The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding - Agatha Christie [11]
IV
Christmas dinner took place at 2 p.m. and was a feast indeed. Enormous logs crackled merrily in the wide fireplace and above their crackling rose the babel of many tongues talking together. Oyster soup had been consumed, two enormous turkeys had come and gone, mere carcasses of their former selves. Now, the supreme moment, the Christmas pudding was brought in, in state! Old Peverell, his hands and his knees shaking with the weakness of eighty years, permitted no one but himself to bear it in. Mrs Lacey sat, her hands pressed together in nervous apprehension. One Christmas, she felt sure, Peverell would fall down dead. Having either to take the risk of letting him fall down dead or of hurting his feelings to such an extent that he would probably prefer to be dead than alive, she had so far chosen the former alternative. On a silver dish the Christmas pudding reposed in its glory. A large football of a pudding, a piece of holly stuck in it like a triumphant flag and glorious flames of blue and red rising round it. There was a cheer and cries of ‘Ooh-ah.’
One thing Mrs Lacey had done: prevailed upon Peverell to place the pudding in front of her so that she could help it rather than hand it in turn round the table. She breathed a sigh of relief as it was deposited safely in front of her. Rapidly the plates were passed round, flames still licking the portions.
‘Wish, M. Poirot,’ cried Bridget. ‘Wish before the flame goes. Quick, Gran darling, quick.’
Mrs Lacey leant back with a sigh of satisfaction. Operation Pudding had been a success. In front of everyone was a helping with flames still licking it. There was a momentary silence all round the table as everyone wished hard.
There was nobody to notice the rather curious expression on thefaceof
M.Poirot as he surveyed the portion of pudding on his plate. ‘Don’t eat none of the plum pudding.’ What on earth did that sinister warning mean? There could be nothing different about his portion of plum pudding from that of everyone else! Sighing as he admitted himself baffled – and Hercule Poirot never liked to admit himself baffled – he picked up his spoon and fork.
‘Hard sauce, M. Poirot?’
Poirot helped himself appreciatively to hard sauce. ‘Swiped my best brandy again, eh Em?’ said the colonel good-humouredly from the other end of the table. Mrs Lacey twinkled at him.
‘Mrs Ross insists on having the best brandy, dear,’ she said. ‘She says it makes all the difference.’
‘Well, well,’ said Colonel Lacey, ‘Christmas comes but once a year and Mrs Ross is a great woman. A great woman and a great cook.’
‘She is indeed,’ said Colin. ‘Smashing plum pudding, this. Mmmm.’ He filled an appreciative mouth.
Gently, almost gingerly, Hercule Poirot attacked his portion of pudding. He ate a mouthful. It was delicious! He ate another. Something tinkled faintly on his plate. He investigated with a fork. Bridget, on his left, came to his aid.
‘You’ve got something, M. Poirot,’ she said. ‘I wonder what it is’
Poirot detached a little silver object from the surrounding raisins that clung to it.
‘Oooh,’ said Bridget, ‘it’s the bachelor’s button! M. Poirot’s got the bachelor’s button!’
Hercule Poirot dipped the small silver button into the finger-glass of water that stood by his plate, and washed it clear of pudding crumbs.
‘It is very pretty,’ he observed. ‘That means you’re going to be a bachelor, M. Poirot,’ explained Colin helpfully.
‘That is to be expected,’ said Poirot gravely. ‘I have been a bachelor for many long years and it is unlikely that I shall change that status now.’
‘Oh, never say die,’ said Michael. ‘I saw in the paper that someone of ninety-five married a girl of twenty-two the other day.’
‘You encourage me,’ said Hercule Poirot.
Colonel Lacey uttered a sudden exclamation. His face became purple and his hand went to his mouth.
‘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