The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding

‘Go to the expert and don't count the cost. You'll notice, M. Poirot, I haven't asked you your fee. I'm not going to! Send me in the bill later — I shan't cut up rough over it. Damned fools at the dairy thought they could charge me two and nine for eggs when two and seven's the market price — lot of swindlers! I won't be swindled. But the man at the top's different. He's worth the money. I'm at the top myself — I know.’

Hercule Poirot made no reply. He listened attentively, his head poised a little on one side.

Behind his impassive exterior he was conscious of a feeling of disappointment. He could not exactly put his finger on it. So far Benedict Farley had run true to type — that is, he had conformed to the popular idea of himself; and yet — Poirot was disappointed.

‘The man,’ he said disgustedly to himself, ‘is a mountebank — nothing but a mountebank!’

He had known other millionaires, eccentric men too, but in nearly every case he had been conscious of a certain force, an inner energy that had commanded his respect. If they had worn a patchwork dressing-gown, it would have been because they liked wearing such a dressing-gown. But the dressing-gown of Benedict Farley, or so it seemed to Poirot, was essentially a stage property. And the man himself was essentially stagey. Every word he spoke was uttered, so Poirot felt assured, sheerly for effect.

He repeated again unemotionally, ‘You wished to consult me, Mr Farley?’

Abruptly the millionaire's manner changed.

He leaned forward. His voice dropped to a croak.

‘Yes. Yes… I want to hear what you've got to say — what you think… Go to the top! That's my way! The best doctor — the best detective — it's between the two of them.’

‘As yet, Monsieur, I do not understand.’

‘Naturally,’ snapped Farley. ‘I haven't begun to tell you.’

He leaned forward once more and shot out an abrupt question.

‘What do you know, M. Poirot, about dreams?’

The little man's eyebrows rose. Whatever he had expected, it was not this.

‘For that, Monsieur Farley, I should recommend Napoleon's Book of Dreams — or the latest practising psychologist from Harley Street.’

Benedict Farley said soberly, ‘I've tried both…’

There was a pause, then the millionaire spoke, at first almost in a whisper, then with a voice growing higher and higher.

‘It's the same dream — night after night. And I'm afraid, I tell you — I'm afraid… It's always the same. I'm sitting in my room next door to this. Sitting at my desk, writing. There's a clock there and I glance at it and see the time — exactly twenty-eight minutes past three. Always the same time, you understand.

‘And when I see the time, M. Poirot, I know I've got to do it. I don't want to do it — I loathe doing it — but I've got to…’

His voice had risen shrilly.

Unperturbed, Poirot said, ‘And what is it that you have to do?’

‘At twenty-eight minutes past three,’ Benedict Farley said hoarsely, ‘I open the second drawer down on the right of my desk, take out the revolver that I keep there, load it and walk over to the window. And then — and then —’

‘Yes?’

Benedict Farley said in a whisper: ‘Then I shoot myself…’

There was silence.

Then Poirot said, ‘That is your dream?’

‘Yes.’

‘The same every night?’

‘Yes.’

‘What happens after you shoot yourself?’

‘I wake up.’

Poirot nodded his head slowly and thoughtfully. ‘As a matter of interest, do you keep a revolver in that particular drawer?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I have always done so. It is as well to be prepared.’

‘Prepared for what?’

Farley said irritably, ‘A man in my position has to be on his guard. All rich men have enemies.’

Poirot did not pursue the subject. He remained silent for a moment or two, then he said:

‘Why exactly did you send for me?’

‘I will tell you. First of all I consulted a doctor — three doctors to be exact.’

‘Yes?’

‘The first told me it was all a question of diet. He was an elderly man. The second was a young man of the modern school. He assured me that it all hinged on a certain event that took place in infancy at that particular time of day — three twenty-eight. I am so determined, he says, not to remember that event, that I symbolize it by destroying myself. That is his explanation.’

‘And the third doctor?’ asked Poirot.

Benedict Farley's voice rose in shrill anger.

‘He's a young man too. He has a preposterous theory! He asserts that I, myself, am tired of life, that my life is so unbearable to me that I deliberately want to end it! But since to acknowledge that fact would be to acknowledge that essentially I am a failure, I refuse in my waking moments to face the truth. But when I am asleep, all inhibitions are removed, and I proceed to do that which I really wish to do. I put an end to myself.’

‘His view is that you really wish, unknown to yourself, to commit suicide?’ said Poirot.

Benedict Farley cried shrilly: