![]() This warm gesture, based on what is just, as Lydia tells her, upsets Pilar, and she refuses it. Alfred, David and Harry agree to pool their inheritances and make a share for Pilar. This leaves Pilar with nothing, as her mother died a year earlier, and his granddaughter is not specifically named. The family lawyer reads Simeon's will, which leaves half to son Alfred, who runs the business, and the other half to be split among his other children. Poirot finds the uncut diamonds mixed in with the stones of a decorative outdoor garden, which takes theft away as a motive. When the butler mentions his confusion about the identities of the house guests, Poirot realises that the four sons of Simeon's marriage may not be Simeon's only sons present in the home. Each son, and perhaps one of the wives, appears as a suspect to the investigators. Poirot's investigation explores the victim's methodical and vengeful nature and the way these characteristics come out in his sons, and observes physical traits as well. How was the victim killed inside a locked room? Was the murder connected to the theft of the diamonds? And what is the significance of the small triangle of rubber and the peg first noticed by Pilar? Poirot accompanies Colonel Johnson to investigate this murder. Sugden explains that he is at the house by prior arrangement with the victim, who confided to him the theft of a substantial quantity of uncut diamonds from his safe. ![]() He insists that she give the small bit of rubber and a small object made of wood to him. Superintendent Sugden notices Pilar pick up something from the floor. The local police superintendent is already at the front door, before anyone could call the police. The sight revealed includes heavy furniture overturned, crockery smashed, and Simeon dead, his throat slit, in a great pool of blood, a grisly and shocking sight. When they get to his door, they find it locked and have to break it down. This incomplete information stirs up negative feelings among his sons and their wives.Īfter dinner on Christmas Eve, the sounds of crashing of furniture and a hideous scream are heard by several, who rush to Simeon's room. Simeon calls his family together that afternoon, to hear him on the telephone with his attorney, saying he wants to update his will after Christmas. He is the son of Simeon's former partner in the diamond mines, welcomed warmly by Simeon. Stephen Farr, a surprise guest, arrives on Christmas Eve. Simeon is intent on playing a cruel game with his family's emotions. None have met their late sister Jennifer's daughter before she proves to be delightful. ![]() Simeon also searched out his orphaned, Spanish-born granddaughter, Pilar Estravados, to live in his house. Simeon is not given to warm family sentiment, and the family are not on good terms, in particular, with the black sheep of the family, Harry. The gesture is met with suspicion by the guests. Multi-millionaire Simeon Lee, frail in his old age, unexpectedly invites his family to gather at his home for Christmas. Another considered this novel to be "a major Christie" and stated that "the rules were not made for Agatha Christie." One reviewer analysed the novel in some detail, considering this and recent novels to have too much of a pattern in the plot and felt that Poirot was "becoming too much of a colourless expert." A later review by Barnard was terse, "Magnificently clued." Plot summary Most reviews at the time of publication were positive, referring to "the brilliance of the whole conception", and remarking that "never has his mighty brain functioned more brilliantly". The premise is a family reuniting for Christmas, and they find the host of the gathering murdered in a private room. The book features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and is a locked room mystery. A paperback edition in the US by Avon books in 1947 changed the title again to A Holiday for Murder. It was published in US by Dodd, Mead and Company in February 1939 under the title of Murder for Christmas. ![]() It retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6). Hercule Poirot's Christmas is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 19 December 1938 (although the first edition is copyright dated 1939). ![]()
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