Some Frites With Your Branch, M'sieur?

 

   source: The Independent

  

 Let's make the most of this one

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 The chief surgeon at Bruges General Hospital shook his head wearily as he replaced the phone. To his waiting staff he said " Ward Three is full. Two more with twigs stuck in their throats. There's an ambulance arriving with a man who tried to eat two glass ornaments. Doctor Berckmans says he has an entire household who thought branches were fine if coated with chocolate.  We're going to need more stomach pumps".

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The well-dressed couple were shown to their reserved table at Brussels' newest restaurant sensation, Zuza. They took note of the strip of twinkling lights festooned around the ceiling, the huge photographs of out-of-focus gifts wrapped in colourful boxes and paper on the walls and the waiters, each sporting a Christmas hat and robe. The maitre d' handed them a menu 

"Tonight the chef has prepared a nine course tasting menu, M'sieur et Madame, together with a wine selection that perfectly mirrors the refinement of his conceptions. Voila - we have an amuse-bouche of little twigs. Then there is a bough on tinsel, a glitterball souffle, a branch steak served very rare, a fake-snow sorbet, a veloute of crackers, complete with mottos, paper hat and pointless plastic toy, inside a wrapping paper nest, a pithivier made from streamers and sticky-backed plastic and two exquisite desserts made from needles and wreaths. For the wines, we have sweet sherry, Blue Nun, a sickeningly-sweet chocolate cream liqueur and something from Hong Kong that the chef's uncle brought back and which nobody has dared to touch until today."

As he swept away to the kitchen, the man looked at his companion. "This is better than I had thought. I can see us awarding them two stars at least"

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"I just don't get it, Poirot". Hastings threw up his hands in bafflement "I mean, how could you possibly know that, out of fourteen house guests, one was an imposter?"

"I used the little grey cells, my friend" smiled the detective, twirling one of his impeccable moustaches "All of them claimed to be British, n'est ce pas? But yet someone had taken a bite out of the Christmas tree in the drawing room. 'A shame about that branch' you yourself said yesterday, observing the damage. But I looked more closely, saw the tooth marks and this afternoon, when you were all playing charades, I checked each bathroom. When I found the little pieces of wood that someone had cleaned from their teeth, then... then I knew. Only one of my fellow Belgians would do such a thing. Yes, Jean-Claude Artois, alias 'Colonel Thoroughgood', will not be enjoying his Christmas after all"