‘Terrible business,’ he muttered.
‘And then you hurried upstairs?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you see your brothers, Mr Alfred and Mr Harry Lee?’
‘No, they must have gone up just ahead of me, I think.’
‘When did you last see your father, Mr Lee?’
‘This afternoon. We were all up there.’
‘You did not see him after that?’
‘No.’
The chief constable paused, then he said:
‘Were you aware that your father kept a quantity of valuable uncut diamonds in the safe in his bedroom?’
George Lee nodded.
‘A most unwise procedure,’ he said pompously. ‘I often told him so. He might have been murdered for them—I mean—that is to say—’
Colonel Johnson cut in: ‘Are you aware that these stones have disappeared?’
George’s jaw dropped. His protuberant eyes stared.
‘Then he was murdered for them?’
The chief constable said slowly:
‘He was aware of their loss and reported it to the police some hours before his death.’
George said:
‘But, then—I don’t understand—I—…’
Hercule Poirot said gently:
‘We, too, do not understand…’
X
Harry Lee came into the room with a swagger. For a moment Poirot stared at him, frowning. He had a feeling that somewhere he had seen this man before. He noted the features: the high-bridged nose, the arrogant poise of the head, the line of the jaw; and he realized that though Harry was a big man and his father had been a man of merely middle height, yet there had been a good deal of resemblance between them.
He noted something else, too. For all his swagger, Harry Lee was nervous. He was carrying it off with a swing, but the anxiety underneath was real enough.
‘Well, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘What can I tell you?’
Colonel Johnson said:
‘We shall be glad of any light you can throw on the events of this evening.’
Harry Lee shook his head.
‘I don’t know anything at all. It’s all pretty horrible and utterly unexpected.’