Hercule Poirot’s Christmas

December 23rd

Tressilian went to answer the doorbell. It had been an unusually aggressive peal, and now, before he could make his slow way across the hall, it pealed out again.

Tressilian flushed. An ill-mannered, impatient way of ringing the bell at a gentleman’s house! If it was a fresh lot of those carol singers he’d give them a piece of his mind.

Through the frosted glass of the upper half of the door he saw a silhouette—a big man in a slouch hat. He opened the door. As he had thought—a cheap, flashy stranger—nasty pattern of suit he was wearing—loud! Some impudent begging fellow!

‘Blessed if it isn’t Tressilian,’ said the stranger. ‘How are you, Tressilian?’

Tressilian stared—took a deep breath—stared again. That bold arrogant jaw, the high-bridged nose, the rollicking eye. Yes, they had all been there three years ago. More subdued then…

He said with a gasp:

‘Mr Harry!’

Harry Lee laughed.

‘Looks as though I’d given you quite a shock. Why? I’m expected, aren’t I?’

‘Yes, indeed, sir. Certainly, sir.’

‘Then why the surprise act?’ Harry stepped back a foot or two and looked up at the house—a good solid mass of red brick, unimaginative but solid.

‘Just the same ugly old mansion,’ he remarked. ‘Still standing, though, that’s the main thing. How’s my father, Tressilian?’

‘He’s somewhat of an invalid, sir. Keeps his room, and can’t get about much. But he’s wonderfully well, considering.’

‘The old sinner!’

Harry Lee came inside, let Tressilian remove his scarf and take the somewhat theatrical hat.

‘How’s my dear brother Alfred, Tressilian?’

‘He’s very well, sir.’

Harry grinned.

‘Looking forward to seeing me? Eh?’

‘I expect so, sir.’

‘I don’t! Quite the contrary. I bet it’s given him a nasty jolt, my turning up! Alfred and I never did get on. Ever read your Bible, Tressilian?’

‘Why, yes, sir, sometimes, sir.’

‘Remember the tale of the prodigal’s return? The good brother didn’t like it, remember? Didn’t like it at all! Good old stay-at-home Alfred doesn’t like it either, I bet.’

Tressilian remained silent looking down his nose. His stiffened back expressed protest. Harry clapped him on the shoulder.

‘Lead on, old son,’ he said. ‘The fatted calf awaits me! Lead me right to it.’

Tressilian murmured:

‘If you will come this way into the drawing-room, sir. Iam not quite sure where everyone is…They were unable to send to meet you, sir, not knowing the time of your arrival.’

Harry nodded. He followed Tressilian along the hall, turning his head to look about him as he went.

‘All the old exhibits in their place, I see,’ he remarked. ‘I don’t believe anything has changed since I went away twenty years ago.’

He followed Tressilian into the drawing-room. The old man murmured:

‘I will see if I can find Mr or Mrs Alfred,’ and hurried out.

Harry Lee had marched into the room and had then stopped, staring at the figure who was seated on one of the window-sills. His eyes roamed incredulously over the black hair and the creamy exotic pallor.

‘Good Lord!’ he said. ‘Are you my father’s seventh and most beautiful wife?’

Pilar slipped down and came towards him.

‘I am Pilar Estravados,’ she announced. ‘And you must be my Uncle Harry, my mother’s brother.’

Harry said, staring:

‘So that’s who you are! Jenny’s daughter.’

Pilar said: ‘Why did you ask me if I was your father’s seventh wife? Has he really had six wives?’

Harry laughed.

‘No, I believe he’s only had one official one. Well—Pil—what’s your name?’

‘Pilar, yes.’

‘Well, Pilar, it really gives me quite a turn to see something like you blooming in this mausoleum.’

‘This—maus—please?’

‘This museum of stuffed dummies! I always thought this house was lousy! Now I see it again I think it’s lousier than ever!’

Pilar said in a shocked voice:

‘Oh, no, it is very handsome here! The furniture is good and the carpets—thick carpets everywhere—and there are lots of ornaments. Everything is very good quality and very, very rich!’

‘You’re right there,’ said Harry, grinning. He looked at her with amusement. ‘You know, I can’t help getting a kick out of seeing you in the midst—’

He broke off as Lydia came rapidly into the room.

She came straight to him.

‘How d’you do, Harry? I’m Lydia—Alfred’s wife.’

‘How de do, Lydia.’ He shook hands, examining her intelligent mobile face in a swift glance and approving mentally of the way she walked—very few women moved well.

Lydia in her turn took quick stock of him.

She thought: ‘He looks a frightful tough—attractive though. I wouldn’t trust him an inch…’

She said smiling:

‘How does it look after all these years? Quite different, or very much the same?’

‘Pretty much the same.’ He looked round him. ‘This room’s been done over.’

‘Oh, many times.’

He said:

‘I meant by you. You’ve made it—different.’

‘Yes, I expect so…’

He grinned at her, a sudden impish grin that reminded her with a start of the old man upstairs.

‘It’s got more class about it now! I remember hearing that old Alfred had married a girl whose people came over with the Conqueror.’

Lydia smiled. She said:

‘I believe they did. But they’ve rather run to seed since those days.’

Harry said:

‘How’s old Alfred? Just the same blessed old stick-in-the-mud as ever?’

‘I’ve no idea whether you will find him changed or not.’

‘How are the others? Scattered all over England?’

‘No—they’re all here for Christmas, you know.’

Harry’s eyes opened.

‘Regular Christmas family reunion? What’s the matter with the old man? He used not to give a damn for sentiment. Don’t remember his caring much for his family, either. He must have changed!’

‘Perhaps.’ Lydia’s voice was dry.

Pilar was staring, her big eyes wide and interested.

Harry said:

‘How’s old George? Still the same skinflint? How he used to howl if he had to part with a halfpenny of his pocket-money!’

Lydia said:

‘George is in Parliament. He’s member for Westeringham.’

‘What? Popeye in Parliament? Lord, that’s good.’

Harry threw back his head and laughed.

It was rich stentorian laughter—it sounded uncontrolled and brutal in the confined space of the room. Pilar drew in her breath with a gasp. Lydia flinched a little.

Then, at a movement behind him, Harry broke off his laugh and turned sharply. He had not heard anyone coming in, but Alfred was standing there quietly. He was looking at Harry with an odd expression on his face.

Harry stood a minute, then a slow smile crept to his lips. He advanced a step.

‘Why,’ he said, ‘it’s Alfred!’

Alfred nodded.

‘Hallo, Harry,’ he said.

They stood staring at each other. Lydia caught her breath. She thought:

‘How absurd! Like two dogs—looking at each other…’

Pilar’s gaze widened even further. She thought to herself:

‘How silly they look standing there…Why do they not embrace? No, of course the English do not do that. But they might say something. Why do they just look?’

Harry said at last:

‘Well, well. Feels funny to be here again!’

‘I expect so—yes. A good many years since you—got out.’

Harry threw up his head. He drew his finger along the line of his jaw. It was a gesture that was habitual with him. It expressed belligerence.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m glad I have come’—he paused to bring out the word with greater significance—‘home…’

II

‘I’ve been, I suppose, a very wicked man,’ said Simeon Lee.

He was leaning back in his chair. His chin was raised and with one finger he was stroking his jaw reflectively. In front of him a big fire glowed and danced. Beside it sat Pilar, a little screen of papier-mâché held in her hand. With it she shielded her face from the blaze. Occasionally she fanned herself with it, using her wrist in a supple gesture. Simeon looked at her with satisfaction.

He went on talking, perhaps more to himself than to the girl, and stimulated by the fact of her presence.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve been a wicked man. What do you say to that, Pilar?’

Pilar shrugged her shoulders. She said:

‘All men are wicked. The nuns say so. That is why one has to pray for them.’

‘Ah, but I’ve been more wicked than most.’ Simeon laughed. ‘I don’t regret it, you know. No, I don’t regret anything. I’ve enjoyed myself…every minute! They say you repent when you get old. That’s bunkum. I don’t repent. And as I tell you, I’ve done most things…all the good old sins! I’ve cheated and stolen and lied…lord, yes! And women—always women! Someone told me the other day of an Arab chief who had a bodyguard of forty of his sons—all roughly the same age! Aha! Forty! I don’t know about forty, but I bet I could produce a very fair bodyguard if I went about looking for the brats! Hey, Pilar, what do you think of that? Shocked?’

Pilar stared.

‘No, why should I be shocked? Men always desire women. My father, too. That is why wives are so often unhappy and why they go to church and pray.’

Old Simeon was frowning.

‘I made Adelaide unhappy,’ he said. He spoke almost under his breath, to himself. ‘Lord, what a woman! Pink and white and pretty as they make ’em when I married her! And afterwards? Always wailing and weeping. It rouses the devil in a man when his wife is always crying…She’d no guts, that’s what was the matter with Adelaide. If she’d stood up to me! But she never did—not once. I believed when I married her that I was going to be able to settle down, raise a family—cut loose from the old life…’

His voice died away. He stared—stared into the glowing heart of the fire.

‘Raise a family…God, what a family!’ He gave a sudden shrill pipe of angry laughter. ‘Look at ’em—look at ’em! Not a child among them—to carry on! What’s the matter with them? Haven’t they got any of my blood in their veins? Not a son among ’em, legitimate or illegitimate. Alfred, for instance—heavens above, how bored I get with Alfred! Looking at me with his dog’s eyes. Ready to do anything I ask. Lord, what a fool! His wife, now—Lydia—I like Lydia. She’s got spirit. She doesn’t like me, though. No, she doesn’t like me. But she has to put up with me for that nincompoop Alfred’s sake.’ He looked over at the girl by the fire. ‘Pilar—remember—nothing is so boring as devotion.’

She smiled at him. He went on, warmed by the presence of her youth and strong femininity.

‘George? What’s George? A stick! A stuffed codfish! a pompous windbag with no brains and no guts—and mean about money as well! David? David always was a fool—a fool and a dreamer. His mother’s boy, that was always David. Only sensible thing he ever did was to marry that solid comfortable-looking woman.’ He brought down his hand with a bang on the edge of his chair. ‘Harry’s the best of ’em! Poor old Harry, the wrong ’un! But at any rate he’s alive!’

Pilar agreed.

‘Yes, he is nice. He laughs—laughs out loud—and throws his head back. Oh, yes, I like him very much.’

The old man looked at her.

‘You do, do you, Pilar? Harry always had a way with the girls. Takes after me there.’ He began to laugh, a slow wheezy chuckle. ‘I’ve had a good life—a very good life. Plenty of everything.’

Pilar said:

‘In Spain we have a proverb. It is like this:

‘Take what you like and pay for it, says God.’

Simeon beat an appreciative hand on the arm of his chair.

‘That’s good. That’s the stuff. Take what you like…I’ve done that—all my life—taken what I wanted…’

Pilar said, her voice high and clear, and suddenly arresting:

‘And you have paid for it?’

Simeon stopped laughing to himself. He sat up and stared at her. He said, ‘What’s that you say?’

‘I said, have you paid for it, Grandfather?’

Simeon Lee said slowly:

‘I—don’t know…’

Then, beating his fist on the arm of the chair, he cried out with sudden anger:

‘What makes you say that, girl? What makes you say that?’

Pilar said:

‘I—wondered.’

Her hand, holding the screen, was arrested. Her eyes were dark and mysterious. She sat, her head thrown back, conscious of herself, of her womanhood.

Simeon said:

‘You devil’s brat…’

She said softly:

‘But you like me, Grandfather. You like me to sit here with you.’

Simeon said: ‘Yes, I like it. It’s a long time since I’ve seen anything so young and beautiful…It does me good, warms my old bones…And you’re my own flesh and blood…Good for Jennifer, she turned out to be the best of the bunch after all!’

Pilar sat there smiling.

‘Mind you, you don’t fool me,’ said Simeon. ‘I know why you sit here so patiently and listen to me droning on. It’s money—it’s all money…Or do you pretend you love your old grandfather?’

Pilar said: ‘No, I do not love you. But I like you. I like you very much. You must believe that, for it is true. I think you have been wicked, but I like that too. You are more real than the other people in this house. And you have interesting things to say. You have travelled and you have led a life of adventure. If I were a man I would be like that, too.’

Simeon nodded.

‘Yes, I believe you would…We’ve gipsy blood in us, so it’s always been said. It hasn’t shown much in my children—except Harry—but I think it’s come out in you. I can be patient, mind you, when it’s necessary. I waited once fifteen years to get even with a man who’d done me an injury. That’s another characteristic of the Lees—they don’t forget! They’ll avenge a wrong if they have to wait years to do it. A man swindled me. I waited fifteen years till I saw my chance—and then I struck. I ruined him. Cleaned him right out!’

He laughed softly.

Pilar said:

‘That was in South Africa?’

‘Yes. A grand country.’

‘You have been back there, yes?’

‘I went back last five years after I married. That was the last time.’

‘But before that? You were there for many years?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me about it.’

He began to talk. Pilar, shielding her face, listened.

His voice slowed, wearied. He said:

‘Wait, I’ll show you something.’

He pulled himself carefully to his feet. Then, with his stick, he limped slowly across the room. He opened the big safe. Turning, he beckoned her to him.

‘There, look at these. Feel them, let them run through your fingers.’

He looked into her wondering face and laughed.

‘Do you know what they are? Diamonds, child, diamonds.’

Pilar’s eyes opened. She said as she bent over:

‘But they are little pebbles, that is all.’

Simeon laughed.

‘They are uncut diamonds. That is how they are found—like this.’

Pilar asked incredulously:

‘And if they were cut they would be real diamonds?’

‘Certainly.’

‘They would flash and sparkle?’

‘Flash and sparkle.’

Pilar said childishly:

‘O-o-o, I cannot believe it!’

He was amused.

‘It’s quite true.’

‘They are valuable?’

‘Fairly valuable. Difficult to say before they are cut. Anyway, this little lot is worth several thousands of pounds.’

Pilar said with a space between each word:

‘Several—thousands—of—pounds?’

‘Say nine or ten thousands—they’re biggish stones, you see.’

Pilar asked, her eyes opening:

‘But why do you not sell them, then?’

‘Because I like to have them here.’

‘But all that money?’

‘I don’t need the money.’

‘Oh—I see,’ Pilar looked impressed.

She said:

‘But why do you not have them cut and made beautiful?’

‘Because I prefer them like this.’ His face was set in a grim line. He turned away and began speaking to himself. ‘They take me back—the touch of them, the feel of them through my fingers…It all comes back to me, the sunshine, and the smell of the veldt, the oxen—old Eb—all the boys—the evenings…’

There was a soft tap on the door.

Simeon said: ‘Put ’em back in the safe and bang it to.’