Mrs Emmeline Lacey

In the short story The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, Mrs Emmeline Lacey was the wife of Colonel Horace Lacey and Poirot's hostess at Kings Lacey. Mrs Lacey was known affectionately as "Em" by almost all who knew her. She was described as close on seventy, as upright as a ramrod, with snow-white hair, pink cheeks, blue eyes, "a ridiculous nose and a determined chin".

When Mrs Lacey gathered her various guests for the Christmas house party, her husband thought she was "up to something". "When you look your most innocent is when you are up to something," he said.

She had planned, in fact, to matchmake two family friends, David Welwyn and the widowed Diana Middleton. In addition, her grand daughter Sarah Lacey was interested in a man who had a very bad reputation, Desmond Lee-Wortley. Rather than banning him from the house, Mrs Lacey hoped by having him spend Christmas at Kings Lacey, it may turn out that he would seem less interesting to Sarah. In this Mrs Lacey hoped to have Poirot's help.

Portrayals
Mrs Lacey was played by Stephanie Cole in the film adaptation of the story in Series 3 of ITV's Agatha Christie's Poirot. The portrayal is highly faithful to that in the original story, except that she hopes to match make David Welwyn with Sarah.

In the NHK anime adaptation The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, Mrs Lacey's firstname is changed to "Barbara". The character is voiced by Yuriko Hoshi.