Mystery for Christmas and Other Stories

The Plot Against Santa Claus by James Powell

Rory Bigtoes, Santa’s Security Chief, was tall for an elf, measuring almost seven inches from the curly tips of his shoes to the top of his fedora. But he had to stride to keep abreast of Garth Hardnoggin, the quick little Director General of the Toyworks, as they hurried, beards streaming back over their shoulders, through the racket and bustle of Shop Number 5, one of the many vaulted caverns honeycombing the undiscovered island beneath the Polar icecap.

Director General Hardnoggin wasn’t pleased. He slapped his megaphone, the symbol of his office (for as a member of the Board he spoke directly to Santa Claus), against his thigh. “A bomb in the Board Room on Christmas Eve!” he muttered with angry disbelief.

“I’ll admit that Security doesn’t look good,” said Bigtoes.

Hardnoggin gave a snort and stopped at a construction site for Dick and Jane Doll dollhouses. Elf carpenters and painters were hard at work, pipes in their jaws and beards tucked into their belts. A foreman darted over to show Hardnoggin the wallpaper samples for the dining room.

“See this unit, Bigtoes?” said Hardnoggin. “Split-level ranch type. Wall-to-wall carpeting. Breakfast nook. Your choice of Early American or French Provincial furnishings. They said I couldn’t build it for the price. But I did. And how did I do it?”

“Cardboard,” said a passing elf, an old carpenter with a plank over his shoulder.

“And what’s wrong with cardboard? Good substantial cardboard for the interior walls!” shouted the Director General striding off again. “Let them bellyache, Bigtoes. I’m not out to win any popularity contests. But I do my job. Let’s see you do yours. Find Dirk Crouchback and find him fast.”

At the automotive section the new Lazaretto sports cars (1/32 scale) were coming off the assembly line. Hardnoggin stopped to slam one of the car doors. “You left out the kachunk,” he told an elf engineer in white coveralls.

“Nobody gets a tin door to go kachunk,” said the engineer.

“Detroit does. So can we,” said Hardnoggin, moving on. “You think I don’t miss the good old days, Bigtoes?” he said. “I was a spinner. And a damn good one. Nobody made a top that could spin as long and smooth as Garth Hardnoggin’s.”

“I was a jacksmith myself,” said Bigtoes. Satisfying work, building each jack-in-the-box from the ground up, carpentering the box, rigging the spring mechanism, making the funny head, spreading each careful coat of paint.

“How many could you make in a week?” asked Director General Hardnoggin.

“Three, with overtime,” said Security Chief Bigtoes.

Hardnoggin nodded. “And how many children had empty stockings on Christmas morning because we couldn’t handcraft enough stuff to go around? That’s where your Ghengis Khans, your Hitlers, and your Stalins come from, Bigtoes — children who through no fault of their own didn’t get any toys for Christmas. So Santa had to make a policy decision: quality or quantity? He opted for quantity.”

Crouchback, at that time one of Santa’s right-hand elves, had blamed the decision on Hardnoggin’s sinister influence. By way of protest he had placed a bomb in the new plastic machine. The explosion had coated three elves with a thick layer of plastic which had to be chipped off with hammers and chisels. Of course they lost their beards. Santa, who was particularly sensitive about beards, sentenced Crouchback to two years in the cooler, as the elves called it. This meant he was assigned to a refrigerator (one in Ottawa, Canada, as it happened) with the responsibility of turning the light on and off as the door was opened or closed.

But after a month Crouchback had failed to answer the daily roll call which Security made by means of a two-way intercom system. He had fled the refrigerator and become a renegade elf. Then suddenly, three years later, Crouchback had reappeared at the North Pole, a shadowy fugitive figure, editor of a clandestine newspaper, The Midnight Elf, which made violent attacks on Director General Hardnoggin and his policies. More recently, Crouchback had become the leader of SHAFT — Santa’s Helpers Against Flimsy Toys — an organization of dissident groups including the Anti-Plastic League, the Sons and Daughters of the Good Old Days, the Ban the Toy-Bomb people and the Hippie Elves for Peace...

“Santa opted for quantity,” repeated Hard-noggin. “And I carried out his decision. Just between the two of us it hasn’t always been easy.” Hardnoggin waved his megaphone at the Pacification and Rehabilitation section where thousands of toy bacteriological warfare kits (JiffyPox) were being converted to civilian use (The Freckle Machine). After years of pondering Santa had finally ordered a halt to war-toy production. His decision was considered a victory for SHAFT and a defeat for Hardnoggin.

“Unilateral disarmament is a mistake, Big-toes,” said Hardnoggin grimly as they passed through a door marked Santa’s Executive Helpers Only and into the carpeted world of the front office. “Mark my words, right now the tanks and planes are rolling off the assembly lines at Acme Toy and into the department stores.” (Acme Toy, the international consortium of toymakers, was the elves’ greatest bugbear.) “So the rich kids will have war toys, while the poor kids won’t even have a popgun. That’s not democratic.”

Bigtoes stopped at a door marked Security. Hardnoggin strode on without slackening his pace. “Sticks-and-stones session at five o’clock,” he said over his shoulder. “Don’t be late. And do your job. Find Crouchback!”

Dejected, Bigtoes slumped down at his desk, receiving a sympathetic smile from Charity Nosegay, his little blonde blue-eyed secretary. Charity was a recent acquisition and Bigtoes had intended to make a play for her once the Sticks-and-Stones paperwork was out of the way. (Security had to prepare a report for Santa on each alleged naughty boy and girl.) Now that play would have to wait.

Bigtoes sighed. Security looked bad. Bigtoes had even been warned. The night before, a battered and broken elf had crawled into his office, gasped, “He’s going to kill Santa,” and died. It was Darby Shortribs who had once been a brilliant doll designer. But then one day he had decided that if war toys encouraged little boys to become soldiers when they grew up, then dolls encouraged little girls to become mothers, contributing to overpopulation. So Shortribs had joined SHAFT and risen to membership on its Central Committee.

The trail of Shortribs’ blood had led to the Quality Control lab and the Endurance Machine which simulated the brutal punishment, the bashing, crushing, and kicking that a toy receives at the hands of a four-year-old (or two two-year-olds). A hell of a way for an elf to die!

After Shortribs’ warning, Bigtoes had alerted his Security elves and sent a flying squad after Crouchback. But the SHAFT leader had disappeared. The next morning a bomb had exploded in the Board Room.

On the top of Bigtoes’ desk were the remains of that bomb. Small enough to fit into an elf’s briefcase, it had been placed under the Board Room table, just at Santa’s feet. If Owen Brass-bottom, Santa’s Traffic Manager, hadn’t chosen just that moment to usher the jolly old man into the Map Room to pinpoint the spot where, with the permission and blessing of the Strategic Air Command, Santa’s sleigh and reindeer were to penetrate the DEW Line, there wouldn’t have been much left of Santa from the waist down. Seconds before the bomb went off, Director General Hardnoggin had been called from the room to take a private phone call. Fergus Bandylegs, Vice-President of Santa Enterprises, Inc., had just gone down to the other end of the table to discuss something with Tom Thumbskin, Santa’s Creative Head, and escaped the blast. But Thumbskin had to be sent to the hospital with a concussion when his chair — the elves sat on high chairs with ladders up the side like those used by lifeguards — was knocked over backward by the explosion.

All this was important, for the room had been searched before the meeting and found safe. So the bomb must have been brought in by a member of the Board. It certainly hadn’t been Traffic Manager Brassbottom who had saved Santa, and probably not Thumbskin. That left Director General Hardnoggin and Vice-President Bandylegs...

“Any luck checking out that personal phone call Hardnoggin received just before the bomb went off?” asked Bigtoes.

Charity shook her golden locks. “The switchboard operator fainted right after she took the call. She’s still out cold.”

Leaving the Toyworks, Bigtoes walked quickly down a corridor lined with expensive boutiques and fashionable restaurants. On one wall of Mademoiselle Fanny’s Salon of Haute Couture some SHAFT elf had written: Santa, Si! Hardnoggin, No! On one wall of the Hotel St. Nicholas some Hardnoggin backer had written: Support Your Local Director General! Bigtoes was no philosopher and the social unrest that was racking the North Pole confused him. Once, in disguise, he had attended a SHAFT rally in The Underwood, that vast and forbidding cavern of phosphorescent stinkhorn and hanging roots. Gathered beneath an immense picture of Santa were hippie elves with their beards tied in outlandish knots, matron-lady elves in sensible shoes, tweedy elves and green-collar elves.

Crouchback himself had made a surprise appearance, coming out of hiding to deliver his now famous “Plastic Lives!” speech. “Hardnoggin says plastic is inanimate. But I say that plastic lives! Plastic infects all it touches and spreads like crab grass in the innocent souls of little children. Plastic toys make plastic girls and boys!” Crouchback drew himself up to his full six inches. “I say: quality — quality now!” The crowd roared his words back at him. The meeting closed with all the elves joining hands and singing “We Shall Overcome.” It had been a moving experience...

As he expected, Bigtoes found Bandylegs at the Hotel St. Nicholas bar, staring morosely down into a thimble-mug of ale. Fergus Bandylegs was a dapper, fast-talking elf with a chestnut beard which he scented with lavender. As Vice-President of Santa Enterprises, Inc., he was in charge of financing the entire Toyworks operation by arranging for Santa to appear in advertising campaigns, by collecting royalties on the use of the jolly old man’s name, and by leasing Santa suits to department stores.

Bandylegs ordered a drink for the Security Chief. Their friendship went back to Rory Bigtoes’ jacksmith days when Bandylegs had been a master sledwright. “These are topsy-turvy times, Rory,” said Bandylegs. “First there’s that bomb and now Santa’s turned down the Jolly Roger cigarette account. For years now they’ve had this ad campaign showing Santa slipping a carton of Jolly Rogers into Christmas stockings. But not any more. ‘Smoking may be hazardous to your health,’ says Santa.”

“Santa knows best,” said Bigtoes.

“Granted,” said Bandylegs. “But counting television residuals, that’s a cool two million sugar plums thrown out the window.” (At the current rate of exchange there are 4.27 sugar plums to the U.S. dollar.) “Hardnoggin’s already on my back to make up the loss. Nothing must interfere with his grand plan for automating the Toyworks. So it’s off to Madison Avenue again. Sure I’ll stay at the Plaza and eat at the Chambord, but I’ll still get homesick.”

The Vice-President smiled sadly. “Do you know what I used to do? There’s this guy who stands outside Grand Central Station selling those little mechanical men you wind up and they march around-1 used to march around with them. It made me feel better somehow. But now they remind me of Hardnoggin. He’s a machine, Rory, and he wants to make all of us into machines.”

“What about the bomb?” asked Bigtoes.

Bandylegs shrugged. “Acme Toy, I suppose.”

Bigtoes shook his head. Acme Toy hadn’t slipped an elf spy into the North Pole for months. “What about Crouchback?”

“No,” said Bandylegs firmly. “I’ll level with you, Rory. I had a get-together with Crouchback just last week. He wanted to get my thoughts on the quality-versus-quantity question and on the future of the Toyworks. Maybe I’m wrong, but I got the impression that a top-level shake-up is in the works with Crouchback slated to become the new Director General. In any event I found him a very perceptive and understanding elf.”

Bandylegs smiled and went on, “Darby Short-ribs was there, prattling on against dolls. As I left, Crouchback shook my hand and whispered, ‘Every movement needs its lunatic fringe, Bandylegs. Shortribs is ours.’” Bandylegs lowered his voice. “I’m tired of the grown-up ratrace, Rory. I want to get back to the sled shed and make Blue Streaks and High Flyers again. I’ll never get there with Hardnoggin and his modern ideas at the helm.”

Bigtoes pulled at his beard. It was common knowledge that Crouchback had an elf spy on the Board. The reports on the meetings in The Midnight Elf were just too complete. Was it his friend Bandylegs? But would Bandylegs try to kill Santa?

That brought Bigtoes back to Hardnoggin again. But cautiously. As Security Chief, Bigtoes had to be objective. Yet he yearned to prove Hardnoggin the villain. This, as he knew, was because of the beautiful Carlotta Peachfuzz, beloved by children all around the world. As the voice of the Peachy Pippin Doll, Carlotta was the most envied female at the North Pole, next to Mr. Santa. Girl elves followed her glamorous exploits in the press. Male elves had Peachy Pippin Dolls propped beside their beds so they could fall asleep with Carlotta’s sultry voice saying: “Hello, I’m your talking Peachy Pippin Doll. I love you. I love you. I love you...”

But once it had just been Rory and Carlotta, Charlotta and Rory — until the day Bigtoes had introduced her to Hardnoggin. “You have a beautiful voice, Miss Peachfuzz,” the Director General had said. “Have you ever considered being in the talkies?” So Carlotta had dropped Bigtoes for Hardnoggin and risen to stardom in the talking-doll industry. But her liaison with Director General Hardnoggin had become so notorious that a dutiful Santa — with Mrs. Santa present — had had to read the riot act about executive hanky-panky. Hardnoggin had broken off the relationship. Disgruntled, Carlotta had become active with SHAFT, only to leave after a violent argument with Shortribs over his anti-doll position.

Today Bigtoes couldn’t care less about Carlotta. But he still had that old score to settle with the Director General.

Leaving the fashionable section behind, Bigtoes turned down Apple Alley, a residential corridor of modest, old-fashioned houses with thatched roofs and carved beams. Here the mushrooms were in full bloom — the stropharia, inocybe, and chanterelle — dotting the corridor with indigo, vermilion, and many yellows. Elf householders were out troweling in their gardens. Elf wives gossiped over hedges of gypsy pholiota. Somewhere an old elf was singing one of the ancient work songs, accompanying himself on a concertina. Until Director General Hardnoggin discovered that it slowed down production, the elves had always sung while they worked, beating out the time with their hammers; now the foremen passed out song sheets and led them in song twice a day. But it wasn’t the same thing.

Elf gardeners looked up, took their pipes from their mouths, and watched Bigtoes pass. They regarded all front-office people with suspicion — even this big elf with the candy-strip rosette of the Order of Santa, First Class, in his buttonhole.

Bigtoes had won the decoration many years ago when he was a young Security elf, still wet behind his pointed ears. Somehow on that fateful day, Billy Roy Scoggins, President of Acme Toy, had found the secret entrance to the North Pole and appeared suddenly in parka and snowshoes, demanding to see Santa Claus, Santa arrived, jolly and smiling, surrounded by Bigtoes and the other Security elves. Scoggins announced he had a proposition “from one hard-headed businessman to another.”

Pointing out the foolishness of competition, the intruder had offered Santa a king’s ransom to come in with Acme Toy. “Ho, ho, ho,” boomed Santa with jovial firmness, “that isn’t Santa’s way.” Scoggins — perhaps it was the “ho, ho, ho” that did it — turned purple and threw a punch that floored the jolly old man. Security sprang into action.

Four elves had died as Scoggins flayed at them, a snow shoe in one hand and a rolled up copy of The Wall Street Journal in the other. But Bigtoes had crawled up the outside of Scoggins’ pantleg. It had taken him twelve karate chops to break the intruder’s kneecap and send him crashing to the ground like a stricken tree. To this day the President of Acme Toy walks with a cane and curses Rory Bigtoes whenever it rains.

As Bigtoes passed a tavern — The Bowling Green, with a huge horse mushroom shading the door — someone inside banged down a thimble-mug and shouted the famous elf toast: “My Santa, right or wrong! May he always be right, but right or wrong, my Santa!” Bigtoes sighed. Life should be so simple for elves. They all loved Santa — what did it matter that he used blueing when he washed his beard, or liked to sleep late, or hit the martinis a bit too hard — and they all wanted to do what was best for good little girls and boys. But here the agreement ended. Here the split between Hardnoggin and Crouchback — between the Establishment and the revolutionary — took over.

Beyond the tavern was a crossroads, the left corridor leading to the immense storage areas for completed toys, the right corridor to The Underwood. Bigtoes continued straight and was soon entering that intersection of corridors called Pumpkin Corners, the North Pole’s bohemian quarter. Here, until his disappearance, the SHAFT leader Crouchback had lived with relative impunity, protected by the inhabitants. For this was SHAFT country. A special edition of The Midnight Elf was already on the streets denying that SHAFT was involved in the assassination attempt on Santa. A love-bead vendor, his beard tied in a sheepshank, had Hardnoggin Is a Dwarf written across the side of his pushcart. Make love, not plastic declared the wall of The Electric Carrot, a popular discotheque and hippie hangout.

The Electric Carrot was crowded with elves dancing the latest craze, the Scalywag. Until recently, dancing hadn’t been popular with elves. They kept stepping on their beards. The hippie knots effectively eliminated that stumbling block.

Buck Withers, leader of the Hippie Elves for Peace, was sitting in a corner wearing a Santa Is Love button. Bigtoes had once dropped a first-offense drug charge against Withers and three other elves caught nibbling on morning-glory seeds. “Where’s Crouchback, Buck?” said Bigtoes.

“Like who’s asking?” said Withers. “The head of Hardnoggin’s Gestapo?”

“A friend,” said Bigtoes.

“Friend, like when the news broke about Shortribs, he says ‘I’m next, Buck.’ Better fled than dead, and he split for parts unknown.”

“It looks bad, Buck.”

“Listen, friend,” said Withers, “SHAFT’s the wave of the future. Like Santa’s already come over to our side on the disarmament thing. What do we need with bombs? That’s a bad scene, friend. Violence isn’t SHAFT’s bag.”

As Bigtoes left The Electric Carrot a voice said, “I wonder, my dear sir, if you could help an unfortunate elf.” Bigtoes turned to find a tattered derelict in a filthy button-down shirt and greasy gray-flannel suit. His beard was matted with twigs and straw.

“Hello, Baldwin,” said Bigtoes. Baldwin Redpate had once been the head of Santa’s Shipping Department. Then came the Slugger Nolan Official Baseball Mitt Scandal. The mitt had been a big item one year, much requested in letters to Santa. Through some gigantic snafu in Shipping, thousands of inflatable rubber ducks had been sent out instead. For months afterward, Santa received letters from indignant little boys, and though each one cut him like a knife he never reproached Redpate. But Redpate knew he had failed Santa. He brooded, had attacks of silent crying, and finally took to drink, falling so much under the spell of bee wine that Hardnoggin had to insist he resign.

“Rory, you’re just the elf I’m looking for,” said Redpate. “Have you ever seen an elf skulking? Well, I have.”

Bigtoes was interested. Elves were straightforward creatures. They didn’t skulk.

“Last night I woke up in a cold sweat and saw strange things, Rory,” said Redpate. “Comings and goings, lights, skulking.” Large tears rolled down Redpate’s cheeks. “You see, I get these nightmares, Rory. Thousands of inflatable rubber ducks come marching across my body and their eyes are Santa’s eyes when someone’s let him down.” He leaned toward Bigtoes confidentially. “I may be a washout. Occasionally I may even drink too much. But I don’t skulk!” Redpate began to cry again.

His tears looked endless. Bigtoes was due at the Sticks-and-Stones session. He slipped Redpate ten sugar plums. “Got to go, Baldwin.”

Redpate dabbed at the tears with the dusty end of his beard. “When you see Santa, ask him to think kindly of old Baldy Redpate,” he sniffed and headed straight for The Good Gray Goose, the tavern across the street — making a beeline for the bee wine, as the elves would say. But then he turned. “Strange goings-on,” he called. “Storeroom Number 14, Unit 24, Row 58. Skulking.”

“Hardnoggin’s phone call was from Carlotta Peachfuzz,” said Charity, looking lovelier than ever. “The switchboard operator is a big Carlotta fan. She fainted when she recognized her voice. The thrill was just too much.”

Interesting. In spite of Santa’s orders, were Carlotta and Hardnoggin back together on the sly? If so, had they conspired on the bomb attempt? Or had it really been Carlotta’s voice? Carlotta Peachfuzz impersonations were a dime a dozen.

“Get me the switchboard operator,” said Bigtoes and returned to stuffing Sticks-and-Stones reports into his briefcase.

“No luck,” said Charity, putting down the phone. “She just took another call and fainted again.”

Vice-President Bandylegs looked quite pleased with himself and threw Bigtoes a wink. “Don’t be surprised when I cut out of Sticks-and-Stones early, Rory,” he smiled. “An affair of the heart. All of a sudden the old Bandylegs charm has come through again. He nodded down the hall at Hardnoggin, waiting impatiently at the Projection Room door. “When the cat’s away, the mice will play.”

The Projection Room was built like a movie theater. “Come over here beside Santa, Rory, my boy,” boomed the jolly old man. So Bigtoes scrambled up into a tiny seat hooked over the back of the seat on Santa’s left. On Bigtoes’ left sat Traffic Manager Brassbottom, Vice-President Bandy-legs, and Director General Hardnoggin. In this way Mrs. Santa, at the portable bar against the wall, could send Santa’s martinis to him down an assembly line of elves.

Confident that no one would dare to try anything with Santa’s Security Chief present, Bigtoes listened to the Traffic Manager, a red-lipped elf with a straw-colored beard, talk enthusiastically about the television coverage planned for Santa’s trip. This year, live and in color via satellite, the North Pole would see Santa’s arrival at each stop on his journey. Santa’s first martini was passed from Hardnoggin to Bandylegs to Brassbottom to Bigtoes. The Security Chief grasped the stem of the glass in both hands and, avoiding the heady gin fumes as best he could, passed it to Santa.

“All right,” said Santa, taking his first sip, “let’s roll ’em, starting with the worst.”

The lights dimmed. A film appeared on the screen. “Waldo Rogers, age five,” said Bigtoes. “Mistreatment of pets, eight demerits.” (The film showed a smirking little boy pulling a cat’s tail.) “Not coming when he’s called, ten demerits.” (The film showed Waldo’s mother at the screen door, shouting.) “Also, as an indication of his general bad behavior, he gets his mother to buy Sugar Gizmos but he won’t eat them. He just wants the boxtops.” (The camera panned a pantry shelf crowded with opened Sugar Gizmo boxes.) The elves clucked disapprovingly.

“Waldo Rogers certainly isn’t Santa’s idea of a nice little boy,” said Santa. “What do you think, Mother?” Mrs. Santa agreed.

“Sticks-and-stones then?” asked Hardnoggin hopefully.

But the jolly old man hesitated. “Santa always likes to check the list twice before deciding,” he said.

Hardnoggin groaned. Santa was always bollixing up his production schedules by going easy on bad little girls and boys.

A new film began. “Next on the list,” said Bigtoes, “is Nancy Ruth Ashley, age four and a half...”

Two hours and seven martinis later, Santa’s jolly laughter and Mrs. Santa’s jolly laughter and Mrs. Santa’s giggles filled the room. “She’s a little dickens, that one,” chuckled Santa as they watched a six-year-old fill her father’s custom-made shoes with molasses, “but Santa will find a little something for her.” Hardnoggin groaned. That was the end of the list and so far no one had been given sticks-and-stones. They rolled the film on Waldo Rogers again. “Santa understands some cats like having their tails pulled,” chuckled Santa as he drained his glass. “And what the heck are Sugar Gizmos?”

Bandylegs, who had just excused himself from the meeting, paused on his way up the aisle. “They’re a delicious blend of toasted oats and corn,” he shouted, “with an energy-packed coating of sparkling sugar. As a matter of fact, Santa, the Gizmo people are thinking of featuring you in their new advertising campaign. It would be a great selling point if I could say that Santa had given a little boy sticks-and-stones because he wouldn’t eat his Sugar Gizmos.”

“Here now, Fergy,” said the jolly old man, “you know that isn’t Santa’s way.”

Bandylegs left, muttering to himself.

“Santa,” protested Hardnoggin as the jolly old man passed his glass down the line for a refill, “let’s be realistic. If we can’t draw the line at Waldo Rogers, where can we?”

Santa reflected for a moment. “Suppose Santa let you make the decision, Garth, my Boy. What would little Waldo Rogers find in his stocking on Christmas morning?”

Hardnoggin hesitated. Then he said, “Sticks-and-stones.”

Santa looked disappointed. “So be it,” he said.

The lights dimmed again as they continued their review of the list. Santa’s eighth martini came down the line from elf to elf. As Bigtoes passed it to Santa, the fumes caught him — the smell of gin and something else. Bitter almonds. He struck the glass from Santa’s hand.

Silent and dimly lit, Storeroom Number 14 seemed an immense, dull suburb of split-level, ranchtype Dick and Jane Doll dollhouses. Bigtoes stepped into the papier-mâché shrubbery fronting Unit 24, Row 58 as an elf watchman on a bicycle pedaled by singing “Colossal Carlotta,” a current hit song. Bigtoes hoped he hadn’t made a mistake by refraining from picking Hardnoggin up.

Bandylegs had left before the cyanide was put in the glass. Mrs. Santa, of course, was above suspicion. So that left Director General Hardnoggin and Traffic Manager Brassbottom. But why would Brassbottom first save Santa from the bomb only to poison him later? So that left Hardnoggin. Bigtoes had been eager to act on this logic, perhaps too eager. He wanted no one to say that Santa’s Security Chief had let personal feelings color his judgment. Bigtoes would be fair.

Hardnoggin had insisted that Crouchback was the villain. All right, he would bring Crouchback in for questioning. After all, Santa was now safe, napping under a heavy guard in preparation for his all-night trip. Hardnoggin — if he was the villain — could do him no harm for the present.

As Bigtoes crept up the fabric lawn on all fours, the front door of the dollhouse opened and a shadowy figure came down the walk. It paused at the street, looked this way and that, then disappeared into the darkness. Redpate had been right about the skulking. But it wasn’t Crouchback — Bigtoes was sure of that.

The Security Chief climbed in through a dining-room window. In the living room were three elves, one on the couch, one in an easy chair, and, behind the bar, Dirk Crouchback, a distinguished-looking elf with a salt-and-pepper beard and graying temples. The leader of SHAFT poured himself a drink and turned. “Welcome to my little ménage-à-trois, Rory Bigtoes,” he said with a surprised smile. The two other elves turned out to be Dick and Jane dolls.

“I’m taking you in, Crouchback,” said the Security Chief.

The revolutionary came out from behind the bar pushing a .55mm howitzer (1/32 scale) with his foot. “I’m sorry about this,” he said. “As you know we are opposed to the use of violence. But I’d rather not fall into Hardnoggin’s hands just now. Sit over there by Jane.” Bigtoes obeyed. At that short range the howitzer’s plastic shell could be fatal to an elf.

Crouchback sat down on the arm of Dick’s easy chair. “Yes,” he said, “Hardnoggin’s days are numbered. But as the incidents of last night and today illustrate, the Old Order dies hard. I’d rather not be one of its victims.”

Crouchback paused and took a drink. “Look at this room, Bigtoes. This is Hardnoggin’s world. Wall-to-wall carpeting. Breakfast nooks. Cheap materials. Shoddy workmanship.” He picked up an end table and dropped it on the floor. Two of the legs broke. “Plastic,” said Crouchback contemptuously, flinging the table through the plastic television set. “It’s the whole middle-class, bourgeois, suburban scene.” Crouchback put the heel of his hand on Dick’s jaw and pushed the doll over. “Is this vapid plastic nonentity the kind of grownup we want little boys and girls to become?”

“No,” said Bigtoes. “But what’s your alternative?”

“Close down the Toyworks for a few years,” said Crouchback earnestly. “Relearn our ancient heritage of handcrafted toys. We owe it to millions of little boys and girls as yet unborn!”

“All very idealistic,” said Bigtoes, “but—”

“Practical, Bigtoes. And down to earth,” said the SHAFT leader, tapping his head. “The plan’s all here.”

“But what about Acme Toy?” protested Bigtoes. “The rich kids would still get presents and the poor kids wouldn’t.”

Crouchback smiled. “I can’t go into the details now. But my plan includes the elimination of Acme Toy.”

“Suppose you could,” said Bigtoes. “We still couldn’t handcraft enough toys to keep pace with the population explosion.”

“Not at first,” said Crouchback. “But suppose population growth was not allowed to exceed our rate of toy production?” He tapped his head again.

“But good grief,” said Bigtoes, “closing down the Toyworks means millions of children with empty stockings on Christmas. Who could be that cruel?”

“Cruel?” exclaimed Crouchback. “Bigtoes, do you know how a grownup cooks a live lobster? Some drop it into boiling water. But others say, ‘How cruel!’ They drop it in cold water and then bring the water to a boil slowly. No, Bigtoes, we have to bite the bullet. Granted there’ll be no Christmas toys for a few years. But we’d fill children’s stockings with literature explaining what’s going on and with discussion-group outlines so they can get together and talk up the importance of sacrificing their Christmas toys today so the children of the future can have quality handcrafted toys. They’ll understand.”

Before Bigtoes could protest again, Crouchback got to his feet. “Now that I’ve given you some food for thought I have to go,” he said. “That closet should hold you until I make my escape.”

Bigtoes was in the closet for more than an hour. The door proved stronger than he had expected. Then he remembered Hardnoggin’s cardboard interior walls and karate-chopped his way through the back of the closet and out into the kitchen.

Security headquarters was a flurry of excitement as Bigtoes strode in the door. “They just caught Hardnoggin trying to put a bomb on Santa’s sleigh,” said Charity, her voice shaking.

Bigtoes passed through to the Interrogation Room where Hardnoggin, gray and haggard, sat with his wrists between his knees. The Security elves hadn’t handled him gently. One eye was swollen, his beard was in disarray, and there was a dent in his megaphone. “It was a Christmas present for that little beast, Waldo Rogers,” shouted Hardnoggin.

“A bomb?” said Bigtoes.

“It was supposed to be a little fire engine,” shouted the Director General, “with a bell that goes clang-clang!” Hardnoggin struggled to control himself. “I just couldn’t be responsible for that little monster finding nothing in his stocking but sticks-and-stones. But a busy man hasn’t time for last-minute shopping. I got a... a friend to pick something out for me.”

“Who?” said Bigtoes.

Hardnoggin hung his head. “I demand to be taken to Santa Claus,” he said. But Santa, under guard, had already left his apartment for the formal departure ceremony.

Bigtoes ordered Hardnoggin detained and hurried to meet Santa at the elevator. He would have enjoyed shouting up at the jolly old man that Hardnoggin was the culprit. But of course that just didn’t hold water. Hardnoggin was too smart to believe he could just walk up and put a bomb on Santa’s sleigh. Or — now that Bigtoes thought about it — to finger himself so obviously by waiting until Bandylegs had left the Sticks-and-Stones session before poisoning Santa’s glass.

The villain now seemed to be the beautiful and glamorous Carlotta Peachfuzz. Here’s the way it figured: Carlotta phones Hardnoggin just before the bomb goes off in the Board Room, thus making him a prime suspect; Carlotta makes a rendezvous with Bandylegs that causes him to leave Sticks-and-Stones, thus again making Hardnoggin Suspect Number One; then when Bigtoes fails to pick up the Director General, Carlotta talks him into giving little Waldo Rogers a present that turns out to be a bomb. Her object? To frame Hardnoggin for the murder or attempted murder of Santa. Her elf spy? Traffic Manager Brassbottom. It all worked out — or seemed to...

Bigtoes met Santa at the elevator surrounded by a dozen Security elves. The jolly old eyes were bloodshot, his smile slightly strained. “Easy does it, Billy,” said Santa to Billy Brisket, the Security elf at the elevator controls. “Santa’s a bit hungover.”

Bigtoes moved to the rear of the elevator. So it was Brassbottom who had planted the bomb and then deliberately taken Santa out of the room. So it was Brassbottom who had poisoned the martini with cyanide, knowing that Bigtoes would detect the smell. And it was Carlotta who had gift-wrapped the bomb. All to frame Hardnoggin. And yet... Bigtoes sighed at his own confusion. And yet a dying Shortribs had said that someone was going to kill Santa.

As the elevator eased up into the interior of the Polar icecap, Bigtoes focused his mind on Shortribs. Suppose the dead elf had stumbled on your well-laid plan to kill Santa. Suppose you botched Shortribs’ murder and therefore knew that Security had been alerted. What would you do? Stage three fake attempts on Santa’s life to provide Security with a culprit, hoping to get Security to drop its guard? Possibly. But the bomb in the Board Room could have killed Santa. Why not just do it that way?

The elevator reached the surface and the first floor of the Control Tower building which was ingeniously camouflaged as an icy crag. But suppose, thought Bigtoes, it was important that you kill Santa in a certain way — say, with half the North Pole looking on?

More Security elves were waiting when the elevator doors opened. Bigtoes moved quickly among them, urging the utmost vigilance. Then Santa and his party stepped out onto the frozen runway to be greeted by thousands of cheering elves. Hippie elves from Pumpkin Corners, green-collar elves from the Toyworks, young elves and old had all gathered there to wish the jolly old man godspeed.

Santa’s smile broadened and he waved to the crowd. Then everybody stood at attention and doffed their hats as the massed bands of the Mushroom Fanciers Association, Wade Snoot conducting, broke into “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” When the music reached its stirring conclusion, Santa, escorted by a flying wedge of Security elves, made his way through the exuberant crowd and toward his sleigh.

Bigtoes’ eyes kept darting everywhere, searching for a happy face that might mask a homicidal intent. His heart almost stopped when Santa paused to accept a bouquet from an elf child who stuttered through a tribute in verse to the jolly old man. It almost stopped again when Santa leaned over the Security cordon to speak to some elf in the crowd. A pat on the head from Santa and even Roger Chinwhiskers, leader of the Sons and Daughters of the Good Old Days, grinned and admitted that perhaps the world wasn’t going to hell in a handbasket. A kind word from Santa and Baldwin Redpate tearfully announced — as he did every year at that time — that he was off the bee wine for good.

After what seemed an eternity to Bigtoes, they reached the sleigh. Santa got on board, gave one last wave to the crowd, and called to his eight tiny reindeer, one by one, by name. The reindeer leaned against the harness and the sleigh, with Security elves trotting alongside, and slid forward on the ice. Then four of the reindeer were airborne. Then the other four. At last the sleigh itself left the ground. Santa gained altitude, circled the runway once, and was gone. But they heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight: “Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!”

The crowd dispersed quickly. Only Bigtoes remained on the wind-swept runway. He walked back and forth, head down, kicking at the snow. Santa’s departure had gone off without a hitch. Had the Security Chief been wrong about the frame-up? Had Hardnoggin been trying to kill Santa after all? Bigtoes went over the three attempts again. The bomb in the Board Room. The poison. The bomb on the sleigh.

Suddenly Bigtoes broke into a run.

He had remembered Brassbottom’s pretext for taking Santa into the Map Room.

Taking the steps three at a time, Bigtoes burst into the Control Room. Crouchback was standing over the remains of the radio equipment with a monkey wrench in his hand. “Too late, Bigtoes,” he said triumphantly. “Santa’s as good as dead.”

Bigtoes grabbed the phone and ordered the operator to put through an emergency call to the Strategic Air Command in Denver, Colorado. But the telephone cable had been cut. “Baby Polar bears like to teethe on it,” said the operator.

Santa Claus was doomed. There was no way to call him back or to warn the Americans.

Crouchback smiled. “In eleven minutes Santa will pass over the DEW Line. But at the wrong place, thanks to Traffic Manager Brassbottom. The American ground-to-air missiles will make short work of him.”

“But why?” demanded Bigtoes.

“Nothing destroys a dissident movement like a modest success or two,” said Crouchback. “Ever since Santa came out for unilateral disarmament, I’ve felt SHAFT coming apart in my hands. So I had to act. I’ve nothing against Santa personally, bourgeois sentimentalist that he is. But his death will be a great step forward in our task of forming better children for a better world. What do you think will happen when Santa is shot down by American missiles?”

Bigtoes shaded his eyes. His voice was thick with emotion. “Every good little boy and girl in the world will be up in arms. A Children’s Crusade against the United States.”

“And with the Americans disposed of, what nation will become the dominant force in the world?” said Crouchback.

“So that’s it — you’re a Marxist-Leninist elf!” shouted Bigtoes.

“No!” said Crouchback sharply. “But I’ll use the Russians to achieve a better world. Who else could eliminate Acme Toy? Who else could limit world population to our rate of toy production? And they have agreed to that in writing, Bigtoes. Oh, I know the Russians are grownups too and just as corrupt as the rest of the grownups. But once the kids have had the plastic flushed out of their systems and are back on quality hand-crafted toys, I, Dirk Crouchback, the New Santa Claus, with the beautiful and beloved Carlotta Peachfuzz at my side as the New Mrs. Santa, will handle the Russians.”

“What about Brassbottom?” asked Bigtoes contemptuously.

“Brassbottom will be Assistant New Santa,” said Crouchback quickly, annoyed at the interruption. “Yes,” he continued, “the New Santa Claus will speak to the children of the world and tell them one thing: Don’t trust anyone over thirty inches tall. And that will be the dawning of a new era full of happy laughing children, where grownups will be irrelevant and just wither away!”

“You’re mad, Crouchback. I’m taking you in,” said Bigtoes.

“I’ll offer no resistance,” said Crouchback. “But five minutes after Santa fails to appear at his first pit stop, a special edition of The Midnight Elf will hit the streets announcing that he has been the victim of a conspiracy between Hardnoggin and the CIA. The same mob of angry elves that breaks into Security headquarters to tear Hardnoggin limb from limb will also free Dirk Crouchback and proclaim him their new leader. I’ve laid the groundwork well. A knowing smile here, an innuendo there, and now many elves inside SHAFT and out believe that on his return Santa intended to make me Director General.”

Crouchback smiled. “Ironically enough, I’d never have learned to be so devious if you Security people hadn’t fouled up your own plans and assigned me to a refrigerator in the Russian Embassy in Ottawa. Ever since they found a CIA listening device in their smoked sturgeon, the Russians had been keeping a sharp eye open. They nabbed me almost at once and flew me to Moscow in a diplomatic pouch. When they thought they had me brainwashed, they trained me in deviousness and other grownup revolutionary techniques. They thought they could use me, Bigtoes. But Dirk Crouchback is going to use them!”

Bigtoes wasn’t listening. Crouchback had just given him an idea — one chance in a thousand of saving Santa. He dived for the phone.

“We’re in luck,” said Charity, handing Bigtoes a file. “His name is Colin Tanglefoot, a stuffer in the Teddy Bear Section. Sentenced to a year in the cooler for setting another staffer’s beard on fire. Assigned to a refrigerator in the DEW Line station at Moose Landing. Sparks has got him on the intercom.”

Bigtoes took the microphone. “Tanglefoot, this is Bigtoes,” he said.

“Big deal,” said a grumpy voice with a head cold.

“Listen, Tanglefoot,” said Bigtoes, “in less than seven minutes Santa will be flying right over where you are. Warn the grownups not to shoot him down.”

“Tough,” said Tanglefoot petulantly. “You know, old Santa gave yours truly a pretty raw deal.”

“Six minutes, Tanglefoot.”

“Listen,” said Tanglefoot. “Old Valentine Woody is ho-ho-hoing around with that ‘jollier than thou’ attitude of his, see? So as a joke I tamp my pipe with the tip of his beard. It went up like a Christmas tree.”

“Tanglefoot—”

“Yours truly threw the bucket of water that saved his life,” said Tanglefoot. “I should have got a medal.”

“You’ll get your medal!” shouted Bigtoes. “Just save Santa.”

Tanglefoot sneezed four times. “Okay,” he said at last. “Do or die for Santa. I know the guy on duty — Myron Smith. He’s always in here raiding the cold cuts. But he’s not the kind that would believe a six-inch elf with a head cold.”

“Let me talk to him then,” said Bigtoes. “But move — you’ve got only four minutes.”

Tanglefoot signed off. Would the tiny elf win his race against the clock and avoid the fate of most elves who revealed themselves to grownups — being flattened with the first object that came to hand? And if he did, what would Bigtoes say to Smith? Grownups — suspicious, short of imagination, afraid — grownups were difficult enough to reason with under ideal circumstances. But what could you say to a grownup with his head stuck in a refrigerator?

An enormous squawk came out of the intercom, toppling Sparks over backward in his chair. “Hello there, Myron,” said Bigtoes as calmly as he could. “My name is Rory Bigtoes. I’m one of Santa’s little helpers.”

Silence. The hostile silence of a grownup thinking. “Yeah? Yeah?” said Smith at last. “How do I know this isn’t some Commie trick? You bug our icebox, you plant a little pinko squirt to feed me some garbage about Santa coming over and then, whammo, you slip the big one by us, nuclear warhead and all, winging its way into Heartland, U.S.A.”

“Myron,” pleaded Bigtoes. “We’re talking about Santa Claus, the one who always brought you and the other good little boys and girls toys at Christmas.”

“What’s he done for me lately?” said Smith unpleasantly. “And hey! I wrote him once asking for a Slugger Nolan Official Baseball Mitt. Do you know what I got?”

“An inflatable rubber duck,” said Bigtoes quickly.

Silence. The profound silence of a thunderstruck grownup. Smith’s voice had an amazed belief in it. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah.”

Pit Stop Number One. A December cornfield in Iowa blazing with landing lights. As thousands of elfin eyes watched on their television screens, crews of elves in coveralls changed the runners on Santa’s sleigh, packed fresh toys aboard, and chipped the ice from the reindeer antlers. The camera panned to one side where Santa stood out of the wind, sipping on a hot buttered rum. As the camera dollied in on him, the jolly old man, his beard and eyebrows caked with frost, his cheeks as red as apples, broke into a ho-ho-ho and raised his glass in a toast.

Sitting before the television at Security headquarters, a smiling Director General Hardnoggin raised his thimble-mug of ale. “My Santa, right or wrong,” he said.

Security Chief Bigtoes raised his glass. He wanted to think of a new toast. Crouchback was under guard and Carlotta and Brassbottom had fled to the Underwood. But he wanted to remind the Director General that SHAFT and the desire for something better still remained. Was automation the answer? Would machines finally free the elves to handcraft toys again? Bigtoes didn’t know. He did know that times were changing. They would never be the same. He raised his glass, but the right words escaped him and he missed his turn.

Charity Nosegay raised her glass. “Yes, Virginia,” she said, using the popular abbreviation for another elf toast; “yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”

Hardnoggin turned and looked at her with a smile. “You have a beautiful voice, Miss Nosegay,” he said. “Have you ever considered being in the talkies?”