Hercule Poirot 100 Years (1916 - 2016)

by Mark Place

  His sensitive face showed distaste for the words he was repeating. Superintendent Sugden looked up, suddenly alert. Leaning forward, he said: ‘Did your father say anything in particular to your brother, Mr George Lee?’

  ‘To George? I don’t remember. Oh, yes, I believe he told him he would have to cut down expenses in future; he’d have to reduce his allowance. George was very upset, got as red as a turkey cock. He spluttered and said he couldn’t possibly manage with less. My father said quite coolly that he’d have to. He said he’d better get his wife to help him economize. Rather a nasty dig, that George has always been the economical one saves and stints on every penny. Magdalene, I fancy, is a bit of a spender she has extravagant tastes.’

  Poirot said: ‘So that she, too, was annoyed?’

  ‘Yes. Besides, my father worded something else rather crudely mentioned her as having lived with a naval officer. Of course he really meant her father, but it sounded rather dubious. Magdalene went scarlet. I don’t blame her.’ Poirot said: ‘Did your father mention his late wife, your mother?’

  The red blood ran in waves up David’s temples. His hands clenched themselves on the table in front of him, trembling slightly.

  He said in a low choked voice: ‘Yes, he did. He insulted her.’

  Colonel Johnson said: ‘What did he say?’

  David said abruptly: ‘I don’t remember. Just some slighting reference.’

  Poirot said softly: ‘Your mother has been dead some years?’

  David said shortly: ‘She died when I was a boy.’

  ‘She was not…perhaps…very happy in her life here?’

  David gave a scornful laugh: ‘Who could be happy with a man like my father? My mother was a saint. She died a broken-hearted woman.’

  Poirot went on: ‘Your father was, perhaps, distressed by her death?’

  David said abruptly: ‘I don’t know. I left home.’

  He paused and then said: ‘Perhaps you may not be aware of the fact that when I came on this visit I had not seen my father for nearly twenty years. So you see I can’t tell you very much about his habits or his enemies or what went on here.’

  Colonel Johnson asked: ‘Did you know that your father kept a lot of valuable diamonds in the safe in his bedroom?’

  David said indifferently: ‘Did he? Seems a foolish sort of thing to do.’

  Johnson said: ‘Will you describe briefly your own movements last night?’

  ‘Mine? Oh, I went away from the dinner-table fairly quickly. It bores me, this sitting round over port. Besides, I could see that Alfred and Harry were working up for a quarrel. I hate rows. I slipped away and went to the music-room and played the piano.’

  Poirot asked: ‘The music-room, it is next to the drawing-room, is it not?’

  ‘Yes. I played there for some time—till—till the thing happened.’

  ‘What did you hear exactly?’

  ‘Oh! A far-off noise of furniture being overturned somewhere upstairs. And then a pretty ghastly cry.’

  He clenched his hands again. ‘Like a soul in hell. God, it was awful!’

  Johnson said: ‘Were you alone in the music-room?’

  ‘Eh? No, my wife, Hilda, was there. She’d come in from the drawing-room. We…we went up with the others.’

  He added quickly and nervously: ‘You don’t want me do you, to describe what—what I saw there?’

  Colonel Johnson said: ‘No, quite unnecessary. Thank you, Mr Lee, there’s nothing more. You can’t imagine, I suppose, who would be likely to want to murder your father?’

  David Lee said recklessly: ‘I should think quite a lot of people! I don’t know of anyone definite.’

  He went out rapidly, shutting the door loudly behind him.

  XIII

  Colonel Johnson had had no time to do more than clear his throat when the door opened again and Hilda Lee came in. Hercule Poirot looked at her with interest. He had to admit to himself that the wives these Lees had married were an interesting study. The swift intelligence and greyhound grace of Lydia, the meretricious airs and graces of Magdalene, and now, the solid comfortable strength of Hilda. She was, he saw, younger than her rather dowdy style of hair-dressing and unfashionable clothes made her appear. Her mouse-brown hair was unflecked with grey and her steady hazel eyes set in the rather podgy face shone out like beacons of kindliness. She was, he thought, a nice woman. Colonel Johnson was talking in his kindliest tone. ‘…A great strain on all of you,’ he was saying. ‘I gather from your husband, Mrs Lee, that this is the first time you have been to Gorston Hall?’ She bowed her head.

  ‘Were you previously acquainted with your father-in-law, Mr Lee?’

  Hilda replied in her pleasant voice: ‘No. We were married soon after David left home. He always wanted to have nothing to do with his family. Until now we have not seen any of them.’

  ‘How, then, did this visit come about?’

  ‘My father-in-law wrote to David. He stressed his age and his desire that all his children should be with him this Christmas.’

  ‘And your husband responded to this appeal?’

  Hilda said: ‘His acceptance was, I am afraid, all my doing I misunderstood the situation.’

  Poirot interposed. He said: ‘Will you be so kind as to explain yourself a little more clearly, madame? I think what you can tell us may be of value.’ She turned to him immediately. She said: ‘At that time I had never seen my father-in-law. I had no idea what his real motive was. I assumed that he was old and lonely and that he really wanted to be reconciled to all his children.’

  ‘And what was his real motive, in your opinion, madame?’

  Hilda hesitated a moment. Then she said slowly: ‘I have no doubt…no doubt at all that what my father-in-law really wanted was not to promote peace but to stir up strife.’

  ‘In what way?’

  Hilda said in a low voice: ‘It amused him to…to appeal to the worst instincts in human nature. There was…how can I put it?...a kind of diabolical impishness about him. He wished to set every member of the family at loggerheads with one another.’

  Johnson said sharply: ‘And did he succeed?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Hilda Lee. ‘He succeeded.’

  Poirot said: ‘We have been told, madame, of a scene that took place this afternoon. It was, I think, rather a violent scene.’ She bowed her head.

  ‘Will you describe it to us—as truthfully as possible, if you please.’

  She reflected a minute. ‘When we went in my father-in-law was telephoning.’

  ‘To his lawyer, I understand?’

  ‘Yes, he was suggesting that Mr—was it Charlton? I don’t quite remember the name should come over as he, my father-in-law, wanted to make a new will. His old one, he said, was quite out of date.’

  Poirot said: ‘Think carefully, madame; in your opinion did your father-in-law deliberately ensure that you should all overhear this conversation, or was it just by chance that you overheard it?’

  Hilda Lee said: ‘I am almost sure that he meant us to overhear.’

  ‘With the object of fomenting doubt and suspicions among you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So that, really, he may not have meant to alter his will at all?’

  She demurred. ‘No, I think that part of it was quite genuine. He probably did wish to make a new will—but he enjoyed underlining the fact.’

  ‘Madame,’ said Poirot, ‘I have no official standing and my questions, you understand, are not perhaps those that an English officer of the law would ask. But I have a great desire to know what form you think that new will would have taken. I am asking, you perceive, not for your knowledge, but simply for your opinion Les femmes , they are never slow to form an opinion, Dieu merci.’

  Hilda Lee smiled a little.

  ‘I don’t mind saying what I think. My husband’s sister Jennifer married a Spaniard, Juan Estravados.

  Her daughter, Pilar, has just arrived here. She is a very lovely girl and she is, of co
urse, the only grandchild in the family. Old Mr Lee was delighted with her. He took a tremendous fancy to her. In my opinion, he wished to leave her a considerable sum in his new will. Probably he had only left her a small portion or even nothing at all in an old one.’

  ‘Did you know your sister-in-law at all?’

  ‘No, I never met her. Her Spanish husband died in tragic circumstances, I believe, soon after the marriage. Jennifer herself died a year ago. Pilar was left an orphan. This is why Mr Lee sent for her to come and live with him in England.’

  ‘And the other members of the family, did they welcome her coming?’

  Hilda said quietly: ‘I think they all liked her. It was very pleasant to have someone young and alive in the house.’

  ‘And she, did she seem to like being here?’

  Hilda said slowly: ‘I don’t know. It must seem cold and strange to a girl brought up in the South—in Spain.’

  Johnson said: ‘Can’t be very pleasant being in Spain just at present. Now, Mrs Lee, we’d like to hear your account of the conversation this afternoon.’

  Poirot murmured: ‘I apologize. I have made the digressions.’

  Hilda Lee said: ‘After my father-in-law finished telephoning, he looked round at us and laughed, and said we all looked very glum. Then he said he was tired and should go to bed early. Nobody was to come up and see him this evening. He said he wanted to be in good form for Christmas Day. Something like that.’

  ‘Then’ Her brows knit in an effort of remembrance. ‘I think he said something about its being necessary to be one of a large family to appreciate Christmas, and then he went on to speak of money.

  He said it would cost him more to run this house in future. He told George and Magdalene they would have to economize. Told her she ought to make her own clothes. Rather an old-fashioned idea, I’m afraid. I don’t wonder it annoyed her. He said his own wife had been clever with her needle.’

  Poirot said gently: ‘Is that all that he said about her?’

  Hilda flushed. ‘He made a slighting reference to her brains. My husband was very devoted to his mother, and that upset him very much. And then, suddenly Mr Lee began shouting at us all. He worked himself up about it. I can understand, of course, how he felt ’

  Poirot said gently, interrupting her: ‘How did he feel?’

  She turned her tranquil eyes upon him. ‘He was disappointed, of course,’ she said. ‘Because there are no grandchildren no boys, I mean no Lees to carry on. I can see that that must have festered for a long time. And suddenly he couldn’t keep it in any longer and vented his rage against his sons saying they were a lot of namby-pamby old women something like that. I felt sorry for him, then, because I realized how his pride was hurt by it.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then,’ said Hilda slowly, ‘we all went away.’

  ‘That was the last you saw of him?’

  She bowed her head. ‘Where were you at the time the crime occurred?’

  ‘I was with my husband in the music-room. He was playing to me.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘We heard tables and chairs overturned upstairs, and china being broken some terrible struggle. And then that awful scream as his throat was cut…’

  Poirot said: ‘Was it such an awful scream? Was it’ he paused ‘like a soul in hell?’

  Hilda Lee said: ‘It was worse than that!’

  ‘What do you mean, madame?’

  ‘It was like someone who had no soul …It was inhuman like a beast…’ Poirot said gravely: ‘So you have judged him, madame?’ She raised a hand in sudden distress. Her eyes fell and she stared down at the floor.

  XIV

  Pilar came into the room with the wariness of an animal who suspects a trap. Her eyes went quickly from side to side. She looked not so much afraid as deeply suspicious. Colonel Johnson rose and put a chair for her. Then he said: ‘You understand English, I suppose, Miss Estravados?’

  Pilar’s eyes opened wide. She said: ‘Of course. My mother was English. I am really very English indeed.’

  A faint smile came to Colonel Johnson’s lips, as his eyes took in the black gloss of her hair, the proud dark eyes, and the curling red lips. Very English! An incongruous term to apply to Pilar Estravados. He said: ‘Mr Lee was your grandfather. He sent for you to come from Spain. And you arrived a few days ago. Is that right?’

  Pilar nodded. ‘That is right. I had oh! a lot of adventures getting out of Spain there was a bomb from the air and the chauffeur he was killed where his head had been there was all blood. And I could not drive a car, so for a long way I had to walk and I do not like walking. I never walk. My feet were sore but sore’

  Colonel Johnson smiled. He said: ‘At any rate you arrived here. Had your mother spoken to you of your grandfather much?’

  Pilar nodded cheerfully. ‘Oh, yes, she said he was an old devil.’

  Hercule Poirot smiled. He said: ‘And what did you think of him when you arrived, mademoiselle?’

  Pilar said: ‘Of course he was very, very old. He had to sit in a chair and his face was all dried up. But I liked him all the same. I think that when he was a young man, he must have been handsome very handsome, like you,’ said Pilar to Superintendent Sugden. Her eyes dwelt with naïve pleasure on his handsome face, which had turned brick-red at the compliment.

  Colonel Johnson stifled a chuckle. It was one of the few occasions when he had seen the stolid superintendent taken aback.

  ‘But of course,’ Pilar continued regretfully, ‘he could never have been so big as you.’

  Hercule Poirot sighed.

  ‘You like, then, big men, señorita?’ he inquired.

  Pilar agreed enthusiastically. ‘Oh, yes, I like a man to be very big, tall, and the shoulders broad, and very, very strong.’

  Colonel Johnson said sharply: ‘Did you see much of your grandfather when you arrived here?’

  Pilar said: ‘Oh, yes. I went to sit with him. He told me things that he had been a very wicked man, and all the things he did in South Africa.’

  ‘Did he ever tell you that he had diamonds in the safe in his room?’

  ‘Yes, he showed them to me. But they were not like diamonds they were just like pebbles very ugly very ugly indeed.’

  Superintendent Sugden said shortly: ‘So he showed them to you, did he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He didn’t give you any of them?’

  Pilar shook her head.

  ‘No, he did not. I thought that perhaps one day he would if I were very nice to him and came often to sit with him. Because old gentlemen they like very much young girls.’

  Colonel Johnson said: ‘Do you know that those diamonds have been stolen?’

  Pilar opened her eyes very wide.

  ‘Stolen?’

  ‘Yes, have you any idea who might have taken them?’

  Pilar nodded her head.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘It would be Horbury.’

  ‘Horbury? You mean the valet?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘Because he has the face of a thief. His eyes go so, from side to side, he walks softly and listens at doors. He is like a cat. And all cats are thieves.’

  ‘H’m,’ said Colonel Johnson. ‘We’ll leave it at that. Now I understand that all the family were up in your grandfather’s room this afternoon, and that some er angry words passed.’

  Pilar nodded and smiled.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was great fun. Grandfather made them oh! so angry!’

  ‘Oh, you enjoyed it, did you?’

  ‘Yes. I like to see people get angry. I like it very much. But here in England they do not get angry like they do in Spain. In Spain they take out their knives and they curse and shout. In England they do nothing, just get very red in the face and shut up their mouths tight.’

  ‘Do you remember what was said?’

  Pilar seemed rather doubtful.

  ‘I am not sure. Grandfath
er said they were no good that they had not got any children. He said I was better than any of them. He liked me, very much.’

  ‘Did he say anything about money or a will?’

  ‘A will no, I don’t think so. I don’t remember.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘They all went away except Hilda, the fat one, David’s wife, she stayed behind.’

  ‘Oh, she did, did she?’

  ‘Yes. David looked very funny. He was all shaking and oh! so white. He looked as though he might be sick.’

  ‘And what then?’

  ‘Then I went and found Stephen. We danced to the gramophone.’

  ‘Stephen Farr?’

  ‘Yes. He is from South Africa, he is the son of Grandfather’s partner. He is very handsome too. Very brown and big, and he has nice eyes.’

  Johnson asked: ‘Where were you when the crime occurred?’

  ‘You ask where I was?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I had gone into the drawing-room with Lydia. And then I went up to my room and did my face. I was going to dance again with Stephen. And then, far away, I heard a scream and everyone was running, so I went too. And they were trying to break down Grandfather’s door. Harry did it with Stephen, they are both big strong men.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘And then crash…down it went…and we all looked in. Oh, such a sight…everything smashed and knocked over, and Grandfather lying in a lot of blood, and his throat was cut like this ’she made a vivid dramatic gesture at her own neck ‘right up under his ear.’

  She paused, having obviously enjoyed her narrative.

  Johnson said: ‘The blood didn’t make you feel ill?’

  She stared. ‘No, why should it? There is usually blood when people are killed. There was, oh! so much blood everywhere!’

  Poirot said: ‘Did anyone say anything?’

  Pilar said: ‘David said such a funny thing…what was it? Oh, yes. The mills of God…that is what he said’ she repeated it with emphasis on each word ‘The mills of God…What does that mean? Mills are what make flour, are they not?’

  Colonel Johnson said: ‘Well, I don’t think there is anything more just now, Miss Estravados.’

  Pilar got up obediently. She flashed a quick charming smile at each man in turn. ‘I will go now, then.’ She went out.