One thing Mrs Lacey had done: prevailed upon Peverell to place the pudding in front of her so that she could help it rather than hand it in turn round the table. She breathed a sigh of relief as it was deposited safely in front of her. Rapidly the plates were passed round, flames still licking the portions.
‘Wish, M. Poirot,’ cried Bridget. ‘Wish before the flame goes. Quick, Gran darling, quick.’
Mrs Lacey leant back with a sigh of satisfaction. Operation Pudding had been a success. In front of everyone was a helping with flames still licking it. There was a momentary silence all round the table as everyone wished hard.
There was nobody to notice the rather curious expression on the face of M. Poirot as he surveyed the portion of pudding on his plate. ‘Don't eat none of the plum pudding.’ What on earth did that sinister warning mean? There could be nothing different about his portion of plum pudding from that of everyone else! Sighing as he admitted himself baffled — and Hercule Poirot never liked to admit himself baffled — he picked up his spoon and fork.
‘Hard sauce, M. Poirot?’
Poirot helped himself appreciatively to hard sauce.
‘Swiped my best brandy again, eh, Em?’ said the colonel good-humouredly from the other end of the table. Mrs Lacey twinkled at him.
‘Mrs Ross insists on having the best brandy, dear,’ she said. ‘She says it makes all the difference.’
‘Well, well,’ said Colonel Lacey, ‘Christmas comes but once a year and Mrs Ross is a great woman. A great woman and a great cook.’
‘She is indeed,’ said Colin. ‘Smashing plum pudding, this. Mmmm.’ He filled an appreciative mouth.
Gently, almost gingerly, Hercule Poirot attacked his portion of pudding. He ate a mouthful. It was delicious! He ate another. Something tinkled faintly on his plate. He investigated with a fork. Bridget, on his left, came to his aid.
‘You've got something, M. Poirot,’ she said. ‘I wonder what it is.’
Poirot detached a little silver object from the surrounding raisins that clung to it.
‘Oooh,’ said Bridget, ‘it's the bachelor's button! M. Poirot's got the bachelor's button!’
Hercule Poirot dipped the small silver button into the finger-glass of water that stood by his plate, and washed it clear of pudding crumbs.
‘It is very pretty,’ he observed.
‘That means you're going to be a bachelor, M. Poirot,’ explained Colin helpfully.
‘That is to be expected,’ said Poirot gravely. ‘I have been a bachelor for many long years and it is unlikely that I shall change that status now.’
‘Oh, never say die,’ said Michael. ‘I saw in the paper that someone of ninety-five married a girl of twenty-two the other day.’
‘You encourage me,’ said Hercule Poirot.
Colonel Lacey uttered a sudden exclamation. His face became purple and his hand went to his mouth.
‘Confound it, Emmeline,’ he roared, ‘why on earth do you let the cook put glass in the pudding?’
‘Glass!’ cried Mrs Lacey, astonished.
Colonel Lacey withdrew the offending substance from his mouth. ‘Might have broken a tooth,’ he grumbled. ‘Or swallowed the damn' thing and had appendicitis.’
He dropped the piece of glass into the finger-bowl, rinsed it and held it up.
‘God bless my soul,’ he ejaculated, ‘It's a red stone out of one of the cracker brooches.’ He held it aloft.
‘You permit?’
Very deftly M. Poirot stretched across his neighbour, took it from Colonel Lacey's fingers and examined it attentively. As the squire had said, it was an enormous red stone the colour of a ruby. The light gleamed from its facets as he turned it about. Somewhere around the table a chair was pushed sharply back and then drawn in again.
‘Phew!’ cried Michael. ‘How wizard it would be if it was real.’
‘Perhaps it is real,’ said Bridget hopefully.
‘Oh, don't be an ass, Bridget. Why a ruby of that size would be worth thousands and thousands of pounds. Wouldn't it, M. Poirot?’
‘It would indeed,’ said Poirot.
‘But what I can't understand,’ said Mrs Lacey, ‘is how it got into the pudding.’
‘Oooh,’ said Colin, diverted by his last mouthful, ‘I've got the pig. It isn't fair.’
Bridget chanted immediately, ‘Colin's got the pig! Colin's got the pig! Colin is the greedy guzzling pig!’
‘I've got the ring,’ said Diana in a clear, high voice.
‘Good for you, Diana. You'll be married first, of us all.’
‘I've got the thimble,’ wailed Bridget.
‘Bridget's going to be an old maid,’ chanted the two boys. ‘Yah, Bridget's going to be an old maid.’
‘Who's got the money?’ demanded David. ‘There's a real ten shilling piece, gold, in this pudding. I know. Mrs Ross told me so.’
‘I think I'm the lucky one,’ said Desmond Lee-Wortley.
Colonel Lacey's two next door neighbours heard him mutter, ‘Yes, you would be.’
‘I've got a ring, too,’ said David. He looked across at Diana. ‘Quite a coincidence, isn't it?’
The laughter went on. Nobody noticed that M. Poirot carelessly, as though thinking of something else, had dropped the red stone into his pocket.
Mince-pies and Christmas dessert followed the pudding. The older members of the party then retired for a welcome siesta before the tea-time ceremony of the lighting of the Christmas tree. Hercule Poirot, however, did not take a siesta. Instead, he made his way to the enormous old-fashioned kitchen.
‘It is permitted,’ he asked, looking round and beaming, ‘that I congratulate the cook on this marvellous meal that I have just eaten?’
There was a moment's pause and then Mrs Ross came forward in a stately manner to meet him. She was a large woman, nobly built with all the dignity of a stage duchess. Two lean grey-haired women were beyond in the scullery washing up and a tow-haired girl was moving to and fro between the scullery and the kitchen. But these were obviously mere myrmidons. Mrs Ross was the queen of the kitchen quarters.
‘I am glad to hear you enjoyed it, sir,’ she said graciously.
‘Enjoyed it!’ cried Hercule Poirot. With an extravagant foreign gesture he raised his hand to his lips, kissed it, and wafted the kiss to the ceiling. ‘But you are a genius, Mrs Ross! A genius! Never have I tasted such a wonderful meal. The oyster soup —’ he made an expressive noise with his lips ‘— and the stuffing. The chestnut stuffing in the turkey, that was quite unique in my experience.’
‘Well, it's funny that you should say that, sir,’ said Mrs Ross graciously. ‘It's a very special recipe, that stuffing. It was given me by an Austrian chef that I worked with many years ago. But all the rest,’ she added, ‘is just good, plain English cooking.’
‘And is there anything better?’ demanded Hercule Poirot.
‘Well, it's nice of you to say so, sir. Of course, you being a foreign gentleman might have preferred the continental style. Not but what I can't manage continental dishes too.’
‘I am sure, Mrs Ross, you could manage anything! But you must know that English cooking — good English cooking, not the cooking one gets in the second-class hotels or the restaurants — is much appreciated by gourmets on the continent, and I believe I am correct in saying that a special expedition was made to London in the early eighteen hundreds, and a report sent back to France of the wonders of the English puddings. “We have nothing like that in France,” they wrote. “It is worth making a journey to London just to taste the varieties and excellencies of the English puddings.” And above all puddings,’ continued Poirot, well launched now on a kind of rhapsody, ‘is the Christmas plum pudding, such as we have eaten today. That was a homemade pudding, was it not? Not a bought one?’