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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 LeeWortley.

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