XI

Magdalene Lee paused effectively in the doorway¹. One long slender hand touched the burnishedplatinum sheen of her hair. The leaf-green velvet² frock she wore clung to the delicate lines of herfigure. She looked very young and a little frightened.

The three men were arrested for a moment looking at her. Johnson’s eyes showed a suddensurprised admiration³. Superintendent⁴ Sugden’s showed no animation⁵, merely the impatience⁶ of aman anxious to get on with his job. Hercule Poirot’s eyes were deeply appreciative⁷ (as she saw)but the appreciation⁸ was not for her beauty, but for the effective use she made of it. She did notknow that he was thinking to himself:

“Jolie mannequin, la petite. Mais elle a les yeux durs.”

Colonel Johnson was thinking:

“Damned good-looking girl. George Lee will have trouble with her if he doesn’t look out.

Got an eye for a man all right.”

Superintendent Sugden was thinking:

“Empty-headed vain piece of goods. Hope we get through with her quickly.”

“Will you sit down, Mrs. Lee? Let me see, you are—?”

“Mrs. George Lee.”

She accepted the chair with a warm smile of thanks. “After all,” the glance seemed to say,“although you are a man and a policeman, you are not so dreadful after all.”

The tail end of the smile included Poirot. Foreigners were so susceptible⁹ where women wereconcerned. About Superintendent Sugden she did not bother.

She murmured, twisting her hands together in a pretty distress¹⁰:

“It’s all so terrible. I feel so frightened.”

“Come, come, Mrs. Lee,” said Colonel Johnson kindly¹¹ but briskly. “It’s been a shock, Iknow, but it’s all over now. We just want an account from you of what happened this evening.”

She cried out:

“But I don’t know anything about it—I don’t indeed.”

For a moment the chief constable¹²’s eyes narrowed. He said gently: “No, of course not.”

“We only arrived here yesterday. George would make me come here for Christmas! I wishwe hadn’t. I’m sure I shall never feel the same again!”

“Very upsetting—yes.”

“I hardly know George’s family, you see. I’ve only seen Mr. Lee once or twice—at ourwedding and once since. Of course I’ve seen Alfred and Lydia more often, but they’re really allquite strangers to me.”

Again the wide-eyed frightened-child look. Again Hercule Poirot’s eyes were appreciative—and again he thought to himself:

“Elle joue très bien la comédie, cette petite. .?.?.”

“Yes, yes,” said Colonel Johnson. “Now just tell me about the last time you saw your father-in-law—Mr. Lee—alive.”

“Oh, that! That was this afternoon. It was dreadful!”

Johnson said quickly:

“Dreadful? Why?”

“They were so angry!”

“Who was angry?”

“Oh, all of them .?.?. I don’t mean George. His father didn’t say anything to him. But all theothers.”

“What happened exactly?”

“Well, when we got there—he asked for all of us—he was speaking into the telephone—tohis lawyers about his will. And then he told Alfred he was looking very glum¹³. I think that wasbecause of Harry¹⁴ coming home to live. Alfred was very upset about that, I believe. You see, Harrydid something quite dreadful. And then he said something about his wife—she’s dead long ago—but she had the brains of a louse, he said, and David sprang up and looked as though he’d like tomurder him—Oh!” She stopped suddenly, her eyes alarmed. “I didn’t mean that—I didn’t mean itat all!”

Colonel Johnson said soothingly¹⁵:

“Quite—quite, figure of speech, that was all.”

“Hilda, that’s David’s wife, quieted him down and—well, I think that’s all. Mr. Lee said hedidn’t want to see anyone again that evening. So we all went away.”

“And that was the last time you saw him?”

“Yes. Until—until—”

She shivered.

Colonel Johnson said:

“Yes, quite so. Now, where were you at the time of the crime?”

“Oh—let me see, I think I was in the drawing room.”

“Aren’t you sure?”

Magdalene’s eyes flickered¹⁶ a little, the lids drooped¹⁷ over them.

She said:

“Of course! How stupid of me .?.?. I’d gone to telephone. One gets so mixed up.”

“You were telephoning, you say. In this room?”

“Yes, that’s the only telephone except the one upstairs in my father-in-law’s room.”

Superintendent Sugden said:

“Was anybody else in the room with you?”

Her eyes widened.

“Oh, no, I was quite alone.”

“Had you been here long?”

“Well—a little time. It takes some time to put a call through in the evening.”

“It was a trunk call, then?”

“Yes—to Westeringham.”

“I see.”

“And then?”

“And then there was that awful scream—and everybody running—and the door being lockedand having to break it down. Oh! It was like a nightmare! I shall always remember it!”

“No, no,” Colonel Johnson’s tone was mechanically kind. He went on:

“Did you know that your father-in-law kept a quantity of valuable diamonds in his safe?”

“No, did he?” Her tone was quite frankly¹⁸ thrilled. “Real diamonds?”

Hercule Poirot said:

“Diamonds worth about ten thousand pounds.”

“Oh!” It was a soft gasping¹⁹ sound—holding in it the essence of feminine cupidity²⁰.

“Well,” said Colonel Johnson, “I think that’s all for the present. We needn’t bother you anyfurther, Mrs. Lee.”

“Oh, thank you.”

She stood up—smiled from Johnson to Poirot—the smile of a grateful little girl, then shewent out walking with her head held high and her palms a little turned outwards²¹.

Colonel Johnson called:

“Will you ask your brother-in-law, Mr. David Lee, to come here?” Closing the door after her,he came back to the table.

“Well,” he said, “what do you think? We’re getting at some of it now! You notice one thing:

George Lee was telephoning when he heard the scream! His wife was telephoning when she heardit! That doesn’t fit—it doesn’t fit at all.”

He added:

“What do you think, Sugden?”

The superintendent said slowly:

“I don’t want to speak offensively of the lady, but I should say that though she’s the kind whowould be first class at getting money out a gentleman, I don’t think she’s the kind who’d cut agentleman’s throat. That wouldn’t be her line at all.”

“Ah, but one never knows, mon vieux,” murmured Poirot.

The chief constable turned round on him.

“And you, Poirot, what do you think?”

Hercule Poirot leaned forward. He straightened the blotter in front of him and flicked²² aminute speck²³ of dust from a candlestick. He answered:

“I would say that the character of the late Mr. Simeon Lee begins to emerge for us. It is there,I think, that the whole importance of the case lies .?.?. in the character of the dead man.”

Superintendent Sugden turned a puzzled face to him.

“I don’t quite get you, Mr. Poirot,” he said. “What exactly has the character of the deceasedgot to do with his murder?”

Poirot said dreamily:

“The character of the victim has always something to do with his or her murder. The frankand unsuspicious mind of Desdemona was the direct cause of her death. A more suspiciouswoman would have seen Iago’s machinations and circumvented²⁴ them much earlier. Theuncleanness of Marat directly invited his end in a bath. From the temper of Mercutio’s mind camehis death at the sword’s point.”

Colonel Johnson pulled his moustache.

“What exactly are you getting at, Poirot?”

“I am telling you that because Simeon Lee was a certain kind of man, he set in motion certainforces, which forces in the end brought about his death.”

“You don’t think the diamonds had anything to do with it, then?”

Poirot smiled at the honest perplexity in Johnson’s face.

“Mon cher,” he said. “It was because of Simeon Lee’s peculiar²⁵ character that he kept tenthousand pounds worth of uncut diamonds in his safe! You have not there the action of everyman.”

“That’s very true, Mr. Poirot,” said Superintendent Sugden, nodding his head with the air of aman who at last sees what a fellow conversationalist is driving at. “He was a queer one, Mr. Leewas. He kept those stones there so he could take them out and handle them and get the feeling ofthe past back. Depend upon it, that’s why he never had them cut.”

Poirot nodded energetically.

“Precisely—precisely. I see you have great acumen²⁶, Superintendent.”

The superintendent looked a little doubtful at the compliment, but Colonel Johnson cut in:

“There’s something else, Poirot. I don’t know whether it has struck you—”

“Mais oui,” said Poirot. “I know what you mean. Mrs. George Lee, she let the cat out of thebag more than she knew! She gave us a pretty impression of that last family meeting. She indicates—oh! so na?vely—that Alfred was angry with his father—and that David looked as ‘though hecould murder him.’ Both those statements I think were true. But from them we can draw our ownreconstruction. What did Simeon Lee assemble his family for? Why should they have arrived intime to hear him telephoning to his lawyer? Parbleu, it was no error, that. He wanted them to hearit! The poor old one, he sits in his chair and he has lost the diversions of his younger days. So heinvents a new diversion for himself. He amuses himself by playing upon the cupidity and thegreed of human nature—yes, and on its emotions and its passions, too! But from that arises onefurther deduction²⁷. In his game of rousing the greed and emotion of his children, he would not omitanyone. He must, logically and necessarily, have had his dig at Mr. George Lee as well as at theothers! His wife is carefully silent about that. At her, too, he may have shot a poisoned arrow ortwo. We shall find out, I think, from others, what Simeon Lee had to say to George Lee andGeorge Lee’s wife—”

He broke off. The door opened and David Lee came in.

 

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