Hercule Poirot's Christmas - Agatha Christie [76]
The superintendent protested: ‘Oh, come now, Mr Poirot!’
Lydia Lee said:
‘And what is the case against me, M. Poirot?’
She smiled a little as she spoke, her brows raised ironically.
Poirot bowed. He said:
‘Your motive, madame, I pass over. It is sufficiently obvious. As to the rest, you were wearing last night a flowered taffeta dress of a very distinctive pattern with a cape. I will remind you of the fact that Tressilian, the butler, is shortsighted. Objects at a distance are dim and vague to him. I will also point out that your drawing-room is big and lighted by heavily shaded lamps. On that night, a minute or two before the cries were heard, Tressilian came into the drawing-room to take away the coffee-cups. He saw you, as he thought, in a familiar attitude by the far window half concealed by the heavy curtains.’
Lydia Lee said: ‘He did see me.’
Poirot went on:
‘I suggest that it is possible that what Tressilian saw was the cape of your dress, arranged to show by the window curtain, as though you yourself were standing there.’
Lydia said: ‘I was standing there…’
Alfred said: ‘How dare you suggest—?’
Harry interrupted him.
‘Let him go on, Alfred. It’s our turn next. How do you suggest that dear Alfred killed his beloved father since we were both together in the dining-room at the time?’
Poirot beamed at him.
‘That,’ he said, ‘is very simple. An alibi gains in force accordingly as it is unwillingly given. You and your brother are on bad terms. It is well known. You jibe at him in public. He has not a good word to say for you! But, supposing that were all part of a very clever plot. Supposing that Alfred Lee is tired of dancing attendance upon an exacting taskmaster. Supposing that you and he have got together some time ago. Your plan is laid. You come home. Alfred appears to resent your presence. He shows jealousy and dislike of you. You show contempt for him. And then comes the night of the murder you have so cleverly planned together. One of you remains in the dining-room, talking and perhaps quarrelling aloud as though two people were there. The other goes upstairs and commits the crime…’
Alfred sprang to his feet.
‘You devil!’ he said. His voice was inarticulate.
Sugden was staring at Poirot. He said:
‘Do you really mean—?’
Poirot said, with a sudden ring of authority in his voice:
‘I have had to show you the possibilities! These are the things that might have happened! Which of them actually did happen we can only tell by passing from the outside appearance to the inside reality…’
He paused and then said slowly:
‘We must come back, as I said before, to the character of Simeon Lee himself…’
VI
There was a momentary pause. Strangely enough, all indignation and all rancour had died down. Hercule Poirot held his audience under the spell of his personality. They watched him, fascinated, as he began slowly to speak.
‘It is all there, you see. The dead man is the focus and centre of the mystery! We must probe deep into the heart and mind of Simeon Lee and see what we find there. For a man does not live and die to himself alone. That which he has, he hands on—to those who come after him…
‘What had Simeon Lee to bequeath to his sons and daughter? Pride, to begin with—a pride which, in the old man, was frustrated in his disappointment over his children. Then there was the quality of patience. We have been told that Simeon Lee waited patiently for years in order to revenge himself upon someone who had done him an injury. We see that that aspect of his temperament was inherited by the son who resembled him least in face. David Lee also could remember and continue to harbour resentment through long years. In face, Harry Lee was the only one of his children who closely resembled him. That resemblance is quite striking when we examine the portrait of Simeon Lee as a young man. There is the same high-bridged aquiline nose, the long sharp line of the jaw, the backward poise of the head. I think, too, that Harry inherited many of his