Simeon Lee

"It's a terrible thing to get old, Lydia."

- Simeon Lee to Lydia, his daughter-in-law

Simeon Lee is the secondary antagonist of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot's Christmas, and its primary victim. He is the cruel, perverted and condescending patriarch of Lee family as well as a multi-millionaire who is cruel towards his own children and had love affair with other women. He was killed by the story's culprit for vengeance against his past crime.

In Agatha Christie's Poirot, he was portrayed by Vernon Dobtcheff (as an old man) and Scott Handy (when younger).

Early life
Simeon Lee was born from a rich family and was infamous for being a perverted playboy who slept with other women. At one certain point, Simeon had sexual relationship with a local girl and conceived Superintendent Sugden, who later tried to avenge his mother who was abandoned by his father.

Hercule Poirot's Christmas
Many years later, Simeon Lee, now a multi-millionaire frail in his old age, unexpectedly invites his family to gather at his home for Christmas. The gesture is met with suspicion by the guests. Simeon is not given to warm family sentiment, and the family are not on good terms.

Simeon is intent on playing a cruel game with his family's emotions. He calls his family together that afternoon, to hear him on the telephone with his attorney, saying he wants to update his will after Christmas. This incomplete information stirs up negative feelings among his sons and their wives.

In the meantime, Sudgen secretly sneaks into the house and later murdered Simeon by slicing his throat, and faked the crime scene as well as scream with a special toy balloon and ropes to smash furnitures, whilst he escapes through the window after locking up the door and stealing diamonds to frame Simeon's children, eventually avenging his mother. When the guests and family members heard the noise, they get to his door and find it locked. They break through the door and find the room in grisly chaos, with heavy furniture overturned, crockery smashed, and Simeon dead, his throat slit, in a massive pool of blood.