The detective stories of Catherine Aird are notable for their sense of fair play — that nice, old-fashioned notion that the author should have her detective actually solve mysteries by observation and deduction — not by sheer luck, coincidence, or via confession — and this is proven in the excellent and long-running series featuring her series protagonist, Inspector C. D. Sloan. “Gold, Frankincense and Murder” was first published in Tim Heald’s anthology, A Classic Christmas Crime (London, Pavilion, 1995).

“Christmas!” said Henry Tyler. “Bah!”

“And we’re expecting you on Christmas Eve as usual,” went on his sister Wendy placidly.

“But...” He was speaking down the telephone from London, “but, Wen...”

“Now it’s no use your pretending to be Ebenezer Scrooge in disguise, Henry.”

“Humbug,” exclaimed Henry more firmly.

“Nonsense,” declared his sister, quite unmoved. “You enjoy Christmas just as much as the children. You know you do.”

“Ah, but this year I may just have to stay on in London over the holiday...” Henry Tyler spent his working days — and, in these troubled times, quite a lot of his working nights as well — at the Foreign Office in Whitehall.

What he was doing now to his sister would have been immediately recognized in ambassadorial circles as “testing the reaction.” In the lower echelons of his department it was known more simply as “flying a kite.” Whatever you called it, Henry Tyler was an expert.

“And it’s no use your saying there’s trouble in the Baltic either,” countered Wendy Witherington warmly.

“Actually,” said Henry, “it’s the Balkans which are giving us a bit of a headache just now.”

“The children would never forgive you if you weren’t there,” said Wendy, playing a trump card; although it wasn’t really necessary. She knew that nothing short of an international crisis would keep Henry away from her home in the little market town of Berebury in the heart of rural Calleshire at Christmastime. The trouble was that these days international crises were not nearly so rare as they used to be.

“Ah, the children,” said their doting uncle. “And what is it that they want Father Christmas to bring this year?”

“Edward wants a model railway engine for his set.”

“Does he indeed?”

“A Hornby LMS red engine called ‘Princess Elizabeth,’ ” said Wendy Witherington readily. “It’s a 4–6—2.”

Henry made a note, marvelling that his sister, who seemed totally unable to differentiate between the Baltic and the Balkans — and quite probably the Balearics as well — had the details of a child’s model train absolutely at her fingertips.

“And Jennifer?” he asked.

Wendy sighed. “The Good Ship Lollipop. Oh, and when you come, Henry, you’d better be able to explain to her how it is that while she could see Shirley Temple at the pictures — we took her last week — Shirley Temple couldn’t see her.”

Henry, who had devoted a great deal of time in the last ten days trying to explain to a Minister in His Majesty’s Government exactly what Monsieur Pierre Laval might have in mind for the best future of France, said he would do his best.

“Who else will be staying, Wen?”

“Our old friends Peter and Dora Watkins — you remember them, don’t you?”

“He’s something in the bank, isn’t he?” said Henry.

“Nearly a manager,” replied Wendy. “Then there’ll be Tom’s old Uncle George.”

“I hope,” groaned Henry, “that your barometer’s up to it. It had a hard time last year.” Tom’s Uncle George had been a renowned maker of scientific instruments in his day. “He’s nearly tapped it to death.”

Wendy’s mind was still on her house guests. “Oh, and there’ll be two refugees.”

“Two refugees?” Henry frowned, even though he was alone in his room at the Foreign Office. They were beginning to be very careful about some refugees.

“Yes, the rector has asked us each to invite two refugees from the camp on the Calleford Road to stay for Christmas this year. You remember our Mr. Wallis, don’t you, Henry?”

“Long sermons?” hazarded Henry.

“Then you do remember him,” said Wendy without irony. “Well, he’s arranged it all through some church organization. We’ve got to be very kind to them because they’ve lost everything.”

“Give them useful presents, you mean,” said Henry, decoding this last without difficulty.

“Warm socks and scarves and things,” agreed Wendy Witherington vaguely. “And then we’ve got some people coming to dinner here on Christmas Eve.”

“Oh, yes?”

“Our doctor and his wife. Friar’s their name. She’s a bit heavy in the hand but he’s quite good company. And,” said Wendy drawing breath, “our new next-door neighbours — they’re called Steele — are coming too. He bought the pharmacy in the square last summer. We don’t know them very well — I think he married one of his assistants — but it seemed the right thing to invite them at Christmas.”

“Quite so,” said Henry. “That all?”

“Oh, and little Miss Hooper.”

“Sent her measurements, did she?”

“You know what I mean,” said his sister, unperturbed. “She always comes then. Besides, I expect she’ll know the refugees. She does a lot of church work.”

“What sort of refugees are they?” asked Henry cautiously.

But that Wendy did not know.

Henry himself wasn’t sure even after he’d first met them, and his brother-in-law was no help.

“Sorry, old man,” said that worthy as they foregathered in the drawing-room, awaiting the arrival of the rest of the dinner guests on Christmas Eve. “All I know is that this pair arrived from somewhere in Mitteleuropa last month with only what they stood up in.”

“Better out than in,” contributed Gordon Friar, the doctor, adding an old medical aphorism, “like laudable pus.”

“I understand,” said Tom Witherington, “that they only just got out, too. Skin of their teeth and all that.”

“As the poet so wisely said,” murmured Henry, “ ‘The only certain freedom’s in departure.’ ”

“If you ask me,” said old Uncle George, a veteran of the Boer War, “they did well to go while the going was good.”

“It’s the sort of thing you can leave too late,” pronounced Dr. Friar weightily. Leaving things too late was every doctor’s nightmare.

“I don’t envy ’em being where they are now,” said Tom. “That camp they’re in is pretty bleak, especially in the winter.”

This was immediately confirmed by Mrs. Godiesky the moment she entered the room. She regarded the Witheringtons’ glowing fire with deep appreciation. “We ’ave been so cooald, so cooaald,” she said as she stared hungrily at the logs stacked by the open fireside. “So very cooald...”

Her husband’s English was slightly better, although also heavily accented. “If we had not left when we did, then,” he opened his hands expressively, “then who knows what would have become of us?”

“Who, indeed?” echoed Henry, who actually had a very much better idea than anyone else present of what might have become of the Godieskys had they not left their native heath when they did. Reports reaching the Foreign Office were very, very discouraging.

“They closed my university department down overnight,” explained Professor Hans Godiesky. “Without any warning at all.”

“It was terrrrrible,” said Mrs. Godiesky, holding her hands out to the fire as if she could never be warm again.

“What sort of a department was it, sir?” enquired Henry casually of the Professor.

“Chemistry,” said the refugee, just as the two Watkins came in and the hanging mistletoe was put to good use. They were followed fairly quickly by Robert and Lorraine Steele from next door. The introductions in their case were more formal. Robert Steele was a good bit older than his wife, who was dressed in a very becoming mixture of red and dark green, though with a skirt that was rather shorter than either Wendy’s or Dora’s and even more noticeably so than that of Marjorie Friar, who was clearly no dresser.

“We’re so glad you could get away in time,” exclaimed Wendy, while Tom busied himself with furnishing everyone with sherry. “It must be difficult if there’s late dispensing to be done.”

“No trouble these days,” boomed Robert Steele. “I’ve got a young assistant now. He’s a great help.”

Then Miss Hooper, whose skirt was longest of all, was shown in. She was out of breath and full of apology for being so late. “Wendy, dear, I am so very sorry,” she fluttered. “I’m afraid the Waits will be here in no time at all...”

“And they won’t wait,” said Henry guilelessly, “will they?”

“If you ask me,” opined Tom Witherington, “they won’t get past the ‘Royal Oak’ in a hurry.”

“The children are coming down in their dressing-gowns to listen to the carols,” said Wendy, rightly ignoring both remarks. “And I don’t mind how tired they get tonight.”

“Who’s playing Father Christmas?” asked Robert Steele jovially. He was a plump fellow, whose gaze rested fondly on his young wife most of the time.

“Not me,” said Tom Witherington.

“I am,” declared Henry. “For my sins.”

“Then, when I am tackled on the matter,” said the children’s father piously, “I can put my hand on my heart and swear total innocence.”

“And how will you get out of giving an honest answer, Henry?” enquired Dora Watkins playfully.

“I shall hope,” replied Henry, “to remain true to the traditions of the Foreign Service and give an answer that is at one and the same time absolutely correct and totally meaningless...”

At which moment the sound of the dinner gong being struck came from the hall and presently the whole party moved through to the dining-room, Uncle George giving the barometer a surreptitious tap on the way.

Henry Tyler studied the members of the party under cover of a certain amount of merry chat. It was part and parcel of his training that he could at one and the same time discuss Christmas festivities in England with poor Mrs. Godiesky while covertly observing the other guests. Lorraine Steele was clearly the apple of her husband’s eye, but he wasn’t sure that the same could be said for Marjorie Friar, who emerged as a complainer and sounded — and looked — quite aggrieved with life.

Lorraine Steele though, was anything but dowdy. Henry decided her choice of red and green — Christmas colours — was a sign of a new outfit for yuletide.

He was also listening for useful clues about their homeland in the Professor’s conversation, while becoming aware that Tom’s old Uncle George really was getting quite senile now and learning that the latest of Mrs. Friar’s succession of housemaids had given in her notice.

“And at Christmas, too,” she complained. “So inconsiderate.”

Peter Watkins was displaying a modest pride in his Christmas present to his wife.

“Well,” he said in the measured tones of his profession of banking, “personally, I’m sure that refrigerators are going to be the thing of the future.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned larder,” said Wendy stoutly, like the good wife she was. There was little chance of Tom Witherington being able to afford a refrigerator for a very long time. “Besides, I don’t think Cook would want to change her ways now. She’s quite set in them, you know.”

“But think of the food we’ll save,” said Dora. “It’ll never go bad now.”

“ ‘Use it up, wear it out.’ ” Something had stirred in old Uncle George’s memory.

“ ‘Make it do, do without or we’ll send it to Belgium.’ ”

“And you’ll be more likely to avoid food poisoning, too,” said Robert Steele earnestly. “Won’t they, Dr. Friar?”

“Yes, indeed,” the medical man agreed at once. “There’s always too much of that about and it can be very dangerous.”

The pharmacist looked at both the Watkins and said gallantly, “I can’t think of a better present.”

“But you did, darling,” chipped in Lorraine Steele brightly, “didn’t you?”

Henry was aware of an unspoken communication passing between the two Steeles; and then Lorraine Steele allowed her left hand casually to appear above the table. Her fourth finger was adorned with both a broad gold wedding ring and a ring on which was set a beautiful solitaire diamond.

“Robert’s present,” she said rather complacently, patting her blonde Marcel waved hair and twisting the diamond ring round. “Isn’t it lovely?”

“I wanted her to wear it on her right hand,” put in Robert Steele, “because she’s left-handed, but she won’t hear of it.”

“I should think not,” said Dora Watkins at once. “The gold wedding ring sets it off so nicely.”

“That’s what I say, too,” said Mrs. Steele prettily, lowering her be-ringed hand out of sight again.

“Listen!” cried Wendy suddenly. “It’s the Waits. I can hear them now. Come along, everyone... it’s mince pies and coffee all round in the hall afterwards.”

The Berebury carol-singers parked their lanterns outside the front door and crowded round the Christmas tree in the Witheringtons’ entrance hall, their sheets of music held at the ready.

“Right,” called out their leader, a young man with a rather prominent Adam’s apple. He began waving a little baton. “All together now...”

The familiar words of “Once in Royal David’s City” soon rang out through the house, filling it with joyous sound. Henry caught a glimpse of a tear in Mrs. Godiesky’s eye; and noted a look of great nostalgia in little Miss Hooper’s earnest expression. There must have been ghosts of Christmases Past in the scene for her, too.

Afterwards, when it became important to recreate the scene in his mind for the police, Henry could only place the Steeles at the back of the entrance hall with Dr. Friar and Uncle George beside them. Peter and Dora Watkins had opted to stand a few steps up the stairs to the first-floor landing, slightly out of the press of people but giving them a good view. Mrs. Friar was standing awkwardly in front of the leader of the choir. Of Professor Hans Godiesky there was no sign whatsoever while the carols were being sung.

Henry remembered noticing suppressed excitement in the faces of his niece and nephew perched at the top of the stairs and hoping it was the music that they had found entrancing and not the piles of mince pies awaiting them among the decorative smilax on the credenza at the back of the hall.

They — and everyone else — fell upon them nonetheless as soon as the last carol had been sung. There was a hot punch, too, carefully mulled to just the right temperature by Tom Witherington, for those old enough to partake of it, and home-made lemonade for the young.

Almost before the last choirboy had scoffed the last mince pie the party at the Witheringtons’ broke up.

The pharmacist and his wife were the first to leave. They shook hands all round.

“I know it’s early,” said Lorraine Steele apologetically, “but I’m afraid Robert’s poor old tummy’s been playing him up again.” Henry, who had been expecting a rather limp paw, was surprised to find how firm her handshake was.

“If you’ll forgive us,” said Lorraine’s husband to Wendy, “I think we’d better be on our way now.” Robert Steele essayed a glassy, strained smile, but to Henry’s eye he looked more than a little white at the gills. Perhaps he, too, had spotted that the ring that was his Christmas present to his wife had got a nasty stain on the inner side of it.

The pair hurried off together in a flurry of farewells. Then the wispy Miss Hooper declared the evening a great success but said she wanted to check everything at St. Faith’s before the midnight service, and she, too, slipped away.

“What I want to know,” said Dora Watkins provocatively when the rest of the guests had reassembled in the drawing-room and Edward and Jennifer had been sent back — very unwillingly — to bed, “is whether it’s better to be an old man’s darling or a young man’s slave?”

A frown crossed Wendy’s face. “I’m not sure,” she said seriously.

“I reckon our Mrs. Steele’s got her husband where she wants him, all right,” said Peter Watkins, “don’t you?”

“Come back, William Wilberforce, there’s more work on slavery still to be done,” said Tom Witherington lightly. “What about a night-cap, anyone?”

But there were no takers, and in a few moments the Friars, too, had left.

Wendy suddenly said she had decided against going to the Midnight Service after all and would see everyone in the morning. The rest of the household also opted for an early night and in the event Henry Tyler was the only one of the party to attend the Midnight Service at St. Faith’s church that night.

The words of the last carol, “We Three Kings of Orient Are...” were still ringing in his ears as he crossed the Market Square to the church. Henry wished that the Foreign Office had only kings to deal with: life would be simpler then. Dictators and Presidents — particularly one President not so very many miles from “perfidious Albion” — were much more unpredictable.

He hummed the words of the last verse of the carol as he climbed the church steps:

Perhaps, he thought, as he sought a back pew and his nostrils caught the inimical odour of a mixture of burning candles and church flowers, he should have been thinking of frankincense or even — when he saw the burnished candlesticks and altar cross — Melchior’s gold...

His private orisons were interrupted a few minutes later by a sudden flurry of activity near the front of the church, and he looked up in time to see little Miss Hooper being helped out by the two churchwardens.

“If I might just have a drink of water,” he heard her say before she was borne off to the vestry. “I’ll be all right in a minute. So sorry to make a fuss. So very sorry...”

The rector’s sermon was its usual interminable length and he was able to wish his congregation a happy Christmas as they left the church. As Henry walked back across the square he met Dr. Friar coming out of the Steeles’ house.

“Chap’s collapsed,” he murmured. “Severe epigastric pain and vomiting. Mrs. Steele came round to ask me if I would go and see him. There was blood in the vomit and that frightened her.”

“It would,” said Henry.

“He’s pretty ill,” said the doctor. “I’m getting him into hospital as soon as possible.”

“Could it have been something he ate here?” said Henry, telling him about little Miss Hooper.

“Too soon to tell but quite possible,” said the doctor gruffly. “You’d better check how the others are when you get in. I rather think Wendy might be ill, too, from the look of her when we left, and I must say my wife wasn’t feeling too grand when I went out. Ring me if you need me.”

Henry came back to a very disturbed house indeed, with several bedroom lights on. No one was very ill but Wendy and Mrs. Godiesky were distinctly unwell. Dora Watkins was perfectly all right and was busy ministering to those that weren’t.

Happily, there was no sound from the children’s room and he crept in there to place a full stocking beside each of their beds. As he came back downstairs to the hall, he thought he heard an ambulance bell next door.

“The position will be clearer in the morning,” he said to himself, a Foreign Office man to the end of his fingertips.

It was.

Half the Witherington household had had a severe gastro-intestinal upset during the night, and Robert Steele had died in the Berebury Royal Infirmary at about two o’clock in the morning.

When Henry met his sister on Christmas morning she had a very wan face indeed.

“Oh, Henry,” she cried, “isn’t it terrible about Robert Steele? And the rector says half the young Waits were ill in the night, too, and poor little Miss Hooper as well!”

“That lets the punch out, doesn’t it?” said Henry thoughtfully, “seeing as the youngsters weren’t supposed to have any.”

“Cook says...”

“Is she all right?” enquired Henry curiously.

“She hasn’t been ill, if that’s what you mean, but she’s very upset.” Wendy sounded quite nervous. “Cook says nothing like this has ever happened to her before.”

“It hasn’t happened to her now,” pointed out Henry unkindly but Wendy wasn’t listening.

“And Edward and Jennifer are all right, thank goodness,” said Wendy a little tearfully. “Tom’s beginning to feel better but I hear Mrs. Friar’s pretty ill still and poor Mrs. Godiesky is feeling terrible. And as for Robert Steele... I just don’t know what to think. Oh, Henry, I feel it’s all my fault.”

“Well, it wasn’t the lemonade,” deduced Henry. “Both children had lots. I saw them drinking it.”

“They had a mince pie each, too,” said their mother. “I noticed. But some people who had them have been very ill since...”

“Exactly, my dear. Some, but not all.”

“But what could it have been, then?” quavered Wendy. “Cook is quite sure she only used the best of everything. And it stands to reason it was something that they ate here.” She struggled to put her fears into words. “Here was the only place they all were.”

“It stands to reason that it was something they were given here,” agreed Henry, whom more than one ambassador had accused of pedantry, “which is not quite the same thing.”

She stared at him. “Henry, what do you mean?”

Inspector Milsom knew what he meant.

It was the evening of Boxing Day when he and Constable Bewman came to the Witheringtons’ house.

“A number of people would appear to have suffered from the effects of ingesting a small quantity of a dangerous substance at this address,” Milsom announced to the company assembled at his behest. “One with fatal results.”

Mrs. Godiesky shuddered. “Me, I suffer a lot.”

“Me, too,” Peter Watkins chimed in.

“But not, I think, sir, your wife?” Inspector Milsom looked interrogatively at Dora Watkins.

“No, Inspector,” said Dora. “I was quite all right.”

“Just as well,” said Tom Witherington. He still looked pale. “We needed her to look after us.”

“Quite so,” said the Inspector.

“It wasn’t food poisoning, then?” said Wendy eagerly. “Cook will be very pleased...”

“It would be more accurate, madam,” said Inspector Milsom, who didn’t have a cook to be in awe of, “to say that there was poison in the food.”

Wendy paled. “Oh...”

“This dangerous substance of which you speak,” enquired Professor Godiesky with interest, “is its nature known?”

“In England,” said the Inspector, “we call it corrosive sublimate...”

“Mercury? Ah,” the refugee nodded sagely, “that would explain everything.”

“Not quite everything, sir,” said the Inspector mildly. “Now, if we might see you one at a time, please.”

“This poison, Inspector,” said Henry after he had given his account of the carol-singing to the two policemen, “I take it that it is not easily available?”

“That is correct, sir. But specific groups of people can obtain it.”

“Doctors and pharmacists?” hazarded Henry.

“And certain manufacturers...”

“Certain... Oh, Uncle George?” said Henry. “Of course. There’s plenty of mercury in thermometers.”

“The old gentleman is definitely a little confused, sir.”

“And Professors of Chemistry?” said Henry.

“In his position,” said the Inspector judiciously, “I should myself have considered having something with me just in case.”

“There being a fate worse than death,” agreed Henry swiftly, “such as life in some places in Europe today. Inspector, might I ask what form this poison takes?”

“It’s a white crystalline substance.”

“Easily confused with sugar?”

“It would seem easily enough,” said the policeman drily.

“And what you don’t know, Inspector,” deduced Henry intelligently, “is whether it was scattered on the mince pies... I take it it was on the mince pies?”

“They were the most likely vehicle,” conceded the policeman.

“By accident or whether it was meant to make a number of people slightly ill or...”

“Or,” put in Detective Constable Bewman keenly, “one person very ill indeed?”

“Or,” persisted Henry quietly, “both.”

“That is so.” He gave a dry cough. “As it happens it did both make several people ill and one fatally so.”

“Which also might have been intended?” Nobody had ever called Henry slow.

“From all accounts,” said Milsom obliquely, “Mr. Steele had a weak tummy before he ingested the corrosive sublimate of mercury.”

“Uncle George wasn’t ill, was he?”

“No, sir, nor Dr. Friar.” He gave his dry cough. “I am told that Dr. Friar never partakes of pastry.”

“Mrs. Steele?”

“Slightly ill. She says she just had one mince pie. Mrs. Watkins didn’t have any. Nor did the Professor.”

“ ‘The one without the parsley,’ ” quoted Henry, “is the one without the poison.”

“Just so, sir. It would appear at first sight from our immediate calculations quite possible that...”

“Inspector, if you can hedge your bets as well as that before you say anything, we could find you a job in the Foreign Office.”

“Thank you, sir. As I was saying, sir, it is possible that the poison was only in the mince pies furthest from the staircase. Bewman here has done a chart of where the victims took their pies from.”

“Which would explain why some people were unaffected,” said Henry.

“Which might explain it, sir.” The Inspector clearly rivalled Henry in his precision. “The Professor just wasn’t there to take one at all. He says he went to his room to finish his wife’s Christmas present. He was carving something for her out of a piece of old wood.”

“ ‘Needs must when the devil drives,’ ” responded Henry absently. He was still thinking. “It’s a pretty little problem, as they say.”

“Means and opportunity would seem to be present,” murmured Milsom.

“That leaves motive, doesn’t it?” said Henry.

“The old gentleman mightn’t have had one, seeing he’s as he is, sir, if you take my meaning and of course we don’t know anything about the Professor and his wife, do we, sir? Not yet.”

“Not a thing.”

“That leaves the doctor...”

“I’d’ve murdered Mrs. Friar years ago,” announced Henry cheerfully, “if she had been my wife.”

“And Mrs. Steele.” There was a little pause and then Inspector Milsom said, “I understand the new young assistant at the pharmacy is more what you might call a contemporary of Mrs. Steele.”

“Ah, so that’s the way the wind’s blowing, is it?”

“And then, sir,” said the policeman, “after motive there’s still what we always call down at the station the fourth dimension of crime...”

“And what might that be, Inspector?”

“Proof.” He got up to go. “Thank you for your help, sir.”

Henry sat quite still after the two policemen had gone, his memory teasing him. Someone he knew had been poisoned with corrosive sublimate of mercury, served to him in tarts. By a tart, too, if history was to be believed.

No, not someone he knew.

Someone he knew of.

Someone they knew about at the Foreign Office because it had been a political murder, a famous political murder set round an eternal triangle...

Henry Tyler sought out Professor Godiesky and explained.

“It was recorded by contemporary authors,” Henry said, “that when the tarts poisoned with mercury were delivered to the Tower of London for Sir Thomas Overbury, the fingernail of the woman delivering them had accidentally been poked through the pastry...”

The professor nodded sapiently. “And it was stained black?”

“That’s right,” said Henry. History did have some lessons to teach, in spite of what Henry Ford had said. “But it would wash off?”

“Yes,” said Hans Godiesky simply.

“So I’m afraid that doesn’t get us anywhere, does it?”

The academic leaned forward slightly, as if addressing a tutorial. “There is, however, one substance on which mercury always leaves its mark.”

“There is?” said Henry.

“Its — how do you say it in English? — its ineradicable mark.”

“That’s how we say it,” said Henry slowly. “And which substance, sir, would that be?”

“Gold, Mr. Tyler. Mercury stains gold.”

“For ever?”

“For ever.” He waved a hand. “An amalgam is created.”

“And I,” Henry gave a faint smile, “I was foolish enough to think it was diamonds that were for ever.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing, Professor. Nothing at all. Forgive me, but I think I may be able to catch the Inspector and tell him to look to the lady. And her gold wedding ring.”

“Look to the lady?” The refugee was now totally bewildered. “I do not understand...”

“It’s a quotation.”

“Ach, sir, I fear I am only a scientist.”

“There’s a better quotation,” said Henry, “about looking to science for the righting of wrongs. I rather think Mrs. Steele may have looked to science, too, to — er — improve her lot. And if she carefully scattered the corrosive sublimate over some mince pies and not others it would have been with her left hand...”

“Because she was left-handed,” said the Professor immediately. “That I remember. And you think one mince pie would have had — I know the English think this important — more than its fair share?”

“I do. Then all she had to do was to give her husband that one and Bob’s your uncle. Clever of her to do it in someone else’s house.”

Hans Godiesky looked totally mystified. “And who was Bob?”

“Don’t worry about Bob,” said Henry from the door. “Think about Melchior and his gold instead.”

When serial killer novels, police procedurals, and violent crime fiction began to dominate the mystery genre, a handful of British authors maintained the legacy of the traditional detective story, and one of the stars of that challenging subgenre during the last quarter of the twentieth century was Robert Barnard. Born in the deliciously named town of Burnham-on-Crouch, he moved to Australia to teach after his graduation from Oxford University and then taught English at two universities in Norway before settling in Leeds. Many of his humorous and satiric detective novels feature the Scotland Yard inspector Perry Trethowan. “Boxing Unclever” was first published in A Classic Christmas Crime, edited by Tim Heald (London, Pavilion, 1995).

“The true spirit of Christmas,” said Sir Adrian Tremayne, fingering the stem of the small glass of port which was all he was allowed, “is not to be found in the gluttony and ostentation which that charlatan and sentimentalist Charles Dickens encouraged.” He looked disparagingly round at the remains of the dinner still encumbering the long table. “Not in turkey and plum pudding, still less in crackers and expensive gifts. No — a thousand times!” His voice was thrilling, but was then lowered to a whisper, and it carried as it once had carried through the theatres of the nation. “The true spirit of Christmas lies of course in reconciliation.”

“Reconciliation — very true,” said the Reverend Sykes.

“Why else, in the Christmas story, do we find simple shepherds and rich kings worshipping together in the stable?”

“I don’t think they actually—” began the Reverend Fortescue, but he was waved aside.

“To show that man is one, of one nature, in the eyes of God. This reconciliation of opposites is the one true heart of the Christmas message. That was the plan that, at every Christmastide, was acted upon by myself and my dear wife Alice, now no longer with us. Or indeed with anyone. Christmas Day we would spend quietly and simply, with just ourselves for company once the children had grown up and made their own lives. On Boxing Day we would invite a lot of people round to Herriton Hall, and in particular people with whom there had been some breech, with whom we needed to be reconciled.” He paused, reaching for reserves in that treacle and molasses voice that had thrilled audiences up and down the country.

“That was what we did that memorable Christmas of 1936. Ten... years... ago.”

There were many nods around the table, both from those who had heard the story before, and from those who were hearing it for the first time.

“Christmas Day was quiet — even, it must be confessed, a little dull,” Sir Adrian resumed. “We listened to the new King’s broadcast, and wondered at his conquest of his unfortunate speech impediment. It is always good to reflect on those who do not have one’s own natural advantages. I confess the day was for me mainly notable for a sense of anticipation. I thought with joy of the beautiful work of reconciliation that was to be undertaken on the next day. And of the other work...”

There was a regrettable snigger from one or two quarters of the table.

“Reconciliation has its limits,” suggested Martin Lovejoy.

“Regrettably it does,” acknowledged Sir Adrian, with a courteous bow in Martin’s direction. “We are but human, after all. I could only hope that the Christian work of reconciliation in all cases but one would plead for me at the Judgement Seat against that one where... Ah well, who knows? Does not the Bible speak of there being only one unforgivable sin?”

The three reverend gentlemen present all seemed to want to talk at once, which enabled Sir Adrian to sweep ahead with his story. “The first to arrive that Boxing morning was Angela Montfort, closely followed by Daniel West, the critic. Indeed, I think it probable that they in fact arrived together, because there was no sign of transport for Angela. West’s reviews of her recent performances had made me wonder — so mindlessly enthusiastic were they — whether Something was Going On. Something usually was, with Angela, and the idea that the English critic is incorruptible is pure stardust. My quarrel with Angela, however, had nothing to do with Sex. It was her ludicrous and constant upstaging of me during the national tour of Private Lives, for which I had taken over the Coward role, and gave a performance which many thought — but, no matter. Old triumphs, old triumphs.”

It was given a weary intonation worthy of Prospero’s farewell to his Art.

“And West’s offence?” asked Martin Lovejoy innocently. He was the most theatrically sophisticated of them, and he knew.

“A review in his provincial newspaper of my Malvolio,” said Sir Adrian shortly, “which was hurtful in the extreme.”

“Was that the one which spoke of your ‘shrunken shanks’?” asked Peter Carbury, who was the only person present who read the Manchester Guardian.

“A deliberate effect of costuming!” said Sir Adrian fiercely. “A very clever design by my dear friend Binkie Mather. Typical of a critic’s ignorance and malice that he could not see that.”

He took a sip of port to restore his equanimity, and while he did so Peter winked at Martin and Martin winked at Peter.

“Angela gushed, of course,” resumed Sir Adrian, “as I led her into the drawing-room. ‘So wonderful to be back at dear old Herriton again’—that kind of thing. West looked around with a cynical expression on his face. He had been there before, when I had been under the illusion that he was one of the more perceptive of the up-and-coming critics, and I knew he coveted the house, with its magnificent views over the Sussex Downs. I suspected that he found the idea of the gentleman actor rather ridiculous, but the idea of the gentleman critic not ridiculous at all. The gentleman’s code allows dabbling. West had a large independent income, which is no guarantee of sound judgement. His cynical expression was assumed, but I was relentlessly courteous to them both, and it was while I was mixing them cocktails that Alice — dear Alice — led in Frank Mandeville.”

“Her lover,” said Peter Carbury.

“My dear boy, do not show your provinciality and vulgarity,” said Sir Adrian severely. “In the theatre we take such things in our stride. Let us say merely that in the past he had been her cavalier servente.”

“Her what?” demanded Stephen Coates in an aggrieved voice. He had an oft-proclaimed and very British hatred of pretension.

“An Italian term,” explained Sir Adrian kindly, “for a man who serves a lady as a sort of additional husband. There is a long tradition of such people in Italy.”

“They are usually a lot younger,” said Peter Carbury. “As in this case.”

“Younger,” conceded Sir Adrian. “Though hardly a lot younger. Frank Mandeville had been playing juvenile leads for so long he could have taken a Ph.D. in juvenility. Alice’s... patronage of him was short and long over, and when she led him in it was clear to me from the expression on her face that she was mystified as to what had once attracted her. When I saw his hair, slicked back with so much oil that it must have felt like being pleasured by a garage mechanic, I felt similarly mystified.”

“It must have been a jolly party,” commented Stephen Coates. Sir Adrian smiled at him, to signify to all that Stephen was not the sort of young man who could be expected to understand the ways of polite, still less theatrical, society.

“I must confess that when Frank bounced in Angela did say, ‘What is this?’ and looked suspiciously from Alice to me and back. But we had taken — I had taken — the precaution of inviting a number of local nonentities — the headmaster of a good school, an impoverished squire and his dreary wife, at least two vicars, and other such good people — and as they now began arriving they, so to speak, defused suspicion.”

“Suspicion?” asked Mike, who had never heard the story before and was far from bright. Sir Adrian waved his hand with an airy grandness gained playing aristocrats of the old school.

“It was not until things were well under way that Richard Mallatrat and his wife arrived.”

“The greatest Hamlet of his generation,” put in Peter Carbury, with malicious intent.

“I cannot think of fainter praise,” responded Sir Adrian loftily. “The art of Shakespearean acting is dead. If the newspapers are to be believed the Theatre today is dominated by young Olivier, who can no more speak the Bard than he can underplay a role.”

“You and Mallatrat were rivals for the part, weren’t you?” Carbury asked. Sir Adrian, after a pause, allowed the point.

“At the Old Vic. No money to speak of, but a great deal of prestige. I certainly wanted the part badly.”

“To revive your career?” suggested the Reverend Sykes. He received a look of concentrated hatred.

“My career has never needed revival! To show the younger generation how it should be done! To set standards for people who had lost the true art of acting. Instead of which Mallatrat was given the role and had in it a showy success, lacking totally the quality of thought, which is essential to the role, and quite without too the music which... another more experienced actor would have brought to it.” He bent forward malevolently, eyes glinting. “And I was offered the role of Polonius.”

“It’s a good role,” said the Reverend Fortescue, probably to rub salt in the wound. He was ignored.

“That was his malice, of course. He organized that, put the management up to it, then told the story to all his friends. I never played the Old Vic again. I had to disappoint my legion of fans, but there are some insults not to be brooked.”

“You did try to get even through his wife, didn’t you?” asked Martin Lovejoy, who was all too well informed in that sort of area.

“A mere newspaper story. Gloria Davere was not then his wife, though as good as, and she was not the trumpery Hollywood ‘star’ she has since become. Certainly we had — what is this new film called? — a brief encounter. I have told you the morality of the theatre is not the morality of Leamington Spa or Catford. We happened to meet on Crewe Station one Saturday night, after theatre engagements elsewhere. I confess — sordid though it may sound — that for me it was no more than a means of passing the time, stranded as we were by the vagaries of the London, Midland, and Scottish Railway. But the thought did occur to me that I would be teaching this gauche young thing more gracious ways — introducing her to the lovemaking of an earlier generation, when romance still reigned, and a lady was treated with chivalry and respect.”

“I believe she told the News of the World it was like fucking Old Father Time,” said Carbury to Martin Lovejoy, but so sotto was his voce that Sir Adrian was able to roll on regardless.

“She later, of course, talked, and spitefully, but the idea that our encounter had anything in it of revenge on my part is sheer moonshine. On her part, perhaps, in view of the talk she put around, but as to myself, I plead innocent of any such sordid emotion.”

“So that was the cast-list assembled, was it?” asked the Reverend Sykes.

“Nearly, nearly,” said Sir Adrian, with the unhurried stance of the habitual narrator, which in the case of this story he certainly was. “Thus far the party seemed to be going well. The attractions of Richard Mallatrat and his flashy wife to the nonentities was something I had anticipated: they crowded around them, larding them with gushing compliments and expressions of admiration for this or that trumpery performance on stage or screen. Everyone, it seemed, had seen a Gloria Davere talkie or Richard Mallatrat as Hamlet, or Romeo, or Richard II. I knew it would be nauseating, and nauseating it was. Angela Montfort, for one, was immensely put out, with no knot of admirers to feed her self-love. She contented herself with swapping barbs with Frank Mandeville, who was of course enraged by the attention paid to Richard Mallatrat.”

“Hardly a Shakespearean actor, though, this Frank Mandeville,” commented Peter Carbury.

“Hardly an actor at all,” amended Sir Adrian. “But logic does not come into theatrical feuds and jealousies. Mandeville playing Hamlet would hardly have passed muster on a wet Tuesday in Bolton, but that did not stop him grinding his teeth at the popularity of Richard Mallatrat.”

“He wasn’t the only one,” whispered Stephen Coates.

“And so it was time for a second round of drinks. I decided on that as I saw toiling up the drive the figure of my dear old dresser Jack Roden. My once-dear old dresser. I poured out a variety of drinks including some already-mixed cocktails, two kinds of sherry, some gins and tonic, and two glasses of neat whisky. There was only one person in the room with the appalling taste to drink neat whisky before luncheon. Pouring two glasses gave that person a fifty-fifty chance of survival. Depending on how the tray was presented. With my back to the guests I dropped the hyoscine into one of the whisky glasses.”

“Who was the whisky-drinker?” asked Roland, knowing the question would not be answered.

“The one with the worst taste,” said Sir Adrian dismissively. “Then I went off to open the front door. Jack shuffled in, muttering something about the dreadful train and bus service you got over Christmas. He was a pathetic sight. The man who had been seduced away from me by Richard Mallatrat, and then dumped because he was not up to the contemporary demands of the job, could hardly any longer keep himself clean and neat, let alone anyone else. I threw the bottle of hyoscine as far as I could manage into the shrubbery, then ushered him with conspicuous kindness in to the drawing-room, solicitously introducing him to people he didn’t know and people he did. ‘But you two are old friends,’ I remember saying when I led him up the scoundrel Mallatrat. Even that bounder had the grace to smile a mite queasily. Out of the corner of my eye I was pleased to see that some of the guests had already helped themselves from the tray.”

“Why were you pleased?”

“It meant that others than myself had been up the tray. And it would obviously be theatrical people — the nonentities wouldn’t dare.”

“It doesn’t sound the happiest of parties,” commented Lovejoy.

“Doesn’t it? Oh, but theatre people can relax anywhere, particularly if there are admirers present. Once some of the nonentities felt they should tear themselves away from the star duo of Mallatrat and Davere, then Angela got her share of attention, and Alice as hostess had her little knot — she had left the stage long before, of course, though she was still by nature a stage person. No, it was far from an unhappy party.”

“Until the fatality,” suggested the Reverend Fortescue.

“Until the fatality,” agreed Sir Adrian. “Though even that...”

“Did not dampen spirits?”

“Not entirely. Poison is slow, of course. You can have a quick, dramatic effect with cyanide — even I have acted on occasion in thrillers, and know that — but most of them take their time. People thought at first it was an upset tummy. Alice said she hoped that was all it was. She of course was not in on my plans. I’ve never found women entirely reliable, have you?”

He looked around the table. None of his listeners had found women entirely reliable.

“So it wasn’t she who took the tray round?” asked Simon. “Was it one of your servants?”

“No, indeed. The servants had been set to preparing lunch, and that was all they did. As a gentleman I had an instinctive aversion to involving faithful retainers in... a matter of this kind.”

“I assume you didn’t take it round yourself, though?”

“I did not. I tapped poor old Jack Roden on the shoulder — he was deep in rambling reminiscence with Daniel West (viewpoints from well away from the footlights) — and I asked him if he could help by taking round fresh drinks. That had always been my plan, though I confess that when I saw how doddering and uncertain he had become I very nearly changed it, fearing he would drop everything on the floor. But I placed the tray in his hands exactly as I wanted it, so that the poisoned whisky would be closest to hand when he got to the victim.”

“And — to state the obvious — the victim took it,” suggested the Reverend Fortescue.

“He took it. That was the signal for the toast. I cleared my throat and all fell silent. I flatter myself I know how to enforce silence. I had thought hard about the toast, and even today I think it rather beautiful. ‘My friends,’ I said. ‘To friends old and new, to renewal and reconciliation, to the true spirit of Christmas.’ There was much warm assent to my words, and glasses were raised. We all drank to Christmas, and the victim drank his down.”

“He wasn’t a sipper?” enquired Stephen.

“No. The victim was the sort who drank down and then had an interval before the next. I rather think myself that sipping is more social.”

“How long was it before the effects were felt?”

“Oh, twenty minutes or more,” said Sir Adrian, his face set in a reminiscent smile. “First just the look of queasiness, then some time later confessions of feeling ill. Alice was all solicitude. She took the victim to my study, plied him with glasses of water, nostrums from our medicine cupboard. He was sweating badly, and his vision was impaired. Finally she came in and suggested that I ring Dr. Cameron from the village. He was not happy at being fetched out on Boxing Day, particularly as he had not been invited to the party.”

“Because he might have spotted what was wrong with him and saved him in time?”

“Precisely. Fortunately Dr. Cameron was the old-fashioned type of doctor, now rare, who went everywhere on foot. By the time he arrived, all Scottish tetchiness and wounded self-esteem, there was nothing to be done. Then it was questions, suspicions, and eventually demands that the police be called in. It made for an exciting if somewhat uneasy atmosphere — not a Boxing Day, I fancy, that anyone present will forget.”

“And the police were quick to fix the blame, were they?” asked Mike. Sir Adrian sighed a Chekhovian sigh.

“Faster, I confess, than even I could have feared. The village bobby was an unknown quantity to me, being new to the district. I had counted on a thick-headed rural flatfoot of the usual kind, but even my first impression told me that he was unusually bright. He telephoned at once for a superior from Mordwick, the nearest town, but before he arrived with the usual team so familiar to us from detective fiction, the local man had established the main sequence of events, and could set out clearly for the investigating inspector’s benefit all the relevant facts.”

“But those facts would have left many people open to suspicion,” suggested Peter Carbury.

“Oh, of course. Practically all the theatre people had been near the tray, except the victim, and all of them might be thought to bear malice to the victim. It was, alas, my wife Alice who narrowed things down so disastrously — quite inadvertently, of course.” Sir Adrian was unaware that the foot of the Reverend Sykes touched the foot of the Reverend Fortescue at this point. They knew a thing or two about human nature, those clerics. And not just their own sins of the flesh. “Yes, Alice was apparently already on friendly terms with our new constable.” The feet touched again. “And when she was chatting to him quite informally after a somewhat fraught lunch, she happened to mention at some point that she had been standing near the window and imagined she saw something flying through the air.”

“The bottle?”

“The bottle. That did it. The grounds were searched, the bottle was found, and its content analysed. Then there could be no doubt.”

“No doubt?” asked Mike, not the brightest person there.

“Because the hyoscine had been put in the second round of drinks, and the only person who had left the room to go to the door had been myself — to let in Jack Roden. Roden could not have done it because the bottle was empty and thrown away by the time he got into the drawing-room. It could only be me. I was arrested and charged, and Theatre was the poorer.”

They all shook their heads, conscious they had reached the penultimate point in Sir Adrian’s narrative.

“Come along all,” said Archie by the door, on cue and jangling his keys. “Time you were making a move. We’ve got Christmas dinner to go to as well, you know.”

“But tell us,” said Mike who, apart from being stupid, hadn’t heard the story before, “who the victim was.”

Sir Adrian turned and surveyed them, standing around the table and the debris of their meal. He was now well into the run of this particular performance: there had been ten Christmases since a concerted chorus of Thespians had persuaded the new King not to celebrate his coronation with a theatrical knight on the scaffold. His head came forward and his stance came to resemble his long-ago performance as Richard III.

“You have to ask?” he rasped. “Who else could it be but the critic?” How he spat it out! “Who else could it be but the man who had libelled my legs?”

As he turned and led the shuffle back to the cells all eyes were fixed on the shrunken thighs and calves of one who had once been to tights what Betty Grable now was to silk stockings.

All the books Peter Lovesey wrote in the early part of his career were set in the past, including the Victorian-era adventures of Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray, who made their debut in Wobble to Death (1970) and went on to become the basis for a popular television series on the PBS Mystery! program. He later wrote a series featuring Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, better known as Bertie — later King Edward VII. His more recent novels, notably those featuring the irascible Bath detective Peter Diamond, have been set in contemporary times. “The Proof of the Pudding” was first published in A Classic Christmas Crime, edited by Tim Heald (London, Pavilion, 1995).

Frank Morris strode into the kitchen and slammed a cold, white turkey on the kitchen table. “Seventeen pounds plucked. Satisfied?”

His wife Wendy was at the sink, washing the last few breakfast bowls. Her shoulders had tensed. “What’s that, Frank?”

“You’re not even bloody looking, woman.”

She took that as a command and wheeled around, rubbing her wet hands on the apron. “A turkey! That’s a fine bird. It really is.”

“Fine?” Frank erupted. “It’s nineteen forty-six, for Christ’s sake! It’s a bloody miracle. Most of them round here will be sitting down to joints of pork and mutton — if they’re lucky. I bring a bloody great turkey in on Christmas morning, and all you say is ‘fine’?”

“I just wasn’t prepared for it.”

“You really get my goat, you do.”

Wendy said tentatively, “Where did it come from, Frank?”

Her huge husband stepped towards her and for a moment she thought he would strike her. He lowered his face until it was inches from hers. Not even nine in the morning and she could smell sweet whisky on his breath. “I won it, didn’t I?” he said, daring her to disbelieve. “A meat raffle in the Valiant Trooper last night.”

Wendy nodded, pretending to be taken in. It didn’t do to challenge Frank’s statements. Black eyes and beatings had taught her well. She knew Frank’s rule of fist had probably won him the turkey, too. Frank didn’t lose at anything. If he could punch his way to another man’s prize, then he considered it fair game.

“Just stuff the thing and stick it in the oven,” he ordered. “Where’s the boy?”

“I think he’s upstairs,” Wendy replied warily. Norman had fled at the sound of Frank’s key in the front door.

“Upstairs?” Frank ranted. “On bloody Christmas Day?”

“I’ll call him.” Wendy was grateful for the excuse to move away from Frank to the darkened hallway. “Norman,” she gently called. “Your father’s home. Come and wish him a Happy Christmas.”

A pale, solemn young boy came cautiously downstairs, pausing at the bottom to hug his mother. Unlike most children of his age — he was nine — Norman was sorry that the war had ended in 1945. He had pinned his faith in the enemy putting up a stiff fight and extending it indefinitely. He still remembered the VE Day street party, sitting at a long wooden bench surrounded by laughing neighbours. He and his mother had found little to celebrate in the news that “the boys will soon be home.”

Wendy smoothed down his hair, whispered something, and led him gently into the kitchen.

“Happy Christmas, Dad,” he said, then added unprompted, “Did you come home last night?”

Wendy said quickly, “Never you mind about that, Norman.” She didn’t want her son provoking Frank on this of all days.

Frank didn’t appear to have heard. He was reaching up to the top shelf of a cupboard, a place where he usually kept his old army belt. Wendy pushed her arm protectively in front of the boy.

But instead of the belt, Frank took down a brown paper parcel. “Here you are, son,” he said, beckoning to Norman. “You’ll be the envy of the street in this. I saved it for you, specially.”

Norman stepped forward. He unwrapped his present, egged on by his grinning father.

He now owned an old steel helmet. “Thanks, Dad,” he said politely, turning it in his hands.

“I got it off a dead Jerry,” Frank said with gusto. “The bastard who shot your Uncle Ted. Sniper, he was. Holed up in a bombed-out building in Potsdam, outside Berlin. He got Ted with a freak shot. Twelve of us stormed the building and took him out.”

“Outside?”

“Topped him, Norman. See the hole round the back? That’s from a Lee Enfield .303. Mine.” Frank levelled an imaginary rifle to Wendy’s head and squeezed the trigger, miming both the recoil and report. “There wasn’t a lot left of Fritz after we’d finished. But I brought back the helmet for you, son. Wear it with pride. It’s what your Uncle Ted would have wanted.” He took the helmet and rammed it on the boy’s head.

Norman grimaced. He felt he was about to be sick.

“Frank dear, perhaps we should put it away until he’s a bit older,” Wendy tried her tact. “We wouldn’t want such a special thing to get damaged, would we? You know what young boys are like.”

Frank was unimpressed. “What are you talking about — ‘special thing’? It’s a bloody helmet, not a thirty-piece tea service. Look at the lad. He’s totally stunned. He loves it. Why don’t you get on and stuff that ruddy great turkey, like I told you?”

“Yes, Frank.”

Norman raised his hand, his small head an absurd sight in the large helmet. “May I go now?”

Frank beamed. “Of course, son. Want to show it off to all your friends, do you?”

Norman nodded, causing the helmet to slip over his eyes. He lifted it off his head. Smiling weakly at his father, he left the kitchen and dashed upstairs. The first thing he would do was wash his hair.

Wendy began to wash and prepare the bird, listening to Frank.

“I know just how the kid feels. I still remember my old Dad giving me a bayonet he brought back from Flanders. Said he ran six men through with it. I used to look for specks of blood, and he’d tell me how he stuck them like pigs. It was the best Christmas present I ever had.”

“I’ve got you a little something for Christmas. It’s behind the clock,” said Wendy, indicating a small package wrapped in newspaper and string.

“A present?” Frank snatched it up and tore the wrapping away. “Socks?” he said in disgust. “Is that it? Our first Christmas together in three bloody years, and all you can give your husband is a miserable pair of socks.”

“I don’t have much money, Frank,” Wendy reminded him, and instantly wished she had not.

Frank seized her by the shoulders, practically tipping the turkey off the kitchen table. “Are you saying that’s my fault?”

“No, love.”

“I’m not earning enough — is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

Wendy tried to pacify him, at the same time bracing herself for the violent shaking that would surely follow. Frank tightened his grip, forced her away from the table, and pushed her hard against the cupboard door, punctuating each word with a thump.

“That helmet cost me nothing,” he ranted. “Don’t you understand, woman? It’s the thought that counts. You don’t need money to show affection. You just need some savvy, some intelligence. Bloody socks — an insult!”

He shoved her savagely towards the table again. “Now get back to your work. This is Christmas Day. I’m a reasonable man. I’m prepared to overlook your stupidity. Stop snivelling, will you, and get that beautiful bird in the oven. Mum will be here at ten. I want the place smelling of turkey. I’m not having you ruining my Christmas.”

He strode out, heavy boots clumping on the wooden floor of the hallway. “I’m going round to Polly’s,” he shouted. “She knows how to treat a hero. Look at this dump. No decorations, no holly over the pictures. You haven’t even bought any beer, that I’ve seen. Sort something out before I get back.”

Wendy was still reeling from the shaking, but she knew she must speak before he left. If she didn’t remind him now, there would be hell to pay later. “Polly said she would bring the Christmas pudding, Frank. Would you make sure she doesn’t forget? Please, Frank.”

He stood grim-faced in the doorway, silhouetted against the drab terraced houses opposite. “Don’t tell me what to do, Wendy,” he said threateningly. “You’re the one due for a damned good reminding of what to do round here.”

The door shook in its frame. Wendy stood at the foot of the stairs, her heart pounding. She knew what Frank meant by a damned good reminding. The belt wasn’t used only on the boy.

“Is he gone, Mum?” Norman called from the top stair.

Wendy nodded, readjusting the pins in her thin, blonde hair, and drying her eyes. “Yes, love. You can come downstairs now.”

At the foot of the stairs, he told her, “I don’t want the helmet. It frightens me.”

“I know, dear.”

“I think there’s blood on it. I don’t want it. If it belonged to one of our soldiers, or one of the Yankees, I’d want it, but this is a dead man’s helmet.”

Wendy hugged her son. The base of her spine throbbed. A sob was building at the back of her throat.

“Where’s he gone?” Norman asked from the folds of her apron.

“To collect your Aunt Polly. She’s bringing a Christmas pudding, you know. We’d better make custard. I’m going to need your help.

“Was he there last night?” Norman asked innocently. “With Aunt Polly? Is it because she doesn’t have Uncle Ted any more?”

“I don’t know, Norman.” In truth, she didn’t want to know. Her widowed sister-in-law was welcome to Frank. Polly didn’t know the relief Wendy felt to be rid of him sometimes. Any humiliation was quite secondary to the fact that Frank stopped out all night, bringing respite from the tension and the brutality. The local gossips had been quick to suspect the truth, but she could do nothing to stop them.

Norman, sensing the direction her thoughts had taken, said, “Billy Slater says Dad and Aunt Polly are doing it.”

“That’s enough, Norman.”

“He says she’s got no elastic in her drawers. What does he mean, Mum?”

“Billy Slater is a disgusting little boy. Now let’s hear no more of this. We’ll make the custard.”

Norman spent the next hour helping his mother in the kitchen. The turkey barely fitted in the oven, and Norman became concerned that it wouldn’t be ready in time. Wendy knew better. There was ample time for the cooking. They couldn’t start until Frank and Polly rolled home from the Valiant Trooper. With last orders at a quarter to three, it gave the bird five hours to roast.

A gentle knock at the front door sent Norman hurrying to open it.

“Mum, it’s Grandma Morris!” he called out excitedly as he led the plump old woman into the kitchen. Maud Morris had been a marvellous support through the war years. She knew exactly when help was wanted.

“I’ve brought you some veggies,” Maud said to Wendy, dumping a bag of muddy cabbage and carrots on the table and removing her coat and hat. “Where’s that good-for-nothing son of mine? Need I ask?”

“He went to fetch Polly,” Wendy calmly replied.

“Did he, indeed?”

Norman said, “About an hour ago. I expect they’ll go to the pub.”

The old lady went into the hall to hang up her things. When she returned, she said to Wendy, “You know what people are saying, don’t you?”

Wendy ignored the question. “He brought in a seventeen-pound turkey this morning.”

“Have you got a knife?” her mother-in-law asked.

“A knife?”

“For the cabbage.” Maud turned to look at her grandson. “Have you had some good presents?”

Norman stared down at his shoe-laces.

Wendy said, “Grandma asked you a question, dear.”

“Did you get everything you asked for?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you write to Saint Nick?” Maud asked with a sideward glance at Wendy.

Norman rolled his eyes upwards. “I don’t believe in that stuff anymore.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Dad gave me a dead German’s helmet. He says it belonged to the one who shot Uncle Ted. I hate it.”

Wendy gathered the carrots from the table and put them in the sink. “I’m sure he was only doing what he thought was best, Norman.”

“It’s got a bullet hole.”

“Didn’t he give you anything else?” his grandmother asked.

Norman shook his head. “Mum gave me some chocolate and the Dandy Annual.”

“But your dad didn’t give you a thing apart from the helmet?”

Wendy said, “Please don’t say anything. You know what it’s like.”

Maud Morris nodded. It was pointless to admonish her son. He’d only take it out on Wendy. She knew from personal experience the dilemma of the battered wife. To protest was to invite more violence. The knowledge that her second son had turned out such a bully shamed and angered her. Ted, her dear first-born Ted, would never have harmed a woman. Yet Ted had been taken from her. She took an apron from the back of the door and started shredding the cabbage. Norman was sent to lay the table in the front room.

Four hours later, when the King was speaking to the nation, they heard a key being tried at the front door. Wendy switched off the wireless. The door took at least three attempts to open before Frank and Polly stumbled in to the hallway. Frank stood swaying, a bottle in his hand and a paper hat cocked ridiculously on the side of his head. His sister-in-law clung to his coat, convulsed in laughter, a pair of ankle-strap shoes dangling from her right hand.

“Happy Christmas!” Frank roared. “Peace on earth and goodwill to all men except the Jerries and the lot next door.”

Polly doubled up in uncontrollable giggling.

“Let me take your coat, Polly,” Wendy offered. “Did you remember the pudding? I want to get it on right away.”

Polly turned to Frank. “The pudding. What did you do with the pudding, Frank?”

“What pudding?” said Frank.

Maud had come into the hall behind Wendy. “I know she’s made one. Don’t mess about, Frank. Where is it?”

Frank pointed vaguely over his shoulder.

Wendy said despairingly, “Back at Polly’s house? Oh no!”

“Stupid cow. What are you talking about?” said Frank. “It’s on our own bloody doorstep. I had to put it down to open the door, didn’t I?”

Wendy squeezed past them and retrieved the white basin covered with a grease-proof paper top. She carried it quickly through to the kitchen and lowered it into the waiting saucepan of simmering water. “It looks a nice big one.”

This generous remark caused another gale of laughter from Polly. Finally, slurring her words, she announced, “You’ll have to make allowances. Your old man’s a very naughty boy. He’s took me out and got me tiddly.”

Maud said, “It beats me where he gets the money from.”

“Beats Wendy, too, I expect,” said Polly. She leaned closer to her sister-in-law, a lock of brown hair swaying across her face. “From what I’ve heard, you know a bit about beating, don’t you, Wen?” The remark was not made in sympathy. It was triumphant.

Wendy felt the shame redden her face. Polly smirked and swung around, causing her black skirt to swirl as she left the room. The thick pencil lines she had drawn up the back of her legs to imitate stocking seams were badly smudged higher up. Wendy preferred not to think why.

She took the well-cooked bird from the oven, transferred it to a platter, and carried it into the front room. Maud and Norman brought in the vegetables.

“Would you like to carve, Frank?”

“Hold your horses, woman. We haven’t said the grace.”

Wendy started to say, “But we never...”

Frank had already intoned the words, “Dear Lord God Almighty.”

Everyone dipped their heads.

“Thanks for what we are about to receive,” Frank went on, “and for seeing to it that a skinny little half-pint won the meat raffle and decided to donate it to the Morris family.”

Maud clicked her tongue in disapproval.

Polly began to giggle.

“I can’t begin to understand the workings of your mysterious ways,” Frank insisted on going on, “because if there really is someone up there he should have made damned sure my brother Ted was sitting at this table today.”

Maud said, “That’s enough, Frank! Sit down.”

Frank said, “Amen. Where’s the carving knife?”

Wendy handed it to him, and he attended to the task, cutting thick slices and heaping them on the plates held by his mother. “That’s for Polly. She likes it steaming hot.”

Polly giggled again.

The plates were distributed around the table.

Not to be outdone in convivial wit, Polly said, “You’ve gone overboard on the breast, Frankie dear. I thought you were a leg man.”

Maud said tersely, “You should know.”

“Careful, Mum,” Frank cautioned, wagging the knife. “Goodwill to all men.”

Polly said, “Only if they behave themselves.”

A voice piped up, “Bill Slater says that—”

“Be quiet, Norman!” Wendy ordered.

They ate in heavy silence, save for Frank’s animalistic chewing and swallowing. The first to finish, he quickly filled his glass with more beer.

“Dad?”

“Yes, son.”

“Would we have won the war without the Americans?”

“The Yanks?” Frank scoffed. “Bunch of part-timers, son. They only came into it after men like me and your Uncle Ted had done all the real fighting. Just like the other war, the one my old Dad won. They waited till 1917. Isn’t that a fact, Mum? Americans? Where were they at Dunkirk? Where were they in Africa? I’ll tell you where they were — sitting on their fat backsides a couple of thousand miles away.”

“From what I remember, Frank,” Maud interjected. “You were sitting on yours in the snug-bar of the Valiant Trooper.”

“That was different!” Frank protested angrily. “Ted and I didn’t get called up until 1943. And when we were, we did our share. We chased Jerry all the way across Europe, right back to the bunker. Ted and me, brothers in arms, fighting for King and country. Ready to make the ultimate sacrifice. If Dad could have heard what you said just then, Mum, he’d turn in his grave.”

Maud said icily, “That would be difficult, seeing that he’s in a pot on my mantelpiece.”

Polly burst into helpless laughter and almost choked on a roast potato. It was injudicious of her.

“Belt up, will you?” Frank demanded. “We’re talking about the sacred memory of your dead husband. My brother.”

“Sorry, Frank.” Polly covered her mouth with her hands. “I don’t know what came over me. Honest.”

“You have no idea, you women,” Frank went on. “God knows what you got up to, while we were winning the war.”

“Anyway,” said Norman, “Americans have chewing gum. And jeeps.”

Fortunately, at this moment Frank was being distracted.

Wendy whispered in Norman’s ear and they both began clearing the table, but Maud put her hand over Wendy’s. She said, “Why don’t you sit down? You’ve done more than enough. I’ll fetch the pudding and custard. I’d like to get up for a while. It’s beginning to get a little warm in here.”

Polly offered to help. “It is my pudding, after all.” But she didn’t mean to get up because, unseen by the others, she had her hand on Frank’s thigh.

Maud said, “I’ll manage.”

Norman asked, “Is it a proper pudding?”

“I don’t know what you mean by proper,” said Polly. “It used up most of my rations when I made it. They have to mature, do puddings. This one is two years old. It should be delicious. There was only one drawback. In 1944, I didn’t have a man at home to help me stir the ingredients.” She gave Frank a coy smile.

Ignoring it, Wendy said, “When Norman asked if it was a proper pudding, I think he wanted to know if he might find a lucky sixpence inside.”

With a simper, Polly said, “He might, if he’s a good boy, like his dad. Of course it’s a proper pudding.”

Frank quipped, “What about the other sort? Do you ever make an improper pudding?”

Before anyone could stop him, Norman said, “You should know, Dad.” His reflexes were too quick for his drunken father’s, and the swinging blow missed him completely.

“You’ll pay for that remark, my son,” Frank shouted. “You’ll wash your mouth out with soap and water and then I’ll beat your backside raw.”

Wendy said quickly, “The boy doesn’t know what he’s saying, Frank. It’s Christmas. Let’s forgive and forget, shall we?”

He turned his anger on her. “And I know very well who puts these ideas in the boy’s head. And spreads the filthy rumours all over town. You can have your Christmas Day, Wendy. Make the most of it, because tomorrow I’m going to teach you why they call it Boxing Day.”

Maud entered the suddenly silent front room carrying the dark, upturned pudding decorated with a sprig of holly. “Be an angel and fetch the custard, Norman.”

The boy was thankful to run out to the kitchen.

Frank glanced at the pudding and then at Polly and then grinned. “What a magnificent sight!” He was staring at her cleavage.

Polly beamed at him, fully herself again, her morale restored by the humiliation her sister-in-law had just suffered. “The proof of the pudding...” she murmured.

“We’ll see if 1944 was a vintage year,” said Frank.

Maud sliced and served the pudding, giving Norman an extra large helping. The pudding was a delicious one, as Polly had promised, and there were complimentary sounds all round the table.

Norman sifted the rich, fruity mass with his spoon, hoping for one of those coveted silver sixpenny pieces. But Frank was the first to find one.

“You can have a wish. Whatever you like, lucky man,” said Polly in a husky, suggestive tone.

Frank’s thoughts were in another direction. “I wish,” he said sadly, holding the small coin between finger and thumb, “I wish God’s peace to my brother Ted, rest his soul. And I wish a Happy Christmas to all the blokes who fought with us and survived. And God rot all our enemies. And the bloody Yanks, come to that.”

“That’s about four wishes,” Polly said, “and it won’t come true if you tell everyone.”

Wendy felt the sharp edge of a sixpence in her mouth, and removed it unnoticed by the others. She wished him out of her life, with all her heart.

Norman finally found his piece of the pudding’s buried treasure. He spat the coin onto his plate and then examined it closely. “Look at this!” he said in surprise. “It isn’t a sixpence. It doesn’t have the King’s head.”

“Give it here.” Frank picked up the silver coin. “Jesus Christ! He’s right. It’s a dime. An American dime. How the hell did that get in the pudding?”

All eyes turned to Polly for an explanation. She stared wide-eyed at Frank. She was speechless.

Frank was not. He had reached his own conclusion. “I’ll tell you exactly how it got in there,” he said, thrusting it under Polly’s nose. “You’ve been stirring it up with a Yank. There was a GI base down the road, wasn’t there? When did you say you made the pudding? 1944?”

He rose from the table, spittle flying as he ranted. Norman slid from his chair and hid under the table, clinging in fear to his mother’s legs. He saw his father’s heavy boots turned towards Polly, whose legs braced. The hem of her dress was quivering.

Frank’s voice boomed around the small room. “Ted and I were fighting like bloody heroes while you were having it off with Americans. Whore!”

Norman saw a flash of his father’s hand as it reached into the fireplace and picked up a poker. He heard the women scream, then a sickening thump.

The poker fell to the floor. Polly’s legs jerked once and then appeared to relax. One of her arms flopped down and remained quite still. A drop of blood fell from the table edge. Presently there was another. Then it became a trickle. A crimson pool formed on the wooden floor.

Norman ran out of the room. Out of the house. Out into the cold afternoon, leaving the screams behind. He ran across the street and beat on a neighbour’s door with his fists. His frantic cries of “Help, murder!” filled the street. Within a short time an interested crowd in party hats had surrounded him. He pointed in horror to his own front door as his blood-stained father charged out and lurched towards him.

It took three men to hold Frank Morris down, and five policemen to take him away. The last of the policemen didn’t leave the house until long after Norman should have gone to bed. His mother and his grandmother sat silent for some time in the kitchen, unable to stay in the front room, even though Polly’s body had been taken away.

“He’s not going to come back, is he, Mum?”

Wendy shook her head. She was only beginning to think about what happened next. There would be a trial, of course, and she would try to shield Norman from the publicity. He was so impressionable.

“Will they hang him?”

“I think it’s time for your bed, young man,” Maud said. “You’ve got to be strong. Your mum will need your support more than ever now.”

The boy asked, “How did the dime get in the pudding, Grandma Morris?”

Wendy snapped out of her thoughts of what was to come and stared at her mother-in-law.

Maud went to the door, and for a moment it appeared as if she was reaching to put on her coat prior to leaving, but she had already promised to stay the night. Actually she was taking something from one of the pockets.

It was a Christmas card, a little bent at the edges now. Maud handed it to Wendy. “It was marked ‘private and confidential’ but it had my name, you see. I opened it thinking it was for me. It came last week. The address was wrong. They made a mistake over the house number. The postman delivered it to the wrong Mrs. Morris.”

Wendy took the card and opened it.

“The saddest thing is,” Maud continued to speak as Wendy read the message inside, “he is the only son I have left, but I really can’t say I’m sorry it turned out this way. I know what he did to you, Wendy. His father did the same to me for nearly forty years. I had to break the cycle. I read the card, love. I had no idea. I couldn’t let this chance pass by. For your sake, and the boy’s.”

A tear rolled down Wendy’s cheek. Norman watched as the two women hugged. The card drifted from Wendy’s lap and he pounced on it immediately. His eager eyes scanned every word.

Norman looked up at his grandmother and understood what she had done, and why. He didn’t speak. He could keep a secret as well as a grown-up. He was the man of the house now, at least until they got to America.

In a brilliant marketing decision, the cousins who collaborated under the pseudonym Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee) also named their detective Ellery Queen. They reasoned that if readers forgot the name of the author or the name of the character, they might remember the other. It worked, as Ellery Queen is counted among the handful of best-known names in the history of mystery fiction. More than a dozen movies, as well as several radio and television shows, were based on Queen books. “The Adventure of the Dauphin’s Doll” was first published in the December 1948 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

There is a law among storytellers, originally passed by Editors at the cries (they say) of their constituents, which states that stories about Christmas shall have children in them. This Christmas story is no exception; indeed, misopedists will complain that we have overdone it. And we confess in advance that this is also a story about Dolls, and that Santa Claus comes into it, and even a Thief; though as to this last, whoever he was — and that was one of the questions — he was certainly not Barabbas, even parabolically.

Another section of the statute governing Christmas stories provides that they shall incline towards Sweetness and Light. The first arises, of course, from the orphans and the never-souring savor of the annual Miracle; as for Light, it will be provided at the end, as usual, by that luminous prodigy, Ellery Queen. The reader of gloomier temper will also find a large measure of Darkness, in the person and works of one who, at least in Inspector Queen’s harassed view, was surely the winged Prince of that region. His name, by the way, was not Satan, it was Comus; and this is paradox enow, since the original Comus, as everyone knows, was the god of festive joy and mirth, emotions not commonly associated with the Underworld. As Ellery struggled to embrace his phantom foe, he puzzled over this non sequitur in vain; in vain, that is, until Nikki Porter, no scorner of the obvious, suggested that he might seek the answer where any ordinary mortal would go at once. And there, to the great man’s mortification, it was indeed to be found: On page 262b of Volume 6, Coleb to Damasci, of the 175th Anniversary edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. A French conjuror of that name — Comus — performing in London in the year 1789 caused his wife to vanish from the top of a table — the very first time, it appeared, that this feat, uxorial or otherwise, had been accomplished without the aid of mirrors. To track his dark adversary’s nom de nuit to its historic lair gave Ellery his only glint of satisfaction until that blessed moment when light burst all around him and exorcised the darkness, Prince and all.

But this is chaos.

Our story properly begins not with our invisible character but with our dead one.

Miss Ypson had not always been dead; au contraire. She had lived for seventy-eight years, for most of them breathing hard. As her father used to remark, “She was a very active little verb.” Miss Ypson’s father was a professor of Greek at a small Midwestern university. He had conjugated his daughter with the rather bewildered assistance of one of his brawnier students, an Iowa poultry heiress.

Professor Ypson was a man of distinction. Unlike most professors of Greek, he was a Greek professor of Greek, having been born Gerasymos Aghamos Ypsilonomon in Polykhnitos, on the island of Mytilini, “where,” he was fond of recalling on certain occasions, “burning Sappho loved and sung” — a quotation he found unfailingly useful in his extracurricular activities; and, the Hellenic ideal notwithstanding, Professor Ypson believed wholeheartedly in immoderation in all things. This hereditary and cultural background explains the professor’s interest in fatherhood — to his wife’s chagrin, for Mrs. Ypson’s own breeding prowess was confined to the barnyards on which her income was based — a fact of which her husband sympathetically reminded her whenever he happened to sire another wayward chick; he held their daughter to be nothing less than a biological miracle.

The professor’s mental processes also tended to confuse Mrs. Ypson. She never ceased to wonder why instead of shortening his name to Ypson, her husband had not sensibly changed it to Jones. “My dear,” the professor once replied, “you are an Iowa snob.”

“But nobody,” Mrs. Ypson cried, “can spell it or pronounce it!”

“This is a cross,” murmured Professor Ypson, “which we must bear with Ypsilanti.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Ypson.

There was invariably something Sibylline about his conversation. His favorite adjective for his wife was “ypsiliform,” a term, he explained, which referred to the germinal spot at one of the fecundation stages in a ripening egg and which was, therefore, exquisitely à propos. Mrs. Ypson continued to look bewildered; she died at an early age.

And the professor ran off with a Kansas City variety girl of considerable talent, leaving his baptized chick to be reared by an eggish relative of her mother’s, a Presbyterian named Jukes.

The only time Miss Ypson heard from her father — except when he wrote charming and erudite little notes requesting, as he termed it, lucrum — was in the fourth decade of his odyssey, when he sent her a handsome addition to her collection, a terra cotta play doll of Greek origin over three thousand years old which, unhappily, Miss Ypson felt duty-bound to return to the Brooklyn museum from which it had unaccountably vanished. The note accompanying her father’s gift had said, whimsically: “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.”

There was poetry behind Miss Ypson’s dolls. At her birth the professor, ever harmonious, signalized his devotion to fecundity by naming her Cytherea. This proved the Olympian irony. For, it turned out, her father’s philo-progenitiveness throbbed frustrate in her mother’s stony womb; even though Miss Ypson interred five husbands of quite adequate vigor, she remained infertile to the end of her days. Hence it is classically tragic to find her, when all passion was spent, a sweet little old lady with a vague if eager smile who, under the name of her father, pattered about a vast and echoing New York apartment playing enthusiastically with dolls.

In the beginning they were dolls of common clay: a Billiken, a kewpie, a Kathe Kruse, a Patsy, a Foxy Grandpa, and so forth. But then, as her need increased, Miss Ypson began her fierce sack of the past.

Down into the land of Pharaoh she went for two pieces of thin desiccated board, carved and painted and with hair of strung beads, and legless — so that they might not run away — which any connoisseur will tell you are the most superb specimens of ancient Egyptian paddle doll extant, far superior to those in the British Museum, although this fact will be denied in certain quarters.

Miss Ypson unearthed a foremother of “Letitia Penn,” until her discovery held to be the oldest doll in America, having been brought to Philadelphia from England in 1699 by William Penn as a gift for a playmate of his small daughter’s. Miss Ypson’s find was a wooden-hearted “little lady” in brocade and velvet which had been sent by Sir Walter Raleigh to the first English child born in the New World. Since Virginia Dare had been born in 1587, not even the Smithsonian dared impugn Miss Ypson’s triumph.

On the old lady’s racks, in her plate-glass cases, might be seen the wealth of a thousand childhoods, and some riches — for such is the genetics of dolls — possessed by children grown. Here could be found “fashion babies” from fourteenth century France, sacred dolls of the Orange Free State Fingo tribe, Satsuma paper dolls and court dolls from old Japan, beady-eyed “Kalifa” dolls of the Egyptian Sudan, Swedish birch-bark dolls, “Katcina” dolls of the Hopis, mammoth-tooth dolls of the Eskimos, feather dolls of the Chippewa, tumble dolls of the ancient Chinese, Coptic bone dolls, Roman dolls dedicated to Diana, pantin dolls which had been the street toys of Parisian exquisites before Madame Guillotine swept the boulevards, early Christian dolls in their crèches representing the Holy Family — to specify the merest handful of Miss Ypson’s Briarean collection. She possessed dolls of pasteboard, dolls of animal skin, spool dolls, crab-claw dolls, eggshell dolls, cornhusk dolls, rag dolls, pine-cone dolls with moss hair, stocking dolls, dolls of bisque, dolls of palm leaf, dolls of papier-mâché, even dolls made of seed pods. There were dolls forty inches tall, and there were dolls so little Miss Ypson could hide them in her gold thimble.

Cytherea Ypson’s collection bestrode the centuries and took tribute of history. There was no greater — not the fabled playthings of Montezuma, or Victoria’s, or Eugene Field’s; not the collection at the Metropolitan, or the South Kensington, or the royal palace in old Bucharest, or anywhere outside the enchantment of little girls’ dreams.

It was made of Iowan eggs and the Attic shore, corn-fed and myrtle-clothed; and it brings us at last to Attorney John Somerset Bondling and his visit to the Queen residence one December twenty-third not so very long ago.

December the twenty-third is ordinarily not a good time to seek the Queens. Inspector Richard Queen likes his Christmas old-fashioned; his turkey stuffing, for instance, calls for twenty-two hours of over-all preparation and some of its ingredients are not readily found at the corner grocer’s. And Ellery is a frustrated gift-wrapper. For a month before Christmas he turns his sleuthing genius to tracking down unusual wrapping papers, fine ribbons, and artistic stickers; and he spends the last two days creating beauty.

So it was that when Attorney John S. Bondling called, Inspector Queen was in his kitchen, swathed in a barbecue apron, up to his elbows in fines herbes, while Ellery, behind the locked door of his study, composed a secret symphony in glittering fuchsia metallic paper, forest-green moiré ribbon, and pine cones.

“It’s almost useless,” shrugged Nikki, studying Attorney Bondling’s card, which was as crackly-looking as Attorney Bondling. “You say you know the Inspector, Mr. Bondling?”

“Just tell him Bondling the estate lawyer,” said Bondling neurotically. “Park Row. He’ll know.”

“Don’t blame me,” said Nikki, “if you wind up in his stuffing. Goodness knows he’s used everything else.” And she went for Inspector Queen.

While she was gone, the study door opened noiselessly for one inch. A suspicious eye reconnoitered from the crack.

“Don’t be alarmed,” said the owner of the eye, slipping through the crack and locking the door hastily behind him. “Can’t trust them, you know. Children, just children.”

“Children!” Attorney Bondling snarled. “You’re Ellery Queen, aren’t you?”

“Yes?”

“Interested in youth, are you? Christmas? Orphans, dolls, that sort of thing?” Mr. Bondling went on in a remarkably nasty way.

“I suppose so.”

“The more fool you. Ah, here’s your father. Inspector Queen—!”

“Oh, that Bondling,” said the old gentleman absently, shaking his visitor’s hand. “My office called to say someone was coming up. Here, use my handkerchief; that’s a bit of turkey liver. Know my son? His secretary, Miss Porter? What’s on your mind, Mr. Bondling?”

“Inspector, I’m handling the Cytherea Ypson estate, and—”

“Nice meeting you, Mr. Bondling,” said Ellery. “Nikki, the door is locked, so don’t pretend you forgot the way to the bathroom...”

“Cytherea Ypson,” frowned the Inspector. “Oh, yes. She died only recently.”

“Leaving me with the headache,” said Mr. Bondling bitterly, “of disposing of her Dollection.”

“Her what?” asked Ellery, looking up from the key.

“Dolls — collection. Dollection. She coined the word.”

Ellery put the key back in his pocket and strolled over to his armchair.

“Do I take this down?” sighed Nikki.

“Dollection,” said Ellery.

“Spent about thirty years at it. Dolls!”

“Yes, Nikki, take it down.”

“Well, well, Mr. Bondling,” said Inspector Queen. “What’s the problem? Christmas comes but once a year, you know.”

“Will provides the Dollection be sold at auction,” grated the attorney, “and the proceeds used to set up a fund for orphan children. I’m holding the public sale right after New Year’s.”

“Dolls and orphans, eh?” said the Inspector, thinking of Javanese black pepper and Country Gentleman Seasoning Salt.

“That’s nice,” beamed Nikki.

“Oh, is it?” said Mr. Bondling softly. “Apparently, young woman, you’ve never tried to satisfy a Surrogate. I’ve administered estates for nine years without a whisper against me, but let an estate involve the interests of just one little ba — little fatherless child, and you’d think from the Surrogate’s attitude I was Bill Sykes himself!”

“My stuffing,” began the Inspector.

“I’ve had those dolls catalogued. The result is frightening! Did you know there’s no set market for the damnable things? And aside from a few personal possessions, the Dollection constitutes the old lady’s entire estate. Sank every nickel she had in it.”

“But it should be worth a fortune,” protested Ellery.

“To whom, Mr. Queen? Museums always want such things as free and unencumbered gifts. I tell you, except for one item, those hypothetical orphans won’t realize enough from that sale to keep them in... in bubble gum for two days!”

“Which item would that be, Mr. Bondling?”

“Number Eight-seventy-four,” snapped the lawyer. “This one.”

“Number Eight-seventy-four,” read Inspector Queen from the fat catalogue Bondling had fished out of a large greatcoat pocket. “The Dauphin’s Doll. Unique. Ivory figure of a boy Prince eight inches tall, clad in court dress, genuine ermine, brocade, velvet. Court sword in gold strapped to waist. Gold circlet crown surmounted by single blue brilliant diamond of finest water, weight approximately 49 carats—”

“How many carats?” exclaimed Nikki.

“Larger than the Hope and the Star of South Africa,” said Ellery, with a certain excitement.

“—appraised,” continued his father, “at one hundred and ten thousand dollars.”

“Expensive dollie.”

“Indecent!” said Nikki.

“This indecent — I mean exquisite royal doll,” the Inspector read on, “was a birthday gift from King Louis XVI of France to Louis Charles, his second son, who became dauphin at the death of his elder brother in 1789. The little dauphin was proclaimed Louis XVII by the royalists during the French Revolution while in custody of the sans-culottes. His fate is shrouded in mystery. Romantic, historic item.”

“Le prince perdu. I’ll say,” muttered Ellery. “Mr. Bondling, is this on the level?”

“I’m an attorney, not an antiquarian,” snapped their visitor. “There are documents attached, one of them a sworn statement — holograph — by Lady Charlotte Atkyns, the English actress-friend of the Capet family — she was in France during the Revolution — or purporting to be in Lady Charlotte’s hand. It doesn’t matter, Mr. Queen. Even if the history is bad, the diamond’s good!”

“I take it this hundred-and-ten-thousand-dollar dollie constitutes the bone, as it were, or that therein lies the rub?”

“You said it!” cried Mr. Bondling, cracking his knuckles in a sort of agony. “For my money the Dauphin’s Doll is the only negotiable asset of that collection. And what’s the old lady do? She provides by will that on the day preceding Christmas the Cytherea Ypson Dollection is to be publicly displayed... on the main floor of Nash’s Department Store! The day before Christmas, gentlemen! Think of it!”

“But why?” asked Nikki, puzzled.

“Why? Who knows why? For the entertainment of New York’s army of little beggars, I suppose! Have you any notion how many peasants pass through Nash’s on the day before Christmas? My cook tells me — she’s a very religious woman — it’s like Armageddon.”

“Day before Christmas,” frowned Ellery. “That’s tomorrow.”

“It does sound chancy,” said Nikki anxiously. Then she brightened. “Oh, well, maybe Nash’s won’t co-operate, Mr. Bondling.”

“Oh, won’t they!” howled Mr. Bondling. “Why, old lady Ypson had this stunt cooked up with that gang of peasant-purveyors for years! They’ve been snapping at my heels ever since the day she was put away!”

“It’ll draw every crook in New York,” said the Inspector, his gaze on the kitchen door.

“Orphans,” said Nikki. “The orphans’ interests must be protected.” She looked at her employer accusingly.

“Special measures, Dad,” said Ellery.

“Sure, sure,” said the Inspector, rising. “Don’t you worry about this, Mr. Bondling. Now if you’ll be kind enough to excu—”

“Inspector Queen,” hissed Mr. Bondling, leaning forward tensely, “that is not all.”

“Ah.” Ellery briskly lit a cigaret. “There’s a specific villain in this piece, Mr. Bondling, and you know who he is.”

“I do,” said the lawyer hollowly, “and then again I don’t. I mean, it’s Comus.”

“Comus!” the Inspector screamed.

“Comus?” said Ellery slowly.

“Comus?” said Nikki. “Who dat?”

“Comus,” nodded Mr. Bondling. “First thing this morning. Marched right into my office, bold as day — must have followed me; I hadn’t got my coat off, my secretary wasn’t even in. Marched in and tossed this card on my desk.”

Ellery seized it. “The usual, Dad.”

“His trademark,” growled the Inspector, his lips working.

“But the card just says ‘Comus,’ ” complained Nikki. “Who—?”

“Go on, Mr. Bondling!” thundered the Inspector.

“And he calmly announced to me,” said Bondling, blotting his cheeks with an exhausted handkerchief, “that he’s going to steal the Dauphin’s Doll tomorrow, in Nash’s.”

“Oh, a maniac,” said Nikki.

“Mr. Bondling,” said the old gentleman in a terrible voice, “just what did this fellow look like?”

“Foreigner — black beard — spoke with a thick accent of some sort. To tell you the truth, I was so thunderstruck I didn’t notice details. Didn’t even chase him till it was too late.”

The Queens shrugged at each other, Gallically.

“The old story,” said the Inspector; the corners of his nostrils were greenish. “The brass of the colonel’s monkey and when he does show himself nobody remembers anything but beards and foreign accents. Well, Mr. Bondling, with Comus in the game it’s serious business. Where’s the collection right now?”

“In the vaults of the Life Bank & Trust, Forty-third Street branch.”

“What time are you to move it over to Nash’s?”

“They wanted it this evening. I said nothing doing. I’ve made special arrangements with the bank, and the collection’s to be moved at seven-thirty tomorrow morning.”

“Won’t be much time to set up,” said Ellery thoughtfully, “before the store opens its doors.” He glanced at his father.

“You leave Operation Dollie to us, Mr. Bondling,” said the Inspector grimly. “Better give me a buzz this afternoon.”

“I can’t tell you, Inspector, how relieved I am—”

“Are you?” said the old gentleman sourly. “What makes you think he won’t get it?”

When Attorney Bondling had left, the Queens put their heads together, Ellery doing most of the talking, as usual. Finally, the Inspector went into the bedroom for a session with his direct line to Headquarters.

“Anybody would think,” sniffed Nikki, “you two were planning the defense of the Bastille. Who is this Comus, anyway?”

“We don’t know, Nikki,” said Ellery slowly. “Might be anybody. Began his criminal career about five years ago. He’s in the grand tradition of Lupin — a saucy, highly intelligent rascal who’s made stealing an art. He seems to take a special delight in stealing valuable things under virtually impossible conditions. Master of makeup — he’s appeared in a dozen different disguises. And he’s an uncanny mimic. Never been caught, photographed, or fingerprinted. Imaginative, daring — I’d say he’s the most dangerous thief operating in the United States.”

“If he’s never been caught,” said Nikki skeptically, “how do you know he commits these crimes?”

“You mean and not someone else?” Ellery smiled pallidly. “The techniques mark the thefts as his work. And then, like Arsène, he leaves a card — with the name ‘Comus’ on it — on the scene of each visit.”

“Does he usually announce in advance that he’s going to swipe the crown jewels?”

“No.” Ellery frowned. “To my knowledge, this is the first such instance. Since he’s never done anything without a reason, that visit to Bondling’s office this morning must be part of his greater plan. I wonder if—”

The telephone in the living room rang clear and loud.

Nikki looked at Ellery. Ellery looked at the telephone.

“Do you suppose—?” began Nikki. But then she said, “Oh, it’s too absurd!”

“Where Comus is involved,” said Ellery wildly, “nothing is too absurd!” and he leaped for the phone. “Hello!”

“A call from an old friend,” announced a deep and hollowish male voice. “Comus.”

“Well,” said Ellery. “Hello again.”

“Did Mr. Bondling,” asked the voice jovially, “persuade you to ‘prevent’ me from stealing the Dauphin’s Doll in Nash’s tomorrow?”

“So you know Bondling’s been here.”

“No miracle involved, Queen. I followed him. Are you taking the case?”

“See here, Comus,” said Ellery. “Under ordinary circumstances I’d welcome the sporting chance to put you where you belong. But these circumstances are not ordinary. That doll represents the major asset of a future fund for orphaned children. I’d rather we didn’t play catch with it. Comus, what do you say we call this one off?”

“Shall we say,” asked the voice gently, “Nash’s Department Store — tomorrow?”

In the tradition of Dorothy L. Sayers and Michael Innes, Colin Dexter’s mysteries combine scholarly erudition, well-constructed plots, and humor. His series character, Inspector Morse, appears in all of his novels and inspired an enormously successful British television series, the eponymous Inspector Morse, in which Dexter made a cameo appearance (much as Alfred Hitchcock did) in almost every episode. It may be interesting to note that Dexter is one of the world’s most accomplished solvers of crossword puzzles, winning its top competitions on several occasions. “Morse’s Greatest Mystery” was first collected in Morse’s Greatest Mystery and Other Stories (London, Macmillan, 1993).

He had knocked diffidently at Morse’s North Oxford flat. Few had been invited into those book-lined, Wagner-haunted rooms: and even he — Sergeant Lewis — had never felt himself an over-welcome guest. Even at Christmastime. Not that it sounded much like the season of goodwill as Morse waved Lewis inside and concluded his ill-tempered conversation with the bank manager.

“Look! If I keep a couple of hundred in my current account, that’s my look-out. I’m not even asking for any interest on it. All I am asking is that you don’t stick these bloody bank charges on when I go — what? once, twice a year? — into the red. It’s not that I’m mean with money” — Lewis’s eyebrows ascended a centimetre — “but if you charge me again I want you to ring and tell me why!”

Morse banged down the receiver and sat silent.

“You don’t sound as if you’ve caught much of the Christmas spirit,” ventured Lewis.

“I don’t like Christmas — never have.”

“You staying in Oxford, sir?”

“I’m going to decorate.”

“What — decorate the Christmas cake?”

“Decorate the kitchen. I don’t like Christmas cake — never did.”

“You sound more like Scrooge every minute, sir.”

“And I shall read a Dickens novel. I always do over Christmas. Re-read, rather.”

“If I were just starting on Dickens, which one—?”

“I’d put Bleak House first, Little Dorrit second—”

The phone rang and Morse’s secretary at HQ informed him that he’d won a £50 gift-token in the Police Charity Raffle, and this time Morse cradled the receiver with considerably better grace.

“ ‘Scrooge,’ did you say, Lewis? I’ll have you know I bought five tickets — a quid apiece! — in that Charity Raffle.”

“I bought five tickets myself, sir.”

Morse smiled complacently. “Let’s be more charitable, Lewis! It’s supporting these causes that’s important, not winning.”

“I’ll be in the car, sir,” said Lewis quietly. In truth, he was beginning to feel irritated. Morse’s irascibility he could stomach; but he couldn’t stick hearing much more about Morse’s selfless generosity!

Morse’s old Jaguar was in dock again (“Too mean to buy a new one!” his colleagues claimed) and it was Lewis’s job that day to ferry the chief inspector around; doubtless, too (if things went to form), to treat him to the odd pint or two. Which indeed appeared a fair probability, since Morse had so managed things on that Tuesday morning that their arrival at the George would coincide with opening time. As they drove out past the railway station, Lewis told Morse what he’d managed to discover about the previous day’s events...

The patrons of the George had amassed £400 in aid of the Littlemore Charity for Mentally Handicapped Children, and this splendid total was to be presented to the Charity’s Secretary at the end of the week, with a photographer promised from The Oxford Times to record the grand occasion. Mrs. Michaels, the landlady, had been dropped off at the bank in Carfax by her husband at about 10:30 a.m., and had there exchanged a motley assemblage of coins and notes for forty brand-new tenners. After this she had bought several items (including grapes for a daughter just admitted to hospital) before catching a minibus back home, where she had arrived just after midday. The money, in a long white envelope, was in her shopping bag, together with her morning’s purchases. Her husband had not yet returned from the Cash and Carry Stores, and on re-entering the George via the saloon bar, Mrs. Michaels had heard the telephone ringing. Thinking that it was probably the hospital (it was) she had dumped her bag on the bar counter and rushed to answer it. On her return, the envelope was gone.

At the time of the theft, there had been about thirty people in the saloon bar, including the regular OAPs, the usual cohort of pool-playing unemployables, and a pre-Christmas party from a local firm. And — yes! — from the very beginning Lewis had known that the chances of recovering the money were virtually nil. Even so, the three perfunctory interviews that Morse conducted appeared to Lewis to be sadly unsatisfactory.

After listening a while to the landlord’s unilluminating testimony, Morse asked him why it had taken him so long to conduct his business at the Cash and Carry; and although the explanation given seemed perfectly adequate, Morse’s dismissal of this first witness had seemed almost offensively abrupt. And no man could have been more quickly or more effectively antagonised than the temporary barman (on duty the previous morning) who refused to answer Morse’s brusque enquiry about the present state of his overdraft. What then of the attractive, auburn-haired Mrs. Michaels? After a rather lopsided smile had introduced Morse to her regular if slightly nicotine-stained teeth, that distressed lady had been unable to fight back her tears as she sought to explain to Morse why she’d insisted on some genuine notes for the publicity photographer instead of a phonily magnified cheque.

But wait! Something dramatic had just happened to Morse, Lewis could see that: as if the light had suddenly shined upon a man that hitherto had sat in darkness. He (Morse) now asked — amazingly! — whether by any chance the good lady possessed a pair of bright green, high-heeled leather shoes; and when she replied that, yes, she did, Morse smiled serenely, as though he had solved the secret of the universe, and promptly summoned into the lounge bar not only the three he’d just interviewed but all those now in the George who had been drinking there the previous morning.

As they waited, Morse asked for the serial numbers of the stolen notes, and Lewis passed over a scrap of paper on which some figures had been hastily scribbled in blotchy Biro. “For Christ’s sake, man!” hissed Morse. “Didn’t they teach you to write at school?”

Lewis breathed heavily, counted to five, and then painstakingly rewrote the numbers on a virginal piece of paper: 773741–773780. At which numbers Morse glanced cursorily before sticking the paper in his pocket, and proceeding to address the George’s regulars.

He was virtually certain (he said) of who had stolen the money. What he was absolutely sure about was exactly where that money was at that very moment. He had the serial numbers of the notes — but that was of no importance whatsoever now. The thief might well have been tempted to spend the money earlier — but not any more! And why not? Because at this Christmas time that person no longer had the power to resist his better self.

In that bar, stilled now and silent as the grave itself, the faces of Morse’s audience seemed mesmerised — and remained so as Morse gave his instructions that the notes should be replaced in their original envelope and returned (he cared not by what means) to Sergeant Lewis’s office at Thames Valley Police HQ within the next twenty-four hours.

As they drove back, Lewis could restrain his curiosity no longer. “You really are confident that—?”

“Of course!”

“I never seem to be able to put the clues together myself, sir.”

“Clues? What clues, Lewis? I didn’t know we had any.”

“Well, those shoes, for example. How do they fit in?”

“Who said they fitted in anywhere? It’s just that I used to know an auburn-haired beauty who had six — six, Lewis! — pairs of bright green shoes. They suited her, she said.”

“So... they’ve got nothing to do with the case at all?”

“Not so far as I know,” muttered Morse.

Susan Moody has created several memorable characters for her mystery fiction, notably the jet-setting Penny Wanawake, who is tall, gorgeous, and “black and shiny as a licorice-stick.” Her lover is a jewel thief whose loot is fenced, the proceeds sent to the poor in Africa by Penny. She is a powerful crime-fighter, though she does not regard stealing from the rich as a crime. Moody’s other series detective is the somewhat more traditional Cassandra Swann, a businesswoman and bridge instructor. “More Than Flesh and Blood” was first published in A Classic Christmas Crime, edited by Tim Heald (London, Pavilion, 1995).

Looking back, he was always to remember the place as like a honeycomb, full of golden light. The walls of the houses, made of some yellowish local stone, were glazed with it. Roofs, covered in ochre-edged rings of lichen, dripped it back into the single narrow street, where the front doors opened straight into what would once have been called the parlour.

After the long journey through the barren hills, the village welcomed him. Driving across the humped stone bridge, he knew at once that he’d found what he was looking for. He stopped the car and got out. There were no shops, no pub, no one to ask the way. At the far end of the street there were cows, creamy-gold in the fierce light of the starting-to-set sun, sauntering towards an open farm gate. Beyond it, stone buildings, mud and hay, metal churns, indicated a dairy. He followed them.

A woman was already clamping the first cow to the nozzles of an electric milking-machine. She looked up at him without straightening, her face strong from confronting the weather unprotected for fifty or sixty years.

“I’m trying to find this house,” he said, city-diffident in the presence of elemental sources. He showed her the photograph, thumb and fourth finger grasping the edges of the thick cardboard.

“Aye,” she said.

“Beckwith House, I believe it’s called.”

“Aye.”

“Is it here? In the village?”

“Noo.” Her voice was soft, rounded as the cows she tended. “Noo, it’s not.”

That shook him a little. He had been so sure it would be here, friendly with other houses, neighboured.

“Where then?”

“It’s up t’dale a way.” She nodded towards the road behind him and the deep hills into which it led. Already, shadows were tumbling down the slopes, only the higher crests fully daylit, though he could still see the outlines of the dry-stone walls which criss-crossed the lower slopes, and the occasional brooding bulk of a barn.

“How far?”

“Two, three miles. Mebbe four. It’s right on t’road.”

“Thank you.”

As she moved back towards the gate, she called after him: “Does she know you’re coming?”

He stopped. “Does who know I’m coming?”

“The missus.”

He smiled and shook his head. “No,” he said. “She doesn’t.”

Back in the open again, after the temporary closing in of the village, he could feel wind sweeping down from the high fells, gusting the car towards the edge of the black road. Now that he was close to where he had been heading for most of his life, he felt none of the excitement he had anticipated, merely a sense of a waiting void about to be filled.

“... somewhere...” she used to say, cruelly. But where? Until today, he had not known. Now, the place, the time, the night edging down on him from above, fitted round him as though tailor-made.

The road began to wind. In the bend of a turn, he saw stone gateposts, iron gates twice as tall as he was, laurels massed behind walls. He parked on the verge, tucking the car in close. Behind the gates was a short drive curving towards a house, square and two-storied. Though he had never been here before, he knew precisely how the path led round behind the house, past deep-silled windows to a porched side door. He knew it would come out on to a flag-stoned terrace looking over an enclosed garden. He knew the view from the windows at the rear of the house, and where the plums and apples would stand on either side of the wrought-iron gate set in the garden wall, through which, like a photograph, could be seen a segment of landscape. There would be a pond, too, beside the terrace, and a rockery full of alpines, little crawling plants that overflowed and spilled down the edges of white stones. On one of the gateposts there was a round slate plaque. Beckwith House. He traced the two meniscal curves of the B with his finger. He turned the handle of the right-hand gate. It whimpered metallically. The iron bars resisted as he pushed, then opened, following a deep groove in the gravelled earth behind it.

“... somewhere...”

Here. He’d found it at last, been drawn to it, almost, though perhaps that was a trifle fanciful. He had had so little to go on, just the whispered, half-heard word — “Garthway...” Garthway? The more he tried to re-run the sequence in his head, the dying eyes filming even as they looked at him, the huge body heaving, the lips puckering as they tried to form the word while one hand twitched slowly on the turndown of the linen sheet with the border of drawn-thread work, the less he could remember what exactly had been said.

His feet made no sound on the earth. The gravel had long since sunk into the soil and now lay embedded in it like the eyes of drowning men below the surface of the water. Neglect entombed the house. He walked between the leaves of dark unpruned laurels. There was a faint light in one of the windows, its dirt-streaked panes almost hidden by creeper long left untended.

There was a glow, too, from the ornate fanlight above the front door. He banged the knocker and felt the house pause, listening, questioning. Footsteps came along the passage towards him, brisk, almost eager.

The woman who opened the door stared at him for a time. Later he could not have said for how long. Two or three seconds? Or had they been minutes? Her mouth moved towards a welcoming smile, then let it be. She brushed her hand against the side of her head, even though her hair was neatly tidy.

“Martin,” she said. Not a question.

“Yes.”

“I knew you’d come.”

“Yes.”

“It’s taken you long enough.”

“I wasn’t sure where to look.” Even with the help of the police computers, it had taken weeks of work to pinpoint this place, this woman.

She nodded, as if she knew what the difficulties in tracing her had been.

“You’d best come in, then.” She stood aside, flat against the wall of the narrow hall to let him pass in front of her.

“Straight through. I’m in the kitchen.”

The kitchen was warm, pined, full of good smells. They were part of the things which had been denied him. He saw that the room had been redecorated: the wallpaper had been changed and there was shelving that had not been there before.

In the fuller light, he was able to see her properly. She was younger than he had expected. And much less sad. It seemed to him that she ought to have been sad.

“What are you now?” she said. “Thirty-two?”

“Next birthday,” he said.

“Early June, isn’t it?”

He nodded, not minding that she had forgotten the precise date; though they had not met for over thirty years, she knew the month, just as he knew that behind the door to the left of the range was the larder, that although there were only five brass dish-covers hanging above it, there had once been seven. She leaned back against the warm curves of the Aga and shook her head. “I’d have known you anywhere,” she said.

“Yes.” Of course she would.

She frowned. “You’re with the police, aren’t you?” she said.

“Am I?”

She frowned. “That’s what she said, last time I heard. That you were with the police.”

Was he? Sometimes, he could scarcely remember who he was or where he came from. Sometimes he could scarcely remember that he didn’t really know the answer to the question. Which was why he was here now.

He reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a package. He spread the contents on the shiny oilcloth which covered the kitchen table. And as he did so, the voices which never seemed to be far away, came back.

“... somewhere...”

“Where?”

“Somewhere.”

“Where, Gran?”

“Up north.”

“Where up north?”

“That would be telling, wouldn’t it now?”

“Tell me, Gran. Tell me.” Because even then, a child, six, seven, ten years old, he had known it was important. If she would just pinpoint the place for him, just give it space, meaning, then he himself would finally be rooted.

“What happened, Gran?”

She would start again. “It was Christmas Eve.” Then stop, laughing at him, the heavy rolls of her flesh shaking up and down her body. She was all too aware of the depth of the desire to know that filled him. Only to know.

“Christmas Day, Gran.” It was part of the cruel ritual that the beginning must never vary.

“Oh yes. You’re a knowing little monkey, aren’t you?” A nod of the head, a stare over the tops of her glasses, a small not-quite-pleasant smile. “It was Christmas Day, and there was champagne in a silver bucket...”

Ah, that champagne. For years he hadn’t really known what it was. “Wine, dear, with a sparkle,” she’d told him. “It made you feel good. Or bad, depending on your viewpoint.” And she had giggled, an old woman scratching at memories.

When he was older, of course, he’d seen real, not imagined champagne, seen the big bottles, the shiny tops, the labels, special, rich, different from other labels on other bottles. Later still, drunk it, felt the bubbles at the top of his mouth. The sparkle of it was entwined in his earliest memories: that Christmas, that champagne.

“Yes, Gran. The champagne.”

“There was champagne in a silver bucket, and then your mother...”

And she would stop. Always. Her fingers would float above the photographs, her hands small and delicate against the grossness of her bulk, and he would see the past in her eyes, the something terrible that she would never tell him. He knew it was terrible by her silence. And always, briefly, her face would register again the shock of whatever it was had happened that Christmas Day, before she turned off into a story of Santa Claus or mince pies or some other yuletide banality which he knew had nothing to do with the one which lurked behind her eyes.

“Then what, Gran? What?” But there would be no force in his voice now. She wasn’t going to tell him. Not then. Not ever.

Now, the woman came forward, stood beside him, stirred the photographs on the table with her finger.

“Still got all the snaps, then?” she said.

“Yes.”

“I suppose she’s dead.”

“Yes.”

“About time. How did she die?”

Slowly, he wanted to say, but did not.

“Because I hope it hurt her to let go of life,” the woman said. “I hope she fought against it, knowing she would lose.”

That was exactly how it had been. He said nothing.

“I hope it was... violent.” Her voice shook. “Like his.” She sifted through the photographs and picked one out. “Like his.”

He was young. Dark. Hair falling over his forehead. A military cap held under one arm.

The woman moved her head from side to side. “He was so beautiful,” she said, lifeless. “So... beautiful.”

“My father.”

“Yes. What did she tell you about him?”

“She told me nothing. Except that he was dead.”

“I don’t imagine she told you why.”

“No. Not even that this was his picture. At least — not until very recently.” He’d managed to choke that from her, squeezing and relaxing the soft flesh of her throat, alternately giving her hope, then removing it. “And my mother,” he’d said. “Tell me where she is, where she is.” And almost left it too late. “Garthway,” she had managed. That was all.

Outside the window, at the edge of the garden, he could see how the last of the sun caught the green hill through the iron gate which led out on to the moors. It shone like a transparency between the shadowed walls on either side.

“And now you’ve come back to see for yourself where it all happened, have you?” The woman filled a kettle at the tap and set it on top of the red Aga.

“She never told me what exactly...” He picked two photographs out of the pile on the table. “... but I knew something must have.”

Somewhere in his mind he heard the echo of the hateful voice: “It was Christmas Day, somewhere up north...”

Two photographs. Christmas dinner, every detail clear: the turkey, the sausages, the roast potatoes and steaming sprouts, a cut glass dish of cranberry sauce, a china gravy boat. Beside the table, a silver bucket. The people leaned towards each other, smiling, holding up glasses, about to celebrate. At the head of the table was a woman of maybe forty, big-boned, fair-haired, her dress cut low over prominent breasts. She was handsome, ripe. His workmates at the police station would have whistled if he’d shown them the photo, would have nudged each other, said she was pleading for it, they wouldn’t have minded a bit of that themselves. She was leaning towards the young girl sitting at her right, saying something.

“That’s you, isn’t it?” he said, his finger brushing across the girl’s face.

“It is. It was.”

And the same scene, seconds later. Glasses still in the air, but the smiles gone as they stared towards something out of frame, their faces full of horror and shock. The girl was gone. The woman at the head of the table looked straight ahead at the camera, smiling a small not-quite-pleasant smile.

“What happened?” he said. “I have to know.” Because the body down in Wandsworth would never tell now. The swollen protruding tongue was silent at last. Had been for weeks. The small white hands would never again turn and turn through the photographs, reliving a past that a cataclysm had destroyed.

The woman lifted her shoulder and released a sighing breath. “You have a right, if anybody does,” she said. “I didn’t know Bobby was taking photographs then.”

“Bobby?”

“My youngest brother. He was camera mad. He took all of these, photographed everything. ‘It’ll be a record for posterity,’ he’d say.

“It’s been that, all right.”

Staring down at the photographs, the woman said softly: “She hated me, of course.”

“Who did?”

“My mother.” She indicated the woman at the head of the table. “It must have been some kind of madness, some pathological obsession. Or maybe she was just jealous because Dad loved me more than he loved her. They’d have a word for it today, I suppose. Perhaps they did then, but I never knew what it was, just that she was dangerous. My brothers tried to protect me, even little Bobby. So did Dad, while he was alive. I think she would have killed me, if she could.” A silence. “She did the next best thing.”

“Tell me.”

Again the shuddering sigh. “Edward. Your father. He lived further up the dale. His family was rich, owned a lot of land. Edward was ten years older than I was, but it never mattered. Right from the beginning there was never anyone else for either of us.” She turned her gaze on him. “We loved one another.” On the Aga the kettle began to fizz, water drops skittering like ants across the surface of the hot plate. The woman got up, found a teapot, cups, saucers. “Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” he said, though he knew nothing of love.

“I was sent away to school, to keep me from my mother, but the first day of the holidays, Edward would be there, outside the garden gate, and then it was like summer, like fireworks, like roses shooting out of the ground and birds singing.” She smiled, looking back. Her voice was without emotion.

“What happened?”

“On my sixteenth birthday, in the middle of September, Edward wrote to me at school — he was in the Army by then — and said he was being posted overseas after Christmas and wanted me to come with him. He said I was old enough, he’d ask my mother if we could get married, since Dad had died the year before.”

“What did she say?”

“That it was out of the question, that I was far too young. I wrote and said I didn’t need her consent, I was legally able to get married and I was going to, soon as I came home at Christmas, so I could go abroad with Edward. She was furious.”

He nodded. He knew Gran’s furies. The violence, the hatred, flowing out of her like champagne from a shaken bottle.

“Edward said he thought my brothers could persuade her. And in the end, she gave in. She invited Edward to have Christmas dinner with us.” She checked, touched her forehead, closed her eyes. “I really thought that she...”

Softly, he said: “It was Christmas Day, somewhere up north.”

Equally softly, she said: “It was snowing that day and Edward was so late that we were about to start without him. Then he suddenly appeared at the door of the dining-room. He stood there, looking at me. Just — looking. Not smiling. And then my mother leaned over to me and said... she said...”

“What?” All these years, and he could feel the inner emptiness begin to fill at last with what should always have been there.

“She must have planned it, decided exactly when she would tell me, right down to the second. Normally I would never have sat next to her at the table but that day she made me. So nobody but me heard her say that she and Edward... that they were lovers. That she’d seduced him, that it had been easy, that it was not me he loved but her.”

“Did you believe her?”

“No. Not all of it. Not... everything.”

“What then?”

“Edward knew what she was doing. He called my name. He said he loved me, that in spite of everything, I was to remember he loved me. Then he — suddenly, he was gone, out through the front door. We heard a shot.”

“My God.”

“I ran and ran across the grass, in my new shoes. I could see him lying on the ground with his gun beside him, and I knelt in the snow and held him while he died. His blood was so red against the white. She put her arm round me for the first time in her life. She said they would have married. That Edward had no choice, not in the circumstances.”

“Did you believe her?” he said again.

“Not at first.” She sighed. “Later, I went into a... hospital for a while.”

“Of course. If you were carrying... I suppose in those days... more of a stigma... unmarried...” His voice died away.

“When I came out, Bobby had died in a car crash and my elder brothers had both gone out to Australia. She’d gone, too. She took you away with her, down south. You were all that was left of my Edward.”

“You poor thing.”

“Because of course, she and Edward had... not that I ever blamed him. It was all her fault.”

“Poor darling Mother.” He covered her hand. They would be friends, she and he. They would make up for all the years that the evil old woman, Gran, had taken from them both. He thought swiftly about Gran’s dying, wished it had taken her longer, that she had suffered more, that he had been, perhaps, more brutal at the beginning. “Why didn’t you come looking for me?”

She moved from under his hand. “Why would I? It would only have brought it back. The trauma. Besides, eventually I got over the shock of it all.”

He wished she did not sound so indifferent. “I didn’t,” he said.

“Jim and I started courting, we got married, had the children...” She shrugged. “You know how it is.”

“But, Mother...” The word hung in his mouth, succulent, unaccustomed.

She stared at him for a moment. “I’m not your mother,” she said, giving the word a hard emphasis.

“What?” He did not take in what she was saying.

She smiled a small, familiar, not-quite-pleasant smile. “Not me, Martin. Your father and I didn’t... hadn’t... I was a virgin when I wed Jim.”

“Then... who?”

She didn’t answer.

“Gran?” he said.

“If that’s what you called her.”

“She told me my parents were dead,” he said. Tears filled his eyes. Hatred, raw and red-edged, filled him. Was Gran, that blowsy, disgusting old woman, was she the mother, the flesh and blood, it had taken him so long to find?

The woman looked at him. “In a way, she was right, wasn’t she?”

“No! Don’t say that!” His hands were around her neck. He could feel the bone at the base of her skull and the convulsive movements of her throat. He shook his head. “She can’t be... not Gran,” he said.

He squeezed harder, trying to force the right words from her mouth, while her white fingers tore at his hands and her face darkened. “Tell me it wasn’t Gran,” he screamed, but she did not answer.

When he let her drop back in her chair her eyes, so like his own, had grown dull. In one of her small hands she still held the photograph of that long-past never-finished luncheon, and the champagne in a silver bucket, on Christmas Day.

The first mystery novel to appear on the bestseller list in America was The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart in 1909. She had written it as a serial for the first pulp magazine, Munsey’s Magazine, which also serialized her novel The Circular Staircase (1908), which was released in book form before The Man in Lower Ten, probably her most successful work. She and Avery Hopwood adapted it for the stage as The Bat in 1920, by which time she had become the highest-paid writer in America. As the creator of the now frequently parodied “Had-I-But-Known” school, Rinehart regularly had her plucky heroines put themselves in situations from which they needed to be rescued. “The Butler’s Christmas Eve” was first published in her short story collection Alibi for Isabel (New York, Farrar & Rinehart, 1944).

William stood in the rain waiting for the bus. In the fading daylight he looked rather like a freshly washed eighty-year-old and beardless Santa Claus, and underneath his raincoat he clutched a parcel which contained a much-worn nightshirt, an extra pair of socks, a fresh shirt, and a brand-new celluloid collar. It also contained a pint flask of the best Scotch whisky.

Not that William drank, or at least not to speak of. The whisky was a gift, and in more than one way it was definitely contraband. It was whisky which had caused his trouble.

The Christmas Eve crowd around him was wet but amiable.

“Look, mama, what have you done with the suitcase?”

“What do you think you’re sitting on? A bird cage?”

The crowd laughed. The rain poured down. The excited children were restless. They darted about, were lost and found again. Women scolded.

“You stand right here, Johnny. Keep under this umbrella. That’s your new suit.”

When the bus came along one of them knocked William’s package into the gutter, and he found himself shaking with anxiety. But the bottle was all right. He could feel it, still intact. The Old Man would have it, all right, Miss Sally or no Miss Sally; the Old Man, left sitting in a wheelchair with one side of his big body dead and nothing warm in his stomach to comfort him. Just a year ago tonight on Christmas Eve William had slipped him a small drink to help him sleep, and Miss Sally had caught him at it.

She had not said anything. She had kissed her grandfather good-night and walked out of the room. But the next morning she had come into the pantry where William was fixing the Old Man’s breakfast tray and dismissed him, after fifty years.

“I’m sorry, William. But you know he is forbidden liquor.”

William put down the Old Man’s heated egg cup and looked at her.

“It was only because it was Christmas Eve, Miss Sally. He was kind of low, with Mr. Tony gone and everything.”

She went white at that, but her voice was even.

“I am trying to be fair,” she said. “But even without this — You have worked a long time, and grandfather is too heavy for you to handle. I need a younger man, now that—”

She did not finish. She did not say that her young husband had enlisted in the Navy after Pearl Harbor, and that she had fought tooth and nail against it. Or that she suspected both her grandfather and William of supporting him.

William gazed at her incredulously.

“I’ve handled him, one way and another, for fifty years, Miss Sally.”

“I know all that. But I’ve talked to the doctor. He agrees with me.”

He stood very still. She couldn’t do this to him, this girl he had raised, and her father before her. She couldn’t send him out at his age to make a life for himself, after living a vicarious one in this house for half a century. But he saw helplessly that she could and that she meant to.

“When am I to go?” he asked.

“It would be kinder not to see him again, wouldn’t it?”

“You can’t manage alone, Miss Sally,” he said stubbornly. But she merely made a little gesture with her hands.

“I’m sorry, William. I’ve already arranged for someone else.”

He took the breakfast tray to the Old Man’s door and gave it to the nurse. Then he went upstairs to his room and standing inside looked around him. This had been his room for most of his life. On the dresser was the faded snapshot of the Old Man as a Major in the Rough Riders during the Spanish War. There was a picture of Miss Sally’s father, his only son, who had not come home from France in 1918. There was a very new one of Mr. Tony, young and good-looking and slightly defiant, taken in his new Navy uniform. And of course there were pictures of Miss Sally herself, ranging from her baby days to the one of her, smiling and lovely, in her wedding dress.

William had helped to rear her. Standing there he remembered the day when she was born. The Major — he was Major Bennett then, not the Old Man — had sent for him when he heard the baby’s mother was dead.

“Well,” he said heavily, “it looks as though we’ve got a child to raise. A girl at that! Think we can do it?”

“We’ve done harder things, sir,” said William.

“All right,” said the Major. “But get this, William, I want no spoiled brat around the place. If I find you spoiling her, by the Lord Harry I’ll fire you.”

“I won’t spoil her,” William had said sturdily. “But she’ll probably be as stubborn as a mule.”

“Now why the hell do you say that?” the Major had roared.

But William had only smiled.

So she had grown up. She was lovable, but she was wild as a March wind and as stubborn as the Bennetts had always been. Then — it seemed almost no time to William — she met Mr. Tony, and one day she was walking down a church aisle on her grandfather’s arm, looking beautiful and sedate, and when she walked out again she was a married woman.

The old house had been gay after that. It was filled with youth and laughter. Then one day Miss Sally had gone to the hospital to have her baby, and her grandfather, gray of face, had waited for the news. William had tried to comfort him.

“I understand it’s a perfectly normal process, sir,” he said. “They are born every day. Millions of them.”

“Get your smug face out of here,” roared the Major. “You and your millions! What the hell do I care about them? It’s my girl who’s in trouble.”

He was all right then. He was even all right when the message came that it was over, and Miss Sally and Mr. Tony had a ten-minute-old son. But going out of the hospital he had staggered and fallen, and he had never walked again. That was when the household began to call him the Old Man. Behind his back, of course.

It was tragic, because Miss Sally had had no trouble at all. She wakened at the hospital to learn that she had borne a man-child, asked if he had the proper number of fingers and toes, stated flatly that she had no intention of raising him for purposes of war, and then asked for a cigarette.

That had been two years ago, and she had come home on Christmas Eve. Mr. Tony had a little tree for the baby in the Old Man’s bedroom, with Miss Sally’s battered wax angel on the top, and the Old Man lay in his bed and looked at it.

“I suppose this kind of thing will save us, in the end,” he said to William. “Damn it, man, people will go on having babies, and the babies will have Christmas trees, long after Hitler is dead and rotted.”

The baby of course had not noticed the tree, and there was nothing to indicate that a year later William would be about to be dismissed, or that Mr. Tony, feverishly shaking a rattle before his sleeping offspring, would be in his country’s uniform and somewhere on the high seas.

It was a bad year, in a way. It had told on Miss Sally, William thought. Her grandfather had taken his stroke badly. He would lie for hours, willing that stubborn will of his to move an arm, a leg, even a finger, on the stricken side. Nothing happened, of course, and at last he had accepted it, wheelchair and all. William had helped to care for him, turning his big body when the nurse changed the sheets, bathing him when he roared that he would be eternally damned if he would allow any woman to wash him. And during the long hours of the night it had been William who sat with him while he could not sleep.

Yet Miss Sally had taken it bravely.

“He cared for me all my life,” she said. “Now I can care for him. William and I.”

She had done it, too. William had to grant her that. She had turned a wing of the ground floor over to him, with a porch where he could sit and look out at the sea. She gave him time and devotion. Until Pearl Harbor, that is, and the night when Mr. Tony had slipped into the Old Man’s room while William was playing chess with him, and put his problem up to them.

“You know Sally,” he said. “I can’t even talk to her about this war. But she’s safe here, and the boy too. And... well, somebody’s got to fight.”

The Old Man had looked down at that swollen helpless hand of his, lying in his lap.

“I see,” he said. “You want to go, of course?”

“It isn’t a question of wanting, is it?”

“It is, damn it,” said the Old Man fiercely. “I wanted to go to Cuba. Her father couldn’t get to France fast enough. I wouldn’t give a tinker’s curse for the fellow who doesn’t want to go. But” — his voice softened — “it will hurt Sally like hell, son. She’s had enough of war.”

It had hurt her. She had fought it tooth and nail. But Tony had enlisted in the Navy almost at once, and he had gone a few days before Christmas. She did not cry when she saw him off, but she had the bleak look in her face which had never since entirely left it.

“I hope you enjoy it,” she said.

“I don’t expect to enjoy it, darling.”

She was smiling, a strange stiff smile.

“Then why are you going?” she asked. “There are plenty of men who don’t have to leave a wife to look after a baby and a helpless old man. Two old men,” she said, and looked at William, standing by with the bags.

She was still not crying when after he had gone she had walked to the Old Man’s room. William was there. She stood in the doorway looking at them.

“I hope you’re both satisfied,” she said, her voice frozen. “You can sit here, safe and sound, and beat the drums all you like. But I warn you, don’t beat them where I can hear them. I won’t have it.”

Her grandfather eyed her.

“I raised you,” he said. “William and I raised you. I guess we went wrong somewhere. You’re spoiled after all. And I’ll beat the drums all I damn please. So will William.”

Only William knew that she had not gone to bed at all that night. Some time toward morning he had seen her down on the beach in the cold, staring out at the sea.

He had trimmed the boy’s tree for him that Christmas Eve. And when it was finished, with the same ancient wax angel on the top, the Old Man had suddenly asked for a drink.

“To hell with the doctors,” he said. “I’ll drink to Tony if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

As it happened, it was practically the last thing William had to do for him. For of course he had just got the liquor down when Miss Sally walked in.

She dismissed William the next morning. He had gone upstairs and packed, leaving his livery but taking the photographs with him in his battered old suitcase. When he came down the stairs Miss Sally was waiting for him. He thought she had been crying, but the bleak look was in her face again.

“I’m sorry it has to be like this, William,” she said stiffly. “I have your check here, and of course if you ever need any help—”

“I’ve saved my money,” he told her stiffly. “I can manage. If it’s all right I’d like to see the baby before I go.”

She nodded, and he left her and went outside. The baby toddled to him, and William picked him up and held him close.

“You be a good boy,” he said. “Be a good boy and eat your cereal every day.”

“Dood boy,” said the child.

William stood for a minute, looking out at the winter ocean where perhaps even now Mr. Tony might be. Then he put the child down.

“Look after him, Miss Jones,” he told the nurse huskily. “He’s about all his great-grandfather has left.”

He found he was shaking when he got into the station wagon. Paul, the chauffeur, had to lift his suitcase. Evidently he knew. He looked concerned.

“This’ll be hard as hell on the Old Man,” he said. “What happened, anyhow?”

“Miss Sally’s upset,” said William evenly. “Mr. Tony going, and all that. She has no reason to like war.”

“Who does?” said Paul glumly. “What do you bet they’ll get me next?”

As they left a taxi was turning in at the gate. There was a tall swarthy man inside, and William disliked him instantly. Paul grunted.

“If that’s the new fellow the Old Man will have him on his backside in a week,” he said.

But so far as William knew the man was still there, and now he himself was on his way back, after a year, on some mysterious business he did not understand.

The bus rattled and roared along. The crowd was still amiable. It called Merry Christmas to each other, and strangers talked across the aisle. It was as though for this one night in the year one common bond united them. William, clutching his parcel, felt some of its warmth infecting him.

He had been very lonely. He had taken a room in the city, but most of the people he knew had died or moved away. He took out a card to the public library, and read a good bit. And when the weather was good he sat in the park at the edge of the river, watching the ships on their way up to the Sound to join their convoys. They traveled one after the other, great grayish black monsters, like elephants in a circus holding each others’ tails. Sometimes they were battleships, sometimes freighters, laden to their Plimsoll marks, their decks covered with tanks and huge crates. So close were they that once on the bridge of a destroyer he thought he saw Mr. Tony. He stood up and waved his old hat, and the young officer saluted. But it was not Tony.

When the sinkings began he watched the newspapers, his heart beating fast. Then one day he saw Tony’s picture. His ship had helped to rescue a crew at sea, and Tony was smiling. He looked tired and older, however. William had cut it out and sent it to the Old Man. But the only acknowledgment had been a post card. It had been duly censored for the United States Mail, and so all it said was: “Come back, you blankety blank fool.”

However, if the Old Man had his pride, so did William. He had not gone back.

Then, just a week before, he had received a telegram. It too had evidently been censored, this time for the benefit of the telegraph company. So it read: DRAT YOUR STIFF-NECKED PRIDE. COME AND SEE ME. LETTER FOLLOWS.

As the bus rattled along he got out the letter. The crowd had settled down by that time. One by one the tired children had dropped off to sleep, and even the adults looked weary, as though having worked themselves into a fine pitch of excitement they had now relapsed into patient waiting. He got out his spectacles and reread the letter.

It was a very odd sort of letter, written as it was in the Old Man’s cramped hand. It was almost as though he had expected someone else to read it. If there was anything wrong it did not say so. In fact, it alluded only to a Christmas surprise for the baby. Nevertheless the directions were puzzling. William was to arrive quietly and after dark. He was to leave his taxi at the gate, walk in, and rap on the Old Man’s bedroom window. It added that the writer would get rid of the nurse if he had to drown her in the bathtub, and it closed with what sounded like an appeal. “Don’t be a damn fool. I need you.”

He was still thinking about it when the bus reached its destination. The rain had continued, and the crowd got out to an opening of umbrellas and another search for missing parcels. William was stiff from the long ride, and the town surprised him. It was almost completely blacked out and his taxi, when he found one, had some sort of black material over all but a narrow strip on its headlights.

“Good thing too,” said the driver companionably. “We’re right on the coast. Too many ships getting sunk these days. One sunk off here only a week ago. If you ask me them Germans has fellows at work right in this place. Where’d you say to go?”

“The Bennett place. Out on the beach.”

The driver grinned.

“Used to drive the Major now and then,” he said. “Kind of a violent talker, ain’t he?”

“He’s had quite a bit of trouble,” said William.

“Well, his granddaughter’s a fine girl,” said the driver. “Know where she is tonight? Trimming a tree out at the camp. I seen her there myself.”

“She always was a fine girl,” said William sturdily.

The driver protested when he got out at the gate.

“Better let me take you in. It’s raining cats and dogs.”

But William shook his head.

“I want to surprise them. I know the way.”

The cab drove off to an exchange of Christmas greetings, and William started for the house. There were no lights showing as he trudged along the driveway, but he could hear ahead of him the steady boom of the waves as the Atlantic rolled in, the soft hiss of the water as it rolled up the beach. Just so for fifty years had he heard it. Only now it meant something new and different. It meant danger, men in ships watching against death; Mr. Tony perhaps somewhere out there in the dark, and the Old Man knowing it and listening, as he was listening.

He was relieved when he saw the garage doors open and no cars inside. He made his way cautiously around the house to the Old Man’s wing, and stood listening under the bedroom window. There was no sound inside, however, and he wondered what to do. If he was asleep — Suddenly he sneezed, and he almost jumped out of his skin when a familiar voice spoke, almost at his ear.

“Come in, damn it,” said the voice irritably. “What the hell are you waiting for? Want to catch your death of pneumonia?”

Suddenly William felt warm and comfortable again. This was what he had needed, to be sworn at and shouted at, to see the Old Man again, to hear him roar, or to be near him in contented silence. He crawled through the window, smiling happily.

“Nothing wrong with your voice, anyhow,” he said. “Well, here I am, sir.”

“And about time,” said the Old Man. “Turn up the light and let me look at you. Shut the window and draw those curtains. Hah! You’re flabby!”

“I’ve gained a little weight,” William admitted.

“A little! Got a tummy like a bowl of jelly.”

These amenities over they grinned at each other, and the Old Man held out his good hand.

“God,” he said, “I’m glad to see you. We’re going straight to the devil here. Well, a Merry Christmas to you anyhow.”

“The same to you, sir.”

They shook hands, and William surveyed the Old Man, sitting bolt upright in his wheelchair. He looked as truculent as ever, but some of the life had gone out of his face.

“So you ran out on me!” he said. “Why the devil didn’t you turn Sally over your knee and spank her? I’ve seen you do it.”

“I’m not as strong as I used to be,” said William apologetically. The Old Man chuckled.

“She’s a Bennett,” he said. “Always was, always will be. But she’s learning. Maybe it’s the hard way, but she’s learning.” He eyed William. “Take off that coat, man,” he said. “You’re dripping all over the place. What’s that package? Anything in it but your nightshirt?”

“I’ve got a pint of Scotch,” William admitted.

“Then what are we waiting for?” shouted the Old Man. “Sally’s out. The nurse is out. Jarvis is out — that’s the butler, if he is a butler and if that’s his name. And the rest have gone to bed. Let’s have it. It’s Christmas Eve, man!”

“They oughtn’t to leave you like that,” William said reprovingly.

“Each of them thinks somebody else is looking after me.” The Old Man chuckled. “Get some glasses. I guess you know your way. And take a look around when you get there.”

William went back to the familiar rear of the house. His feet were wet and a small trickle of water had escaped his celluloid collar and gone down his back; but he walked almost jauntily. Until he saw his pantry, that is.

He did not like what he saw. The place even smelled unclean, and the silver was only half polished, the glasses he held to the light were smeared, and the floor felt sticky under his feet.

Resentfully he washed two glasses, dried them on a not too clean dish towel, and went back. The Old Man watched him from under his heavy eyebrows.

“Well, what do you think of it?” he inquired. “Is the fellow a butler?”

“He’s not a good one, sir.”

But the Old Man said nothing more. He took his glass and waited until William had poured his own drink. Then he lifted the glass.

“To Tony,” he said. “A safe Christmas to him, and to all the other men with the guts to fight this war.”

It was like a prayer. It probably was a prayer, and William echoed it.

“To Mr. Tony,” he said, “and all the rest.”

Then at last the Old Man explained his letter. He didn’t trust the man Jarvis. Never had. Too smooth. Sally, of course, did not suspect him, although he was damned inefficient. Anyhow what could she do, with every able-bodied man in service or making armament?

“But there’s something queer about him,” he said. “And you may not know it, but we had a ship torpedoed out here last week. Some of the men landed on the beach. Some never landed anywhere, poor devils.”

“I heard about it,” said William. “What do you want me to do?”

“How the hell do I know?” said the Old Man.

“Look around. See if there’s anything suspicious. And if there isn’t, get rid of him anyhow. I don’t like him.”

A thin flush rose to William’s wrinkled face.

“You mean I’m to stay?” he inquired.

“Why the devil do you suppose I brought you back?” shouted the Old Man. “Don’t stand there staring. Get busy. We haven’t got all night.”

William’s strictly amateur activities, however, yielded him nothing. His old room — now belonging to Jarvis — surprised him by its neatness, but unless that in itself was suspicious, there was nothing more. No flashlight for signaling, no code book, which William would certainly not have recognized anyhow, not even a radio.

“Tidy, is it?” said the Old Man when he reported back. “Well, I suppose that’s that. I’d hoped to hand the FBI a Christmas gift, but — All right, no spy. I’ve got another job for you, one you’ll like better.” He leaned back in his chair and eyed William quizzically. “Sally’s not having a tree this year for the boy. I don’t blame her. For months she’s worked her fool head off. Army, Navy, and what have you. She’s tired. Maybe she’s breaking her heart. Sometimes I think she is. But by the Lord Harry he’s having a tree just the same.”

William looked at his watch.

“It’s pretty late to buy one,” he said. “But of course I can try.”

The Old Man grinned, showing a perfect set of his own teeth, only slightly yellowed.

“Think I’m getting old, don’t you?” he scoffed. “Always did think you were smarter than I was, didn’t you? Well, I’m not in my dotage yet. The tree’s on the porch. Had it delivered tonight. Unless,” he added unkindly, “you’re too feeble to drag it in!”

William also grinned, showing a perfect set of teeth, certainly not his own, except by purchase.

“I suppose you wouldn’t care to take a bet on it, sir?” he said happily.

Ten minutes later the tree was in place in a corner of the Old Man’s sitting room. William was perspiring but triumphant. The Old Man himself was exhilarated with one small drink and an enormous pride. Indeed, both were eminently cheerful until, without warning, they heard the sound of a car outside.

It was Sally, and before she had put up her car and got back to the house, William was hidden in the darkened sitting room, and her grandfather was sedately reading in his chair beside a lamp. From where he stood William could see her plainly. She had changed, he thought. She looked older. But she looked gentler, too, as though at last she had learned some of the lessons of life. Her eyes were no longer bleak, but they were sunken in her head. Nevertheless William felt a thrill of pride. She was their girl, his and the Old Man’s, and now she was a woman. A lovely woman, too. Even William, no connoisseur, could see that.

“Good gracious, why aren’t you in bed?” she said, slipping off her fur coat. “And where’s the nurse?”

“It’s Christmas Eve, my dear. I sent her off for a while. She’ll be back.”

But Sally was not listening. Even William could see that. She sat down on the edge of a chair and twisted her fingers in her lap.

“There wasn’t any mail, was there?”

“I’m afraid not. Of course we don’t know where he is. It may be difficult for him to send any.”

Suddenly she burst out.

“Why don’t you say it?” she demanded. “You always say what you think. I sent Tony off wrong. I can’t forgive myself for that. I was wrong about William, too. You miss him, don’t you?”

“Miss him?” said the Old Man, deliberately raising his voice. “Why would I miss the old rascal? Always pottering around and doing nothing! I get along fine without him.”

“I think you’re lying to make me feel better,” she said, and got up. “I was wrong about him, and tonight I realized I’d been wrong about the baby’s tree. When I saw the men around the one we’d fixed for them — I’ve made a mess of everything, haven’t I?”

“Most of us do, my dear,” said her grandfather. “But we learn. We learn.”

She went out then, closing the door quietly behind her. When William went into the bedroom he found the Old Man staring somberly at the fire.

“Damn war anyhow,” he said violently. “Damn the blasted lunatics who wished it on the earth. All I need now is for some idiots to come around and sing ‘Peace on earth, good will to men!’ ”

As though it might have been a signal, from beyond the window suddenly came a chorus of young voices, and William gingerly raised the shade. Outside, holding umbrellas in one hand and clutching their blowing cassocks around them with the other, the choir boys from the nearby church were singing, their small scrubbed faces earnest and intent. They sang about peace, and the King of peace who had been born to save the world, and the Old Man listened. When they had gone he grinned sheepishly.

“Well, maybe they’re right at that,” he said. “Sooner or later peace has to come. How about a small drink to the idea, anyhow?”

They drank it together and in silence, and once more they were back where they had been a year ago. No longer master and man, but two friends of long standing, content merely to be together.

“So you’ve been doing fine without me, sir?” said William, putting down his glass.

“Hell, did you hear that?” said the Old Man innocently.

They chuckled as at some ancient joke.

It was after eleven when William in his socks made his way to the attic where the trimmings for the tree were stored. Sally was still awake. He could hear her stirring in her room. For a moment he stood outside and listened, and it seemed no time at all since he had done the same thing when she was a child, and had been punished and sent to bed. He would stand at her door and tap, and she would open it and throw herself sobbing into his arms.

“I’ve been a bad girl, William.”

He would hold her and pat her thin little back.

“Now, now,” he would say. “Take it easy, Sally. Maybe William can fix it for you.”

But of course there was nothing he could fix now. He felt rather chilly as he climbed the attic stairs.

To his relief the attic was orderly. He turned on the light and moving cautiously went to the corner where the Christmas tree trimmings, neatly boxed and covered, had always stood. They were still there. He lifted them, one by one, and placed them behind him. Then he stiffened and stood staring.

Neatly installed behind where they had been was a small radio transmitter.

He knew it at once for what it was, and a slow flush of fury suffused his face as he knelt down to examine it.

“The spy!” he muttered thickly, “the dirty devil of a spy!”

So this was how it was done. This was how ships were being sunk at sea; the convoys assembling, the ships passing along the horizon, and men like Jarvis watching, ready to unleash the waiting submarine wolves upon them.

He was trying to tear it out with his bare hands when he heard a voice behind him.

“Stay where you are, or I’ll shoot.”

But it was not Jarvis. It was Sally, white and terrified, in a dressing gown over her nightdress and clutching a revolver in her hand. William got up slowly and turned, and she gasped and dropped the gun.

“Why, William!” she said. “What are you doing here?”

He stood still, concealing the transmitter behind his stocky body.

“Your grandfather sent for me,” he said, with dignity. “He was planning a little surprise for you and the boy, in the morning.”

She looked at him, at his dependable old face, at the familiar celluloid collar gleaming in the light, at his independent sturdy figure, and suddenly her chin quivered.

“Oh, William,” she said. “I’ve been such a dreadful person.”

All at once she was in his arms, crying bitterly.

“Everything’s so awful,” she sobbed. “I’m so frightened, William. I can’t help it.”

And once more he was holding her and saying:

“It will be all right, Sally girl. Don’t you worry. It will be all right.”

She quieted, and at last he got her back to her room. He found that he was shaking, but he went methodically to work. He did what he could to put the transmitter out of business. Then he piled up the boxes of trimmings and carried them down the stairs. There was still no sign of Jarvis, and the Old Man was dozing in his chair. William hesitated. Then he shut himself in the sitting room and cautiously called the chief of the local police.

“This is William,” he said. “The butler at Major Bennett’s. I—”

“So you’re back, you old buzzard, are you?” said the chief. “Well, Merry Christmas and welcome home.”

But he sobered when William told him what he had discovered. He promised to round up some men, and not — at William’s request — to come as if they were going to a fire.

“We’ll get him all right,” he said. “We’ll get all these dirty polecats sooner or later. All right. No siren. We’ll ring the doorbell.”

William felt steadier after that. He was in the basement getting a ladder for trimming the tree when he heard Jarvis come back. But he went directly up the back stairs to his room, and William, listening below, felt that he would not visit the attic that night.

He was singularly calm now. The Old Man was sound asleep by that time, and snoring as violently as he did everything else. William placed the ladder and hung the wax angel on the top of the tree. Then he stood precariously and surveyed it.

“Well, we’re back,” he said. “We’re kind of old and battered, but we’re still here, thank God.”

Which in its way was a prayer too, like the Old Man’s earlier in the evening.

He got down, his legs rather stiff, and going into the other room touched the sleeper lightly on the shoulder. He jerked awake.

“What the hell did you do that for?” he roared. “Can’t a man take a nap without your infernal interfering?”

“The tree’s ready to trim,” said William quietly.

Few characters have enjoyed such a depth of affection among mystery aficionados as Brother Cadfael, the medieval herbalist in a Benedictine abbey in Shropshire. He was created in 1977 by Ellis Peters in A Morbid Taste for Bones, and nineteen additional novels and a short story collection followed. Even though Edith Pargeter (Ellis Peters’s real name) wrote scores of other books, the wise and gentle monk was a fan favorite for thirty years. In addition to being an outstanding detective, often helping the deputy sheriff bring transgressors to justice, Cadfael, who had been a man of the world before entering the abbey, was also frequently instrumental in helping young lovers find happiness. The author won the Edgar for Best Novel in 1963 for Death and the Joyful Woman and was presented with the Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement by the (British) Crime Writers’ Association in 1993. “The Trinity Cat” was first published in Winter’s Crimes #8 (London, Macmillan, 1976); it was first collected in the author’s collection A Rare Benedictine (London, Headline, 1988).

He was sitting on top of one of the rear gate-posts of the churchyard when I walked through on Christmas Eve, grooming in his lordly style, with one back leg wrapped round his neck, and his bitten ear at an angle of forty-five degrees, as usual. I reckon one of the toms he’d tangled with in his nomad days had ripped the starched bit out of that one, the other stood up sharply enough. There was snow on the ground, a thin veiling, just beginning to crackle in promise of frost before evening, but he had at least three warm refuges around the place whenever he felt like holing up, besides his two houses, which he used only for visiting and cadging. He’d been a known character around our village for three years then, ever since he walked in from nowhere and made himself agreeable to the vicar and the verger, and finding the billet comfortable and the pickings good, constituted himself resident cat to Holy Trinity church, and took over all the jobs around the place that humans were too slow to tackle, like rat-catching, and chasing off invading dogs.

Nobody knows how old he is, but I think he could only have been about two when he settled here, a scrawny, chewed-up black bandit as lean as wire. After three years of being fed by Joel Woodward at Trinity Cottage, which was the verger’s house by tradition, and flanked the lych-gate on one side, and pampered and petted by Miss Patience Thomson at Church Cottage on the other side, he was double his old size, and sleek as velvet, but still had one lop ear and a kink two inches from the end of his tail. He still looked like a brigand, but a highly prosperous brigand. Nobody ever gave him a name, he wasn’t the sort to get called anything fluffy or familiar. Only Miss Patience ever dared coo at him, and he was very gracious about that, she being elderly and innocent and very free with little perks like raw liver, on which he doted. One way and another, he had it made. He lived mostly outdoors, never staying in either house overnight. In winter he had his own little ground-level hatch into the furnace-room of the church, sharing his lodgings matily with a hedgehog that had qualified as assistant vermin-destructor around the churchyard, and preferred sitting out the winter among the coke to hibernating like common hedgehogs. These individualists keep turning up in our valley, for some reason.

All I’d gone to the church for that afternoon was to fix up with the vicar about the Christmas peal, having been roped into the bell-ringing team. Resident police in remote areas like ours get dragged into all sorts of activities, and when the area’s changing, and new problems cropping up, if they have any sense they don’t need too much dragging, but go willingly. I’ve put my finger on many an astonished yobbo who thought he’d got clean away with his little breaking-and-entering, just by keeping my ears open during a darts match, or choir practice.

When I came back through the churchyard, around half-past two, Miss Patience was just coming out of her gate, with a shopping bag on her wrist, and heading towards the street, and we walked along together a bit of the way. She was getting on for seventy, and hardly bigger than a bird, but very independent. Never having married or left the valley, and having looked after a mother who lived to be nearly ninety, she’d never had time to catch up with new ideas in the style of dress suitable for elderly ladies. Everything had always been done mother’s way, and fashion, music, and morals had stuck at the period when mother was a carefully-brought-up girl learning domestic skills, and preparing for a chaste marriage. There’s a lot to be said for it! But it had turned Miss Patience into a frail little lady in long-skirted black or grey or navy blue, who still felt undressed without hat and gloves, at an age when Mrs. Newcombe, for instance, up at the pub, favoured shocking pink trouser suits and red-gold hair-pieces. A pretty little old lady Miss Patience was, though, very straight and neat. It was a pleasure to watch her walk. Which is more than I could say for Mrs. Newcombe in her trouser suit, especially from the back!

“A happy Christmas, Sergeant Moon!” she chirped at me on sight. And I wished her the same, and slowed up to her pace.

“It’s going to be slippery by twilight,” I said. “You be careful how you go.”

“Oh, I’m only going to be an hour or so,” she said serenely. “I shall be home long before the frost sets in. I’m only doing the last bit of Christmas shopping. There’s a cardigan I have to collect for Mrs. Downs.” That was her cleaning-lady, who went in three mornings a week. “I ordered it long ago, but deliveries are so slow nowadays. They’ve promised it for today. And a gramophone record for my little errand-boy.” Tommy Fowler that was, one of the church trebles, as pink and wholesome-looking as they usually contrive to be, and just as artful. “And one mustn’t forget our dumb friends, either, must one?” said Miss Patience cheerfully. “They’re all important, too.”

I took this to mean a couple of packets of some new product to lure wild birds to her garden. The Church Cottage thrushes were so fat they could hardly fly, and when it was frosty she put out fresh water three and four times a day.

We came to our brief street of shops, and off she went, with her big jet-and-gold brooch gleaming in her scarf. She had quite a few pieces of Victorian and Edwardian jewellery her mother’d left behind, and almost always wore one piece, being used to the belief that a lady dresses meticulously every day, not just on Sundays. And I went for a brisk walk round to see what was going on, and then went home to Molly and high tea, and took my boots off thankfully.

That was Christmas Eve. Christmas Day little Miss Thomson didn’t turn up for eight o’clock Communion, which was unheard-of. The vicar said he’d call in after matins and see that she was all right, and hadn’t taken cold trotting about in the snow. But somebody else beat us both to it. Tommy Fowler! He was anxious about that pop record of his. But even he had no chance until after service, for in our village it’s the custom for the choir to go and sing the vicar an aubade in the shape of “Christians, Awake!” before the main service, ignoring the fact that he’s then been up four hours, and conducted two Communions. And Tommy Fowler had a solo in the anthem, too. It was a quarter-past twelve when he got away, and shot up the garden path to the door of Church Cottage.

He shot back even faster a minute later. I was heading for home when he came rocketing out of the gate and ran slam into me, with his eyes sticking out on stalks and his mouth wide open, making a sort of muted keening sound with shock. He clutched hold of me and pointed back towards Miss Thomson’s front door, left half-open when he fled, and tried three times before he could croak out:

“Miss Patience... She’s there on the floor — she’s bad!”

I went in on the run, thinking she’d had a heart attack all alone there, and was lying helpless. The front door led through a diminutive hall, and through another glazed door into the living-room, and that door was open, too, and there was Miss Patience face-down on the carpet, still in her coat and gloves, and with her shopping-bag lying beside her. An occasional table had been knocked over in her fall, spilling a vase and a book. Her hat was askew over one ear, and caved in like a trodden mushroom, and her neat grey bun of hair had come undone and trailed on her shoulder, and it was no longer grey but soiled, brownish black. She was dead and stiff. The room was so cold, you could tell those doors had been ajar all night.

The kid had followed me in, hanging on to my sleeve, his teeth chattering. “I didn’t open the door — it was open! I didn’t touch her, or anything. I only came to see if she was all right, and get my record.”

It was there, lying unbroken, half out of the shopping-bag by her arm. She’d meant it for him, and I told him he should have it, but not yet, because it might be evidence, and we mustn’t move anything. And I got him out of there quick, and gave him to the vicar to cope with, and went back to Miss Patience as soon as I’d telephoned for the outfit. Because we had a murder on our hands.

So that was the end of one gentle, harmless old woman, one of very many these days, battered to death because she walked in on an intruder who panicked. Walked in on him, I judged, not much more than an hour after I left her in the street. Everything about her looked the same as then, the shopping-bag, the coat, the hat, the gloves. The only difference, that she was dead. No, one more thing! No handbag, unless it was under the body, and later, when we were able to move her, I wasn’t surprised to see that it wasn’t there. Handbags are where old ladies carry their money. The sneak-thief who panicked and lashed out at her had still had greed and presence of mind enough to grab the bag as he fled. Nobody’d have to describe that bag to me, I knew it well, soft black leather with an old-fashioned gilt clasp and a short handle, a small thing, not like the holdalls they carry nowadays.

She was lying facing the opposite door, also open, which led to the stairs. On the writing-desk by that door stood one of a pair of heavy brass candlesticks. Its fellow was on the floor beside Miss Thomson’s body, and though the bun of hair and the felt hat had prevented any great spattering of blood, there was blood enough on the square base to label the weapon. Whoever had hit her had been just sneaking down the stairs, ready to leave. She’d come home barely five minutes too soon.

Upstairs, in her bedroom, her bits of jewellery hadn’t taken much finding. She’d never thought of herself as having valuables, or of other people as coveting them. Her gold and turquoise and funereal jet and true-lover’s-knots in gold and opals, and mother’s engagement and wedding rings, and her little Edwardian pendant watch set with seed pearls, had simply lived in the small top drawer of her dressing-table. She belonged to an honest epoch, and it was gone, and now she was gone after it. She didn’t even lock her door when she went shopping. There wouldn’t have been so much as the warning of a key grating in the lock, just the door opening.

Ten years ago not a soul in this valley behaved differently from Miss Patience. Nobody locked doors, sometimes not even overnight. Some of us went on a fortnight’s holiday and left the doors unlocked. Now we can’t even put out the milk money until the milkman knocks at the door in person. If this generation likes to pride itself on its progress, let it! As for me, I thought suddenly that maybe the innocent was well out of it.

We did the usual things, photographed the body and the scene of the crime, the doctor examined her and authorised her removal, and confirmed what I’d supposed about the approximate time of her death. And the forensic boys lifted a lot of smudgy latents that weren’t going to be of any use to anybody, because they weren’t going to be on record, barring a million to one chance. The whole thing stank of the amateur. There wouldn’t be any easy matching up of prints, even if they got beauties. One more thing we did for Miss Patience. We tolled the dead-bell for her on Christmas night, six heavy, muffled strokes. She was a virgin. Nobody had to vouch for it, we all knew. And let me point out, it is a title of honour, to be respected accordingly.

We’d hardly got the poor soul out of the house when the Trinity cat strolled in, taking advantage of the minute or two while the door was open. He got as far as the place on the carpet where she’d lain, and his fur and whiskers stood on end, and even his lop ear jerked up straight. He put his nose down to the pile of the Wilton, about where her shopping bag and handbag must have lain, and started going round in interested circles, snuffing the floor and making little throaty noises that might have been distress, but sounded like pleasure. Excitement, anyhow. The chaps from the C.I.D. were still busy, and didn’t want him under their feet, so I picked him up and took him with me when I went across to Trinity Cottage to talk to the verger. The cat never liked being picked up, after a minute he started clawing and cursing, and I put him down. He stalked away again at once, past the corner where people shot their dead flowers, out at the lych-gate, and straight back to sit on Miss Thomson’s doorstep. Well, after all, he used to get fed there, he might well be uneasy at all these queer comings and goings. And they don’t say “as curious as a cat” for nothing, either.

I didn’t need telling that Joel Woodward had had no hand in what had happened, he’d been nearest neighbour and good friend to Miss Patience for years, but he might have seen or heard something out of the ordinary. He was a little, wiry fellow, gnarled like a tree-root, the kind that goes on spry and active into his nineties, and then decides that’s enough, and leaves overnight. His wife was dead long ago, and his daughter had come back to keep house for him after her husband deserted her, until she died, too, in a bus accident. There was just old Joel now, and the grandson she’d left with him, young Joel Barnett, nineteen, and a bit of a tearaway by his grandad’s standards, but so far pretty innocuous by mine. He was a sulky, graceless sort, but he did work, and he stuck with the old man when many another would have lit out elsewhere.

“A bad business,” said old Joel, shaking his head. “I only wish I could help you lay hands on whoever did it. But I only saw her yesterday morning about ten, when she took in the milk. I was round at the church hall all afternoon, getting things ready for the youth social they had last night, it was dark before I got back. I never saw or heard anything out of place. You can’t see her living-room light from here, so there was no call to wonder. But the lad was here all afternoon. They only work till one, Christmas Eve. Then they all went boozing together for an hour or so, I expect, so I don’t know exactly what time he got in, but he was here and had the tea on when I came home. Drop round in an hour or so and he should be here, he’s gone round to collect this girl he’s mashing. There’s a party somewhere tonight.”

I dropped round accordingly, and young Joel was there, sure enough, shoulder-length hair, frilled shirt, outsize lapels and all, got up to kill, all for the benefit of the girl his grandad had mentioned. And it turned out to be Connie Dymond, from the comparatively respectable branch of the family, along the canal-side. There were three sets of Dymond cousins, boys, no great harm in ’em but worth watching, but only this one girl in Connie’s family. A good-looker, or at least most of the lads seemed to think so, she had a dozen or so on her string before she took up with young Joel. Big girl, too, with a lot of mauve eye-shadow and a mother-of-pearl mouth, in huge platform shoes and the fashionable drab granny-coat. But she was acting very prim and proper with old Joel around.

“Half-past two when I got home,” said young Joel. “Grandad was round at the hall, and I’d have gone round to help him, only I’d had a pint or two, and after I’d had me dinner I went to sleep, so it wasn’t worth it by the time I woke up. Around four, that’d be. From then on I was here watching the telly, and I never saw nor heard a thing. But there was nobody else here, so I could be spinning you the yarn, if you want to look at it that way.”

He had a way of going looking for trouble before anybody else suggested it, there was nothing new about that. Still, there it was. One young fellow on the spot, and minus any alibi. There’d be plenty of others in the same case.

In the evening he’d been at the church social. Miss Patience wouldn’t be expected there, it was mainly for the young, and anyhow, she very seldom went out in the evenings.

“I was there with Joel,” said Connie Dymond. “He called for me at seven, I was with him all the evening. We went home to our place after the social finished, and he didn’t leave till nearly midnight.”

Very firm about it she was, doing her best for him. She could hardly know that his movements in the evening didn’t interest us, since Miss Patience had then been dead for some hours.

When I opened the door to leave the Trinity cat walked in, stalking past me with a purposeful stride. He had a look round us all, and then made for the girl, reached up his front paws to her knees, and was on her lap before she could fend him off, though she didn’t look as if she welcomed his attentions. Very civil he was, purring and rubbing himself against her coat sleeve, and poking his whiskery face into hers. Unusual for him to be effusive, but when he did decide on it, it was always with someone who couldn’t stand cats. You’ll have noticed it’s a way they have.

“Shove him off,” said young Joel, seeing she didn’t at all care for being singled out. “He only does it to annoy people.”

And she did, but he only jumped on again, I noticed as I closed the door on them and left. It was a Dymond party they were going to, the senior lot, up at the filling station. Not much point in trying to check up on all her cousins and swains when they were gathered for a booze-up. Coming out of a hangover, tomorrow, they might be easy meat. Not that I had any special reason to look their way, they were an extrovert lot, more given to grievous bodily harm in street punch-ups than anything secretive. But it was wide open.

Well, we summed up. None of the lifted prints was on record, all we could do in that line was exclude all those that were Miss Thomson’s. This kind of sordid little opportunist break-in had come into local experience only fairly recently, and though it was no novelty now, it had never before led to a death. No motive but the impulse of greed, so no traces leading up to the act, and none leading away. Everyone connected with the church, and most of the village besides, knew about the bits of jewellery she had, but never before had anyone considered them as desirable loot. Victoriana now carry inflated values, and are in demand, but this still didn’t look calculated, just wanton. A kid’s crime, a teenager’s crime. Or the crime of a permanent teenager. They start at twelve years old now, but there are also the shiftless louts who never get beyond twelve years old, even in their forties.

We checked all the obvious people, her part-time gardener — but he was demonstrably elsewhere at the time — and his drifter of a son, whose alibi was non-existent but voluble, the window-cleaner, a sidelong soul who played up his ailments and did rather well out of her, all the delivery men. Several there who were clear, one or two who could have been around, but had no particular reason to be. Then we went after all the youngsters who, on their records, were possibles. There were three with breaking-and-entering convictions, but if they’d been there they’d been gloved. Several others with petty theft against them were also without alibis. By the end of a pretty exhaustive survey the field was wide, and none of the runners seemed to be ahead of the rest, and we were still looking. None of the stolen property had so far showed up.

Not, that is, until the Saturday. I was coming from Church Cottage through the graveyard again, and as I came near the corner where the dead flowers were shot, I noticed a glaring black patch making an irregular hole in the veil of frozen snow that still covered the ground. You couldn’t miss it, it showed up like a black eye. And part of it was the soil and rotting leaves showing through, and part, the blackest part, was the Trinity cat, head down and back arched, digging industriously like a terrier after a rat. The bent end of his tail lashed steadily, while the remaining eight inches stood erect. If he knew I was standing watching him, he didn’t care. Nothing was going to deflect him from what he was doing. And in a minute or two he heaved his prize clear, and clawed out to the light a little black leather handbag with a gilt clasp. No mistaking it, all stuck over as it was with dirt and rotting leaves. And he loved it, he was patting it and playing with it and rubbing his head against it, and purring like a steam-engine. He cursed, though, when I took it off him, and walked round and round me, pawing and swearing, telling me and the world he’d found it, and it was his.

It hadn’t been there long. I’d been along that path often enough to know that the snow hadn’t been disturbed the day before. Also, the mess of humus fell off it pretty quick and clean, and left it hardly stained at all. I held it in my handkerchief and snapped the catch, and the inside was clean and empty, the lining slightly frayed from long use. The Trinity cat stood upright on his hind legs and protested loudly, and he had a voice that could outshout a Siamese.

Somebody behind me said curiously: “Whatever’ve you got there?” And there was young Joel standing open-mouthed, staring, with Connie Dymond hanging on to his arm and gaping at the cat’s find in horrified recognition.

“Oh, no! My gawd, that’s Miss Thomson’s bag, isn’t it? I’ve seen her carrying it hundreds of times.”

“Did he dig it up?” said Joel, incredulous. “You reckon the chap who — you know, him! — he buried it there? It could be anybody, everybody uses this way through.”

“My gawd!” said Connie, shrinking in fascinated horror against his side. “Look at that cat! You’d think he knows... He gives me the shivers! What’s got into him?”

What, indeed? After I’d got rid of them and taken the bag away with me I was still wondering. I walked away with his prize and he followed me as far as the road, howling and swearing, and once I put the bag down, open, to see what he’d do, and he pounced on it and started his fun and games again until I took it from him. For the life of me I couldn’t see what there was about it to delight him, but he was in no doubt. I was beginning to feel right superstitious about this avenging detective cat, and to wonder what he was going to unearth next.

I know I ought to have delivered the bag to the forensic lab, but somehow I hung on to it overnight. There was something fermenting at the back of my mind that I couldn’t yet grasp.

Next morning we had two more at morning service besides the regulars. Young Joel hardly ever went to church, and I doubt if anybody’d ever seen Connie Dymond there before, but there they both were, large as life and solemn as death, in a middle pew, the boy sulky and scowling as if he’d been press-ganged into it, as he certainly had, Connie very subdued and big-eyed, with almost no make-up and an unusually grave and thoughtful face. Sudden death brings people up against daunting possibilities, and creates penitents. Young Joel felt silly there, but he was daft about her, plainly enough, she could get him to do what she wanted, and she’d wanted to make this gesture. She went through all the movements of devotion, he just sat, stood and kneeled awkwardly as required, and went on scowling.

There was a bitter east wind when we came out. On the steps of the porch everybody dug out gloves and turned up collars against it, and so did young Joel, and as he hauled his gloves out of his coat pocket, out with them came a little bright thing that rolled down the steps in front of us all and came to rest in a crack between the flagstones of the path. A gleam of pale blue and gold. A dozen people must have recognised it. Mrs. Downs gave tongue in a shriek that informed even those who hadn’t.

“That’s Miss Thomson’s! It’s one of her turquoise ear-rings! How did you get hold of that, Joel Barnett?”

How, indeed? Everybody stood staring at the tiny thing, and then at young Joel, and he was gazing at the flagstones, struck white and dumb. And all in a moment Connie Dymond had pulled her arm free of his and recoiled from him until her back was against the wall, and was edging away from him like somebody trying to get out of range of flood or fire, and her face a sight to be seen, blind and stiff with horror.

“You!” she said in a whisper. “It was you! Oh, my God, you did it — you killed her! And me keeping company — how could I? How could you!”

She let out a screech and burst into sobs, and before anybody could stop her she turned and took to her heels, running for home like a mad thing.

I let her go. She’d keep. And I got young Joel and that single ear-ring away from the Sunday congregation and into Trinity Cottage before half the people there knew what was happening, and shut the world out, all but old Joel who came panting and shaking after us a few minutes later.

The boy was a long time getting his voice back, and when he did he had nothing to say but, hopelessly, over and over: “I didn’t! I never touched her, I wouldn’t. I don’t know how that thing got into my pocket. I didn’t do it. I never...”

Human beings are not all that inventive. Given a similar set of circumstances they tend to come out with the same formula. And in any case, “deny everything and say nothing else” is a very good rule when cornered.

They thought I’d gone round the bend when I said: “Where’s the cat? See if you can get him in.”

Old Joel was past wondering. He went out and rattled a saucer on the steps, and pretty soon the Trinity cat strolled in. Not at all excited, not wanting anything, fed and lazy, just curious enough to come and see why he was wanted. I turned him loose on young Joel’s overcoat, and he couldn’t have cared less. The pocket that had held the ear-ring held very little interest for him. He didn’t care about any of the clothes in the wardrobe, or on the pegs in the little hall. As far as he was concerned, this new find was a nonevent.

I sent for a constable and a car, and took young Joel in with me to the station, and all the village, you may be sure, either saw us pass or heard about it very shortly after. But I didn’t stop to take any statement from him, just left him there, and took the car up to Mary Melton’s place, where she breeds Siamese, and borrowed a cat-basket from her, the sort she uses to carry her queens to the vet. She asked what on earth I wanted it for, and I said to take the Trinity cat for a ride. She laughed her head off.

“Well, he’s no queen,” she said, “and no king, either. Not even a jack! And you’ll never get that wild thing into a basket.”

“Oh, yes, I will,” I said. “And if he isn’t any of the other picture cards, he’s probably going to turn out to be the joker.”

A very neat basket it was, not too obviously meant for a cat. And it was no trick getting the Trinity cat into it, all I did was drop in Miss Thomson’s handbag, and he was in after it in a moment. He growled when he found himself shut in, but it was too late to complain then.

At the house by the canal Connie Dymond’s mother let me in, but was none too happy about letting me see Connie, until I explained that I needed a statement from her before I could fit together young Joel’s movements all through those Christmas days. Naturally I understood that the girl was terribly upset, but she’d had a lucky escape, and the sooner everything was cleared up, the better for her. And it wouldn’t take long.

It didn’t take long. Connie came down the stairs readily enough when her mother called her. She was all stained and pale and tearful, but had perked up somewhat with a sort of shivering pride in her own prominence. I’ve seen them like that before, getting the juice out of being the centre of attention even while they wish they were elsewhere. You could even say she hurried down, and she left the door of her bedroom open behind her, by the light coming through at the head of the stairs.

“Oh, Sergeant Moon!” she quavered at me from three steps up. “Isn’t it awful? I still can’t believe it! Can there be some mistake? Is there any chance it wasn’t...?”

I said soothingly, yes, there was always a chance. And I slipped the latch of the cat-basket with one hand, so that the flap fell open, and the Trinity cat was out of there and up those stairs like a black flash, startling her so much she nearly fell down the last step, and steadied herself against the wall with a small shriek. And I blurted apologies for accidentally loosing him, and went up the stairs three at a time ahead of her, before she could recover her balance.

He was up on his hind legs in her dolly little room, full of pop posters and frills and garish colours, pawing at the second drawer of her dressing-table, and singing a loud, joyous, impatient song. When I came plunging in, he even looked over his shoulder at me and stood down, as though he knew I’d open the drawer for him. And I did, and he was up among her fancy undies like a shot, and digging with his front paws.

He found what he wanted just as she came in at the door. He yanked it out from among her bras and slips, and tossed it into the air, and in seconds he was on the floor with it, rolling and wrestling it, juggling it on his four paws like a circus turn, and purring fit to kill, a cat in ecstasy. A comic little thing it was, a muslin mouse with a plaited green nylon string for a tail, yellow beads for eyes, and nylon threads for whiskers, that rustled and sent out wafts of strong scent as he batted it around and sang to it. A catmint mouse, old Miss Thomson’s last-minute purchase from the pet shop for her dumb friend. If you could ever call the Trinity cat dumb! The only thing she bought that day small enough to be slipped into her handbag instead of the shopping bag.

Connie let out a screech, and was across that room so fast I only just beat her to the open drawer. They were all there, the little pendant watch, the locket, the brooches, the true-lover’s-knot, the purse, even the other ear-ring. A mistake, she should have ditched both while she was about it, but she was too greedy. They were for pierced ears, anyhow, no good to Connie.

I held them out in the palm of my hand — such a large haul they made — and let her see what she’d robbed and killed for.

If she’d kept her head she might have made a fight of it even then, claimed he’d made her hide them for him, and she’d been afraid to tell on him directly, and could only think of staging that public act at church, to get him safely in custody before she came clean. But she went wild. She did the one deadly thing, turned and kicked out in a screaming fury at the Trinity cat. He was spinning like a humming-top, and all she touched was the kink in his tail. He whipped round and clawed a red streak down her leg through the nylon. And then she screamed again, and began to babble through hysterical sobs that she never meant to hurt the poor old sod, that it wasn’t her fault! Ever since she’d been going with young Joel she’d been seeing that little old bag going in and out, draped with her bits of gold. What in hell did an old witch like her want with jewellery? She had no right! At her age!

“But I never meant to hurt her! She came in too soon,” lamented Connie, still and for ever the aggrieved. “What was I supposed to do? I had to get away, didn’t I? She was between me and the door!”

She was half her size, too, and nearly four times her age! Ah well! What the courts would do with Connie, thank God, was none of my business. I just took her in and charged her, and got her statement. Once we had her dabs it was all over, because she’d left a bunch of them sweaty and clear on that brass candlestick. But if it hadn’t been for the Trinity cat and his single-minded pursuit, scaring her into that ill-judged attempt to hand us young Joel as a scapegoat, she might, she just might, have got clean away with it. At least the boy could go home now, and count his blessings.

Not that she was very bright, of course. Who but a stupid harpy, soaked in cheap perfume and gimcrack dreams, would have hung on even to the catmint mouse, mistaking it for an herbal sachet to put among her smalls?

I saw the Trinity cat only this morning, sitting grooming in the church porch. He’s getting very self-important, as if he knows he’s a celebrity, though throughout he was only looking after the interests of Number One, like all cats. He’s lost interest in his mouse already, now most of the scent’s gone.

I mean no offense to anyone, but there can be little dispute that the funniest mystery writer who ever lived was Donald E. Westlake. He showed his versatility by also writing a very hard-boiled series about the tough professional thief Parker, using the pen name Richard Stark, and the poignant series about Mitch Tobin, under the pseudonym Tucker Coe. It is for his complex and hilarious caper novels, mainly about the unlucky criminal genius John Dortmunder, for whom every perfectly planned burglary goes woefully wrong, that Westlake has been most honored, notably by the Mystery Writers of America, which named him a Grand Master for lifetime achievement in 1993. “The Burglar and the Whatsit” was first published in Playboy in 1996; it was first collected in A Good Story and Other Stories (Unity, ME, Five Star, 1999).

“Hey, Sanity Clause,” shouted the drunk from up the hall. “Wait up. C’mere.”

The man in the red Santa Claus suit, with the big white beard on his face and the big heavy red sack on his shoulder, did not wait up, and did not come here, but instead continued to plod on down the hall in this high floor of a Manhattan apartment building in the middle of a cold evening in the middle of December.

“Hey, Sanity! Wait up, will ya?”

The man in the Santa Claus suit did not at all want to wait up, but on the other hand he also did not at all want a lot of shouting in this hall here, because in fact he was not your normal Santa Claus but was something else entirely, which was a burglar, named Jack. This Jack was a burglar who had learned some time ago that if he were to enter apartment buildings costumed like the sort of person who in the normal course of events would carry on himself some sort of large bag or box or reticule or sack, he could probably fill that sack or whatever with any number of valuable items without much risk of his being challenged, questioned, or — in the worst case — arrested.

Often, therefore, this Jack would roam the corridors of the cliff dwellers garbed as, for instance, a mailman or other parcel delivery person, or as a supermarket clerk pushing a cart full of grocery bags (paper, because you can see through plastic, and plastic bags don’t stand up). Just once he’d been a doctor, with a stethoscope and a doctor’s black bag, but that time he’d been snagged at once, for everybody knows doctors don’t make house calls. A master of disguise, Jack even occasionally appeared as a Chinese restaurant delivery guy. The bicycle clip around his right ankle, to protect his pants leg from the putative bicycle’s supposed chain, was the masterstroke of that particular impersonation.

But the best was Santa Claus. First of all, the disguise was so complete, with the false stomach and the beard and the hat and the gloves. Also, the Santa sack was more capacious than almost anything else he could carry. And finally, people liked Santa Claus, and it made the situation more humane, somehow, gentler and nicer, to be smiled upon by the people he’d just robbed.

The downside of Santa was that his season was so short. There was only about a three-week period in December when the appearance of a Santa Claus in an apartment building’s public areas would not raise more questions than it would answer. But those three weeks were the peak of the year for Jack, when he could move in warmth and safety and utter anonymity, his sack full of gifts — not for the nearby residents but from them. And all in peace and quiet, because people leave Santa Claus alone, when they see him they know he’s on his way somewhere, to a party or a chimney or something.

So they leave Santa alone. Except for this drunk here, shouting in the hallway. Jack the burglar didn’t need a lot of shouting in the hallway, and he didn’t want a lot of shouting in the hallway, so with some reluctance he turned around at last and waited up, gazing at the approaching drunk from eyes that were the one false in the costume: They definitely did not twinkle.

The drunk reeled closer and stared at the burglar out of his own awful eyes, like blue eggs sunny-side up. “You’re just the guy I need,” he announced, inaccurately, for clearly what he most urgently needed was both a 12-step program and a whole lot of large, humorless people to enforce it.

The burglar waited, and the drunk leaned against the wall to keep the building from falling over. “If anybody can get the goddamn thing to work,” he said, “it’s Sanity Clause. But don’t talk to me about batteries. Batteries not included is not the problem here.”

“Good,” the burglar said, and then expanded on that: “Goodbye.”

“Wait!” the drunk shouted as the burglar turned away.

The burglar turned back. “Don’t shout,” he said.

“Well, don’t keep going away,” the drunk told him. “I got a real problem here.”

The burglar sighed through his thick white beard. One of the reasons he’d taken up this line of work in the first place was that you could do it alone. “All right,” he said, hoping this would be short, at least. “What’s the problem?”

“Come on, I’ll show you.” Risking all, the drunk pushed off from the wall and tottered away down the hall. The burglar followed him, and the drunk touched his palm to an apartment door, which clicked and swung open — that was cute — and they went inside. The door swung shut, and the burglar stopped dead and stared.

Jack the burglar had seen a lot of living rooms in his business, but this one was definitely the strangest. Nothing in it looked right. All the furniture, if that’s what it was, consisted of hard and soft shapes from geometry class, in a variety of pastel colors. Tall narrow things that looked like metal plants might have been lamps. Short wide things that crouched could have been chairs. Some of the stuff didn’t seem to be anything in particular at all.

The drunk tottered through this abstract landscape to an inner doorway, then said, “Be right back,” and disappeared.

The burglar made a circuit of the room, and to his surprise found items of interest. A small pale pyramid turned out to be a clock; into his sack it went. Also, this avocado with ears seemed to be a CD player; pop, in it went.

In a far corner, in amazing contrast to everything else, stood a Christmas tree, fat and richly green and hung with a million ornaments, the only normal object in sight. Or, wait a minute. The burglar stared and frowned, and the Christmas tree shimmered over there as though it were about to be beamed up to the starship Enterprise. What was wrong with that tree?

The drunk returned, aglow with happy pride. Waving at the wavering Christmas tree, he said, “Whaddya think?”

“What is it, that’s what I think.”

“A hologram,” the drunk said. “You can walk all around it, see all the sides, and you never have to water it, and it never drops a needle and you can use it next year. Pretty good, huh?”

“It isn’t traditional,” the burglar said. He had his own sense of the fitness of things.

“Tra-dish-unal!” The drunk almost knocked himself over, he rocketed that word out so hard. “I don’t need tradition, I’m an inventor!” Pointing at a whatsit that was just now following him into the room, he said, “See?”

The burglar saw. This whatsit was a metal box, pebbly gray, about four feet tall and a foot square, scattered all over with dials and switches and antennas, plus a smooth dome on the top and little wheels on the bottom that hummed as the thing came straight across the bare gray floor to stop in front of the burglar and go, “Chick-chick, chillick, chillick.”

The burglar didn’t like this artifact at all. He said. “Well what’s this supposed to be?”

“That’s just it,” the drunk said and collapsed backward onto a trapezoid that just possibly could have been a sofa. “I don’t know what the heck it is.”

“I don’t like it,” the burglar said. The thing buzzed and chicked as though it were a supermarket scanner and Jack the burglar were equipped with a bar code. “It’s making me nervous.”

“It makes me nervous,” the drunk said. “I invented the darn thing, and I don’t know what it’s for. Whyn’t you sit down?”

The burglar looked around. “On what?”

“Oh, anything. You want an eggnog?”

Revolted, the burglar said, “Eggnog? No!” And he sat on a nearby rhomboid, which fortunately was more comfortable than it looked.

“I just thought, you know, the uniform,” the drunk said, and sat up straighter on his trapezoid and began to applaud.

What’s he got to applaud about? But here came another whatsit, this one with skinny metal arms and a head shaped like a tray. The drunk told it, “I’ll have the usual.” To the burglar he said, “And what for you?”

“Nothing,” said the burglar. “Not, uh, on duty.”

“OK. Give him a seltzer with a slice of lime,” he told the tray-headed whatsit, and the thing wheeled about and left as the drunk explained, “I don’t like to see anybody without a glass.”

“So you got a lot of these, uh, things, huh? Invented them all?”

“Used to have a lot more,” the drunk said, getting mad, “but a bunch got stolen. Goddamn it, goddamn it!”

“Oh, yeah?”

“If I could get my hands on those burglars!” The drunk tried to demonstrate a pretend choke in midair, but his fingers got all tangled together, and in trying to untangle them he fell over on his side. Lying there on the trapezoid, one eye visible, he glared at the domed whatsit hovering near the burglar and snarled, “I wish they’d steal that thing.”

The burglar said, “How can you invent it and not know what it is?”

“Easy.” The drunk, with a lot of arm and leg movements, pushed himself back to a seated position as the bartender whatsit came rolling back into the room with two drinks on its head/tray. It zipped past the drunk, who grabbed his glass from it on the fly, then paused in front of the burglar on the rhomboid, who accepted the glass of seltzer and suppressed the urge to say “Thanks.”

Tray-head wheeled around the enigmatic whatsit and left. The drunk frowned at the whatsit and said, “Half the things I invent I don’t remember. I just do them. I do the drawing and fax it to my construction people, and then I go think about other things. And after a while, dingdong, United Parcel, and there it is, according to specifikah — speci — plan.”

“Then how do you find out what anything’s for?

“I leave myself a note in the computer when I invent it. When the package shows up, I check back and the screen says, ‘We now have a perfect vacuum cleaner.’ Or, ‘We now have a perfect pocket calculator.’ ”

“How come you didn’t do that this time?”

“I did!” A growl escaped the drunk’s throat and his face reddened with remembered rage. “Somebody stole the computer!”

“Ah,” said the burglar.

“So, here I am,” the drunk went on, pointing with his free hand at himself and the whatsit and his drink and the Christmas tree and various other things, “here I am, I got this thing — for all I know it’s some sorta boon to mankind, a perfect Christmas present to humanity — and I don’t know what it is!”

“But what do you want from me?” the burglar asked, shifting on his rhomboid. “I don’t know about inventions.”

“You know about things,” the drunk told him. “You know about stuff. Nobody in the world knows stuff like Sanity Clause. Electric pencil sharpeners. Jigsaw puzzles. Stuff.”

“Yeah? And? So?”

“So tell me stuff,” the drunk said. “Any kinda stuff that you can think of, and I’ll tell you if I did one yet, and when it’s something I never did we’ll try out some commands on Junior here and see what happens.”

“I don’t know,” the burglar said, as the whatsit at last wheeled away from him and out into the middle of the room. It stopped, as though poised there. “You mean, just say products to you?”

“S’only thing I can think off,” the drunk explained, “that might help.” Then he sat up even more and gaped at the whatsit. “Looka that!”

The whatsit was extruding more aerials. Little lights ran around its square body. A buzzing sound came from within. The burglar said, “It isn’t gonna explode, is it?”

“I don’t think so,” the drunk said. “It looks like it’s broadcasting. Suppose I invented something to look for intelligence on other planets?”

“Would you want something like that?”

The drunk considered, then shook his head. “No. You’re right, it isn’t that.” Perking up, he said, “But you got the idea, right? Try me, come on, tell me stuff. We gotta get moving here. I gotta figure out what this thing’s supposed to do before it starts doing it all on its own. Come on, come on.”

The burglar thought. He wasn’t actually Santa Claus, of course, but he was certainly familiar with stuff. “A fax machine,” he said, there being three of them at the moment in his sack on the floor beside the rhomboid.

“Did one,” the drunk said. “Recycles newspapers, prints on it.”

“Coffee maker.”

“Part of my breakfast maker.”

“Rock polisher.”

“Don’t want one.”

“Air purifier.”

“I manufacture my own air in here.”

They went on like that, the burglar pausing to think of more things, trying them out, bouncing them off the drunk, but none of them right, while the whatsit entertained itself with its chirruping and buzzing in the middle of the room, until at last the burglar’s mind had become drained of artifacts, of ideas, of things, of stuff. “I’m sorry, pal,” the burglar said, after their final silence. Shaking his head, he got up from the rhomboid, picked up his sack, and said, “I’d like to help. But I gotta get on with my life, you know?”

“I appreciate all you done,” the drunk said, trying but failing to stand. Then, getting mad all over again, he clenched his fists and shouted, “If only they didn’t steal my computer!” He pointed an angry fist toward a keypad beside the front door. “You see that pad? That’s the building’s so-called burglar alarm! Ha! Burglars laugh at it!”

They did. Jack himself had laughed at several of them just tonight. “Hard to find a really good burglar al—” he said, and stopped.

They both stared at the whatsit, still buzzing away at itself like a drum machine with the mute on. “By golly,” breathed the drunk, “you got it.”

The burglar frowned. “It’s a burglar alarm?

That thing?”

“It’s the perfect burglar alarm,” the drunk said, and bounced around with new confidence on his trapezoid. “You know what’s wrong with regular burglar alarms?” he demanded.

“They aren’t very good,” the burglar said.

“They trap the innocent,” the drunk told him, “and they’re too stupid to catch the guilty.”

“That’s pretty much true,” the burglar agreed.

“A perfect burglar alarm would sense burglars, know them by a thousand tiny indications, too subtle for you and me, and call the cops before they could pull the job!”

Behind his big white Santa Claus beard, Jack the burglar’s chin felt itchy all of a sudden. The big round fake stomach beneath his red costume was heavier than before. Giving the whatsit a sickly smile, he said, “A machine that can sense burglars? Impossible.”

“No, sir,” said the drunk. “Heavier-than-air flight is impossible. Sensing guilt is a snap, for the right machine.” Contemplating his invention, frowning in thought, the drunk said, “But it was broadcasting. Practicing, do you suppose? Telling me it’s ready to go to work?”

“Me, too,” the burglar said, moving toward the door.

“Go to work. Nice to—”

The doorbell rang. “Huh,” the drunk said. “Who do you suppose that is at this hour?”

Bookies, con men, robbers, bootleggers, prostitutes, and murderers populate the stories of Damon Runyon, but they are generally presented as having hearts of gold. Runyon always will be associated with New York’s Broadway and the colorful characters whose humorous slang enlivened his prose. Shady characters and members of the underworld are usually involved in his stories, most famously Guys and Dolls, which was adapted as a popular musical and a motion picture. He eventually went to Hollywood to write movies, producing the Shirley Temple vehicle Little Miss Marker, based on his short story about bookies. “Dancing Dan’s Christmas” was first published in the December 21, 1932, issue of Collier’s Weekly; it was collected in Blue Plate Special (New York, Stokes, 1934).

Now one time it comes on Christmas, and in fact it is the evening before Christmas, and I am in Good Time Charley Bernstein’s little speakeasy in West Forty-seventh Street, wishing Charley a Merry Christmas and having a few hot Tom and Jerrys with him.

This hot Tom and Jerry is an old time drink that is once used by one and all in this country to celebrate Christmas with, and in fact it is once so popular that many people think Christmas is invented only to furnish an excuse for hot Tom and Jerry, although of course this is by no means true.

But anybody will tell you that there is nothing that brings out the true holiday spirit like hot Tom and Jerry, and I hear that since Tom and Jerry goes out of style in the United States, the holiday spirit is never quite the same.

Well, as Good Time Charley and I are expressing our holiday sentiments to each other over our hot Tom and Jerry, and I am trying to think up the poem about the night before Christmas and all through the house, which I know will interest Charley no little, all of a sudden there is a big knock at the front door, and when Charley opens the door, who comes in carrying a large package under one arm but a guy by the name of Dancing Dan.

This Dancing Dan is a good-looking young guy, who always seems well-dressed, and he is called by the name of Dancing Dan because he is a great hand for dancing around and about with dolls in night clubs, and other spots where there is any dancing. In fact, Dan never seems to be doing anything else, although I hear rumors that when he is not dancing he is carrying on in a most illegal manner at one thing and another. But of course you can always hear rumors in this town about anybody, and personally I am rather fond of Dancing Dan as he always seems to be getting a great belt out of life.

Anybody in town will tell you that Dancing Dan is a guy with no Barnaby whatever in him, and in fact he has about as much gizzard as anybody around, although I wish to say I always question his judgment in dancing so much with Miss Muriel O’Neill, who works in the Half Moon night club. And the reason I question his judgment in this respect is because everybody knows that Miss Muriel O’Neill is a doll who is very well thought of by Heine Schmitz, and Heine Schmitz is not such a guy as will take kindly to anybody dancing more than once and a half with a doll that he thinks well of.

Well, anyway, as Dancing Dan comes in, he weighs up the joint in one quick peek, and then he tosses the package he is carrying into a corner where it goes plunk, as if there is something very heavy in it, and then he steps up to the bar alongside of Charley and me and wishes to know what we are drinking.

Naturally we start boosting hot Tom and Jerry to Dancing Dan, and he says he will take a crack at it with us, and after one crack, Dancing Dan says he will have another crack, and Merry Christmas to us with it, and the first thing anybody knows it is a couple of hours later and we still are still having cracks at the hot Tom and Jerry with Dancing Dan, and Dan says he never drinks anything so soothing in his life. In fact, Dancing Dan says he will recommend Tom and Jerry to everybody he knows, only he does not know anybody good enough for Tom and Jerry, except maybe Miss Muriel O’Neill, and she does not drink anything with drugstore rye in it.

Well, several times while we are drinking this Tom and Jerry, customers come to the door of Good Time Charley’s little speakeasy and knock, but by now Charley is commencing to be afraid they will wish Tom and Jerry, too, and he does not feel we will have enough for ourselves, so he hangs out a sign which says “Closed on Account of Christmas,” and the only one he will let in is a guy by the name of Ooky, who is nothing but an old rumdum, and who is going around all week dressed like Santa Claus and carrying a sign advertising Moe Lewinsky’s clothing joint around in Sixth Avenue.

This Ooky is still wearing his Santa Claus outfit when Charley lets him in, and the reason Charley permits such a character as Ooky in his joint is because Ooky does the porter work for Charley when he is not Santa Claus for Moe Lewinsky, such as sweeping out, and washing the glasses, and one thing and another.

Well, it is about nine-thirty when Ooky comes in, and his puppies are aching, and he is all petered out generally from walking up and down and here and there with his sign, for any time a guy is Santa Claus for Moe Lewinsky he must earn his dough. In fact, Ooky is so fatigued, and his puppies hurt him so much that Dancing Dan and Good Time Charley and I all feel very sorry for him, and invite him to have a few mugs of hot Tom and Jerry with us, and wish him plenty of Merry Christmas.

But old Ooky is not accustomed to Tom and Jerry and after about the fifth mug he folds up in a chair, and goes right to sleep on us. He is wearing a pretty good Santa Claus makeup, what with a nice red suit trimmed with white cotton, and a wig, and false nose, and long white whiskers, and a big sack stuffed with excelsior on his back, and if I do not know Santa Claus is not apt to be such a guy as will snore loud enough to rattle the windows, I will think Ooky is Santa Claus sure enough.

Well, we forget Ooky and let him sleep, and go on with our hot Tom and Jerry, and in the meantime we try to think up a few songs appropriate to Christmas, and Dancing Dan finally renders “My Dad’s Dinner Pail” in a nice baritone and very loud, while I do first rate with “Will You Love Me in December As You Do in May?”

About midnight Dancing Dan wishes to see how he looks as Santa Claus.

So Good Time Charley and I help Dancing Dan pull off Ooky’s outfit and put it on Dan, and this is easy as Ooky only has this Santa Claus outfit on over his ordinary clothes, and he does not even wake up when we are undressing him of the Santa Claus uniform.

Well, I wish to say I see many a Santa Claus in my time, but I never see a better-looking Santa Claus than Dancing Dan, especially after he gets the wig and white whiskers fixed just right, and we put a sofa pillow that Good Time Charley happens to have around the joint for the cat to sleep on down his pants to give Dancing Dan a nice fat stomach such as Santa Claus is bound to have.

“Well,” Charley finally says, “it is a great pity we do not know where there are some stockings hung up somewhere, because then,” he says, “you can go around and stuff things in these stockings, as I always hear this is the main idea of a Santa Claus. But,” Charley says, “I do not suppose anybody in this section has any stockings hung up, or if they have,” he says, “the chances are they are so full of holes they will not hold anything. Anyway,” Charley says, “even if there are any stockings hung up we do not have anything to stuff in them, although personally,” he says, “I will gladly donate a few pints of Scotch.”

Well, I am pointing out that we have no reindeer and that a Santa Claus is bound to look like a terrible sap if he goes around without any reindeer, but Charley’s remarks seem to give Dancing Dan an idea, for all of a sudden he speaks as follows:

“Why,” Dancing Dan says, “I know where a stocking is hung up. It is hung up at Miss Muriel O’Neill’s flat over here in West Forty-ninth Street. This stocking is hung up by nobody but a party by the name of Gammer O’Neill, who is Miss Muriel O’Neill’s grandmamma,” Dancing Dan says. “Gammer O’Neill is going on ninety-odd,” he says, “and Miss Muriel O’Neill tells me she cannot hold out much longer, what with one thing and another, including being a little childish in spots.

“Now,” Dancing Dan says, “I remember Miss Muriel O’Neill is telling me just the other night how Gammer O’Neill hangs up her stocking on Christmas Eve all her life, and,” he says, “I judge from what Miss Muriel O’Neill says that the old doll always believes Santa Claus will come along some Christmas and fill the stocking full of beautiful gifts. But,” Dancing Dan says, “Miss Muriel O’Neill tells me Santa Claus never does this, although Miss Muriel O’Neill personally always takes a few gifts home and pops them into the stocking to make Gammer O’Neill feel better.

“But, of course,” Dancing Dan says, “these gifts are nothing much because Miss Muriel O’Neill is very poor, and proud, and also good, and will not take a dime off of anybody and I can lick the guy who says she will.

“Now,” Dancing Dan goes on, “it seems that while Gammer O’Neill is very happy to get whatever she finds in her stocking on Christmas morning, she does not understand why Santa Claus is not more liberal, and,” he says, “Miss Muriel O’Neill is saying to me that she only wishes she can give Gammer O’Neill one real big Christmas before the old doll puts her checks back in the rack.

“So,” Dancing Dan states, “here is a job for us. Miss Muriel O’Neill and her grandmamma live all alone in this flat over in West Forty-ninth Street, and,” he says, “at such an hour as this Miss Muriel O’Neill is bound to be working, and the chances are Gammer O’Neill is sound asleep, and we will just hop over there and Santa Claus will fill up her stocking with beautiful gifts.”

Well, I say, I do not see where we are going to get any beautiful gifts at this time of night, what with all the stores being closed, unless we dash into an all-night drug store and buy a few bottles of perfume and a bum toilet set as guys always do when they forget about their ever-loving wives until after store hours on Christmas Eve, but Dancing Dan says never mind about this, but let us have a few more Tom and Jerrys first.

So we have a few more Tom and Jerrys and then Dancing Dan picks up the package he heaves into the corner, and dumps most of the excelsior out of Ooky’s Santa Claus sack, and puts the bundle in, and Good Time Charley turns out all the lights, but one, and leaves a bottle of Scotch on the table in front of Ooky for a Christmas gift, and away we go.

Personally, I regret very much leaving the hot Tom and Jerry, but then I am also very enthusiastic about going along to help Dancing Dan play Santa Claus, while Good Time Charley is practically overjoyed, as it is the first time in his life Charley is ever mixed up in so much holiday spirit.

As we go up Broadway, headed for Forty-ninth Street, Charley and I see many citizens we know and give them a large hello, and wish them Merry Christmas, and some of these citizens shake hands with Santa Claus, not knowing he is nobody but Dancing Dan, although later I understand there is some gossip among these citizens because they claim a Santa Claus with such a breath on him as our Santa Claus has is a little out of line.

And once we are somewhat embarrassed when a lot of little kids going home with their parents from a late Christmas party somewhere gather about Santa Claus with shouts of childish glee, and some of them wish to climb up Santa Claus’ legs. Naturally, Santa Claus gets a little peevish, and calls them a few names, and one of the parents comes up and wishes to know what is the idea of Santa Claus using such language, and Santa Claus takes a punch at the parent, all of which is no doubt astonishing to the little kids who have an idea of Santa Claus as a very kindly old guy.

Well, finally we arrive in front of the place where Dancing Dan says Miss Muriel O’Neill and her grandmamma live, and it is nothing but a tenement house not far back of Madison Square Garden, and furthermore it is a walk-up, and at this time there are no lights burning in the joint except a gas jet in the main hall, and by the light of this jet we look at the names on the letter boxes, such as you always find in the hall of these joints, and we see that Miss Muriel O’Neill and her grandmamma live on the fifth floor.

This is the top floor, and personally I do not like the idea of walking up five flights of stairs, and I am willing to let Dancing Dan and Good Time Charley go, but Dancing Dan insists we must all go, and finally I agree with him because Charley is commencing to argue that the right way for us to do is to get on the roof and let Santa Claus go down a chimney, and is making so much noise I am afraid he will wake somebody up.

So up the stairs we climb and finally we come to a door on the top floor that has a little card in a slot that says O’Neill, so we know we reach our destination. Dancing Dan first tries the knob, and right away the door opens, and we are in a little two- or three-room flat, with not much furniture in it, and what furniture there is, is very poor. One single gas jet is burning near a bed in a room just off the one the door opens into, and by this light we see a very old doll is sleeping on the bed, so we judge this is nobody but Gammer O’Neill.

On her face is a large smile, as if she is dreaming of something very pleasant. On a chair at the head of the bed is hung a long black stocking, and it seems to be such a stocking as is often patched and mended, so I can see that what Miss Muriel O’Neill tells Dancing Dan about her grandmamma hanging up her stocking is really true, although up to this time I have my doubts.

Finally Dancing Dan unslings the sack on his back, and takes out his package, and unties this package, and all of a sudden out pops a raft of big diamond bracelets, and diamond rings, and diamond brooches, and diamond necklaces, and I do not know what else in the way of diamonds, and Dancing Dan and I begin stuffing these diamonds into the stocking and Good Time Charley pitches in and helps us.

There are enough diamonds to fill the stocking to the muzzle, and it is no small stocking, at that, and I judge that Gammer O’Neill has a pretty fair set of bunting sticks when she is young. In fact, there are so many diamonds that we have enough left over to make a nice little pile on the chair after we fill the stocking plumb up, leaving a nice diamond-studded vanity case sticking out the top where we figure it will hit Gammer O’Neill’s eye when she wakes up.

And it is not until I get out in the fresh air again that all of a sudden I remember seeing large headlines in the afternoon papers about a five-hundred-G’s stickup in the afternoon of one of the biggest diamond merchants in Maiden Lane while he is sitting in his office, and I also recall once hearing rumors that Dancing Dan is one of the best lone-hand git-’em-up guys in the world.

Naturally, I commence to wonder if I am in the proper company when I am with Dancing Dan, even if he is Santa Claus. So I leave him on the next corner arguing with Good Time Charley about whether they ought to go and find some more presents somewhere, and look for other stockings to stuff, and I hasten on home and go to bed.

The next day I find I have such a noggin that I do not care to stir around, and in fact I do not stir around much for a couple of weeks.

Then one night I drop around to Good Time Charley’s little speakeasy, and ask Charley what is doing.

“Well,” Charley says, “many things are doing, and personally,” he says, “I’m greatly surprised I do not see you at Gammer O’Neill’s wake. You know Gammer O’Neill leaves this wicked old world a couple of days after Christmas,” Good Time Charley says, “and,” he says, “Miss Muriel O’Neill states that Doc Moggs claims it is at least a day after she is entitled to go, but she is sustained,” Charley says, “by great happiness in finding her stocking filled with beautiful gifts on Christmas morning.

“According to Miss Muriel O’Neill,” Charley says, “Gammer O’Neill dies practically convinced that there is a Santa Claus, although of course,” he says, “Miss Muriel O’Neill does not tell her the real owner of the gifts, an all-right guy by the name of Shapiro leaves the gifts with her after Miss Muriel O’Neill notifies him of finding of same.

“It seems,” Charley says, “this Shapiro is a tender-hearted guy, who is willing to help keep Gammer O’Neill with us a little longer when Doc Moggs says leaving the gifts with her will do it.

“So,” Charley says, “everything is quite all right, as the coppers cannot figure anything except that maybe the rascal who takes the gifts from Shapiro gets conscience-stricken, and leaves them the first place he can, and Miss Muriel O’Neill receives a ten-G’s reward for finding the gifts and returning them. And,” Charley says, “I hear Dancing Dan is in San Francisco and is figuring on reforming and becoming a dancing teacher, so he can marry Miss Muriel O’Neill, and of course,” he says, “we all hope and trust she never learns any details of Dancing Dan’s career.”

Well, it is Christmas Eve a year later that I run into a guy by the name of Shotgun Sam, who is mobbed up with Heine Schmitz in Harlem, and who is a very, very obnoxious character indeed.

“Well, well, well,” Shotgun says, “the last time I see you is another Christmas Eve like this, and you are coming out of Good Time Charley’s joint, and,” he says, “you certainly have your pots on.”

“Well, Shotgun,” I says, “I am sorry you get such a wrong impression of me, but the truth is,” I say, “on the occasion you speak of, I am suffering from a dizzy feeling in my head.”

“It is all right with me,” Shotgun says. “I have a tip this guy Dancing Dan is in Good Time Charley’s the night I see you, and Mockie Morgan, and Gunner Jack and me are casing the joint, because,” he says, “Heine Schmitz is all sored up at Dan over some doll, although of course,” Shotgun says, “it is all right now, as Heine has another doll.

“Anyway,” he says, “we never get to see Dancing Dan. We watch the joint from six-thirty in the evening until daylight Christmas morning, and nobody goes in all night but old Ooky the Santa Claus guy in his Santa Claus makeup, and,” Shotgun says, “nobody comes out except you and Good Time Charley and Ooky.

“Well,” Shotgun says, “it is a great break for Dancing Dan he never goes in or comes out of Good Time Charley’s, at that, because,” he says, “we are waiting for him on the second-floor front of the building across the way with some nice little sawed-offs, and are under orders from Heine not to miss.”

“Well, Shotgun,” I say, “Merry Christmas.”

“Well, all right,” Shotgun says, “Merry Christmas.”

It is no small thing to be able to blend three genres into good, readable stories, but Ron Goulart has proven to be a master at this juggling act, combining mystery, science fiction, and humor to produce scores of books with this rich stew, one of which, After Things Fell Apart (1970), was nominated for an Edgar Award. Many of his private eye stories are set in the future, a time and place with which he was comfortable enough to mentor William Shatner when the popular actor began to write a series of Star Trek novels. “A Visit from St. Nicholas” was first published in Santa Clues, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Carol-Lynn Rossel Waugh (New York, Signet, 1993).

The media, as usual, got it completely wrong. The corpse in the Santa Claus suit hadn’t been the victim of a mugging and therefore wasn’t an all too obvious symbol of what’s wrong with our decaying society.

Actually Harry Wilkie had gotten dressed up as St. Nicholas to commit grand larceny. Things obviously went quite wrong, which is why he ended up, decked out in a scarlet costume and snowy white whiskers, sprawled on that midnight beach in Southport, Connecticut.

No, this is not the usual tale of gloom and doom that is so closely associated with the work of the Victorian novelist Thomas Hardy. The title alone suggests a sense of lightness and in that expectation you will not be disappointed. In 1896, by contrast, disturbed by the public uproar over the unconventional subjects of two of his greatest novels, Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the Obscure (1895), Hardy announced that he would never write fiction again. A bishop solemnly burned the books, “probably in his despair at not being able to burn me,” Hardy noted. “The Thieves Who Couldn’t Help Sneezing” was first published in the December 1877 issue of Father Christmas.

Many years ago, when oak-trees now past their prime were about as large as elderly gentlemen’s walking-sticks, there lived in Wessex a yeoman’s son, whose name was Hubert. He was about fourteen years of age, and was as remarkable for his candor and lightness of heart as for his physical courage, of which, indeed, he was a little vain.

One cold Christmas Eve his father, having no other help at hand, sent him on an important errand to a small town several miles from home. He travelled on horseback, and was detained by the business till a late hour the evening. At last, however, it was completed; he returned to the inn, the horse was saddled, and he started on his way. His journey homeward lay through the Vale of Blackmore, a fertile but somewhat lonely district, with heavy clay roads and crooked lanes. In those days, too, a great part of it was thickly wooded.

It must have been about nine o’clock when, riding along amid the over-hanging trees upon his stout-legged cob, Jerry, and singing a Christmas carol, to be in harmony with the season, Hubert fancied that he heard a noise among the boughs. This recalled to his mind that the spot he was traversing bore an evil name. Men had been waylaid there. He looked at Jerry, and wished he had been of any other color than light gray; for on this account the docile animal’s form was visible even here in the dense shade. “What do I care?” he said aloud, after a few minutes of reflection. “Jerry’s legs are too nimble to allow any highwayman to come near me.”

“Ha! ha! indeed,” was said in a deep voice; and the next moment a man darted from the thicket on his right hand, another man from the thicket on his left hand, and another from a tree-trunk a few yards ahead. Hubert’s bridle was seized, he was pulled from his horse, and although he struck out with all his might, as a brave boy would naturally do, he was overpowered. His arms were tied behind him, his legs bound tightly together, and he was thrown into the ditch. The robbers, whose faces he could now dimly perceive to be artificially blackened, at once departed, leading off the horse.

As soon as Hubert had a little recovered himself, he found that by great exertion he was able to extricate his legs from the cord; but, in spite of every endeavor, his arms remained bound as fast as before. All, therefore, that he could do was to rise to his feet and proceed on his way with his arms behind him, and trust to chance for getting them unfastened. He knew that it would be impossible to reach home on foot that night, and in such a condition; but he walked on. Owing to the confusion which this attack caused in his brain, he lost his way, and would have been inclined to lie down and rest till morning among the dead leaves had he not known the danger of sleeping without wrappers in a frost so severe. So he wandered further onwards, his arms wrung and numbed by the cord which pinioned him, and his heart aching for the loss of poor Jerry, who never had been known to kick, or bite, or show a single vicious habit. He was not a little glad when he discerned through the trees a distant light. Towards this he made his way, and presently found himself in front of a large mansion with flanking wings, gables, and towers, the battlements and chimneys showing their shapes against the stars.

All was silent; but the door stood wide open, it being from this door that the light shone which had attracted him. On entering he found himself in a vast apartment arranged as a dining-hall, and brilliantly illuminated. The walls were covered with a great deal of dark wainscoting, formed into moulded panels, carvings, closet-doors, and the usual fittings of a house of that kind. But what drew his attention most was the large table in the midst of the hall, upon which was spread a sumptuous supper, as yet untouched. Chairs were placed around, and it appeared as if something had occurred to interrupt the meal just at the time when all were ready to begin.

Even had Hubert been so inclined, he could not have eaten in his helpless state, unless by dipping his mouth into the dishes, like a pig or cow. He wished first to obtain assistance; and was about to penetrate further into the house for that purpose when he heard hasty footsteps in the porch and the words, “Be quick!” uttered in the deep voice which had reached him when he was dragged from the horse. There was only just time for him to dart under the table before three men entered the dining-hall. Peeping from beneath the hanging edges of the tablecloth, he perceived that their faces, too, were blackened, which at once removed any remaining doubts he may have felt that these were the same thieves.

“Now, then,” said the first — the man with the deep voice — “let us hide ourselves. They will all be back again in a minute. That was a good trick to get them out of the house — eh?”

“Yes. You well imitated the cries of a man in distress,” said the second.

“Excellently,” said the third.

“But they will soon find out that it was a false alarm. Come, where shall we hide? It must be some place we can stay in for two or three hours, till all are in bed and asleep. Ah! I have it. Come this way! I have learnt that the further closet is not opened once in a twelve-month; it will serve our purpose exactly.”

The speaker advanced into a corridor which led from the hall. Creeping a little farther forward, Hubert could discern that the closet stood at the end, facing the dining-hall. The thieves entered it, and closed the door. Hardly breathing, Hubert glided forward, to learn a little more of their intention, if possible; and, coming close, he could hear the robbers whispering about the different rooms where the jewels, plate, and other valuables of the house were kept, which they plainly meant to steal.

They had not been long in hiding when a gay chattering of ladies and gentlemen was audible on the terrace without. Hubert felt that it would not do to be caught prowling about the house, unless he wished to be taken for a robber himself; and he slipped softly back to the hall, out the door, and stood in a dark corner of the porch, where he could see everything without being himself seen. In a moment or two a whole troop of personages came gliding past him into the house. There were an elderly gentleman and lady, eight or nine young ladies, as many young men, besides half-a-dozen men-servants and maids. The mansion had apparently been quite emptied of its occupants.

“Now, children and young people, we will resume our meal,” said the old gentleman. “What the noise could have been I cannot understand. I never felt so certain in my life that there was a person being murdered outside my door.”

Then the ladies began saying how frightened they had been, and how they had expected an adventure, and how it had ended in nothing at all.

“Wait a while,” said Hubert to himself. “You’ll have adventure enough by-and-by, ladies.”

It appeared that the young men and women were married sons and daughters of the old couple, who had come that day to spend Christmas with their parents.

The door was then closed, Hubert being left outside in the porch. He thought this a proper moment for asking their assistance; and, since he was unable to knock with his hands, began boldly to kick the door.

“Hullo! What disturbance are you making here?” said a footman who opened it; and, seizing Hubert by the shoulder, he pulled him into the dining-hall. “Here’s a strange boy I have found making a noise in the porch, Sir Simon.”

Everybody turned.

“Bring him forward,” said Sir Simon, the old gentleman before mentioned. “What were you doing there, my boy?”

“Why, his arms are tied!” said one of the ladies.

“Poor fellow!” said another.

Hubert at once began to explain that he had been waylaid on his journey home, robbed of his horse, and mercilessly left in this condition by the thieves.

“Only to think of it!” exclaimed Sir Simon.

“That’s a likely story,” said one of the gentlemen-guests, incredulously.

“Doubtful, hey?” asked Sir Simon.

“Perhaps he’s a robber himself,” suggested a lady.

“There is a curiously wild, wicked look about him, certainly, now that I examine him closely,” said the old mother.

Hubert blushed with shame; and, instead of continuing his story, and relating that robbers were concealed in the house, he doggedly held his tongue, and half resolved to let them find out their danger for themselves.

“Well, untie him,” said Sir Simon. “Come, since it is Christmas Eve, we’ll treat him well. Here, my lad; sit down in that empty seat at the bottom of the table, and make as good a meal as you can. When you have had your fill we will listen to more particulars of your story.”

The feast then proceeded; and Hubert, now at liberty, was not at all sorry to join in. The more they ate and drank the merrier did the company become; the wine flowed freely, the logs flared up the chimney, the ladies laughed at the gentlemen’s stories; in short, all went as noisily and as happily as a Christmas gathering in old times possibly could do.

Hubert, in spite of his hurt feelings at their doubts of his honesty, could not help being warmed both in mind and in body by the good cheer, the scene, and the example of hilarity set by his neighbors. At last he laughed as heartily at their stories and repartees as the old Baronet, Sir Simon, himself. When the meal was almost over one of the sons, who had drunk a little too much wine, after the manner of men in that century, said to Hubert, “Well, my boy, how are you? Can you take a pinch of snuff?” He held out one of the snuff-boxes which were then becoming common among young and old throughout the country.

“Thank you,” said Hubert, accepting a pinch.

“Tell the ladies who you are, what you are made of, and what you can do,” the young man continued, slapping Hubert upon the shoulder.

“Certainly,” said our hero, drawing himself up, and thinking it best to put a bold face on the matter. “I am a traveling magician.”

“Indeed!”

“What shall we hear next?”

“Can you call up spirits from the vasty deep, young wizard?”

“I can conjure up a tempest in a cupboard,” Hubert replied.

“Ha-ha!” said the old Baronet, pleasantly rubbing his hands. “We must see this performance. Girls, don’t go away: here’s something to be seen.”

“Not dangerous, I hope?” said the old lady.

Hubert rose from the table. “Hand me your snuff-box, please,” he said to the young man who had made free with him. “And now,” he continued, “without the least noise, follow me. If any of you speak it will break the spell.”

They promised obedience. He entered the corridor, and, taking off his shoes, went on tiptoe to the closet door, the guests advancing in a silent group at a little distance behind him. Hubert next placed a stool in front of the door, and, by standing upon it, was tall enough to reach to the top. He then, just as noiselessly, poured all the snuff from the box along the upper edge of the door, and, with a few short puffs of breath, blew the snuff through the chink into the interior of the closet. He held up his finger to the assembly, that they might be silent.

“Dear me, what’s that?” said the old lady, after a minute or two had elapsed.

A suppressed sneeze had come from inside the closet.

Hubert held up his finger again.

“How very singular,” whispered Sir Simon. “This is most interesting.”

Hubert took advantage of the moment to gently slide the bolt of the closet door into its place. “More snuff,” he said, calmly.

“More snuff,” said Sir Simon. Two or three gentlemen passed their boxes, and the contents were blown in at the top of the closet. Another sneeze, not quite so well suppressed as the first, was heard: then another, which seemed to say that it would not be suppressed under any circumstances whatever. At length there arose a perfect storm of sneezes.

“Excellent, excellent for one so young!” said Sir Simon. “I am much interested in this trick of throwing the voice — called, I believe, ventriloquism.”

“More snuff,” said Hubert.

“More snuff,” said Sir Simon. Sir Simon’s man brought a large jar of the best scented Scotch.

Hubert once more charged the upper chink of the closet, and blew the snuff into the interior, as before. Again he charged, and again, emptying the whole contents of the jar. The tumult of sneezes became really extraordinary to listen to — there was no cessation. It was like wind, rain, and sea battling in a hurricane.

“I believe there are men inside, and that it is no trick at all!” exclaimed Sir Simon, the truth flashing on him.

“There are,” said Hubert. “They are come to rob the house; and they are the same who stole my horse.”

The sneezes changed to spasmodic groans. One of the thieves, hearing Hubert’s voice, cried, “Oh! mercy! mercy! let us out of this!”

“Where’s my horse?” said Hubert.

“Tied to the tree in the hollow behind Short’s Gibbet. Mercy! mercy! let us out, or we shall die of suffocation!”

All the Christmas guests now perceived that this was no longer sport, but serious earnest. Guns and cudgels were procured; all the men-servants were called in, and arranged in position outside the closet. At a signal Hubert withdrew the bolt, and stood on the defensive. But the three robbers, far from attacking them, were found crouching in the corner, gasping for breath. They made no resistance; and, being pinioned, were placed in an outhouse till the morning.

Hubert now gave the remainder of his story to the assembled company, and was profusely thanked for the services he had rendered. Sir Simon pressed him to stay over the night, and accept the use of the best bedroom the house afforded, which had been occupied by Queen Elizabeth and King Charles successively when on their visits to this part of the country. But Hubert declined, being anxious to find his horse Jerry, and to test the truth of the robbers’ statements concerning him.

Several of the guests accompanied Hubert to the spot behind the gibbet, alluded to by the thieves as where Jerry was hidden. When they reached the knoll and looked over, behold! there the horse stood, uninjured, and quite unconcerned. At sight of Hubert he neighed joyfully; and nothing could exceed Hubert’s gladness at finding him. He mounted, wished his friends “Good-night!” and cantered off in the direction they pointed out, reaching home safely about four o’clock in the morning.

In an unusual reversal of custom, John Mortimer’s famous character, the irascible barrister Horace Rumpole, was created for television and the scripts were novelized for books by Mortimer himself — and very nicely, too. The iconoclastic, poetry-quoting, cheap wine — drinking lawyer was based on Mortimer’s father, and the character was so perfectly portrayed by Leo McKern in the long-running Thames and PBS series, Rumpole of the Bailey, that Mortimer once stated that he would continue writing the series only as long as McKern was willing to portray him. “Rumpole and the Spirit of Christmas” was first published in Murder Under the Mistletoe, edited by Cynthia Manson (New York, Signet, 1992).

I realized that Christmas was upon us when I saw a sprig of holly over the list of prisoners hung on the wall of the cells under the Old Bailey.

I pulled out a new box of small cigars and found its opening obstructed by a tinseled band on which a scarlet-faced Santa was seen hurrying a sleigh full of carcinoma-packed goodies to the Rejoicing World. I lit one as the lethargic screw, with a complexion the color of faded Bronco, regretfully left his doorstep sandwich and mug of sweet tea to unlock the gate.

“Good morning, Mr. Rumpole. Come to visit a customer?”

“Happy Christmas, officer,” I said as cheerfully as possible. “Is Mr. Timson at home?”

“Well, I don’t believe he’s slipped down to his little place in the country.”

Such were the pleasantries that were exchanged between us legal hacks and discontented screws; jokes that no doubt have changed little since the turnkeys unlocked the door at Newgate to let in a pessimistic advocate, or the cells under the Coliseum were opened to admit the unwelcome news of the Imperial thumbs-down.

Gillian Linscott is a professional writer who began as a journalist for The Guardian and the BBC before becoming a full-time author of mystery fiction. In that genre, she has shown range, with her major books being about the suffragette detective Nell Bray, for which she has won the (British) Crime Writers’ Association Ellis Peters Historical Dagger. She has also written stories set in ancient Egypt and is an aficionado of Sherlock Holmes, having written stories for such anthologies as Murder in Baker Street (New York, Carroll & Graf, 2001) and Sherlock Holmes in America (New York, Skyhorse, 2009). “A Scandal in Winter” was first published in another Holmes collection, Holmes for the Holidays, edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Jon L. Lellenberg, and Carol-Lynn Waugh (New York, Berkley, 1996).

At first silver stick and his Square Bear were no more to us than incidental diversions at the Hotel Edelweiss. The Edelweiss at Christmas and the new year was like a sparkling white desert island, or a very luxurious ocean liner sailing through snow instead of sea. There we were, a hundred people or so, cut off from the rest of the world, even from the rest of Switzerland, with only each other for entertainment and company. It was one of the only possible hotels to stay at in 1910 for this new fad of winter sporting. The smaller Berghaus across the way was not one of the possible hotels, so its dozen or so visitors hardly counted. As for the villagers in their wooden chalets with the cows living downstairs, they didn’t count at all. Occasionally, on walks, Amanda and I would see them carrying in logs from neatly stacked woodpiles or carrying out forkfuls of warm soiled straw that sent columns of white steam into the blue air. They were part of the valley like the rocks and pine trees but they didn’t ski or skate, so they had no place in our world — apart from the sleighs. There were two of those in the village. One, a sober affair drawn by a stolid bay cob with a few token bells on the harness, brought guests and their luggage from the nearest railway station. The other, the one that mattered to Amanda and me, was a streak of black and scarlet, swift as the mountain wind, clamourous with silver bells, drawn by a sleek little honey-coloured Haflinger with a silvery mane and tail that matched the bells. A pleasure sleigh, with no purpose in life beyond amusing the guests at the Edelweiss. We’d see it drawn up in the trampled snow outside, the handsome young owner with his long whip and blonde moustache waiting patiently. Sometimes we’d be allowed to linger and watch as he helped in a lady and gentleman and adjusted the white fur rug over their laps. Then away they’d go, hissing and jingling through the snow, into the track through the pine forest. Amanda and I had been promised that, as a treat on New Year’s Day, we would be taken for a ride in it. We looked forward to it more eagerly than Christmas.

While such masters of the form as Edgar Allan Poe and O. Henry became famous having written only short stories, and Arthur Conan Doyle had little success with Sherlock Holmes until he produced short stories, it has been virtually impossible for an author to earn a living as a short story writer during the last half century or more, but Edward D. Hoch was a rare exception. He produced more than nine hundred stories in his career, his most famous being “The Oblong Room” (1967), for which he won the Edgar Award, and “The Long Way Down” (1965), in which a man goes out the window of a skyscraper but doesn’t land until hours later; it was the basis for a two-hour episode of the television series McMillan and Wife. “The Christmas Client” was first published in Holmes for the Holidays, edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Jon L. Lellenberg, and Carol-Lynn Waugh (New York, Berkley, 1996).

It was on Christmas day of the year 1888, when I was in residence with Mr. Sherlock Holmes at his Baker Street lodgings, that our restful holiday was interrupted by the arrival of a most unusual client. Mrs. Hudson had already invited us to partake of her goose later in the day, and when we heard her on the stair I assumed she was coming to inform us of the time for dinner. Instead, she brought a surprising announcement.

“A gentleman to see Mr. Holmes.”

“On Christmas Day?” I was aghast at such a thoughtless interruption, and immediately put down my copy of the Christmas Annual I’d been perusing. Holmes, seated in his chair by the fireplace, seemed more curious than irritated.

“My dear Watson, if someone seeks our help on Christmas Day it must be a matter of extreme urgency — either that, or the poor soul is so lonely this day he has no one else to turn to. Please send him up, Mrs. Hudson.”

Our visitor proved to be a handsome man with a somewhat youthful face, though his long white hair and the lines of his neck told me he was most likely in his mid-fifties. He was a little under six feet tall, but slight of build, with his fresh face giving the impression of extreme cleanliness. Holmes greeted him with a gentle handshake. “Our Christmas greetings to you, sir. I am Sherlock Holmes and this is my dear friend Dr. Watson.”

The man shook my hand too and spoke in a soft voice. “Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. I am pleased to meet you, sir, and I... I thank you for taking the time to see me on this most festive of days.”

As he spoke I detected a slight stammer that trembled his upper lip as he spoke. “Please be seated,” Holmes said, and he chose the armchair between the two of us. “Now tell us what brought you out on Christmas Day. Certainly it must be a matter of extreme urgency to keep you from conducting the Christmas service at Christ Church up in Oxford.”

Our slender visitor seemed taken aback by his words. “Do you know me, sir? Has my infamy spread this far?”

Sherlock Holmes smiled. “I know nothing about you, Mr. Dodgson, other than that you are a minister and most likely a mathematician at Oxford’s Christ Church College, that you are a writer, that you are unmarried, and that you have had an unpleasant experience since arriving in London earlier today.”

“Are you a wizard?” Dodgson asked, his composure shaken. I had seen Holmes astonish visitors many times, but I still enjoyed the sight of it.

Holmes, for his part, casually reached for his pipe and tobacco. “Only a close observer of my fellow man, sir. Extending from your waistcoat pocket I can see a small pamphlet on which the author’s name is given as Reverend Charles Dodgson, Christ Church. Along with it is a return ticket to Oxford. Surely if you had come down to London before today the ticket would not still be carried in such a haphazard manner. Also on the front of your pamphlet I note certain advanced mathematical equations jotted down in pencil, no doubt during the train journey from Oxford. It is not the usual manner of passing time unless one is interested in mathematics as a profession. Since you have only one return ticket, I presume you came alone, and what married man would dare to leave his wife on Christmas Day?”

“What about the unpleasant experience?” I reminded Holmes.

“You will note, Watson, that the knees of our visitor’s pants are scraped and dirty. He would certainly have noticed them on the train ride and brushed them off. Therefore it appears he fell or was thrown to his knees since his arrival in London.”

“You’re correct in virtually everything, Mr. Holmes,” Charles Dodgson told him. “I left the mathematics faculty at Oxford seven years ago but I... I continue to reside at Christ Church College, my alma mater.”

“And what brought you to London this day?”

Dodgson took a deep breath. “You must understand that I tell you this in the utmost confidence. What I am about to say is highly embarrassing to me, though I swear to you I am innocent of an-any moral wrong.”

“Go on,” Holmes urged, lighting his pipe.

“I am being blackmailed.” He paused for a moment after speaking the words, as if he expected some shocked reaction from Holmes or myself. When he got none he continued. “Some years ago, when the art was just beginning, I took up photography. I was especially fond of camera portraits, of adults and children. I... I liked to pose young girls in various costumes. With the permission of their parents I sometimes did nude studies.” His voice had dropped to barely a whisper now, and I noticed that his frozen smile was slightly askew.

“My God, Dodgson!” I exclaimed before I could help myself.

He seemed not to hear me, since he was turned toward Holmes. I wondered if his hearing might be impaired. Holmes, puffing on his pipe as if he’d just been presented with a vexing puzzle, asked, “Was this after you had taken holy orders?”

“I sometimes use ‘Reverend’ before my name but I am only a deacon. I nev-never went on to holy orders because my speech defect makes it difficult for me to preach. Some-sometimes it’s worse than this. I also have some deafness in one ear.”

“Tell me about the pictures. How old were the girls?”

“They were usually prepubescent. I took the photographs in all innocence, you — you must realize that. I photographed adults, too, people like Ellen Terry and Tennyson and Rossetti.”

“With their clothes on, I trust,” said Holmes with a slight smile.

“I know what I did was viewed with distaste by many of my acquaintances,” our white-haired visitor said. “For that reason I abandoned photography some eight years ago.”

“Then what is the reason for this blackmail?”

“I must go back to 1879, when I published my mathematical treatise Euclid and His Modern Rivals. Although the general public paid it little heed, I was pleased that it caused something of a stir in mathematical circles. One of the men who contacted me at the time was a professor who held the mathematical chair at one of our smaller universities. We became casual friends and he learned of my photographic interests. Later, af-after I’d ceased my photography, he apparently did some picture taking of his own. I was at the beach in Brighton this past summer when I met a lovely little girl. We chatted for a time and I asked if she wouldn’t like to go wading in the surf. I carried some safety pins with me and I used them to pin up her skirt so she co-could wade without getting it wet.”

I could restrain myself no longer. “This is perversion you speak of! These innocent children—”

“I swear to you I did nothing wrong!” he insisted. “But somehow this former friend arranged to have me photographed in the very act of pinning up the little girl’s skirt. Now he is using these pictures to blackmail me.”

“What brought you to London today,” Holmes asked, “and what unpleasantness brought you here to seek my help?”

“The professor contacted me some months ago with his threats and blackmail. He demanded a large sum of money in return for those pictures taken at the beach.”

“And what made him believe that a retired mathematics instructor, even at Oxford, would have a large sum of money?”

“I have ha-had some success with my writing. It has not made me wealthy, but I live comfortably.”

“Was your Euclid treatise that successful?” Holmes chided.

“Certain of my other writings...” He seemed reluctant to continue.

“What happened today?”

“The professor demanded that I meet him here at Paddington Station, with one hundred quid. I came down from Oxford on the noon train as instructed, but he was not at the station to meet me. Instead I was assaulted by a beggar, who pushed me down in the street after handing me an odd message of some sort.”

“Did you report this to the police?”

“How could I? My rep-reputation—”

“So you came here?”

“I was at my wit’s end. I knew of your reputation and I hoped you could help me. This man has me in his clutches. He will drain me of my money and destroy my reputation as well.”

“Pray tell me the name of this blackmailer,” Holmes said, picking up a pencil.

“It is Moriarty — Professor James Moriarty.”

Sherlock Holmes put down his pencil and smiled slightly. “I think I will be able to help you, Reverend Dodgson.”

One of england’s most prolific and popular authors (especially in the first half of the twentieth century), Charles Hamilton is largely unknown in the United States. He used more than twenty-five pseudonyms to produce more than seventy million words (the equivalent of nearly a thousand novels). His most popular creation was Billy Bunter, who appeared under the Frank Richards byline in more than fourteen hundred novellas. He used the Peter Todd pseudonym for his one hundred Herlock Sholmes stories, the first Sherlock Holmes parody cycle. “The Secret in the Pudding Bag” was first published in the December 27, 1924, issue of Penny Popular; “Herlock Sholmes’s Christmas Case” was first published in the December 3, 1916, edition of The Magnet.

Before revealing the amazing Secret of the Pudding Bag, I, Herlock Sholmes, detective of Shaker Street, London, desire to explain my action to my readers.

For years my faithful friend, Dr. Jotson, who assists me to pay Mrs. Spudson’s exorbitant rent, had acted as the official recorder of my cases. Never was there a better man. Although a general practitioner, he is an expert on disordered brains. As I have told him many a time, he should be in a mental asylum — as house-surgeon, of course. Yet his great talents have not been wasted altogether in Shaker Street.

But his very devotion to me has one drawback. He refuses to record any but my astounding successes. And the case of the Pudding Bag can hardly be classified as one. But because of its Christmas flavour the Editor desired it greatly — the story, not the pudding bag.

One day just after I had successfully solved the mystery of the Poisoned Doughnut, in Tooting Bec, I found the Great Man in our consulting-room at Shaker Street, begging Jotson to narrate the tale for the benefit of his readers. Jotson refused. Therefore, I insisted on recording this amazing case myself.[2]

In addition to being a noted expert in eighteenth century English literature, especially the life and works of Dr. Samuel Johnson, S. C. Roberts (Sydney Castle Roberts) was also a scholar and aficionado of Sherlock Holmes. He wrote analytical works on the subject, such as Holmes and Watson: A Miscellany and Doctor Watson: Prolegomena to the Study of a Biographical Problem, as well as contributing regularly to Holmesian magazines and anthologies. He also wrote parodies and pastiches about Holmes and Watson, including this short play and The Strange Case of the Megatherium Thefts. “Christmas Eve” was first published as a chapbook limited to 100 copies (Cambridge, privately printed, 1936).

(Sherlock Holmes, disguised as a loafer, is discovered probing in a sideboard cupboard for something to eat and drink.)

HOLMES: Where in the world is that decanter? I’m sure I—

WATSON: (Turning quickly and whispering hoarsely offstage) Mrs. Hudson! Mrs. Hudson! My revolver, quick. There’s a burglar in Mr. Holmes’s room. (WATSON exits)

HOLMES: Ah, there’s the decanter at last. But first of all I may as well discard some of my properties. (Takes off cap, coat, beard, etc., and puts on dressing gown) My word, I’m hungry. (Begins to eat sandwich) But, bless me, I’ve forgotten the siphon! (Stoops at cupboard in same attitude as before)

WATSON: (Sternly) Now, my man, put those hands up.

HOLMES: (Turning round) My dear Watson, why this sudden passion for melodrama?

WATSON: Holmes!

HOLMES: Really, Watson, to be the victim of a murderous attack at your hands, of all people’s — and on Christmas Eve, too.

WATSON: But a minute ago, Holmes, there was a villainous-looking scoundrel trying to wrench open that cupboard — a really criminal type. I caught a glimpse of his face.

HOLMES: Well, well, my dear Watson, I suppose I ought to be grateful for the compliment to my make-up. The fact is that I have spent the day loafing at the corner of a narrow street leading out of the Waterloo Road. They were all quite friendly to me there... Yes, I obtained the last little piece of evidence that I wanted to clear up that case of the Kentish Town safe robbery — you remember? Quite an interesting case, but all over now.

MRS. HUDSON: Lor’, Mr. ’Olmes, how you do go on. Still, I’m learnin’ never to be surprised at anything now.

HOLMES: Capital, Mrs. Hudson. That’s what every criminal investigator has to learn, isn’t it, Watson? (MRS. HUDSON leaves)

WATSON: Well, I suppose so, Holmes. But you must feel very pleased to think you’ve got that Kentish Town case off your mind before Christmas.

HOLMES: On the contrary, my dear Watson, I’m miserable. I like having things on my mind — it’s the only thing that makes life tolerable. A mind empty of problems is worse even than a stomach empty of food. (Eats sandwich) But Christmas is commonly a slack season. I suppose even criminals’ hearts are softened. The result is that I have nothing to do but to look out of the window and watch other people being busy. That little pawnbroker at the corner, for instance, you know the one, Watson?

WATSON: Yes, of course.

HOLMES: One of the many shops you have often seen, but never observed, my dear Watson. If you had watched that pawnbroker’s front door as carefully as I have during the last ten days, you would have noted a striking increase in his trade; you might have observed also some remarkably well-to-do people going into the shop. There’s one well — set-up young woman whom I have seen at least four times. Curious to think what her business may have been... But it’s a shame to depress your Christmas spirit, Watson. I see that you are particularly cheerful this evening.

WATSON: Well, yes, I don’t mind admitting that I am feeling quite pleased with things today.

HOLMES: So “Rio Tintos” have paid a good dividend, have they?

WATSON: My dear Holmes, how on earth do you know that?

HOLMES: Elementary, my dear Watson. You told me years ago that “Rio Tintos” was the one dividend which was paid in through your bank and not direct to yourself. You come into my room with an envelope of a peculiar shade of green sticking out of your coat pocket. That particular shade is used by your bank — Cox’s — and by no other, so far as I am aware. Clearly, then, you have just obtained your pass-book from the bank and your cheerfulness must proceed from the good news which it contains. Ex hypothesi, that news must relate to “Rio Tintos.”

WATSON: Perfectly correct, Holmes; and on the strength of the good dividend, I have deposited ten good, crisp, five-pound notes in the drawer of my dressing table just in case we should feel like a little jaunt after Christmas.

HOLMES: That was charming of you, Watson. But in my present state of inertia I should be a poor holiday companion. Now if only — (Knock at door) Come in.

MRS. HUDSON: Please sir, there’s a young lady to see you.

HOLMES: What sort of young lady, Mrs. Hudson? Another of these young women wanting half a crown towards some Christmas charity? If so, Dr. Watson’s your man, Mrs. Hudson. He’s bursting with bank-notes today.

MRS. HUDSON: I’m sure I’m very pleased to ’ear it, sir; but this lady ain’t that kind at all, sir. She’s sort of agitated, like... very anxious to see you and quite scared of meeting you at the same time, if you take my meaning, sir.

HOLMES: Perfectly, Mrs. Hudson. Well, Watson, what are we to do? Are we to interview this somewhat unbalanced young lady?

WATSON: If the poor girl is in trouble, Holmes, I think you might at least hear what she has to say.

HOLMES: Chivalrous as ever, my dear Watson — bring the lady up, Mrs. Hudson.

MRS. HUDSON: Very good, sir. (To the lady outside) This way, Miss.

HOLMES: (Bowing slightly) You wish to consult me?

MISS DE VINNE: (Nervously) Are you Mr. Sherlock Holmes?

HOLMES: I am — and this is my friend and colleague, Dr. Watson.

WATSON: (Coming forward and holding out hand) Charmed, I am sure, Miss—

HOLMES: (To MISS DE VINNE) You have come here, I presume, because you have a story to tell me. May I ask you to be as concise as possible?

MISS DE VINNE: I will try, Mr. Holmes. My name is de Vinne. My mother and I live together in Bayswater. We are not very well off but my father was... well... a gentleman. The Countess of Barton is one of our oldest friends—

HOLMES: (Interrupting) And the owner of a very wonderful pearl necklace.

MISS DE VINNE: (Startled) How do you know that, Mr. Holmes?

HOLMES: I am afraid it is my business to know quite a lot about other people’s affairs. But I’m sorry. I interrupted. Go on.

MISS DE VINNE: Two or three times a week I spend the day with Lady Barton and act as her secretary in a casual, friendly way. I write letters for her and arrange her dinner-tables when she has a party and do other little odd jobs.

HOLMES: Lady Barton is fortunate, eh, Watson?

WATSON: Yes, indeed, Holmes.

MISS DE VINNE: This afternoon a terrible thing happened. I was arranging some flowers when Lady Barton came in looking deathly white. “Violet,” she said, “the pearls are gone.” “Heavens.” I cried, “what do you mean?” “Well,” she said, “having quite unexpectedly had an invitation to a reception on January 5th, I thought I would make sure that the clasp was all right. When I opened the case (you know the special place where I keep it) it was empty — that’s all.” She looked as if she was going to faint, and I felt much the same.

HOLMES: (Quickly) And did you faint?

MISS DE VINNE: No, Mr. Holmes, we pulled ourselves together somehow and I asked her whether she was going to send for the police, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She said Jim (that’s her husband) hated publicity and would be furious if the pearls became “copy” for journalists. But of course she agreed that something had to be done and so she sent me to you.

HOLMES: Oh, Lady Barton sent you?

MISS DE VINNE: Well, not exactly. You see, when she refused to send for the police, I remembered your name and implored her to write you... and... well... here I am and here’s the letter. That’s all, Mr. Holmes.

HOLMES: I see. (Begins to read letter) Well, my dear lady, neither you nor Lady Barton has given me much material on which to work at present.

MISS DE VINNE: I am willing to answer any questions, Mr. Holmes.

HOLMES: You live in Bayswater, Miss Winnie?

WATSON: (Whispering) “De Vinne,” Holmes.

HOLMES: (Ignoring WATSON) You said Bayswater, I think, Miss Winnie?

MISS DE VINNE: Quite right, Mr. Holmes, but — forgive me, my name is de Vinne.

HOLMES: I’m sorry, Miss Dwinney—

MISS DE VINNE: De Vinne, Mr. Holmes, D... E... V...

HOLMES: How stupid of me. I think the chill I caught last week must have left a little deafness behind it. But to save further stupidity on my part, just write your name and address for me, will you? (Hands her pen and paper, on which MISS DE VINNE writes) That’s better. Now, tell me, Miss de Vinne, how do you find Bayswater for shopping?

MISS DE VINNE: (Surprised) Oh, I don’t know. Mr. Holmes, I hardly—

HOLMES: You don’t care for Whiteley’s, for instance?

MISS DE VINNE: Well, not very much. But I can’t see...

HOLMES: I entirely agree with you, Miss de Vinne. Yet Watson, you know, is devoted to that place — spends hours there...

WATSON: Holmes, what nonsense are you—

HOLMES: But I think you are quite right, Miss de Vinne. Harrod’s is a great deal better in my opinion.

MISS DE VINNE: But I never go to Harrod’s, Mr. Holmes, in fact I hardly ever go to any big store, except for one or two things. But what has this got to do—

HOLMES: Well, in principle, I don’t care for them much either, but they’re convenient sometimes.

MISS DE VINNE: Yes, I find the Army and Navy stores useful now and then, but why on earth are we talking about shops and stores when the thing that matters is Lady Barton’s necklace?

HOLMES: Ah, yes, I was coming to that. (Pauses) I’m sorry, Miss de Vinne, but I’m afraid I can’t take up this case.

MISS DE VINNE: You refuse, Mr. Holmes?

HOLMES: I am afraid I am obliged to do so. It is a case that would inevitably take some time. I am in sore need of a holiday and only today my devoted friend Watson has made all arrangements to take me on a Mediterranean cruise immediately after Christmas.

WATSON: Holmes, this is absurd. You know that I merely—

MISS DE VINNE: Dr. Watson, if Mr. Holmes can’t help me, won’t you? You don’t know how terrible all this is for me as well as for Lady Barton.

WATSON: My dear lady, I have some knowledge of my friend’s methods and they often seem incomprehensible. Holmes, you can’t mean this?

HOLMES: Certainly I do, my dear Watson. But I am unwilling that any lady should leave this house in a state of distress. (Goes to door) Mrs. Hudson!

MRS. HUDSON: Coming, sir. (MRS. HUDSON enters)

HOLMES: Mrs. Hudson, be good enough to conduct this lady to Dr. Watson’s dressing room. She is tired and a little upset. Let her rest on the sofa there while Dr. Watson and I have a few minutes’ quiet talk.

MRS. HUDSON: Very good, sir.

HOLMES: (Lighting cherry-wood pipe) Well, Watson?

WATSON: Well, Holmes, in all my experience I don’t think I have ever seen you so unaccountably ungracious to a charming girl.

HOLMES: Oh, yes, she has charm, Watson — they always have. What do you make of her story?

WATSON: Not very much, I confess. It seemed fairly clear as far as it went, but you wouldn’t let her tell us any detail. Instead, you began a perfectly ridiculous conversation about the comparative merits of various department stores. I’ve seldom heard you so inept.

HOLMES: Then you accept her story?

WATSON: Why not?

HOLMES: Why not, my dear Watson? Because the whole thing is a parcel of lies.

WATSON: But, Holmes, this is unreasoning prejudice.

HOLMES: Unreasoning, you say? Listen, Watson. This letter purports to have come from the Countess of Barton. I don’t know her Ladyship’s handwriting, but I was struck at once by its labored character, as exhibited in this note. It occurred to me, further, that it might be useful to obtain a specimen of Miss de Vinne’s to put alongside it — hence my tiresome inability to catch her name. Now, my dear Watson, I call your particular attention to the capital B’s which happen to occur in both specimens.

WATSON: They’re quite different, Holmes, but — yes, they’ve both got a peculiar curl where the letter finishes.

HOLMES: Point No. 1, my dear Watson, but an isolated one. Now, although I could not recognize the handwriting, I knew this notepaper as soon as I saw and felt it. Look at the watermark, Watson, and tell me what you find.

WATSON: (Holding the paper to the light) A. and N. (After a pause) Army and Navy... Why, Holmes, d’you mean that—

HOLMES: I mean that this letter was written by your charming friend in the name of the Countess of Barton.

WATSON: And what follows?

HOLMES: Ah, that is what we are left to conjecture. What will follow immediately is another interview with the young woman who calls herself Violet de Vinne. By the way, Watson, after you had finished threatening me with that nasty-looking revolver a little while ago, what did you do with the instrument?

WATSON: It’s here, Holmes, in my pocket.

HOLMES: Then, having left my own in my bedroom, I think I’ll borrow it, if you don’t mind.

WATSON: But surely, Holmes, you don’t suggest that—

HOLMES: My dear Watson, I suggest nothing — except that we may possibly find ourselves in rather deeper waters than Miss de Vinne’s charm and innocence have hitherto led you to expect. (Goes to door) Mrs. Hudson, ask the lady to be good enough to rejoin us.

MRS. HUDSON: (Off) Very good, sir.

HOLMES: (Amiably) Well, Miss de Vinne, are you rested?

MISS DE VINNE: Well, a little perhaps, but as you can do nothing for me, hadn’t I better go?

HOLMES: You look a little flushed, Miss de Vinne; do you feel the room rather too warm?

MISS DE VINNE: No, Mr. Holmes, thank you, I—

HOLMES: Anyhow, won’t you slip your coat off and—

MISS DE VINNE: Oh no, really. (Gathers coat round her)

HOLMES: (Threateningly) Then, if you won’t take your coat off, d’you mind showing me what is in the right-hand pocket of it? (A look of terror comes on MISS DE VINNE’S face) The game’s up, Violet de Vinne. (Points revolver, at which MISS DE VINNE screams and throws up her hands) Watson, oblige me by removing whatever you may discover in the right-hand pocket of Miss de Vinne’s coat.

WATSON: (Taking out note-case) My own note-case, Holmes, with the ten five-pound notes in it!

HOLMES: Ah!

MISS DE VINNE: (Distractedly) Let me speak, let me speak. I’ll explain everything.

HOLMES: Silence! Watson, was there anything else in the drawer of your dressing table besides your note-case?

WATSON: I’m not sure, Holmes.

HOLMES: Then I think we had better have some verification.

MISS DE VINNE: No, no. Let me—

HOLMES: Mrs. Hudson!

MRS. HUDSON: (Off) Coming, sir.

HOLMES: (To MRS. HUDSON off) Kindly open the right-hand drawer of Dr. Watson’s dressing table and bring us anything that you may find in it.

MISS DE VINNE: Mr. Holmes, you are torturing me. Let me tell you everything.

HOLMES: Your opportunity will come in due course, but in all probability before a different tribunal. I am a private detective, not a Criminal Court judge. (MISS DE VINNE weeps)

MRS. HUDSON: I found this, sir. But it must be something new that the doctor’s been buying. I’ve never seen it before. (MRS. HUDSON leaves)

HOLMES: Ah, Watson, more surprises! (Opens case and holds up a string of pearls) The famous pearls belonging to the Countess of Barton, if I’m not mistaken.

MISS DE VINNE: For pity’s sake, Mr. Holmes, let me speak. Even the lowest criminal has that right left him. And this time I will tell you the truth.

HOLMES: (Sceptically) The truth? Well?

MISS DE VINNE: Mr. Holmes, I have an only brother. He’s a dear — I love him better than anyone in the world — but, God forgive him, he’s a scamp... always in trouble, always in debt. Three days ago he wrote to me that he was in an even deeper hole than usual. If he couldn’t raise fifty pounds in the course of a week, he would be done for and, worse than that, dishonored and disgraced forever. I couldn’t bear it. I’d no money. I daren’t tell my mother. I swore to myself that I’d get that fifty pounds if I had to steal it. That same day at Lady Barton’s, I was looking, as I’d often looked, at the famous pearls. An idea suddenly came to me. They were worn only once or twice a year on special occasions. Why shouldn’t I pawn them for a month or so? I could surely get fifty pounds for them and then somehow I would scrape together the money to redeem them. It was almost certain that Lady Barton wouldn’t want them for six months. Oh, I know I was mad, but I did it. I found a fairly obscure little pawnbroker quite near here, but to my horror he wouldn’t take the pearls — looked at me very suspiciously and wouldn’t budge, though I went to him two or three times. Then, this afternoon, the crash came. When Lady Barton discovered that the pearls were missing I rushed out of the house, saying that I would tell the police. But actually I went home and tried to think. I remembered your name. A wild scheme came into my head. If I could pretend to consult you and somehow leave the pearls in your house, then you could pretend that you had recovered them and return them to Lady Barton. Oh, I know you’ll laugh, but you don’t know how distraught I was. Then, when you sent me into that dressing room, I prowled about like a caged animal. I saw those banknotes and they seemed like a gift from Heaven. Why shouldn’t I leave the necklace in their place? You would get much more than fifty pounds for recovering them from Lady Barton and I should save my brother. There, that’s all... and now, I suppose, I exchange Dr. Watson’s dressing room for a cell at the police station!

HOLMES: Well, Watson?

WATSON: What an extraordinary story, Holmes!

HOLMES: Yes, indeed. (Turning to MISS DE VINNE) Miss de Vinne, you told us in the first instance a plausible story of which I did not believe a single word; now you have given us a version which in many particulars seems absurd and incredible. Yet I believe it to be the truth. Watson, haven’t I always told you that fact is immeasurably stranger than fiction?

WATSON: Certainly, Holmes. But what are you going to do?

HOLMES: Going to do? Why — er — I’m going to send for Mrs. Hudson. (Calling offstage) Mrs. Hudson!

MRS. HUDSON: (Off) Coming, sir. (Enters) Yes, sir.

HOLMES: Oh, Mrs. Hudson, what are your views about Christmas?

WATSON: Really, Holmes.

HOLMES: My dear Watson, please don’t interrupt. As I was saying, Mrs. Hudson, I should be very much interested to know how you feel about Christmas.

MRS. HUDSON: Lor’, Mr. ’Olmes, what questions you do ask. I don’t hardly know exactly how to answer but... well... I suppose Christmas is the season of good will towards men — and women too, sir, if I may say so.

HOLMES: (Slowly) “And women too.” You observe that, Watson.

WATSON: Yes, Holmes, and I agree.

HOLMES: (To MISS DE VINNE) My dear young lady, you will observe that the jury are agreed upon their verdict.

MISS DE VINNE: Oh, Mr. Holmes, how can I ever thank you?

HOLMES: Not a word. You must thank the members of the jury... Mrs. Hudson!

MRS. HUDSON: Yes, sir.

HOLMES: Take Miss de Vinne, not into Dr. Watson’s room this time, but into your own comfortable kitchen and give her a cup of your famous tea.

MRS. HUDSON: How do the young lady take it, sir? Rather stronglike, with a bit of a tang to it?

HOLMES: You must ask her that yourself. Anyhow Mrs. Hudson, give her a cup that cheers.

WATSON: (In the highest spirits) Half a minute, Mrs. Hudson. I’m coming to see that Miss de Vinne has her tea as she likes it. And I tell you what, Holmes (Looking towards MISS DE VINNE and holding up note-case), you are not going to get your Mediterranean cruise.

HOLMES: (Relighting his pipe and smiling meditatively) Christmas Eve!

Although written in the Victorian era, the Sherlock Holmes stories lack the overwrought verbosity so prevalent in the prose of that era and remain as readable and fresh as anything produced in recent times. Having created the greatest character in the history of English literature, it is astonishing that Arthur Conan Doyle believed his most important works of fiction were such historical novels and short story collections as Micah Clarke (1889), The White Company (1891), and Sir Nigel (1906). He was further convinced that his most significant nonfiction work was in the spiritualism field, to which he devoted the last twenty years of his life, a considerable portion of his fortune, and prodigious energy. “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” was first published in the January 1892 issue of The Strand Magazine; it was first collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (London, Newnes, 1892).

I had called upon my friend Sherlock Holmes upon the second morning after Christmas, with the intention of wishing him the compliments of the season. He was lounging upon the sofa in a purple dressing-gown, a pipe-rack within his reach upon the right, and a pile of crumpled morning papers, evidently newly studied, near at hand. Beside the couch was a wooden chair, and on the angle of the back hung a very seedy and disreputable hard felt hat, much the worse for wear, and cracked in several places. A lens and a forceps lying upon the seat of the chair suggested that the hat had been suspended in this manner for the purpose of examination.

“You are engaged,” said I; “perhaps I interrupt you.”

“Not at all. I am glad to have a friend with whom I can discuss my results. The matter is a perfectly trivial one,” (he jerked his thumb in the direction of the old hat) “but there are points in connection with it which are not entirely devoid of interest and even of instruction.”

I seated myself in his armchair and warmed my hands before his crackling fire, for a sharp frost had set in, and the windows were thick with the ice crystals. “I suppose,” I remarked, “that, homely as it looks, this thing has some deadly story linked on to it — that it is the clue which will guide you in the solution of some mystery and the punishment of some crime.”

“No, no. No crime,” said Sherlock Holmes, laughing. “Only one of those whimsical little incidents which will happen when you have four million human beings all jostling each other within the space of a few square miles. Amid the action and reaction of so dense a swarm of humanity, every possible combination of events may be expected to take place, and many a little problem will be presented which may be striking and bizarre without being criminal. We have already had experience of such.”

“So much so,” I remarked, “that of the last six cases which I have added to my notes, three have been entirely free of any legal crime.”

“Precisely. You allude to my attempt to recover the Irene Adler papers, to the singular case of Miss Mary Sutherland, and to the adventure of the man with the twisted lip. Well, I have no doubt that this small matter will fall into the same innocent category. You know Peterson, the commissionaire?”

“Yes.”

“It is to him that this trophy belongs.”

“It is his hat.”

“No, no; he found it. Its owner is unknown. I beg that you will look upon it not as a battered billycock but as an intellectual problem. And, first, as to how it came here. It arrived upon Christmas morning, in company with a good fat goose, which is, I have no doubt, roasting at this moment in front of Peterson’s fire. The facts are these. About four o’clock on Christmas morning, Peterson, who, as you know, is a very honest fellow, was returning from some small jollification and was making his way homeward down Tottenham Court Road. In front of him he saw, in the gaslight, a tallish man, walking with a slight stagger and carrying a white goose slung over his shoulder. As he reached the corner of Goodge Street, a row broke out between this stranger and a little knot of roughs. One of the latter knocked off the man’s hat, on which he raised his stick to defend himself and, swinging it over his head, smashed the shop window behind him. Peterson had rushed forward to protect the stranger from his assailants; but the man, shocked at having broken the window, and seeing an official-looking person in uniform rushing towards him, dropped his goose, took to his heels, and vanished amid the labyrinth of small streets which lie at the back of Tottenham Court Road. The roughs had also fled at the appearance of Peterson, so that he was left in possession of the field of battle, and also of the spoils of victory in the shape of this battered hat and a most unimpeachable Christmas goose.”

“Which surely he restored to their owner?”

“My dear fellow, there lies the problem. It is true that ‘For Mrs. Henry Baker’ was printed upon a small card which was tied to the bird’s left leg, and it is also true that the initials ‘H. B.’ are legible upon the lining of this hat; but as there are some thousands of Bakers, and some hundreds of Henry Bakers in this city of ours, it is not easy to restore lost property to any one of them.”

“What, then, did Peterson do?”

“He brought round both hat and goose to me on Christmas morning, knowing that even the smallest problems are of interest to me. The goose we retained until this morning, when there were signs that, in spite of the slight frost, it would be well that it should be eaten without unnecessary delay. Its finder has carried it off, therefore, to fulfil the ultimate destiny of a goose, while I continue to retain the hat of the unknown gentleman who lost his Christmas dinner.”

“Did he not advertise?”

“No.”

“Then, what clue could you have as to his identity?”

“Only as much as we can deduce.”

“From his hat?”

“Precisely.”

“But you are joking. What can you gather from this old battered felt?”

“Here is my lens. You know my methods. What can you gather yourself as to the individuality of the man who has worn this article?”

I took the tattered object in my hands and turned it over rather ruefully. It was a very ordinary black hat of the usual round shape, hard and much the worse for wear. The lining had been of red silk, but was a good deal discoloured. There was no maker’s name; but, as Holmes had remarked, the initials “H. B.” were scrawled upon one side. It was pierced in the brim for a hat-securer, but the elastic was missing. For the rest, it was cracked, exceedingly dusty, and spotted in several places, although there seemed to have been some attempt to hide the discoloured patches by smearing them with ink.

“I can see nothing,” said I, handing it back to my friend.

“On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, however, to reason from what you see. You are too timid in drawing your inferences.”

“Then, pray tell me, what it is that you can infer from this hat?”

He picked it up and gazed at it in the peculiar introspective fashion which was characteristic of him. “It is perhaps less suggestive than it might have been,” he remarked, “and yet there are a few inferences which are very distinct, and a few others which represent at least a strong balance of probability. That the man was highly intellectual is of course obvious upon the face of it, and also that he was fairly well-to-do within the last three years, although he has now fallen upon evil days. He had foresight, but has less now than formerly, pointing to a moral retrogression, which, when taken with the decline of his fortunes, seems to indicate some evil influence, probably drink, at work upon him. This may account also for the obvious fact that his wife has ceased to love him.”

“My dear Holmes!”

“He has, however, retained some degree of self-respect,” he continued, disregarding my remonstrance. “He is a man who leads a sedentary life, goes out little, is out of training entirely, is middle-aged, has grizzled hair which he has had cut within the last few days, and which he anoints with lime-cream. These are the more patent facts which are to be deduced from his hat. Also, by the way, that it is extremely improbable that he has gas laid on in his house.”

“You are certainly joking, Holmes.”

“Not in the least. Is it possible that even now, when I give you these results, you are unable to see how they are attained?”

“I have no doubt that I am very stupid, but I must confess that I am unable to follow you. For example, how did you deduce that this man was intellectual?”

For answer Holmes clapped the hat upon his head. It came right over the forehead and settled upon the bridge of his nose. “It is a question of cubic capacity,” said he; “a man with so large a brain must have something in it.”

“The decline of his fortunes, then?”

“This hat is three years old. These flat brims curled at the edge came in then. It is a hat of the very best quality. Look at the band of ribbed silk and the excellent lining. If this man could afford to buy so expensive a hat three years ago, and has had no hat since, then he has assuredly gone down in the world.”

“Well, that is clear enough, certainly. But how about the foresight and the moral retrogression?”

Sherlock Holmes laughed. “Here is the foresight,” said he, putting his finger upon the little disc and loop of the hat-securer. “They are never sold upon hats. If this man ordered one, it is a sign of a certain amount of foresight, since he went out of his way to take this precaution against the wind. But since we see that he has broken the elastic and has not troubled to replace it, it is obvious that he has less foresight now than formerly, which is a distinct proof of a weakening nature. On the other hand, he has endeavoured to conceal some of these stains upon the felt by daubing them with ink, which is a sign that he has not entirely lost his self-respect.”

“Your reasoning is certainly plausible.”

“The further points, that he is middle-aged, that his hair is grizzled, that it has been recently cut, and that he uses lime-cream, are all to be gathered from a close examination of the lower part of the lining. The lens discloses a large number of hair-ends, clean cut by the scissors of the barber. They all appear to be adhesive, and there is a distinct odour of lime-cream. This dust, you will observe, is not the gritty, gray dust of the street but the fluffy brown dust of the house, showing that it has been hung up indoors most of the time; while the marks of moisture upon the inside are proof positive that the wearer perspired very freely, and could, therefore, hardly be in the best of training.”

“But his wife — you said that she had ceased to love him.”

“This hat has not been brushed for weeks. When I see you, my dear Watson, with a week’s accumulation of dust upon your hat, and when your wife allows you to go out in such a state, I shall fear that you also have been unfortunate enough to lose your wife’s affection.”

“But he might be a bachelor.”

“Nay, he was bringing home the goose as a peace-offering to his wife. Remember the card upon the bird’s leg.”

“You have an answer to everything. But how on earth do you deduce that the gas is not laid on in his house?”

“One tallow stain, or even two, might come by chance; but when I see no less than five, I think that there can be little doubt that the individual must be brought into frequent contact with burning tallow — walks upstairs at night probably with his hat in one hand and a guttering candle in the other. Anyhow, he never got tallow-stains from a gas-jet. Are you satisfied?”

“Well, it is very ingenious,” said I, laughing; “but since, as you said just now, there has been no crime committed, and no harm done save the loss of a goose, all this seems to be rather a waste of energy.”

Sherlock Holmes had opened his mouth to reply, when the door flew open, and Peterson, the commissionaire, rushed into the apartment with flushed cheeks and the face of a man who is dazed with astonishment.

“The goose, Mr. Holmes! The goose, sir!” he gasped.

“Eh? What of it, then? Has it returned to life and flapped off through the kitchen window?” Holmes twisted himself round upon the sofa to get a fairer view of the man’s excited face.

“See here, sir! See what my wife found in its crop!” He held out his hand and displayed upon the centre of the palm a brilliantly scintillating blue stone, rather smaller than a bean in size, but of such purity and radiance that it twinkled like an electric point in the dark hollow of his hand.

Sherlock Holmes sat up with a whistle. “By Jove, Peterson!” said he, “this is treasure trove indeed. I suppose you know what you have got?”

“A diamond, sir? A precious stone. It cuts into glass as though it were putty.”

“It’s more than a precious stone. It is the precious stone.”

“Not the Countess of Morcar’s blue carbuncle!” I ejaculated.

“Precisely so. I ought to know its size and shape, seeing that I have read the advertisement about it in The Times every day lately. It is absolutely unique, and its value can only be conjectured, but the reward offered of a thousand pounds is certainly not within a twentieth part of the market price.”

“A thousand pounds! Great Lord of Mercy!” The commissionaire plumped down into a chair and stared from one to the other of us.

“That is the reward, and I have reason to know that there are sentimental considerations in the background which would induce the Countess to part with half her fortune if she could but recover the gem.”

“It was lost, if I remembered aright, at the Hotel Cosmopolitan,” I remarked.

“Precisely so, on the twenty-second of December, just five days ago. John Horner, a plumber, was accused of having abstracted it from the lady’s jewel-case. The evidence against him was so strong that the case has been referred to the Assizes. I have some account of the matter here, I believe.” He rummaged amid his newspapers, glancing over the dates, until at last he smoothed one out, doubled it over, and read the following paragraph:

“Hum! So much for the police-court,” said Holmes thoughtfully, tossing aside the paper. “The question for us now to solve is the sequence of events leading from a rifled jewel-case at one end to the crop of a goose in Tottenham Court Road at the other. You see, Watson, our little deductions have suddenly assumed a much more important and less innocent aspect. Here is the stone; the stone came from the goose, and the goose came from Mr. Henry Baker, the gentleman with the bad hat and all the other characteristics with which I have bored you. So now we must set ourselves very seriously to finding this gentleman and ascertaining what part he has played in this little mystery. To do this, we must try the simplest means first, and these lie undoubtedly in an advertisement in all the evening papers. If this fails, I shall have recourse to other methods.”

“What will you say?”

“Give me a pencil and that slip of paper. Now, then:

That is clear and concise.”

“Very. But will he see it?”

“Well, he is sure to keep an eye on the papers, since, to a poor man, the loss was a heavy one. He was clearly so scared by his mischance in breaking the window and by the approach of Peterson that he thought of nothing but flight, but since then he must have bitterly regretted the impulse which caused him to drop his bird. Then, again, the introduction of his name will cause him to see it, for everyone who knows him will direct his attention to it. Here you are, Peterson, run down to the advertising agency and have this put in the evening papers.”

“In which, sir?”

“Oh, in the Globe, Star, Pall Mall, St. James’s Gazette, Evening News, Standard, Echo, and any others that occur to you.”

“Very well, sir. And this stone?”

“Ah, yes, I shall keep the stone. Thank you. And, I say, Peterson, just buy a goose on your way back and leave it here with me, for we must have one to give to this gentleman in place of the one which your family is now devouring.”

When the commissionaire had gone, Holmes took up the stone and held it against the light. “It’s a bonny thing,” said he. “Just see how it glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime. Every good stone is. They are the devil’s pet baits. In the larger and older jewels every facet may stand for a bloody deed. This stone is not yet twenty years old. It was found in the banks of the Amoy River in southern China and is remarkable in having every characteristic of the carbuncle, save that it is blue in shade instead of ruby red. In spite of its youth, it has already a sinister history. There have been two murders, a vitriol-throwing, a suicide, and several robberies brought about for the sake of this forty-grain weight of crystallized charcoal. Who would think that so pretty a toy would be a purveyor to the gallows and the prison? I’ll lock it up in my strong box now and drop a line to the Countess to say that we have it.”

“Do you think that this man Horner is innocent?”

“I cannot tell.”

“Well, then, do you imagine that this other one, Henry Baker, had anything to do with the matter?”

“It is, I think, much more likely that Henry Baker is an absolutely innocent man, who had no idea that the bird which he was carrying was of considerably more value than if it were made of solid gold. That, however, I shall determine by a very simple test if we have an answer to our advertisement.”

“And you can do nothing until then?”

“Nothing.”

“In that case I shall continue my professional round. But I shall come back in the evening at the hour you have mentioned, for I should like to see the solution of so tangled a business.”

“Very glad to see you. I dine at seven. There is a woodcock, I believe. By the way, in view of recent occurrences, perhaps I ought to ask Mrs. Hudson to examine its crop.”

I had been delayed at a case, and it was a little after half-past six when I found myself in Baker Street once more. As I approached the house I saw a tall man in a Scotch bonnet with a coat which was buttoned up to his chin waiting outside in the bright semicircle which was thrown from the fanlight. Just as I arrived the door was opened, and we were shown up together to Holmes’s room.

“Mr. Henry Baker, I believe,” said he, rising from his armchair and greeting his visitor with the easy air of geniality which he could so readily assume. “Pray take this chair by the fire, Mr. Baker. It is a cold night, and I observe that your circulation is more adapted for summer than for winter. Ah, Watson, you have just come at the right time. Is that your hat, Mr. Baker?”

“Yes, sir, that is undoubtedly my hat.”

He was a large man with rounded shoulders, a massive head, and a broad, intelligent face, sloping down to a pointed beard of grizzled brown. A touch of red in nose and cheeks, with a slight tremor of his extended hand, recalled Holmes’s surmise as to his habits. His rusty black frock-coat was buttoned right up in front, with the collar turned up, and his lank wrists protruded from his sleeves without a sign of cuff or shirt. He spoke in a low staccato fashion, choosing his words with care, and gave the impression generally of a man of learning and letters who had had ill-usage at the hands of fortune.

“We have retained these things for some days,” said Holmes, “because we expected to see an advertisement from you giving your address. I am at a loss to know now why you did not advertise.”

Our visitor gave a rather shamefaced laugh. “Shillings have not been so plentiful with me as they once were,” he remarked. “I had no doubt that the gang of roughs who assaulted me had carried off both my hat and the bird. I did not care to spend more money in a hopeless attempt at recovering them.”

“Very naturally. By the way, about the bird, we were compelled to eat it.”

“To eat it!” Our visitor half rose from his chair in his excitement.

“Yes, it would have been of no use to anyone had we not done so. But I presume that this other goose upon the sideboard, which is about the same weight and perfectly fresh, will answer your purpose equally well?”

“Oh, certainly, certainly,” answered Mr. Baker with a sigh of relief.

“Of course, we still have the feathers, legs, crop, and so on of your own bird, so if you wish—”

The man burst into a hearty laugh. “They might be useful to me as relics of my adventure,” said he, “but beyond that I can hardly see what use the disjecta membra of my late acquaintance are going to be to me. No, sir, I think that, with your permission, I will confine my attentions to the excellent bird which I perceive upon the sideboard.”

Sherlock Holmes glanced sharply across at me with a slight shrug of his shoulders.

“There is your hat, then, and there your bird,” said he. “By the way, would it bore you to tell me where you got the other one from? I am somewhat of a fowl fancier, and I have seldom seen a better grown goose.”

“Certainly, sir,” said Baker, who had risen and tucked his newly gained property under his arm. “There are a few of us who frequent the Alpha Inn, near the Museum — we are to be found in the Museum itself during the day, you understand. This year our good host, Windigate by name, instituted a goose club, by which, on consideration of some few pence every week, we were each to receive a bird at Christmas. My pence were duly paid, and the rest is familiar to you. I am much indebted to you, sir, for a Scotch bonnet is fitted neither to my years nor my gravity.” With a comical pomposity of manner he bowed solemnly to both of us and strode off upon his way.

“So much for Mr. Henry Baker,” said Holmes when he had closed the door behind him. “It is quite certain that he knows nothing whatever about the matter. Are you hungry, Watson?”

“Not particularly.”

“Then I suggest that we turn our dinner into a supper and follow up this clue while it is still hot.”

“By all means.”

It was a bitter night, so we drew on our ulsters and wrapped cravats about our throats. Outside, the stars were shining coldly in a cloudless sky, and the breath of the passers-by blew out into smoke like so many pistol shots. Our footfalls rang out crisply and loudly as we swung through the doctors’ quarter, Wimpole Street, Harley Street, and so through Wigmore Street into Oxford Street. In a quarter of an hour we were in Bloomsbury at the Alpha Inn, which is a small public-house at the corner of one of the streets which runs down into Holborn. Holmes pushed open the door of the private bar and ordered two glasses of beer from the ruddy-faced, white-aproned landlord.

“Your beer should be excellent if it is as good as your geese,” said he.

“My geese!” The man seemed surprised.

“Yes. I was speaking only half an hour ago to Mr. Henry Baker, who was a member of your goose club.”

“Ah! yes, I see. But you see, sir, them’s not our geese.”

“Indeed! Whose, then?”

“Well, I got the two dozen from a salesman in Covent Garden.”

“Indeed? I know some of them. Which was it?”

“Breckinridge is his name.”

“Ah! I don’t know him. Well, here’s your good health, landlord, and prosperity to your house. Good-night.

“Now for Mr. Breckinridge,” he continued, buttoning up his coat as we came out into the frosty air. “Remember, Watson, that though we have so homely a thing as a goose at one end of this chain, we have at the other a man who will certainly get seven years’ penal servitude unless we can establish his innocence. It is possible that our inquiry may but confirm his guilt; but, in any case, we have a line of investigation which has been missed by the police, and which a singular chance has placed in our hands. Let us follow it out to the bitter end. Faces to the south, then, and quick march!”

We passed across Holborn, down Endell Street, and so through a zigzag of slums to Covent Garden Market. One of the largest stalls bore the name of Breckinridge upon it, and the proprietor, a horsy-looking man, with a sharp face and trim side-whiskers, was helping a boy to put up the shutters.

“Good-evening. It’s a cold night,” said Holmes.

The salesman nodded and shot a questioning glance at my companion.

“Sold out of geese, I see,” continued Holmes, pointing at the bare slabs of marble.

“Let you have five hundred to-morrow morning.”

“That’s no good.”

“Well, there are some on the stall with the gas-flare.”

“Ah, but I was recommended to you.”

“Who by?”

“The landlord of the Alpha.”

“Oh, yes; I sent him a couple of dozen.”

“Fine birds they were, too. Now where did you get them from?”

To my surprise the question provoked a burst of anger from the salesman.

“Now, then, mister,” said he, with his head cocked and his arms akimbo, “what are you driving at? Let’s have it straight, now.”

“It is straight enough. I should like to know who sold you the geese which you supplied to the Alpha.”

“Well, then, I shan’t tell you. So now!”

“Oh, it is a matter of no importance; but I don’t know why you should be so warm over such a trifle.”

“Warm! You’d be as warm, maybe, if you were as pestered as I am. When I pay good money for a good article there should be an end of the business; but it’s ‘Where are the geese?’ and ‘Who did you sell the geese to?’ and ‘What will you take for the geese?’ One would think they were the only geese in the world, to hear the fuss that is made over them.”

“Well, I have no connection with any other people who have been making inquiries,” said Holmes carelessly. “If you won’t tell us the bet is off, that is all. But I’m always ready to back my opinion on a matter of fowls, and I have a fiver on it that the bird I ate is country bred.”

“Well, then, you’ve lost your fiver, for it’s town bred,” snapped the salesman.

“It’s nothing of the kind.”

“I say it is.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“D’you think you know more about fowls than I, who have handled them ever since I was a nipper? I tell you, all those birds that went to the Alpha were town bred.”

“You’ll never persuade me to believe that.”

“Will you bet, then?”

“It’s merely taking your money, for I know that I am right. But I’ll have a sovereign on with you, just to teach you not to be obstinate.”

The salesman chuckled grimly. “Bring me the books, Bill,” said he.

The small boy brought round a small thin volume and a great greasy-backed one, laying them out together beneath the hanging lamp.

“Now then, Mr. Cocksure,” said the salesman, “I thought that I was out of geese, but before I finish you’ll find that there is still one left in my shop. You see this little book?”

“Well?”

“That’s the list of the folk from whom I buy. D’you see? Well, then, here on this page are the country folk, and the numbers after their names are where their accounts are in the big ledger. Now, then! You see this other page in red ink? Well, that is a list of my town suppliers. Now, look at that third name. Just read it out to me.”

“Mrs. Oakshott, 117 Brixton Road-249,” read Holmes.

“Quite so. Now turn that up in the ledger.”

Holmes turned to the page indicated. “Here you are, ‘Mrs. Oakshott, 117 Brixton Road, egg and poultry supplier.”

“Now, then, what’s the last entry?”

“ ‘December 22d. Twenty-four geese at 7s. 6d.’ ”

“Quite so. There you are. And underneath?”

“ ‘Sold to Mr. Windigate of the Alpha, at 12s.’ ”

“What have you to say now?”

Sherlock Holmes looked deeply chagrined. He drew a sovereign from his pocket and threw it down upon the slab, turning away with the air of a man whose disgust is too deep for words. A few yards off he stopped under a lamp-post and laughed in the hearty, noiseless fashion which was peculiar to him.

“When you see a man with whiskers of that cut and the ‘Pink ’un’ protruding out of his pocket, you can always draw him by a bet,” said he. “I daresay that if I had put a hundred pounds down in front of him, that man would not have given me such complete information as was drawn from him by the idea that he was doing me on a wager. Well, Watson, we are, I fancy, nearing the end of our quest, and the only point which remains to be determined is whether we should go on to this Mrs. Oakshott to-night, or whether we should reserve it for tomorrow. It is clear from what that surly fellow said that there are others besides ourselves who are anxious about the matter, and I should—”

His remarks were suddenly cut short by a loud hubbub which broke out from the stall which we had just left. Turning round we saw a little rat-faced fellow standing in the centre of the circle of yellow light which was thrown by the swinging lamp, while Breckinridge, the salesman, framed in the door of his stall, was shaking his fists fiercely at the cringing figure.

“I’ve had enough of you and your geese,” he shouted. “I wish you were all at the devil together. If you come pestering me any more with your silly talk I’ll set the dog at you. You bring Mrs. Oakshott here and I’ll answer her, but what have you to do with it? Did I buy the geese off you?”

“No; but one of them was mine all the same,” whined the little man.

“Well, then, ask Mrs. Oakshott for it.”

“She told me to ask you.”

“Well, you can ask the King of Proosia, for all I care. I’ve had enough of it. Get out of this!” He rushed fiercely forward, and the inquirer flitted away into the darkness.

“Ha! this may save us a visit to Brixton Road,” whispered Holmes. “Come with me, and we will see what is to be made of this fellow.” Striding through the scattered knots of people who lounged round the flaring stalls, my companion speedily overtook the little man and touched him upon the shoulder. He sprang round, and I could see in the gaslight that every vestige of colour had been driven from his face.

“Who are you, then? What do you want?” he asked in a quavering voice.

“You will excuse me,” said Holmes blandly, “but I could not help overhearing the questions which you put to the salesman just now. I think that I could be of assistance to you.”

“You? Who are you? How could you know anything of the matter?”

“My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don’t know.”

“But you can know nothing of this?”

“Excuse me, I know everything of it. You are endeavouring to trace some geese which were sold by Mrs. Oakshott, of Brixton Road, to a salesman named Breckinridge, by him in turn to Mr. Windigate, of the Alpha, and by him to his club, of which Mr. Henry Baker is a member.”

“Oh, sir, you are the very man whom I have longed to meet,” cried the little fellow with outstretched hands and quivering fingers. “I can hardly explain to you how interested I am in this matter.”

Sherlock Holmes hailed a four-wheeler which was passing. “In that case we had better discuss it in a cosy room rather than in this windswept market-place,” said he. “But pray tell me, before we go further, who it is that I have the pleasure of assisting.”

The man hesitated for an instant. “My name is John Robinson,” he answered with a sidelong glance.

“No, no; the real name,” said Holmes sweetly. “It is always awkward doing business with an alias.”

A flush sprang to the white cheeks of the stranger. “Well, then,” said he, “my real name is James Ryder.”

“Precisely so. Head attendant at the Hotel Cosmopolitan. Pray step into the cab, and I shall soon be able to tell you everything which you would wish to know.”

The little man stood glancing from one to the other of us with half-frightened, half-hopeful eyes, as one who is not sure whether he is on the verge of a windfall or of a catastrophe. Then he stepped into the cab, and in half an hour we were back in the sitting-room at Baker Street. Nothing had been said during our drive, but the high, thin breathing of our new companion, and the claspings and unclaspings of his hands, spoke of the nervous tension within him.

“Here we are!” said Holmes cheerily as we filed into the room. “The fire looks very seasonable in this weather. You look cold, Mr. Ryder. Pray take the basket-chair. I will just put on my slippers before we settle this little matter of yours. Now, then! You want to know what became of those geese?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Or rather, I fancy, of that goose. It was one bird, I imagine, in which you were interested — white, with a black bar across the tail.”

Ryder quivered with emotion. “Oh, sir,” he cried, “can you tell me where it went to?”

“It came here.”

“Here?”

“Yes, and a most remarkable bird it proved. I don’t wonder that you should take an interest in it. It laid an egg after it was dead — the bonniest, brightest little blue egg that ever was seen. I have it here in my museum.”

Our visitor staggered to his feet and clutched the mantelpiece with his right hand. Holmes unlocked his strong-box and held up the blue carbuncle, which shone out like a star, with a cold, brilliant, many-pointed radiance. Ryder stood glaring with a drawn face, uncertain whether to claim or to disown it.

“The game’s up, Ryder,” said Holmes quietly. “Hold up, man, or you’ll be into the fire! Give him an arm back into his chair, Watson. He’s not got blood enough to go in for felony with impunity. Give him a dash of brandy. So! Now he looks a little more human. What a shrimp it is, to be sure!”

For a moment he had staggered and nearly fallen, but the brandy brought a tinge of colour into his cheeks, and he sat staring with frightened eyes at his accuser.

“I have almost every link in my hands, and all the proofs which I could possibly need, so there is little which you need tell me. Still, that little may as well be cleared up to make the case complete. You had heard, Ryder, of this blue stone of the Countess of Morcar’s?”

“It was Catherine Cusack who told me of it,” said he in a crackling voice.

“I see — her ladyship’s waiting-maid. Well, the temptation of sudden wealth so easily acquired was too much for you, as it has been for better men before you; but you were not very scrupulous in the means you used. It seems to me, Ryder, that there is the making of a very pretty villain in you. You knew that this man Horner, the plumber, had been concerned in some such matter before, and that suspicion would rest the more readily upon him. What did you do, then? You made some small job in my lady’s room — you and your confederate Cusack — and you managed that he should be the man sent for. Then, when he had left, you rifled the jewel-case, raised the alarm, and had this unfortunate man arrested. You then—”

Ryder threw himself down suddenly upon the rug and clutched at my companion’s knees. “For God’s sake, have mercy!” he shrieked. “Think of my father! of my mother! It would break their hearts. I never went wrong before! I never will again. I swear it. I’ll swear it on a Bible. Oh, don’t bring it into court! For Christ’s sake, don’t!”

“Get back into your chair!” said Holmes sternly. “It is very well to cringe and crawl now, but you thought little enough of this poor Horner in the dock for a crime of which he knew nothing.”

“I will fly, Mr. Holmes. I will leave the country, sir. Then the charge against him will break down.”

“Hum! We will talk about that. And now let us hear a true account of the next act. How came the stone into the goose, and how came the goose into the open market? Tell us the truth, for there lies your only hope of safety.”

Ryder passed his tongue over his parched lips. “I will tell you it just as it happened, sir,” said he. “When Horner had been arrested, it seemed to me that it would be best for me to get away with the stone at once, for I did not know at what moment the police might not take it into their heads to search me and my room. There was no place about the hotel where it would be safe. I went out, as if on some commission, and I made for my sister’s house. She had married a man named Oakshott, and lived in Brixton Road, where she fattened fowls for the market. All the way there every man I met seemed to me to be a policeman or a detective; and, for all that it was a cold night, the sweat was pouring down my face before I came to the Brixton Road. My sister asked me what was the matter, and why I was so pale; but I told her that I had been upset by the jewel robbery at the hotel. Then I went into the back yard and smoked a pipe, and wondered what it would be best to do.

“I had a friend once called Maudsley, who went to the bad, and has just been serving his time in Pentonville. One day he had met me, and fell into talk about the ways of thieves, and how they could get rid of what they stole. I knew that he would be true to me, for I knew one or two things about him; so I made up my mind to go right on to Kilburn, where he lived, and take him into my confidence. He would show me how to turn the stone into money. But how to get to him in safety? I thought of the agonies I had gone through in coming from the hotel. I might at any moment be seized and searched, and there would be the stone in my waistcoat pocket. I was leaning against the wall at the time and looking at the geese which were waddling about round my feet, and suddenly an idea came into my head which showed me how I could beat the best detective that ever lived.

“My sister had told me some weeks before that I might have the pick of her geese for a Christmas present, and I knew that she was always as good as her word. I would take my goose now, and in it I would carry my stone to Kilburn. There was a little shed in the yard, and behind this I drove one of the birds — a fine big one, white, with a barred tail. I caught it, and prising its bill open, I thrust the stone down its throat as far as my finger could reach. The bird gave a gulp, and I felt the stone pass along its gullet and down into its crop. But the creature flapped and struggled, and out came my sister to know what was the matter. As I turned to speak to her the brute broke loose and fluttered off among the others.

“ ‘Whatever were you doing with that bird, Jem?’ says she.

“ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘you said you’d give me one for Christmas, and I was feeling which was the fattest.’

“ ‘Oh,’ says she, ‘we’ve set yours aside for you — Jem’s bird, we call it. It’s the big white one over yonder. There’s twenty-six of them, which makes one for you, and one for us, and two dozen for the market.’

“ ‘Thank you, Maggie,’ says I; ‘but if it is all the same to you, I’d rather have that one I was handling just now.’

“ ‘The other is a good three pound heavier,’ said she, ‘and we fattened it expressly for you.’

“ ‘Never mind. I’ll have the other, and I’ll take it now,’ said I.

“ ‘Oh, just as you like,’ said she, a little huffed. ‘Which is it you want, then?’

“ ‘That white one with the barred tail, right in the middle of the flock.’

“ ‘Oh, very well. Kill it and take it with you.’

“Well, I did what she said, Mr. Holmes, and I carried the bird all the way to Kilburn. I told my pal what I had done, for he was a man that it was easy to tell a thing like that to. He laughed until he choked, and we got a knife and opened the goose. My heart turned to water, for there was no sign of the stone, and I knew that some terrible mistake had occurred. I left the bird, rushed back to my sister’s, and hurried into the back yard. There was not a bird to be seen there.

“ ‘Where are they all, Maggie?’ I cried.

“ ‘Gone to the dealer’s, Jem.’

“ ‘Which dealer’s?”

“ ‘Breckinridge, of Covent Garden.’

“ ‘But was there another with a barred tail?’ I asked. ‘The same as the one I chose.’

“ ‘Yes, Jem; there were two barred-tailed ones, and I could never tell them apart.’

“Well, then, of course I saw it all, and I ran off as hard as my feet would carry me to this man Breckinridge; but he had sold the lot at once, and not a word would he tell me as to where they had gone. You heard him yourselves to-night. Well, he has always answered me like that. My sister thinks I am going mad. Sometimes I think that I am myself. And now — and now I am myself a branded thief, without ever having touched the wealth for which I sold my character. God help me! God help me!” He burst into convulsive sobbing, with his face buried in his hands.

There was a long silence, broken only by his heavy breathing, and by the measured tapping of Sherlock Holmes’s finger-tips upon the edge of the table. Then my friend rose and threw open the door.

“Get out!” said he.

“What, sir! Oh, Heaven bless you!”

“No more words. Get out!”

And no more words were needed. There was a rush, a clatter upon the stairs, the bang of a door, and the crisp rattle of running footfalls from the street.

“After all, Watson,” said Holmes, reaching up his hand for his clay pipe, “I am not retained by the police to supply their deficiences. If Horner were in danger it would be another thing; but this fellow will not appear against him, and the case must collapse. I suppose that I am commiting a felony, but it is just possible that I am saving a soul. This fellow will not go wrong again; he is too terribly frightened. Send him to gaol now, and you make him a gaolbird for life. Besides, it is the season of forgiveness. Chance has put in our way a most singular and whimsical problem, and its solution is its own reward. If you will have the goodness to touch the bell, Doctor, we will begin another investigation, in which, also, a bird will be the chief feature.”

John D. Macdonald’s most famous character, Travis McGee, lived on a houseboat named “The Busted Flush,” which he won in a poker game. One of the great characters of mystery fiction, McGee is a combined private detective and thief who makes his living by recovering stolen property and, while operating outside the law, victimizes only criminals. Mac-Donald’s outstanding suspense novel, The Executioners, was filmed twice as Cape Fear (in 1962, with Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, and Polly Bergen, and in 1991, with Nick Nolte, Robert De Niro, Jessica Lange, and Juliette Lewis). “Dead on Christmas Street” was first published in the December 20, 1952, issue of Collier’s.

The police in the first prowl car on the scene got out a tarpaulin. A traffic policeman threw it over the body and herded the crowd back. They moved uneasily in the gray slush. Some of them looked up from time to time.

In the newspaper picture the window would be marked with a bold X. A dotted line would descend from the X to the spot where the covered body now lay. Some of the spectators, laden with tinsel- and evergreen-decorated packages, turned away, suppressing a nameless guilt.

But the curious stayed on. Across the street, in the window of a department store, a vast mechanical Santa rocked back and forth, slapping a mechanical hand against a padded thigh, roaring forever, “Whaw haw ho ho ho. Whaw haw ho ho ho.” The slapping hand had worn the red plush from the padded thigh.

The ambulance arrived, with a brisk intern to make out the DOA. Sawdust was shoveled onto the sidewalk, then pushed off into the sewer drain. Wet snow fell into the city. And there was nothing else to see. The corner Santa, a leathery man with a pinched, blue nose, began to ring his hand bell again.

Already a prolific writer for such pulp magazines as Black Mask, Dime Mystery, and others, Norvell Page began to write novels for the hero pulp The Spider, under the house name Grant Stockbridge, in 1933. Created to compete with The Shadow, the first two issues of the magazine were written by R. T. M. Scott, then turned over to the twenty-nine-year-old Page, who gave the ruthless and fearless vigilante a mask and a disguise (as a fang-toothed hunchback named Richard Wentworth). A series of horrific villains were hunted down and killed by Wentworth, who then branded his prey on the forehead with a seal of a spider. At his most prolific, Page wrote more than one hundred thousand words a month, half for the Spider novels and the rest for a wide range of fiction. “Crime’s Christmas Carol” was first published in the May 1939 issue of Detective Tales.

Anna helped Tom put on his coat and, as always, the thread-bare lightness of it twisted something inside of her. The wind rattling the windows had such a hungry, thin sound. It surged in around the loose frames in spite of all the newspaper stuffing; it made the little red bows she had pinned up in place of Christmas wreaths whirl and dance.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, Mr. Mann,” Anna said.

Tom twisted his young thin face around and winked. “And what wouldn’t you do, Mrs. Mann, seeing as how it’s Christmas Eve?”

“Well,” Anna made it cheerful, “I wouldn’t rob a bank. I don’t think I would.”

“Sure?”

“Certain sure, Mr. Mann. Why, we’re practically rolling in money. I’ve got ninety-seven cents!”

“Let me see all this wealth, woman.” Tom stared down at the handful of silver and coppers, poked doubtfully at a slick-faced nickel. “I might be able to use that in a subway turnstile — if I went through a subway turnstile.”

Anna said firmly, “Mr. Osterschmidt is going to take that lead nickel back. He gave it to me.”

Tom stared at her and made his eyes open wide. “Don’t tell me that we’re going to have meat for Christmas, Mrs. Mann!”

Anna tried to keep her smile. Tom’s lips were stretched tight; maybe they were smiling. He began to swear in a thin, faltering voice. He turned sharply away and slammed out of the room. Anna ran after him into the drafty hall.

“Tom,” she cried. “Tom, you didn’t kiss me good-bye!”

That would always stop him. But this time... he didn’t stop. His feet kept thumping down the three flights of rickety stairs, getting fainter and fainter. The front door banged. It made empty echoes clatter through the cold ancient house.

“Oh, Tom,” Anna whispered. “Tom, don’t do anything... anything foolish. Please, God, he mustn’t!” She took a deep breath then, and smiled a little to herself. Of course, Tom wouldn’t. He was just trying for a job, any job now that the shop where he’d been working part-time was closed down. It would open again, maybe, in February... Anna’s hand knotted about her ninety-seven cents...

Anna scoured their little room and closet kitchenette until the shabby furniture shone, and three hours were gone. She spent an hour stuffing more paper around those rattling windows. And there wasn’t another thing to do — except think. Anna stared about her with frightened eyes. Hours before she could expect Tom home again; hours...

At last she dragged on her thin coat and ran down the steps. The bitter wind of the street was welcome. Tom was out in this somewhere, wasn’t he? Why should anybody be warm and comfortable when Tom was cold? People had such silly smiles on their faces, arms full of packages, yelling at one another, “Merry Christmas!”

The cold pavements, the slush of the streets came through the thinness of Anna’s soles. She had forgotten to line them with newspaper. Thinking of that, her eyes brightened. She could lose some time doing that; maybe as much as a half hour! She turned toward home, loitering. After that... but she would not think of their troubles; or think of anything else.

Anna knew now that she and Tom had been foolish in their careless bravery, marrying in the face of times like these, in defiance of what her father had said.

“You can come home whenever you’re ready, Anna,” she could hear the sharp practical accents of his voice so clearly. “But I’m not prepared to support an indigent son-in-law. You’re a couple of inexperienced fools.”

Tom had been so earnest, so... young. “You see, sir, we love each other, and I’m not afraid of work. It may be tough — but not so tough a man can’t provide for his wife, sir!”

Anna could even remember how his voice had softened when he said “wife.” It was so new to her ears, so sweet... Maybe Tom was already home! Maybe he had the promise of some work after Christmas! Anna began to run along the wind-gutted streets, a tiny thing whose dark eyes seemed too big for the thinness of her face...

Joseph Commings was one of the masters of the locked room mystery — that demanding form in which crimes appear to be impossible — and the present story is no exception. Commings’s writing career began when he made up stories to entertain his fellow soldiers during World War II. With some rewriting after the war, he found a ready market for them in the pulps. Although the pulps were dying in the late 1940s, new digest-sized magazines came to life and Commings sold stories to Mystery Digest, The Saint Mystery Magazine, and Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. Although he wrote several full-length mystery novels, none ever was published, in spite of the encouragement of his friend John Dickson Carr. “Serenade to a Killer” was first published in the July 1957 issue of Mystery Digest.

Murder and Christmas are usually poles apart. But this Yuletide Senator Brooks U. Banner had the crazy killing at Falconridge dumped into his over-sized elastic stocking.

At the Cobleskill Orphanage, he stood among the re-painted toys like a clean-shaven Kris Kringle. He was telling the kids how he’d begun his career as a parentless tyke — just as they — with a loaf of Bohemian rye under one arm and six bits in his patched jeans. He followed that revelation with a fruity true crime story about a lonely hearts blonde who killed six mail-order husbands and how he’d helped the police to catch her. The two old maids who ran the orphanage paused to listen and were scandalized, but the kids loved him. He was six feet three inches tall and weighed 280 pounds, and he looked so quaint in his greasy black string tie, dusty frock-coat, baggy grey britches, and the huge storm rubbers with the red ridged soles.

Presenting the toys, he made little comic speeches and ruffled up the kids’ hair. While this was going on a young man came in and stood in the bare, draughty dining-hall with its shrivelled brown holly wreaths. He was sallow-skinned and slight, with a faint moustache and large lustrous eyes.

He waited impatiently until Banner was done, then he approached.

“Senator, my name is Verl Griffon. I’m a reporter for my father who owns the local paper, The Griffon.”

Banner beamed. “And you wanna interview me!” He stabbed a fresh corona cigar in his mouth. “Yass, yass! Wal, my lad, if you’d come in a li’l earlier, you’d’ve heard me telling the young-timers that—”

“No, this isn’t merely an interview, Senator.” Verl’s luminous eyes zigzagged nervously. “Where can I see you privately?”

Frowning, Banner led the way into a gloomy office that had a cold radiator and a two-dimensional red-cardboard Christmas bell on the window. They looked dubiously at the rickety ladder-backed chairs and remained standing.

Verl chewed his knuckles. “Senator, I’ve read a lot about the way you handle things. Things like murders. And I was at the trial of Jack Horner in New York.”

Banner grunted from his top pants-button. “Izzat so? Then you saw how I made that poisoner holler uncle.”

“Indeed I did. Now I need your help. You’ve heard of Caspar Woolfolk, the famous pianist, haven’t you?”

Banner grinned. “Lad, when it comes to music, I lissen to a jook-box every Saturday night.”

Verl plunged on regardless. “Early this morning Woolfolk was murdered!”

“No!”

“And a woman I know very well says she killed him — but the facts are all against it!” His eyes, peering into the middle distance, were stunned with bewilderment.

Banner shifted ponderously. “Tell it to me from A to Izzard. Pin the donkey on the tail.”

Verl talked rapidly, gravely. “Woolfolk owned Falconridge, a manor outside town. On the grounds is a little octagonal house he called the Music Box. He kept his piano and music library there. This morning I found him in there dead. He was killed and no one knows how the murderer could have done it... You see, I went to the manor after breakfast to wish everybody a happy holiday. Ora met me at the door. She had the jitters.”

“Who’s Ora?”

“Ora Spires. That’s the woman I referred to. She’s governess to little Beryl, Woolfolk’s ten-year-old daughter. Woolfolk was a widower. Ora, as I said, greeted me with a look of panic. All she could tell me was that something terrible must have happened to Woolfolk inside the Music Box. She hadn’t dared go look for herself... It snowed during the night. There’s over an inch of it on the ground. The snow on the lawns hadn’t been disturbed, save where Woolfolk had walked out in it toward the Music Box. I could see by the single line of clear-cut footprints that Woolfolk hadn’t come back. I walked alongside his tracks. The door opened to my touch. This morning was so gloomy that I switched on the light. Woolfolk was at the grand piano, sitting on the bench, the upper part of his body lying across the music. He was stone cold dead — shot through the centre of the forehead.”

Cold as the room was, Banner could see a sheen of sweat on Verl’s puckered forehead.

“Remembering that I’d seen only Woolfolk’s tracks,” continued Verl, “the first thought that struck me was: If he’s been murdered, the murderer is still here! I searched the place. There was no one else there. Even the weapon that’d killed Woolfolk was missing — proving beyond a doubt that it wasn’t suicide. How can a thing like that be.

It stopped snowing around midnight. Woolfolk walked out there after that time. Then somebody killed him. And whoever it was got away without leaving a trace anywhere in the snow!”

“How far from the main house is the Music Box?”

“A good hundred yards.”

“A sharpshooter might’ve plugged Woolfolk through an open window while standing a hundred yards or more away.”

“No,” said Verl. “The doors and windows were closed. Woolfolk was shot at close range. The murderer stood on the other side of the piano.”

Ruminating, Banner finally said: “Wal, sir. You can take your pick of three possible answers.”

“Three!” said Verl with a bounce of surprise.

Banner held up a thick blunt thumb. “One. The murderer went out there before it’d stopped snowing. The snow that fell after he walked through it covered up his tracks. When Woolfolk came later, he killed Woolfolk and managed to conceal himself so cleverly in the Music Box that you failed to see him.”

Verl looked annoyed — and disappointed. “That’s out of the question. No one was there, I tell you.”

Banner, undismayed, stuck up his forefinger. “Two. Both the murderer and Woolfolk went out there before it’d stopped snowing. Both their tracks were covered up by the falling snow. After killing Woolfolk, the murderer put on Woolfolk’s shoes and walked backwards toward the main house.”

Verl shook his head sourly. “Woolfolk was wearing his own shoes when I found him. The police, who came later, went over all that. There’s absolutely no trickery about the footprints. They were made by a man walking forward. Made by Woolfolk. That’s certain!”

Banner lifted his middle finger. He stared at it thoughtfully and with hesitation. “Three. Again, the murderer got out there before Woolfolk did—”

He paused so long that Verl said: “And how did he get back?”

“He knows a way of crossing a hundred yards of snow without leaving a mark on it!”

Verl’s mouth dropped open. He snapped it shut again. “Ora Spires,” he said, jittery, “has part of an answer. She thinks she killed Woolfolk. She keeps saying that.” He paused. “But she doesn’t know how she got out there and back.”

Quizzically Banner raised his black furry eyebrows. “Right now,” he said, reaching for the doorknob, “I’m so fulla curiosity that Ora has more lure for me than a sarong gal.”

Verl took a step toward the held-open door and then he said: “Something else, Senator. She walks in her sleep.”

Few contemporary mystery writers have been as beloved by their fans as Peter Lovesey, and fewer still have received a similar degree of the accolades of reviewers and his peers. His first book, Wobble to Death (1970), won the first prize in a contest sponsored by Macmillan for a best first mystery. The wonderfully funny novel The False Inspector Dew (1982) won the (British) Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger. Rough Cider (1986) and The Summons (1995) were nominated for Edgars. Waxwork (1978), The Summons, and Bloodhounds (1996) all won CWA Silver Daggers, and Lovesey was given the CWA’s Carter Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement in 2000. There have been many other awards from all around the world, but you get the idea. “The Haunted Crescent” was first published in Mistletoe Mysteries, edited by Charlotte MacLeod (New York, Mysterious Press, 1989).

A ghost was seen last Christmas in a certain house in the Royal Crescent. Believe me, this is true. I speak from personal experience, as a resident of the City of Bath and something of an authority on psychic phenomena. I readily admit that ninety-nine percent of so-called hauntings turn out to have been hallucinations of one sort or another, but this is the exception, a genuine haunted house. Out of consideration for the present owners (who for obvious reasons wish to preserve their privacy), I shall not disclose the exact address, but if you doubt me, read what happened to me on Christmas Eve, 1988.

The couple who own the house had gone to Norfolk for the festive season, leaving on Friday, December twenty-third. Good planning. The ghost was reputed to walk on Christmas Eve. Knowing of my interest, they had generously placed their house at my disposal. I am an ex-policeman, by the way, and it takes a lot to frighten me.

For those who like a ghost story with all the trimmings — deep snow and howling winds outside — I am sorry. I must disappoint you. Christmas, 1988, was not a white one in Bath. It was unseasonably warm. There wasn’t even any fog. All I can offer in the way of atmospheric effects are a full moon that night and an owl that hooted periodically in the trees at the far side of the sloping lawn that fronts the Crescent. It has to be admitted that this was not a spooky-looking barn owl, but a tawny owl, which on this night was making more of a high-pitched “kee-wik” call than a hoot, quite cheery, in fact. Do not despair, however. The things that happened in the house that night more than compensated for the absence of werewolves and banshees outside.

It is vital to the story that you are sufficiently informed about the building in which the events occurred. Whether you realize it or not, you have probably seen the Royal Crescent, if not as a resident, or a tourist, then in one of the numerous films in which it has appeared as a backdrop to the action. It is in a quiet location northwest of the city and comprises thirty houses in a semielliptical terrace completed in 1774 to the specification of John Wood the Younger. It stands comparison with any domestic building in Europe. I defy anyone not to respond to its uncomplicated grandeur, the majestic panorama of 114 Ionic columns topped by a portico and balustrade; and the roadway at the front where Jane Austen and Charles Dickens trod the cobbles. But you want me to come to the ghost.

My first intimation of something unaccountable came at about twenty past eleven that Christmas Eve. I was in the drawing room on the first floor. I had stationed myself there a couple of hours before. The door was ajar and the house was in darkness. No, that isn’t quite accurate. I should have said simply that none of the lights were switched on; actually the moonlight gave a certain amount of illumination, silver-blue rectangles projected across the carpet and over the base of the Christmas tree, producing an effect infinitely prettier than fairy lights. The furniture was easily visible, too, armchairs, table, and grand piano. One’s eyes adjust. It didn’t strike me as eerie to be alone in that unlit house. Anyone knows that a spirit of the departed is unlikely to manifest itself in electric light.

No house is totally silent, certainly no centrally heated house. The sounds produced by expanding floorboards in so-called haunted houses up and down the land must have fooled ghost-hunters by the hundred. In this case, as a precaution against a sudden freeze, the owners had left the system switched on. It was timed to turn off at eleven, so the knocks and creaks I was hearing now ought to have been the last of the night.

As events turned out, it wasn’t a sound that alerted me first. It was a sudden draft against my face and a flutter of white across the room. I tensed. The house had gone silent. I crossed the room to investigate.

The disturbance had been caused by a Christmas card falling off the mantelpiece into the grate. Nothing more alarming than that. Cards are always falling down. That’s why some people prefer to suspend them on strings. I stooped, picked up the card, and replaced it, smiling at my overactive imagination.

Yet I had definitely noticed a draft. The house was supposed to be free of drafts. All the doors and windows were closed and meticulously sealed against the elements. Strange. I listened, holding my breath. The drawing room where I was standing was well placed for picking up any unexplained sound in the house. It was at the center of the building. Below me were the ground floor and the cellar, above me the second floor and the attic.

Hearing nothing, I decided to venture out to the landing and listen there. I was mystified, yet unwilling at this stage to countenance a supernatural explanation. I was inclined to wonder whether the cut-off of the central heating had resulted in some trick of convection that gave the impression or the reality of a disturbance in the air. The falling card was not significant in itself. The draft required an explanation. My state of mind, you see, was calm and analytical.

Ten or fifteen seconds passed. I leaned over the banisters and looked down the stairwell to make sure that the front door was firmly shut, and so it proved to be. Then I heard a rustle from the room where I had been. I knew what it was — the card falling into the grate again — for another distinct movement of air had stirred the curtain on the landing window, causing a shift in the moonlight across the stairs. I was in no doubt anymore that this was worth investigating. My only uncertainty was whether to start with the floors above me, or below.

I chose the latter, reasoning that if, as I suspected, someone had opened a window, it was likely to be at the ground or basement levels. My assumption was wrong. I shall not draw out the suspense. I merely wish to record that I checked the cellar, kitchen, scullery, dining room, and study and found every window and external door secure and bolted from inside. No one could have entered after me.

So I began to work my way upstairs again, methodically visiting each room. And on the staircase to the second floor, I heard a sigh.

Occasionally in Victorian novels a character would “heave” a sigh. Somehow the phrase had always irritated me. In real life I never heard a sigh so weighty that it seemed to involve muscular effort — until this moment. This was a sound hauled up from the depths of somebody’s inner being, or so I deduced. Whether it really originated with somebody or some thing was open to speculation.

The sound had definitely come from above me. Unable by now to suppress my excitement, I moved up to the second-floor landing, where I found three doors, all closed. I moved from one to the other, opening them rapidly and glancing briefly inside. Two bedrooms and a bathroom. I hesitated. A bathroom. Had the “sigh,” I wondered, been caused by some aberration of the plumbing? Air locks are endemic in the complicated systems installed in these old Georgian buildings. The houses were not built with valves and cisterns. The efficiency of the pipework depended on the variable skill of generations of plumbers.

The sound must have been caused by trapped air.

Rationality reasserted itself. I would finish my inspection and prove to my total satisfaction that what I had heard was neither human nor spectral in origin. I closed the bathroom door behind me and crossed the landing to the last flight of stairs, more narrow than those I had used so far. In times past they had been the means of access to the servants’ quarters in the attic. I glanced up at the white-painted door at the head of these stairs and observed that it was slightly ajar.

My foot was on the first stair and my hand on the rail when I stiffened. That door moved.

It was being drawn inward. The movement was slow and deliberate. As the gap increased, a faint glow of moonlight was cast from the interior onto the paneling to my right. I stared up and watched the figure of a woman appear in the doorway.

She was in a white gown or robe that reached to her feet. Her hair hung loose to the level of her chest — fine, gently shifting hair so pale in color that it appeared to merge with the dress. Her skin, too, appeared bloodless. The eyes were flint black, however. They widened as they took me in. Her right hand crept to her throat and I heard her give a gasp.

The sensations I experienced in that moment of confrontation are difficult to convey. I was convinced that nothing of flesh and blood had entered that house in the hours I had been there. All the entrances were bolted — I had checked. I could not account for the phenomenon, or whatever it was, that had manifested itself, yet I refused to be convinced. I was unwilling to accept what my eyes were seeing and my rational faculties could not explain. She could not be a ghost.

I said, “Who are you?”

The figure swayed back as if startled. For a moment I thought she was going to close the attic door, but she remained staring at me, her hand still pressed to her throat. It was the face and form of a young woman, not more than twenty.

I asked, “Can you speak?”

She appeared to nod.

I said, “What are you doing here?”

She caught her breath. In a strange, half-whispered utterance she said, as if echoing my words, “Who are you?”

I took a step upward toward her. It evidently frightened her, for she backed away and became almost invisible in the shadowy interior of the attic room. I tried to dredge up some reassuring words. “It’s all right. Believe me, it’s all right.”

Then I twitched in surprise. Downstairs, the doorbell chimed. After eleven on Christmas Eve!

I said, “What on earth...?”

The woman in white whimpered something I couldn’t hear.

I tried to make light of it. “Santa, I expect.”

She didn’t react.

The bell rang a second time.

“He ought to be using the chimney,” I said. I had already decided to ignore the visitor, whoever it was. One unexpected caller was all I could cope with.

The young woman spoke up, and the words sprang clearly from her. “For God’s sake, send him away!”

“You know who it is?”

“Please! I beg you.”

“If you know who it is,” I said reasonably, “wouldn’t you like to answer it?”

“I can’t.”

The chimes rang out again.

I said, “Is it someone you know?”

“Please. Tell him to go away. If you answer the door he’ll go away.”

I was letting myself be persuaded. I needed her cooperation. I wanted to know about her. “All right,” I relented. “But will you be here when I come back?”

“I won’t leave.”

Instinctively I trusted her. I turned and descended the two flights of stairs to the hall. The bell rang again. Even though the house was in darkness, the caller had no intention of giving up.

I drew back the bolts, opened the front door a fraction, and looked out. A man was on the doorstep, leaning on the iron railing. A young man in a leather jacket glittering with studs and chains. His head was shaven. He, at any rate, looked like flesh and blood. He said, “What kept you?”

I said, “What do you want?”

He glared. “For crying out loud — who the hell are you?” His eyes slid sideways, checking the number on the wall.

I said with frigid courtesy, “I think you must have made a mistake.”

“No,” he said. “This is the house all right. What’s your game, mate? What are you doing here with the lights off?”

I told him that I was an observer of psychic phenomena.

“Come again?”

“Ghosts,” I said. “This house has the reputation of being haunted. The owners have kindly allowed me to keep watch tonight.”

“Oh, yes?” he said with heavy skepticism. “Spooks, is it? I’ll have a gander at them meself.” With that, he gave the door a shove. There was no security chain and I was unable to resist the pressure. He stepped across the threshold. “Ghost-buster, are you, mate? You wouldn’t, by any chance, be lifting the family silver at the same time? Anyone else in here?”

I said, “I take exception to that. You’ve no right to force your way in here.”

“No more right than you,” he said, stepping past me. “Were you upstairs when I rang?”

I said, “I’m going to call the police.”

He flapped his hand dismissively. “Be my guest. I’m going upstairs, right?”

Sheer panic inspired me to say, “If you do, you’ll be on film.”

“What?”

“The cameras are ready to roll,” I lied. “The place is riddled with mikes and tripwires.”

He said, “I don’t believe you,” but the tone of his voice said the opposite.

“This ghost is supposed to walk on Christmas Eve,” I told him. “I want to capture it on film.” I gave a special resonance to the word “capture.”

He said, “You’re round the twist.” And with as much dignity as he could muster he sidled back toward the door, which still stood open. Apparently he was leaving. “You ought to be locked up. You’re a nutcase.”

As he stepped out of the door I said, “Shall I tell the owners you called? What name shall I give?”

He swore and turned away. I closed the door and slid the bolts back into place. I was shaking. It had been an ugly, potentially dangerous incident. I’m not so capable of tackling an intruder as I once was and I was thankful that my powers of invention had served me so well.

I started up the stairs again and as I reached the top of the first flight, the young woman in white was waiting for me. She must have come down two floors to overhear what was being said. This area of the house was better illuminated than the attic stairs, so I got a better look at her. She appeared less ethereal now. Her dress was silk or satin, I observed. It was an evening gown. Her makeup was as pale as a mime artist’s, except for the black liner around her eyes.

She said, “How can I thank you enough?”

I answered flatly, “What I want from you, young lady, is an explanation.”

She crossed her arms, rubbing at her sleeves. “I feel shivery here. Do you mind if we go in there?”

As we moved into the drawing room I noticed that she made no attempt to switch on the light. She pointed to some cigarettes on the table. “Do you mind?”

I found some matches by the fireplace and gave her a light. “Who was that at the door?”

She inhaled hard. “Some guy I met at a party. I was supposed to be with someone else, but we got separated. You know how it is. Next thing I knew, this bloke in the leather jacket was chatting me up. He was all right at first. I didn’t know he was going to come on so strong. I mean I didn’t encourage him. I was trying to cool it. He offered me these tablets, but I refused. He said they would make me relax. By then I was really scared. I moved off fast. The stupid thing was that I moved upstairs. There were plenty of people about, and it seemed the easiest way to go. The bloke followed. He kept on following. I went right to the top of the house and shut myself in a room. I pushed a cupboard against the door. He was beating his fist on the door, saying what he was going to do to me. I was scared out of my skull. All I could think of doing was get through the window, so I did. I climbed out and found myself up there behind the little stone wall.”

“Of this building? The balustrade at the top?”

“Didn’t I make that clear? The party was in a house a couple of doors away from you. I ran along this narrow passageway between the roof and the wall, trying all the windows. The one upstairs was the first one I could shift.”

“The attic window. Now I understand.” The sudden draft was explained, and the gasp as she had caught her breath after the effort.

She said, “I’m really grateful.”

“Grateful?”

“Grateful to you for getting rid of him.”

I said, “It would be sensible now to call a taxi. Where do you live?”

“Not far. I can walk.”

“It wouldn’t be advisable, would it, after what happened? He’s persistent. He may be waiting.”

“I didn’t think.” She stubbed the cigarette into an ashtray. After a moment’s reflection she said, “All right. Where’s the phone?”

There was one in the study. While she was occupied, I gave some thought to what she had said. I didn’t believe a word of it, but I had something vastly more important on my mind.

She came back into the room. “Ten minutes, they reckon. Was it true what you said downstairs, about this house being haunted?”

“Mm?” I was still preoccupied.

“The spook. All that stuff about hidden cameras. Did you mean it?”

“There aren’t any cameras. I’m useless with machinery of any sort. I reckoned he’d think twice about coming in if he knew he was going to be on film. It was just a bluff.”

“And the bit about the ghost?”

“That was true.”

“Would you mind telling me about it?”

“Aren’t you afraid of the supernatural?”

“It’s scary, yes. Not so scary as what happened already. I want to know the story. Christmas Eve is a great night for a ghost story.”

I said, “It’s more than just a story.”

“Please.”

“On one condition. Before you get into that taxi, you tell me the truth about yourself — why you really came into this house tonight.”

She hesitated.

I said, “It needn’t go any further.”

“All right. Tell me about the ghost.” She reached for another cigarette and perched on the arm of a chair.

I crossed to the window and looked away over the lawn toward the trees silhouetted against the city lights. “It can be traced back, as all ghost stories can, to a story of death and an unquiet spirit. About a hundred and fifty years ago this house was owned by an army officer, a retired colonel by the name of Davenport. He had a daughter called Rosamund, and it was believed in the city that he doted on her. She was dressed fashionably and given a good education, which in those days was beyond the expectation of most young women. Rosamund was a lively, intelligent, and attractive girl. Her hair when she wore it long was very like yours, fine and extremely fair. Not surprisingly, she had admirers. The one she favored most was a young man from Bristol, Luke Robertson, who at that time was an architect. In the conventions of the time they formed an attachment which amounted to little more than a few chaperoned meetings, some letters, poems, and so on. They were lovers in a very old-fashioned sense that you may find difficult to credit. In physical terms it amounted to no more than a few stolen kisses, if that. Somewhere in this house there is supposed to be carved into woodwork the letters L and R linked. I can’t show you. I haven’t found it.”

Outside, a taxi trundled over the cobbles. I watched it draw up at a house some doors down. Two couples came out of the building, laughing, and climbed into the cab. It was obvious that they were leaving a party. The heavy beat of music carried up to me.

I said, “I wonder if it’s turned midnight. It might be Christmas Day already.”

She said, “Please go on with the story.”

“Colonel Davenport — the father of this girl — was a lonely man. His wife had died some years before. Lately he had become friendly with a neighbor, another resident of the Crescent, a widow approaching fifty years of age by the name of Mrs. Crandley, who lived in one of the houses at the far end of the building. She was a musician, a pianist, and she gave lessons. One of her pupils was Rosamund. So far as one can tell, Mrs. Crandley was a good teacher and the girl a promising pupil. Do you play?”

“What?”

I turned to face her. “I said, do you play the piano?”

“Oh. Just a bit,” said the girl.

“You didn’t tell me your name.”

“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind. What happened between the colonel and Mrs. Crandley?”

“Their friendship blossomed. He wanted her to marry him. Mrs. Crandley was not unwilling. In fact, she agreed, subject to one condition. She had a son of twenty-seven called Justinian.”

“What was that?”

“Justinian. There was a vogue for calling your children after emperors. This Justinian was a dull fellow without much to recommend him. He was lazy and overweight. He rarely ventured out of the house. Mrs. Crandley despaired of him.”

“She wanted him off her hands?”

“That is what it amounted to. She wanted him married and she saw the perfect partner for him in Rosamund. Surely such a charming, talented girl would bring out some positive qualities in her lumpish son. Mrs. Crandley applied herself diligently to the plan, insisting that Justinian answer the doorbell each time Rosamund came for her music lesson. Then he would be told to sit in the room and listen to her playing. Everything Mrs. Crandley could do to promote the match was done. For his part, Justinian was content to go along with the plan. He was promised that if he married the girl he would be given his mother’s house, so the pattern of his life would alter little, except that a pretty wife would keep him company rather than a discontented, nagging mother. He began to eye Rosamund with increasing favor. So when the colonel proposed marriage to Mrs. Crandley, she assented on the understanding that Justinian would be married to Rosamund at the same time.”

“How about Rosamund? Was she given any choice?”

“You have to be aware that marriages were commonly arranged by the parents in those days.”

“But you said she already had a lover. He was perfectly respectable, wasn’t he?”

I nodded. “Absolutely. But Luke Robertson didn’t feature in Mrs. Crandley’s plan. He was ignored. Rosamund bowed under the pressure and became engaged to Justinian in the autumn of 1838. The double marriage was to take place in the Abbey on Christmas Eve.”

“Oh, dear — I think I can guess the rest of the story.”

“It may not be quite as you expect. As the day of the wedding approached, Rosamund began to dread the prospect. She pleaded with her father to allow her to break off the engagement. He wouldn’t hear of it. He loved Mrs. Crandley and his thoughts were all of her. In despair, Rosamund sent the maidservant with a message to Luke, asking him to meet her secretly on the basement steps. She had a romantic notion that Luke would elope with her.”

My listener was enthralled. “And did he come?”

“He came. Rosamund poured out her story. Luke listened with sympathy, but he was cautious. He didn’t see elopement as the solution. Rather bravely, he volunteered to speak to the colonel and appeal to him to allow Rosamund to marry the man of her choice. If that failed, he would remind the colonel that Rosamund could not be forced to take the sacred vows. Her consent had to be freely given in church, and she was entitled to withhold it. So this uncomfortable interview took place a day or two later. The colonel, naturally, was outraged. Luke was banished from the house and forbidden to speak to Rosamund again. The unfortunate girl was summoned by her father and accused of wickedly consorting with her former lover when she was promised to another. The story of the secret note and the meeting on the stairs was dragged from her. She was told that she wished to destroy her father’s marriage. She was said to be selfish and disloyal. Worse, she might be taken to court by Justinian for breach of promise.”

“Poor little soul! Did it break her?”

“No. Amazingly, she stood her ground. Luke’s support had given her courage. She would not marry Justinian. It was the colonel who backed down. He went to see Mrs. Crandley. When he returned, it was to tell Rosamund that his marriage would not, after all, take place. Mrs. Crandley had insisted on a double wedding, or nothing.”

“I wouldn’t have been in Rosamund’s shoes for a million pounds.”

“She was told by her father that she had behaved no better than a servant, secretly meeting her lover on the basement steps and trifling with another man’s affections, so in future he would treat her as a servant. And he did. He dismissed the housemaid. He ordered Rosamund to move her things to the maid’s room in the attic, and he gave her a list of duties that kept her busy from five-thirty each morning until late at night.”

“Cruel.”

“All his bitterness was heaped on her.”

“Did she kill herself?”

“No,” I said with only the slightest pause. “She was murdered.”

“Murdered?”

“On Christmas Eve, the day that the weddings would have taken place, she was suffocated in her bed.”

“Horrible!”

“A pillow was held against her face until she ceased to breathe. She was found dead in bed by the cook on Christmas morning after she failed to report for duty. The colonel was informed and the police were sent for.”

“Who killed her?”

“The inspector on the case, a local man without much experience of violent crimes, was in no doubt that Colonel Davenport was the murderer. He had a powerful motive. The animus he felt toward his daughter had been demonstrated by the way he treated her. It seemed that his anger had only increased as the days passed. On the date he was due to have married, it became insupportable.”

“Was it true? Did he confess to killing her?”

“He refused to make any statement. But the evidence against him was overwhelming. Three inches of snow fell on Christmas Eve. It stopped about eight-thirty that evening. The time of death was estimated at about eleven p.m. When the inspector and his men arrived next morning no footsteps were visible on the path leading to the front door except those of the cook, who had gone for the police. The only other person in the house was Colonel Davenport. So he was charged with murdering his own daughter. The trial was short, for he refused to plead. He remained silent to the end. He was found guilty and hanged at Bristol in February 1839.”

She put out the cigarette. “Grim.”

“Yes.”

“There’s more to the story, isn’t there? The ghost. You said something about an unquiet spirit.”

I said, “There was a feeling of unease about the fact that the colonel wouldn’t admit to the crime. After he was convicted and condemned, they tried to persuade him to confess, to lay his sins before his Maker. A murderer often would confess in the last days remaining to him, even after protesting innocence all through the trial. They all did their utmost to persuade him — the prison governor, the warders, the priest, and the hangman himself. Those people had harrowing duties to perform. It would have helped them to know that the man going to the gallows was truly guilty of the crime. Not one word would that proud old man speak.”

“You sound almost sorry for him. There wasn’t really any doubt, was there?”

I said, “There’s a continuous history of supernatural happenings in this house for a century and a half. Think about it. Suppose, for example, someone else committed the murder.”

“But who else could have?”

“Justinian Crandley.”

“That’s impossible. He didn’t live here. His footprints would have shown up in the snow.”

“Not if he entered the house as you did tonight — along the roof and through the attic window. He could have murdered Rosamund and returned to his own house by the same route.”

“It’s possible, I suppose, but why — what was his motive?”

“Revenge. He would have been master in his own house if the marriage had not been called off. Instead, he faced an indefinite future with his domineering and now embittered mother. He blamed Rosamund. He decided that if he was not to have her as his wife, no one else should.”

“Is that what you believe?”

“It is now,” said I.

“Why didn’t the colonel tell them he was innocent?”

“He blamed himself. He felt a deep sense of guilt for the way he had treated his own daughter. But for his selfishness the murder would never have taken place.”

“Do you think he knew the truth?”

“He must have worked it out. He loved Mrs. Crandley too much to cause her further unhappiness.”

There was an interval of silence, broken finally by the sound of car tires on the cobbles below.

She stood up. “Tonight when you saw me at the attic door you thought I was Rosamund’s ghost.”

I said, “No. Rosamund doesn’t haunt this place. Her spirit is at rest. I didn’t take you for a real ghost any more than I believed your story of escaping from the fellow in the leather jacket.”

She walked to the window. “It is my taxi.”

I wasn’t going to let her leave without admitting the truth. “You went to the party two doors along with the idea of breaking into this house. You climbed out onto the roof and forced your way in upstairs, meaning to let your friend in by the front door. You were going to burgle the place.”

She gasped and swung around. “How did you know that?”

“When I opened the door he was expecting you. He said ‘What kept you?’ He knew which house to call at, so it must have been planned. If your story had been true, he wouldn’t have known where to come.”

She stared down at the waiting cab.

I said, “Until I suggested the taxi, you were quite prepared to go out into the street where this man who had allegedly threatened you was waiting.”

“I’m leaving.”

“And I noticed that you didn’t want the lights turned on.”

Her tone altered. “You’re not one of the fuzz, are you? You wouldn’t turn me in? Give me a break, will you? It’s the first time. I’ll never try it again.”

“How can I know that?”

“I’ll give you my name and address, if you want. Then you can check.”

It is sufficient to state here that she supplied the information. I shall keep it to myself. I’m no longer in the business of exposing petty criminals. I saw her to her taxi. She promised to stop seeing her boyfriend. Perhaps you think I let her off too lightly. Her misdemeanor was minor compared with the discovery I had made — and I owed that discovery to her.

It released me from my obligation, you see. I told you I was once a policeman. An inspector, actually. I made a fatal mistake. I have had a hundred and fifty years to search for the truth and now that I found it I can rest. The haunting of the Royal Crescent is at an end.

While we are accustomed to think of Christmas as a Dickensian event in Victorian England, or in a romantic little clapboard house in snowy Connecticut, it is a holiday celebrated in all parts of the world — snowy or not. This story is by Sir Edmund Charles Cox, who served for many years as a member of the Indian Imperial Police and wrote several factual books about that country. He also wrote three rare short story collections: John Carruthers, Indian Policeman (1905), The Achievements of John Carruthers (1911), and The Exploits of Kesho Naik, Dacoit (1912). In the books about his British policeman, Carruthers is at the center of all the stories, but each is narrated by different officers under his command. “A Christmas in Camp” was first published in The Achievements of John Carruthers (London, Constable, 1911).

Mr. Carruthers was furiously angry. I had seldom seen him angry at all, and never anything approaching this. He glared at me until I felt as if his glance would wither me away.

“You indescribable idiot,” he thundered. “You hopeless fool! You have ruined yourself for life. I did think that we had one decent young policeman. After all that I have done for you too. Good heavens, it is too monstrous. Ruined utterly! Never a stroke of honest work to be got out of you again! Talk of brains, intellect, enthusiasm, keenness! And all for what? Endless trouble, worry, and annoyance! Damn it, man, it is too intolerable!”

And what was the cause of all this outburst? Merely this, that I had asked him to congratulate me on my going to be married. I had hoped that he would be pleased, especially when I told him that she was the dearest girl in the world. But this only seemed to add fuel to the flames.

“The dearest girl in the world!” he snorted. “The fools always say that. They learn in good time what there is dear about it when they have to pay for their idiotcy.”

I felt unspeakably hurt and indignant. What crime had I committed? I was now twenty-six, and old enough to judge for myself, I thought; and many men married at that age and seemed to be as happy as possible. I had been home on three month’s privilege leave and had become engaged to — well, to the dearest girl in the world, without any possible exception. It was now August, and she was to come out in November, and we were to be married in the Bombay cathedral. I had the greatest regard for Mr. Carruthers, and I was looking forward to his congratulations on my good luck. And now to be treated like this! I felt exceedingly disconcerted. We both stood silent for a while. He had not even offered me a chair.

“Forgive me if I have been violent, Trench,” he said at last, holding out his hand, which I took. “I was quite upset at this sudden announcement. Why didn’t you have some consideration for me, and let me have a little preliminary warning by letter?”

“Well, you see, sir,” I replied, “I wanted to give you a surprise and have your congratulations personally.”

“By the prophets,” he said, “you certainly achieved your object in giving me a surprise; but this sort of surprise is not good for one — not for me at any rate. And as for my congratulations, well, my dear boy, as you have asked for them I am afraid you must have them. This is the prospect on which I have to congratulate you. A very pretty but evanescent glimpse of fairy land to begin with; then incessant thinking of every rupee, anna, and pie; worries about health; complaints about being in a wretched dull station, a transfer about every two years at ruinous expense, for double first-class fare doesn’t go far with a family; no money to go home on leave when leave is due; instead of investigating a crime at length, as you ought to, scheming how soon you can get back to the mem-sahib; and to pass on for a bit, in fifteen years’ time, when you are forty-one and a generous Government is giving you possibly eight hundred depreciated rupees a month, there will be three youngsters being educated at home and the wife there to look after them. You will be sending the family five hundred rupees a month; you will be in debt for their steamer passages, and paying this off at the rate of fifty rupees a month, leaving you two hundred and fifty to live on, the same as you had when you started life, a nice income on which to keep up the position of Head of the Police in a district; you will be all alone and fagged and worried and unable to do justice to your work; but there will be no going home for you, my boy, unless some old aunt leaves you a legacy; and long before your pension is due, though still comparatively young in years, you will be a despondent, worn-out, useless old man. You asked me for my congratulations and, by the Lord, you have had them.”

Here was food for reflection. I could have cried. I felt so miserable at this crushing summary of my future circumstances. For I knew that though it was one-sided, and did not say anything about the companionship of married life, and so on, yet truth compelled me to admit that I had seen something of the same kind in other cases. However, if every one, at all events in India, was going to look so far ahead as that, very few people would be married at all; and I cheered up at this reflection, and took a brighter view of the future. In fact, when I thought of the girl who was coming out to be my wife in a few months, and how delightful it would be to be in camp together, and ride together, and dine together in the tents, and breakfast together under the trees, how could I feel anything but overjoyed with life? And Mr. Carruthers, having scolded me to his heart’s content, to my unspeakable satisfaction wished me all the joy in the world, and said that if she was anything like the photograph I was indeed a lucky fellow. He was my best man at the wedding, and he gave us as a present on that occasion, a splendid district tonga, with a pair of fourteen-one ponies that went in saddle as well as in harness.

The good ship “Arabia” arrived in Bombay harbour one morning late in November, bringing a certain Ellen Bramwell, as well as a few hundred other passengers who did not count at all. We were married within a few hours. She looked perfection in her wedding gown of soft white satin, and a Limerick lace veil that had been worn by her mother; and I was, of course, in full uniform. After the ceremony there was a very pleasant little meeting of a few old friends, and Mr. Carruthers made a most neat and humorous speech, wishing good luck to the happy pair. Then we changed into travelling costume, and went up for a ten days’ honeymoon to the delightful hill station of Matheran — a few hours in the train and then a seven miles’ ride up the hill on hired ponies. I shall never forget what a delightful time we had there. But I must restrain my pen or it will fly away evolving sheets and sheets about the joys of Matheran. I must not omit to mention one very welcome wedding present; and that was an announcement in the “Government Gazette,” on the day of our wedding, which appointed me to act in a long vacancy as D.S.P. of Tarapur, the next district to Somapur, where Mr. Carruthers was again stationed.

“This is excellent news, Trench,” said he. “I will have a Christmas camp at Loni, just in my district, and on the borders of yours. You must both spend the holidays with me; and we will see what Mrs. Trench can do with a gun or a rifle.”

Of course we accepted, and looked forward greatly to this merry meeting. Things that are looked forward to sometimes fail to realise expectations; but this certainly didn’t. We enjoyed it immensely, and none the less for a mysterious and exciting incident that occurred. But I must not anticipate. It was exceptionally good cold weather. By this I mean it was colder than usual, and Ellen was glad of her winter wraps. There was just a touch of frost in the early morning, and a bite in the air, and everything looked heavenly in the brilliant sunshine, which was not too strong to prevent us from being out all day long. Late in the afternoon of Christmas Eve we arrived at the camp, after a twenty-four-mile drive in our wedding present tonga, the ponies as fresh as could be, and ready for a good many miles more. Mr. Carruthers was standing in front of his tent, and gave us the warmest of welcomes. I was surprised to see how extensive the camp was. There were half a dozen large tents, apart from those provided for servants’ and sepoys’ accommodation. They were all pitched under a beautiful mango tope. Everything was in perfect order; and rows of wild plantains had been planted in the ground to mark out the roads leading from tent to tent. Strings of yellow marigolds hung along the lines thus formed; and Ellen said that she had never seen anything so like fairyland.

“By the by, Trench,” said Mr. Carruthers, after we had exchanged greetings, “I have a little surprise for you. Who do you think are coming? Do you remember your visit to me at Indapur when the Collector was stolen away, one Fleming by name? Well, he and the mem-sahib and the two children will be here. I expect them any minute. She was rather pretty, if you recollect. Some one described her as looking like a dream, and having the most wonderful eyes and hair. But I don’t suppose you would have noticed such things.”

It was mean of Mr. Carruthers to indulge in this little pleasantry; but there was not a twinkle on his countenance, and Ellen seemed entirely unsuspicious that he was amusing himself at my expense. However, I lit a cigarette as quick as I could to cover my confusion. The Flemings arrived in due course. He seemed far brighter and livelier than he used to be; and though there was no denying that she was a pretty woman, when I saw her alongside Ellen I wondered how I could have admired her so much at Indapur. She and the wife were soon the best of friends, and a very merry party we all were. After dinner we put on warm coats and wraps and sat over a roaring bonfire a little way from the tents, and we roasted chestnuts and made jokes and told stories, and drank milk punch, and Ellen got out her guitar and sang to us, and Mr. Carruthers was the life and soul of the whole thing; and the whole thing was delightful. I forgot to mention that the two little Flemings, Jack and Dolly, were allowed to sit up as a great treat, and they enjoyed it all as much as their elders. Great excitement there was at bedtime as to whether “Christmas Father,” as they called him, would be able to find his way to the camp to fill their stockings; but Mr. Carruthers told them that Christmas Father was very clever and was sure not to disappoint them. Certainly by the result he would appear to have visited the tents in the night; for the stockings were full to overflowing the next morning. But I have a story to tell, and at this rate I shall never begin. But it is difficult to pass over such a jolly time without trying to write something about it. It would seem positively ungrateful not to do so.

Christmas Day was, indeed, a day to remember. Our host had provided seasonable presents for every one; and all the servants and orderlies were called up and presented with a rupee or two according to their respective rank and deserts, in recognition of which they respectfully salaamed to the Sahib-logue for their kindness in remembering the humble ones on Natal-kadin, or Christmas Day. The natives always speak of Christmas as Natal. I suppose the word was introduced by the Portuguese. Well, after a substantial chota hazri we all started out for the day. We drove six or seven miles in various conveyances, and we found breakfast arranged for us in a forest glade. We had a little shooting, and made a small bag of quail and black partridge. Mr. Carruthers initiated Ellen into the mysteries of loading and firing a gun, and aiming nowhere in particular and yet bringing down the bird. After a glorious day in the jungle we went back to the camp for dinner, and when that thoroughly enjoyable meal with its regulation puddings and mince pies was over, there was a wonderful surprise for us all.

“I want you to come out and see something that may interest you,” said our host. “Put on warm coats and come along.”

Out we went in obedience to instructions; and, lo and behold, where there had been a canvas enclosure to which I had given no particular attention there stood a gleaming, scintillating, dazzling Christmas tree, a mass of pretty things resting on its branches. There were no bounds to the delight of Jack and Dolly at the sight, and all of us felt a thrill of excitement at the sudden replica of the festivities that were being celebrated in thousands of homes in dear old England. Ellen could hardly contain herself, and she simply waltzed round and round the tree again and again. Jack and Dolly were laden with presents, and there was something for all of us; but this did not complete the proceedings. There was an enormous crowd of natives whose attendance had been invited. Every one in the place who had any children seemed to be there, including all the police who were blessed with youthful progeny. The natives had never seen such a sight before. They were immensely impressed, and there was a chorus of “Wah, wah,” “Arhe Bapre,” and similar ejaculations. For every child there was something, whether a handful of sweets or some glittering toy, and I think it will be a long time before that Natal-ka-din of Carruthers Sahib will pass out of remembrance at Loni. There are days in one’s life which stand out for ever in one’s memory, and I am sure this was one of them for all of us English people. As for the natives the Christmas tree was a foretaste of Bihisht or Paradise. Nevertheless it appeared to me that there was some kind of apprehension in the air. Mothers hung on to their children very persistently, never for a moment letting go of their hands, and anxious looks were distinctly noticeable. However, no one said anything, and neither Mr. Carruthers nor I were going to spoil the day’s enjoyment by asking if anything was wrong, and thus inviting a flow of eloquence on some possible or impossible subject. So the whole crowd went away quietly, after giving three cheers in English fashion for Carruthers Sahib.

The next morning when we had assembled and were doing justice to our chota hazri Ellen suddenly told us of a curious dream that she had had in the night.

“At least I suppose it must have been a dream,” she said, “though it did not in the least seem like a dream at the time. But, of course, on thinking over it, it could have been nothing else. Perhaps it was the result of the mince pies. I woke up with a feeling that some strange person was in the tent. There was not a sound to be heard, and at first I could not see anything. But I had a most vivid impression that someone, or something, was present. After a brief space of time, what do you think I saw? A tall figure passed along the foot of the bed, and its head was a horrible skull with red lights gleaming through the openings where its eyes had once been. Wasn’t it terrifying? I could have shrieked aloud, but I was positively afraid to, and something seemed to withhold me from uttering a sound. The figure disappeared as silently as it had come, and I don’t know how it left the tent. I soon went to sleep again; and now, of course, I know it must have been a dream. But it was ghastly, wasn’t it?”

Mr. Carruthers looked very attentive and concerned as he listened to this recital.

“What an extraordinary coincidence!” he exclaimed. “You know that I am an early riser; and for the last hour I have been listening to a deputation of the inhabitants of Loni, who want me to lay a ghost for them. A policeman’s duties in this country are of a very multifarious nature. By the by, Mrs. Trench, can you give me any further description of your ghostly visitor?”

Ellen reflected for a moment or so and then said:

“Yes; there was a dim light burning in the tent, you know, and I could see that the apparition, or whatever it was, was above middle height. He, or it — what am I to call it? — wore ordinary native costume with the exception of a red waistcoat with brass buttons.”

“This is indeed remarkable,” said Mr. Carruthers. “Now I will tell you the story that has been related to me to-day. The whole village is in a state of consternation; and it is all caused by a gentleman who exactly answers to the description you have given of what you saw in the night. The curious thing is that when I was in these parts a few years ago I personally knew this individual, who seems to have returned from the astral plane, or whatever it was that he went to after his departure from Loni. His name was Maruti.”

“Then why should it not be Maruti in the flesh, playing a practical joke?” asked the matter-of-fact Ellen.

“Because,” replied Mr. Carruthers, “Maruti is dead and buried, or rather burnt. He was a somewhat reckless kind of man, fond of spending more money than he earned. He was, as I remember him, very popular in the neighbourhood. He and his wife Chandra Bai resided in a small cottage on the outskirts of the village. With them lived Maruti’s brother Dhondi, whose intelligence was of the most limited order. However, he was able to do his work, which consisted in helping to cultivate a couple of fields. Chandra Bai was not a bad-looking woman, but was a terrible scold; and my friend Maruti was invariably worsted when there was a war of words. She, like her husband, was very extravagant, and was fond of new saris and ornaments. Maruti was willing enough to gratify her, but this resulted in his becoming more and more involved in debt to the village money-lender named Kashiram, and at last his fields were hopelessly mortgaged. I have mentioned his two fields, and as a matter of fact there were only two that were of any use. But there was a third one, a wretched barren piece of land, to which he attached greater value, from sentimental reasons, than to his really fertile fields, for its possession had been a matter of dispute from time immemorial between his own progenitors and those of one Tatya, a neighbour of Maruti’s. This Tatya, who now claimed the land, was an over-bearing, hectoring man; and there was bitter enmity between him and Maruti. Each had been heard to threaten that he would take the other’s life unless he gave up his claim to the disputed field. I must mention, Mrs. Trench, that Maruti, who was intensely conceited, used to wear a considerably larger puggree than his station in life entitled him to, and he was very proud of a ridiculous red waistcoat with brass buttons. Now you have all the dramatis personæ. As time went on Maruti’s financial position grew worse and worse. Chandra Bai upbraided him for not giving her more money to buy clothes and ornaments to deck herself out with; Kashiram refused to advance him a pice over and above what he had already had, and Tatya’s enmity became more bitter than ever. Suddenly one night Maruti disappeared. That was a little more than two years ago, when I was in this district. Inquiries were made in every direction, but not the faintest trace was found of Maruti or his red waistcoat. This seemed to sober Chandra Bai, and she and Dhondi managed to cultivate the two fields, pay the interest on the mortgage, and keep a roof over their heads for some time. But Tatya seized the disputed piece of land. As the last harvest was a bad one the interest on the mortgage was not available, and Kashiram has taken proceedings in the civil court to foreclose. Well, this morning early, as I have told you, a deputation came to me. They had, with the most unusual consideration for a Sahib’s feelings, refrained from saying anything before, lest they should spoil our Christmas Day; but they could keep silence no longer. This is their story. Four days ago, the day before I came to this camp, some coolies were engaged on making a new local fund road, about half a mile away, and they had to remove a large heap of stones. Beneath the stones what do you think they found? The body, or rather the skeleton, of Maruti, for the flesh, of course, was gone; but the identity was unmistakable from the red waistcoat, brass buttons, and exceptional puggree, which, though more or less stained, were perfectly recognisable. Instead of informing the police and having an inquest on the remains, they burnt them, red waistcoat, brass buttons, and all that very night, with the usual ceremonies. Then there was trouble. Maruti had slept peacefully under his stones ever since his disappearance; but his spirit was evidently displeased at the unwarrantable interference with his resting-place, and his ghost proceeded to worry his former relations and acquaintances. The ghost was not satisfied with the appurtenances that he had worn in this life. There were the original red waistcoat, brass buttons, and large puggree; but his face was a skull with fire gleaming in the sockets where his eyes had been, just as you describe it, Mrs. Trench. First he went to his own house, where Dhondi and Chandra Bai were having their meal. In a hoarse whisper he uttered ‘Beware!’ Chandra Bai went off into a swoon, while Dhondi ran shrieking down the village streets, with his extraordinary tale. Next the ghost visited Kashiram, the money-lender, and said, ‘Give me my mortgage bond, or you die!’ Terribly frightened and hardly knowing if he was in his senses or not the sowar produced the document, threw it at the feet of his unearthly visitor, and fled for his life. He next appeared to his old antagonist Tatya, and said, ‘Your turn has come!’ Tatya has behaved like a madman ever since. The ghost has been seen by various other people, and the whole village is, as I say, in a state of consternation.”

“Good heavens! How amazing! How extraordinary!” were a few of the exclamations that we listeners made on hearing this narrative.

“Wait a minute,” continued Mr. Carruthers; “I have not finished yet. It appears that last night, after they had all gone away from the Christmas tree, they went through the most elaborate ritual, which was warranted to lay any ghost in creation. This seems to have been the gist of the proceedings. All the caste-fellows of Maruti, together with Chandra Bai, went off to the place where Maruti’s body had been found.

They took with them one Mahdu, a gondhali, or master of occult ceremonies, and Govind, a bhagat, or medium, a kind of go-between who carries communications between mortals and the unseen world. The assembled persons sat down in a circle round these two agents of the supernatural. For some time Mahdu and Govind sat wrapped in deep thought, and then Mahdu commenced a strange wailing chant, in which he called upon the spirit of Maruti to remain peaceably in the under world, and to cease from troubling the inhabitants of Loni. Next Govind took a copper pot and asked all present to contribute a small coin, which should be expended on such comforts and luxuries as the deceased Maruti might require in his present abode. The collection was duly made, and so anxious were the people to appease the ghost that many of them promised other things in addition, such as an umbrella, a brass lota for drinking from, or a pair of shoes; and Tatya, who had been dragged most unwillingly to the conclave, offered to give a red waistcoat with brass buttons similar to that which Maruti used to wear on earth. At the mention of each item Govind said, ‘Receive this gift, Maruti, for thy needs in thy new home.’ Next Mahdu took out from a bag in which it had been brought, a black cock, and proceeded to cut its throat while reciting some weird incantations, and then sprinkled its blood upon the place where the corpse had been found and even upon the bystanders.”

“How horrible!” exclaimed Ellen. “Whatever was that for?”

“It was evidently an important part of the ritual necessary for the laying of a ghost,” answered Mr. Carruthers. “To continue, when this was done, the whole assembly at the direction of Mahdu, shouted three times, ‘O Shiva, receive his spirit,’ and with a general feeling of satisfaction and confidence that their efforts would be crowned with success they were on the point of returning to their homes when, to their horror, the ghost of Maruti appeared with his dreadful skull and the lights in his eyes, and pointing his hand towards Tatya he said, ‘Your turn has come!’ With wild screams of terror the assembly scattered to the winds, leaving the spectre in possession of the field. And now, finding that their gods have failed them, they have come to me to get them out of their difficulty. It is rather out of my line of business, and I confess I do not exactly see my way. I should have been inclined to think that the whole thing was the result of imagination were it not for Mrs. Trench’s narrative.”

“I am quite sure it was not any imagination on my part,” said Ellen. “It was either a dream or some sort of visitation. Why should I imagine or dream exactly the same thing which all those people think that they have seen, especially as I had never heard anything about it before?”

“Precisely, Mrs. Trench. Now as you are the only one of us who has seen the apparition, I wonder what you think about it, after hearing all the story. Have you any theory to suggest, or any advice to offer me as to clearing up the mystery?”

“I am very complimented at your asking my advice,” she said; “but I am half afraid you are making fun of me. I can’t suggest any explanation, much less any means of solving the conundrum. It is too dreadfully puzzling. The strange thing is that the ghost of Maruti kept perfectly quiet till they found the poor man’s body. What was the coincidence that made it walk from that time onward? Then the ghost evidently knew all about his mundane affairs, as he promptly visited the money-lender and the other man. I can’t manage the curious names yet. And the skull and the lights in the eyes. It is all most incomprehensible. And why should he have come to me? I’ll tell you one thing that I think, Mr. Carruthers, and that is, that the people who performed that elaborate ritual and incantation did not give or promise half enough to the poor ghost. In fact, they were very mean. Fancy an umbrella and a pair of shoes! Now if the rival were to give up his claim to the field, and the money-lender allowed his mortgage to go on without foreclosing, the ghost might be satisfied and keep quiet.”

“By Jove, splendid! Mrs. Trench,” said Mr. Carruthers, “that is a very concise summing up. There is nothing like getting the facts into order.

That is the first business of a policeman. You will be a credit to the force yet. This matter needs thinking out; but we will begin on your suggestion. I will send for these people and have a talk to them. Every one can listen to the conversation.”

In due course they all arrived. There was Mahdu, the gondhali, and Govind, the medium; there was Chandra Bai, who in spite of the mortgage was wearing some fine gold ornaments; Dhondi, the brother of the ghost; Kashiram, the money-lender; and Tatya, the claimant of the disputed field.

“Look here,” said Mr. Carruthers, when they were all seated, “I have been thinking much over this matter; and I have taken the opinion of this lady, who knows much more about ghosts than I do, and who has actually seen the spirit of Maruti, exactly as you all describe him. He entered the lady’s tent last night, after he had given you that fright at the place where the body was found. This proves that your story is quite true. Now, as I have told you, this is a very wise lady and learned on the subject of ghosts. And this is what she says. When Maruti was alive you gave him great trouble. After his death he was content to do nothing and remain quiet. But you disturbed his body, and he has become displeased. You have tried to pacify him by raising for his benefit a collection of small coins, and promising an umbrella and a pair of shoes, and so on; and Tatya, who has seized the land which Maruti believed to be his, has promised a red waistcoat and some buttons. Is not this foolish? Is this not contemptible? You have raised the enmity of a ghost, who can cause you all inconceivable trouble, and you think that you can pacify him by petty gifts such as you have told me of. This wise lady says that this is no ordinary ghost. The wearing of a skull with lights instead of eyes shows that it is a very extraordinary ghost, and therefore extraordinary means are required to avert his displeasure. Now if you want to be relieved of your terror you must all give that which you really value. Do you agree?”

There was a murmur signifying that they all concurred in the suggestion.

“Very well, then. Now in the first place, you, Chandra Bai, were very wrong, considering that your husband was a poor man and at the same time a generous, open-handed man, in being so extravagant and indulging in expensive clothes and ornaments which he could not possibly afford to give you, also in constantly scolding him and making his life unpleasant. You still wear valuable ornaments although your land is likely to be lost to you. What you will give to the ghost of your dead husband is all your ornaments, and a written statement that you regret your bad treatment of him. Will you do this, or will you be plagued by his ghost for the rest of your life? Yes, I thought you would agree. Next, Kashiram, I want a statement of your account with Maruti and his family. I can send for your books, so it is no use telling me any lies. Yes, I thought it would be something of the sort. Advanced altogether from time to time, six hundred rupees. Interest paid on loan, nine hundred rupees. Interest still due, four hundred rupees. Total due for interest and capital, one thousand rupees. And then you sowars wonder that you have your noses cut off now and then! Well, what you will give is this, a statement that nothing whatever remains due to you on account of either interest or principal. Do you agree or will you rather be plagued for the remainder of your life by the ghost of Maruti? Yes, I thought so. You, Tatya, will sign a paper that you renounce all claims to the disputed field. It is a bitter blow to you, but preferable to having your life ruined by the ghost. Next, Mahdu and Govind. You ought to know your business better. Fancy trying to put off a really superior ghost like this with such trumpery presents! Now this is my order. You will again meet to-night where you met last night, and make these new gifts to the ghost. You can have any ceremonies and incantations that you like, except that no cock is to be killed. This lady will be present, and she says that there is to be no cock-killing, as ghosts do not really like it, and she knows all about ghosts. Now you have permission to go.”

I explained to Ellen all that Mr. Carruthers had been saying in the vernacular, and she took him to task as severely as she could for putting the whole responsibility on her. But I don’t think she was seriously annoyed. Anyhow, she was quite pleased at the prospect of seeing the ceremony in the night, although not a little frightened at the idea. But the Flemings promised to come too, and that restored her courage. We were very excited about the ghost during the day, and we made all kinds of guesses regarding the strange mystery. Opinions were divided as to whether the proposed remedy would have any effect or not. Mr. Carruthers would not pronounce any theory. He insisted that the case was in the charge of Mrs. Trench, and that he was merely carrying out her suggestions. It was she, and she alone of our party, who had seen the ghost, and that was a clear sign that she was intended to have charge of the whole inquiry. She had begun so well that he had every confidence in her skill and intelligence, and her ability to unravel the mystery. Ellen laughed at this, and while disclaiming any powers such as she was credited with, promised to do her best. We had a delightful day. In the afternoon we drove to see the ruins of a really beautiful Hindoo temple, four or five miles off, and had our tea there beside a running stream. Mr. Carruthers had begged us to excuse him from making one of the party on the grounds that he had urgent work to dispose of. But we laughed him to scorn and insisted on his coming. He was quite unable to resist the united argument and entreaties of Ellen and Mrs. Fleming and Jack and Dolly, whatever he might have done if only Mr. Fleming and I were concerned. Mrs. Fleming said that if he were not with us to look after him her husband might be spirited away again, perhaps by the ghost this time, and there was no homing pigeon in his pocket to put a rescuer on the track. So we thoroughly enjoyed the outing, and forgot all about the spectre, and came back to dress for dinner. Mr. Carruthers was always very punctilious about regulation dinner costume in camp just as much as anywhere else. He said it made all the difference between feeding and dining. At dinner the conversation was, of course, mainly on the coming event, and after pulling some crackers and drinking to the health of absent friends we put on our warmest wraps and proceeded to the scene of the incantation. There was no road, so we had to walk, and it was pitch dark; but with the aid of some lanterns we managed to find our way without any particular difficulty. There was a tremendous crowd when we arrived at the place, and we found a row of chairs placed in position for the Sahib-logue. At Mr. Carruthers’ direction our lanterns were turned down.

“There is only one thing that I have to say before Mahdu and Govind begin,” said Mr. Carruthers. “You all know why we are here, to make proper and liberal offerings to the ghost of Maruti. Govind will recite the offerings to the departed spirit, and we may be sure that he will accept them and not trouble you again. But it is only reasonable to suppose that he will be present to accept the offerings; so it is my order that if he comes you are not to be frightened and run away, but just stay where you are. Now Mahdu and Govind, you can commence.”

It was a weird sight, if, indeed, you could have called it a sight. As our eyes got accustomed to the darkness we could just make out an enormous ring of people huddled closely together, while in the centre sat the two mystics, Mahdu the master of the ceremonies, and Govind the medium. Mahdu called for silence; and I must say a feeling of awe and of something supernatural crept over us all during the prolonged period of absolute stillness which succeeded. We could just make out the master of occult lore going through some strange ritual. At length Govind stood up and commenced a long-drawn piteous wail, which seemed to emanate from the depths of the earth, and ought to have been enough to lay every ghost in creation. Gradually the chant wove itself into intelligible words, and we could make out an invocation to Shiva to receive into rest the soul of the departed Maruti, for whose benefit they had now made the most complete offerings. Then the medium addressed his supplications to the departed.

“Spirit of Maruti,” he cried, “be pleased with our offerings. There has come to us a lady, young in years but old in wisdom, having full knowledge of the unseen world, who has taught us that what we promised was insufficient. Now we offer thee these things. Tatya gives up his claim to the disputed field; Kashiram remits the debts due to him; Chandra Bai gives all her ornaments, and offers amends for her harsh words. And Carruthers Sahib is witness. Be pleased, O Spirit of Maruti, to manifest thy acceptance and trouble us no more.”

A sudden stir in the part of the circle opposite to us attracted our attention. People edged away and made an opening. There were cries and shrieks; and men prostrated themselves and women swooned. For there, advancing through the opening, was a tall figure with two lights for its eyes; and, yes, we could make it out now, a skull for its head. There was a general movement, indicating that all were about to flee for their lives.

“Silence!” shouted Mr. Carruthers, jumping up. “Be still. There is nothing to fear. I told you to expect the spirit of Maruti. The wise lady says that you are to listen to him. Govind, repeat the offers that have been made.”

The medium’s teeth appeared to be chattering as he did what he was told; but he completed his task, much as he would obviously have preferred to be anywhere but where he was.

“Now, spirit of Maruti,” said Mr. Carruthers, “the wise lady bids you speak. Do you accept these offers and will your spirit cease from troubling the people of Loni?”

“The wise lady has spoken, and so shall it be,” replied the spirit, in a singularly human voice. “My spirit is satisfied.” And as a sign of agreement out went the lights in the eyes of the skull.

Mr. Carruthers leapt forward and stood beside the apparition.

“Now, my good people, you can go,” he said to the assembled throng. “You have heard the word, and you may be sure that you will be troubled no more.”

There was not much reluctance manifested in obeying the order to go. Off they all rushed as fast as their legs would carry them.

“What awful fun!” said Jack; but Dolly held on to her mother.

“Now we require a little explanation on one or two points,” said Mr. Carruthers, as he came back to our chairs leading with him a tall figure. “But first I want to see one thing. Now, Maruti, switch on those lights of yours.”

Instantly the lights gleamed in the sockets of the skull. They gave sufficient illumination for us to make out the figure of a man with a red waistcoat and brass buttons and a peculiarly big puggree. A close inspection showed us that the skull did not exactly cover the real face, but was rather above it, so giving an additional appearance of height. The skull was cleverly fixed on to the puggree, but in the dark, and of course the apparition would only manifest itself when it was dark or there was only a very dim light such as there generally is in native houses, this would not be noticed. Then Mr. Carruthers directed the orderlies to turn up the lanterns that we had brought with us, and irresistibly funny was the sight of the spirit of Maruti under the collective glare of our lamps.

“How do you do the trick?” asked the Chief.

“Sahib, yih lictric lait hai” was the reply, or, Anglicé, it is electric light. “It is nearly used up,” the speaker continued, “but it has frightened those fools here. A Sahib gave me the apparatus when I was on the sugar plantation at Mauritius; and I thought of this tamasha.”

The spectre laughed. It was not at all weird or uncanny; but a good, hearty, soul-filling laugh. We all joined in and laughed to our hearts’ content.

“Now, Mrs. Trench,” said the Chief, “we will have the ghost’s explanation in a minute or so. Meanwhile tell me this? You knew it was the real Maruti all along, didn’t you?”

“I was certain of it,” said Ellen, “in spite of the difficulties and improbabilities. Why he should have appeared from the exact time that the corpse was discovered and burnt, I do not know. But that didn’t very much matter. I don’t believe in ghosts, and so I was sure that it must have been a man. He knew too much about Maruti’s private affairs for it to be any one else but Maruti. As for the corpse, it might have been anybody’s, red waistcoat or no red waistcoat. The supply of red waistcoats in the world, even with brass buttons attached to them, is not necessarily limited to one.”

“Shabash: well done!” said the Chief; “you will be a great policeman some day. And then your advice about the offerings?”

“Well, I thought that Maruti had been rather roughly treated; and I wanted to do something for him. So far as I can make out, now he has everything that he desired.”

“Splendid,” said Mr. Carruthers. “Now, Maruti, you can tell us your story. What were the circumstances of your leaving Loni?”

“Sahib, I will tell you the truth. Fate was against me. I need not repeat what is known to the Sahib. There was Kashiram and Tatya, and there was Chandra Bai. I said to myself that I would go away secretly and not return until I had a thousand rupees. Sahib, I have brought more than a thousand — my wages on the sugar plantations. Yes, I went away with five rupees in my pocket and said not a word. I meant to begin life afresh. I gave up my name Maruti and have called myself Sakharam. As luck would have it, when I left the village after nightfall I met a beggar who asked me for alms. I offered him a rupee if he would exchange his rags for my red waistcoat and big puggree. He was very pleased to do so. I thought no more of him. I went to Mauritius and had good wages and saved them. I came back a few days ago. I had bought a waistcoat and puggree like I used to wear before. But I did not want to be known at first. I wished to see what had happened in my absence, so I hid my good clothes in the jungle outside the village and put on poor garments and disguised my face. Sahib, to my amazement I at once came upon a funeral party that was about to burn a corpse wearing my old waistcoat and puggree. I thought then of the beggar who had exchanged his clothes for mine. The people were all saying that it was the corpse of Maruti; and it was a strange thing that a man should witness his own funeral ceremony. And I heard about Tatya and the field, and Kashiram and the foreclosing of the mortgage. And I laughed and I swore to be revenged. And there was Chandra Bai. Her tongue is sharp, and she deserved a frightening; but I was greatly wishing to see her. And now by the favour of the Sahib and of the wise lady my destiny is made happy.”

“A very interesting story, Maruti,” said Mr. Carruthers. “But what were you doing in the wise lady’s tent?”

“In truth, Sahib, you had known me before, and had been kind to me, and an inclination came to me to see the Sahib in his tent, and when I entered the tent and found that it was not the tent of the Sahib, I was ashamed and went and hid in the jungle again.”

“Well, Maruti, the best thing you can do is to come to my camp to-morrow morning and there let me introduce you to your family and friends, so that further trouble may be avoided. There is some one else whom I have to see in the morning, and that is Tatya. There is the matter of the beggar who was killed when he was wearing clothes that gave him the appearance of Maruti. There was a talk of putting Maruti to death. Krishna,” he said to the head constable of the party, “let it be known that Tatya is to come to me the first thing to-morrow.”

I may here remark, parenthetically, that Tatya did not come in the morning, for he disappeared and was never seen again. Of course, proof would have been practically impossible; but there was no moral doubt that he had killed the beggar thinking that he was Maruti, and had hidden the body beneath the stones.

We walked back to the tents and a bottle of champagne was opened and consumed, and, I think, a pint in addition; and much talk and laughter we had over the day’s adventures. Mr. Carruthers said that Ellen was a born detective and the most promising member of the Force, and he quite forgave me for having been married.

Altogether this is quite the finest Christmas party that I can remember.

Harry Hart Frank, who wrote books and stories under the pseudonym Pat Frank, was an author, journalist, and government consultant. After service in World War II, he returned to work as a journalist but also began writing nonfiction books in which he took on the Washington bureaucracy, challenging many assumptions about how well the government functioned. Hart’s most enduringly popular work is the novel Alas, Babylon (1959), which tells the story of ordinary Americans in an isolated Florida community coping with survival following a Soviet-American nuclear war. “The Christmas Bogey” was first collected in This Week’s Stories of Mystery and Suspense (New York, Random House, 1957).

When the air force privately evaluated the affair later, delay in reporting the original sighting received much of the blame. This delay was the fault of Airman 2/c Warren Pitts, but the cause of Pitts’s lapse never was committed to paper, for it would sound so emotional and unmilitary. The truth is that Warren Pitts was only eighteen, and he was homesick, and weeping at his post.

Pitts was the youngest of five technicians assigned, that morning, to 48-hour duty in the Early Warning Radar shack atop a wind-scoured hill overlooking the sprawling Thule base in northern Greenland.

It was Tail End Charley duty. Down on the base everybody was celebrating. There was a USO troupe, including dancers from Hollywood, at the theater. Pitts had not seen a woman in three months. There was a Christmas tree, flown from Maine in a B-36 bomb bay, in the gymnasium. It was the only tree in a thousand miles. There were parties in the clubs and day rooms, and turkey dinners in the mess halls, and a mountain of still undistributed mail and packages. Pitts hadn’t received the Christmas box his folks had promised.

Even in the radar shack there was a celebration of a sort. In the other room the older men had concocted an eggnog from evaporated milk, powdered eggs, vanilla extract, and medicinal alcohol. Since Pitts didn’t drink, he had drawn the six to midnight watch.

The other room was bright, and warm, and they were listening to Christmas music on the radio, and Sergeant Hake was telling almost believable stories about girls he had known Stateside.

There was no light in the viewing room, so that vision would be sharper. Pitts sat lonely in darkness and watched a thin white sliver revolve in hypnotic circles on the screen.

He wasn’t thinking of himself as the guardian of a continent. He was thinking of Tucson’s hot sun. He hadn’t seen the sun in weeks, and wouldn’t see it for weeks more. He said, aloud, “Oh, God, I want to go home.”

When at last he looked up there was a fat, green blip winking evilly at him from the upper right-hand quadrant of the screen. How long it had been there he could not guess. It could have come across the Pole, or it might have entered from the east. The radar had a range of perhaps 300 miles. When he first saw the blip, it was closing on the 150-mile circle.

Had Pitts instantly reported this sighting, successful interception would have been possible at Thule, but he didn’t. He told the blip to go away. He begged it to go away. On occasion, Russian weather planes crossed the Pole, but always they turned around and went back and he wished this blip would do the same, so he would not have to explain to Sergeant Hake. The blip kept on coming, skirting the edge of the 150-mile circle, as if making a careful detour.

Pitts rose from his canvas chair and shouted, “I’ve got a bogey!”

Except for Sinatra singing “White Christmas,” there was silence in the other room, and then suddenly they were all in with him. Hake watched the blip for three revolutions, and said: “How long you been asleep, kid?”

“I haven’t been asleep. Honest I haven’t.”

The sergeant noted the boy’s reddened eyes and the tear channels down his pinched white face. He turned back to the scope.

“What do you think it is?” Pitts asked, fearfully.

“It could be a large flying saucer,” said Hake, “or it could be Santa Claus and eight tiny reindeer, or it could be an enemy jet bomber.” He reached for the telephone and called Central Radar Control.

That night Lieutenant Preble, a serious young man, had the duty. Ranged along the wall inside Control were many types of radar, including a repeater set from the early warning installation on the hill. Lieutenant Preble switched on this set. As it heated, the blip appeared. He estimated the bogey at 140 miles from Thule, bearing 80 degrees, speed 400 knots, and headed due south.

It could be a Scandinavian airliner bound for Canada and Chicago. And, it could be a jet tanker, on a training flight from Prestwick, Scotland, which had failed to report its position in the last hour.

Or it could be an enemy jet bomber sneaking around Thule.

Whatever it was, Radar Control had a standing order to scramble fighters and alert the batteries if a bogey could not be identified within 60 seconds. That would certainly have been done, except for several human factors.

Lieutenant Preble often played chess with a Captain Canova, an F-94 fighter pilot, and at this moment Captain Canova and his radar observer were in the ready room. In an alert, they would be scrambled — the first ones to face that icy air.

On a base like Thule you will find many poker, bridge, and gin rummy players, but few devoted to chess. So Lieutenant Preble and Captain Canova were firm friends, and Preble knew that this was probably Canova’s last duty at Thule.

In the morning, Canova would pack up and board the air tanker coming in from Scotland. Canova’s wife was ill and Canova had been given compassionate leave. The tanker’s base was Westover Field, Massachusetts, and Canova lived in Boston. He should be with his wife Christmas night — barring accident.

Outside, the temperature was 42 below, and the wind an erratic Phase Three — above 50 knots. If the bogey continued its course and speed, it would be an extreme long-range interception, outside the protective cloak of his radar. So there could very well be an accident.

Preble turned to his communicator and said, “Let’s try to raise this bogey. Call the tanker again.”

The tanker didn’t respond. Preble wasn’t worried about the tanker. There had been no distress calls, and near the magnetic pole on top of the world radio frequently went haywire.

They tried the commercial channels. No answer.

Preble took a good hold on the edge of his desk. The blip had closed to 120 miles, but it was now due east of Thule, and moving fast to the south. Each second, now, was taking it away. Unless he scrambled Canova immediately, there would be no chance for an intercept.

He looked at the clock. The big second hand was sweeping down like a guillotine.

Even if Canova shot down the bogey, it might turn out to be a transport loaded with people racing home for Christmas.

But whatever the bogey was, an alarm would stop the USO show in the theatre, and empty the clubs, and send some thousands of troops and gunners and airmen to their posts in the frightful cold, and wreck Christmas. If Canova shot down a friendly plane, there would be no more room for Lieutenant Preble at Thule, or perhaps anywhere.

Preble slammed his hand on the red alarm button, and spoke into the microphone: “Scramble, Lightning Blue! Ready, Lightning Red!”

He looked at the clock, and marked the hour, minute, and second. Canova would be airborne in under three minutes, requesting instructions. But the chase would be long, and would carry beyond the fringe area and guidance of his radar. In his heart, he knew he was too late. Outside, he heard the sirens screaming.

At 6:24 p.m., EST, Christmas Eve, the priority message from Thule reached the enormous plotting room of the Eastern Defense Command, Newburgh, New York. A bogey had slipped past Thule. Interception had been unsuccessful, and the pilot had returned to base. The bogey was headed for Labrador or Newfoundland at better than 400 miles an hour, estimated altitude 30,000 feet.

Upon the shoulders of Major Hayden, an ace in two wars but the youngest and least experienced officer on the senior staff, rested the awful responsibility for the safety and security of the vital third of the United States, from Chicago east to the Atlantic. This was normal, on Christmas Eve, for alone among the Master Controllers Major Hayden was a bachelor.

Major Hayden was not alarmed at this first report. The day’s intelligence forecasts showed that the world, this season, was comparatively peaceful. Also, it was only one plane, and Major Hayden did not believe an attack would be launched by one plane, or even so small a number as one hundred.

Besides, the bogey could be reasonably explained. One of his plotting boards showed every aircraft, military and commercial, aloft on the approaches to the Eastern states. The bogey could be a British Comet which had announced it was going far north to seek the jet stream. It could be a Scandinavian airliner looking for Goose Bay. It could be most anything.

Major Hayden ordered a miniature plane set upon the plotting board at the spot this bogey ought to be, according to its projected course and speed. A red flag, showing it was unidentified, topped this plane. He would keep his eyes on it.

He didn’t want to bother the General, although the General had visited the plotting room, at six, to look things over. The General always seemed anxious. This may have been because on December 7, 1941, when Major Hayden was a sophomore in college, the General was a major commanding a bomber squadron at Hickam Field, Hawaii, and all his planes had been bombed and shot up on the ground. The last thing the General had said was, “I’m going over to my daughter’s, at the Point, for dinner. You know the number. If anything happens call me.”

Major Hayden didn’t believe that anything, really, had happened yet. Besides, he knew that every Christmas Eve the General trimmed the tree for his grandchildren. He didn’t want to break that up.

Major Hayden did call the Royal Canadian Air Force liaison officer, and he did alert the outlying bases, and the border radar sites. Then he waited.

An hour later, reports began to come in. The jet tanker from Prestwick turned up at Thule, its radio out. The Comet landed at Gander after a record crossing. It had not been near Thule. The Scandinavian, it developed, was grounded in Iceland.

Major Hayden fretted. Every fifteen minutes, one of his girls inched the red-flagged bogey closer to his air space. The bogey became the only thing he could see on the board. He alerted all fighter bases north of Washington, and the anti-aircraft people, and the Ground Observer Corps. The GOC was apologetic. It doubted that many of its posts were manned. The GOC would do what it could, but he would have to remember that they were volunteers, and this was Christmas Eve.

When the second sighting came, there could be no doubt of the menace. The Limestone, Maine, radar picked up an unidentified blip moving at 600 knots and at 40,000 feet. It came out of an unguarded Canadian sector. Instead of moving down the coast toward the heavily populated areas, it had headed out to sea, dived steeply, and vanished. It had appeared so swiftly, and left the radar screen so suddenly, that interception had not been possible. Limestone’s best night-fighter pilots were older men, and away on Christmas leave.

Major Hayden knew what had happened, and what to expect. The intruder had shrewdly avoided the picket ships, and airfields, near the shore. Then it had crossed the danger zone at tremendous speed.

Once at sea, it had dropped below 4,000 feet — safe from the eyes of radar. Now it would come in at its target, very low, and achieve tactical surprise. Major Hayden called the General.

When the phone rang in the Smith home at West Point, the General, a spare man with iron-gray hair, was balanced atop a ladder, putting the angel on top of the tree, while his grandchildren shrilled their advice and admonitions. Tracy Smith, his daughter, answered the phone, and said, “It’s for you, Dad.”

The General said, “Tell ’em I’m busy. Tell ’em to wait a minute.”

It took the General three minutes to place the angel exactly as he wanted, and exactly straight and upright. “Well,” he said, climbing down, “there’s the angel that stands guard over this house.” At that moment, three minutes may have been the critical factor.

The General picked up the phone. He listened without speaking, and then said, “All right, red alert. Order SCAT. SCAT’s all that will save us now. I’m coming.”

When he put down the phone the General looked ten years older. His daughter said, “What’s up?”

“An unidentified plane,” he said, putting on his coat, “off the coast. I believe an enemy.”

“Just one?” said Tracy Smith.

“One plane, one bomb, one city,” said the General. “Maybe New York.”

And he was gone.

Major Hayden flashed the SCAT order to every airfield in his zone. SCAT meant Security Control of Air Traffic. Under SCAT, every plane, military and commercial — except fighters on tactical missions — was to land at the nearest field immediately. In thirty minutes the air must be cleared of everything except the enemy, and our fighters, to give the anti-aircraft batteries and the Nike rocket battalions a chance to work in congested areas.

Very shortly, Major Hayden discovered that on this particular night — of all nights — SCAT couldn’t operate properly. In all the big cities, holiday travel was setting records. Planes were stacked in layers up to 20,000 feet over Idlewild, La Guardia, and Newark. Boston, Philadelphia-Camden, and Washington National were the same. And the airways between cities were jammed. He didn’t know how long it would be before the Nike rockets could be used. A Nike is a smart rocket, but it cannot tell a transport loaded with 80 people from a jet bomber.

The General came into the plotting room just as the report came in from a lonely spotter at East Moriches, Long Island. A huge jet had come in from the sea at a speed he refused to estimate. It had swept wings, and its four engines were housed in these wings, close to the fuselage. It was bigger than a B-47. It had come in at 2,000 feet, and he swore it was marked with a red star.

The General knew, then, that it was too late, unless he ordered everything shot out of the air. This he could not do — not at Christmas.

A few minutes later a strange plane joined the traffic pattern circling Idlewild, easing itself between two Constellations. It was a jet. One of the Constellations came in for a landing, and then the jet turned on its wing lights and landed. It taxied up to the Administration Building, as if it owned the place, and the blue and red flames of its engines were snuffed out, one by one. Three men got out. They wore strange uniforms.

The Air Force liaison officer at Idlewild called in the news to the General. “Two of them are Poles,” he said, “and the other a Czech.

“The plane is this new type Russian 428 that they showed last May Day over Moscow, only this one is fitted out as a weather ship. These three guys said they had been planning this for almost a year. One of them used to live in Hamtramck, and another has an uncle in Pittsburgh, and they all speak English.”

“It’s wonderful!” the General said. “But it’s a miracle they got here. By rights, they should long ago have been shot down.”

“Well,” said the liaison officer, “they said they had it all figured out. They said nothing means so much to Americans as Christmas.”

“Yes,” said the General. “They’re three smart men. Real wise.”

Andrew Klavan has enjoyed both popular and critical success as a mystery writer, with numerous Edgar nominations, two of which were winners: Mrs. White (1987), co-authored with his brother Laurence under the pseudonym Margaret Tracy, the basis for White of the Eye, a film released in 1987 starring David Keith and Cathy Moriarty, and The Rain (1988), under the pseudonym Keith Peterson. In 1992, he was nominated for Best Novel for Don’t Say a Word, released as a film in 2001 starring Michael Douglas. His 1995 novel True Crime was released as a film in 1999 with Clint Eastwood as the director and the star. While still producing acclaimed crime fiction, he is also an active writer and blogger with libertarian conservative views. “The Killer Christian” was first published as a chapbook and given to customers of the Mysterious Bookshop as a Christmas gift in 2007.

A certain portion of my misspent youth was misspent in the profession of journalism. I’m not proud of it, but a man has to make a living and there it is. And, in fact, I learned a great many things working as a reporter. Most importantly, I learned how to be painstakingly honest and lie at the same time. That’s how the news business works. It’s not that anyone goes around making up facts or anything — not on a regular basis anyway. No, most of the time, newspeople simply learn how to pick and choose which facts to tell, which will heighten your sense that their gormless opinions are reality or at least delay your discovery that everything they believe is provably false. If ever you see a man put his fingers in his ears and whistle Dixie to keep from hearing the truth, you may assume he’s a fool, but if he puts his fingers in your ears and starts whistling, then you know you are dealing with a journalist.

As an example of what I mean, consider the famous shootout above the Mysterious Bookshop in the downtown section of Manhattan known as Tribeca. Because of the drama of the violence, the personalities involved, and the high level arrests that followed, the newspaper and television coverage of the incident ran for weeks on end. Every crime expert in the country seems to have had his moment on the talk shows. Two separate nonfiction books were written about it, not to mention the one novel. And along with several movies and TV shows featuring gunfights reminiscent of the actual event, there was a docu-drama scripted by a Pulitzer Prize — winning newspaperman who covered the story, though it was never released theatrically and went straight to DVD.

There was all that — and no one got the story right. Oh, they got some of the facts down well enough, but the truth? So help me, they did not come nigh it. Why? Because they were journalists — and because the truth offended their sensibilities and contradicted their notions of what the world is like.

So they talked about how La Cosa Nostra had been hobbled by the trials of the ’80s and ’90s and how new gangs were moving in to divide the spoils left behind. They focused on what they called Sarkesian’s “betrayal” of Picarone and speculated about the underworld’s realigning loyalties and racial tensions. They even unearthed some evidence for a sort of professional rivalry between Sarkesian and the man known as “The Death.”

But the truth is, from the very start, this was really a story about faith and redemption — quite a mysterious story too, by the end of it. And that was too much for them — the journalists. They could not — they would not — see it that way. And because they couldn’t see it, they put forward the facts in such a fashion as to insure that you would fail to see it too.

It falls upon me, then, to tell it as it actually happened.

Sarkesian, to begin with, was a Christian, a Catholic, very devout. He took communion as often as he could, daily when he could, and went to confession no less frequently than once a week. What he said in those confessions of course I wouldn’t know, but it must’ve been pretty interesting because, along with being a Christian, Sarkesian was also an enforcer — a killer when he had to be — for Raymond Picarone. How Sarkesian reconciled these two facets of his life can be explained simply enough: he was stupid. Some people just are — a lot of people are, if you ask me — and he was one of them: dumb as dirt.

So on a given day, Sarkesian might kneel before the Prince of Peace asking that he be forgiven as he himself forgave; he might listen attentively to a sermon about charity and compassion; lift his eyes with childlike expectation to the priest who handed him the body of his Lord — and then toodle off to smash his knuckles into the mouth of one of Picarone’s debtors until the man’s teeth went pitter-pattering across the floor like a handful of pebbles. Virtually every journalist who reported the story discounted the sincerity of Sarkesian’s beliefs because of the nature of his actions, but they were mistaken in this. Indeed, if it seems strange to you that a man might hold his faith in one part of his mind and his deeds in another and never fully examine the latter in the light of the former... well, congratulations, you may be qualified to become a journalist yourself.

No. Sarkesian prayed with a committed heart and did his job with a committed heart and that his job included murder everyone who knew him knew. That he did that murder efficiently and without apparent compunction made him much feared by his employer’s enemies. It also made him much appreciated by his employer.

“Sarkesian,” Raymond Picarone used to say with an approving smile, “is not the sharpest razor at the barber shop, but when you tell him you need the thing done, it gets done.”

Now it happened one day that the thing Picarone needed done was the killing of a young man named Steven Bean. Bean was a minor functionary in Picarone’s organization and a sleazy weasel of a boy even for that company. For the third time in six months, Picarone had caught Bean skimming from his profits. He had decided to make an example of him.

So he summoned Sarkesian to his gentlemen’s club on West 45th Street by the river and he said to him, “Sarkesian... Stevie B... it’s no good... we have to make, you know, a new arrangement.” Picarone had taken to talking in this elliptical fashion in order to baffle any law enforcement personnel who might be eavesdropping electronically on his conversations.

Unfortunately Sarkesian, being not very intelligent as I said, was frequently also baffled. “Arrangement,” he said slowly, chewing on the word as if it were a solid mass and blinking his heavily lidded eyes.

“Yeah,” said Picarone impatiently. “Bean and us... I think we’re done... you see what I’m saying? It’s no good... we’ve come to a parting of the ways.”

Sarkesian blinked again and licked his thick lips uncertainly.

“Kill him!” said Picarone. “Would you just kill him? Christ, what an idiot.”

Sarkesian brightened, delighted to understand what was expected of him, and set off on his way.

It was mid-December and the city was done up for Christmas. The great snowflake was hung over Fifth Avenue and 57th Street and the great tree was sparkling by the skating rink just downtown. Gigantic ribbons decorated the sides of some buildings. Sprays of colored lights bedecked the fronts of others. And early flurries of snow had been blowing in from the north all week, enough to give the streets a festive wintry air but not so much as to be a pain in the neck and tie up traffic.

So when Steven Bean awoke one early evening in his cramped studio apartment on the Upper West Side, he staggered to the window and looked out at a cheery Yuletide scene. There was snow in the air and lights in the windows of the brownstones across the way. There were green wreaths on the doors and the sound of a tinkling bell drifting from where Santa Claus was standing on the corner.

Unfortunately, there was also Sarkesian, trudging over the sidewalk on his way to kill him.

Steven had full awareness of his guilt, as do we all, though he’d managed to push that awareness to one side of his consciousness, as likewise do we all. But seeing Sarkesian plodding along with his great shoulders hunched and his big, murdering hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his overcoat, the guilt awareness snapped back front and center and Steven understood exactly what the killer was here for.

He leapt off the sofa and jammed his scrawny legs into his jeans, his scrawny feet into his sneakers. He already had a sweatshirt on and was pulling a blue ski jacket over it as he rushed out of the apartment. He could hear the front door closing three floors below as he raced up the stairs. He could hear Sarkesian’s heavy footsteps rising toward him as he reached the next landing. There was a ladder there leading up to a trapdoor. Steven climbed quickly and pushed through the trap and up to the roof.

Here, the white sky opened above him and the swirling flakes fell cold upon his face. Steven dashed through the chill air, across the shadow of the water tower. He reached the parapet at the roof’s edge and leapt over it, flying across a narrow airshaft to land on the roof of the building next door. From there, he found his way to another trap, down another ladder, to the stairs of the neighboring building. In moments, he was on the street, running along the damp-darkened pavement, dodging the homecoming pedestrians. The streetlamps were just coming on above him as he passed, making the falling snow glisten against the night.

At first, as he ran, he asked himself where he would go, but it was really a rhetorical question. There was only one place he could go: to the downtown theater where he knew he would find his younger sister.

Hailey Bean was in her mid-twenties, and was just beginning to realize she was not going to be a successful actress. She was a sweet girl, kind and gentle and loving; practical, down-to-earth, and sane. Which is to say she was completely unsuited for a life in show business.

At the moment, however, she was rehearsing a very small part in a once-popular drama that was to be revived off-off — not to mention off — Broadway. Hailey’s role was that of an angel. At the end of the first act, she was to be lowered toward the stage in a harness-and-wire contraption. Hanging in mid-air, she would then deliver words of prophecy as the first act curtain fell. It was only a 45-second scene — with another scene about the same length in the second act — but it was pivotal. An elaborately beautiful costume — a white robe with gold trimming and two enormous feathery wings — had been designed to make Hailey’s attractive but not very imposing figure more impressive, and electronic enhancements and echoes were going to be added to her pleasing but less than awe-inspiring voice.

She was in the back of the small theater discussing these embellishments with the stage manager when Steven Bean burst through a rear door. Trying to keep a low profile, he planted himself in a dark corner — where he proceeded to make himself ridiculously conspicuous by gaping and whispering and waving frantically in an attempt to get his sister’s attention.

The differences in character between Hailey and her brother can probably be at least partially explained by the fact that they were, in fact, only half-siblings. Steven had endured his parents’ vituperative divorce, whereas Hailey had grown up in their mother’s second, more stable, and loving household. Hailey was aware of her advantages and she felt compassion for her brother. But she also knew he was corrupt and reckless and dangerous, incapable of feeling anything more for her than a sort of puling, hissing envy and a fear of her decency which could shade over into hatred whenever she refused to give him whatever it was he was trying to get out of her at the time.

Still, he was family. So, as soon as she politely could, she excused herself to the stage manager and went over to see what he wanted now.

“He’s after me” were the first words he gasped at her.

“Calm down.” Hailey touched his arm gently. “Who’s after you?”

“Sarkesian. He’s coming to kill me.”

The sister caught her breath and straightened. She didn’t bother with any expressions of disbelief. She believed him well enough. “What do you want me to do?”

“Hide me!” Steven whined.

“Steven, where can I hide you? My apartment is the first place he’ll look.”

“You must have friends!”

“Oh, Steven, I can’t send you to my friends with some thug coming after you.”

“Well, give me some money at least so I can get away!”

“I don’t have any more money.”

“I’m your brother and I’m going to be murdered in cold blood and everything’s fine for you and you won’t do anything for me,” Steven said.

Hailey sighed. She knew he was just trying to make her feel guilty but it didn’t matter that she knew: she felt guilty anyway. Especially because, as she was forced to admit to herself, she wasn’t being completely honest with him about the money.

Hailey was a clerk during the day at the Mysterious Bookshop, a store specializing in crime fiction located on Warren Street downtown. Because Hailey was pretty and efficient and meltingly feminine, she had become a favorite of the avuncular gentleman who ran the place. Sympathetic to her situation, he’d supplied her with an apartment in the brownstone over the shop and so her rent and expenses were fairly cheap. Thus, while it was true that Steven had all but cleaned out her savings six months ago when he’d gotten himself in trouble with Picarone’s bookies, Hailey, by working overtime and scrimping on luxuries, had actually managed to save up a little more since then. The trouble was, she had a strong feeling she was going to need that money pretty soon. In a sort of semi-subconscious way, she had begun making plans to give up her acting career and go back to school.

She hesitated another few seconds, but she couldn’t stand up to Steven’s terrified eyes and his accusatory wheedling and her own guilt. Finally she said, “All right. I can’t leave now. But come back at nine when the rehearsal is over and we’ll go to the bank and I’ll give you whatever I have.”

Steven whined and pleaded a little more, hoping to convince her to go with him right away or even to let him use her bank card, but she stood firm and at last he slunk back out into the snow.

On some other evening, he might well have persuaded her to come with him. But as it happened, this was the night of a special technical rehearsal dedicated almost entirely to her character. An hour after their conversation, Hailey was dressed in her winged robe of white and gold, trussed up in her harness and dangling in mid-air about ten feet off the stage.

She was alone. The other actors had gone home for the night. Only the director and the stage manager were left and they were shut away in the booth at the back of the balcony. They had finished perfecting the echo effect for Hailey’s voice and were now discussing their various lighting options, but where Hailey was, their conversation was inaudible. The theater was silent around her. For long periods, it was dark as well. Then, every so often, a spotlight would appear and catch Hailey dangling there in her magnificent winged costume. It would hold her in its glow for a moment as the director judged the effectiveness of the light’s color and intensity. Then it would go off again as he and the technician fell to discussing their options once more.

For Hailey, it was a boring process. And since the harness dug into the flesh under her arms, it was kind of uncomfortable too. To distract herself, she tried going over her part in her mind but as she only had four lines, her thoughts soon began to wander. She thought about Steven, of course, about the danger he was in and the troubles he had had as a child and the sad mess he had made of his adulthood. She thought about the money she was going to give him and how hard she had worked to save it and how long it would take her to save some more. She fretted that she would never find a way to improve her life. Ironically, if she could have peered only a little more than a decade into the future, she would have seen herself the mistress of a large house in the northwestern corner of Connecticut, the cheerful mother of no less than five children, and the wife of a man who felt more love and gratitude to her than I can rightly say. But for the present, all this lay obscured within the mists of time, and she hung in the darkness anxious and troubled.

Then, as she hung, she saw a pale slanting beam of light fall at the head of one of the theater’s aisles. Someone — a man — had opened the door from the foyer. Now his enormous shadow fell into the light and now he himself was there. He came forward a few steps, but as the foyer door swung shut behind him, the theater was plunged into a nearly impenetrable blackness, and he paused uncertainly.

Hailey felt her pulse speed up. She had caught a glimpse of the man as he entered and there was no doubt in her mind who he was. A hoodlum that size with a face that low — surely, this was the very Sarkesian her brother had told her about, the one who was coming to kill him.

Hailey dangled in the air and watched as the man began slowly advancing again down the aisle, hunting, no doubt, for Steven. She held her breath. Her heart pounded against her chest. The killer came nearly to the foot of the stage. He stopped almost directly beneath her. Sarkesian took a long slow look from one side of the proscenium to the other. Hailey shuddered with fear that he would now lift his eyes and see her.

And then the spotlight came on.

Suddenly, to Hailey’s horror, she was fully exposed, hanging there helpless and ridiculous in her white and golden robe with the feathery wings outstretched on either side of her.

Sarkesian looked up — and Hailey was surprised to see he seemed even more horrified than she was. He cried out. He threw his scaly ham-sized hands up beside his face. He leaned back as if afraid Hailey would strike him down on the spot. Frozen there, trembling, he stared up at her with a mixture of terror and awe.

Hailey understood at once what had happened — understood what Sarkesian must’ve thought she was, and understood too the incredible piety and even more incredible stupidity of a man capable of believing such a thing. Acting almost as quickly as she thought, she stretched out her arm and pointed her finger at him sternly.

“Sarkesian!” she thundered — and the echo effect, which the director had left on for further testing, magnified her voice so that it vibrated from floor to rafters. “Sarkesian — repent!”

At that, as if the timing had been arranged by a power higher even than the director, the spotlight went out again.

Hailey couldn’t see what happened next. The light had temporarily blinded her. But she heard Sarkesian send up a high-pitched wail — and the next instant, she could hear his enormous body fumbling and bumping into seats as he made his panicked way back up the aisle.

The door at the rear of the theater flew open. Sarkesian’s massive silhouette filled the lighted frame. Then he was gone. There was the light alone. The door swung shut. There was darkness.

Sarkesian didn’t look back. He didn’t even look to left or right. He ran out of the theater and into the street and was nearly struck down by an oncoming taxi. He found himself bent over the cab’s hood, both hands braced against the wet metal as he gaped through the windshield at the frightened driver. Waving his arm wildly to make the cabbie stay, he rushed around to the car’s side door and tumbled into the back seat. He gasped out his address to the driver. He sat huddled in a corner, shivering and whimpering, all the way home.

Now, all right, you may laugh at Sarkesian. But even outside of journalism, truth and fiction are sometimes impossibly intertwined. A figment of imagination, a myth, even a fraud may lead us to powerful revelations. Come to think of it, do we ever find revelations in any other way? If Sarkesian was fooled by Hailey’s quick-witted improvisation, if it caused him to stagger into his apartment and fall to his knees, if it made him pray and weep in the searing realization that he had lived a life of wretched wickedness in complete contravention to the commandments of his God — was that realization any less true for the way it came to him?

In any case, the fact is: he remained on his knees all night long. And when the gray day dawned, he knew exactly what he had to do.

He went to see Picarone. He found his boss eating breakfast with his wife on the terrace of their penthouse. The presence of the glamorous and somewhat regal Mrs. P. cowed Sarkesian and he spoke with his chin on his chest, gazing down at his own titanic feet.

“I can’t do that thing we talked about,” he said in his slow, dull voice. “I can’t do any of that anymore. The bad stuff. I gotta do, I don’t know, good stuff now, from now on. Like the Bible says.”

“O-o-oh,” said Picarone, lifting his chin. “Yeah. The Bible. Sure. Sure, Sarkesian, I get it. We’ll only give you the good stuff from now on. Like the Bible says, sure.”

It was touching, Mrs. Picarone later told her friends, to see Sarkesian’s great, granite face wreathed in childlike smiles as he floated dreamily out of the room.

When he was gone, Picarone picked up the phone. “Hey,” he said, “I need you to take care of a little weasel named Steven Bean for me. And while you’re at it, you can do me Sarkesian too.”

The call had gone out to a man named Billy Shine. He was known to all who feared him as “The Death.” There was no one who didn’t fear him. He was a lean, sinewy man with a long rat-like face. He moved like smoke and half the terror he inspired was due to the way he could appear beside you suddenly, as if out of thin air. He could find anyone anywhere and reach them no matter what. And when he did find them, when he did reach them, they were shortly thereafter dead.

Sarkesian would never have seen him coming. But he was tipped off — warned that The Death was on his trail. Mrs. Picarone had been sincere when she told her friends she’d been moved by Sarkesian’s simple faith. She was, in fact, a regular church-goer herself. Sometimes, she lay awake in a cold sweat, painfully aware of the contrast between the dictates of her religion and the source of her wealth. Normally, a quarter of an hour spent running her fingers over the contents of her jewelry box soothed her until she could sleep again. But that night, somehow, this was not enough. Exhausted, she made a stealthy phone call to a manicurist with whom Sarkesian sometimes shared a bed.

Steven Bean, meanwhile, was sleeping just fine, curled up on the sofa in his apartment. I know: you’d think he’d be just about anywhere else doing anything else. But after scrounging money from his sister to fund his escape, he had hit on the brilliant idea of increasing the stash by joining a 24-hour poker game he knew of. By the time he wandered out into the streets the next evening, he was all but broke again — and so tired that he convinced himself it would surely be safe at his apartment by now. Sarkesian had probably only been sent to scare him anyway. He might even have been in the neighborhood to see someone else. Maybe it was Steven’s own guilty conscience that had made him jump to conclusions and panic when he saw the killer approaching. What he really needed, he thought, was to be home and snug on his own little sofa. And so that’s where he went and, after a few more drinks and a joint or two, he was out like a light.

It’s amazing people do these things but they do. It’s amazing what little distance there needs to be between our actions and their consequences before the consequences seem to us to disappear entirely. One a.m. rolled around and there was Steven, snoring away with his hands tucked under his head, so deeply unconscious that even the entry buzzer couldn’t wake him.

But the door woke him when it crashed open, when its wooden frame splintered and fragments of it went flying across the room. That made him sit bolt upright, his jaw dangling, his eyes spiraling crazily. Before he could speak — before he could even think — someone grabbed him by the shirtfront.

It was Sarkesian.

“The Death is coming,” the big man said. “Get up. Let’s go.”

What had happened: Sarkesian had become a new man since his encounter with the “Angel of the Lord” and he was determined to stay that way. After getting the warning call from the manicurist, he understood that it was not enough to just save himself. Knowing that The Death would come after Steven first, he saw he was responsible for protecting him as well. A sterner moralist than I am might wonder why he didn’t call the police. But others had called the police in an attempt to avoid The Death and they were dead. No, Sarkesian knew Steven’s safety was in his own hands. So here he was, shaking him awake At the first mention of The Death’s terrible name, whatever was left of Steven’s drunken complacency vanished like an ace of spades at a magician’s fingersnap. He didn’t know why Sarkesian had come to help him. At the moment, he hardly knew where he was. But he did understand that he had to run — and that there was nowhere to run from the likes of Billy Shine.

Sarkesian didn’t wait for him to figure this out, or for anything else. He grabbed him by the arm, got him dressed, and dragged him out the door. They were halfway down the second flight of stairs, Sarkesian in the lead, before he spoke again.

“Where can you go?” he asked Steven over his shoulder.

And Steven, still stupid with sleep, gave the only answer he could think of. “Tribeca. Above the bookshop. My sister’s there.”

They took three cabs to avoid being followed. They traveled the last few blocks on foot. Soon they were running together through the severe, slanting shadows falling across the downtown boulevard from the line of brownstone buildings to their right. Tinsel and colored Christmas lights hung from the windows above them. And snow fell, a thin layer of it muffling their footsteps as they ran.

As they approached the Mysterious Bookshop itself, they saw warm yellow light spilling through its storefront to lay in an oblong pool on the snowy sidewalk. Shadows moved behind the storefront’s display of brightly jacketed books. Murmuring voices and laughter trailed out from within and a Christmas carol was playing — “O Holy Night.”

With a silent curse, Sarkesian understood: there was a Christmas party going on inside.

A moment later, the voices and music grew louder. The bookshop door was coming open. A man and woman were leaving the party, waving over their shoulders as they stepped laughing into the night.

Suddenly Steven found himself shoved hard into an alcove, Sarkesian’s massive body pressed against him, pinning him, hiding him. They huddled there together, still, as the couple walked away from them toward West Broadway.

When Sarkesian’s body relaxed, Steven was able to move his arm, to lift his finger to point out his sister’s name above a mailbox in the alcove. Sarkesian nodded. But Steven didn’t press the buzzer button below Hailey’s name. He was afraid she would turn them away. Instead, he went to work on the lock of the outside door. His fingers were trembling with cold and fear, but it wasn’t much of a lock to speak of. In a second or two, he had worked it and they were inside.

The talk and music from the bookshop came through the walls inside. “O, Little Town of Bethlehem” followed them up the stairway as Sarkesian and Steven raced to the fourth-floor landing. They made their way down the long hallway to the last door. Steven pounded on it with his fist. He shouted, “Hailey! It’s me! Open up!”

There was a pause. Steven was gripped by the fear that Hailey herself might be at the party in the bookshop downstairs. But then, her sleepy voice came muffled from within, “Steven?”

“Hailey, please! It’s life or death!”

There was the sound of a chain sliding back. The door started to open...

And at that moment, Sarkesian, waiting at Steven’s side, felt a chill on his neck and looked to his left.

There was The Death standing at the other end of the hall.

He had materialized there in his trademark fashion, without warning, silent as smoke. Now, like smoke, he began drifting toward them.

Sarkesian reacted quickly. With one hand, he shoved Steven in the back, pushing him through Hailey’s door. With the other, he drew his gun.

The Death also had a gun. He was lifting it, pointing it at Sarkesian.

“Don’t you do it, Billy Shine!” Sarkesian shouted.

He heard a loud clap: the terrified Steven had shut Hailey’s door, hoping Sarkesian would kill The Death while he cowered inside. But that changed nothing for Sarkesian. He was already moving down the hall toward Shine.

The two killers walked toward each other, their guns upraised. They were fifty yards apart, then forty, then thirty-five. Sarkesian called out again: “Don’t do it!” The Death answered him with a gunshot. Sarkesian fired back. The men began pulling the triggers of their guns again and again in rapid succession. One blast blended with another, deafening in the narrow corridor. The two kept firing and walking toward each other as steadily as if hot metal were not ripping into them, were not tearing their insides apart.

At last, their bullets were exhausted. Each heard the snap of an empty chamber. They stopped where they were, not ten yards between them. Shine lowered his arm and Sarkesian lowered his. Shine smiled. Then he pitched forward to the floor and The Death lay dead at Sarkesian’s feet.

Sarkesian barely looked at him. He simply started walking again, stepping over the body without a pause. He let the gun slip from his fingers. It fell with a thud to the hall carpet. Only when he reached the stairway did he stagger for a moment. He held onto the banister until he was steady again. Then he started down the stairs.

All this time, no one on the fourth floor had ventured out of his apartment. People heard the gunfire. They guessed what it was. They called the police and just hunkered down. But on the floors below there were doors opening, faces peeking out. The sound of choral music from the bookshop grew louder. “Silent Night.”

As the moments passed with no more shots, people on the fourth floor looked out too. Hailey looked out and Steven peeked over her shoulder, hiding behind her.

“Yes!” he said, pumping his fist when he saw that The Death had fallen.

But Hailey said, “What happened to Sarkesian?”

Steven had told her in a single sentence about his rescue. She had guessed the rest, guessed what had happened to Sarkesian as a result of their encounter in the theater. Tender soul that she was, she felt bad for the thug. She felt any injuries he might have suffered were in part her responsibility.

She came out of her apartment into the hall.

“Sis! Sis!” Steven hissed after her, frantically waving her back.

But she kept moving forward cautiously until she reached the stairway. She saw the trail of blood on the risers. With a soft cry of distress, she started down the stairs.

She found Sarkesian lying on his back in front of the building, his blood running out into the snow. The partygoers in the Mysterious Bookshop had poured out of the store to investigate the noise and now stood gathered around him. The sound of sirens was growing louder as the police drew near. The bookshop door was propped open so that “Silent Night” drifted through the window into the air.

No one came near Sarkesian. He lay alone in the center of the crowd. He blinked up at the falling snow, his breathing labored.

Then Hailey came toward him, her long white flannel nightgown trailing behind her. Many people saw and heard what happened next. Many of them talked about it to the journalists who soon flooded the scene. And yet it was never reported in a single newspaper, never mentioned on radio or television even once. This is the first time it’s ever been told.

Hailey knelt down in the snow beside Sarkesian. She leaned over him. He stirred, turning his eyes toward her. He tried to speak. He couldn’t. He licked his lips and tried again.

“I see...” he whispered hoarsely. “I see an angel.”

“Oh, Sarkesian,” said Hailey miserably. “I’m really not.”

Sarkesian blinked slowly and shook his head. “No,” he whispered. “There.” And with a terrible effort, he lifted his enormous hand and pointed over her shoulder at the sky.

Then his hand dropped back into the snow and he was dead.

Although Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins wrote mystery fiction, their books were not identified as being part of the genre, either by publishers, booksellers, or reviewers. It then falls to Fergus Hume to have the honor of writing the bestselling mystery novel, so described, of the nineteenth century, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886). He paid to have it published but it quickly became successful and he sold all rights to a group of English investors for fifty pounds sterling. It went on to sell more than a half-million copies. Hume wrote an additional one hundred thirty novels — all of which have been completely forgotten. “The Ghost’s Touch” was first published in the author’s short story collection, The Dancer in Red (London, Digby, 1906).

I shall never forget the terrible Christmas I spent at Ringshaw Grange in the year ’93. As an army doctor I have met with strange adventures in far lands, and have seen some gruesome sights in the little wars which are constantly being waged on the frontiers of our empire; but it was reserved for an old country house in Hants to be the scene of the most noteworthy episode in my life. The experience was a painful one, and I hope it may never be repeated; but indeed so ghastly an event is not likely to occur again. If my story reads more like fiction than truth, I can only quote the well-worn saying, of the latter being stranger than the former. Many a time in my wandering life have I proved the truth of this proverb.

The whole affair rose out of the invitation which Frank Ringan sent me to spend Christmas with himself and his cousin Percy at the family seat near Christchurch. At that time I was home on leave from India; and shortly after my arrival I chanced to meet with Percy Ringan in Piccadilly. He was an Australian with whom I had been intimate some years before in Melbourne: a dapper little man with sleek fair hair and a transparent complexion, looking as fragile as a Dresden china image, yet with plenty of pluck and spirits. He suffered from heart disease, and was liable to faint on occasions; yet he fought against his mortal weakness with silent courage, and with certain precautions against over-excitement, he managed to enjoy life fairly well.

Notwithstanding his pronounced effeminacy, and somewhat truckling subserviency to rank and high birth, I liked the little man very well for his many good qualities. On the present occasion I was glad to see him, and expressed my pleasure.

“Although I did not expect to see you in England,” said I, after the first greetings had passed.

“I have been in London these nine months, my dear Lascelles,” he said, in his usual mincing way, “partly by way of a change and partly to see my cousin Frank — who indeed invited me to come over from Australia.”

“Is that the rich cousin you were always speaking about in Melbourne?”

“Yes. But Frank is not rich. I am the wealthy Ringan, but he is the head of the family. You see, Doctor,” continued Percy, taking my arm and pursuing the subject in a conversational manner, “my father, being a younger son, emigrated to Melbourne in the gold-digging days, and made his fortune out there. His brother remained at home on the estates, with very little money to keep up the dignity of the family; so my father helped the head of his house from time to time. Five years ago both my uncle and father died, leaving Frank and me as heirs, the one to the family estate, the other to the Australian wealth. So—”

“So you assist your cousin to keep up the dignity of the family as your father did before you.”

“Well, yes, I do,” admitted Percy, frankly. “You see, we Ringans think a great deal of our birth and position. So much so, that we have made our wills in one another’s favour.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, if I die Frank inherits my money; and if he dies, I become heir to the Ringan estates. It seems strange that I should tell you all this, Lascelles; but you were so intimate with me in the old days that you can understand my apparent rashness.”

I could not forbear a chuckle at the reason assigned by Percy for his confidence, especially as it was such a weak one. The little man had a tongue like a town-crier, and could no more keep his private affairs to himself than a woman could guard a secret. Besides, I saw very well that with his inherent snobbishness he desired to impress me with the position and antiquity of his family, and with the fact — undoubtedly true — that it ranked amongst the landed gentry of the kingdom.

However, the weakness, though in bad taste, was harmless enough, and I had no scorn for the confession of it. Still, I felt a trifle bored, as I took little interest in the chronicling of such small beer, and shortly parted from Percy after promising to dine with him the following week.

At this dinner, which took place at the Athenian Club, I met with the head of the Ringan family; or, to put it plainer, with Percy’s cousin Frank. Like the Australian he was small and neat, but enjoyed much better health and lacked the effeminacy of the other. Yet on the whole I liked Percy the best, as there was a sly cast about Frank’s countenance which I did not relish; and he patronized his colonial cousin in rather an offensive manner.

The latter looked up to his English kinsman with all deference, and would, I am sure, have willingly given his gold to regild the somewhat tarnished escutcheon of the Ringans. Outwardly, the two cousins were so alike as to remind one of Tweedledum and Tweedledee; but after due consideration I decided that Percy was the better-natured and more honourable of the two.

For some reason Frank Ringan seemed desirous of cultivating my acquaintance; and in one way and another I saw a good deal of him during my stay in London. Finally, when I was departing on a visit to some relatives in Norfolk he invited me to spend Christmas at Ringshaw Grange — not, as it afterwards appeared, without an ulterior motive.

“I can take no refusal,” said he, with a heartiness which sat ill on him. “Percy, as an old friend of yours, has set his heart on my having you down; and — if I may say so — I have set my heart on the same thing.”

“Oh, you really must come, Lascelles,” cried Percy, eagerly. “We are going to keep Christmas in the real old English fashion. Washington Irving’s style, you know: holly, wassail-bowl, games, and mistletoe.”

“And perhaps a ghost or so,” finished Frank, laughing, yet with a side glance at his eager little cousin.

“Ah,” said I. “So your Grange is haunted.”

“I should think so,” said Percy, before his cousin could speak, “and with a good old Queen Anne ghost. Come down, Doctor, and Frank shall put you in the haunted chamber.”

“No!” cried Frank, with a sharpness which rather surprised me, “I’ll put no one in the Blue Room; the consequences might be fatal. You smile, Lascelles, but I assure you our ghost has been proved to exist!”

“That’s a paradox; a ghost can’t exist. But the story of your ghost—”

“Is too long to tell now,” said Frank, laughing. “Come down to the Grange and you’ll hear it.”

“Very good,” I replied, rather attracted by the idea of a haunted house, “you can count upon me for Christmas. But I warn you, Ringan, that I don’t believe in spirits. Ghosts went out with gas.”

“Then they must have come in again with electric light,” retorted Frank Ringan, “for Lady Joan undoubtedly haunts the Grange. I don’t mind as it adds distinction to the house.”

“All old families have a ghost,” said Percy, importantly. “It is very natural when one has ancestors.”

There was no more said on the subject for the time being, but the upshot of this conversation was that I presented myself at Ringshaw Grange two or three days before Christmas. To speak the truth, I came more on Percy’s account than my own, as I knew the little man suffered from heart disease, and a sudden shock might prove fatal. If, in the unhealthy atmosphere of an old house, the inmates got talking of ghosts and goblins, it might be that the consequences would be dangerous to so highly strung and delicate a man as Percy Ringan.

For this reason, joined to a sneaking desire to see the ghost, I found myself a guest at Ringshaw Grange. In one way I regret the visit; yet in another I regard it as providential that I was on the spot. Had I been absent the catastrophe might have been greater, although it could scarcely have been more terrible.

Ringshaw Grange was a quaint Elizabethan house, all gables and diamond casements, and oriel windows, and quaint terraces, looking like an illustration out of an old Christmas number. It was embowered in a large park, the trees of which came up almost to the doors, and when I saw it first in the moonlight — for it was by a late train that I came from London — it struck me as the very place for a ghost.

Here was a haunted house of the right quality if ever there was one, and I only hoped when I crossed the threshold that the local spectre would be worthy of its environment. In such an interesting house I did not think to pass a dull Christmas; but — God help me — I did not anticipate so tragic a Yuletide as I spent.

As our host was a bachelor and had no female relative to do the honours of his house the guests were all of the masculine gender. It is true that there was a housekeeper — a distant cousin, I understood — who was rather elderly but very juvenile as to dress and manner. She went by the name of Miss Laura, but no one saw much of her as, otherwise than attending to her duties, she remained mostly in her own rooms.

So our party was composed of young men — none save myself being over the age of thirty, and few being gifted with much intelligence. The talk was mostly of sport, of horse-racing, big game shooting, and yacht-sailing: so that I grew tired at times of these subjects and retired to the library to read and write. The day after I arrived Frank showed me over the house.

It was a wonderful old barrack of a place, with broad passages, twisting interminably like the labyrinth of Daedalus; small bedrooms furnished in an old-fashioned manner; and vast reception apartments with polished floors and painted ceilings. Also there were the customary number of family portraits frowning from the walls; suits of tarnished armour; and ancient tapestries embroidered with grim and ghastly legends of the past.

The old house was crammed with treasures, rare enough to drive an antiquarian crazy; and filled with the flotsam and jetsam of many centuries, mellowed by time into one soft hue, which put them all in keeping with one another. I must say that I was charmed with Ringshaw Grange, and no longer wondered at the pride taken by Percy Ringan in his family and their past glories.

“That’s all very well,” said Frank, to whom I remarked as much; “Percy is rich, and had he this place could keep it up in proper style; but I am as poor as a rat, and unless I can make a rich marriage, or inherit a comfortable legacy, house and furniture, park and timber may all come to the hammer.”

He looked gloomy as he spoke; and, feeling that I had touched on a somewhat delicate matter, I hastened to change the subject, by asking to be shown the famous Blue Chamber, which was said to be haunted. This was the true Mecca of my pilgrimage into Hants.

“It is along this passage,” said Frank, leading the way, “and not very far from your own quarters. There is nothing in its looks likely to hint at the ghost — at all events by day — but it is haunted for all that.”

Thus speaking he led me into a large room with a low ceiling, and a broad casement looking out onto the untrimmed park, where the woodland was most sylvan. The walls were hung with blue cloth embroidered with grotesque figures in black braid or thread, I know not which. There was a large old-fashioned bed with tester and figured curtains and a quantity of cumbersome furniture of the early Georgian epoch. Not having been inhabited for many years the room had a desolate and silent look — if one may use such an expression — and to my mind looked gruesome enough to conjure up a battalion of ghosts, let alone one.

“I don’t agree with you!” said I, in reply to my host’s remark. “To my mind this is the very model of a haunted chamber. What is the legend?”

“I’ll tell it to you on Christmas Eve,” replied Ringan, as we left the room. “It is rather a blood-curdling tale.”

“Do you believe it?” said I, struck by the solemn air of the speaker.

“I have had evidence to make me credulous,” he replied dryly, and closed the subject for the time being.

It was renewed on Christmas Eve when all our company were gathered round a huge wood fire in the library. Outside, the snow lay thick on the ground, and the gaunt trees stood up black and leafless out of the white expanse. The sky was of a frosty blue with sharply twinkling stars, and a hard-looking moon. On the snow the shadows of interlacing boughs were traced blackly as in Indian ink, and the cold was of Arctic severity.

But seated in the holly-decked apartment before a noble fire which roared bravely up the wide chimney we cared nothing for the frozen world out of doors. We laughed and talked, sang songs and recalled adventures, until somewhere about ten o’clock we fell into a ghostly vein quite in keeping with the goblin-haunted season. It was then that Frank Ringan was called upon to chill our blood with his local legend. This he did without much pressing.

“In the reign of the good Queen Anne,” said he, with a gravity befitting the subject, “my ancestor Hugh Ringan was the owner of this house. He was a silent misanthropic man, having been soured early in life by the treachery of a woman. Mistrusting the sex he refused to marry for many years; and it was not until he was fifty years of age that he was beguiled by the arts of a pretty girl into the toils of matrimony. The lady was Joan Challoner, the daughter of the Earl of Branscourt; and she was esteemed one of the beauties of Queen Anne’s court.

“It was in London that Hugh met her, and thinking from her innocent and child-like appearance that she would make him a true-hearted wife, he married her after a six months’ courtship and brought her with all honour to Ringshaw Grange. After his marriage he became more cheerful and less distrustful of his fellow-creatures. Lady Joan was all to him that a wife could be, and seemed devoted to her husband and child — for she early became a mother — when one Christmas Eve all this happiness came to an end.”

“Oh!” said I, rather cynically. “So Lady Joan proved to be no better than the rest of her sex.”

“So Hugh Ringan thought, Doctor; but he was as mistaken as you are. Lady Joan occupied the Blue Room, which I showed you the other day; and on Christmas Eve, when riding home late, Hugh saw a man descend from the window. Thunderstruck by the sight, he galloped after the man and caught him before he could mount a horse which was waiting for him. The cavalier was a handsome young fellow of twenty-five, who refused to answer Hugh’s questions. Thinking, naturally enough, that he had to do with a lover of his wife’s, Hugh fought a duel with the stranger and killed him after a hard fight.

“Leaving him dead on the snow he rode back to the Grange, and burst in on his wife to accuse her of perfidy. It was in vain that Lady Joan tried to defend herself by stating that the visitor was her brother, who was engaged in plots for the restoration of James II, and on that account wished to keep secret the fact of his presence in England. Hugh did not believe her, and told her plainly that he had killed her lover; whereupon Lady Joan burst out into a volley of reproaches and cursed her husband. Furious at what he deemed was her boldness Hugh at first attempted to kill her, but not thinking the punishment sufficient, he cut off her right hand.”

“Why?” asked everyone, quite unprepared for this information.

“Because in the first place Lady Joan was very proud of her beautiful white hands, and in the second Hugh had seen the stranger kiss her hand — her right hand — before he descended from the window. For these reasons he mutilated her thus terribly.”

“And she died.”

“Yes, a week after her hand was cut off. And she swore that she would come back to touch all those in the Blue Room — that is who slept in it — who were foredoomed to death. She kept her promise, for many people who have slept in that fatal room have been touched by the dead hand of Lady Joan, and have subsequently died.”

“Did Hugh find out that his wife was innocent?”

“He did,” replied Ringan, “and within a month after her death. The stranger was really her brother, plotting for James II, as she had stated. Hugh was not punished by man for his crime, but within a year he slept in the Blue Chamber and was found dead next morning with the mark of three fingers on his right wrist. It was thought that in his remorse he had courted death by sleeping in the room cursed by his wife.”

“And there was a mark on him?”

“On his right wrist red marks like a burn; the impression of three fingers. Since that time the room has been haunted.”

“Does everyone who sleeps in it die?” I asked.

“No. Many people have risen well and hearty in the morning. Only those who are doomed to an early death are thus touched!”

“When did the last case occur?”

“Three years ago” was Frank’s unexpected reply. “A friend of mine called Herbert Spencer would sleep in that room. He saw the ghost and was touched. He showed me the marks next morning — three red finger marks.”

“Did the omen hold good?”

“Yes. Spencer died three months afterwards. He was thrown from his horse.”

I was about to put further questions in a sceptical vein, when we heard shouts outside, and we all sprang to our feet as the door was thrown open to admit Miss Laura in a state of excitement.

“Fire! Fire!” she cried, almost distracted. “Oh! Mr. Ringan,” addressing herself to Percy, “your room is on fire! I—”

We waited to hear no more, but in a body rushed up to Percy’s room. Volumes of smoke were rolling out of the door, and flames were flashing within. Frank Ringan, however, was prompt and cool-headed. He had the alarm bell rung, summoned the servants, grooms, and stable hands, and in twenty minutes the fire was extinguished.

On asking how the fire had started, Miss Laura, with much hysterical sobbing, stated that she had gone into Percy’s room to see that all was ready and comfortable for the night. Unfortunately the wind wafted one of the bed-curtains towards the candle she was carrying, and in a moment the room was in a blaze. After pacifying Miss Laura, who could not help the accident, Frank turned to his cousin. By this time we were back again in the library.

“My dear fellow,” he said, “your room is swimming in water, and is charred with fire. I’m afraid you can’t stay there tonight; but I don’t know where to put you unless you take the Blue Room.”

“The Blue Room!” we all cried. “What! The haunted chamber?”

“Yes; all the other rooms are full. Still, if Percy is afraid—”

“Afraid!” cried Percy indignantly. “I’m not afraid at all. I’ll sleep in the Blue Room with the greatest of pleasure.”

“But the ghost—”

“I don’t care for the ghost,” interrupted the Australian, with a nervous laugh. “We have no ghosts in our part of the world, and as I have not seen one, I do not believe there is such a thing.”

We all tried to dissuade him from sleeping in the haunted room, and several of us offered to give up our apartments for the night — Frank among the number. But Percy’s dignity was touched, and he was resolute to keep his word. He had plenty of pluck, as I said before, and the fancy that we might think him a coward spurred him on to resist our entreaties.

The end of it was that shortly before midnight he went off to the Blue Room, and declared his intention of sleeping in it. There was nothing more to be said in the face of such obstinacy, so one by one we retired, quite unaware of the events to happen before the morning. So on that Christmas Eve the Blue Room had an unexpected tenant.

On going to my bedroom I could not sleep. The tale told by Frank Ringan haunted my fancy, and the idea of Percy sleeping in that ill-omened room made me nervous. I did not believe in ghosts myself, nor, so far as I knew, did Percy, but the little man suffered from heart disease — he was strung up to a high nervous pitch by our ghost stories — and if anything out of the common — even from natural causes — happened in that room, the shock might be fatal to its occupant.

I knew well enough that Percy, out of pride, would refuse to give up the room, yet I was determined that he should not sleep in it; so, failing persuasion, I employed stratagem. I had my medicine chest with me, and taking it from my portmanteau I prepared a powerful narcotic. I left this on the table and went along to the Blue Room, which, as I have said before, was not very far from mine.

A knock brought Percy to the door, clothed in pyjamas, and at a glance I could see that the ghostly atmosphere of the place was already telling on his nerves. He looked pale and disturbed, but his mouth was firmly set with an obstinate expression likely to resist my proposals. However, out of diplomacy, I made none, but blandly stated my errand, with more roughness, indeed, than was necessary.

“Come to my room, Percy,” I said, when he appeared, “and let me give you something to calm your nerves.”

“I’m not afraid!” he said, defiantly.

“Who said you were?” I rejoined, tartly. “You believe in ghosts no more than I do, so why should you be afraid? But after the alarm of fire your nerves are upset, and I want to give you something to put them right. Otherwise, you’ll get no sleep.”

“I shouldn’t mind a composing draught, certainly,” said the little man. “Have you it here?”

“No, it’s in my room, a few yards off. Come along.”

Quite deluded by my speech and manner, Percy followed me into my bedroom, and obediently enough swallowed the medicine. Then I made him sit down in a comfortable armchair, on the plea that he must not walk immediately after the draught. The result of my experiment was justified, for in less than ten minutes the poor little man was fast asleep under the influence of the narcotic. When thus helpless, I placed him on my bed, quite satisfied that he would not awaken until late the next day. My task accomplished, I extinguished the light, and went off myself to the Blue Room, intending to remain there for the night.

It may be asked why I did so, as I could easily have taken my rest on the sofa in my own room; but the fact is, I was anxious to sleep in a haunted chamber. I did not believe in ghosts, as I had never seen one, but as there was a chance of meeting here with an authentic phantom I did not wish to lose the opportunity.

Therefore when I saw that Percy was safe for the night, I took up my quarters in the ghostly territory, with much curiosity, but — as I can safely aver — no fear. All the same, in case of practical jokes on the part of the feather-headed young men in the house, I took my revolver with me. Thus prepared, I locked the door of the Blue Room and slipped into bed, leaving the light burning. The revolver I kept under my pillow ready to my hand in case of necessity.

“Now,” said I grimly, as I made myself comfortable, “I’m ready for ghosts, or goblins, or practical jokers.”

I lay awake for a long time, staring at the queer figures on the blue draperies of the apartment. In the pale flame of the candle they looked ghostly enough to disturb the nerves of anyone: and when the draught fluttered the tapestries the figures seemed to move as though alive. For this sight alone I was glad that Percy had not slept in that room. I could fancy the poor man lying in that vast bed with blanched face and beating heart, listening to every creak, and watching the fantastic embroideries waving on the walls. Brave as he was, I am sure the sounds and sights of that room would have shaken his nerves. I did not feel very comfortable myself, sceptic as I was.

When the candle had burned down pretty low I fell asleep. How long I slumbered I know not: but I woke up with the impression that something or someone was in the room. The candle had wasted nearly to the socket and the flame was flickering and leaping fitfully, so as to display the room one moment and leave it almost in darkness the next. I heard a soft step crossing the room, and as it drew near a sudden spurt of flame from the candle showed me a little woman standing by the side of the bed. She was dressed in a gown of flowered brocade, and wore the towering head dress of the Queen Anne epoch. Her face I could scarcely see, as the flash of flame was only momentary: but I felt what the Scotch call a deadly grue as I realized that this was the veritable phantom of Lady Joan.

For the moment the natural dread of the supernatural quite overpowered me, and with my hands and arms lying outside the counterpane I rested inert and chilled with fear. This sensation of helplessness in the presence of evil was like what one experiences in a nightmare of the worst kind.

When again the flame of the expiring candle shot up, I beheld the ghost close at hand, and — as I felt rather than saw — knew that it was bending over me. A faint odour of musk was in the air, and I heard the soft rustle of the brocaded skirts echo through the semi-darkness. The next moment I felt my right wrist gripped in a burning grasp, and the sudden pain roused my nerves from their paralysis.

With a yell I rolled over, away from the ghost, wrenching my wrist from that horrible clasp, and, almost mad with pain I groped with my left hand for the revolver. As I seized it the candle flared up for the last time, and I saw the ghost gliding back towards the tapestries. In a second I raised the revolver and fired. The next moment there was a wild cry of terror and agony, the fall of a heavy body on the floor, and almost before I knew where I was I found myself outside the door of the haunted room. To attract attention I fired another shot from my revolver, while the Thing on the floor moaned in the darkness most horribly.

In a few moments guests and servants, all in various stages of undress, came rushing along the passage bearing lights. A babel of voices arose, and I managed to babble some incoherent explanation, and led the way into the room. There on the floor lay the ghost, and we lowered the candles to look at its face. I sprang up with a cry on recognizing who it was.

“Frank Ringan!”

It was indeed Frank Ringan disguised as a woman in wig and brocades. He looked at me with a ghostly face, his mouth working nervously. With an effort he raised himself on his hands and tried to speak — whether in confession or exculpation, I know not. But the attempt was too much for him, a choking cry escaped his lips, a jet of blood burst from his mouth, and he fell back dead.

Over the rest of the events of that terrible night I draw a veil. There are some things it is as well not to speak of. Only I may state that all through the horror and confusion Percy Ringan, thanks to my strong sleeping draught, slumbered as peacefully as a child, thereby saving his life.

With the morning’s light came discoveries and explanations. We found one of the panels behind the tapestry of the Blue Room open, and it gave admittance into a passage which on examination proved to lead into Frank Ringan’s bedroom. On the floor we discovered a delicate hand formed of steel, and which bore marks of having been in the fire. On my right wrist were three distinct burns, which I have no hesitation in declaring were caused by the mechanical hand which we picked up near the dead man. And the explanation of these things came from Miss Laura, who was wild with terror at the death of her master, and said in her first outburst of grief and fear, what I am sure she regretted in her calmer moments.

“It’s all Frank’s fault,” she wept. “He was poor and wished to be rich. He got Percy to make his will in his favour, and wanted to kill him by a shock. He knew that Percy had heart disease and that a shock might prove fatal; so he contrived that his cousin should sleep in the Blue Room on Christmas Eve; and he himself played the ghost of Lady Joan with the burning hand. It was a steel hand, which he heated in his own room so as to mark with a scar those it touched.”

“Whose idea was this?” I asked, horrified by the devilish ingenuity of the scheme.

“Frank’s!” said Miss Laura, candidly. “He promised to marry me if I helped him to get the money by Percy’s death. We found that there was a secret passage leading to the Blue Room; so some years ago we invented the story that it was haunted.”

“Why, in God’s name?”

“Because Frank was always poor. He knew that his cousin in Australia had heart disease, and invited him home to kill him with fright. To make things safe he was always talking about the haunted room and telling the story so that everything should be ready for Percy on his arrival. Our plans were all carried out. Percy arrived and Frank got him to make the will in his favour. Then he was told the story of Lady Joan and her hand, and by setting fire to Percy’s room last night I got him to sleep in the Blue Chamber without any suspicion being aroused.”

“You wicked woman!” I cried. “Did you fire Percy’s room on purpose?”

“Yes. Frank promised to marry me if I helped him. We had to get Percy to sleep in the Blue Chamber, and I managed it by setting fire to his bedroom. He would have died with fright when Frank, as Lady Joan, touched him with the steel hand, and no one would have been the wiser. Your sleeping in that haunted room saved Percy’s life, Dr. Lascelles, yet Frank invited you down as part of his scheme, that you might examine the body and declare the death to be a natural one.”

“Was it Frank who burnt the wrist of Herbert Spencer some years ago?” I asked.

“Yes!” replied Miss Laura, wiping her red eyes. “We thought if the ghost appeared to a few other people, that Percy’s death might seem more natural. It was a mere coincidence that Mr. Spencer died three months after the ghost touched him.”

“Do you know you are a very wicked woman, Miss Laura?”

“I am a very unhappy one,” she retorted. “I have lost the only man I ever loved; and his miserable cousin survives to step into his shoes as the master of Ringshaw Grange.”

That was the sole conversation I had with the wretched woman, for shortly afterwards she disappeared, and I fancy must have gone abroad, as she was never more heard of. At the inquest held on the body of Frank the whole strange story came out, and was reported at full length by the London press to the dismay of ghost-seers: for the fame of Ringshaw Grange as a haunted mansion had been great in the land.

I was afraid lest the jury should bring in a verdict of manslaughter against me, but the peculiar features of the case being taken into consideration I was acquitted of blame, and shortly afterwards returned to India with an unblemished character. Percy Ringan was terribly distressed on hearing of his cousin’s death, and shocked by the discovery of his treachery. However, he was consoled by becoming the head of the family, and as he lives a quiet life at Ringshaw Grange there is not much chance of his early death from heart disease — at all events from a ghostly point of view.

The Blue Chamber is shut up, for it is haunted now by a worse spectre than that of Lady Joan, whose legend (purely fictitious) was so ingeniously set forth by Frank. It is haunted by the ghost of the cold-blooded scoundrel who fell into his own trap; and who met with his death in the very moment he was contriving that of another man. As to myself, I have given up ghost-hunting and sleeping in haunted rooms. Nothing will ever tempt me to experiment in that way again. One adventure of that sort is enough to last me a lifetime.

The versatile and prolific Max Allan Collins has written dozens of novels, including some about Nolan, a hit man; Mallory, a mystery writer who solves real-life crimes; Eliot Ness, who gained fame as the leader of the Untouchables; and Nathan Heller, a Chicago P. I. who becomes involved in well-known crimes of the era, meeting up with such famous characters as Orson Welles and Sally Rand, the fan-dancer. He also wrote the Dick Tracy comic strip, some Batman comic books, and created the comic book private eye Ms. Tree. His graphic novel, Road to Perdition, became the basis of the Academy Award — winning Tom Hanks film. “A Wreath for Marley” was first published in Dante’s Disciples, edited by Peter Crowther and Edward E. Kramer (Clarkston, GA, White Wolf, 1995).

Private detective Richard Stone wasn’t much for celebrations, or holidays — or holiday celebrations, for that matter.

Nonetheless, this Christmas Eve, in the year of our Lord 1942, he decided to throw a little holiday party in the modest two-room suite of offices on Wabash that he had once shared with his late partner, Jake Marley.

Present for the festivities were his sandy-tressed cutie-pie secretary, Katie Crockett, and his fresh-faced young partner, Joey Ernest. Last to arrive was his best pal (at least since Jake died), burly homicide dick Sgt. Hank Ross.

Katie had strung up some tinsel and decorated a little tree by her reception desk. Right now the little group was having a Yuletide toast with heavily rum-spiked egg nog. The darkly handsome Stone’s spirits were good — just this morning, he’d been declared 4-F, thanks to his flat feet.

“Every flatfoot should have ’em!” he laughed.

“What’d you do?” Ross asked. “Bribe the draft-board doc?”

“What’s it to you?” Stone grinned. “You cops get automatic deferments!”

And the two men clinked cups.

Actually, bribing the draft-board doctor was exactly what Stone had done; but he saw no need to mention it.

“Hell,” Joey said — and the word was quite a curse coming from this kid — “I wish I could go. If it wasn’t for this damn perforated eardrum...”

“You and Sinatra,” Stone laughed.

Katie said nothing; her eyes were on the framed picture on her desk — her young brother Ben, who was spending Christmas in the Pacific somewhere.

“I got presents for all of you,” Stone said, handing envelopes around.

“What’s this?” Joey asked, confused, opening his envelope to see a slip of paper with a name and address on the South Side.

“Best black market butcher in the city,” Stone said. “You and the missus and the brood can start the next year out with a coupla sirloins, on me.”

“I’d feel funny about that... it’s not legal...”

“Jesus! How can you be such a square and still work for me? You’re lucky there’s a manpower shortage, kid.”

Ross, envelope open, was thumbing through five twenty-dollar bills. “You always know just what to get me, Stoney.”

“Cops are so easy to shop for,” Stone said.

Katie, seeming embarrassed, whispered her thanks into Stone’s ear.

“Think nothin’ of it, baby,” he said. “It’s as much for me as for you.”

He’d given her a fifty-dollar gift certificate at the lingerie counter at Marshall Field’s. Not every boss would be so generous.

They all had gifts for him, too: Joey gave him a ten-dollar war bond, Katie a hand-tooled leather shoulder holster, and Hank the latest Esquire “Varga” calendar.

“To give this rat-trap some class,” the cop said.

Joey raised his cup. “Here’s to Mr. Marley,” he said.

“To Mr. Marley,” Katie said, her eyes suddenly moist. “Rest his soul.”

“Yeah,” Ross said, lifting his cup, “here’s to Jake — dead a year to the day.”

“To the night, actually,” Stone said, and hoisted his cup. “What the hell — to my partner Jake. You were a miserable bastard, but Merry Christmas, anyway.”

“You shouldn’t talk that way!” Katie said.

“Even if it’s the truth?” Stone asked with a smirk.

Suddenly it got quiet.

Then Ross asked, “Doesn’t it bother you, Stoney? You’re a detective and your partner’s murder goes unsolved? Ain’t it bad for business?”

“Naw. Not when you do mostly divorce work.”

Ross grinned, shook his head. “Stoney, you’re an example to us all,” he said, waved, and ambled out.

Katie had a heartsick expression. “Doesn’t Mr. Marley’s death mean anything to you? He was your best friend!”

Stone patted his .38 under his shoulder. “Sadie here’s my best friend. And, sure, Marley’s death means something to me: full ownership of the business, and the only name on the door is mine.”

She shook her head, slowly, sadly. “I’m so disappointed in you, Richard...”

He took her gently aside. “Then I’m not welcome at your apartment anymore?” he whispered.

“Of course you’re welcome. I’m still hoping you’ll come have Christmas dinner with my family and me, tomorrow.”

“I’m not much for family gatherings. Ain’t it enough I got you the black-market turkey?”

“Richard!” She shushed him. “Joey will hear...”

“What, and find out you’re no Saint Kate?” He gave her a smack of a kiss on the forehead, then patted her fanny. “See you the day after... we’ll give that new casino on Rush Street a try.”

She sighed, said, “Merry Christmas, Richard,” gathered her coat and purse, and went out.

Now it was just Joey and Stone. The younger man said, “You know, Katie’s starting to get suspicious.”

“About what?”

“About what. About you and Mrs. Marley!”

Stone snorted. “Katie just thinks I’m bein’ nice to my late partner’s widow.”

“You being ‘nice’ is part of why it seems so suspicious. While you were out today, Mrs. Marley called about five times.”

“The hell! Katie didn’t say so.”

“See what I mean?” Joey plucked his topcoat off the coat tree. “Mr. Stone — please don’t expect me to keep covering for you. It makes me feel... dirty.”

“Are you sure you were born in Chicago, kid?” Stone opened the door for him. “Go home! Have yourself a merry the hell little Christmas! Tell your kids Santa’s comin’, send ’em up to bed, and make the missus under the mistletoe one time for me.”

“Thanks for the sentiment, Mr. Stone,” he said, and was gone.

Stone — alone, now — decided to skip the egg nog and head straight for the rum. He was downing a cup when a knock called him to the door.

Two representatives of the Salvation Army stepped into his outer office, in uniform — a white-haired old gent, with a charity bucket, and a pretty shapely thing, her innocent face devoid of make-up under the Salvation Army bonnet.

“We’re stopping by some of the offices to—” the old man began.

“Make a touch,” Stone finished. “Sure thing. Help yourself to the egg nog, pops.” Then he cast a warm smile on the young woman. “Honey, step inside my private office... that’s where I keep the cash.”

He shut himself and the little dame inside his office and got a twenty-dollar bill out of his cashbox from a desk drawer, then tucked the bill inside the swell of the girl’s blouse.

Her eyes widened. “Please!”

“Baby, you don’t have to say ‘please.’ ” Stone put his hands on her waist and brought her to him. “Come on... give Santa a kiss.”

Her slap sounded like a gunshot, and stung like hell. He whisked the bill back out of her blouse.

“Some Christmas spirit you got,” he said, and opened the door and pushed her into the outer office.

“What’s the meaning of this?” the old man sputtered, and Stone wadded up the twenty, tossed it in the bucket, and shoved them both out the door.

“Squares,” he muttered, returning to his rum.

Before long, the door opened and a woman in black appeared there, like a curvaceous wraith. Her hair was icy blonde, her thin lips blood-red, like cuts in her angular white Joan Crawford-ish face. It had been a while since she’d seen forty, but she was better preserved than your grandma’s strawberry jam.

She fell immediately into his arms. “Merry Christmas, darling!”

“In a rat’s ass,” he said coldly, pushing her away.

“Darling... what’s wrong...?”

“You been calling the office again! I told you not to do that. People are gonna get the wrong idea.”

He’d been through this with her a million times: they were perfect suspects for Jake Marley’s murder; neither of them had an alibi for the time of the killing — Stone was in his apartment, alone, and Maggie claimed she’d been alone at home, too.

But to cover for each other, they had lied to the cops about being together at Marley’s penthouse, waiting for his return for a Christmas Eve supper.

“If people think we’re an item,” Stone told her, “we’ll be prime suspects!”

“It’s been a year...”

“That’s not long enough.”

She threw her head back and her blonde hair shimmered, and so did her diamond earrings. “I want to get out of black, and be on your arm, unashamed...”

“Since when were you ever ashamed of anything?” He shuddered, wishing he’d never met Maggie Marley, let alone climbed in bed with her; now, he was in bed with her, for God knew how long, and in every sense of the word...

She touched his face with a gloved hand. “Are we spending Christmas Eve together, Richard?”

“Can’t, baby. Gotta spend it with relatives.”

“Who, your uncle and aunt?” She smirked in disbelief. “I can’t believe you’re going back to farm country, to see them... You hate it there!”

“Hey, wouldn’t be right not seein’ ’em. Christmas and all.”

Her gaze seemed troubled. “I’d hoped we could talk. Richard... we may have a problem...”

“Such as?”

“... Eddie’s trying to blackmail me.”

“Eddie? What does that slimy little bastard want?”

Eddie was Jake Marley’s brother.

“He’s in over his head with the Outfit,” she said.

“What, gambling losses again? He’ll never learn...”

“He’s trying to squeeze me for dough,” she said urgently. “He’s got photos of us, together... at that resort!”

“So what?” He shrugged.

“Photos of us in our room at that resort... and he’s got the guest register.”

Stone frowned. “That was just a week after Jake was killed.”

“I know. You were... consoling me.”

Who was she trying to kid?

Stone said, “I’ll talk to him.”

She moved close to him again. “He’s waiting for me now, at the Blue Spot Bar... would you keep the appointment for me, Richard?”

And she kissed him. Nobody kissed hotter than this dame. Or colder...

Half an hour later, Stone entered the smoky Rush Street saloon, where a thrush in a gown cut to her toenails was embracing the microphone, singing “White Christmas” off-key.

He found mustached weasel Eddie Marley sitting at the bar working on a Scotch — a bald little man in a bow tie and a plaid zoot suit.

“Hey, Dickie... nice to see ya. Buy ya a snort?”

“Don’t call me ‘Dickie.’ ”

“Stoney, then.”

“Grab your topcoat and let’s talk in my office,” Stone said, nodding toward the alley door.

A cat chasing a rat made garbage cans clatter as the two men came out into the alley. A cold Christmas rain was falling, puddling on the frozen remains of a snow and ice storm from a week before. Ducking into the recession of a doorway, Eddie got out a cigarette and Stone, a statue standing out in the rain, leaned in with a Zippo to light it for him.

For a moment, the world wasn’t pitch dark. But only for a moment.

“I don’t like to stick it to ya, Stoney... but if I don’t cough up five gees to the Outfit, I won’t live to see ’43! My brother left me high and dry, ya know.”

“I’m all choked up, Eddie.”

Eddie was shrugging. “Jake’s life insurance paid off big — double indemnity. So Maggie’s sittin’ pretty. And the agency partnership reverted to you — so you’re in the gravy. Where’s that leave Eddie?”

Stone picked him up by the throat. The little man’s eyes opened wide and his cigarette tumbled from his lips and sizzled in a puddle.

“It leaves you on your ass, Eddie.”

And the detective hurled the little man into the alley, onto the pavement, where he bounced up against some garbage cans.

“Ya shouldn’ta done that, ya bastid! I got the goods on ya!”

Stone’s footsteps splashed toward the little man. “You got nothin’, Eddie.”

“I got photos! I got your handwritin’ on a motel register!”

“Don’t try to tell me the bedroom-dick business. You bring me the negatives and the register page, and I’ll give you five C’s. First and last payment.”

The weasel’s eyes went very wide. “Five C’s?!? I need five G’s by tomorrow — they’ll break my knees if I don’t pay up! Have a heart — have some Christmas charity, fer chrissakes!”

Stone pulled his trenchcoat collar up around his face. “I gave at the office, Eddie. Five C’s is all you get.”

“What are ya — Scrooge? Maggie’s rich! And you’re rolling in your own dough!”

Stone kicked Eddie in the side and the little man howled.

“The negatives and the register page, Eddie. Hit me up again and you’ll take a permanent swim in the Chicago river. Agreed?”

“Agreed! Don’t hurt me anymore! Agreed!”

“Merry X-mas, moron,” Stone said, and exited the alley, pausing near the street to light up his own cigarette. Christmas carols were being piped through department-store loud speakers: “Joy to the world!”

“In a rat’s ass,” he muttered, and hailed a taxi. In the back seat, he sipped rum from a flask. The cabbie made holiday small talk and Stone said, “Make you a deal — skip the chatter and maybe you’ll get a tip for Christmas.”

Inside his Gold Coast apartment building, Stone was waiting for the elevator when he caught a strange reflection in a lobby mirror. He saw — or thought he saw — an imposing trenchcoated figure in a fedora standing behind him.

His late partner — Jake Marley!

Stone whirled, but... no one was there.

He blew out air, glanced at the mirror again, seeing only himself. “No more rum for you, pal.”

On the seventh floor, Stone unlocked 714 and slipped inside his apartment. The art moderne furnishings reflected his financial success; the divorce racket had made him damn near wealthy. He tossed his jacket on a half-circle white couch, loosened his tie and headed to his well-appointed bar, already changing his mind about more rum.

He’d been lying, of course, about going to see his uncle and aunt. Christmas out in the sticks — that was a laugh! That had just been an excuse, so he didn’t have to spend the night with that blood-sucking Maggie.

From the ice box he built a salami and swiss cheese on rye, smearing on hot mustard. Drifting back into the living room, where only one small lamp was on, he switched on his console radio, searching for sports or swing music or even war news, anything other than damn Christmas carols. But that maudlin muck was all he could find, and he switched it off in disgust.

Settling in a comfy overstuffed chair, still in his shoulder holster, he sat and ate and drank. Boredom crept in on him like ground fog.

Katie was busy with family tonight, and even most of the hookers he knew were taking the night off.

What the hell, he thought. I’ll just enjoy my own good company...

Without realizing it, he drifted off to sleep; a noise woke him, and Sadie — his trusty .38 — was in his hand before his eyes had opened all the way.

“Who’s there?” he said, and stood. Somebody had switched off the lamp! Who in hell? The room was in near darkness...

“Sorry, keed,” a familiar voice said. “The light hurts my peepers.”

Standing by the window was his late partner — Jake Marley.

“I must be dreamin’,” Stone said rationally, after just the briefest flinch of a reaction, “ ’cause, pal — you’re dead as a doornail.”

“I’m dead, all right,” Marley said. “Been dead a whole year.” Red neon, from the window behind him, pulsed in on the tall, trenchcoated fedora-sporting figure — a hawkishly handsome man with a grooved face and thin mustache. “But, keed — you ain’t dreamin’.”

“What sorta gag is this...?”

Stone walked over to Marley and took a close look: no make-up, no mask — it was no masquerade. And the trenchcoat had four scorched holes stitched across the front.

Bullet holes.

He put a hand on Marley’s shoulder — and it passed right through.

“Jesus!” Stone stepped back. “You’re not dead — I’m dead drunk.” He turned away. “Havin’ the heebie-jeebies or somethin’. When I wake up, you better be gone, or I’m callin’ Ripley...”

Marley smiled a little. “Nobody can see me but you, keed. Talk about it, and they’ll toss ya in the laughin’ academy, and toss away the key. Mind if I siddown? Feet are killin’ me.”

“Your eyes hurt, your feet hurt — what kinda goddamn ghost are you, anyway?”

“ ’Zactly what you said, keed,” Marley said, and he slowly moved toward the sofa, dragging himself along, to the sound of metallic scraping. “The God-damned kind... and I’ll stay that way if you don’t come through for me.”

Below the trenchcoat, Marley’s feet were heavily shackled, like a chain-gang prisoner.

“You think mine’s heavy,” Marley said, “wait’ll ya see what the boys in the metal shop are cookin’ up for you.”

The ghost sat heavily, his shackles clanking. Stone kept his distance.

“What do ya want from me, Jake?”

“The near-impossible, keed — I want ya to do the right thing.”

“The right thing?”

“Find my murderer, ya chowderhead! Jesus!” At that last exclamation, Marley cowered, glanced upward, muttering, “No offense, Boss,” and continued: “You’re a detective, Stoney — when a detective’s partner’s killed, he’s supposed to do somethin’ about it. That’s the code.”

“That’s the bunk,” Stone said. “I left it to the cops. They mucked it up.” He shrugged. “End of story.”

“Nooooo!” Marley moaned, sounding like a ghost for the first time, and making the hair stand up on Stone’s neck. “I was your partner, I was your only friend... your mentor... and you let me die an unsolved murder while you took over my business — and my wife.”

Stone flinched again; lighted up a Lucky. “You know about that, huh? Maggie, I mean.”

“Of course I know!” Marley waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, her I don’t care two cents about... she always was a witch, with a capital ‘b.’ Having her in your life is punishment enough for any crime. But, keed — you and me, we’re tied to each other! Chained for eternity...”

Convinced he was dreaming, Stone snorted.

“Really, Jake? How come?”

Marley leaned forward and his shackles clanked. “My best pal — a detective — didn’t think I was worth a measly murder investigation. Where I come from, a man who can’t inspire any more loyalty than that outta his best pal is one lost soul.”

Stone shrugged. “It was nothin’ personal.”

“Oh, I take gettin’ murdered real personal! And you didn’t give a rat’s ass who killed me! And that’s why you’re as good as damned.”

“Baloney!” Stone touched his stomach. “... or maybe salami...”

Marley shifted in his seat and his shackles rattled. “You knew I always looked after my little brother, Eddie — he’s a louse and weakling, but he was the only brother I had... and what have you done for Eddie? Tossed him in some garbage cans! Left ’im for the Boys to measure for cement overshoes!”

“He’s a weasel.”

“He’s your dead best pal’s brother! Cut him some slack!”

“I did cut him some slack! I didn’t kill him when he tried to blackmail me.”

“Over you sleeping with his dead brother’s wife, you mean?”

Stone batted the air dismissively. “The hell with you, Marley! You’re not real! You’re some meat that went bad. Some mustard that didn’t agree with me. I’m goin’ to bed.”

“You were right the first time,” Marley said. “You’re goin’ to hell... or anyway, hell’s waitin’ room. Like me.” Marley’s voice softened into a plea. “Stoney — help me outa this, pal. Help yourself.”

“How?”

“Solve my murder.”

Stone blew a smoke ring. “Is that all?”

Marley stood and a howling wind seemed to blow through the apartment, drapes waving like ghosts. “It means something to me!”

Now Stone was sweating; this was happening.

“One year ago,” Marley said in a deep rumbling voice, “they found me in the alley behind the Bismarck Hotel, my back to the wall, one bullet in the pump, two in the stomach, and one in between... remember?”

And Marley removed the bullet-scorched trenchcoat to reveal the four wounds — beams of red neon light from the window behind him cut through Marley like swords through a magician’s box.

“Remember?”

Stone was backing up, patting the air with his palms. “Okay, okay... why don’t you just tell me who bumped you off, and I’ll settle up for you. Then we’ll be square.”

“It’s not that easy... I’m not ... allowed to tell you.”

“Who made these goddamn rules?”

Marley raised an eyebrow, lifted a finger, pointed up. “Right again. To save us both, you gotta act like a detective... you gotta look for clues... and you must do this yourself... though you will be aided.”

“How?”

“You’re gonna have three more visitors.”

“Swell! Who’s first? Karloff, or Lugosi?”

Marley moved away from the couch, toward the door, shackles clanking. “Don’t blow it for the both of us, keed,” he said, and left through the door — through the door.

Stone stood staring at where his late partner had literally disappeared, and shook his head. Then he went to the bar and poured himself a drink. Soon he was questioning the reality of what had just happened; and, a drink later, he stumbled into his bedroom and flopped onto his bed, fully clothed.

He was sleeping the sound sleep of the dead-drunk when his bed got jostled.

Somebody was kicking it.

Waking to semi-darkness, Stone said, “Who in hell...”

Looming over him was a roughly handsome, Clark Gable — mustached figure in a straw hat and a white double-breasted seersucker.

Stone dove for Sadie, his .38 in its shoulder holster slung over his nightstand, but then, in an eyeblink, the guy was gone.

“Over here, boyo.”

Stone turned and the guy in the jauntily cocked straw hat was standing there, picking his teeth with a toothpick.

“Save yourself the ammo,” the guy said. “They already got me.”

And he unbuttoned his jacket and displayed several ugly gaping exit wounds.

“In the back,” the guy said, “the bastards.”

The guy looked oddly familiar. “Who the hell are you?”

“Let’s put it this way. If a bunch of trigger-happy feds are chasin’ ya, don’t duck down that alley by the Biograph — it’s a dead-end, brother.”

“John Dillinger!”

“Right — only it’s a hard ‘g,’ like in gun: Dillin-ger. Okay, sonny? Pet peeve o’ mine.” Dillinger was buttoning up his jacket.

“You... you must not have been killed wearing that suit.”

“Naw — it’s new. Christmas present from the Boss. I got a pretty good racket goin’ here — helpin’ chumps like you make good. Another five hundred years, and I get sprung.”

“How exactly is a cheap crook like you gonna help me make good?”

Dillinger grabbed Stone by the shirt front. Stone took a swing at the ghost, but his hand only passed through.

“There ain’t nothin’ cheap about John Dillinger! I didn’t rob nobody but banks, and times was hard, then, banks was the bad guys... and I never shot nobody. Otherwise, I’da got the big heat.”

“The big heat?”

Dillinger raised an eyebrow and angled a thumb, downward. “Which is where you’re headed, sonny, if you don’t get your lousy head screwed on right. Come with me.”

“Where are we goin’?”

“Into your past. Maybe that’s why I got picked for this caper — see, I was a Midwest farm kid like you. Come on! Don’t make me drag ya...”

Reluctantly, Stone followed the spirit into the next room...

... where Stone found himself not in the living room of his apartment, but in the snowy yard out in front of a small farmhouse. Snowflakes fell lazily upon an idyllic rural winter landscape; an eight-year-old boy was building a snowman.

“I know this place,” Stone said.

“You know the kid, too,” Dillinger said. “It’s you. You live in that house.”

“Why aren’t I cold? It’s gotta be freezing, but I feel like I’m still in my apartment.”

“You’re a shadow here, just like me,” Dillinger said.

“Dickie!” a voice called from the porch. “Come inside — you’ll catch your death!”

“Ma!” Stone said, and moved toward her. He studied her serene, beautiful face in the doorway. “Ma...”

He tried to touch her and his hand passed through.

Behind him, Dillinger said, “I told ya, boyo — you’re a shadow. Just lean back and watch... maybe you’ll learn somethin’.”

Then eight-year-old Dickie Stone ran right through the shadow of his future self, and inside the house, closing the door behind him, leaving Stone and Dillinger on the porch.

“Now what?” Stone asked.

“Since when were you shy about breaking and entering?” Dillinger said.

And walked through the door...

“Look who’s talking,” Stone said. He took a breath and followed.

Stone found himself in the cozy farmhouse, warmed by a wood-burning stove, which, surprisingly, he could feel. In one corner of the modestly furnished living room stood a pine tree, almost too tall for the room to contain, decorated with tinsel and a star, wrapped gifts scattered under it. A spinet piano hugged a wall. Stone watched his eight-year-old self strip out of an aviator cap and woolen coat and boots and sit at a little table where he began working on a puzzle.

“Five hundred pieces,” Stone said. “It’s a picture of Tom Mix and his horse what’s-his-name.”

“Tony,” said Dillinger.

“God, will ya smell that pine tree! And my mother’s cooking! If I’m a shadow, how come I can smell her cooking?”

“Hey, pal — don’t ask me. I’m just the tour guide. Maybe somebody upstairs wants your memory jogged.”

Stone moved into the kitchen, where his mother was at the stove, stirring gravy.

“God, that gravy smells good... can you smell it?”

“No,” said Dillinger.

“She’s baking mincemeat pie, too... you’re lucky you can’t smell that. Garbage! But Pa always liked it...”

“My ma made a mean plum pudding at Christmas,” Dillinger said.

“Mine, too! It’s bubbling on the stove! Can’t you smell it?”

“No! This is your past, pal, not mine...”

The back door opened and a man in a blue denim coat and woolen knit cap entered, stomping the snow off his workboots.

“That mincemeat pie must be what heaven smells like,” the man said. Sky-blue eyes were an incongruously gentle presence in his hard, weathered face.

“Pa,” Stone said.

Taking off his jacket, the man walked right through the shadow of his grown son. “Roads are still snowed in,” his father told his mother.

“Oh dear! I was so counting on Bob and Helen for Christmas supper!”

“That’s my uncle and aunt,” Stone told Dillinger. “Bob was mom’s brother.”

“They’ll be here,” Pa Stone said, with a thin smile. “Davey took the horse and buggy into town after them.”

“My brother Davey,” Stone explained to Dillinger.

“Oh dear,” his mother was saying. “He’s so frail... oh how could you...”

“Send a boy to do a man’s job? Sarah, Davey’s sixteen. Proud as I am of the boy for his school marks, he’s got to learn to be a man. Anyway, he wanted to do it. He likes to help.”

Stone’s ma could only say, “Oh dear,” again and again.

“Now, Sarah — I’ll not have these boys babied!”

“Well, the old S. O. B. sure didn’t baby me,”

Stone said to Dillinger.

“Davey just doesn’t have Dickie’s spirit,” said Pa. “Dickie’s always getting in scrapes, and he sure don’t make the grades Davey does, but the boy’s got gumption and guts.”

Stone had never known his pa felt that way about him.

“Then why are you so hard on the child, Jess?” his mother was asking. “Last time he got caught playing hookey from school, you gave him the waling of his life.”

“How else is the boy to learn? That’s how my pa taught me the straight and narrow path.”

“Straight and narrow razor strap’s more like it,” Stone said.

Ma was stroking Pa’s rough face. “You love both your boys. It’s Christmas, Jess. Why don’t you tell ’em how you feel?”

“They know,” he said gruffly.

Emotions churned in Stone, and he didn’t like it. “Tour guide — I’ve had about all of this I can take...”

“Not just yet,” Dillinger said. “Let’s go in the other room.”

They did, but it was suddenly later, after dark, the living room filled with family members sitting on sofas and chairs and even the floor, having cider after a supper that everybody was raving about.

A pudgy, good-natured man in his forties was saying to eight-year-old Dickie, “How do you like your gift, young man?”

The boy was wearing a policeman’s cap and a little tin badge; he also had a miniature nightstick, a pair of handcuffs, and a traffic whistle. “It’s the cat’s meow, Uncle Bob!”

“Where does he get those vulgar expressions?” his mother asked disapprovingly, but not sternly.

“Cap’n Billy’s Whiz Bang,” Stone whispered to Dillinger.

“Never missed an issue myself,” Dillinger said.

The boy started blowing the whistle shrilly and there was laughter, but the boy’s father said,

“Enough!”

And the boy obeyed.

The door opened. A boy of sixteen, but skinny and not much taller than Dickie, came in; bundled in winter clothes, he was bringing in a pile of firewood for the wood-burning stove.

“Davey,” Stone said.

“Did you like your older brother?” Dillinger asked.

“He was a great guy. You could always depend on him for a smile or a helpin’ hand... But what did it get him?”

Out of his winter jacket, firewood deposited, Davey went over to his younger brother and ruffled his hair. “Gonna get the bad guys, little brother?”

“I’m gonna bop ’em,” Dickie said, “then slap the cuffs on!”

“On Christmas?” Davey asked. “Even crooks got a right to celebrate the Savior’s birth, don’t ya think?”

“Yeah. Well, okay... day after, then.”

Everybody was laughing as little Dickie swung his nightstick at imaginary felons.

“Dickie, my lad,” said Uncle Bob, “someday I’ll hire you on at the station.”

Stone explained to Dillinger: “He was police chief, over at DeKalb.”

“Peachy,” said Dillinger.

Davey said, “Ma — how about sitting down at the piano, and helping put us all in the Yuletide spirit?”

“Yeah, Ma!” said little Dickie. “Tickle the ol’ ivories!”

Soon the group was singing carols, Davey leading them: “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen...”

“Seen enough?” Dillinger said.

“Just a second,” Stone said. “Let me hear a little more... this is the last decent Christmas I can remember...”

After a while, the gaily singing people began to fade, but the room remained, and suddenly Stone saw the figure of his father, kneeling at the window, a rifle in his hands, face contorted savagely. There was no Christmas tree, although Stone knew at once that this was indeed a later Christmas Day in his family’s history. His mother cowered by the piano; she seemed frightened and on the verge of tears. A fourteen-year-old Dickie was crouched beside his father near the window.

“God,” said Stone. “Not this Christmas...”

“Son,” his pa was saying to the teenage Stone, “I want you and your mother to go on out.”

“No, Pa! I want to stay beside you! Ma should go, but...”

“You’re not too big to get your hide tanned, boy.”

“Pa...”

A voice through a megaphone outside called: “Jess! It’s Bob! Let me come in and at least talk!”

“When hell freezes over!” Pa shouted. “Now get off my property, or so help me, I’ll shoot you where you stand!”

“Jess, that’s my brother,” Ma said, tears brimming. “And it’s... it’s not our property, anymore...”

“Whose is it, then? The bank’s? Did the bankers work this ground for twenty years? Did the bankers put blood and sweat and years into this land?”

Dillinger elbowed Stone. “That’s why this country needed guys like me. Say — where’s your older brother, anyway?”

“Dead,” Stone said. “He caught pneumonia the winter of ’28... stayed outside for hours and hours, helping get some family’s flivver out of a ditch in the wind and cold. All my folks’ dreams died with him.”

“Let Bob come in,” Ma was saying. “Hear him out.”

Pa thought it over; he looked so much older, now. Not years older — decades. Finally he said, “All right. For you, Sarah. Just ’cause he’s kin of yours.”

When the door opened, and Bob came in, he was in full police-chief array, under a fur-lined jacket; the badge on his cap gleamed.

“Jess,” he said solemnly, “you’re at the end of your string. I wish I could help you, but the bank’s foreclosed, and the law’s the law.”

“Why’s the law on their side?” teenage Stone asked. “Isn’t the law supposed to help everybody equal?”

“People with money get treated a hell of a lot more equal, son,” his father said bitterly.

“I worked out a deal,” Bob said. “You can keep your furniture. I can come over with the paddy wagon and load ’er up with your things; we’ll store ’em in my garage. There’ll be no charges brought. Helen and I have room for you and Sarah and Dick — you can stay with us till you find something.”

The rifle was still in Pa’s hands. “This is my home, Robert.”

“No, Jess — it’s a house the bank owns. Your home is your family, and you take them with you. Let me ask you this — what would Davey want you to do?”

Stone looked away; he knew what was coming: one of two times he ever saw his father cry — the other was the night Davey died.

A single tear running down his cheek, Pa said, “How am I supposed to support my family?”

Bob’s voice was gentle: “I got friends at the barb-wire factory. Already talked to ’em about you. They’ll take you on. Having a job in times like these is a blessing.”

Pa nodded. He sighed, handed his rifle over. “Thank you, Robert.”

“Yeah, Uncle Bob,” teenage Stone said sarcastically. “Merry Christmas! In a rat’s ass...”

“Richard!” his ma said.

His father slapped him.

“You ever do that to me again, old man,” teenage Stone said, pointing a hard finger at his father, “I’ll knock your damn block off!”

And as his teenage self rushed out, Stone shook his head. “Jesus! Did I have to say that to him, right then? Poor bastard hits rock bottom, and I find a way to push him down lower...”

Pa was standing rigidly, looking downward, as Ma clung to him in a desperate embrace. Uncle Bob, looking ashamed of himself, trudged out.

“You were just a kid,” Dillinger said. “What did you know?”

“Why are you puttin’ me through this hell?” Stone demanded. “I can’t change the past! What does any of this have to do with finding out who killed Jake Marley?!”

“Don’t ask me!” Dillinger flared. “I’m just the damn help!”

The bank robber’s ghost stalked out, and Stone — not eager to be left in this part of his past — quickly followed.

Stone now found himself, and his ghostly companion, in the reception area of a smalltown police station where officers milled and a reception desk loomed. Dillinger led Stone to a partitioned-off office where a Christmas wreath hung on a frosted glass door, which they went through without opening.

Jake Marley, Deputy Chief of Police of Dekalb, Illinois, sat leaned back in his chair, at his desk, smiling as he opened Christmas cards; as he did, cool green cash dropped out of each card.

“Lot of people remembered Jake at Christmas,” Stone said.

“Lot of people remember a lot of cops at Christmas,” Dillinger sneered.

A knock at the door prompted Marley to sweep the cash into a desk drawer. “Yeah?” he called gruffly. “What?”

The uniformed police officer who peeked in was a young Dick Stone. “Deputy Chief Marley? I had word you wanted me to drop by...?”

“Come on in, keed, come on in!” The slick mustached deputy chief gestured magnanimously to the chair opposite his desk. “Take a load off...”

Young Stone sat while his future self and the ghost of a public enemy eavesdropped nearby.

Marley’s smile tried a little too hard. “Yesterday was your first day on, I understand.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, I just wanted you to know I don’t hold it against you, none — you gettin’ this job through patronage.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Marley shrugged. “Nothin’. A guy does what he has to, to get ahead. It’s unusual, your Uncle Bob playin’ that kinda game, though. He’s a real straight arrow.”

“Uncle Bob’s kind of a square john, but he’s family and I stand by him.”

“Swell! Admirable, keed. Admirable. But there’s things go on around here that he don’t know about... and I’d like to keep it that way.”

Young Stone frowned. “Such as?”

“Let me put it this way — if you got a fifty-dollar bill every month, for just lookin’ the other way... if it was for something truly harmless... could you sleep at night?”

“Lookin’ the other way, how?”

Marley explained that he was from Chicago — in ’26, a local congressman greased the wheels for him to land this rural deputy chief slot, so he could do some favors for the Outfit.

“Not so much goin’ on now,” said Marley, “not like back in dry days, when the Boys had stills out here. Couple roadhouses where people like to have some extra-legal fun...”

“Gambling and girls, you mean.”

“Right. And there’s a farmhouse the Boys use, when things get hot in the city, and a field where they like to do some... planting... now and then.”

“I don’t think I could sleep at night, knowing that’s going on.”

Marley’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh?”

“Not for fifty a month.” The young officer grinned. “Seventy-five, maybe. A C-note, and I’d be asleep when my head hit the pillow.”

Marley stuck his hand across his desk. “I think this is gonna be the start of a beautiful friendship.”

They shook hands, but when young Stone brought his hand back, there was a C-note in it.

“Merry Christmas, Mr. Marley.”

“Make it ‘Jake.’ Many happy returns, keed.”

Dillinger tugged Stone’s arm and they walked through the office wall and were suddenly in another office: the outer office of MARLEY AND STONE: CONFIDENTIAL INVESTIGATIONS. Katie was watering the base of a Christmas tree in the corner.

“This is, what?” Dillinger asked Stone. “Five years ago?”

“Right. Christmas Eve, ’37, I think...”

Marley was whispering to a five-years’ younger Stone. “Nice-lookin’ twist you hired.”

“She’ll class up the front office. And remember, Jake — I saw her first.”

Marley grinned. “What do I need with a kid like her, when I got a woman like Maggie? Ah! Speak of the devil...”

Maggie was entering the outer office on the arm of a blond, boyishly handsome man in a crisp business suit.

“Stoney,” Marley said, “meet our biggest client: this is Larry Turner... he’s the V. P. with Consolidated who’s tossing all that investigating our way.”

“Couldn’t do this without you, Mr. Turner,” Stone said.

“Make it ‘Larry,’ ” he said. “Pleasure to do business with such a well-connected firm.”

Dillinger said, “What’s this boy scout’s angle?”

Stone said, “We been kicking that boy scout back twenty percent of what his firm pays us since day one. I don’t know how Jake knew him, but Consolidated was the account that let us leave DeKalb and set up shop in the Loop.”

“How’d your Uncle Bob feel about you leaving the force?”

“He damn near cried... he always figured I’d step in and fill his shoes someday. Poor yokel... just didn’t have a clue — all that corruption going on right under his nose.”

“By his deputy chief and his nephew, you mean.”

Stone said nothing, but the five-years-ago him was saying to Marley, “Look — this insurance racket is swell. But the real dough is in divorce work.”

“You’re right, keed. I’m ahead of you... we get the incriminating photos of the cheating spouse, then sell ’em to the highest bidder.”

“Sweet! That’s what they get for not love, honor, and obeyin’.”

The private eyes shared a big horse laugh. Katie looked their way and smiled, glad to see her bosses enjoying themselves on Christmas Eve.

“Come on,” Dillinger said, summoning Stone with a crooked finger.

And the late bank robber walked Stone through a wall into the alley where Jake Marley lay crumpled against a brick wall, between two garbage cans, holes shot in the front of him, eyes wide and empty and staring.

Sgt. Hank Ross was showing the body to Stone. “Thought you better see this, pal. Poor slob never even got his gun out. Still tucked away under his buttoned-up topcoat. Shooter musta been somebody who knew him, don’t ya figure?”

Stone shrugged. “You’re the homicide dick.”

“Now, Stoney... I don’t want you looking into this. I know he was your partner, and your friend, but...”

“You talked me out of it.” Stone lighted up a Lucky. “I’ll take care of informin’ the widow.”

Ross just looked at him. Then he said, “Merry goddamn Christmas, Stoney.”

“In a rat’s ass,” he said, turning away from his dead partner.

“Jeez!” Dillinger said. “That’s cold! Couldn’t ya squeeze out just one tear for your old pal?”

Stone said nothing. His year-ago self walked right through him.

“You want the truth, Dillin-ger? All I was thinkin’ was, with all the people he jacked around, Jake was lucky to’ve lived this long. And how our partnership agreement spelled out that the business was mine, now.”

“Hell! I thought Gillis was cold.”

“Gillis?”

“Lester Gillis. Baby Face Nelson to you. Come on, sonny. You and me reached the end of the line.”

And Dillinger shoved Stone, hard — right through the brick wall; and when the detective blinked again, he was alone on his bed, in his apartment.

He sat up; rubbed his eyes, scratched his head. “Meat shortage or not, that salami gets pitched...”

He flopped back on the bed, still fully dressed, and stared at the ceiling; the dream was hanging with him — thoughts, images, of his mother, father, brother, even Marley, floated in front of him, speaking to him...

Out in the other room, the doorbell rang, startling him. He checked the round bakelite clock on his nightstand: two a.m. Who in hell would be calling on him at this hour?

On the other hand, he thought as he stumbled out to his door, talking to somebody with a pulse would be nice for a change...

And there on his doorstep was a crisply uniformed soldier, a freshly scrubbed young man with his overseas cap tugged down onto his forehead.

“Mr. Stone?”

“Ben? Is that you? Ben Crockett!” Stone’s grin split his face. “Katie’s little brother, back from the wars — is she gonna be tickled!”

The boy seemed somewhat dazed as he stepped inside.

“Uh, Ben... if you’re lookin’ for Katie, she’s at her place tonight.”

“I’m here to see you, Mr. Stone.”

“Well, that’s swell, kid... but why?”

“I’m not really sure,” the boy said. “May I sit down?”

“Sure, kid, sure! You want something to drink?”

“No thanks. You’ll have to excuse me, sir — I’m kinda confused. The briefing I got... it was pretty screwy.”

“Briefing?”

“Yeah. This is a temporary assignment. But they said I was ‘uniquely qualified’ for this mission.”

“What do they want you to do, kid? Haul me down for another physical?”

“That reminds me!” Private Crockett dug into a pocket and found a scrap of paper. “Does this mean anything to you? ‘Tell the 4-F Mr. Stone he really does have flat feet and the doctor he paid off was scamming him.’ ”

Stone’s mouth dropped open, then he laughed. “Well, that’s a Chicago doc for ya. So, is that the extent of your ‘mission’?”

The boy tucked the scrap of paper away. “No. There’s more... and it’s weird. I’m supposed to tell you to go look in the mirror.”

“Look in the mirror?”

“Yeah — that one over there, I guess.”

“Kid...”

“Please, Mr. Stone. I don’t think I get to go home for Christmas till I get this done.”

Stone sighed, said okay, and shuffled over to the mirror near his console radio; he saw his now unshaven, slightly bleary-eyed reflection, and the boy in his trim overseas cap looking gravely over his shoulder. “Now what, kid?”

“You’re supposed to look in there, is all. I was told you’re gonna see tomorrow... or, actually, it’s after midnight already, ain’t it? Anyway, Christmas Day, 1942...”

And the mirror before Stone became a window.

Through the window, he saw Maggie Marley and Larry Turner, the insurance company V. P., toasting cocktail glasses — Maggie in a negligee, Turner in a silk smoking jacket; they were snuggled on a couch in her fancy apartment.

“What the hell’s this?” Stone asked. “Maggie and that snake Turner... since when are they an item?”

“How much longer,” Maggie was saying to Turner, “do I have to put up with him?”

“You need Stone,” Turner said, nuzzling her neck. “He’s your alibi, baby.”

“But I didn’t kill Jake!”

“Sure you didn’t. Sure you didn’t... anyway, string him along a little way, then let him down easy... Right now you still need him in your pocket. He helped you get Eddie off your tail, didn’t he?”

Maggie frowned. “Well... you’re right about that. But his touch... it makes my skin crawl...”

“Why you little...” Stone began.

But the images in the mirror blurred, and were replaced with another image: Eddie Marley, in his sleazy little apartment, not answering his door, cowering as somebody out there was banging with a fist.

“Let us in, Eddie! We got a Christmas present for ya!”

Eddie, sweating, shaking like crazy, looked at a framed photo of his late brother Jake.

“How could you do this to me, Jake?” he whispered. “You promised you’d take care of me...”

The door splintered open and two Outfit thugs — huge hulking faceless creatures in topcoats and fedoras — cornered him quickly.

“Gimme another week, fellas! I can get ya five C’s today, to tide us over till then!”

“Too late, Eddie,” one ominous goon said. “You kept the Outfit waitin’ just one time too many...”

A hand filled itself with a .45 automatic that erupted once, twice, three times. Eddie crumpled to the floor, bleeding. Dying.

“Jake... Jake... you let me down... you promised...”

The mirror blurred again. Stone looked at Private Crockett. “Is that a done deal, kid? If that’s gonna happen Christmas Day, can’t I still bail that little weasel out...?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Stone. They didn’t tell me that.”

A new image began to form in the mirror: Stone’s young employee, Joey Ernest, seated in his living room, by a fireplace, looking glum — in fact, he seemed on the verge of tears. Nearby, his little boy of six and his little girl of four were playing with some nice new toys under a tree bright with Christmas lights.

Joey’s wife Linda, a pretty blonde in a red Christmas dress, came over and slipped an arm around him.

“Why are you so blue, darling?”

“I can’t help it... I know I should be happy. It’s been a great Christmas... but I feel so... so ashamed...”

“Darling...”

“Other guys my age, they’re fighting on bloody beaches to preserve the honor and glory of God and country. Me, I crawl around under beds and hide in hotel closets and take dirty pictures of adulterers.”

“Joey! The children!”

“I know! The children... I want to give them a good life... but do I have to do it like this? Covering up for my philandering boss, among a million other indignities? I’m quitting! I swear, I’m quitting Monday!”

She kissed his cheek. “Then I’ll stand right beside you.”

He gave her a hangdog look. “I shouldn’t have got us so far in over our heads with all these time payments... How are we gonna make it, Linda?”

“I’m going to take that job at the defense plant. Mom can look after the kids, when one of us isn’t here. It’s going to be fine.”

“Aw, Linda. I love you so much. Merry Christmas, baby.”

“Merry Christmas, darling.”

They were embracing as the image blurred.

Now the mirror filled with a tableau of homeless men in a soup kitchen. They were standing in line, receiving soup and bread and a hot meal. Serving them was the pretty young Salvation Army worker Stone made a pass at, at the office. In the background, voices of men at the mission were singing a carol: “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”

“We used to sing that song at home,” Stone told the soldier. “My ma would play the piano. Christ! What a heel.”

“Who, Mr. Stone?”

But the image on the mirror was different again: Katie Crockett and a plump older woman and a frail-looking older man...

“Hey, kid,” Stone said, “it’s your sister!”

“And my folks,” he said quietly.

... sitting around the Christmas tree in Katie’s little apartment, opening presents and chatting happily. The doorbell rang, and Katie bounced up to answer it.

But she didn’t come bouncing back.

“It’s... it’s a telegram from the war department,” Katie said.

“Oh no!” her mother said. “Not...”

“It’s Ben, isn’t it?” her father said.

They huddled together and read the telegram and tears streamed down their faces.

“Well, that’s wrong, kid,” Stone said to Private Crockett. “You gotta go there tomorrow, and straighten that out. It’s breaking their hearts — they think you’re dead!”

“Mr. Stone,” the boy said, removing his overseas cap, revealing the bullet hole in the center of his forehead, “I’m afraid they’re right.”

“God...”

“I have to go home now,” he said. “Tell sis I love her, would you, Mr. Stone? And the folks, too?”

The young soldier, like another image blurring in the mirror, faded away.

Alone in his bedroom again, Stone held his throbbing head in his hands. “Did somebody slip me a mickey or something?” Exhausted, he stumbled back to his bed, falling face first, and sleep, mercifully, descended.

I’ll have a blue Christmas without you...

Stone’s eyes popped open; his bedroom was still dark. Someone was singing, a sort of hillbilly Bing Crosby, a strange voice, an earthy unearthly voice...

... blue Christmas, that’s certain...

The little round clock said 4 a.m.

... decorations of white...

“What the hell is that racket? The radio?”

“It’s me, sir,” the same voice said. Mellow, baritone, slurry.

Stone hauled himself off the bed and beheld the strangest apparition of all: the man standing before him wore a white leather outfit with a cape, glittering with rhinestones. The (slightly overweight) man had longish jet black hair, an insolently handsome if puffy face, and heavy-lidded eyes.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Ah don’t mean to soun’ immodest, sir,” he said huskily, “but where ah come from they call me ‘the King.’ ”

“Don’t tell me you’re Jesus Christ!” Stone said, eyes popping.

“Not hardly, sir. Ah’m just a poor country boy. Right now, ah’d be about seven years old, sir.”

“If you’re seven years old, I’d cut down on the Baby Ruths, if I was you.”

The apparition in white moved toward him, a leather ghost; his shoes were strange, too — rhinestone-studded white cowboy boots. “Ah’m afraid you don’t understand, sir — ah’m the ghost of somebody who hasn’t grown up and lived yet, in your day... let alone died.”

“You haven’t died yet, but you’re a ghost? A ghost in a white-leather zoot suit! This is the best one yet. This is my favorite so far...”

“See, ah was a very famous person, or ah’m goin’ to be. Ah really don’t mean to brag, but ah was bigger than the Beatles.”

“You’re the biggest bug I ever saw, period, pal.”

“Sir, ah abused my talent, and my body, so ah’m payin’ some dues. That’s how come ah got this gig.”

“ ‘Gig’?”

“Ah’m here to show you a little preview of comin’ attractions, sir. Somethin’ that’s gonna go down ’long about next Christmas... Christmas of ’43...”

The apparition struck a strange pose, as if turning his entire body into a pointing arrow, and suddenly both the King and Stone were in a small chapel, bedecked rather garishly with Christmas decorations that seemed un-church-like, somehow.

“Where are we?”

“Welcome to my world, sir. We’re a few years early to appreciate it, but someday, this is gonna be a real bright light city.”

“What are you talkin’ about?”

The King grinned sideways. “We’re in Vegas, man!”

Up at the front of the chapel, a man and woman faced a minister. Canned organ music was filtering in. A wedding ceremony was under way.

Stone walked up to have a look.

“I’ll be damned,” Stone said.

“That’s what we’re tryin’ to prevent, sir.”

“It’s Maggie and that creep Larry Turner! Getting hitched! Well, good riddance to both of ’em...”

“Maybe you oughta see how you’re spendin’ next Christmas...”

And now Stone and the rhinestone ghost were in a jail cell. So was a haggard-looking, next year’s Stone — in white-and-black prison garb, seated on his cot, looking desperate. On a stool across from him was Sgt. Hank Ross.

“Hank, you know I’m innocent!”

“I believe you, Stoney. But the jury didn’t. That eye witness held up...”

“He was bought and paid for!”

“... and your gun turning out to be the murder weapon, well...”

“You get an anonymous phone tip to match the slugs that killed Jake with my gun, a year later, and you don’t think that’s suspicious?”

“The ballistics tests were positive.”

“Some crooked cop must’ve switched the real bullets with some phonies shot from my gun! I told you, Hank, when I went to Miami on vacation, I left the gun in my desk drawer. Anybody coulda...”

“Old news, Stoney.”

“You gotta believe me...”

“I do. But with your appeal turned down...”

“What about the governor?”

“The papers want your ass, and the governor wants votes. You know how it works.”

“Yeah, Hank. I know how it works, all right...”

“Stoney, better put things right between you and your maker.” Ross sighed, heavily. “ ’Cause tomorrow about now... you’re gonna be meetin’ him.”

Ross patted his friend on the shoulder, called for the guard, and was soon gone. Stone stood and clung onto the bars of his cell as a forlorn harmonica played “Come All Ye Faithful.”

“Death row?” Stone said to the King. “Next Christmas, I’m on death row?”

“Sir, ah’m afraid that’s right. And ah think we’re gonna have to be movin’ on...”

And they were back in the apartment.

“I have no idea who the hell you are,” Stone said, “but I owe you. Of all the visions I’ve seen tonight, yours are the ones that brought it all home to me.”

“Thank you vurry much,” the King said.

Stone glanced away, but when he turned back, his visitor had left the building.

Almost dizzy, Stone fell back onto the bed, head whirling; sleep descended...

When he awakened, it was almost noon. He felt re-born. He showered and shaved, whistling “Joy to the World.” As he got dressed, he slung on his shoulder-holstered revolver, removing the gun and checking its cylinder.

“Jeez, Sadie,” Stone said. “What kinda girl are you? Loaded on Christmas...”

Chuckling, he tucked the gun in its holster, then frowned and had a closer look at the .38, studying its handle.

“I’ll be damned,” he said to himself. Then he smiled knowingly. “... Or maybe not.”

He slipped the gun back in its hand-tooled shoulder holster, tossed on his topcoat. Then, as an afterthought, he went to his wall safe and counted out five thousand dollars in C notes, and folded the wad in his pocket.

When Stone knocked at Eddie’s apartment, there was no answer. Was he too late? He yelled: “Eddie — it’s Stone! I got your cash. All five grand of it!”

Finally Eddie peeked out; he was a little bruised up from the rough handling Stone had given him last night. “What is this — a gag?”

“No. Lemme in.”

In the little apartment — strewn with old issues of Racing News, dirty clothes, and take-out dinner cartons — Stone counted the cash out to a stunned Eddie.

“What is this?”

“It’s a Christmas present, you little weasel.”

“Why...?”

“You’re my partner’s brother. I had a responsibility to help you out. But this is it... this’ll bail you out today, and don’t ask me for no more bail-outs in the future, got it? When the goons come, pay ’em off. And if you wanna lose your gambling habit, I might find some legwork for you to do, at the office. But otherwise, you’re on your own.”

“I don’t get it. Why help me, after I tried to blackmail you...?”

“Oh, well, I’ll break your arms if you try that again.”

“Now, that sounds like the old Stoney.”

“No — the old Stoney woulda killed you. Eddie — you said your brother promised to ‘take care of’ you, if anything happened to him. You seemed real sure of that...”

Eddie nodded emphatically. “He told me I was on his insurance policy — fifty percent was supposed to go to me, but somehow that witch wound up with all of it!”

Before long, Stone was knocking at the penthouse apartment door of the widow Marley.

Maggie tried not to betray her discomfort at seeing Stone. “Why, Richard,” she said, raising her voice, “what a lovely Christmas surpri—”

But he pushed past her, before Larry Turner could find a hiding place. Turner was caught by the fireplace, where no stockings were hung.

“Merry Christmas, Larry,” Stone said. “I got a present for ya...”

Stone pulled the .38 out from under his shoulder and pointed it at the trembling Turner, who wore the silk smoking jacket Stone had seen in the vision in the mirror last night.

“Actually, it’s a present you gave me,” Stone said. “My best friend — my best girl — is Sadie. My gun. Kind of a sad commentary, ain’t it?”

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Stone... just don’t point that thing at me...”

“Funny thing is, this isn’t Sadie. Imagine — me goin’ around with the wrong dame for over a year, and not knowin’ it!”

Maggie said, “Richard, please put that gun away—”

“Sweetheart, would you mind standin’ over there by your boy friend? I honestly don’t think you were in on this, but I’m not takin’ any chances.”

She started to say something, and Stone said, “Move!” and, with the .38, waved her over by Turner.

Stone continued: “Sometime last year, Larry... I don’t know when exactly, just that it had to be before Christmas Eve... you stole my Sadie, and substituted a similar gun. Trouble is, Sadie has a little chip out of the handle... tiny, but it’s there, only it’s not there on this gun.”

“Why in hell would I do that?” Turner asked.

“Because you wanted to use my gun to kill Jake with. Which you did.”

“Kill Jake! Why would I...”

“Because you and Maggie are an item. A secret item, but an item. You fixed her insurance policy so that all those double-indemnity dollars went to her, even though Jake intended his no-good brother get half. Jake considered you a friend — that’s why his hands were in his pockets, and his gun under his coat, when you got up close to him and sent him those thirty-eight caliber Christmas greetings.”

“With your gun? If any of this were true, I’d have given that gun to the police, long ago.”

“Not necessarily. You’re an insurance man... using my gun was like takin’ out a policy. Any time it looked like suspicion was headed your way, or even Maggie’s, you could switch guns again and make a nice little anonymous call.”

Maggie was watching Turner, eyes wide, horror growing. “Is this true? Did you kill Jake?”

“It’s nonsense,” Turner told her dismissively.

“Well, then,” she said bitterly, “what was that gun you had me put in my wall safe? For my ‘protection,’ you said!”

“Shut up,” he said.

“Now I know what I want for Christmas,” Stone said. “Maggie, open the safe.”

She went to an oil painting of herself, removed it, and revealed the round safe, which she opened.

“Stand aside, sweetheart,” Stone said, “and let him get the gun out.”

Turner, sweating, licked his lips and reached in and grabbed the gun, wheeled, fired, dove behind the nearby couch. When Turner peeked around to fire again at Stone, the detective had already dropped to the floor. Stone returned fire, his slug piercing a plump couch cushion. Turner popped up again, and Stone nailed him through the shoulder.

Turner yelped and fell, his dropped gun spinning away harmlessly on the marble floor.

Stone stood over Turner, who looked up in anger and anguish, holding onto his shot-up shoulder. “You wanted me to try to shoot it out with you!”

“That’s right.”

“Why?”

“ ’Cause it was all theory till you tried to shoot me. Now it’ll hold up with the cops and in court.”

“You bastard, Stone... why don’t you just do it? Why don’t you just shoot me and be the hell done with it?”

“I don’t think so. First of all, I like the idea of you spendin’ next Christmas on death row. Second, you’re not worth goin’ to hell over.”

Stone phoned Sgt. Ross. “Yeah, I know you’re at home, Hank — but I got another present for ya — all gift-wrapped...”

He hung up, then found himself facing a slyly smiling Maggie.

“No hard feelings?” she asked.

“Naw. We were both louses. Both running around on each other.”

Maggie was looking at him seductively; running a finger up and down his arm. “You were so sexy shooting it out like that... I don’t think I was ever more attracted to you...”

He just laughed, shook his head, pushed her gently aside.

“I would rather go to hell,” he said.

Later, with Turner turned over to Ross, Stone stopped at Joey Ernest’s house out in the north suburbs.

“Mr. Stone — what are you...?”

“I just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas, kid. And tell you my New Year’s resolution is to dump the divorce racket.”

“Really?”

“Really. There’s some retail credit action we can get... it won’t pay the big bucks, but we’ll be able to look at ourselves in the mirror.”

Joey’s face lighted up. “You don’t know what this means to me, Mr. Stone!”

“I think maybe I do. Incidentally, Mrs. Marley and me are kaput. No more covering up for your dirty boss.”

“Mr. Stone... come in and say hello to the family. We haven’t sat down to dinner yet. Please join us!”

“I’d love to say hi, but I can’t stay long. I have another engagement.”

Finally, he knocked at the door of Katie’s little apartment.

“Why... Richard!” Her beaming face told him that certain news hadn’t yet reached her.

“Can a guy change his mind? And his ways? I’d love to have Christmas with you and your folks.”

She slipped her arm in his and ushered him in. “Oh, they’ll be so thrilled to meet you! You’ve made me so happy, Richard...”

“I just wanted to be with you today,” he said, “and maybe sometime, before New Year’s, we could drive over to DeKalb and see my Uncle Bob and Aunt Helen.”

“That would be lovely!” she said, as she walked him into the living room with its sparkling Christmas tree. Her mother and father rose from the couch with smiles.

It would be a blue Christmas for this family, when the doorbell rang, as it would all too soon; but when it did, Stone at least wanted to be with them.

With Katie.

And when they would eventually go to the young soldier’s grave, to say a prayer and lay a wreath, Stone would do the same for his late friend and partner.

One of the founders of the (British) Crime writers’ Association and its chairwoman from 1959 to 1960, Doris Bell Collier Ball took the pseudonym Josephine Bell largely because of Sherlock Holmes. It has been widely reported that Arthur Conan Doyle based many of the characteristics of his great detective on his teacher at the University of Edinburgh, Dr. Joseph Bell. Since the author was also a physician, she particularly liked the symmetry of using Dr. Bell’s name as the inspiration for the one that would appear on forty-five of her own works. “The Carol Singers” was first published in Murder Under the Mistletoe, edited by Cynthia Manson (New York, Signet, 1992).

Old Mrs. Fairlands stepped carefully off the low chair she had pulled close to the fireplace. She was very conscious of her eighty-one years every time she performed these mild acrobatics. Conscious of them and determined to have no humiliating, potentially dangerous mishap. But obstinate, in her persistent routine of dusting her own mantelpiece, where a great many, too many photographs and small ornaments daily gathered a film of greasy London dust.

Mrs. Fairlands lived in the ground floor flat of a converted house in a once fashionable row of early Victorian family homes. The house had been in her family for three generations before her, and she herself had been born and brought up there. In those faroff days of her childhood, the whole house was filled with a busy throng of people, from the top floor where the nurseries housed the noisiest and liveliest group, through the dignified, low-voiced activities of her parents and resident aunt on the first and ground floors, to the basement haunts of the domestic staff, the kitchens and the cellars.

Too many young men of the family had died in two world wars and too many young women had married and left the house to make its original use in the late 1940’s any longer possible. Mrs. Fairlands, long a widow, had inherited the property when the last of her brothers died. She had let it for a while, but even that failed. A conversion was the obvious answer. She was a vigorous seventy at the time, fully determined, since her only child, a married daughter, lived in the to her barbarous wastes of the Devon moors, to continue to live alone with her much-loved familiar possessions about her.

The conversion was a great success and was made without very much structural alteration to the house. The basement, which had an entrance by the former back door, was shut off and was let to a businessman who spent only three days a week in London and preferred not to use an hotel. The original hall remained as a common entrance to the other three flats. The ground floor provided Mrs. Fairlands with three large rooms, one of which was divided into a kitchen and bathroom. Her own front door was the original dining room door from the hall. It led now into a narrow passage, also chopped off from the room that made the bathroom and kitchen. At the end of the passage two new doors led into the former morning room, her drawing room as she liked to call it, and her bedroom, which had been the study.

This drawing room of hers was at the front of the house, overlooking the road. It had a square bay window that gave her a good view of the main front door and the steps leading up to it, the narrow front garden, now a paved forecourt, and from the opposite window of the bay, the front door and steps of the house next door, divided from her by a low wall.

Mrs. Fairlands, with characteristic obstinacy, strength of character, integrity, or whatever other description her forceful personality drew from those about her, had lived in her flat for eleven years, telling everyone that it suited her perfectly and feeling, as the years went by, progressively more lonely, more deeply bored, and more consciously apprehensive. Her daily came for four hours three times a week. It was enough to keep the place in good order. On those days the admirable woman cooked Mrs. Fairlands a good solid English dinner, which she shared, and also constructed several more main meals that could be eaten cold or warmed up. But three half days of cleaning and cooking left four whole days in each week when Mrs. Fairlands must provide for herself or go out to the High Street to a restaurant. After her eightieth birthday she became more and more reluctant to make the effort. But every week she wrote to her daughter Dorothy to say how well she felt and how much she would detest leaving London, where she had lived all her life except when she was evacuated to Wiltshire in the second war.

She was sincere in writing thus. The letters were true as far as they went, but they did not go the whole distance. They did not say that it took Mrs. Fairlands nearly an hour to wash and dress in the morning. They did not say she was sometimes too tired to bother with supper and then had to get up in the night, feeling faint and thirsty, to heat herself some milk. They did not say that although she stuck to her routine of dusting the whole flat every morning, she never mounted her low chair without a secret terror that she might fall and break her hip and perhaps be unable to reach the heavy stick she kept beside her armchair to use as a signal to the flat above.

On this particular occasion, soon after her eighty-first birthday, she had deferred the dusting until late in the day, because it was Christmas Eve and in addition to cleaning the mantelpiece she had arranged on it a pile of Christmas cards from her few remaining friends and her many younger relations.

This year, she thought sadly, there was not really much point in making the display. Dorothy and Hugh and the children could not come to her as usual, nor could she go to them. The tiresome creatures had chicken pox, in their late teens, too, except for Bobbie, the afterthought, who was only ten. They should all have had it years ago, when they first went to school. So the visit was canceled, and though she offered to go to Devon instead, they told her she might get shingles from the same infection and refused to expose her to the risk. Apart altogether from the danger to her of traveling at that particular time of the year, the weather and the holiday crowds combined, Dorothy had written.

Mrs. Fairlands turned sadly from the fireplace and walked slowly to the window. A black Christmas this year, the wireless report had promised. As black as the prospect of two whole days of isolation at a time when the whole western world was celebrating its midwinter festival and Christians were remembering the birth of their faith.

She turned from the bleak prospect outside her window, a little chilled by the downdraft seeping through its closed edges. Near the fire she had felt almost too hot, but then she needed to keep it well stocked up for such a large room. In the old days there had been logs, but she could no longer lift or carry logs. Everyone told her she ought to have a cosy stove or even do away with solid fuel altogether, install central heating and perhaps an electric fire to make a pleasant glow. But Mrs. Fairlands considered these suggestions defeatist, an almost insulting reference to her age. Secretly she now thought of her life as a gamble with time. She was prepared to take risks for the sake of defeating them. There were few pleasures left to her. Defiance was one of them.

When she left the window, she moved to the far corner of the room, near the fireplace. Here a small table, usually covered, like the mantelpiece, with a multitude of objects, had been cleared to make room for a Christmas tree. It was mounted in a large bowl reserved for this annual purpose. The daily had set it up for her and wrapped the bowl round with crinkly red paper, fastened with safety pins. But the tree was not yet decorated.

Mrs. Fairlands got to work upon it. She knew that it would be more difficult by artificial light to tie the knots in the black cotton she used for the dangling glass balls. Dorothy had provided her with some newfangled strips of pliable metal that needed only to be threaded through the rings on the glass balls and wrapped round the branches of the tree. But she had tried these strips only once. The metal had slipped from her hands and the ball had fallen and shattered. She went back to her long practiced method with black cotton, leaving the strips in the box for her grandchildren to use, which they always did with ferocious speed and efficiency.

She sighed as she worked. It was not much fun decorating the tree by herself. No one would see it until the day after Boxing Day when the daily would be back. If only her tenants had not gone away she could have invited them in for some small celebration. But the basement man was in his own home in Essex, and the first floor couple always went to an hotel for Christmas, allowing her to use their flat for Dorothy and Hugh and the children. And this year the top floor, three girl students, had joined a college group to go skiing. So the house was quite empty. There was no one left to invite, except perhaps her next-door neighbors. But that would be impossible. They had detestable children, rude, destructive, uncontrolled brats. She had already complained about broken glass and dirty sweet papers thrown into her forecourt. She could not possibly ask them to enjoy her Christmas tree with her. They might damage it. Perhaps she ought to have agreed to go to May, or let her come to her. She was one of the last of her friends, but never an intimate one. And such a chatterer. Nonstop, as Hugh would say.

By the time Mrs. Fairlands had fastened the last golden ball and draped the last glittering piece of tinsel and tied the crowning piece, the six-pronged shining silver star, to the topmost twig and fixed the candles upright in their socket clips, dusk had fallen. She had been obliged to turn on all her lights some time before she had done. Now she moved again to her windows, drew the curtains, turned off all the wall lights, and with one reading lamp beside her chair sat down near the glowing fire.

It was nearly an hour after her usual teatime, she noticed. But she was tired. Pleasantly tired, satisfied with her work, shining quietly in its dark corner, bringing back so many memories of her childhood in this house, of her brief marriage, cut off by the battle of the Marne, of Dorothy, her only child, brought up here, too, since there was nowhere for them to live except with the parents she had so recently left. Mrs. Fairlands decided to skip tea and have an early supper with a boiled egg and cake.

She dozed, snoring gently, her ancient, wrinkled hand twitching from time to time as her head lolled on and off the cushion behind it.

She woke with a start, confused, trembling. There was a ringing in her head that resolved, as full consciousness returned to her, into a ringing of bells, not only her own, just inside her front door, but those of the other two flats, shrilling and buzzing in the background.

Still trembling, her mouth dry with fright and open-mouthed sleep, she sat up, trying to think. What time was it? The clock on the mantelpiece told her it was nearly seven. Could she really have slept for two whole hours? There was silence now. Could it really have been the bell, all the bells, that had woken her? If so, it was a very good thing. She had no business to be asleep in the afternoon, in a chair of all places.

Mrs. Fairlands got to her feet, shakily. Whoever it was at the door must have given up and gone away. Standing still, she began to tremble again. For she remembered things Dorothy and Hugh and her very few remaining friends said to her from time to time. “Aren’t you afraid of burglars?” “I wouldn’t have the nerve to live alone!” “They ring you up, and if there is no answer, they know you’re out, so they come and break in.”

Well, there had been no answer to this bell ringing, so whoever it was, if ill-intentioned, might even now be forcing the door or prowling round the house, looking for an open window.

While she stood there in the middle of her drawing room, trying to build up enough courage to go round her flat pulling the rest of the curtains, fastening the other windows, Mrs. Fairlands heard sounds that instantly explained the situation. She heard, raggedly begun, out of tune, but reassuringly familiar, the strains of “Once in Royal David’s City.”

Carol singers! Of course. Why had she not thought of them instead of frightening herself to death with gruesome suspicions?

Mrs. Fairlands, always remembering her age, her gamble, went to the side window of the bay and, pulling back the edge of the curtain, looked out. A darkclad group stood there, six young people, four girls with scarves on their heads, two boys with woolly caps. They had a single electric torch directed onto a sheet of paper held by the central figure of the group.

Mrs. Fairlands watched them for a few seconds. Of course they had seen the light in her room, so they knew someone was in. How stupid of her to think of burglars. The light would have driven a burglar away if he was out looking for an empty house to break into. All her fears about the unanswered bell were nonsense.

In her immense relief, and seeing the group straighten up as they finished the hymn, she tapped at the glass. They turned quickly, shining the torch in her face. Though she was a little startled by this, she smiled and nodded, trying to convey the fact that she enjoyed their performance.

“Want another, missis?” one boy shouted.

She nodded again, let the curtain slip into place, and made her way to her bureau, where she kept her handbag. Her purse in the handbag held very little silver, but she found the half crown she was looking for and took it in her hand. “The Holly and the Ivy” was in full swing outside. Mrs. Fairlands decided that these children must have been well taught in school. It was not usual for small parties to sing real carols. Two lines of “Come, All Ye Faithful,” followed by loud knocking, was much more likely.

As she moved to the door with the half crown in one hand, Mrs. Fairlands put the other to her throat to pull together the folds of her cardigan before leaving her warm room for the cold passage and the outer hall door. She felt her brooch, and instantly misgiving struck her. It was a diamond brooch, a very valuable article, left to her by her mother. It would perhaps be a mistake to appear at the door offering half a crown and flaunting several hundred pounds. They might have seen it already, in the light of the torch they had shone on her.

Mrs. Fairlands slipped the half crown into her cardigan pocket, unfastened the brooch, and, moving quickly to the little Christmas tree on its table, reached up to the top and pinned the brooch to the very center of the silver tinsel star. Then, chuckling at her own cleverness, her quick wit, she went out to the front door just as the bell rang again in her flat. She opened it on a group of fresh young faces and sturdy young bodies standing on her steps.

“I’m sorry I was so slow,” she said. “You must forgive me, but I am not very young.”

“I’ll say,” remarked the younger boy, staring. He thought he had never seen anything as old as this old geyser.

“You shut up,” said the girl next to him, and the tallest one said, “Don’t be rude.”

“You sing very nicely,” said Mrs. Fairlands. “Very well indeed. Did you learn at school?”

“Mostly at the club,” said the older boy, whose voice went up and down, on the verge of breaking, Mrs. Fairlands thought, remembering her brothers.

She held out the half crown. The tallest of the four girls, the one who had the piece of paper with the words of the carols on it, took the coin and smiled.

“I hope I haven’t kept you too long,” Mrs. Fairlands said. “You can’t stay long at each house, can you, or you would never get any money worth having.”

“They mostly don’t give anything,” one of the other girls said.

“Tell us to get the ’ell out,” said the irrepressible younger boy.

“We don’t do it mostly for the money,” said the tallest girl. “Not for ourselves, I mean.”

“Give it to the club. Oxfam collection and that,” said the tall boy.

“Don’t you want it for yourselves?” Mrs. Fairlands was astonished. “Do you have enough pocket money without?”

They nodded gravely.

“I got a paper round,” said the older boy.

“I do babysitting now and then,” the tallest girl added.

“Well, thank you for coming,” Mrs. Fairlands said. She was beginning to feel cold, standing there at the open door. “I must go back into my warm room. And you must keep moving, too, or you might catch colds.”

“Thank you,” they said in chorus. “Thanks a lot. Bye!”

She shut and locked the door as they turned, clattered down the steps, slammed the gate of the forecourt behind them. She went back to her drawing room. She watched from the window as they piled up the steps of the next house. And again she heard, more faintly because they were farther away, “Once in Royal David’s City.” There were tears in her old eyes as she left the window and stood for a few minutes staring down at the dull coals of her diminishing fire.

But very soon she rallied, took up the poker, mended her fire, went to her kitchen, and put on the kettle. Coming back to wait for it to boil, she looked again at her Christmas tree. The diamond brooch certainly gave an added distinction to the star, she thought. Amused once more by her originality, she went into her bedroom and from her jewel box on the dressing table took her two other valuable pieces, a pearl necklace and a diamond bracelet. The latter she had not worn for years. She wound each with a tinsel string and hung them among the branches of the tree.

She had just finished preparing her combined tea and supper when the front doorbell rang again. Leaving the tray in the kitchen, she went to her own front door and opened it. Once again a carol floated to her, “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” this time. There seemed to be only one voice singing. A lone child, she wondered, making the rounds by himself.

She hurried to the window of her drawing room, drew back the curtain, peeped out. No, not alone, but singing a solo. The pure, high boy’s voice was louder here. The child, muffled up to the ears, had his head turned away from her towards three companions, whose small figures and pale faces were intent upon the door. They did not seem to notice her at the window as the other group had done, for they did not turn in her direction. They were smaller, evidently younger, very serious. Mrs. Fairlands, touched, willing again to defeat her loneliness in a few minutes’ talk, took another half crown from her purse and went out to the main hall and the big door.

“Thank you, children,” she said as she opened it. “That was very—”

Her intended praise died in her throat. She gasped, tried to back away. The children now wore black stockings over their faces. Their eyes glittered through slits; there were holes for their noses and mouths.

“That’s a very silly joke,” said Mrs. Fairlands in a high voice. “I shall not give you the money I brought for you. Go home. Go away.”

She backed inside the door, catching at the knob to close it. But the small figures advanced upon her. One of them held the door while two others pushed her away from it. She saw the fourth, the singer, hesitate, then turn and run out into the street.

“Stop this!” Mrs. Fairlands said in a voice that had once been commanding but now broke as she repeated the order. Silently, remorselessly, the three figures forced her back; they shut and locked the main door, they pushed her, stumbling now, terrified, bewildered, through her own front door and into her drawing room.

It was an outrage, an appalling, unheard-of challenge. Mrs. Fairlands had always met a challenge with vigor. She did so now. She tore herself from the grasp of one pair of small hands to box the ears of another short figure. She swept round at the third, pulling the stocking halfway up his face, pushing him violently against the wall so his face met it with a satisfactory smack.

“Stop it!” she panted. “Stop it or I’ll call the police!”

At that they all leaped at her, pushing, punching, dragging her to an upright chair. She struggled for a few seconds, but her breath was going. When they had her sitting down, she was incapable of movement. They tied her hands and ankles to the chair and stood back. They began to talk, all at once to start with, but at a gesture from one, the other two became silent.

When Mrs. Fairlands heard the voices, she became rigid with shock and horror. Such words, such phrases, such tones, such evil loose in the world, in her house, in her quiet room. Her face grew cold, she thought she would faint. And still the persistent demand went on.

“We want the money. Where d’you keep it? Come on. Give. Where d’you keep it?”

“At my bank,” she gasped.

“That’s no answer. Where?”

She directed them to the bureau, where they found and rifled her handbag, taking the three pound notes and five shillings’ worth of small change that was all the currency she had in the flat.

Clearly they were astonished at the small amount. They threatened, standing round her, muttering threats and curses.

“I’m not rich,” she kept repeating. “I live chiefly on the rents of the flats and a very small private income. It’s all paid into my bank. I cash a check each week, a small check to cover my food and the wages of my daily help.”

“Jewelry,” one of them said. “You got jewelry. Rich old cows dolled up — we seen ’em. That’s why we come. You got it. Give.”

She rallied a little, told them where to find her poor trinkets. Across the room her diamond brooch winked discreetly in the firelight. They were too stupid, too savage, too — horrible to think of searching the room carefully. Let them take the beads, the dress jewelry, the amber pendant. She leaned her aching head against the hard back of the chair and closed her eyes.

After what seemed a long time they came back. Their tempers were not improved. They grumbled among themselves — almost quarreling — in loud harsh tones.

“Radio’s worth nil. Prehistoric. No transistor. No record player. Might lift that old clock.”

“Money stashed away. Mean old bitch.”

“Best get going.”

Mrs. Fairlands, eyes still closed, heard a faint sound outside the window. Her doorbell rang once. More carol singers? If they knew, they could save her. If they knew—

She began to scream. She meant to scream loudly, but the noise that came from her was a feeble croak. In her own head it was a scream. To her tormentors it was derisory, but still a challenge. They refused to be challenged.

They gagged her with a strip of sticking plaster, they pulled out the flex of her telephone. They bundled the few valuables they had collected into the large pockets of their overcoats and left the flat, pulling shut the two front doors as they went. Mrs. Fairlands was alone again, but gagged and bound and quite unable to free herself.

At first she felt a profound relief in the silence, the emptiness of the room. The horror had gone, and though she was uncomfortable, she was not yet in pain. They had left the light on — all the lights, she decided. She could see through the open door of the room the lighted passage and, beyond, a streak of light from her bedroom. Had they been in the kitchen? Taken her Christmas dinner, perhaps, the chicken her daily had cooked for her? She remembered her supper and realized fully, for the first time, that she could not open her mouth and that she could not free her hands.

Even now she refused to give way to panic. She decided to rest until her strength came back and she could, by exercising it, loosen her bonds. But her strength did not come back. It ebbed as the night advanced and the fire died and the room grew cold and colder. For the first time she regretted not accepting May’s suggestion that she should spend Christmas with her, occupying the flat above in place of Dorothy. Between them they could have defeated those little monsters. Or she could herself have gone to Leatherhead. She was insured for burglary.

She regretted those things that might have saved her, but she did not regret the gamble of refusing them. She recognized now that the gamble was lost. It had to be lost in the end, but she would have chosen a more dignified finish than this would be.

She cried a little in her weakness and the pain she now suffered in her wrists and ankles and back. But the tears ran down her nose and blocked it, which stopped her breathing and made her choke. She stopped crying, resigned herself, prayed a little, considered one or two sins she had never forgotten but on whose account she had never felt remorse until now. Later on she lapsed into semiconsciousness, a half-dream world of past scenes and present cares, of her mother, resplendent in low-cut green chiffon and diamonds, the diamond brooch and bracelet now decorating the tree across the room. Of Bobbie, in a fever, plagued by itching spots, of Dorothy as a little girl, blotched with measles.

Towards morning, unable any longer to breathe properly, exhausted by pain, hunger, and cold, Mrs. Fairlands died.

It is an unfortunate fact that Ethel Lina White’s seventeen books are seldom read today, though two motion pictures inspired by her extremely suspenseful novels are in constant rerun on classic movie channels. The Spiral Staircase, directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Dorothy McGuire and Ethel Barrymore, was released in 1945; it was based on White’s 1934 novel Some Must Watch. Even more successful was The Lady Vanishes, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, and Dame May Whitty. Released in 1938, it was inspired by White’s 1936 novel The Wheel Spins. “Waxworks” was first published in the December 1930 issue of Pearson’s Magazine.

Sonia made her first entry in her notebook:

She stopped writing to glance at her company. Seen in the light from the streetlamp, which streamed in through the high window, the room seemed to be full of people. Their faces were those of men and women of character and intelligence. They stood in groups, as though in conversation, or sat apart, in solitary reverie.

But they neither moved nor spoke.

When Sonia had last seen them in the glare of the electric globes, they had been a collection of ordinary waxworks, some of which were the worse for wear. The black velvet which lined the walls of the Gallery was alike tawdry and filmed with dust.

The side opposite to the window was built into alcoves, which held highly moral tableaux, depicting contrasting scenes in the career of Vice and Virtue. Sonia had slipped into one of these recesses, just before closing-time, in order to hide for her vigil.

It had been a simple affair. The porter had merely rung his bell, and the few courting-couples who represented the Public had taken his hint and hurried towards the exit.

No one was likely to risk being locked in, for the Waxwork Collection of Oldhampton had lately acquired a sinister reputation. The foundation for this lay in the fate of a stranger to the town — a commercial traveller — who had cut his throat in the Hall of Horrors.

Since then, two persons had, separately, spent the night in the Gallery and, in the morning, each had been found dead.

In both cases the verdict had been “Natural death, due to heart failure.” The first victim — a local alderman — had been addicted to alcohol, and was in very bad shape. The second — his great friend — was a delicate little man, a martyr to asthma, and slightly unhinged through unwise absorption in spiritualism.

While the coincidence of the tragedies stirred up a considerable amount of local superstition, the general belief was that both deaths were due to the power of suggestion, in conjunction with macabre surroundings. The victims had let themselves be frightened to death by the Waxworks.

Sonia was there, in the Gallery, to test its truth.

She was the latest addition to the staff of the Oldhampton Gazette. Bubbling with enthusiasm, she made no secret of her literary ambitions, and it was difficult to feed her with enough work. Her colleagues listened to her with mingled amusement and boredom, but they liked her as a refreshing novelty. As for her fine future, they looked to young Wells — the Sporting Editor — to effect her speedy and painless removal from the sphere of journalism.

On Christmas Eve, Sonia took them all into her confidence over her intention to spend a night in the Waxworks, on the last night of the old year.

“Copy there,” she declared. “I’m not timid and I have fairly sensitive perceptions, so I ought to be able to write up the effect of imagination on the nervous system. I mean to record my impressions, every hour, while they’re piping-hot.”

Looking up suddenly, she had surprised a green glare in the eyes of Hubert Poke.

When Sonia came to work on the Gazette, she had a secret fear of unwelcome amorous attentions, since she was the only woman on the staff. But the first passion she awoke was hatred.

Poke hated her impersonally, as the representative of a Force, numerically superior to his own sex, which was on the opposing side in the battle for existence. He feared her, too, because she was the unknown element, and possessed the unfair weapon of charm.

Before she came, he had been the star turn on the Gazette. His own position on the staff gratified his vanity and entirely satisfied his narrow ambition. But Sonia had stolen some of his thunder. On more than one occasion she had written up a story he had failed to cover, and he had to admit that her success was due to a quicker wit.

For some time past he had been playing with the idea of spending a night in the Waxworks, but was deterred by the knowledge that his brain was not sufficiently temperate for the experiment. Lately he had been subject to sudden red rages, when he had felt a thick hot taste in his throat, as though of blood. He knew that his jealousy of Sonia was accountable. It had almost reached the stage of mania, and trembled on the brink of homicidal urge.

While his brain was still creaking with the idea of first-hand experience in the ill-omened Gallery, Sonia had nipped in with her readymade plan.

Controlling himself with an effort, he listened while the sub-editor issued a warning to Sonia.

“Bon idea, young woman, but you will find the experience a bit raw. You’ve no notion how uncanny these big deserted buildings can be.”

“That’s so,” nodded young Wells. “I once spent a night in a haunted house.”

Sonia looked at him with her habitual interest. He was short and thick-set, with a three-cornered smile which appealed to her.

“Did you see anything?” she asked.

“No, I cleared out before the show came on. Windy. After a bit, one can imagine anything.”

It was then that Poke introduced a new note into the discussion by his own theory of the mystery deaths.

Sitting alone in the deserted Gallery, Sonia preferred to forget his words. She resolutely drove them from her mind while she began to settle down for the night.

Her first action was to cross to the figure of Cardinal Wolsey and unceremoniously raise his heavy scarlet robe. From under its voluminous folds, she drew out her cushion and attaché-case, which she had hidden earlier in the evening.

Mindful of the fact that it would grow chilly at dawn, she carried on her arm her thick white tennis-coat. Slipping it on, she placed her cushion in the angle of the wall, and sat down to await developments.

The Gallery was far more mysterious now that the lights were out. At either end, it seemed to stretch away into impenetrable black tunnels. But there was nothing uncanny about it, or about the figures, which were a tame and conventional collection of historical personages. Even the adjoining Hall of Horrors contained no horrors, only a selection of respectable-looking poisoners.

Sonia grinned cheerfully at the row of waxworks which were visible in the lamplight from the street.

“So you are the villains of the piece,” she murmured. “Later on, if the office is right, you will assume unpleasant mannerisms to try to cheat me into believing you are alive. I warn you, old sports, you’ll have your work cut out for you... And now I think I’ll get better acquainted with you. Familiarity breeds contempt.”

She went the round of the figures, greeting each with flippancy or criticism. Presently she returned to her corner and opened her notebook ready to record her impressions.

Sonia had left her corner, to write her entry in the light which streamed through the window. Smoking was prohibited in the building, and, lest she should yield to temptation, she had left both her cigarettes and matches behind her, on the office table.

At this stage she regretted the matches. A little extra light would be a boon. It was true she carried an electric torch, but she was saving it, in case of emergency.

It was a loan from young Wells. As they were leaving the office together, he spoke to her confidentially.

“Did you notice how Poke glared at you? Don’t get up against him. He’s a nasty piece of work. He’s so mean he’d sell his mother’s shroud for old rags. And he’s a cruel little devil, too. He turned out his miserable pup, to starve in the streets, rather than cough up for the license.”

Sonia grew hot with indignation.

“What he needs to cure his complaint is a strong dose of rat-poison,” she declared. “What became of the poor little dog?”

“Oh, he’s all right. He was a matey chap, and he soon chummed up with a mongrel of his own class.”

“You?” asked Sonia, her eyes suddenly soft.

“A mongrel, am I?” grinned Wells. “Well, anyway, the pup will get a better Christmas than his first, when Poke went away and left him on the chain... We’re both of us going to over-eat and over-drink. You’re on your own, too. Won’t you join us?”

“I’d love to.”

Although the evening was warm and muggy the invitation suffused Sonia with the spirit of Christmas. The shade of Dickens seemed to be hovering over the parade of the streets. A red-nosed Santa Claus presided over a spangled Christmas-tree outside a toy-shop. Windows were hung with tinselled balls and coloured paper festoons. Pedestrians, laden with parcels, called out seasonable greetings.

“Merry Christmas.”

Young Wells’s three-cornered smile was his tribute to the joyous feeling of festival. His eyes were eager as he turned to Sonia.

“I’ve an idea. Don’t wait until after the holidays to write up the Waxworks. Make it a Christmas stunt, and go there tonight.”

“I will,” declared Sonia.

It was then that he slipped the torch into her hand.

“I know you belong to the stronger sex,” he said. “But even your nerve might crash. If it does, just flash this torch under the window. Stretch out your arm above your head, and the light will be seen from the street.”

“And what will happen then?” asked Sonia.

“I shall knock up the miserable porter and let you out.”

“But how will you see the light?”

“I shall be in the street.”

“All night?”

“Yes; I sleep there.” Young Wells grinned. “Understand,” he added loftily, “that this is a matter of principle. I could not let any woman — even one so aged and unattractive as yourself — feel beyond the reach of help.”

He cut into her thanks as he turned away with a parting warning.

“Don’t use the torch for light, or the juice may give out. It’s about due for a new battery.”

Gabrielle Margaret Vere long used at least six pseudonyms for her prodigious output of more than one hundred fifty novels and countless short stories, the most famous bylines being Marjorie Bowen and Joseph Shearing. To help support her sister and profligate, unstable mother after her father left the family, she began to write and had her first novel published when she was only sixteen, immediately becoming the prime supporter of her small family. Her dark and unhappy early years led her to produce a plethora of fictional works with Gothic overtones. While many were hastily written potboilers, she often wrote finely crafted tales that remain highly readable and popular today. “Cambric Tea” was first collected in The World’s 100 Best Detective Stories, edited by Eugene Thwing (New York & London, Funk & Wagnalls, 1929).

The situation was bizarre; the accurately trained mind of Bevis Holroyd was impressed foremost by this; that the opening of a door would turn it into tragedy.

“I am afraid I can’t stay,” he had said pleasantly, humouring a sick man; he was too young and had not been long enough completely successful to have a professional manner but a certain balanced tolerance just showed in his attitude to this prostrate creature.

“I’ve got a good many claims on my time,” he added, “and I’m afraid it would be impossible. And it isn’t the least necessary, you know. You’re quite all right. I’ll come back after Christmas if you really think it worth while.”

The patient opened one eye; he was lying flat on his back in a deep, wide-fashioned bed hung with a thick, dark, silk-lined tapestry; the room was dark for there were thick curtains of the same material drawn half across the windows, rigidly excluding all save a moiety of the pallid winter light; to make his examination Dr. Holroyd had had to snap on the electric light that stood on the bedside table; he thought it a dreary unhealthy room, but had hardly found it worthwhile to say as much.

The patient opened one eye; the other lid remained fluttering feebly over an immobile orb.

He said in a voice both hoarse and feeble:

“But, doctor, I’m being poisoned.”

Professional curiosity and interest masked by genial incredulity instantly quickened the doctor’s attention.

“My dear sir,” he smiled, “poisoned by this nasty bout of ’flu you mean, I suppose—”

“No,” said the patient, faintly and wearily dropping both lids over his blank eyes, “by my wife.”

“That’s an ugly sort of fancy for you to get hold of,” replied the doctor instantly. “Acute depression — we must see what we can do for you—”

The sick man opened both eyes now; he even slightly raised his head as he replied, not without dignity:

“I fetched you from London, Dr. Holroyd, that you might deal with my case impartially — from the local man there is no hope of that, he is entirely impressed by my wife.”

Dr. Holroyd made a movement as if to protest but a trembling sign from the patient made him quickly subsist.

“Please let me speak. She will come in soon and I shall have no chance. I sent for you secretly, she knows nothing about that. I had heard you very well spoken of — as an authority on this sort of thing. You made a name over the Pluntre murder case as witness for the Crown.”

“I don’t specialize in murder,” said Dr. Holroyd, but his keen handsome face was alight with interest. “And I don’t care much for this kind of case — Sir Harry.”

“But you’ve taken it on,” murmured the sick man. “You couldn’t abandon me now.”

“I’ll get you into a nursing home,” said the doctor cheerfully, “and there you’ll dispel all these ideas.”

“And when the nursing home has cured me I’m to come back to my wife for her to begin again?”

Dr. Holroyd bent suddenly and sharply over the sombre bed. With his right hand he deftly turned on the electric lamp and tipped back the coral silk shade so that the bleached acid light fell full over the patient lying on his back on the big fat pillows.

“Look here,” said the doctor, “what you say is pretty serious.”

And the two men stared at each other, the patient examining his physician as acutely as his physician examined him.

Bevis Holroyd was still a young man with a look of peculiar energy and austere intelligence that heightened by contrast purely physical dark good looks that many men would have found sufficient passport to success; resolution, dignity, and a certain masculine sweetness, serene and strong, different from feminine sweetness, marked his demeanour which was further softened by a quick humour and a sensitive judgment.

The patient, on the other hand, was a man of well past middle age, light, flabby and obese with a flaccid, fallen look about his large face which was blurred and dimmed by the colours of ill health, being one pasty livid hue that threw into unpleasant relief the grey speckled red of his scant hair.

Altogether an unpleasing man, but of a certain fame and importance that had induced the rising young doctor to come at once when hastily summoned to Strangeways Manor House; a man of a fine, renowned family, a man of repute as a scholar, an essayist who had once been a politician who was rather above politics; a man whom Dr. Holroyd only knew vaguely by reputation, but who seemed to him symbolical of all that was staid, respectable, and stolid.

And this man blinked up at him and whimpered:

“My wife is poisoning me.”

Dr. Holroyd sat back and snapped off the electric light.

“What makes you think so?” he asked sharply.

“To tell you that,” came the laboured voice of the sick man, “I should have to tell you my story.”

“Well, if you want me to take this up—”

“I sent for you to do that, doctor.”

“Well, how do you think you are being poisoned?”

“Arsenic, of course.”

“Oh? And how administered?”

Again the patient looked up with one eye, seeming too fatigued to open the other.

“Cambric tea,” he replied.

And Dr. Holroyd echoed:

“Cambric tea!” with a soft amazement and interest.

Cambric tea had been used as the medium for arsenic in the Pluntre case and the expression had become famous; it was Bevis Holroyd who had discovered the doses in the cambric tea and who had put his finger on this pale beverage as the means of murder.

“Very possibly,” continued Sir Harry, “the Pluntre case made her think of it.”

“For God’s sake, don’t,” said Dr. Holroyd; for in that hideous affair the murderer had been a woman; and to see a woman on trial for her life, to see a woman sentenced to death, was not an experience he wished to repeat.

“Lady Strangeways,” continued the sick man, “is much younger than I... I over persuaded her to marry me, she was at that time very much attracted by a man of her own age, but he was in a poor position and she was ambitious.”

He paused, wiped his quivering lips on a silk handkerchief, and added faintly:

“Lately our marriage has been extremely unhappy. The man she preferred is now prosperous, successful, and unmarried — she wishes to dispose of me that she may marry her first choice.”

“Have you proof of any of this?”

“Yes. I know she buys arsenic. I know she reads books on poisons. I know she is eating her heart out for this other man.”

“Forgive me, Sir Harry,” replied the doctor, “but have you no near friend nor relation to whom you can confide your — suspicions?”

“No one,” said the sick man impatiently. “I have lately come from the East and am out of touch with people. Besides I want a doctor, a doctor with skill in this sort of thing. I thought from the first of the Pluntre case and of you.”

Bevis Holroyd sat back quietly; it was then that he thought of the situation as bizarre; the queerness of the whole thing was vividly before him, like a twisted figure on a gem — a carving at once writhing and immobile.

“Perhaps,” continued Sir Harry wearily, “you are married, doctor?”

“No.” Dr. Holroyd slightly smiled; his story was something like the sick man’s story but taken from another angle; when he was very poor and unknown he had loved a girl who had preferred a wealthy man; she had gone out to India, ten years ago, and he had never seen her since; he remembered this, with sharp distinctness, and in the same breath he remembered that he still loved this girl; it was, after all, a commonplace story.

Then his mind swung to the severe professional aspect of the case; he had thought that his patient, an unhealthy type of man, was struggling with a bad attack of influenza and the resultant depression and weakness, but then he had never thought, of course, of poison, nor looked nor tested for poison.

The man might be lunatic, he might be deceived, he might be speaking the truth; the fact that he was a mean, unpleasant beast ought not to weigh in the matter; Dr. Holroyd had some enjoyable Christmas holidays in prospect and now he was beginning to feel that he ought to give these up to stay and investigate this case; for he could readily see that it was one in which the local doctor would be quite useless.

“You must have a nurse,” he said, rising.

But the sick man shook his head.

“I don’t wish to expose my wife more than need be,” he grumbled. “Can’t you manage the affair yourself?”

As this was the first hint of decent feeling he had shown, Bevis Holroyd forgave him his brusque rudeness.

“Well, I’ll stay the night anyhow,” he conceded.

And then the situation changed, with the opening of a door, from the bizarre to the tragic.

This door opened in the far end of the room and admitted a bloom of bluish winter light from some uncurtained, high-windowed corridor; the chill impression was as if invisible snow had entered the shaded, dun, close apartment.

And against this background appeared a woman in a smoke-coloured dress with some long lace about the shoulders and a high comb; she held a little tray carrying jugs and a glass of crystal in which the cold light splintered.

Dr. Holroyd stood in his usual attitude of attentive courtesy, and then, as the patient, feebly twisting his gross head from the fat pillow, said:

“My wife — doctor—” he recognized in Lady Strangeways the girl to whom he had once been engaged in marriage, the woman he still loved.

“This is Doctor Holroyd,” added Sir Harry. “Is that cambric tea you have there?”

She inclined her head to the stranger by her husband’s bed as if she had never seen him before, and he, taking his cue, and for many other reasons, was silent.

“Yes, this is your cambric tea,” she said to her husband. “You like it just now, don’t you? How do you find Sir Harry, Dr. Holroyd?”

There were two jugs on the tray; one of crystal half full of cold milk, and one of white porcelain full of hot water; Lady Strangeways proceeded to mix these fluids in equal proportions and gave the resultant drink to her husband, helping him first to sit up in bed.

“I think that Sir Harry has a nasty turn of influenza,” answered the doctor mechanically. “He wants me to stay. I’ve promised till the morning, anyhow.”

“That will be a pleasure and a relief,” said Lady Strangeways gravely. “My husband has been ill some time and seems so much worse than he need — for influenza.”

The patient, feebly sipping his cambric tea, grinned queerly at the doctor.

“So much worse — you see, doctor!” he muttered.

“It is good of you to stay,” continued Lady Strangeways equally. “I will see about your room, you must be as comfortable as possible.”

She left as she had come, a shadow-coloured figure retreating to a chill light.

The sick man held up his glass as if he gave a toast.

“You see! Cambric tea!”

And Bevis Holroyd was thinking: does she not want to know me? Does he know what we once were to each other? How comes she to be married to this man — her husband’s name was Custiss — and the horror of the situation shook the calm that was his both from character and training; he went to the window and looked out on the bleached park; light, slow snow was falling, a dreary dance over the frozen grass and before the grey corpses that paled, one behind the other, to the distance shrouded in colourless mist.

The thin voice of Harry Strangeways recalled him to the bed.

“Would you like to take a look at this, doctor?” He held out the half drunk glass of milk and water.

“I’ve no means of making a test here,” said Dr. Holroyd, troubled. “I brought a few things, nothing like that.”

“You are not so far from Harley Street,” said Sir Harry. “My car can fetch everything you want by this afternoon — or perhaps you would like to go yourself?”

“Yes,” replied Bevis Holroyd sternly. “I would rather go myself.”

His trained mind had been rapidly covering the main aspects of his problem and he had instantly seen that it was better for Lady Strangeways to have this case in his hands. He was sure there was some hideous, fantastic hallucination on the part of Sir Harry, but it was better for Lady Strangeways to leave the matter in the hands of one who was friendly towards her. He rapidly found and washed a medicine bottle from among the sick room paraphernalia and poured it full of the cambric tea, casting away the remainder.

“Why did you drink any?” he asked sharply.

“I don’t want her to think that I guess,” whispered Sir Harry. “Do you know, doctor, I have a lot of her love letters — written by—”

Dr. Holroyd cut him short.

“I couldn’t listen to this sort of thing behind Lady Strangeways’s back,” he said quickly. “That is between you and her. My job is to get you well. I’ll try and do that.”

And he considered, with a faint disgust, how repulsive this man looked sitting up with pendant jowl and drooping cheeks and discoloured, pouchy eyes sunk in pads of unhealthy flesh and above the spiky crown of Judas-coloured hair.

Perhaps a woman, chained to this man, living with him, blocked and thwarted by him, might be wrought upon to—

Dr. Holroyd shuddered inwardly and refused to continue his reflection.

As he was leaving the gaunt sombre house about which there was something definitely blank and unfriendly, a shrine in which the sacred flames had flickered out so long ago that the lamps were blank and cold, he met Lady Strangeways.

She was in the wide entrance hall standing by the wood fire that but faintly dispersed the gloom of the winter morning and left untouched the shadows in the rafters of the open roof.

Now he would not, whether she wished or no, deny her; he stopped before her, blocking out her poor remnant of light.

“Mollie,” he said gently, “I don’t quite understand — you married a man named Custiss in India.”

“Yes. Harry had to take this name when he inherited this place. We’ve been home three years from the East, but lived so quietly here that I don’t suppose anyone has heard of us.”

She stood between him and the firelight, a shadow among the shadows; she was much changed; in her thinness and pallor, in her restless eyes and nervous mouth he could read signs of discontent, even of unhappiness.

“I never heard of you,” said Dr. Holroyd truthfully. “I didn’t want to. I liked to keep my dreams.”

Her hair was yet the lovely cedar wood hue, silver, soft, and gracious; her figure had those fluid lines of grace that he believed he had never seen equalled.

“Tell me,” she added abruptly, “what is the matter with my husband? He has been ailing like this for a year or so.”

With a horrid lurch of his heart that was usually so steady, Dr. Holroyd remembered the bottle of milk and water in his pocket.

“Why do you give him that cambric tea?” he counter questioned.

“He will have it — he insists that I make it for him—”

“Mollie,” said Dr. Holroyd quickly, “you decided against me, ten years ago, but that is no reason why we should not be friends now — tell me, frankly, are you happy with this man?”

“You have seen him,” she replied slowly. “He seemed different ten years ago. I honestly was attracted by his scholarship and his learning as well as — other things.”

Bevis Holroyd needed to ask no more; she was wretched, imprisoned in a mistake as a fly in amber; and those love letters? Was there another man?

As he stood silent, with a dark reflective look on her weary brooding face, she spoke again: “You are staying?”

“Oh yes,” he said, he was staying, there was nothing else for him to do.

“It is Christmas week,” she reminded him wistfully. “It will be very dull, perhaps painful, for you.”

“I think I ought to stay.”

Sir Harry’s car was announced; Bevis Holroyd, gliding over frozen roads to London, was absorbed with this sudden problem that, like a mountain out of a plain, had suddenly risen to confront him out of his level life.

The sight of Mollie (he could not think of her by that sick man’s name) had roused in him tender memories and poignant emotions and the position in which he found her and his own juxtaposition to her and her husband had the same devastating effect on him as a mine sprung beneath the feet of an unwary traveller.

London was deep in the whirl of a snow storm and the light that penetrated over the grey roof tops to the ugly slip of a laboratory at the back of his consulting rooms was chill and forbidding.

Bevis Holroyd put the bottle of milk on a marble slab and sat back in the easy chair watching that dreary chase of snow flakes across the dingy London pane.

He was thinking of past springs, of violets long dead, of roses long since dust, of hours that had slipped away like lengths of golden silk rolled up, of the long ago when he had loved Mollie and Mollie had seemed to love him; then he thought of that man in the big bed who had said:

“My wife is poisoning me.”

Late that afternoon Dr. Holroyd, with his suit case and a professional bag, returned to Strangeways Manor House in Sir Harry’s car; the bottle of cambric tea had gone to a friend, a noted analyst; somehow Doctor Holroyd had not felt able to do this task himself; he was very fortunate, he felt, in securing this old solitary and his promise to do the work before Christmas.

As he arrived at Strangeways Manor House which stood isolated and well away from a public high road where a lonely spur of the weald of Kent drove into the Sussex marshes, it was in a blizzard of snow that effaced the landscape and gave the murky outlines of the house an air of unreality, and Bevis Holroyd experienced that sensation he had so often heard of and read about, but which so far his cool mind had dismissed as a fiction.

He did really feel as if he was in an evil dream; as the snow changed the values of the scene, altering distances and shapes, so this meeting with Mollie, under these circumstances, had suddenly changed the life of Bevis Holroyd.

He had so resolutely and so definitely put this woman out of his life and mind, deliberately refusing to make enquiries about her, letting all knowledge of her cease with the letter in which she had written from India and announced her marriage.

And now, after ten years, she had crossed his path in this ghastly manner, as a woman her husband accused of attempted murder.

The sick man’s words of a former lover disturbed him profoundly; was it himself who was referred to? Yet the love letters must be from another man for he had not corresponded with Mollie since her marriage, not for ten years.

He had never felt any bitterness towards Mollie for her desertion of a poor, struggling doctor, and he had always believed in the integral nobility of her character under the timidity of conventionality; but the fact remained that she had played him false — what if that had been “the little rift within the lute” that had now indeed silenced the music!

With a sense of bitter depression he entered the gloomy old house; how different was this from the pleasant ordinary Christmas he had been rather looking forward to, the jolly homely atmosphere of good fare, dancing, and friends!

When he had telephoned to these friends excusing himself his regret had been genuine and the cordial “bad luck!” had had a poignant echo in his own heart; bad luck indeed, bad luck—

She was waiting for him in the hall that a pale young man was decorating with boughs of prickly stiff holly that stuck stiffly behind the dark heavy pictures.

He was introduced as the secretary and said gloomily:

“Sir Harry wished everything to go on as usual, though I am afraid he is very ill indeed.”

Yes, the patient had been seized by another violent attack of illness during Dr. Holroyd’s absence; the young man went at once upstairs and found Sir Harry in a deep sleep and a rather nervous local doctor in attendance.

An exhaustive discussion of the case with this doctor threw no light on anything, and Dr. Holroyd, leaving in charge an extremely sensible-looking housekeeper who was Sir Harry’s preferred nurse, returned, worried and irritated, to the hall where Lady Strangeways now sat alone before the big fire.

She offered him a belated but fresh cup of tea.

“Why did you come?” she asked as if she roused herself from deep reverie.

“Why? Because your husband sent for me.”

“He says you offered to come; he has told everyone in the house that.”

“But I never heard of the man before today.”

“You had heard of me. He seems to think that you came here to help me.”

“He cannot be saying that,” returned Dr. Holroyd sternly, and he wondered desperately if Mollie was lying, if she had invented this to drive him out of the house.

“Do you want me here?” he demanded.

“I don’t know,” she replied dully and confirmed his suspicions; probably there was another man and she wished him out of the way; but he could not go, out of pity towards her he could not go.

“Does he know we once knew each other?” he asked.

“No,” she replied faintly, “therefore it seems such a curious chance that he should have sent for you, of all men!”

“It would have been more curious,” he responded grimly, “if I had heard that you were here with a sick husband and had thrust myself in to doctor him! Strangeways must be crazy to spread such a tale and if he doesn’t know we are old friends it becomes nonsense!”

“I often think that Harry is crazy,” said Lady Strangeways wearily; she took a rose silk-lined work basket, full of pretty trifles, on her knee, and began winding a skein of rose-coloured silk; she looked so frail, so sad, so lifeless that the heart of Bevis Holroyd was torn with bitter pity.

“Now I am here I want to help you,” he said earnestly. “I am staying for that, to help you—”

She looked up at him with a wistful appeal in her fair face.

“I’m worried,” she said simply. “I’ve lost some letters I valued very much — I think they have been stolen.”

Dr. Holroyd drew back; the love letters; the letters the husband had found, that were causing all his ugly suspicions.

“My poor Mollie!” he exclaimed impulsively. “What sort of a coil have you got yourself into!”

As if this note of pity was unendurable, she rose impulsively, scattering the contents of her work basket, dropping the skein of silk, and hastened away down the dark hall.

Bevis Holroyd stooped mechanically to pick up the hurled objects and saw among them a small white packet, folded, but opened at one end; this packet seemed to have fallen out of a needle case of gold silk.

Bevis Holroyd had pounced on it and thrust it in his pocket just as the pale secretary returned with his thin arms most incongruously full of mistletoe.

“This will be a dreary Christmas for you, Dr. Holroyd,” he said with the air of one who forces himself to make conversation. “No doubt you had some pleasant plans in view — we are all so pleased that Lady Strangeways had a friend to come and look after Sir Harry during the holidays.”

“Who told you I was a friend?” asked Dr. Holroyd brusquely. “I certainly knew Lady Strangeways before she was married—”

The pale young man cut in crisply:

“Oh, Lady Strangeways told me so herself.”

Bevis Holroyd was bewildered; why did she tell the secretary what she did not tell her husband? — both the indiscretion and the reserve seemed equally foolish.

Languidly hanging up his sprays and bunches of mistletoe the pallid young man, whose name was Garth Deane, continued his aimless remarks.

“This is really not a very cheerful house, Dr. Holroyd — I’m interested in Sir Harry’s oriental work or I should not remain. Such a very unhappy marriage! I often think,” he added regardless of Bevis Holroyd’s darkling glance, “that it would be very unpleasant indeed for Lady Strangeways if anything happened to Sir Harry.”

“Whatever do you mean, sir?” asked the doctor angrily.

The secretary was not at all discomposed.

“Well, one lives in the house, one has nothing much to do — and one notices.”

Perhaps, thought the young man in anguish, the sick husband had been talking to this creature, perhaps the creature had really noticed something.

“I’ll go up to my patient,” said Bevis Holroyd briefly, not daring to anger one who might be an important witness in this mystery that was at present so unfathomable.

Mr. Deane gave a sickly grin over the lovely pale leaves and berries he was holding.

“I’m afraid he is very bad, doctor.”

As Bevis Holroyd left the room he passed Lady Strangeways; she looked blurred, like a pastel drawing that has been shaken; the fingers she kept locked on her bosom; she had flung a silver fur over her shoulders that accentuated her ethereal look of blonde, pearl, and amber hues.

“I’ve come back for my work basket,” she said. “Will you go up to my husband? He is ill again—”

“Have you been giving him anything?” asked Dr. Holroyd as quietly as he could.

“Only some cambric tea, he insisted on that.”

“Don’t give him anything — leave him alone. He is in my charge now, do you understand?”

She gazed up at him with frightened eyes that had been newly washed by tears.

“Why are you so unkind to me?” she quivered.

She looked so ready to fall that he could not resist the temptation to put his hand protectingly on her arm, so that, as she stood in the low doorway leading to the stairs, he appeared to be supporting her drooping weight.

“Have I not said that I am here to help you, Mollie?”

The secretary slipped out from the shadows behind them, his arms still full of winter evergreens.

“There is too much foliage,” he smiled, and the smile told that he had seen and heard.

Bevis Holroyd went angrily upstairs; he felt as if an invisible net was being dragged closely round him, something which, from being a cobweb, would become a cable; this air of mystery, of horror in the big house, this sly secretary, these watchful-looking servants, the nervous village doctor ready to credit anything, the lovely agitated woman who was the woman he had long so romantically loved, and the sinister sick man with his diabolic accusations, a man Bevis Holroyd had, from the first moment, hated — all these people in these dark surroundings affected the young man with a miasma of apprehension, gloom, and dread.

After a few hours of it he was nearer to losing his nerve than he had ever been; that must be because of Mollie, poor darling Mollie caught into all this nightmare.

And outside the bells were ringing across the snow, practising for Christmas Day; the sound of them was to Bevis Holroyd what the sounds of the real world are when breaking into a sleeper’s thick dreams.

The patient sat up in bed, fondling the glass of odious cambric tea.

“Why do you take the stuff?” demanded the doctor angrily.

“She won’t let me off, she thrusts it on me,” whispered Sir Harry.

Bevis Holroyd noticed, not for the first time since he had come into the fell atmosphere of this dark house that enclosed the piteous figure of the woman he loved, that husband and wife were telling different tales; on one side lay a burden of careful lying.

“Did she—” continued the sick man, “speak to you of her lost letters?”

The young doctor looked at him sternly.

“Why should Lady Strangeways make a confidante of me?” he asked. “Do you know that she was a friend of mine ten years ago before she married you?”

“Was she? How curious! But you met like strangers.”

“The light in this room is very dim—”

“Well, never mind about that, whether you knew her or not—” Sir Harry gasped out in a sudden snarl. “The woman is a murderess, and you’ll have to bear witness to it — I’ve got her letters, here under my pillow, and Garth Deane is watching her—”

“Ah, a spy! I’ll have no part in this, Sir Harry. You’ll call another doctor—”

“No, it’s your case, you’ll make the best of it — My God, I’m dying, I think—”

He fell back in such a convulsion of pain that Bevis Holroyd forgot everything in administering to him. The rest of that day and all that night the young doctor was shut up with his patient, assisted by the secretary and the housekeeper.

And when, in the pallid light of Christmas Eve morning, he went downstairs to find Lady Strangeways, he knew that the sick man was suffering from arsenic poison, that the packet taken from Mollie’s work box was arsenic, and it was only an added horror when he was called to the telephone to learn that a stiff dose of the poison had been found in the specimen of cambric tea.

He believed that he could save the husband and thereby the wife also, but he did not think he could close the sick man’s mouth; the deadly hatred of Sir Harry was leading up to an accusation of attempted murder; of that he was sure, and there was the man Deane to back him up.

He sent for Mollie, who had not been near her husband all night, and when she came, pale, distracted, huddled in her white fur, he said grimly:

“Look here, Mollie, I promised that I’d help you and I mean to, though it isn’t going to be as easy as I thought, but you have got to be frank with me.”

“But I have nothing to conceal—”

“The name of the other man—”

“The other man?”

“The man who wrote those letters your husband has under his pillow.”

“Oh, Harry has them!” she cried in pain. “That man Deane stole them then! Bevis, they are your letters of the olden days that I have always cherished.”

“My letters!”

“Yes, do you think that there has ever been anyone else?”

“But he says — Mollie, there is a trap or trick here, someone is lying furiously. Your husband is being poisoned.”

“Poisoned?”

“By arsenic given in that cambric tea. And he knows it. And he accuses you.”

She stared at him in blank incredulity, then she slipped forward in her chair and clutched the big arm.

“Oh, God,” she muttered in panic terror. “He always swore that he’d be revenged on me — because he knew that I never cared for him—”

But Bevis Holroyd recoiled; he did not dare listen, he did not dare believe.

“I’ve warned you,” he said, “for the sake of the old days, Mollie—”

A light step behind them and they were aware of the secretary creeping out of the embrowning shadows.

“A cold Christmas,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “A really cold, seasonable Christmas. We are almost snowed in — and Sir Harry would like to see you, Dr. Holroyd.”

“I have only just left him—”

Bevis Holroyd looked at the despairing figure of the woman, crouching in her chair; he was distracted, overwrought, near to losing his nerve.

“He wants particularly to see you,” cringed the secretary.

Mollie looked back at Bevis Holroyd, her lips moved twice in vain before she could say: “Go to him.”

The doctor went slowly upstairs and the secretary followed.

Sir Harry was now flat on his back, staring at the dark tapestry curtains of his bed.

“I’m dying,” he announced as the doctor bent over him.

“Nonsense. I am not going to allow you to die.”

“You won’t be able to help yourself. I’ve brought you here to see me die.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve a surprise for you too, a Christmas present. These letters now, these love letters of my wife’s — what name do you think is on them?”

“Your mind is giving way, Sir Harry.”

“Not at all — come nearer, Deane — the name is Bevis Holroyd.”

“Then they are letters ten years old. Letters written before your wife met you.”

The sick man grinned with infinite malice.

“Maybe. But there are no dates on them and the envelopes are all destroyed. And I, as a dying man, shall swear to their recent date — I, as a foully murdered man.”

“You are wandering in your mind,” said Bevis Holroyd quietly. “I refuse to listen to you any further.”

“You shall listen to me. I brought you here to listen to me. I’ve got you. Here’s my will, Deane’s got that, in which I denounced you both, there are your letters, every one thinks that she put you in charge of the case, every one knows that you know all about arsenic in cambric tea through the Pluntre case, and every one will know that I died of arsenic poisoning.”

The doctor allowed him to talk himself out; indeed it would have been difficult to check the ferocity of his malicious energy.

The plot was ingenious, the invention of a slightly insane, jealous recluse who hated his wife and hated the man she had never ceased to love; Bevis Holroyd could see the nets very skillfully drawn round him; but the main issue of the mystery remained untouched; who was administering the arsenic?

The young man glanced across the sombre bed to the dark figure of the secretary.

“What is your place in all this farrago, Mr. Deane?” he asked sternly.

“I’m Sir Harry’s friend,” answered the other stubbornly, “and I’ll bring witness any time against Lady Strangeways. I’ve tried to circumvent her—”

“Stop,” cried the doctor. “You think that Lady Strangeways is poisoning her husband and that I am her accomplice?”

The sick man, who had been looking with bitter malice from one to another, whispered hoarsely:

“That is what you think, isn’t it, Deane?”

“I’ll say what I think at the proper time,” said the secretary obstinately.

“No doubt you are being well paid for your share in this.”

“I’ve remembered his services in my will,” smiled Sir Harry grimly. “You can adjust your differences then, Dr. Holroyd, when I’m dead, poisoned, murdered. It will be a pretty story, a nice scandal, you and she in the house together, the letters, the cambric tea!”

An expression of ferocity dominated him, then he made an effort to dominate this and to speak in his usual suave stilted manner.

“You must admit that we shall all have a very Happy Christmas, doctor.”

Bevis Holroyd was looking at the secretary, who stood at the other side of the bed, cringing, yet somehow in the attitude of a man ready to pounce; Dr. Holroyd wondered if this was the murderer.

“Why,” he asked quietly to gain time, “did you hatch this plan to ruin a man you had never seen before?”

“I always hated you,” replied the sick man faintly. “Mollie never forgot you, you see, and she never allowed me to forget that she never forgot you. And then I found those letters she had cherished.”

“You are a very wicked man,” said the doctor dryly, “but it will all come to nothing, for I am not going to allow you to die.”

“You won’t be able to help yourself,” replied the patient. “I’m dying, I tell you. I shall die on Christmas Day.”

He turned his head towards the secretary and added:

“Send my wife up to me.”

“No,” interrupted Dr. Holroyd strongly. “She shall not come near you again.”

Sir Harry Strangeways ignored this.

“Send her up,” he repeated.

“I will bring her, sir.”

The secretary left, with a movement suggestive of flight, and Bevis Holroyd stood rigid, waiting, thinking, looking at the ugly man who now had closed his eyes and lay as if insensible. He was certainly very ill, dying perhaps, and he certainly had been poisoned by arsenic given in cambric tea, and, as certainly, a terrible scandal and a terrible danger would threaten with his death; the letters were not dated, the marriage was notoriously unhappy, and he, Bevis Holroyd, was associated in every one’s mind with a murder case in which this form of poison, given in this manner, had been used.

Drops of moisture stood out on the doctor’s forehead; sure that if he could clear himself it would be very difficult for Mollie to do so; how could even he himself in his soul swear to her innocence!

Of course he must get the woman out of the house at once, he must have another doctor from town, nurses — but could this be done in time; if the patient died on his hands would he not be only bringing witnesses to his own discomfiture? And the right people, his own friends, were difficult to get hold of now, at Christmas time.

He longed to go in search of Mollie — she must at least be got away, but how, without a scandal, without a suspicion?

He longed to have the matter out with this odious secretary, but he dared not leave his patient.

Lady Strangeways returned with Garth Deane and seated herself, mute, shadowy, with eyes full of panic, on the other side of the sombre bed.

“Is he going to live?” she presently whispered as she watched Bevis Holroyd ministering to her unconscious husband.

“We must see that he does,” he answered grimly.

All through that Christmas Eve and the bitter night to the stark dawn when the church bells broke ghastly on their wan senses did they tend the sick man who only came to his senses to grin at them in malice.

Once Bevis Holroyd asked the pallid woman:

“What was that white packet you had in your work box?”

And she replied:

“I never had such a packet.”

And he:

“I must believe you.”

But he did not send for the other doctors and nurses, he did not dare.

The Christmas bells seemed to rouse the sick man from his deadly swoon.

“You can’t save me,” he said with indescribable malice. “I shall die and put you both in the dock—”

Mollie Strangeways sank down beside the bed and began to cry, and Garth Deane, who by his master’s express desire had been in and out of the room all night, stopped and looked at her with a peculiar expression. Sir Harry looked at her also.

“Don’t cry,” he gasped, “this is Christmas Day. We ought all to be happy — bring me my cambric tea — do you hear?”

She rose mechanically and left the room to take in the tray with the fresh milk and water that the housekeeper had placed softly on the table outside the door; for all through the nightmare vigil, the sick man’s cry had been for “cambric tea.”

As he sat up in bed feebly sipping the vapid and odious drink the tortured woman’s nerves slipped her control.

“I can’t endure those bells, I wish they would stop those bells!” she cried and ran out of the room.

Bevis Holroyd instantly followed her; and now as suddenly as it had sprung on him, the fell little drama disappeared, fled like a poison cloud out of the compass of his life.

Mollie was leaning against the closed window, her sick head resting against the mullions; through the casement showed, surprisingly, sunlight on the pure snow and blue sky behind the withered trees.

“Listen, Mollie,” said the young man resolutely. “I’m sure he’ll live if you are careful — you mustn’t lose heart—”

The sick room door opened and the secretary slipped out.

He nervously approached the two in the window place.

“I can’t stand this any longer,” he said through dry lips. “I didn’t know he meant to go so far, he is doing it himself, you know; he’s got the stuff hidden in his bed, he puts it into the cambric tea, he’s willing to die to spite you two, but I can’t stand it any longer.”

“You’ve been abetting this!” cried the doctor.

“Not abetting,” smiled the secretary wanly. “Just standing by. I found out by chance — and then he forced me to be silent — I had his will, you know, and I’ve destroyed it.”

With this the strange creature glided downstairs.

The doctor sprang at once to Sir Harry’s room; the sick man was sitting up in the sombre bed and with a last effort was scattering a grain of powder into the glass of cambric tea.

With a look of baffled horror he saw Bevis Holroyd but the drink had already slipped down his throat; he fell back and hid his face, baulked at the last of his diabolic revenge.

When Bevis Holroyd left the dead man’s chamber he found Mollie still leaning in the window; she was free, the sun was shining, it was Christmas Day.

The author of five detective novels, Jonathan Santlofer is even better known as an artist who has works in the permanent collections of such prestigious institutions as the Art Institute of Chicago and the Norton Simon Museum, among many others, and has been reviewed by every major publication devoted to contemporary art, including Art in America, ArtForum, and the New York Times. His crime novels feature Kate McKinnon, a Queens cop and art historian, and Nate Rodriguez, a New York City forensic sketch artist; the author includes his own original sketches in this series. “The 74th Tale” was first published as a chapbook, given to customers of the Mysterious Bookshop as a Christmas gift in 2008.

I swear it wouldn’t have happened if it were not for the book. Really, I didn’t plan it. It’s just that I’m impressionable you know, sensitive to others and to suggestion. It’s the way I’m made, the way my brain works and I’ve come to accept that.

The book was a gift to myself. For Christmas. I knew I wasn’t going to get any and was feeling a little bad, like I deserved something, you know, at least one, and it was just a paperback, no big deal, though you could say it changed my life; two lives, really.

I got it at this place called the Mysterious Bookshop. Woo, woo, right? Like it should have been Halloween, not Christmas. What lured me in were the books in the window, all those titles with death and murder and blood, which is not something I think about all the time, just on occasion like most people. Someone had tied black and red ribbons around some of the books which is what got me thinking about a present, plus the little lights, black and orange ones, again more Halloween than Christmas, and funny.

Inside, the store was old and new at the same time, lots of wood and stuff but airy and nice, with books everywhere, floor-to-ceiling, on tables, stacked on the floor; I’d never seen so many in one space. There was even one of those ladders you have to climb to get at the books on the top rows which I couldn’t do for “insurance reasons” I was told by this woman, from England I think, with a fancy accent, who smiled when she told me I couldn’t use the ladder, that she’d get the higher-up books for me. I said I’d make do with the ones I could reach which was more than enough.

They were in alphabetical order, which appealed to my mind. I may not have leadership qualities but I’m organized and methodical, just as important, if you ask me, and why I was so good in my job at the post office.

I spent a long time going from A to Z but of course there were big gaps, like I missed half of D and more of H and other letters as they were in the top rows, but it didn’t matter because I was just choosing books with titles that appealed to me. I wasn’t looking for anything special. That’s always the way, isn’t it, the important things just sort of coming to you when you least expect it?

After a while my eyes were starting to blur from all the books and the English lady came over and asked if she could help me. I told her I was okay and then this white-haired guy came out of a back room and the English lady went and talked to him and I could see they were eying me and then he came over and asked exactly what the English lady had asked: if he could help me, which was annoying because I could tell they thought I was going to shoplift, which I’d never do, I’m not that kind of guy.

I told him I was making up my mind and he said that was fine but they were closing in a few minutes so I had to hurry, which sort of annoyed me, I mean the pressure of making a decision like that when I could buy only one book and I had pulled out about twenty. Like I said I was feeling bad because I knew I wasn’t going to get any Christmas presents, not from my mother who I hadn’t spoken to in like five years and my father was long dead and my brother, hell, he hated me because I’d mouthed off to his wife last time I saw him which was at Thanksgiving two years ago, a holiday I haven’t celebrated since, but she deserved it and to be honest I don’t miss my brother or his wife or his two bratty kids or their stupid split-level house out in Levittown or wherever. He, my brother, is six years older than me and never really gave a crap about me and told me I was crazy, like I’m crazy and he isn’t? and I’m not going to patch it up unless he calls me and makes like a huge apology and I don’t see that happening because I read in the newspaper that some reporter called him and he said I have nothing to say, which proves he never really cared about me, right? I mean, wouldn’t you say something nice about your brother at a time like this?

The white-haired guy was going around the store adjusting books but keeping an eye on me which made me want to leave but I wasn’t ready to go back to my one room above the Korean deli because the thought of seeing the owner with his creepy bent finger and the way he was always looking at me, squinting, was just too much, too much, so I went through the twenty books and decided to buy the one that had seventy-three stories, which seemed like the best deal, all those stories for the price of one book. It was a paperback, like I said, but really fat with poems in it too, which I didn’t think I’d read but it was still a good deal.

The white-haired guy came over while I was looking through it and said it was a classic and how I’d made the right choice and that made me feel good and he smiled and patted me on the arm and called me son, which was nice even though I’m not crazy about being touched and he said, You’ll learn a lot from that book.

I asked him what he meant and he said I’d have to read the book to find out, which was pretty cagey, like he was pressing me to buy it and that’s when I saw it was fifteen dollars so I said no way I could afford it being out of work and all and he asked how much I could spend and I told him I had seven bucks on me, a lie, I had twenty-two but wasn’t going to admit that. He sort of rocked back on his heels and tilted his head with his face screwed up like he was making a decision and finally said, Okay, it’s yours for seven dollars, Merry Christmas, which kind of blew me away.

If I’d known then that the book was going to change everything I wouldn’t have felt so good, but when someone does something nice like that you just want to believe in the goodness of people, don’t you?

Funny thing is I hadn’t planned to buy a book. I’m not much of reader; I haven’t read much my whole life except for comic books, lately Bloody Skull and Blade and Hack/Slash, before that X-Men and Fantastic Four which are more for kids but when I turned twenty-one my brother — this was before we had our fight — said I needed to improve my mind which sort of irritated me but my friend Larry who worked with me at the Post Office before I got laid off said the same thing when he saw me reading Fantastic Four and he meant it as a good thing because he knows how smart I am and he’s the one who turned me on to horror comics, so I figured I could learn a lot from a book with seventy-three stories and that was true, though some people don’t agree it was such a good thing.

By the time I left the store it was dark and drizzling with little icy puddles that looked like frozen lemonade because of the yellow light cast from streetlamps, no one around and I was glad. I liked the feeling that I was alone in the world, which I guess I am but don’t start feeling sorry for me because I could have lots of friends and a girlfriend if I wanted one. I’ve had plenty, and most girls say I’m good-looking which doesn’t mean anything to me though I wouldn’t say it’s a bad thing. My last girlfriend who I met in a bar and went home to her apartment in Murray Hill decorated all modern with girly touches like a ruffled bedspread and such said my mouth was pouty. I wasn’t totally sure what she meant but didn’t want to ask and appear uneducated so I looked it up in her dictionary. It said: To protrude the lips in an expression of displeasure or sulkiness. That didn’t sound so good to me though I was pretty sure Loretta, that was her name, meant it as a good thing since she liked running her finger over my lips, but we didn’t last too long so it didn’t matter if my lips were pouty or not.

I live only five blocks from the bookstore so it was weird that I’d never seen it. I guess you could say it was fate or evil forces, as they say in X-Men, that drew me to it.

When I got to my apartment building I stopped into the deli downstairs and bought a six-pack of beer and a family-size bag of potato chips and a Snickers bar. I tried not to look at the owner’s bent finger. I carefully laid my money on the counter so I wouldn’t have to touch him, but when he gave me the change he made a point of rubbing his finger against my hand and I know it was on purpose because he’s done it before, and I swear a chill went through my entire body.

As soon as I got inside my apartment I gulped down a beer then started another, tore open the chips and sunk onto my couch, which I got from the street, leather and really nice except for a few stains and a tear on one of the back pillows and on one arm which I fixed with Scotch Magic Tape and you can hardly see it now, I’m handy that way. Then I skimmed through my new book and read all the titles making sure I was not moving my lips even though no one was around because one of my girlfriends, Susie, I think her name was, made fun of me for doing that.

I was sorry I hadn’t asked the white-haired guy or the English lady which were the best tales, as they were called, because there were so many, so I just went by the titles like I do the names of the horses when I put a few dollars down at OTB, though I usually don’t win.

The first tale I chose was about a gold bug that bites a guy, I think, I wasn’t sure because it was really hard to read with too many words and sentences that went on so long that I had to reread them and I finally stopped and might have given up and been really annoyed that I’d wasted seven dollars if I hadn’t started another tale which grabbed me right away about a nervous guy who gets pretty crazy as the story goes on because this old guy’s eye is driving him nuts. It was pretty funny and got me thinking about the guy in the deli downstairs and his pinky, which is arched up away from his hand as if it’s been yanked out of the socket and put back in all wrong with no nail at the end, just a stump. I always end up staring at it, you know how that is, and then it stays in my mind. Sometimes I avoid going into the store for weeks so I won’t have to see it but when I need something quick it just makes sense to go there and then I see it again and it’s all I can think about for days.

I didn’t want to think about the finger so I read another tale about some guy named Roderick and his friend who bury Roderick’s twin sister, only she isn’t dead, which reminded me of the time I found an injured bird on the sidewalk outside my apartment building when I was a kid. I think it flew into the side of the building; it was alive but couldn’t fly. I put it in a shoe box and fed it birdseed and gave it water with an eyedropper but it just got weaker and I knew it was going to die — which is exactly what Roderick and his friend thought about Roderick’s sister — but I couldn’t kill it outright so I buried the box in an empty lot on the corner and marked the spot with a brick. A week later I dug it up but it was gone and I was never sure if someone else dug it up or if the brick got moved or what happened so I tried again with a mouse that I caught in one of those glue traps.

I didn’t wait so long this time, just a day, but when I dug the mouse up he was dead. Mice are easy to catch, so I used more, burying one for like a half day or so — dead when I dug him up — another for like a third of a day, also dead, so I decided I had to make it more methodical. Like I said my mind works best when I’m methodical which is why I was good in the post office and would still have that job if I hadn’t gotten into that fight, which wasn’t my fault.

I buried the next mouse for exactly eight hours, dead, then one for seven, also dead, and so on subtracting an hour until one finally lived. Two mice lived for five hours after being buried alive. It was awesome, you know, to open the box and see this little creature panting for breath but alive. But then I had to see if they could live for six hours and they both died.

I did that, buried animals and such, on and off for the next few years till we moved away from the corner lot and I sort of stopped thinking about it; well not really but I hadn’t thought about actually doing it again until I read the story because Roderick’s sister who doesn’t die but comes back at the end, like a zombie, and falls onto her brother and they both die and the friend races out — I couldn’t blame him for that — and when he looks back the house is cracking apart and crashing down and my heart was beating like the heart under the floorboard in the first tale but I kept reading and the next tale was about the same thing — like the writer was speaking just to me — all about being buried alive, and worse because the guy who told this tale had this like sick fear of being buried alive and in the end he wakes up and he is buried alive, at least he thinks so, really he’s in a boat or something, which was a cheat, but it got me all caught up again in the idea of being buried alive, well not me, but something, someone.

I couldn’t get the idea out of my mind. It was all I thought about for days while everyone else was thinking about Christmas.

Now they’re saying it was premeditated, and it’s true I thought about it, a lot, I even dreamed about it, but I still say, and I told this to my court-appointed lawyer — a woman who looks at me with a blank stare and wears the same suit every time I see her — gray stripes with a different blouse so she thinks it looks different but it doesn’t — that it was the book, the tales that were the premeditation part, not me. You see what I’m saying? But she says that’s no defense, which makes me think she’s a lousy lawyer.

I’ve been here for seven months now and have read all seventy-three tales, some more than once, and a lot of the poems, which were okay, and they inspired me to write my own tale especially since there have been lots of stories written about me, one by a reporter who came to interview me but still got it wrong, so I decided to write my story, my own tale of what really happened and why. It was the hardest thing I ever did.

I let my lawyer read it and she says I should destroy it because it will seal my fate, but like I said I don’t think she’s a very good lawyer because I think I did a really good job of explaining my feelings and my motive, if you want to call it that, but you be the judge.

First of all I am not nervous. I am sensitive. Very, very, dredfully sensitive, but not so dredful that it is a bad thing. I eschew that people are saying I am crazy — mad as they use to say in the olden days but I am not. How could I be mad and get away with what I did and I would have gotten away with it I could have if I wanted to. That is the unequivocal point!

I was careful and filled with dissimulation for days before I did it and I was methodical which is how my mind works and a little melancholy mainley because I live alone and there is a veil of gloom draping over my apartment and I was all-absorbed with this fancy of being buried alive which is like the shadow between life and death and I had to know where one ended and the other begins.

It vexed me for days but methought I could not do it I mean you cannot exactly bury yourself and even if I could get someone to help me like Larry who laboured beside me at the post office how could I keep track of the time and unearth the grave and see if I lived right? Impossible!

So I needed a volunteer! I wasn’t sure who but once I had the idea I was inflamed with intense excitement and bought the trunk which was not made well just a mockery of cardbord painted to look like lether which I could scrap off with my fingernail but I thought it would work singularly well for my endeavor!

There was a construction site right next to my apartment and I went thereupon at night feeling torrents of blood beating in my heart and dug the grave way in the back where they were not building yet. It took me 3 nights but fineally I was ready and with slight quivering I went down to the deli and there he was! Giving me the evil eye like always and I looked upon that hideous bent finger of his and my blood ran cold and I had a bottel of chloroform and a rag with me but there was a customer a woman buying laundery detergent so I went into the back near the frozen food and my nerves were very unstrung and I waited and he could not see me but I could see him and his finger!

I waited a customary duration for the woman to leave then I seezed upon a package of Oreos and delivered them to the counter and I could see the guy was vexed to see me because he made a little grunt which I heard because my hearing is acute and like I told you I am sensitive. For a moment I did not think I would be able to do it but then his hideous finger brushed against my hand and I shivered all the way to my soul and I got the rag over his nose and he fought me but he was not very strong and even when he made a low mowning cry I had an impetuous fury that kept me going and I did not stop until he grew tremulous and slumped down and fell on the floor.

I felt intense paroxysms and went back upstairs in haste to bring the trunk down and closed the deli door behind me and put the closed sign in the window and endeavored to get the guy into the trunk. Not easy! I had to be careful not to touch that gruesome hideous finger! It took like an eternal period but I fineally got him in and then the top would not close! I was vexed and inflamed but found some duck tape which worked to keep it shut tight in case he tried to get out.

It was all blackness and absolute night when I dragged the trunk outside and my heart was vacillating and no doubt I grew very pale but I had made solem promises to do what I was doing so I dragged the trunk around the corner and into the construction sight and back to the grave I had dug and pushed the trunk in vehemently and piled dirt over it so it was very entombed. Then I found formidable rocks and put them on top the whole time sweating and my heart pounding but it was thrilling!

After that I went back to the deli and my limbs were trembeling but I fetched two bags of potato chips and a six-pack of beer and another Snickers and went upstairs to my apartment where I was consumed by a burning thirst and drank the beer and devoured the chips and Snickers and my heart stopped pounding and I was feeling less vexed and I counted off the hours because I needed to know how long the guy was entombed. My plan was to keep him buried over night. I did not wish him any ill harm! I wanted him to live! I had good intentions! It was not a crime! It was an experament!

But then I realized with trepidation that I could not unentomb him in the morning because there would be a throng of construction workers and all my cunning and resolve would be ruined!

The next thing I knew it had dawned morning. I had fallen into a deep slumber from the beer and hard work and I was feeling unwell because all I had eaten was the 2 bags of chips and the Snickers bar but when I pictured the guy encoffined in the trunk and how by now the chloroform must be worn off and he could be awake and filled with a terrible dread I felt better and I read my favourite story again the one that inspired me to such fancy and I made a methodical decizion to wait another day and night because one night was not much of a test for a premature burial and so I resolved that he should stay buried for 2 nights!

I was again filed with a hunger so I went down to the deli which still had the closed sign in the window to keep people out and got some Kraft American cheese and Wonder bread and mayo and a giant-size bag of chips and 2 bottels of Yoo-Hoo and went back upstairs and made cheese sanwiches and watched TV til I fell asleep and the next day dawned. Then I watched DVDs of old movies to pass the duration even though I could hardly sit still thinking about the man and what must be going thru his mind in that underground box and that kept me stirring until I started thinking that if my experament worked and the guy lived it would be no good if I was the only one who knew about it and I got tumultuous and started pacing and I did not know how many hours passed but it was starting to darken again and then it came to me who I could tell and it made perfect sense so I raced downstairs in haste and ran 5 blocks feeling like I was in a gossamer dream and went right in and saw all the books and decorations that reminded me it was Xmas and the English lady was there and she looked surprized and discordant to see me and I asked if the white-haired guy was around and she said you must mean Otto and I said yes if that is his name and she went to fetch him and he came out of the back room and I told them both how they must hasten to come with me that I had something awesome to show them and I guess they could see how aroused I was because Otto told the young guy with all the tatoos who was at the desk near the door to watch the store and then they followed me into the gloomy night.

Otto kept telling me to calm down but I could not and when we got to the construction site Otto said to the English lady Sally to wait on the street but I said no she had to come to see what I had done and she said ok and Otto held her hand because the ground had much irregularity and depression from all the construction.

Then we were there and my heart was thumping in my chest and I took the rocks off and started scrapping the dirt away with my shaking hands and Otto asked what are you doing? but I just kept going and then you could see the trunk and I got really aroused and had to rip the tape asunder to get it off but once I did I stopped because it was a rapturous moment and I remembered the line I had memorized and bespoke it—

Arise! Did I not bid they arise?

Otto and Sally stared at me with discordant looks and then I did it! I took the top off! and there was the wretched guy! Groaning and filed with agony! and whiter than the sheet of paper upon which I write these words but alive!

Otto and Sally looked truly vexed and impetuous but Otto helped the Korean man out of the box. He was trembeling and pitiful looking and Otto tried to calm him down and I saw Sally was getting her cel phone out but it was ok because I had made a discovery! A man could be entombed for 2 nights and live so the world should know and praize my endeavor and when the police came I did not put up a fight I just went into the car with them.

The End

I sent my story to the one person I was sure would like it, the white-haired guy Otto and he wrote back asking if he could publish it in this book he did every year about true crime. He said he was going to use the magazine article written by the guy who interviewed me and would publish my story along with it, which was awesome because that way people would get to hear my side. Otto said there would be about twenty stories in the book and I’d have my name on mine but he couldn’t pay me because it was illegal to make money from a crime, though I still say it wasn’t like a real crime but that was okay because the idea of having my tale in a book with twenty others was awesome and Otto promised I could have ten copies to give my friends though the only person I could think of was Larry and maybe the man from the deli so that he would understand what I was trying to do. It gets pretty boring in here so I’m looking forward to the book and reading my tale and the others too. I hope there will be some good ones that will appeal to my sensitive nature and maybe even inspire me.

As a major figure in the world of literary fiction, Bradford Morrow has received an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and many other honors. He is the founding editor of the prestigious literary journal Conjunctions and the author of many acclaimed works of fiction, including The Diviner’s Tale (2011), Giovanni’s Gift (1997), and Trinity Fields (1995). “The Uninnocent” was first published in The Village Voice Literary Supplement and was collected in The Uninnocent (New York, Pegasus, 2011).

In our innocence, we burned candles. We got them from a nearby church, and because my sister believed what we were doing was holy, she said it was fair to take them. Churches, Sister said, were not in the business of making money off children. “Alms for the poor,” said she. “Suffer the little ones to come before me and unto them I shall make many gifts.” My sister enjoyed creating scripture. She had an impressive collection of hymnals, though neither of us could sing. And, as I say, many candles. I worried about her logic and thefts sometimes, but made it a point never to contradict her. She was older than I, and anyway, what was a hymnal but paper and ink? What was a candle but so much wax and string?

The yellow tongues at the ends of their tapers would flutter when the wind flowed off the lake, and we’d look at each other, down there in the old boathouse, our eyes wide, our mouths agape. And yes, when the flames made shadows all over the rustic wooden walls, where the canoes lay on their shelves and oars were lined up like rifles in a gun case, we would know that he was there. We weren’t, to say the least, objective in these exercises, these private séances. It didn’t occur to either my sister or me that the flickering of the candle flames might have been caused by our own expectant breath. The wind, we knew, could have nothing to do with it. No, it was him. He had come back. He never failed us. After all, he was our Christmas brother.

He never spoke. Our task was to decide what his signs meant. Everything had deep meaning. If the smoke of the candles drifted in a certain direction, it was up to us to deduce what such a thing portended. If a bat flew out of the boathouse, if a flock of chorusing birds lit in a tree overhead, if a mouse danced along the length of the wall, by our reckoning there were valuable ramifications. We took it upon ourselves to determine what the signs were, and interpret. This must, I know, sound indiscriminate and childish.

An instance. Down by the lake. Blind old dear Bob Coconut, the dog, stiffened in the legs, lying in the long grass. The air blue. Autumn. The water was cold, and red and brown leaves clotted the surface of the lake near the shore, like an oil slick. Angela and I had a sign that day. We’d found a dead ovenbird that’d flown into the kitchen window, and we knew what that meant. Out in the boat, we got our friend Butter calmed down enough so that he would let us tie him up like we always liked to do, and tickled him, and warned him if he laughed we would throw him overboard. The blue air was turning toward purple as the sun moved down into the trees and evening was on us. We’d been so hard at our game we hadn’t noticed how quickly the hours passed.

Butter wasn’t having a very good time. Nice boy with his round face and wide-open pale-gray eyes. He couldn’t complain, of course, because those were the rules, and because my sister had wrapped her muffler around his mouth. “Don’t worry, little guy,” Angela told him. “We’re taking you home now.” And he squirmed a bit before falling back into the bottom of the boat to breathe. “Don’t you cry,” she finished, “or Angie will have to hurt.”

I was slowly rowing us in. Butter’s parents would soon be worried. The evening star was up, a tiny eye of foil, winking. And then I saw him, our brother. He was standing on the lake. He was a milky swirl. His feet were in the mist that had come up out of the water into the warm and cool atmosphere. My sister put her palms over Butter’s eyes so that he couldn’t see. She thought he had been through enough, and she didn’t want him to be so scared that he’d never come out to play with us again. Moreover, she felt that nobody deserved to see our brother but us. Butter sobbed in the bottom of the boat. Angela and I cried too, while the evening star got brighter and brighter.

Butter was drawn into all this because one of the candles went out at just the moment he walked into the boathouse when we were praying for the ovenbird’s soul. Too bad for Butter, my sister told me later. And true, it was too bad, because from that moment on, all Butter’s problems became a matter of fate. Nothing we did, said Angela, was because we decided to do it. Our Christmas brother — who was one with fate — told us what to do and we did as we were told.

Looking back, I must admit to some surprise at how unparented we were. My father’s persistent absences were difficult to fathom, and what I’ve since been able to fathom is difficult to articulate, for the shame of what I think I understand. He worked hard to support us. He had a long daily commute from our rural home into the city. He was a tall, meek, square-headed, decent sort of man. And I’ve become unshakable in my conviction that he was a dedicated philanderer. I have no proof, and I never confronted him. My deduction is the nasty product of all those days and nights of fatherlessness coupled with my sure memory of his wandering, unprincipled eyes.

As for Mother, she was transformed into a cipher, a drifting and listless creature, by the Christmas brother’s death. We never knew her any other way, though Father told us she used to be a happy girl. She took it all to be her fault. She was the one who slipped on the ice. No one pushed her. The miscarriage that followed her accident was quite probably the end of her life, too, along with that of the blackened holiday fetus. Angela and I — who came along later — were unexpected, were not even afterthoughts. Mother carried us, birthed us, but gave us to understand we would never be our brother. Nothing would ever replace him. Much as I loved him, sometimes he made me want to do bad things.

In our innocence, sometimes we were compelled to go to extremes to get our brother to come to us. We felt forced to do things we weren’t proud of, yet never lost our faith in him even when, in our mad desire to tempt him home, we hurt things that didn’t deserve hurt.

We always feared Christmas. We couldn’t understand that other world, that parallel world where he resided, we couldn’t see why Christmas made him so reluctant a guest. Here, we thought, was the one time of year when families should celebrate together, reunite and rejoice.

Angela was the one who decided to hurt Bob Coconut. I didn’t make the connection between the dog and our brother, but Angela told me to trust her and I did. This was during Christmas, of course. My father and I had brought in the tree we’d sawed down at the tree farm. A prickly, nasty blue spruce. Ornaments, twinkling lights, cookies, the train set, cards hung over pendant string from end to end on the mantel. Bob Coconut lay on a rug before the fire, and twitched pleasantly under the influence of his dreams.

“You think Coco remembers when he could see?” Angela asked me.

I didn’t know, but I thought so.

“Coco?” she whispered in his old ear. “Oh, Co-co.”

“Let him sleep,” I said.

“I bet Coco could see him if he wanted to. Dogs have those abilities, you know. They can hear things we can’t hear. And they can smell better than we can. I bet he can see right into that other world, can’t you, Coco dear?”

“Doubt it,” I said.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” she said.

I don’t want to write down what my sister did to him. I wasn’t surprised, though, that it failed to work. Our brother was farther away from us than ever, after that. From then on, I decided to trust nothing my sister said or did. Instead, I began to observe her.

Two Angela stories.

First Angela story. There was a period when she thought she was our brother, after he stopped appearing to us. “He’s in me now,” she announced one night. She liked possessing him, liked being possessed. On occasion, she allowed me to pose questions. “What is it like being dead?” I asked. “You’ll know soon enough,” he answered through his medium. “Do you love me?” I asked. “I love you fine, but I love Angela better,” she said, her eyelids closing to narrow slits, the corners of her mouth lifted into a satisfied smile.

Then she found out one day that she wasn’t our brother. Something mysterious happened to her, and Mother told her she was a woman. And so it was time for her to start wearing dresses. I got to shave her legs. My sister even photographed me while I shaved them, telling me it was good for both of us, a sacrifice. She wouldn’t let me shave the hair under her arms, though. She said this was because she couldn’t take a picture of me doing it. I would be too close to her. That is what she said. The real reason she wouldn’t let me do it, I think, was that part of her still believed she was our brother. She could walk around with her glistening and smooth white legs in the sun beneath the pleat of her billowy skirt, a young woman with strong calves and hard thighs, and we could admire her lush femininity, but we could never release her from her masculine possessiveness.

Second Angela story. Once there was a parade in the little upstate town where we lived. I don’t remember what holiday it was. There were a couple of makeshift floats. There were marching bands from county schools. I remember because it was the day my sister ran away from home. She was eighteen. She managed to vanish — “like a ghost,” said our mother — and was not heard from for many years. She was a missing person. Some people thought she was dead. I knew better; I knew she was truly missing.

In our innocence, we grew up. Tonight is his birthday, or would have been. He’ll always seem older than me, no matter how many years I keep on going. Angela is married and lives in New Hampshire now, her personal cold complementing its heavy winters. She has been married twice. She’s been around, as she likes to phrase it. She has three children — she may be cold, but she’s not frigid — and mentioned in a recent letter that she wants another.

I never understood this marrying business, and I can’t imagine what it must be like to raise children. The dog I own here in the city reminds me of old Bob Coconut. He’s far too lively and large for this apartment, but he is an amiable companion. When he curls up by the fireplace — the landlord won’t let me burn a fire in the hearth, so I make do with a gouache painting of flames I made on cardboard — I think of those times, of the complexities and strangeness of a child’s world. We were isolated. We didn’t know what we were doing; we didn’t realize how splendidly we were able to do what we wanted. All that is gone now. Is it schizophrenic of me to say that I regret the loss and couldn’t care less?

Here is Christmas night again. Christmas Eve I spent with my friends. We ate dinner down in Chinatown. It was a noisy evening there, the streets teeming with revelers. Tonight, it is silent. I’ve thought about phoning Mother, even considered giving Angela a call. Not fond of Mother’s new husband, and knowing Angela to be a chore, I have decided against communication. Were Bob Coconut here, I might light a candle for old times’ sake. There is a cathedral around the corner, where I could snag one. I miss my ghost; he’d have made a decent brother, despite how our mother would have raised him, smothering him with a flood of feeling, drinking his love like a vampire. Yes, I miss my Christmas brother. He would have been a felicity in my olding life. He’d have been able to tell me why I’m all alone.

Outside the window, snow is making a feeble attempt to fall. The streetlights that form halos of its transient passage are cheery. A whole world tries its best to rise to the dignity and joy of the occasion. I wish the world happiness, and everyone in it peace. I do. I’ll always regret what happened to Butter. We were uninnocent, but the very isolation that in some ways damned us has also acted as our benefactor and protector. I suppose I’m grateful no one has ever found out how it happened, or will.

Detective Chief Inspector Banks works in a fictional town in Yorkshire, where Peter Robinson was born and lived until he moved to Canada in 1974. The cop who appears in virtually all of the author’s books is tough enough to do his job but, as in the present story, has a giant heart, helping to make his adventures among the most popular crime fiction being written today, with regular appearances on the bestseller lists in Canada, the United States, and Great Britain, numerous awards on both sides of the Atlantic, and frequent recognition among the notable books of the year by various publications. “Blue Christmas” was first published as a chapbook limited to three hundred fifty-five copies (Norfolk, VA, Crippen & Landru, 2005).

A three-day holiday. Banks sat down at the breakfast table and made some notes on a lined pad. If he was doomed to spend Christmas alone this year, he was going to do it in style. For Christmas Eve, Alastair Sim’s Scrooge, the black and white version, of course. For Christmas Day, Love, Actually. Mostly it was a load of crap, no doubt about that, but it was worth the silliness for Bill Nighy’s Billy Mack, and Keira Knightley was always worth watching. For Boxing Day, David Copperfield, the one with the Harry Potter actor in it, because it had helped him through a nasty hangover one Boxing Day a few years ago, and thus are traditions born.

Music was more problematic. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Handel’s Messiah, naturally. Both were on his iPod and could be played through his main sound system. But some years ago, he had made a Christmas compilation tape of all his favourite songs, from Bing’s “White Christmas” to Elvis’s “Santa Claus Is Back in Town” and “Blue Christmas,” The Pretenders’ “2000 Miles” and Roland Kirk’s “We Free Kings.” Unfortunately, that had gone up in flames along with the rest of his music collection. Which meant a quick trip to HMV in Eastvale that afternoon to pick up a few seasonal CDs so he could make a playlist. He had to go to Marks and Spencer, anyway, for his turkey dinner, so he might as well drop in at HMV while he was in the Swainsdale Centre. As for wine, he still had a more than decent selection from his brother’s cellar — including some fine Amarone, Chianti Classico, Clarets, and Burgundies — which would certainly get him through the next three days without any pain. Luckily, he had bought and given out all his Christmas presents earlier — what few there were: money for Tracy, a Fairport Convention box-set for Brian, chocolates and magazine subscriptions for his parents, and a silver and jet bracelet for Annie Cabbot.

Banks put his writing pad aside and reached for his coffee mug. Beside it sat a pristine copy of Kate Atkinson’s Behind the Scenes at the Museum, which he fully intended to read over the holidays. There should be plenty of peace and quiet. Brian was with his band in Europe and wouldn’t be able to get up to Gratly until late on Boxing Day. Tracy was spending Christmas with her mother Sandra, stepdad Sean, and baby Sinead, and Annie was heading home to the artists’ colony in St. Ives, where they would all no doubt be having a good weep over The Junky’s Christmas, which, Annie had told him, was a Christmas staple among her father’s crowd. He had seen it once, himself, and he had to admit that it wasn’t bad, but it hadn’t become a tradition with him.

All in all, then, this Christmas was beginning to feel like something to be got through with liberal doses of wine and music. Even the weather was refusing to cooperate. The white Christmas that everyone had been hoping for since a tentative sprinkle of snow in late November had not materialized, though the optimists at the meteorological centre were keeping their options open. At the moment, though, it was uniformly grey and wet in Yorkshire. The only good thing that could be said for it was that it wasn’t cold. Far from it. Down south people were sitting outside at Soho cafes and playing golf in the suburbs. Banks wondered if he should have gone away, taken a holiday. Paris. Rome. Madrid. A stranger in a strange city. Even London would have been better than this. Maybe he could still catch a last-minute flight.

But he knew he wasn’t going anywhere. He sipped some strong coffee and told himself not to be so maudlin. Christmas was a notoriously dangerous time of year. It was when people got depressed and gave in to their deepest fears, when all their failures, regrets, and disappointments came back to haunt them. Was he going to let himself give in to that, become a statistic?

He decided to go into town now and get his last-minute shopping over with before it got really busy. Just before he left, though, his phone rang. Banks picked up the receiver.

“Sir? It’s DC Jackman.”

“Yes, Winsome. What’s the problem?”

“I’m really sorry to disturb you at home, sir, but we’ve got a bit of a problem.”

“What is it?” Banks asked. Despite having to spend Christmas alone, he had been looking forward to a few days away from the Western Area Headquarters, if only to relax and unwind after a particularly difficult year. But perhaps that wasn’t to be.

“Missing person, sir.”

“Can’t someone else handle it?”

“It needs someone senior, sir, and DI Cabbot’s already on her way to Cornwall.”

“Who’s missing?”

“A woman by the name of Brenda Mercer. Forty-two years old.”

“How long?”

“Overnight.”

“Any reason to think there’s been foul play?”

“Not really.”

“Who reported her missing?”

“The husband.”

“Why did he leave it until this morning?”

“He didn’t. He reported it at 6 p.m. yesterday evening. We’ve been looking into it. But you know how it is with missing persons, sir, unless it’s a kid. It was very early days. Usually they turn up, or you find a simple explanation quickly enough.”

“But not in this case?”

“No, sir. Not a sign. The husband’s getting frantic. Difficult. Demanding to see someone higher up. And he’s got the daughter and her husband in tow now. They’re not making life any easier. I’ve only just managed to get rid of them by promising I’d get someone in authority to come and talk to them.”

“All right,” Banks said, with a sigh. “Hang on. I’ll be right in.”

The greatest criminal character in literature is A. J. Raffles, the gentleman jewel thief created by E. W. Hornung at the end of the Victorian era. A few years after the author’s death in 1921, the popularity of the character remained so high that the British magazine The Thriller asked Philip Atkey (using the pseudonym Barry Perowne) to continue the rogue’s adventures, and he produced more stories about Raffles than the creator had. Over a fifty-year career, Atkey wrote hundreds of stories and more than twenty novels, many featuring the suave safecracker and his sidekick, Bunny Manders. “Noel, Noel” was first collected in Murder Under the Mistletoe, edited by Cynthia Manson (New York, Signet, 1992).

It was on a gray December morning, under a sky threatening snow, that I called by request at the Colonial Office (Pacific Section) in the matter of my brother, recently deceased. As his only relative surviving in England, I was handed a letter written by the Resident Commissioner of the remote archipelago where my brother’s life had come to an end. The letter was accompanied by a photograph of his grave, and I was given also a small box or chest, carved with strange island designs, which had been found in his palm-thatched house and contained, I was told, a manuscript he had left, of an autobiographical nature.

The official who interview me was a young-old individual, impeccably dressed in a black jacket and striped trousers, and of great urbanity. When I took my leave, he helped me into my tweed overcoat, handed me my gray bowler hat and my cane. No doubt in deference to my frailty and my silver hair, he insisted on carrying the chest out to the waiting taxi.

The snow had set in by now, in earnest.

“Christmas in a few days,” said my official, as we shook hands through the taxi window. “It’ll be a white one.”

He gave me a rather odd look, and I had no doubt, as the taxi set off for Victoria Station, that he was thinking about my brother, who had been born on a Christmas Day and named, accordingly, Noel.

I lived in the country, and returning home in the train, I had a first-class compartment to myself. Prior to opening the chest on the seat beside me, I studied again the photograph of my brother’s far-off memorial. A small obelisk of what look like white coral, it bore the curious epitaph “1°.58′ N., 157°.27′ W.,” together with two sets of initials, my brother’s and, I had been told, those of the woman to whom he had been for a great many years (though today was the first I had heard of it) most happily married.

Touching those years, the terms used by the Resident Commissioner to describe them, filled me with astonishment as I glanced over his letter again: “Beloved by this small community of forty-two souls — a source of comfort — sage in council — kind, courageous, selfless—”

With the best will in the world, I could not recognize in this picture my brother as I had known him. I turned for enlightenment to the chest on the seat beside me. I studied the carving for a moment — designs of outrigged canoes, paddles, coconut palms, turtles, and land crabs, and when, with an uncomfortable sense of intrusion, I lifted the lid, there came from the chest a subtle aroma that suggested to my imagination palm fibre and sea shells, sunshine and coral grottoes, baked breadfruit and petals of frangipani. I breathed again, it seemed to me — in that train rocking through the December snowfall — the trade winds which had blown from the pages of my boyhood reading, which was as near as I had ever got to the Pacific.

I took from the chest my brother’s manuscript book, ran my fingers over its frayed binding, turned the yellowed leaves at random. They were covered with faded writing in a hand which, even after all the long years, I recognized as my brother’s. And at the opening sentence, simple and conventional — My earliest memory is Christmas in the year 1880 — I nodded to myself, remembering that and many another Christmas at home.

I was five years older than Noel. We were a large family, living in a rambling country house, and our father, an awesome man normally, was always rollicking and jovial at Christmastime. For us, his eight children, it was always, outstandingly, the happiest time of the year. Especially was it so, in boyhood and adolescence, for Noel, the youngest of us, being his birthday as well as the season for which he was named. For Noel it was a time of pure magic. His eyes shone with excitement. He was a handsome boy, sensitive and imaginative, not a bit like the rest of us, who were rather homely-looking and stodgy. Yes, at Yuletide my Noel, as a boy, was always at his best — though later, in young manhood, by a kind of reaction to a most unfortunate circumstance, he was to be always at his disastrous worst.

My sister Emily once remarked, “I suppose it’s natural that Christmas should mean even more to Noel than to the rest of us, but, you know, I wonder at times if his excitement is quite healthy. His anxiety that we should all be here together, his intense preoccupation with whether it will snow at just the right time, the utter extravagance with which he’d reward the waits if we didn’t restrain him — it all makes me wonder if there’s not perhaps a slight instability in him somewhere. Really, I tremble at times to think of his future.”

She had good reason. At sixteen he began to get into scrapes. At eighteen his behavior gave rise to a deeper disquiet. At twenty, while articled to an estate agent in Shropshire, he kicked over the traces so seriously that my father told him never to show his face at home again.

Poor Noel. Christmas was not the same for him without us — or for us without him. Some of us were married by then, but we always foregathered in the old home in deference to our father. Our natural stodginess, lacking the inspiration of Noel’s presence, was quite stupefying.

As for Noel, the very next Christmas season after he had been cast out, he was brought before a London magistrate and charged with drunkenness and insulting behavior. We heard about it later. Asked if he had anything to say, he blamed his misdemeanor on the need he had felt to drown the memory of past joyous Christmases in the home from which his own folly had barred him forever.

“Young man,” said the magistrate, “your trouble is less unique than you fancy. We are all prone to self-pity at this season. We all have memories and regrets. We are all sensitive at Christmastime, but it is a sign of immaturity in you that you have allowed such a universal feeling to become, in your case, morbidly developed. Case dismissed, but don’t leave the court. I haven’t finished with you.”

What followed was surprising. The magistrate, moved perhaps by Noel’s good looks and charm of manner, and by a certain pathos in his aberration, invited him into his own home as a guest over Christmas. The visit grew extended. Long after the holly had been taken down, my brother continued to loll in the magistrate’s house. Instead of resenting this, the magistrate and his good lady felt a growing affection for him. In a sense, they adopted him; but, not liking to see him idle, they found him a sound position in a South Coast town.

The following Christmas found Noel in trouble again. It was so serious that, instead of returning “home” to the magistrate’s house, where he was expected on Christmas Eve, he sent the unfortunate man a telegram announcing his intention of throwing himself from Beachy Head at midnight.

The harassed magistrate caused police to be rushed to the spot. Noel, however, having sent his telegram, had succumbed to drink and was later found insensible in a snow-covered beach shelter. The magistrate, though furious, yielded to his wife’s insistence that he smooth over the trouble Noel was in; but he told my brother from thenceforth he could go to the devil in his own way.

The magistrate and his wife, on the other hand, went to Aix-les-Bains to recuperate from their undeserved anxieties. One morning, as they were walking from their hotel to the curative baths, in the pleasant winter sunshine, a man darted out from behind a date palm and planted himself squarely in their path.

It was my brother Noel, handsome as ever, but much disheveled and in that state of excitement, peculiar to himself, which my sister Emily had once described as “unhealthy.”

“Go to the devil, may I?” he shouted at the magistrate. “In my own way? All right, watch me! This is my way!”

His hand flashed to his mouth. A cloaked gendarme came running towards the scene, blowing his whistle. My brother Noel lurched heavily to the left. He lurched heavily to the right. His knees buckled. The magistrate’s good lady screamed. My brother Noel fell contorted at her feet with a white froth on his lips.

It was proved afterward that he had eaten soap.

His object had been to frighten the couple into taking him back into their good graces. The extraordinary thing was that the magistrate did not have him jailed. He was eager to do so, but his good lady took the view that it was no good sending Noel to prison, since he would be out in a month or two, and free to plague them again. She would be terrified to put a foot outside her house, she said, for fear he might spring at her from the shrubbery and open his veins with a razor before her very eyes. He must be sent, she insisted, somewhere very far away.

The magistrate provided funds for Noel’s emigration to Australia.

At home, we of his family heard of all this later. Our father passed away in the interim — our sister Emily too — and those of us who were still living in the family home had resolved to let bygones be bygones and to make Noel welcome among us, should he ever show up.

But we heard nothing from him, and it was only now as I sat in the train reading his manuscript that I came to that part of it which dealt with adventures of which I had had no previous inkling.

I laid down the book on my knees for a moment. The lights had come on in the compartment. Outside, the snow was falling thickly, and the woods and fields glimmered under their mantle of white as the December evening drew in.

Poor Noel, I thought again; he had been worthless through and through when he had left England. I marveled again at the letter, so full of praise of my brother, which I had been handed at the Colonial Office. What experience had befallen him, I wondered, to have changed him so greatly?

I picked up the book again, to read of a continuing succession of disasters and infamies. Within a year, he had made Australia too hot to hold him. He was compelled to leave clandestinely aboard a trading schooner, the Ellis P. Harkness, skippered by a toothless Cockney named Larkin, as incorrigible a scoundrel as my brother.

The third member of the schooner’s company was a slim, brown, silent, smiling boy, a native of Tokelau called Rahpi. He was far too good for the precious party he sailed with, but through months of their huckstering and rogueries among the archipelagos he served them loyally, and for my brother the boy conceived an inexplicable devotion.

One day, as the two men were drinking morosely in the cabin, an excited hail from Rahpi, at the wheel, sent them staggering up the companionway. The boy pointed off to starboard. Far across the shining water, under the blue Pacific sky, was an open boat. The prevailing easterly blew light and fitful; the boat’s sail trembled. It was clear there was no hand at the helm.

By mid-afternoon the schooner came up with the boat. There lay in it the sun-blackened body of a man. My brother Noel dropped down into the boat to examine the corpse. Clutched in its brittle fingers was a wash-leather bag. Noel loosed it from the dead man’s grip and shook the contents onto his palm. His heart gave a great thud.

Pearls!

He felt the boat rock as Larkin leaped down into it.

“Halves, mate!” Larkin said. “How about it, mate?”

Noel looked at him. Larkin’s eyes narrowed, his tongue moved round over his toothless gums, his right hand rested tensely on the bulge of the revolver in the pocket of his tattered ducks.

My brother smiled. “Halves it is,” he said.

Larkin looked with sly gloating at the pearls on my brother Noel’s palm. “What a Christmas present, mate!” Larkin said. “Eh, mate?”

The bright day seemed to my brother Noel suddenly, strangely to darken. He said slowly, “Christmas present?”

Larkin flared up. It was as though, all at once, he were anxious to find cause for offense, an excuse for a fight.

“Why, you lowdown, busted boozer,” he shouted, “ain’t you got a spark of decency left in you? Ain’t you got a family back home to bow your head in shame to think of at a time like this? Don’t you know tomorrow’s Christmas Eve?”

The pearls spilled unheeded from my brother’s hand to the bottom of the boat. Larkin plunged to his knees, pouring curses on the corpse as he shoved it aside to get at the boat’s bilges. Noel swung himself back to the schooner’s deck. He thrust past the staring Rahpi and went below. He flung his broken-peaked cap across the cabin and reached for a bottle.

That night, swaying on his feet as he stood his trick at the wheel, he brooded alcoholically, heedless of the star-bright sky. More acutely than ever before, the memory of long-lost happy Yuletides returned to plague him. He could neither relive them nor forget them. That nostalgia known to all men — but developed in my brother Noel to a destructive morbidity — made him as desperate as a trapped animal. He had a blind urge to flight, which in his befuddled mind shaped itself into a plan to seize the schooner and the pearls and be rid of Larkin—

Suddenly, leaving the wheel spokes spinning aimlessly, he lurched down the companion into the cabin. The lamp there, swaying in gimbals, cast an oily yellow gleam that made the shadows move. Larkin lay on his back in his bunk, snoring, his toothless mouth agape, his gums glistening pink in a tangle of beard.

My brother, holding his breath, slid a hand under the man’s pillow. He felt the wash-leather bag, the butt of the revolver. He drew them out cautiously. He raised the revolver to Larkin’s head, but then the thought of the boy Rahpi flashed into his mind. The Tokelau boy was asleep in the forepeak. He would hear a shot. My brother stood biting his lips. His rage flamed up again. Kill one, kill both! Rahpi must go, too. He must be hounded out and ruthlessly shot down.

Again my brother raised the revolver to Larkin’s head. But now the schooner, to a sudden freshening of the wind, and with the wheel spinning free, broached-to with a jerk that sent Noel staggering. Before he could recover himself, the squall struck — one of those Pacific squalls which an alert wheelsman could see coming from afar in good time to reef down and make all snug. But there was no wheelsman, and with a rush and hiss of rain and screaming wind, the squall was on them. Larkin woke with a shout as the schooner was lifted high on the top of the rollers, then dropped dizzily into its trough. Glass crashed as the lamp blacked out.

The two men were flung together, struggling, fighting with each other to be first up the companion. Finally both gained the deck and clung where they could as a wave swept over them. Through the tumult about them sounded a deeper, more distant note, a rumbling note like thunder.

“Breakers!” Larkin yelled.

After that, according to the account in the manuscript, my brother Noel had no clear idea of what happened, no recollection of clawing a handhold on the reef as the schooner struck. He did not know how many hours passed before he regained consciousness. His whole body stung from the cruel abrasions of the coral. His head seemed to weigh a ton as he raised it.

He struggled to his knees. The vast sky of morning was sheened over with radiant tints of pearl. The passing of the squall had left the sea shining and level to the horizon, though here and there along the curve of the reef spray leaped with a white flash against the blue. At some distance from him, two figures were picking their way along the reef, slowly and painfully, sometimes stumbling.

Noel watched them, conscious of the heavy, measured thumping in his chest. Larkin and Rahpi! Alive! With a creeping horror he remembered how a few hours before, in his madness, he had stood at the very brink of murder. Mere change had plucked him back from that awful precipice. They were alive, and he drew in his breath, deeply, in relief and gratitude.

A shout reached him, not from the men on the reef, but from the lagoon within its shelter. Noel got to his feet with difficulty, his salt-soaked body smarting, and turned. The lagoon lay tranquil, edged in the distanced by a white beach and leaning palms. A canoe, driven swiftly by paddles that flashed as they rose and fell, was coming towards him. There were two people in it, a young man and a girl. The pareus they wore were gaily colored, and the girl’s shining dark hair streamed over her brown shoulders.

“Hello?” the young man called to Noel. “All right, there? Hello?”

My brother lifted a hand slowly in reply. He wondered where he was. The young man had spoken in English. Nearing the reef, the couple, obviously brother and sister, and Tahitian in appearance, backed with their paddles, and beached the canoe.

The girl looked up at my brother with dark, gentle eyes that seemed to hold a puzzled look. She was very beautiful. My brother had a strange feeling that this meeting between them had been inevitable — that he had come to the one place in the world where he could find peace — that before him, here, lay the beginning of his real life.

There had been nobody here to greet Captain Cook when he had discovered the island on December 24, 1777, at precisely 1°.58′ N., 157°.27′ W. But for my brother Noel there was this girl, and she smiled at him gravely, yet with a kind of wonder in her eyes, as though she had been waiting for him for a long time and could not quite believe that he had come, at last.

“Welcome,” she said, “to Christmas Island.”

The three-time Edgar Award winner and the Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master honoree in 1981, Stanley Ellin was one of America’s greatest short story writers of the twentieth century. His first story, “The Specialty of the House” (1948), went on to become a relentlessly anthologized classic of crime fiction and was adapted for an episode of the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Many more of his stories were adapted for TV by Hitchcock and other series, and six of his stories were nominated for Edgars, two of which won; his superb novel, The Eighth Circle (1958), also won an Edgar. Each of his stories is a perfectly polished gem, as you will see when you read this masterpiece. “Death on Christmas Eve” was first published in the January 1950 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine; it was first collected in Mystery Stories (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1956).

As a child I had been vastly impressed by the Boerum house. It was fairly new then, and glossy; a gigantic pile of Victorian rickrack, fretwork, and stained glass, flung together in such chaotic profusion that it was hard to encompass in one glance. Standing before it this early Christmas Eve, however, I could find no echo of that youthful impression. The gloss was long since gone; woodwork, glass, metal, all were merged to a dreary gray, and the shades behind the windows were drawn completely so that the house seemed to present a dozen blindly staring eyes to the passerby.

When I rapped my stick sharply on the door, Celia opened it.

“There is a doorbell right at hand,” she said. She was still wearing the long outmoded and badly wrinkled black dress she must have dragged from her mother’s trunk, and she looked, more than ever, the image of old Katrin in her later years: the scrawny body, the tightly compressed lips, the colorless hair drawn back hard enough to pull every wrinkle out of her forehead. She reminded me of a steel trap ready to snap down on anyone who touched her incautiously.

I said, “I am aware that the doorbell has been disconnected, Celia,” and walked past her into the hallway. Without turning my head, I knew that she was glaring at me; then she sniffed once, hard and dry, and flung the door shut. Instantly we were in a murky dimness that made the smell of dry rot about me stick in my throat. I fumbled for the wall switch, but Celia said sharply, “No! This is not the time for lights.”

I turned to the white blur of her face, which was all I could see of her. “Celia,” I said, “spare me the dramatics.”

“There has been a death in this house. You know that.”

“I have good reason to,” I said, “but your performance now does not impress me.”

“She was my own brother’s wife. She was very dear to me.”

I took a step toward her in the murk and rested my stick on her shoulder. “Celia,” I said, “as your family’s lawyer, let me give you a word of advice. The inquest is over and done with, and you’ve been cleared. But nobody believed a word of your precious sentiments then, and nobody ever will. Keep that in mind, Celia.”

She jerked away so sharply that the stick almost fell from my hand. “Is that what you have come to tell me?” she said.

I said, “I came because I knew your brother would want to see me today. And if you don’t mind my saying so, I suggest that you keep to yourself while I talk to him. I don’t want any scenes.”

“Then keep away from him yourself!” she cried. “He was at the inquest. He saw them clear my name. In a little while he will forget the evil he thinks of me. Keep away from him so that he can forget.”

She was at her infuriating worst, and to break the spell I started up the dark stairway, one hand warily on the balustrade. But I heard her follow eagerly behind, and in some eerie way it seemed as if she were not addressing me, but answering the groaning of the stairs under our feet.

“When he comes to me,” she said, “I will forgive him. At first I was not sure, but now I know. I prayed for guidance, and I was told that life is too short for hatred. So when he comes to me I will forgive him.”

I reached the head of the stairway and almost went sprawling. I swore in annoyance as I righted myself. “If you’re not going to use lights, Celia, you should, at least, keep the way clear. Why don’t you get that stuff out of here?”

“Ah,” she said, “those are all poor Jessie’s belongings. It hurts Charlie to see anything of hers, I knew this would be the best thing to do — to throw all her things out.”

Then a note of alarm entered her voice. “But you won’t tell Charlie, will you? You won’t tell him?” she said, and kept repeating it on a higher and higher note as I moved away from her, so that when I entered Charlie’s room and closed the door behind me it almost sounded as if I had left a bat chittering behind me.

As in the rest of the house, the shades in Charlie’s room were drawn to their full length. But a single bulb in the chandelier overhead dazzled me momentarily, and I had to look twice before I saw Charlie sprawled out on his bed with an arm flung over his eyes. Then he slowly came to his feet and peered at me.

“Well,” he said at last, nodding toward the door, “she didn’t give you any light to come up, did she?”

“No,” I said, “but I know the way.”

“She’s like a mole,” he said. “Gets around better in the dark than I do in the light. She’d rather have it that way too. Otherwise she might look into a mirror and be scared of what she sees there.”

“Yes,” I said, “she seems to be taking it very hard.”

He laughed short and sharp as a sea-lion barking. “That’s because she’s still got the fear in her. All you get out of her now is how she loved Jessie, and how sorry she is. Maybe she figures if she says it enough, people might get to believe it. But give her a little time and she’ll be the same old Celia again.”

I dropped my hat and stick on the bed and laid my overcoat beside them. Then I drew out a cigar and waited until he fumbled for a match and helped me to a light. His hand shook so violently that he had hard going for a moment and muttered angrily at himself. Then I slowly exhaled a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling, and waited.

Charlie was Celia’s junior by five years, but seeing him then it struck me that he looked a dozen years older. His hair was the same pale blond, almost colorless so that it was hard to tell if it was graying or not. But his cheeks wore a fine, silvery stubble, and there were huge blue-black pouches under his eyes. And where Celia was braced against a rigid and uncompromising backbone, Charlie sagged, standing or sitting, as if he were on the verge of falling forward. He stared at me and tugged uncertainly at the limp mustache that dropped past the corners of his mouth.

“You know what I wanted to see you about, don’t you?” he said.

“I can imagine,” I said, “but I’d rather have you tell me.”

“I’ll put it to you straight,” he said. “It’s Celia. I want to see her get what’s coming to her. Not jail. I want the law to take her and kill her, and I want to be there to watch it.”

A large ash dropped to the floor, and I ground it carefully into the rug with my foot. I said, “You were at the inquest, Charlie; you saw what happened. Celia’s cleared, and unless additional evidence can be produced, she stays cleared.”

“Evidence! My God, what more evidence does anyone need! They were arguing hammer and tongs at the top of the stairs. Celia just grabbed Jessie and threw her down to the bottom and killed her. That’s murder, isn’t it? Just the same as if she used a gun or poison or whatever she would have used if the stairs weren’t handy?”

I sat down wearily in the old leather-bound armchair there and studied the new ash that was forming on my cigar. “Let me show it to you from the legal angle,” I said, and the monotone of my voice must have made it sound like a well-memorized formula. “First, there were no witnesses.”

“I heard Jessie scream and I heard her fall,” he said doggedly, “and when I ran out and found her there, I heard Celia slam her door shut right then. She pushed Jessie and then scuttered like a rat to be out of the way.”

“But you didn’t see anything. And since Celia claims that she wasn’t on the scene, there were no witnesses. In other words, Celia’s story cancels out your story, and since you weren’t an eyewitness you can’t very well make a murder out of what might have been an accident.”

He slowly shook his head.

“You don’t believe that,” he said. “You don’t really believe that. Because if you do, you can get out now and never come near me again.”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe; I’m showing you the legal aspects of the case. What about motivation? What did Celia have to gain from Jessie’s death? Certainly there’s no money or property involved; she’s as financially independent as you are.”

Charlie sat down on the edge of his bed and leaned toward me with his hands resting on his knees. “No,” he whispered, “there’s no money or property in it.”

I spread my arms helplessly. “You see?”

“But you know what it is,” he said. “It’s me. First, it was the old lady with her heart trouble any time I tried to call my soul my own. Then when she died and I thought I was free, it was Celia. From the time I got up in the morning until I went to bed at night, it was Celia every step of the way. She never had a husband or a baby — but she had me!”

I said quietly, “She’s your sister, Charlie. She loves you,” and he laughed that same unpleasant, short laugh.

“She loves me like ivy loves a tree. When I think back now, I still can’t see how she did it, but she would just look at me a certain way and all the strength would go out of me. And it was like that until I met Jessie... I remember the day I brought Jessie home, and told Celia we were married. She swallowed it, but that look was in her eyes the same as it must have been when she pushed Jessie down those stairs.”

I said, “But you admitted at the inquest that you never saw her threaten Jessie or do anything to hurt her.”

“Of course I never saw! But when Jessie would go around sick to her heart every day and not say a word, or cry in bed every night and not tell me why, I knew damn well what was going on. You know what Jessie was like. She wasn’t so smart or pretty, but she was good-hearted as the day was long, and she was crazy about me. And when she started losing all that sparkle in her after only a month, I knew why. I talked to her and I talked to Celia, and both of them just shook their heads. All I could do was go around in circles, but when it happened, when I saw Jessie lying there, it didn’t surprise me. Maybe that sounds queer, but it didn’t surprise me at all.”

“I don’t think it surprised anyone who knows Celia,” I said, “but you can’t make a case out of that.”

He beat his fist against his knee and rocked from side to side. “What can I do?” he said. “That’s what I need you for — to tell me what to do. All my life I never got around to doing anything because of her. That’s what she’s banking on now — that I won’t do anything, and that she’ll get away with it. Then after a while, things’ll settle down, and we’ll be right back where we started from.”

I said, “Charlie, you’re getting yourself all worked up to no end.”

He stood up and stared at the door, and then at me. “But I can do something,” he whispered. “Do you know what?”

He waited with bright expectancy of one who has asked a clever riddle that he knows will stump the listener. I stood up facing him, and shook my head slowly. “No,” I said. “Whatever you’re thinking, put it out of your mind.”