Thomas Godfrey (Ed) (13 page)

“Confound it, Emmeline,” he
roared, “why on earth do you let the cook put glass in the pudding?”

“Glass!” cried Mrs.
Lacey, astonished.

Colonel Lacey withdrew
the offending substance from his mouth. “Might have broken a tooth,” he
grumbled. “Or swallowed the damn’ thing and had appendicitis.”

He dropped the piece of
glass into the finger-bowl, rinsed it, and held it up.

“God bless my soul,” he
ejaculated. “It’s a red stone out of one of the cracker brooches.” He held it
aloft.

“You permit?”

Very deftly M. Poirot
stretched across his neighbour, took it from Colonel Lacey’s fingers and
examined it attentively. As the squire had said, it was an enormous red stone
the colour of a ruby. The light gleamed from its facets as he turned it about.
Somewhere around the table a chair was pushed sharply back and then drawn in
again.

“Phew!” cried Michael. “How
wizard it would be if it was
real.”

“Perhaps it is real,” said
Bridget hopefully.

“Oh, don’t be an ass,
Bridget. Why a ruby of that size would be worth thousands and thousands and
thousands of pounds. Wouldn’t it, M. Poirot?”

“It would indeed,” said
Poirot.

“But what
I
can’t
understand,” said Mrs. Lacey, “is how it got into the pudding.”

“Oooh,” said Colin,
diverted by his last mouthful, “I’ve got the pig. It isn’t fair.”

Bridget chanted
immediately, “Colin’s got the pig! Colin’s got the pig! Colin is the greedy
guzzling
pig!”

“I’ve got the ring,” said
Diana in a clear, high voice.

“Good for you, Diana. You’ll
be married first, of us all.”

“I’ve got the thimble,” wailed
Bridget.

“Bridget’s going to be an
old maid,” chanted the two boys. “Yah, Bridget’s going to be an old maid.”

“Who’s got the money?”
demanded David. “There’s a real ten shilling piece, gold, in this pudding. I
know. Mrs. Ross told me so.”

“I think I’m the lucky
one,” said Desmond Lee-Wortley.

Colonel Lacey’s two next
door neighbours heard him mutter, “Yes, you would be.”

“I’ve
got a ring, too,” said David. He looked across at Diana. “Quite a coincidence,
isn’t it?”

The laughter went on.
Nobody noticed that M. Poirot carelessly, as though thinking of something else,
had dropped the red stone into his pocket.

Mince-pies and Christmas
dessert followed the pudding. The older members of the party then retired for a
welcome siesta before the tea-time ceremony of the lighting of the Christmas
tree. Hercule Poirot, however, did not take a siesta. Instead, he made his way
to the enormous old-fashioned kitchen.

“It is permitted,” he
asked, looking round and beaming, “that I congratulate the cook on this
marvellous meal that I have just eaten?”

There was a moment’s
pause and then Mrs. Ross came forward in a stately manner to meet him. She was
a large woman, nobly built with all the dignity of a stage duchess. Two lean
grey-haired women were beyond in the scullery washing up and a tow-haired girl
was moving to and fro between the scullery and the kitchen. But these were
obviously mere myrmidons. Mrs. Ross was the queen of the kitchen quarters.

“I am glad to hear you
enjoyed it, sir,” she said graciously.

“Enjoyed it!” cried
Hercule Poirot. With an extravagant foreign gesture he raised his hand to his
lips, kissed it, and wafted the kiss to the ceiling.

“But you are a genius,
Mrs. Ross! A genius!
Never
have I tasted such a wonderful meal. The oyster soup—” he made an expressive
noise with his lips. “—and the stuffing. The chestnut stuffing in the turkey,
that was quite unique in my experience.”

“Well, it’s funny that
you should say that, sir,” said Mrs. Ross graciously. “It’s a very special
recipe, that stuffing. It was given me by an Austrian chef that I worked with
many years ago. But all the rest,” she added, “is just good, plain English
cooking.”

“And is there anything
better?” demanded Hercule Poirot.

“Well, it’s nice of you
to say so, sir. Of course, you being a foreign gentleman might have preferred
the continental style. Not but what I can’t manage continental dishes too.”

“I am sure, Mrs. Ross,
you could manage anything! But you must know that English cooking—
good
English cooking, not the cooking one gets in the second-class hotels or the
restaurants—is much appreciated by
gourmets
on
the continent, and I believe I am correct in saying that a special expedition
was made to London in the early eighteen hundreds, and a report sent back to
France of the wonders of the English puddings. ‘We have nothing like that in
France,’ they wrote. ‘It is worth making a journey to London just to taste the
varieties and excellencies of the English puddings. And above all puddings,” continued
Poirot, well launched now on a kind of rhapsody, “is the Christmas plum
pudding, such as we have eaten to-day. That was a home-made pudding, was it
not? Not a bought one?”

“Yes, indeed, sir. Of my
own making and my own recipe such as I’ve made for many years. When I came here
Mrs. Lacey said that she’d ordered a pudding from a London store to save me the
trouble. But no, Madam, I said, that may be kind of you but no bought pudding
from a store can equal a home-made Christmas one. Mind you,” said Mrs. Ross,
warming to her subject like the artist she was, “it was made too soon before
the day. A good Christmas pudding should be made some weeks before and allowed
to wait. The longer they’re kept, within reason, the better they are. I mind
now that when I was a child and we went to church every Sunday, we’d start
listening for the collect that begins ‘Stir up O Lord we beseech thee’ because
that collect was the signal, as it were, that the puddings should be made that
week. And so they always were. We had the collect on the Sunday, and that week
sure enough my mother would make the Christmas puddings. And so it should have
been here this year. As it was, that pudding was only made three days ago, the
day before you arrived, sir. However, I kept to the old custom. Everyone in the
house had to come out into the kitchen and have a stir and make a wish. That’s
an old custom, sir, and I’ve always held to it.”

“Most interesting,” said
Hercule Poirot. “Most interesting. And so everyone came out into the kitchen?”

“Yes, sir. The young
gentlemen, Miss Bridget and the London gentleman who’s staying here, and his
sister and Mr. David and Miss Diana— Mrs. Middleton, I should say—All had a
stir, they did.”

“How many puddings did
you make? Is this the only one?”

“No, sir, I made four.
Two large ones and two smaller ones. The other large one I planned to serve on
New Year’s Day and the smaller ones were for Colonel and Mrs. Lacey when they’re
alone like and not so many in the family.”

“I see, I see,” said
Poirot.

“As a matter of fact, sir,”
said Mrs. Ross, “it was the wrong pudding you had for lunch to-day.”

“The wrong pudding?”
Poirot frowned. “How is that?”

“Well, sir, we have a big
Christmas mould. A china mould with a pattern of holly and mistletoe on top and
we always have the Christmas Day pudding boiled in that. But there was a most
unfortunate accident. This morning, when Annie was getting it down from the
shelf in the larder, she slipped and dropped it and it broke. Well, sir,
naturally I couldn’t serve that, could I? There might have been splinters in
it. So we had to use the other one—the New Year’s Day one, which was in a plain
bowl. It makes a nice round but it’s not so decorative as the Christmas mould.
Really, where we’ll get another mould like that I don’t know. They don’t make
things in that size nowadays. All tiddly bits of things. Why, you can’t even
buy a breakfast dish that’ll take a proper eight to ten eggs and bacon. Ah,
things aren’t what they were.”

“No, indeed,” said
Poirot. “But today that is not so. This Christmas Day has been like the
Christmas Days of old, is that not true?”

Mrs. Ross sighed. “Well,
I’m glad you say so, sir, but of course I haven’t the
help
now that I used to have. Not skilled help, that is.
The girls nowadays—” she lowered her voice slightly, “—they mean very well and
they’re very willing but they’ve not been
trained,
sir, if you understand what I mean.”

“Times change, yes,” said
Hercule Poirot. “I too find it sad sometimes.”

“This house, sir,” said
Mrs. Ross, “it’s too large, you know, for the mistress and the colonel. The
mistress, she knows that. Living in a corner of it as they do, it’s not the
same thing at all. It only comes alive, as you might say, at Christmas time
when all the family come.”

“It is the first time, I
think, that Mr. Lee-Wortley and his sister have been here?”

“Yes, sir.” A note of
slight reserve crept into Mrs. Ross’s voice. “A very nice gentleman he is but,
well—it seems a funny friend for Miss Sarah to have, according to our ideas.
But there—London ways are different! It’s sad that his sister’s so poorly. Had
an operation, she had. She seemed all right the first day she was here, but
that very day, after we’d been stirring the puddings, she was took bad again
and she’s been in bed ever since. Got up too soon after her operation, I
expect. Ah, doctors nowadays, they have you out of hospital before you can
hardly stand on your feet. Why, my very own nephew’s wife...” And Mrs. Ross
went into a long and spirited tale of hospital treatment as accorded to her
relations, comparing it unfavourably with the consideration that had been
lavished upon them in older times.

Poirot duly commiserated
with her. “It remains,” he said, “to thank you for this exquisite and sumptuous
meal. You permit a little acknowledgment of my appreciation?” A crisp five
pound note passed from his hand into that of Mrs. Ross who said perfunctorily:

“You really shouldn’t do
that
, sir.”

“I insist. I insist.”

“Well, it’s very kind of
you indeed, sir.” Mrs. Ross accepted the tribute as no more than her due. “And
I wish you, sir, a very happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.”

The end of Christmas Day
was like the end of most Christmas Days. The tree was lighted, a splendid
Christmas cake came in for tea, was greeted with approval but was partaken of
only moderately. There was cold supper.

Both Poirot and his host
and hostess went to bed early.

“Good night, M. Poirot,” said
Mrs. Lacey. “I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself.”

“It has been a wonderful
day, Madame, wonderful.”

“You’re looking very
thoughtful,” said Mrs. Lacey.

“It is the English
pudding that I consider.”

“You found it a little
heavy, perhaps?” asked Mrs. Lacey delicately.

“No, no, I do not speak
gastronomically. I consider its significance.”

“It’s traditional of
course,” said Mrs. Lacey. “Well, good night, M. Poirot, and don’t dream too
much of Christmas puddings and mince-pies.”

“Yes,” murmured Poirot to
himself as he undressed. “It is a problem certainly, that Christmas plum
pudding. There is here something that I do not understand at all.” He shook his
head in a vexed manner. “Well—we shall see.”

After making certain
preparations, Poirot went to bed, but not to sleep.

It was some two hours
later that his patience was rewarded. The door of his bedroom opened very
gently. He smiled to himself. It was as he had thought it would be. His mind
went back fleetingly to the cup of coffee so politely handed him by Desmond
Lee-Wortley. A little later, when Desmond’s back was turned, he had laid the
cup down for a few moments on a table. He had then apparently picked it up
again and Desmond had had the satisfaction, if satisfaction it was, of seeing
him drink the coffee to the last drop. But a little smile lifted Poirot’s
moustache as he reflected that it was not he but someone else who was sleeping
a good sound sleep tonight. “That pleasant young David,” said Poirot to
himself, “he is worried, unhappy. It will do him no harm to have a night’s
really sound sleep. And now, let us see what will happen?”