Free Thomas Godfrey (Ed) by Murder for Christmas Page A

old-fashioned than we are! My
husband you know, absolutely lives in the past. He likes everything to be just
as it was when he was a boy of twelve years old, and used to come here for his
holidays.” She smiled to herself. “All the same old things, the Christmas tree
and the stockings hung up and the oyster soup and the turkey—two turkeys, one
boiled and one roasted—and the plum pudding with the ring and the bachelor’s
button and all the rest of it in it. We can’t have sixpences nowadays because
they’re not pure silver any more. But all the old desserts, the Elvas plums and
Carlsbad plums and almonds and raisins, and crystalised fruit and ginger. Dear
me, I sound like a catalogue from Fortnum and Mason!”
    “You arouse my gastronomic juices,
Madame.”
    “I expect we’ll all have frightful
indigestion by tomorrow evening,” said Mrs. Lacey. “One isn’t used to eating so
much nowadays, is one?”
    She was interrupted by some loud
shouts and whoops of laughter outside the window. She glanced out.
    “I don’t know what they’re doing out
there. Playing some game or other, I suppose. I’ve always been so afraid, you
know, that these young people would be bored by our Christmas here. But not at
all, it’s just the opposite. Now my own son and daughter and their friends,
they used to be rather sophisticated about Christmas. Say it was all nonsense
and too much fuss and it would be far better to go out to a hotel somewhere and
dance. But the younger generation seems to find all this terribly attractive.
Besides,” added Mrs. Lacey practically, “schoolboys and schoolgirls are always
hungry, aren’t they? I thing they must starve them at these schools. After all,
one does know children of that age each eat about as much as three strong men.”
    Poirot laughed and said, “It is most
kind of you and your husband, Madame, to include me in this way in your family
party.”
    “Oh, we’re both delighted, I’m sure,”
said Mrs. Lacey. “And if you find Horace a little gruff,” she continued, “pay
no attention. It’s just his manner, you know.”
    What her husband, Colonel Lacey, had
actually said was: “Can’t think why you want one of these damned foreigners
here cluttering up Christmas? Why can’t we have him some other time? Can’t
stick foreigners! All right, all right, so Edwina Morecombe wished him on us.
What’s it got to do with her. I should like to know? Why doesn’t she have him for Christmas?”
    “Because you know very well,” Mrs.
Lacey had said, “that Edwina always goes to Claridge’s.”
    Her husband had looked at her
piercingly and said, “Not up to something, are you, Em?”
    “Up to something?” said Em, opening
very blue eyes. “Of course not. Why should I be?”
    Old Colonel Lacey laughed, a deep,
rumbling laugh. “I wouldn’t put it past you, Em,” he said. “When you look your
most innocent is when you are up to something.”
    Revolving these things in her mind,
Mrs. Lacey went on: “Edwina said she thought perhaps you might help us….I’m
sure I don’t know quite how, but she said that friends of yours had once found
you very helpful in—in a case something like ours. I—well, perhaps you don’t
know what I’m talking about?”
    Poirot looked at her encouragingly.
Mrs. Lacey was close on seventy, as upright as a ramrod, with snow-white hair,
pink cheeks, blue eyes, a ridiculous nose and a determined chin.
    “If there is anything I can do I shall
only be too happy to do it,” said Poirot. “It is, I understand, a rather
unfortunate matter of a young girl’s infatuation.”
    Mrs. Lacey nodded. “Yes. It seems
extraordinary that I should—well, want to talk to you about it. After all, you are a perfect stranger...”
    “And a foreigner,” said
Poirot, in an understanding manner.
    “Yes,” said Mrs. Lacey, “but perhaps
that makes it easier, in a way. Anyhow, Edwina seemed to think that you might
perhaps know something—how shall I put