While the Light Lasts - Agatha Christie [21]
‘Isn’t the snow ripping?’ cried Johnnie, approaching the window. ‘Real Christmas weather. I say, let’s have a snowball fight. There’s lots of time before dinner, isn’t there, Aunt Emily?’
‘Yes, my dear. We have it at two o’clock. That reminds me, I had better see to the table.’
She hurried out of the room.
‘I tell you what. We’ll make a snowman!’ screamed Jean.
‘Yes, what fun! I know; we’ll do a snow statue of M. Poirot. Do you hear, M. Poirot? The great detective, Hercule Poirot, modelled in snow, by six celebrated artists!’
The little man in the chair bowed his acknowledgements with a twinkling eye.
‘Make him very handsome, my children,’ he urged. ‘I insist on that.’
‘Ra-ther!’
The troop disappeared like a whirlwind, colliding in the doorway with a stately butler who was entering with a note on a salver. The butler, his calm re-established, advanced towards Poirot.
Poirot took the note and tore it open. The butler departed. Twice the little man read the note through, then he folded it up and put it in his pocket. Not a muscle of his face had moved, and yet the contents of the note were sufficiently surprising. Scrawled in an illiterate hand were the words: ‘Don’t eat any plum-pudding.’
‘Very interesting,’ murmured M. Poirot to himself. ‘And quite unexpected.’
He looked across to the fireplace. Evelyn Haworth had not gone out with the rest. She was sitting staring at the fire, absorbed in thought, nervously twisting a ring on the third finger of her left hand round and round.
‘You are lost in a dream, Mademoiselle,’ said the little man at last. ‘And the dream is not a happy one, eh?’
She started, and looked across at him uncertainly. He nodded reassuringly.
‘It is my business to know things. No, you are not happy. Me, too, I am not very happy. Shall we confide in each other? See you, I have the big sorrow because a friend of mine, a friend of many years, has gone away across the sea to the South America. Sometimes, when we were together, this friend made me impatient, his stupidity enraged me; but now that he is gone, I can remember only his good qualities. That is the way of life, is it not? And now, Mademoiselle, what is your trouble? You are not like me, old and alone–you are young and beautiful; and the man you love loves you–oh yes, it is so: I have been watching him for the last half-hour.’
The girl’s colour rose.
‘You mean Roger Endicott? Oh, but you have made a mistake; it is not Roger I am engaged to.’
‘No, you are engaged to Mr Oscar Levering. I know that perfectly. But why are you engaged to him, since you love another man?’
The girl did not seem to resent his words; indeed, there was something in his manner which made that impossible. He spoke with a mixture of kindliness and authority that was irresistible.
‘Tell me all about it,’ said Poirot gently; and he added the phrase he had used before, the sound of which was oddly comforting to the girl. ‘It is my business to know things.’
‘I am so miserable, M. Poirot–so very miserable. You see, once we were very well off. I was supposed to be an heiress, and Roger was only a younger son; and–and although I’m sure he cared for me, he never said anything, but went off to Australia.’
‘It is droll, the way they arrange the marriages over here,’ interpolated M. Poirot. ‘No order. No method. Everything left to chance.’
Evelyn continued.
‘Then suddenly we lost all our money. My mother and I were left almost penniless. We moved into a tiny house, and we could just manage. But my mother became very ill. The only chance for her was to have a serious operation and go abroad to a warm climate. And we hadn’t the money, M. Poirot–we hadn’t the money! It meant that she must