual amount of attention?’

He looked with some curiosity at his visitor as he spoke.

Hercule Poirot chose his words carefully. ‘There are circumstances connected with it, Monsieur, which make investigation desirable.’

‘Well, how can I help you?’

‘It is, I believe, within your province to order documents produced in your court to be destroyed, or to be impounded — as you think fit. A certain letter was found in the pocket of Henry Gascoigne's dressing-gown, was it not?’

‘That is so.’

‘A letter from his nephew, Dr George Lorrimer?’

‘Quite correct. The letter was produced at the inquest as helping to fix the time of death.’

‘Which was corroborated by the medical evidence?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Is that letter still available?’

Hercule Poirot waited rather anxiously for the reply.

When he heard that the letter was still available for examination he drew a sigh of relief.