Poirot said:
‘That is quite possible. I am always prepared to admit one coincidence.’
Superintendent Sugden shook his head dubiously.
Poirot said:
‘What is your opinion, Superintendent?’
The superintendent said cautiously:
‘Mrs Lee’s a very nice lady. Doesn’t seem likely that she’d be mixed up in any business that was fishy. But, of course, one never knows.’
Colonel Johnson said testily:
‘In any case, whatever the truth is about the diamonds, her being mixed up in the murder is out of the question. The butler saw her in the drawing-room at the actual time of the crime. You remember that, Poirot?’
Poirot said:
‘I had not forgotten that.’
The chief constable turned to his subordinate.
‘We’d better get on. What have you to report? Anything fresh?’
‘Yes, sir. I’ve got hold of some new information. To start with—Horbury. There’s a reason why he might be scared of the police.’
‘Robbery? Eh?’
‘No, sir. Extorting money under threats. Modified blackmail. The case couldn’t be proved so he got off, but I rather fancy he’s got away with a thing or two in that line. Having a guilty conscience, he probably thought we were on to something of that kind when Tressilian mentioned a police officer last night and it made him get the wind up.’
The chief constable said:
‘H’m! So much for Horbury. What else?’
The superintendent coughed.
‘Er—Mrs George Lee, sir. We’ve got a line on her before her marriage. Was living with a Commander Jones. Passed as his daughter—but she wasn’t his daughter…I think from what we’ve been told, that old Mr Lee summed her up pretty correctly—he was smart where women were concerned, knew a bad lot when he saw one—and was just amusing himself by taking a shot in the dark. And he got her on the raw!’
Colonel Johnson said thoughtfully:
‘That gives her another possible motive—apart from the money angle. She may have thought he knew something definite and was going to give her away to her husband. That telephone story of hers is pretty fishy. She didn’t telephone.’
Sugden suggested:
‘Why not have them in together, sir, and get at that telephone business straight? See what we get.’
Colonel Johnson said:
‘Good idea.’
He rang the bell. Tressilian answered it.
‘Ask Mr and Mrs George Lee to come here.’
‘Very good, sir.’
As the old man turned away, Poirot said:
‘The date on that wall calendar, has it remained like it is since the murder?’
Tressilian turned back.
‘Which calendar, sir?’
‘The one on the wall over there.’
The three men were sitting once more in Alfred Lee’s small sitting-room. The calendar in question was a large one with tear-off leaves, a bold date on each leaf.
Tressilian peered across the room, then shuffled slowly across till he was a foot or two away.
He said:
‘Excuse me, sir, it has been torn off. It’s the twenty-sixth today.’
‘Ah, pardon. Who would have been the person to tear it off?’
‘Mr Lee does, sir, every morning. Mr Alfred, he’s a very methodical gentleman.’
‘I see. Thank you.’
Tressilian went out. Sugden said, puzzled:
‘Is there anything fishy about that calendar, Mr Poirot? Have I missed something there?’
With a shrug of his shoulders Poirot said:
‘The calendar is of no importance. It was just a little experiment I was making.’
Colonel Johnson said:
‘Inquest tomorrow. There’ll be an adjournment, of course.’
Sugden said:
‘Yes, sir, I’ve seen the Coroner and it’s all arranged for.’
II
George Lee came into the room, accompanied by his wife.
Colonel Johnson said:
‘Good morning. Sit down, will you? There are a few questions I want to ask both of you. Something I’m not quite clear about.’
‘I shall be glad to give you any assistance I can,’ said George, somewhat pompously.
Magdalene said faintly:
‘Of course!’
The chief constable gave a slight nod to Sugden. The latter said:
‘About those telephone calls on the night of the crime. You put through a call to Westeringham, I think you said, Mr Lee?’
George said coldly:
‘Yes, I did. To my agent in the constituency. I can refer you to him and—’
Superintendent Sugden held up his hand to stem the flow.
‘Quite so—quite so, Mr Lee. We’re not disputing that point. Your call went through at 8.59 exactly.’
‘Well—I—er—couldn’t say as to the exact time.’
‘Ah,’ said Sugden. ‘But we can! We always check up on these things very carefully. Very carefully indeed. The call was put through at 8.59 and it was terminated at 9.4. Your father, Mr Lee, was killed about 9.15. I must ask you once more for an account of your movements.’
‘I’ve told you—I was telephoning!’
‘No, Mr Lee, you weren’t.’
‘Nonsense—you must have made a mistake! Well, I may, perhaps, have just finished telephoning—I think I debated making another call—was just considering whether it was—er—worth—the expense—when I heard the noise upstairs.’
‘You would hardly debate whether or not to make a telephone call for ten minutes.’
George went purple. He began to splutter.
‘What do you mean? What the devil do you mean? Damned impudence! Are you doubting my word? Doubting the word of a man of my position? I—er—why should I have to account for every minute of my time?’
Superintendent Sugden said with a stolidness that Poirot admired:
‘It’s usual.’
George turned angrily on the chief constable.
‘Colonel Johnson. Do you countenance this—this unprecedented attitude?’
The chief constable said crisply: ‘In a murder case, Mr Lee, then questions must be asked—and answered.’
‘I have answered them! I had finished telephoning and was—er—debating a further call.’
‘You were in this room when the alarm was raised upstairs?’
‘I was—yes, I was.’
Johnson turned to Magdalene.
‘I think, Mrs Lee,’ he said, ‘that you stated that you were telephoning when the alarm broke out, and that at the time you were alone in this room?’
Magdalene was flustered. She caught her breath, looked sideways at George—at Sugden, then appealingly at Colonel Johnson. She said:
‘Oh, really—I don’t know—I don’t remember what I said…I was so upset…’
Sugden said:
‘We’ve got it all written down, you know.’
She turned her batteries on him—wide appealing eyes—quivering mouth. But she met in return the rigid aloofness of a man of stern respectability who didn’t approve of her type.
She said uncertainly:
‘I—I—of course I telephoned. I can’t be quite sure just when—’
She stopped.
George said:
‘What’s all this? Where did you telephone from? Not in here.’
Superintendent Sugden said:
‘I suggest, Mrs Lee, that you didn’t telephone at all. In that case, where were you and what were you doing?’
Magdalene glanced distractedly about her and burst into tears. She sobbed:
‘George, don’t let them bully me! You know that if anyone frightens me and thunders questions at me, I can’t remember anything at all! I—I don’t know what I was saying that night—it was all so horrible—and I was so upset—and they’re being so beastly to me…’
She jumped up and ran sobbing
out of the room.
Springing up, George Lee blustered:
‘What d’you mean? I won’t have my wife bullied and frightened out of her life! She’s very sensitive. It’s disgraceful! I shall have a question asked in the House about the disgraceful bullying methods of the police. It’s absolutely disgraceful!’
He strode out of the room and banged the door.
Superintendent Sugden threw his head back and laughed.
He said:
‘We’ve got them going properly! Now we’ll see!’
Johnson said frowning:
‘Extraordinary business! Looks fishy. We must get a further statement out of her.’
Sugden said easily:
‘Oh! She’ll be back in a minute or two. When she’s decided what to say. Eh, Mr Poirot?’
Poirot, who had been sitting in a dream, gave a start.
‘Pardon!’
‘I said she’ll be back.’
‘Probably—yes, possibly—oh, yes!’
Sugden said, staring at him:
‘What’s the matter, Mr Poirot? Seen a ghost?’
Poirot said slowly:
‘You know—I am not sure that I have not done just exactly that.’
Colonel Johnson said impatiently:
‘Well, Sugden, anything else?’
Sugden said:
‘I’ve been trying to check up on the order in which everyone arrived on the scene of the murder. It’s quite clear what must have happened. After the murder when the victim’s dying cry had given the alarm, the murderer slipped out, locked the door with pliers, or something of that kind, and a moment or two later became one of the people hurrying to the scene of the crime. Unfortunately it’s not easy to check exactly whom everyone has seen because people’s memories aren’t very accurate on a point like that. Tressilian says he saw Harry and Alfred Lee cross the hall from the dining-room and race upstairs. That lets them out, but we don’t suspect them anyway. As far as I can make out, Miss Estravados got there late—one of the last. The general idea seems to be that Farr, Mrs George, and Mrs David were the first. Each of those three says one of the others was just ahead of them. That’s what’s so difficult, you can’t distinguish between a deliberate lie and a genuine haziness of recollection. Everybody ran there—that’s agreed, but in what order they ran isn’t so easy to get at.’
Poirot said slowly:
‘You think that important?’
Sugden said:
‘It’s the time element. The time, remember, was incredibly short.’
Poirot said:
‘I agree with you that the time element is very important in this case.’
Sugden went on:
‘What makes it more difficult is that there are two staircases. There’s the main one in the hall here about equidistant from the dining-room and the drawing-room doors. Then there’s one the other end of the house. Stephen Farr came up by the latter. Miss Estravados came along the upper landing from that end of the house (her room is right the other end). The others say they went up by this one.’
Poirot said:
‘It is a confusion, yes.’
The door opened and Magdalene came quickly in. She was breathing fast and had a bright spot of colour in each cheek. She came up to the table and said quietly:
‘My husband thinks I’m lying down. I slipped out of my room quietly. Colonel Johnson,’ she appealed to him with wide, distressed eyes, ‘if I tell you the truth you will keep quiet about it, won’t you? I mean you don’t have to make everything public?’
Colonel Johnson said:
‘You mean, I take it, Mrs Lee, something that has no connection with the crime?’
‘Yes, no connection at all. Just something in my—my private life.’
The chief constable said:
‘You’d better make a clean breast of it, Mrs Lee, and leave us to judge.’
Magdalene said, her eyes swimming:
‘Yes, I will trust you. I know I can. You look so kind. You see, it’s like this. There’s somebody—’ She stopped.
‘Yes, Mrs Lee?’
‘I wanted to telephone to somebody last night—a man—a friend of mine, and I didn’t want George to know about it. I know it was very wrong of me—but well, it was like that. So I went to telephone after dinner when I thought George would be safely in the dining-room. But when I got here I heard him telephoning, so I waited.’
‘Where did you wait, madame?’ asked Poirot.
‘There’s a place for coats and things behind the stairs. It’s dark there. I slipped back there, where I could see George come out from this room. But he didn’t come out, and then all the noise happened and Mr Lee screamed, and I ran upstairs.’
‘So your husband did not leave this room until the moment of the murder?’
‘No.’
The chief constable said:
‘And you yourself from nine o’clock to nine-fifteen were waiting in the recess behind the stairs?’
‘Yes, but I couldn’t say so, you see! They’d want to know what I was doing there. It’s been very, very awkward for me, you do see that, don’t you?’
Johnson said dryly:
‘It was certainly awkward.’
She smiled at him sweetly.
‘I’m so relieved to have told you the truth. And you won’t tell my husband, will you? No, I’m sure you won’t! I can trust you, all of you.’
She included them all in her final pleading look, then she slipped quickly out of the room.
Colonel Johnson drew a deep breath.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘It might be like that! It’s a perfectly plausible story. On the other hand—’
‘It might not,’ finished Sugden. ‘That’s just it. We don’t know.’
III
Lydia Lee stood by the far window of the drawing-room looking out. Her figure was half hidden by the heavy window curtains. A sound in the room made her turn with a start to see Hercule Poirot standing by the door.
She said:
‘You startled me, M. Poirot.’
‘I apologize, madame. I walk softly.’
She said:
‘I thought it was Horbury.’
Hercule Poirot nodded.
‘It is true, he steps softly, that one—like a cat—or a thief.’
He paused a minute, watching her.
Her face showed nothing, but she made a slight grimace of distate as she said:
‘I have never cared for that man. I shall be glad to get rid of him.’
‘I think you will be wise to do so, madame.’
She looked at him quickly. She said:
‘What do you mean? Do you know anything against him?’
Poirot said:
‘He is a man who collects secrets—and uses them to his advantage.’
She said sharply:
‘Do you think he knows anything—about the murder?’
Poirot shrugged his shoulders. He said:
‘He has quiet feet and long ears. He may have overheard something that he is keeping to himself.’
Lydia said clearly:
‘Do you mean that he may try to blackmail one of us?’
‘It is within the bounds of possibility. But that is not what I came here to say.’
‘What did you come to say?’
Poirot said slowly:
‘I have been talking with M. Alfred Lee. He has made me a proposition, and I wished to discuss it with you before accepting or declining it. But I was so struck by the picture you made—the charming pattern of your jumper against the deep red of the curtains, that I paused to admire.’
Lydia said sharply:
‘Really, M. Poirot, must we waste time in compliments?’
‘I beg your pardon, madame. So few English ladies understand la toilette. The dress you were wearing the first night I saw you, its bold but simple pattern, it had grace—distinction.’
Lydia said impatiently:
‘What was it you wanted to see me about?�
��
Poirot became grave.
‘Just this, madame. Your husband, he wishes me to take up the investigation very seriously. He demands that I stay here, in the house, and do my utmost to get to the bottom of the matter.’
Lydia said sharply:
‘Well?’
Poirot said slowly:
‘I should not wish to accept an invitation that was not endorsed by the lady of the house.’
She said coldly:
‘Naturally I endorse my husband’s invitation.’
‘Yes, madame, but I need more than that. Do you really want me to come here?’
‘Why not?’
‘Let us be more frank. What I ask you is this: do you want the truth to come out, or not?’
‘Naturally.’
Poirot sighed.
‘Must you return me these conventional replies?’
Lydia said:
‘I am a conventional woman.’
Then she bit her lip, hesitated, and said:
‘Perhaps it is better to speak frankly. Of course I understand you! The position is not a pleasant one. My father-in-law has been brutally murdered, and unless a case can be made out against the most likely suspect—Horbury—for robbery and murder—and it seems that it cannot—then it comes to this—one of his own family killed him. To bring that person to justice will mean bringing shame and disgrace on us all…If I am to speak honestly I must say that I do not want this to happen.’
Poirot said:
‘You are content for the murderer to escape unpunished?’
‘There are probably several undiscovered murderers at large in the world.’
‘That, I grant you.’
‘Does one more matter, then?’
Poirot said:
‘And what about the other members of the family? The innocent?’
She stared.
‘What about them?’
‘Do you realize that if it turns out as you hope, no one will ever know. The shadow will remain on all alike…’
She said uncertainly:
‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
Poirot said:
‘No one will ever know who the guilty person is…’
He added softly:
‘Unless you already know, madame?’
She cried out:
‘You have no business to say that! It’s not true! Oh! If only it could be a stranger—not a member of the family.’
Hercule Poirot's Christmas: A Hercule Poirot Mystery Page 15