‘That’s what I said.’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’ Johnson was thrown slightly out of his stride. ‘Well, as I’ve just said—season of good cheer, and all that!’
Hercule Poirot murmured:
‘The British, they are so sentimental!’
Johnson said stoutly: ‘What if we are? What if we do like the old ways, the old traditional festivities? What’s the harm?’
‘There is no harm. It is all most charming! But let us for a moment examine facts. You have said that Christmas is a season of good cheer. That means, does it not, a lot of eating and drinking? It means, in fact, the over eating! And with the overeating there comes the indigestion! And with the indigestion there comes the irritability!’
‘Crimes,’ said Colonel Johnson, ‘are not committed from irritability.’
‘I am not so sure! Take another point. There is, at Christmas, a spirit of goodwill. It is, as you say, “the thing to do”. Old quarrels are patched up, those who have disagreed consent to agree once more, even if it is only temporarily.’
Johnson nodded.
‘Bury the hatchet, that’s right.’
Poirot pursued his theme:
‘And families now, families who have been separated throughout the year, assemble once more together. Now under these conditions, my friend, you must admit that there will occur a great amount of strain. People who do not feel amiable are putting great pressure on themselves to appear amiable! There is at Christmas time a great deal of hypocrisy, honourable hypocrisy, hypocrisy undertaken pour le bon motif, c’est entendu, but nevertheless hypocrisy!’
‘Well, I shouldn’t put it quite like that myself,’ said Colonel Johnson doubtfully.
Poirot beamed upon him.
‘No, no. It is I who am putting it like that, not you. Iam pointing out to you that under these conditions—mental strain, physical malaise—it is highly probable that dislikes that were before merely mild and disagreements that were trivial might suddenly assume a more serious character. The result of pretending to be a more amiable, a more forgiving, a more high-minded person than one really is, has sooner or later the effect of causing one to behave as a more disagreeable, a more ruthless and an altogether more unpleasant person than is actually the case! If you dam the stream of natural behaviour, mon ami, sooner or later the dam bursts and a cataclysm occurs!’
Colonel Johnson looked at him doubtfully.
‘Never know when you’re serious and when you’re pulling my leg,’ he grumbled.
Poirot smiled at him.
‘I am not serious! Not in the least am I serious! But all the same, it is true what I say—artificial conditions bring about their natural reaction.’
Colonel Johnson’s manservant entered the room.
‘Superintendent Sugden on the phone, sir.’
‘Right. I’ll come.’
With a word of apology the chief constable left the room.
He returned some three minutes later. His face was grave and perturbed.
‘Damn it all!’ he said. ‘Case of murder! On Christmas Eve, too!’
Poirot’s eyebrows rose.
‘It is that definitely—murder, I mean?’
‘Eh? Oh, no other solution possible! Perfectly clear case. Murder—and a brutal murder at that!’
‘Who is the victim?’