While the Light Lasts (8 page)

Annie paused breathless. Poirot surveyed her gravely for some minutes.

‘You read too many novelettes, Annie,' he said at last. ‘But you have the good heart, and a certain amount of intelligence. When I return to London I will send you an excellent book upon
le ménage
, also the Lives of the Saints, and a work upon the economic position of woman.'

Leaving Annie gasping anew, he turned and crossed the hall. He had meant to go into the library, but through the open door he saw a dark head and a fair one, very close together, and he paused where he stood. Suddenly a pair of arms slipped round his neck.

‘If you
will
stand just under the mistletoe!' said Jean.

‘Me too,' said Nancy. M. Poirot enjoyed it all–he enjoyed it very much indeed.

‘Christmas Adventure' was first published as
The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding
in
The Sketch
on 12 December 1923 as the last in the second series of stories published under the heading
The Grey Cells of M. Poirot
. The story reappeared in the 1940s under the title ‘Christmas Adventure' in two short-lived collections,
Problem at Pollensa Bay and Christmas Adventure
and
Poirot Knows the Murderer
before, many years later, being extended by Christie to a novella. As such, it was included in
The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and a Selection of Entrées
(1960).

In the foreword to that collection, Christie described how the story recalled the Christmases of her youth which she and her mother had spent, after her father's death in 1901, at Abney Hall in Stockport. Abney had been built by Sir James Watts, one-time Lord Mayor of Manchester and grandfather of James Watts, the
husband of Christie's elder sister, Madge. In her autobiography, published in 1977, Christie described Abney as ‘a wonderful house to have Christmas in as a child. Not only was it enormous Victorian Gothic with quantities of rooms, passages, unexpected steps, back staircases, front staircases, alcoves, niches–everything in the world that a child could want–but it also had three different pianos that you could play, as well as an organ.' Elsewhere, she described ‘the tables groaning with food and the lavish hospitality…there was an open storeroom in which everyone could partake of chocolates and all sorts of delicacies whenever they liked.' And, when Agatha wasn't eating–usually in competition with James Watts' younger brother Humphrey–she was playing with him and his brothers Lionel and Miles and their sister Nan. Perhaps she had them in mind when writing about the children in the story and the fun they had one snowy Christmas with ‘a real-live detective in the house'.

I

He stood on a shelf in the British Museum, alone and forlorn amongst a company of obviously more important deities. Ranged round the four walls, these greater personages all seemed to display an overwhelming sense of their own superiority. The pedestal of each was duly inscribed with the land and race that had been proud to possess him. There was no doubt of their position; they were divinities of importance and recognized as such.

Only the little god in the corner was aloof and remote from their company. Roughly hewn out of grey stone, his features almost totally obliterated by time and exposure, he sat there in isolation, his elbows on his knees, and his head buried in his hands; a lonely little god in a strange country.

There was no inscription to tell the land whence he came. He was indeed lost, without honour or renown,
a pathetic little figure very far from home. No one noticed him, no one stopped to look at him. Why should they? He was so insignificant, a block of grey stone in a corner. On either side of him were two Mexican gods worn smooth with age, placid idols with folded hands, and cruel mouths curved in a smile that showed openly their contempt of humanity. There was also a rotund, violently self-assertive little god, with a clenched fist, who evidently suffered from a swollen sense of his own importance, but passers-by stopped to give him a glance sometimes, even if it was only to laugh at the contrast of his absurd pomposity with the smiling indifference of his Mexican companions.

And the little lost god sat on there hopelessly, his head in his hands, as he had sat year in and year out, till one day the impossible happened, and he found–a worshipper.

II

‘Any letters for me?'

The hall porter removed a packet of letters from a pigeon-hole, gave a cursory glance through them, and said in a wooden voice:

‘Nothing for you, sir.'

Frank Oliver sighed as he walked out of the club again. There was no particular reason why there should have been anything for him. Very few people wrote to him. Ever since he had returned from Burma in the spring, he had become conscious of a growing and increasing loneliness.

Frank Oliver was a man just over forty, and the last eighteen years of his life had been spent in various parts of the globe, with brief furloughs in England. Now that he had retired and come home to live for good, he realized for the first time how very much alone in the world he was.

True, there was his sister Greta, married to a Yorkshire clergyman, very busy with parochial duties and the bringing up of a family of small children. Greta was naturally very fond of her only brother, but equally naturally she had very little time to give him. Then there was his old friend Tom Hurley. Tom was married to a nice, bright, cheerful girl, very energetic and practical, of whom Frank was secretly afraid. She told him brightly that he must not be a crabbed old bachelor, and was always producing ‘nice girls'. Frank Oliver found that he never had anything to say to these ‘nice girls' they persevered with him for a while, then gave him up as hopeless.

And yet he was not really unsociable. He had a great longing for companionship and sympathy, and ever
since he had been back in England he had become aware of a growing discouragement. He had been away too long, he was out of tune with the times. He spent long, aimless days wandering about, wondering what on earth he was to do with himself next.

It was on one of these days that he strolled into the British Museum. He was interested in Asiatic curiosities, and so it was that he chanced upon the lonely god. Its charm held him at once. Here was something vaguely akin to himself; here, too, was someone lost and astray in a strange land. He became in the habit of paying frequent visits to the Museum, just to glance in on the little grey stone figure, in its obscure place on the high shelf.

‘Rough luck on the little chap,' he thought to himself. ‘Probably had a lot of fuss made about him once, kow-towing and offerings and all the rest of it.'

He had begun to feel such a proprietary right in his little friend (it really almost amounted to a sense of actual ownership) that he was inclined to be resentful when he found that the little god had made a second conquest.
He
had discovered the lonely god; nobody else, he felt, had a right to interfere.

But after the first flash of indignation, he was forced to smile at himself. For this second worshipper was such a little bit of a thing, such a ridiculous, pathetic creature, in a shabby black coat and skirt that had seen
its best days. She was young, a little over twenty he should judge, with fair hair and blue eyes, and a wistful droop to her mouth.

Her hat especially appealed to his chivalry. She had evidently trimmed it herself, and it made such a brave attempt to be smart that its failure was pathetic. She was obviously a lady, though a poverty-stricken one, and he immediately decided in his own mind that she was a governess and alone in the world.

He soon found out that her days for visiting the god were Tuesdays and Fridays, and she always arrived at ten o'clock, as soon as the Museum was open. At first he disliked her intrusion, but little by little it began to form one of the principal interests of his monotonous life. Indeed, the fellow devotee was fast ousting the object of devotion from his position of pre-eminence. The days that he did not see the ‘Little Lonely Lady', as he called her to himself, were blank.

Perhaps she, too, was equally interested in him, though she endeavoured to conceal the fact with studious unconcern. But little by little a sense of fellowship was slowly growing between them, though as yet they had exchanged no spoken word. The truth of the matter was, the man was too shy! He argued to himself that very likely she had not even noticed him (some inner sense gave the lie to that instantly),
that she would consider it a great impertinence, and, finally, that he had not the least idea what to say.

But Fate, or the little god, was kind and sent him an inspiration–or what he regarded as such. With infinite delight in his own cunning, he purchased a woman's handkerchief, a frail little affair of cambric and lace which he almost feared to touch, and, thus armed, he followed her as she departed and stopped her in the Egyptian room.

‘Excuse me, but is this yours?' He tried to speak with airy unconcern, and signally failed.

The Lonely Lady took it, and made a pretence of examining it with minute care.

‘No, it is not mine.' She handed it back, and added, with what he felt guiltily was a suspicious glance: ‘It's quite a new one. The price is still on it.'

But he was unwilling to admit that he had been found out. He started on an over-plausible flow of explanation.

‘You see, I picked it up under that big case. It was just by the farthest leg of it.' He derived great relief from this detailed account. ‘So, as you had been standing there, I thought it must be yours and came after you with it.'

She said again: ‘No, it isn't mine,' and added, as if with a sense of ungraciousness, ‘thank you.'

The conversation came to an awkward standstill.
The girl stood there, pink and embarrassed, evidently uncertain how to retreat with dignity.

He made a desperate effort to take advantage of his opportunity.

‘I–I didn't know there was anyone else in London who cared for our little lonely god till you came.'

She answered eagerly, forgetting her reserve:

‘Do
you
call him that too?'

Apparently, if she had noticed his pronoun, she did not resent it. She had been startled into sympathy, and his quiet ‘Of course!' seemed the most natural rejoinder in the world.

Again there was a silence, but this time it was a silence born of understanding.

It was the Lonely Lady who broke it in a sudden remembrance of the conventionalities.

She drew herself up to her full height, and with an almost ridiculous assumption of dignity for so small a person, she observed in chilling accents:

‘I must be going now. Good morning.' And with a slight, stiff inclination of her head, she walked away, holding herself very erect.

III

By all acknowledged standards Frank Oliver ought to have felt rebuffed, but it is a regrettable sign of his rapid advance in depravity that he merely murmured to himself: ‘Little darling!'

He was soon to repent of his temerity, however. For ten days his little lady never came near the Museum. He was in despair! He had frightened her away! She would never come back! He was a brute, a villain! He would never see her again!

In his distress he haunted the British Museum all day long. She might merely have changed her time of coming. He soon began to know the adjacent rooms by heart, and he contracted a lasting hatred of mummies. The guardian policeman observed him with suspicion when he spent three hours poring over Assyrian hieroglyphics, and the contemplation of endless vases of all ages nearly drove him mad with boredom.

But one day his patience was rewarded. She came again, rather pinker than usual, and trying hard to appear self-possessed.

He greeted her with cheerful friendliness.

‘Good morning. It is ages since you've been here.'

‘Good morning.'

She let the words slip out with icy frigidity, and coldly ignored the end part of his sentence.

But he was desperate.

‘Look here!' He stood confronting her with pleading eyes that reminded her irresistibly of a large, faithful dog. ‘Won't you be friends? I'm all alone in London–all alone in the world, and I believe you are, too. We ought to be friends. Besides, our little god has introduced us.'

She looked up half doubtfully, but there was a faint smile quivering at the corners of her mouth.

‘Has he?'

‘Of course!'

It was the second time he had used this extremely positive form of assurance, and now, as before, it did not fail of its effect, for after a minute or two the girl said, in that slightly royal manner of hers:

‘Very well.'

‘That's splendid,' he replied gruffly, but there was something in his voice as he said it that made the girl glance at him swiftly, with a sharp impulse of pity.

And so the queer friendship began. Twice a week they met, at the shrine of a little heathen idol. At first they confined their conversation solely to him. He was, as it were, at once a palliation of, and an excuse for, their friendship. The question of his origin was widely discussed. The man insisted on attributing to him the
most bloodthirsty characteristics. He depicted him as the terror and dread of his native land, insatiable for human sacrifice, and bowed down to by his people in fear and trembling. In the contrast between his former greatness and his present insignificance there lay, according to the man, all the pathos of the situation.

The Lonely Lady would have none of this theory. He was essentially a kind little god, she insisted. She doubted whether he had ever been very powerful. If he had been so, she argued, he would not now be lost and friendless, and, anyway, he was a dear little god, and she loved him, and she hated to think of him sitting there day after day with all those other horrid, supercilious things jeering at him, because you could see they did! After this vehement outburst the little lady was quite out of breath.

That topic exhausted, they naturally began to talk of themselves. He found out that his surmise was correct. She was a nursery governess to a family of children who lived at Hampstead. He conceived an instant dislike of these children; of Ted, who was five and really not
naughty
, only mischievous; of the twins who
were
rather trying, and of Molly, who wouldn't do anything she was told, but was such a dear you couldn't be cross with her!

‘Those children bully you,' he said grimly and accusingly to her.

‘They do not,' she retorted with spirit. ‘I am extremely stern with them.'

‘Oh! Ye gods!' he laughed. But she made him apologize humbly for his scepticism.

She was an orphan she told him, quite alone in the world.

Gradually he told her something of his own life: of his official life, which had been painstaking and mildly successful; and of his unofficial pastime, which was the spoiling of yards of canvas.

‘Of course, I don't know anything about it,' he explained. ‘But I have always felt I could paint something some day. I can sketch pretty decently, but I'd like to do a real picture of something. A chap who knew once told me that my technique wasn't bad.'

She was interested, pressed for details.

‘I am sure you paint awfully well.' He shook his head.

‘No, I've begun several things lately and chucked them up in despair. I always thought that, when I had the time, it would be plain sailing. I have been storing up that idea for years, but now, like everything else, I suppose, I've left it too late.'

‘Nothing's too late–ever,' said the little lady, with the vehement earnestness of the very young.

He smiled down on her. ‘You think not, child? It's too late for some things for me.'

And the little lady laughed at him and nick-named him Methuselah.

They were beginning to feel curiously at home in the British Museum. The solid and sympathetic policeman who patrolled the galleries was a man of tact, and on the appearance of the couple he usually found that his onerous duties of guardianship were urgently needed in the adjoining Assyrian room.

One day the man took a bold step. He invited her out to tea!

At first she demurred.

‘I have no time. I am not free. I can come some mornings because the children have French lessons.'

‘Nonsense,' said the man. ‘You could manage one day. Kill off an aunt or a second cousin or something, but
come
. We'll go to a little ABC shop near here, and have buns for tea! I know you must love buns!'

‘Yes, the penny kind with currants!'

‘And a lovely glaze on top–'